All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The Manchester Evening News reports that political tensions are simmering as Oldham battles to avoid lockdown. Manchester itself could break through the 50 cases per 100,000 level by the end of the week – placing the city in the ‘red alert’ bracket. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, is opposed to Oldham going into lockdown, saying
News that rail fares are to rise by 1.6 per cent in January, and public transport fares in London by 2.6 per cent, would normally be met with outrage – how dare they jack up the fares again when the trains are late and I can’t get a seat. Yet this time around the news
A prime minister better known for his charisma than his policy achievements proroguing parliament to ride out a political storm. Sound familiar? No, it is not Boris Johnson, but the quintessential liberal heartthrob Justin Trudeau. Trudeau’s party promised not to use prorogation to ‘avoid difficult political circumstances’ When Johnson suspended parliament a year ago, Nicola
Home Secretary Priti Patel visited the port of Dover last week to gee up the beleaguered Border Force and offer words of encouragement to the British people. ‘It is our mission and objective to break this route up,’ she told her personal cameraman and tightly-controlled media team. Priti hot footed it out of the docks as
Alexei Navalny, the most important opposition leader in Russia, is unconscious in hospital after drinking poisoned tea on an airplane. This has happened before: Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Russian journalist, was also poisoned on an airplane. She recovered, but was later murdered outside her apartment. This latest assassination attempt comes just as anti-government demonstrations gain
Britain cannot afford for its place in the world to be limited by those stuck in the thinking and guilt of the last century. Beyond Covid-19 and Brexit, a new world is taking shape. Three of our closest allies – the United States of America, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – negotiated a brave and historic
It seemed at first that Matt Hancock was scrapping Public Health England in a bid to save his own political career. But the hapless Health Secretary appears to have bungled even this elementary piece of political theatre. He has appointed Baroness Harding as the head of the new National Institute for Health Protection. Dido Harding?!?
The Palestinians are entering one of the most precarious periods in their nation’s history. The normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is only the beginning as other Arab and Muslim states are expected to follow. Yesterday, Haidar Badawi Sadiq, spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry, confirmed talks between Khartoum and Jerusalem
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A new poll today shows that support for Scottish independence is at a record high of 55 per cent. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about why – in particular, how does Nicola Sturgeon continue to exceed Westminster’s expectations?
This morning, Matt Hancock claimed on the Today programme that the government is now working as fast as it can on developing a mass testing programme, which is ‘incredibly important’ if we want to ease coronavirus restrictions. The health secretary is right to finally focus on mass testing. So far, the UK’s performance has been
It isn’t hard to imagine what would happen if an academic produced a paper claiming that countries led by men were more entrepreneurial or are better at negotiating international deals. The sky would fall in on them before the ink was dry. Their paper wouldn’t find a mainstream journal to publish it, anyway, but the
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The virtual Democratic National Convention kicked off this week with an agenda packed full of the party’s most well-known and experienced figures. But with a controversial appearance from Bill Clinton and a barnstorming speech from Michelle Obama, who is the convention really for? Matt McDonald, managing editor of the Spectator USA, speaks to Emily Larsen,
Farewell, Public Health England. Hello, National Institute for Health Protection. As expected, the hammer has fallen on the agency that promised to ‘protect the public’s health from infectious diseases’ but floundered hopelessly when tested by coronavirus. PHE failed to expand diagnostic testing, failed to engage with the private sector, stopped contact tracing when the virus
The rise of the face mask has been one of the remarkable features of the later period of the Covid-19 epidemic. Yesterday, France announced that face coverings are going to become mandatory in workplaces where more than one employee is present. It is quite a cultural change for a country that previously banned face coverings
Cash is no longer king in China. Much like Sweden, the country’s young and old opt for digital payments, made possible by an app called ‘WeChat’. While sometimes compared to WhatsApp or Facebook, WeChat is much more. On the latest episode of Chinese Whispers, my fortnightly podcast, China tech expert Duncan Clark describes how it’s designed to
And so the tragic dumbing-down of the once-great National Trust continues, at breakneck speed. In its latest dimbo announcement, it has declared its intention to ‘dial down’ its role as a big cultural institution and move away from being the custodians of the English country house. An internal briefing document says the Trust intends to
Gavin Williamson’s A-level U-turn may have quietened the protestors but it has only added to the confusion. The education secretary’s change of heart to allow students their teacher predicted grades, rather than those generated by an algorithm, means there could be an extra 60,000 students now entitled to a place at their first-choice university – and universities
The timing for Germany’s school-leaving exams couldn’t have been worse this year. Typically, the exams including the Abitur – equivalent of A-levels – take place between March and June to give school leavers enough time to apply for apprenticeships or a place at university as the winter term starts in October. This year, however, the outbreak of
Almost a decade ago, I went to Lebanon to investigate who had killed its Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. It was a momentous event in the Middle East, and it changed this tiny, beautiful state forever. Hariri was killed on Valentine’s Day 2005 alongside 21 others after a bomb exploded as his motorcade drove through central
Last month, Boris Johnson marked one year as Prime Minister. He did so not by making a speech from Downing Street but instead by travelling north to Orkney in Scotland. Those few days also saw a historic cabinet meeting, focused solely on strengthening the Union, a sign of the government’s commitment to the centuries-old family of
The fiasco over A-Level results has only deepened the suffering of a university sector mired in market-driven chaos. Analysis suggests that, thanks to the U-turn on predicted grades, as many as 100,000 students could now meet the entry requirements for their first-choice university. The usual figure is 40,000. Universities simply cannot accommodate this many additional
Gavin Williamson has taken a lot of stick for the A-level exams debacle, but Mr Steerpike thinks we should perhaps look to Roger Taylor, the chair of Ofqual, who also happens to be head of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. Not many people think that using an algorithm to decide exam results was
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Matt Hancock today confirmed that Public Health England will be scrapped and replaced by a new National Institute for Health Protection, which will be led by Baroness Dido Harding – who currently runs the Test and Trace scheme. John Connolly speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews about why.
Whenever some London celebrity with a hamster’s grasp of Scottish politics simpers about moving north to escape the flaxen-fringed Franco in No. 10, the cybernat rank-and-file briefly down pitchforks to assure them ‘we’ll get the kettle on’. Like all megachurches, Scottish nationalism loves nothing more than a convert and English progressives all the more so
In villages and cities throughout Spain, the annual Fiesta of The Assumption is celebrated in great style on 15 August. But not this year. This year in most places the processions through the streets, the communal meals, the street theatre, the romerías (excursions to the local shrine), the craft fairs, the bell-ringing, the open-air dances,
Coronavirus has changed our lives. In fact, there is very little that has been left untouched by this pandemic. A risk assessment has been done for every aspect of life, no matter how mundane. So, it should not surprise that St John Ambulance is no different. Its Covid CPR advice may be matter of fact
The question of nationalism within the United Kingdom is not a new one. The popularity of self-governance and separatism has ebbed and flowed, but it has been a constant force that has strafed against the Union. If Boris Johnson is truly intent on preserving the United Kingdom then he would do well to look to
The death drought continues. For the eighth week in a row the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has recorded fewer deaths in England and Wales than would be expected at this time of year. In the week ending 7 August, 8,945 people died, one fewer than the previous week and 157 (1.7 per cent) lower
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Gavin Williamson announced this afternoon that pupils receiving A-level and GCSE results this year would be awarded teacher-predicted marks. Why has the government finally changed its mind, and will Gavin Williamson stay in the Cabinet? Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.
So now that A-Levels will be judged on teacher-assessed grades (or centre assessed grades) where does that leave us? At the last count, about 55,000 students were given undergraduate places at either their second choice (insurance) or clearing. So that’s 55,000 students whose place at university might be changed now that teacher-assessed grades are being
Not content with criticism from virtually all sides of the political arena, Gavin Williamson appears to have turned even his own Twitter account against him in an act of online sadomasochism. The most recent like on his account is of a tweet by the children’s author Michael Rosen, in which he argues that under the
Bit late now, isn’t it, to complain about the exams debacle? Where were they, Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer, the teaching unions, Nicola Sturgeon and the BBC on 18 March when Gavin Williamson fatally decided to scrap this year’s A-levels and GCSEs? If they were throwing their rattles out of the pram, it wasn’t loud enough to
Gavin Williamson has performed a big U-turn today and announced that pupils in England receiving A level and GCSE results this year will be awarded their teacher-assessed grades, to avoid any student being downgraded by an algorithm. In a statement this afternoon, the Education Secretary said: ‘We worked with Ofqual to construct the fairest possible model,