All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Taiwan’s pandemic restrictions have been so successful that the country has had fewer than 1,000 cases with just nine deaths. Like other Asian countries, Taiwan achieved this feat through strict border closures and rigorous track and tracing. And yet Taiwan’s government knows that a Covid jab is the only way to avoid prolonged international isolation
Coronavirus rates in Israel right now are among the highest in the world. But that didn’t stop the Israeli government from lifting its strict lockdown and, yesterday, reopening most of its retail economy. Non-essential shops, shopping centres, libraries and museums reopened to the general public after being closed for more than six weeks, despite the
The vaccine news today is good, and better than would have been expected even a month ago. The Public Health Scotland data indicating that four weeks after the first dose of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine there is a 94 per cent reduction in the risk of hospitalisation is phenomenal (the figure for Pfizer/BioNTech is 85
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Yet more personnel changes have happened in Downing Street, with Oliver Lewis the latest to depart. The weekend papers were full of briefings that Carrie Symonds is the reason for the latest strife. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about how much truth there is in that.
The two vaccines approved and in use in Britain showed high efficacy rates in trials, but it takes time for data to creep through on efficacy in the real-world. We are, however, getting the first figures trickling through. This morning comes a paper evaluating the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines in preventing hospitalisation
The government’s decision to set up a new research funding agency, to be known as the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), marks an important break in UK science and innovation policy – potentially more important than any recent government initiative in this field. The aim, as the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng explained last week,
Boris Johnson’s political recovery in the last couple of months has been nothing short of remarkable. Not that he was ever down and out, of course, but having got a Brexit deal that both Farage and Starmer backed, followed by the success of the vaccine rollout, the Prime Minister once again looks unassailable. As for the Labour
Is being offensive an offence? Some of those at Merseyside police who are tasked with upholding the law think so. Over the weekend, officers from the force posed in front of an electronic billboard telling passers-by that ‘We will not tolerate Hate Crime on any level’. The warning displayed behind the masked officers also told members of the public
The Scottish Tories don’t mean to be the way they are. Sometimes they just can’t help it. They are being that way again over plans to let some prisoners vote in the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections. I am not convinced those elections should be going ahead at all in the middle of a pandemic but,
Was Harry and Meghan’s departure from royal life inevitable? At the heart of our monarchy is an ideal of serving the public good that is not the same as the currently dominant form of progressive idealism espoused by the likes of Meghan. It is not the same as it, and when it comes down to it,
Despite it being highly unfashionable to change your opinion, my lockdown stance has shown agility. For most of last year I was a ‘lockdown sceptic’. Not quite retweeting Piers Corbyn’s views on 5G, but equally not thrilled about spending every morning doing star jumps with Joe Wicks. I suspected lockdowns may ruin our children’s future
When Boris Johnson stands at the despatch box on Monday afternoon to unveil his roadmap for ending the lockdown, those hoping for a big bang moment in ending restrictions will be left disappointed. Instead, the Prime Minister will announce a very gradual easing of the lockdown stretching to the summer – with Johnson reserving the right to make it
The national vaccine rollout is continuing unabated, with over 17 million adults now having received a first dose. The government has even brought forward its target date for all adults to be offered a jab from September to the end of July. Hancock said that, although it was still early days, the success of the
Two regular faces have been rather absent from Sky News of late: morning anchor Kay Burley and political editor Beth Rigby. The pair were taken off air – Burley for six months and Rigby for three – after they were accused of breaching social distancing rules at Burley’s birthday bash. So, Mr S was intrigued by
The world these days is so blasè about the destruction of democracy that no one even thinks it worthy of comment that an important free country such as Italy has not had an elected prime minister since the last one, Silvio Berlusconi, was forced to resign in 2011 during the Eurozone crisis after a palace
In early February I received my green-coloured vaccine certification for having two jabs in Jerusalem. Now Israel is rolling out a ‘green passport’ that should enable the vaccinated to return to semi-normal life. This could lead to freedom to travel and even entrance to places like gyms and shopping centres, while the unvaccinated will have
Naming a child turns out to be one of the hardest things you can do. The secret to nailing it is to avoid choosing something outlandish or freakish at one extreme – but then sidestep the trap of settling on something profoundly mundane at the other. Unless you are a rock star or a tech
The Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France contains some of the earliest known Palaeolithic cave paintings, including those of lions, bears, and hyenas. Thought to be the earliest expressions of human fear, it is hard for us to compute today how frightened man once was to live alongside creatures who viewed us as prey. This primal fear
The right is usually much better than the left at harnessing the awesome power of the folk memories that surround Britain’s heroic second world war struggle. The idea of British exceptionalism at its most evocative moment between 1939 and 1945 was crucial to Brexit and crucial to securing popular backing for the Falklands War a
As an epidemiologist and doctor who volunteered to return to the frontline in both waves, I have seen first hand the death and suffering from Covid. And, also, the knock-on effects on those affected by cancelled services. Deciding when to end lockdown is, of course, a difficult decision, but I now fear the costs of
As I watch the snow blow past my window, it’s hard not to scoff at the idea of a ‘climate emergency’. However, I’m probably in a minority. The idea that we are currently experiencing a dangerous deterioration in our weather has been pushed so hard, and for so long, that the man in the Clapham
It will be a saddened Prince Harry who will digest the verdict of much of the British media on the denouement to Megxit. In the eyes of most of those who write about the Windsors, the Queen is above reproach and the couple who exiled themselves are once again found wanting. Their West coast inspired
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While coronavirus has dominated the last year in politics, domestic issues are creeping back onto the agenda. Near the top of the list is reaching Net Zero by 2050 – not least because climate-conscious Joe Biden is now in the White House. Can Britain hit its target? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Sam
The High Court has said the government acted unlawfully. It is important that is understood, because ‘unlawful’ is a word that can easily mislead. Above all, no one should accidentally think the Court has said that any of the PPE contracts are unlawful. They are not. What the Court has said is that because, on
Back in 2005, Boris Johnson wrote that among geopolitical gloomsters, China was becoming the ‘fashionable new dread’. They were obsessed with the idea that this ‘incubator of strange diseases’ was angling to become ‘the next world superpower’ — ‘China will not dominate the globe’ he concluded. The China question is now the most fashionable new
The British Museum has announced the appointment of a curator to study the history of its own collections. On the face of it, nothing could be more anodyne. The history of collecting has been a fashionable topic in academic circles for decades. What sort of people collected, why, and how, tells us much about their
With every passing day, more Covid immunity is being gained as hundreds of thousands receive the vaccine. Of course, vaccines take time to mature in the body and offer protection, but with roughly a quarter of the population having now received their first inoculation, our approach to dealing with the virus will inevitably need to
Well, the ways have parted. That 12-month revision of the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for California (via Canada) has been expedited by, it would seem, the decision of the couple to share all with Oprah Winfrey. There was, according to the Mail’s well-informed Royal correspondent, Richard Kay, an hour-long conversation between
In these winter months, we must find our amusements where we can. And like many people I was amused to learn recently that the ‘Martin McGuinness Peace Foundation’ has announced a poetry competition in honour of the late IRA leader. As Ian Acheson has noted here, there will be those who think that the last
The case of Anthony Williams, convicted of the manslaughter of his wife Ruth and sentenced to just five years in prison, reminded me of the early days of Justice for Women – a feminist law reform campaign I co-founded in 1991. Two days after domestic abuse victim Sara Thornton lost her appeal against her murder
Boris Johnson has lost a longstanding aide from 10 Downing Street this evening with Oliver Lewis quitting as head of the Union unit. Lewis had only been appointed to the job two weeks ago having previously worked on the Brexit negotiations. His resignation comes after a week of bubbling tensions in No. 10 over recent personnel changes.
Along with many of my colleagues, I have been arguing for years that the current structure of the NHS cannot survive. Giving the health service endless money won’t make a significant difference, unless its core structures are changed. It is therefore very interesting to see that Matt Hancock, in the middle of the pandemic, has