All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
David Davis said something remarkable yesterday. In a debate on the membership of the Committee on Standards, he told MPs that the Tory deputy chief whip has 203 proxy votes. If Davis’s numbers are right, that is more than half the Tory parliamentary party. Obviously this is a consequence of Covid. But it has profound constitutional implications. If
News that the Pfizer vaccine is 90 per cent effective has sparked a number of questions about the prospect of a vaccine ending this pandemic. As a special adviser in the Department of Health and Social Care until recently, my job was not to be an expert in epidemiology or science. My job was to
Boris Johnson spoke to Joe Biden yesterday! Did you feel the thrill of it all? These Romans may be uncouth but they still know their Greeks. Or were you, instead, secretly annoyed that the new American president did not make good on all those breathless intimations that, summoning the ghosts of ancient persecutions and more
What could possibly go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine? Boris Johnson has boasted that the UK is ‘towards the front of the pack’ when it comes to orders of the Pfizer/BioNTech inoculation, and health chiefs say they hope to start rolling it out from December, if it gets approval. The biggest ‘if’ now isn’t so
Although there has been much speculation of late that Boris Johnson will struggle to forge ties with Joe Biden, the pair’s relationship has got off to a promising start. After making his first phone call to America’s neighbour Canada, the president-elect shared a phone call with the UK Prime Minister. A Downing Street spokesperson says Johnson used
Oh dear. There has been much amusement today over the revelation that the graphic Boris Johnson shared to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US election had originally been meant for Donald Trump. Still, it could be worse. Although there has been a lot of talk in the media of the Irish government’s close links to the
We all suffer from cognitive biases that cloud our judgment and lead us to the wrong conclusions. But now that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and restrictions are being put in place that have a profound impact on people’s lives, it is more important than ever that we look to the evidence
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The Pfizer vaccine is being lauded by many as the silver bullet that could end the Covid crisis. Meanwhile, the UK has seen a record number of redundancies. Also, No. 10 suffered serious defeat in the Lords last night over its controversial Brexit bill. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.
John Major has been a stalwart defender of the Union so it was disappointing to see his musings suggesting we should have two referendums on Scottish Independence. With the Scottish economy in serious decline the last thing we need is another three or four years of bitter division and uncertainty in Scotland. Appeasing the separatists
There are still safety trials to be completed. Data has to be collected, checked, double-checked, and then peer-reviewed. And we still need to find out whether it is the most effective of the various candidates currently in development or whether there is something even better just around the corner. But the Pfizer vaccine has already
Is it time for vicars to speak out against lockdown? As an Anglican priest, I’ve watched in bemusement as some of my colleagues have waded in on Brexit, Black Lives Matter, or Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle. But why are many of these same voices silent on an issue that affects far more of
As befitting his public persona of a plain-speaking Yorkshireman, and making the kind of devil-may-care social transgression that is the privilege of the very old, Sir Michael Parkinson has declared that men have a better sense of humour than women. In a interview with the Australian Daily Telegraph, the veteran broadcaster, 85, was asked whether
Patrick Vallance has rightly come under fire over the use of statistics during the government’s now infamous lockdown press conference, but we ought to give him some credit for the UK’s preparedness for a Covid vaccine. It was Vallance’s forward thinking that established the taskforce responsible for securing 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine
In the last decade, the mega corporation has taken a lot of stick from just about everyone. But hold on. It is just about to rescue us from the worst global crisis since world war two. Drugs giant Pfizer — part of the Big Pharma — has announced that its Covid-19 vaccine was effective in
On this day in 1923, Hitler failed to seize power in Germany; in 1938, it marked Kristallnacht and the Nazi assault on Jews; and, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Each of these events impacted on the wider world – and that wider world will now impact on “The State We’re In”. The future of
Although the Prime Minister is known to be an optimist, he was at pains to play down reports of a vaccine breakthrough in Monday’s coronavirus press conference. After early findings from stage three of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine trial suggested it could prevent more than 90 per cent of people from getting Covid-19, Johnson
Joe Biden loves Ireland. He wears his Irish heritage proudly. ‘The BBC? I’m Irish’, he quipped when Nick Bryant asked him if he had a quick word for the Beeb. Which is all very nice. It’s good when people take pride in their heritage, even if it does come off as a bit ‘Oirish’ when
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The drugs firm Pfizer has announced that its vaccine — currently in stage three trials — is 90% effective. Meanwhile, Britain and the EU are entering the final stage of trade negotiations. Finally, No. 10 is ramping up its inquiry to discover who leaked news of England’s second lockdown. Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson
So is this the big turning point? Markets certainly seem to think so. No sooner had news broken that the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech is 90 per cent effective, the FTSE surged by 5 per cent. Given that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suggested that any vaccine
There’s been a rare case of Covid-19 good news today with the announcement that the Pfizer vaccine could be 90 per cent effective. Citing early results from the phase 3 trials of the vaccine, the pharmaceutical company said the initial findings marked ‘a great day for science and humanity’. While it’s still early days and the trial
On Monday morning Wales emerges from its 17 day ‘circuit-breaker’. Did it work? Not according to the rate of new infections. During the first 12 days – when Wales was in lockdown but England wasn’t – the epidemic seems to have grown far more quickly in Wales than it did in England. When Wales went
‘One election victory does not mean that work is now finished for the Democrats; for us in the Labour party, it is only just beginning,’ Keir Starmer wrote today in the Guardian. Amongst his comrades on the centre-left, he seems almost alone in understanding this point. Biden’s victory was greeted by the British centre-left on
In this week’s TLS Rory Stewart reviews Tom Bower’s biography of Boris Johnson. He doesn’t say much about the actual book, but it’s one of the most important articles on the prime minister I’ve read for a long time. Just now, in place of ‘the prime minister’ I wrote ‘Boris’, deleted it, then wrote ‘Johnson’
The UK must not be frightened of harnessing the power of the state as the country negotiates life after Brexit. Many people who remember the 1970s – a time when the British state seemed incapable of doing anything productive while the country suffered the indignity of going cap-in-hand to the IMF – often balk at
Anti-fascism isn’t a game. You can’t preen yourself and say you oppose dictatorship and the power of the mob, then give into mobs and arbitrarily slander innocent people. You can’t say you believe in justice, and then condone injustice. And, this should be basic, you can’t say you support freedom of speech and the right
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The fallout from the election is ongoing, but Joe Biden has reached 270 electoral college votes, and he last night vowed to ‘unify’ the country. What kind of president will he be? Freddy Gray speaks to Tim Stanley.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. This Remembrance Sunday will be like no other, but one thing will stay constant: these lines, by Laurence Binyon,
Dominic Raab – ‘I’m excited’ about working with President Biden On the morning after Joe Biden was declared President-elect, the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab offered his congratulations to Mr Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris. Raab told Sophy Ridge that the Biden administration would find plenty of common ground with Boris Johnson’s government: DR:
The former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, died yesterday at the age of 72. In an article for The Spectator, republished here, he wrote about the need for less ‘I’ and more ‘we’: Last Monday night and Tuesday were our Jewish festival of Purim, when we recall the events described in the Book of Esther. It is the oddest
At times, the argument about lockdown has been described as a choice between saving lives or saving money. But this is a false equivalence. A weak economy leads to weakened citizens: it means less tax revenue, less money for the NHS, and poorer families — wealth and health are all too-closely linked. Just look at
Is the Boris Johnson ‘method’ reaching the end of the road and if it is, can the Prime Minister find a new one – or is he altogether done for? The method, by all accounts deployed across more than one facet of the Prime Minister’s life, involves issuing a series of charmingly delivered apologies for
The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee launched yet another inquiry into Gender Recognition Act reform last week. Either they are gluttons for punishment, or this really matters to someone. This is the third time since 2015 that Westminster has asked the public what they think about gender recognition. When you add this to
After days of government ministers declining to take a public stance on the US election, Boris Johnson has congratulated Joe Biden on his victory. The Democrat’s lead in Pennsylvania prompted several US networks to call the election for Biden and the Prime Minister then released a statement on social media: Johnson’s message of congratulations came after Labour
