Lockdown Part Two – Is England back to square one?
16 min listen
Katy Balls, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss the Prime Minister’s latest lockdown announcement.
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All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Saturday
Will Tory MPs back Boris’s lockdown plan?
Boris Johnson did not want to give a Downing Street press conference this evening. The Prime Minister had hoped to present his plans for a national lockdown before the House of Commons on Monday. However, after the plans made their way into several of the Saturday papers, the government had to move faster than hoped. The last minute nature of
Why have No. 10’s Covid forecasts changed so much?
Just ten days ago, Boris Johnson was attacking lockdowns for the “psychological, the emotional damage” they inflict: the effect on mental health as well as the economy. Then, he saw Covid-19 as a menace that could be managed with a “commonsensical approach” of local and regional measures. Now, he sees Covid as a monster capable of overwhelming the NHS and warns of
Why England is going back into lockdown
I’m afraid no responsible Prime Minister can ignore the message of those figures. When I told you two weeks ago that we were pursuing a local and a regional approach to tackling this virus, I believed then – and I still believe passionately – that was the right thing to do. Because we know the cost
Why a new lockdown is so difficult for Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson had set his face against an England-wide lockdown. He rejected the idea when Sage proposed it back in September, lambasted it when Keir Starmer backed it, but today he is announcing it. What makes this situation so politically difficult for Johnson is that his own parliamentary party is deeply uncomfortable with the idea
England’s new lockdown regime
These are the measures to be announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at his 5 p.m. press conference, as I understand it. They will last until 2 December. And they are, in effect, a new ‘Tier 4’ that will be imposed for a month – initially to the whole of England – in a bid
France must define its values so it can defend them
France is the most rigorously secular state of the democratic world. Separation of Church and State enshrined in the famous 1905 law was the result of over a century of hostility between the Catholic Church and the French State. Mutual hostility began with the 1789 French Revolution. Until then monarchical France bathed in the glory
Is Covid spiralling out of control? A review of the evidence
From Wednesday, it seems, we will be back in national lockdown, the government having been convinced that the second wave of Covid-19 is spiralling out of control. Not for the first time, ministers appear to have taken their cue from an Imperial College study – this time the REACT 1 study which claimed on Thursday
New poll: how voters rate the government’s coronavirus response
With Boris Johnson considering placing England under national lockdown measures, what ever path the he chooses he will face a backlash. Sage scientists are pushing for tougher measures while anger is growing in the parliamentary party over the prospect of a further clampdown. So, what of public opinion? New polling for Coffee House by Redfield & Wilton
Is a second national lockdown imminent?
17 min listen
The whole of England could be put into lockdown again, reports this morning claim, as coronavirus cases continue to rise at a rate above the worst-case scenario modelled by SAGE. It comes as newly published minutes from the first week of October show the advisory group pushed the government to take action sooner. Katy Balls
New Sage leak says NHS could be overwhelmed within weeks
A few days ago, The Spectator published a classified ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ from Sage, written back in the summer and fearing a second wave that would claim 85,000 lives, peaking at about 800 deaths a day. A new leak this morning from the Cabinet Office, using current data, paints a far-bleaker picture: 2,000 deaths a day – even
Boris has already bungled the second lockdown
‘We could have got away with less if we had done it earlier.’ Those words to me from a scientific adviser to the government – about the lockdown of England the prime minister is planning to announce, probably on Monday – foreshadow a looming crisis of confidence in Boris Johnson’s stewardship of measures to tackle
A glimpse of normality with Swedish historian Johan Norberg
30 min listen
Kate Andrews interviews Swedish historian Johan Norberg in a Stockholm cafe about what we can and can’t learn from the Swedish Covid experience and the importance of liberty and trust in a functioning democracy.
What lockdown sceptics get wrong about Sweden
Should Britain return to a form of lockdown — the logical conclusion of a suppression strategy — or should we adopt a different approach, one that looks more like Sweden? Those in favour of a so-called ‘segmentation strategy’, where the vulnerable are shielded and the rest of us are allowed to continue with our lives
Does Kim Jong-un want the ‘dotard’ or the ‘snob’ to win?
Donald Trump has made plenty of enemies in his time as president, but as the US president himself has claimed, he also gained an unlikely friend: Kim Jong-un. North Korea will be watching the result of next week’s US election closely. But would Pyongyang prefer four more years of an impulsive Trump, or a new Biden administration in
Friday
Is the UK heading for a second national lockdown?
Is the UK heading for a second national lockdown? That’s the question being asked in Westminster as coronavirus cases rise and SAGE members call for further measures. On Friday, the Prime Minister met with Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove to discuss how best to respond to new NHS data on the spread of coronavirus across the
Did Eat Out to Help Out spark a second wave?
Did the Eat Out to Help Out scheme help to spread Covid-19? That is the eye-catching claim of Thiemo Fetzer, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick. In a working paper entitled: Subsidising the Spread of Covid-19: evidence from the UK’s Eat Out to Help Out Scheme, he estimates that the scheme
Macron’s France is fearful and angry
On Thursday morning, I visited the cathedral at Reims. The central door on the north side is dedicated to Saint Nicasius, who founded the first cathedral on the site and who, in 407 AD, was decapitated by the Vandals. It struck me as odd that a burly security guard was checking visitors’ bags, but shortly
Britain must learn from Asia’s pandemic response
Across Europe, more and more states are imposing stricter and stricter restrictions to try and slow coronavirus’s spread. The Irish, despite having initially rejected the advice of their scientists to move to the highest level of restrictions, have now done so. Emmanuel Macron set himself against another national lockdown, but then announced one on Wednesday
Minutes for 8 October SAGE meeting
Tighter Covid restrictions were being urged by SAGE, the government’s committee of scientific advisers. The meeting was held on 8 October, and minutes have just been released. In spite of its calls for greater transparency, the ‘worst-case scenario’ it refers to remains confidential. The Spectator has published the July 30 draft of this scenario this
In defence of ‘virtue signalling’
Of all the stupid things the BBC has done lately, their latest diktat must be the stupidest: a global warning to staff that they are subject to disciplinary action if they’re caught ‘virtue signalling’. Here is poor old Aunty, wetting her bloomers at the prospect of another roughing up from the mean girls in Downing
Here’s why the Covid ‘new normal’ won’t last
Is the ‘new normal’ here to stay? Many people assume so. Working from home will become the default, people will go on fewer holidays and business trips will become a thing of the past. I’m not convinced. In fact, while the second wave means the current restrictions won’t vanish overnight, it seems almost certain that,
Will there be a Labour civil war?
15 min listen
Though there are grumblings from the left of the Labour party over Corbyn’s suspension, Keir Starmer has taken today to set the narrative in his favour. The polls, showing Labour in the lead, also help. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how Starmer may have nipped a civil war in the
What Trump can learn from Boris in fighting fake news
The US election has, once again, be plagued by a tide of disinformation and fake news. But don’t point the finger at Russia, Iran, or China. With four days left to vote in the presidential election, American politics has become so polarised that the threat of foreign interference pales in comparison to our own domestic untruths. For
Don’t blame the police for stop and search
Given recent stories about the police putting your door in if you have more than six people over on Christmas day, it seems almost quaint to be talking about Stop and Search as an abuse of state power. Yet the release of statistics this week that show black people are nine times more likely to
Why Christians should dump Trump
You won’t be surprised to hear that I won’t be supporting Donald Trump in next week’s election. But while most Lib Dems won’t be cheering on Trump either, there are plenty of Christians who will. When Trump won in 2016, an estimated 81 per cent of white evangelical Christians voted for him. Trump is hoping
It’s time to expel Turkey from Nato
Even the staunchest Remainer would admit the EU is not currently the happiest ship, sailing in the waters of world politics. Viktor Orban’s self-proclaimed ‘illiberal democracy’ is growing increasingly incompatible with EU values, Poland has expressed distaste for ‘the Brussels elites, blinded by political correctness’, and on two occasions Greece has locked horns with the
Thursday
Listen: Chris Williamson says Margaret Hodge is on ‘Planet Zog’
Following the release of the EHRC report into anti-Semitism and Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from the Labour party today, several members of the Corbynite wing of the party have attempted to argue that Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis had been overblown by the media. Who better then to make their case than former Labour MP Chris Williamson –
Can the Labour left resist Keir Starmer?
11 min listen
Labour is truly under new leadership as Jeremy Corbyn gets suspended from the party today. The left of the party is clearly not happy – but can they do anything about the new direction of the party? John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls. Tell us your thoughts on our podcasts and be
Starmer’s suspension of Corbyn took courage
Keir Starmer’s decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn shows a courage so many lacked when the far left ran the party from 2015 until 2019. Do not underestimate the risks he is running. Starmer might have let Corbyn’s characteristically conspiratorial remark that anti-Semitism in the Labour party had been ‘dramatically overstated for political reasons’ pass. He
Keir Starmer has shown he’s serious about winning power
It’s not as though Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t put on warning. Well he would have been put on warning, if he had bothered to wait even five minutes before putting out his own statement in response to the EHRC verdict that Labour on his watch had made ‘serious’ failures in tackling anti-Semitism. Because his successor Sir
