All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
If there is a God, He’s not French. Last night I was on the balcony of my apartment in Paris enjoying a celebratory ‘deconfinement’ bottle of wine; this morning on my first day of (partial) liberty there is heavy rain and high wind. So much for getting out and about on day one of post-lockdown
There were three messages in Boris Johnson’s address to the nation, and quite a lot of important gaps. The messages were: Because the Covid-19 epidemic has been tempered but not eliminated, lockdown continues – though will be modified very gradually; It would be a jolly good thing if a few more of us could return
Not much about Boris Johnson’s Sunday night television address was clear. The one definite new measure – one which will shape coverage for weeks to come – is the UK’s new ‘COVID Alert Level’, a five-stage measure that the prime minister said would be determined primarily by ‘the R’ – the rate at which the
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It’s been six weeks since the Prime Minister first sat down to give the statement to the British public that began lockdown. Today, as James Forsyth first reported in The Spectator two weeks ago, Boris Johnson announced that the lockdown isn’t over yet. From Wednesday onwards, the one form of exercise a day rule will be removed
Boris Johnson used his address to the nation on Sunday night to confirm that there will be no immediate end to lockdown. The Prime Minister described coronavirus as the ‘most vicious threat this country has faced’ in his lifetime and praised the public for adhering to social distancing – describing such measures as the only
Here is the full transcript of the Prime Minister’s address to the nation: ‘It is now almost two months since the people of this country began to put up with restrictions on their freedom – your freedom – of a kind that we have never seen before in peace or war. And you have shown
Robert Jenrick – Staying at home still ‘very important’ Sophy Ridge began this morning interviewing Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick. The Prime Minister will address the nation at 7pm tonight, updating the government’s Covid-19 strategy, and it is anticipated that he will outline a vision for the end of the lockdown. The official message will change
Mathias Döpfner is that still rare thing — an outspoken German. I have known him slightly for many years and admire his brain and boldness: a long time ago he even came close to buying the Telegraph Group. The 6ft 7in CEO of Axel Springer has just issued a challenge to Europe and particularly to
May 10, 1940 is known in Britain as the day when Winston Churchill became prime minister. In my home country of Iceland that same day, 80 years ago, is remembered for a very different reason. On the day Churchill took control of defending the United Kingdom against invasion, Iceland was invaded: by the United Kingdom.
When Boris Johnson addresses the nation on Sunday night to unveil his roadmap for easing lockdown in the coming weeks and months, it isn’t just the public he needs to bring with him – he also needs to convince his parliamentary party. Over the past week there has been a shift in mood in the
Our neighbour, the much-respected local undertaker, conducted twice as many funerals in April as in the same month last year. One might be tempted to say ‘It’s an ill wind…’, but in fact it has been grim, both from a professional and a human point of view. ‘We have had,’ he says — with a
You know those stories about how the EU is banning busty barmaids or Bombay mix that turn out to have an estranged relationship with the truth? This isn’t one of them. On its face, the headline ‘Palestinian terrorists can legally take part in EU-funded activities’ seems so absurd as to be obviously false. Yet the
As a remainer, I always found it far too harsh when eurosceptic pundits occasionally compared some of my fellow voters to Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender. Now I’m less convinced that this comparison is always as unfair as I once thought. Last week, I offered some thoughts on ‘Why the #FBPE hashtag failed – and the
Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in dealing with Covid. Such promises are easier made than kept. Following science means understanding science. It means engaging with rival interpretations of the limited data in order to tease out what is most important in
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What is Boris Johnson going to say in his speech on Sunday? Wales’s first minister Mark Drakeford gave us a clue this morning when he announced that the Welsh lockdown will continue for at least another three weeks. Meanwhile, No. 10 has been trying to dampen speculation that the PM will announce substantial relaxations to the lockdown.
Newspapers aren’t the place to debate expert advice on a crisis. Advisors advise, ministers decide. We should keep politics out of science. These three cries – and numerous variations upon them – have become common refrains as the UK’s increasingly fractious debate on the lockdown, the science behind it, and the best way to lift
When sorrows come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions. This has been a week in which pretty much everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong in the government’s epic battle against Covid-19. Britain suddenly has the most recorded Covid deaths in Europe and the second-most in the world; fiascos surrounding
The Daily Telegraph is considered the voice of the Conservative grassroots – so today’s splash will have driven a sliver of ice into minister’ veins. Here is the new leader of the opposition, a knight of the realm no less, urging the government to get a grip of the Covid-19 outbreak in care homes. ‘We owe
In a dramatic move even by his own mercurial standards, Donald Trump has authorised the withdrawal of two Patriot missile systems guarding Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, accompanied by hundreds of American military troops operating them. They were deployed last September after a massive cruise missile and drone attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure – blamed
Despite his carefully-crafted bumbling image, Boris Johnson is anything but daft. When vying to replace the apparently rootless Tory moderniser David Cameron as Conservative party leader he knew what to do: write a book praising Winston Churchill. 95 per cent of Conservative members regard the wartime Prime Minster favourably. Johnson lost out to Theresa May
Is it my imagination, or are the whitened bones of the British Empire being yet again dug up and trampled underfoot? The latest Labour party manifesto promised ‘an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule’. The
Today is my father, Robin Hanbury-Tenison’s, 84th birthday and miraculously he was able to wake up in his own bed and listen to the spring warbling of a green woodpecker while watching the swallows cavorting on the veranda in front of his bedroom. He was brought home three days ago in an ambulance having spent
I’m starting to wonder if the people who unfavourably compare Britain’s Covid experience with New Zealand’s are being wilfully stupid. There’s no other explanation. No reasonable person would compare the impact of a novel virus on these two nations without mentioning that we are starkly different countries. You see it all the time now. Praise
Germany’s highest court has plunged more than just the European Central Bank into crisis with its ruling on the legality of the ECB’s public sector purchase programme. The decision by the German constitutional court effectively means the Bundesbank won’t be able to participate in the ECB’s bond-buying programme, at least not unless either the law or
What worried cabinet ministers today was the disclosure to them that the rate of transmission of Covid-19 is not properly under control in either hospitals or care homes. In the community, R – the rate of transmission – is probably as low as 0.5/0.6, which means its savage progress through the population has been arrested.
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In his evidence given to MPs today, Professor John Edmonds, one of the government’s scientists on Sage, said he thought that the ‘R’ number had gone up in recent days. So why has this happened, despite the last three weeks of lockdown?
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Freddy Gray talks to The Spectator‘s economics correspondent Kate Andrews about the reform of sexual assault guidance for colleges and universities.
Schools should stay closed until September, according to a big teaching union: In view of the continued and pressing public health challenges and the considerable task that will be required to ensure that every school is ready to admit increased numbers of children and adults into safe learning and working environments, the NASUWT urges ministers
Can the UK expect a V-shape recovery? The Bank of England has this morning published data revealing very deep V, suggesting a complete economic recovery in a matter of months: a 25 per cent plunge in growth in Q2, followed by a 14 per cent and 11 per cent boom in Q3 and Q4. That
As we begin to learn best practice in the fight against Covid-19, it is notable that the handful of countries that have reduced the number of new cases to zero have used diagnostic testing and contact tracing on a large scale and have recommended the use of face masks. After two frantic months, the UK
Unlike many of his critics, I do not particularly think of Dominic Cummings as a Keyser Soze figure, a devilish master of the black arts whose influence has assumed mythical dimensions. Nor do I even consider him a Rasputin-type advisor, corrupting the government and leading it astray for reasons, well, for reasons that are never
Coronavirus has accelerated the deterioration in relations between the United States and China. The US Presidential election is turning into a question of who can be tougher on China and regardless of who wins in November, US policy is going to become more hawkish. As I say in the magazine this week, this has major