All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Will the heroic members of Bomber Command, who played such a vital role for Britain during the Second World War, finally get the recognition they deserve? In recent years, there has been growing pressure on Whitehall to strike a campaign medal for the RAF crews who fought during the conflict, thereby giving them the special
At long last the ministerial register of interests is here – a mere five months after it was due. The register was released today to accompany the findings of the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, Christopher Geidt, into whether Boris Johnson’s No. 10 flat shenanigans broke the ministerial code (spoiler: he didn’t.) Mr S has spent the
Boris Johnson’s week has ended better than it began. After Dominic Cummings spent Wednesday launching a broadside against the Prime Minister over his handling of the Covid response, at least one of Johnson’s problems appears to be receding. This afternoon the government has published Lord Geidt’s report into the funding of the redecoration of the
The United States is growing at such a blistering pace the Federal Reserve may have to raise interest rates. In Britain, retail sales grew by nine per cent this month, the fastest pace on record, as the economy opened up again. Around the world, economies are starting to bounce back strongly from the Covid-19 crisis.
Did Matt Hancock’s negligence lead to Covid seeding into care homes because patients were not tested before being discharged? This was one of Dominic Cummings’s more potent charges and it brings back memories for me because I spent a chunk of last summer looking into this. In my line of work, the success rate for
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has insisted that he promised the Prime Minister and his former chief aide Dominic Cummings only that all elderly and vulnerable patients would be tested for Covid on discharge to a care home when there was adequate testing capacity, and not with immediate effect. This is Hancock’s defence against Cummings’s
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Matt Hancock defended his position at a Downing Street press conference yesterday. He told journalists that, by his ‘recollection of events’, he told the Prime Minister that hospital patients would be tested before being sent to care homes ‘when we could do it’. Dominic Cummings says the Health Secretary promised all patients would receive a
It has been a ruff time in No. 10 for poor old Dilyn the dog. Adopted in September 2019, the Jack Russell-cross has been the subject of interminable briefing wars about his constant yapping, destructive tendencies and attempts to fornicate with his next door neighbour. But while not everyone in Downing Street is smitten with the
There are two key questions ahead of the 21 June reopening. First, as I say in the magazine this week, there is the issue of how much more transmissible the Indian variant is than the Kent one. According to papers published by Sage, it is a ‘realistic possibility’ that it is up to 50 per
Matt Hancock’s approach to Dominic Cummings’s allegations has been to come out fighting. He believes he has spent most of today answering questions about these allegations. But Thursday night’s press conference highlighted what he has really been doing today: merely talking at length about the allegations, while dodging any real answers. No longer cushioned by eager Conservative
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After the hanger full of Dom bombs that were dropped in yesterday’s epic seven hour hearing, health secretary Matt Hancock got a sizeable chunk of Cummings wrath. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how Hancock has been handling himself since the allegations were levelled at him. James points out on the podcast that Hancock was never going to have
It was always likely that the evidence given by Dominic Cummings to the health and science joint select committee inquiry yesterday would have quite an impact. Cummings certainly has a flair for communication and a revolutionary zeal. On top of that, he has scores to settle when it comes to the Prime Minister’s conduct and
Here’s the depressing truth about the Batley Grammar controversy: the mob has won. Angry protesters who gathered at the school gates to demand teachers be forbidden from displaying images of Muhammad have pretty much got their way. Following an external inquiry into what happened at Batley Grammar, the trust which runs the school has said such images
In one of the more surreal moments of Dominic Cummings’s testimony to MPs yesterday, the former No. 10 advisor suggested that Carrie Symonds and Dilyn the dog might be to blame for the UK’s sluggish coronavirus response. Cummings told MPs that on a key day in mid-March, as the government began to consider locking down,
This is Brexit all over again. The Swiss government pulled the plug on its seven-year negotiation of the EU-Swiss institutional framework agreement on Wednesday. Its failure was driven by familiar issues: freedom of movement and dynamic alignment. Just one year ago, the EU’s Brexit negotiators still insisted on dynamic alignment — the idea that Britain
This week’s Spectator cover article examines China’s role in the origins of the Covid virus. With many of the early decisions about the pandemic now being re-examined one year on, Mr S thought it best to ask what the British public made of this subject and the extent of Beijing’s culpability. A new poll by Redfield and Wilton — with
Matt Hancock’s first attempt to defend himself against the bombardment of allegations from Dominic Cummings went well. The health secretary appeared in the Commons to answer an urgent question from Labour’s Jon Ashworth on the matter, and he managed to get through the session without appearing beleaguered. This was partly as a result of a
Today’s papers are filled with the numerous allegations levelled against Boris Johnson by Dominic Cummings during his seven hour appearance in front of MPs. The Prime Minister’s former top aide didn’t hold back in his critique, suggesting voters had been offered a poor choice at the 2019 election between Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. Cummings said he believed Johnson was
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has unceremoniously dumped Stonewall – and who can blame it? Its excuse for ceasing to pay at least £2,500 a year for the privilege of being part of Stonewall’s ‘diversity champions’ programme was that it did not offer ‘value for money’. For all the anodyne corporate-speak, it seems clear the increasing toxicity
Less than a year into e-scooter trials, ministers are coming under pressure to ban the new transport technology, with concerned critics claiming they need to be made safe and the public educated on the law. Matthew Scott, Kent’s police and crime commissioner (PCC), has written to the Transport Secretary calling for a clampdown on electric scooter
What would have been your overall chances of dying in the first 19 weeks of 2021 compared with recent years? According to a measure called ‘standardised mortality’ your overall chances of dying so far in 2021 have been just 1 per cent over the average of the past ten years — that is in spite
The government is not challenging Dominic Cummings’s evidence in any kind of detailed way — despite the many highly damaging charges against the Prime Minister, the Health Secretary, and the entire Whitehall system. On my show last night, the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick repudiated nothing of substance that Cummings had alleged, including the most damaging assertion of
It is hard to remember a time when the daily drip of Covid statistics was not part of our lives. Since March 2020, we have been greeted every afternoon with a stream of government released data filling us in on the number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths. But how necessary is it today? With a current
The BBC clearly enjoyed Dominic Cummings’s testimony yesterday, running his seven-hour appearance uninterrupted in full on its channels and writing multiple stories with headlines such as ‘The most explosive claims’ and ‘Claims cannot easily be dismissed’. Among the many targets who suffered Cummings’s wrath were members of the media who he declares were driven ‘mad’ after
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andrew Burnham, has publicly criticised a judge, calling his decision to end a criminal trial on legal grounds a ‘disgrace’. The judge is Mr Justice William Davis, a highly respected ‘red judge’ — that is the top level of judge we have who do trials. They are the best we
Francesco Zambon is calling the World Health Organisation (WHO) to account. Zambon, who was based at the WHO’s Venice bureau, claims that the WHO suppressed critical information about the pandemic to serve the political interests of member countries. There are conflicts of interest at the highest levels of the institution, he says. As a result,
One of Dominic Cummings’s strengths as a campaigner was his genius for a clear message – think ‘Take Back Control’ or ‘Get Brexit Done’. But the case that he was trying to make today was more complicated. He was trying to persuade people both that the Prime Minister was not up to the job and
Amidst all the explosive claims made by Dominic Cummings during today’s select committee hearing, one towards the beginning of the seven-hour session seemed rather unintentional. When asked by Rebecca Long-Bailey MP about what economic assessments were made when considering the first lockdown, Cummings responded that there was no straight-forward ‘document floating around’ which laid out
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From accusing Matt Hancock of criminal incompetence, to lifting the lid on the true nature of his relationship with Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings’s evidence was nothing short of explosive. Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth about the highlights and what we learnt. There were few who escaped Cummings’s censure. But in some
Today we heard more than seven hours of testimony from Dominic Cummings, much of it taking aim at Matt Hancock. Tomorrow it looks as though Hancock will give us several hours of his own take on the way the government – and Cummings – handled the pandemic. This evening, a spokesman for the minister said:
After a mammoth seven hour session, Dominic Cummings’ appearance at the joint science and health committee meeting has finally ended. The former chief special adviser took aim at Cabinet ministers, Boris Johnson’s fiancée, senior Whitehall officials and Jeremy Corbyn in three different segments focusing on the national lockdowns and Britain’s test and trace system. Below are Mr
It is hard to deny the importance of the issues raised this week by Dominic Cummings. His decision to identify the many mistakes made at the start of the pandemic is not about seeking vengeance; it is a vital process to ensure that errors are identified and not repeated. A vaccine-evading variant or a new