Boris johnson

In the past ten days we have seen the greatest expansion of state power in British history. The state has shut down huge swaths of the economy, taken on paying the bulk of the wages of millions of private sector workers, and told citizens that they can leave their homes only for a very limited number of approved activities. Boris Johnson likes to say that Britain is ‘at war’ with Covid-19. The parallel is hardly exact, but this expansion in state power is what you would expect in a war of national survival. It is worth remembering, as A.J.P Taylor wrote, that before ‘August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could

It is hard to think of a prime minister doing something that so goes against their political instincts as Boris Johnson declaring that people can only leave their homes for a list of state-approved activities. One of the constants of his political and journalistic career has been his opposition to the state infringing on people’s liberties. But the coronavirus and the public health challenges posed by a pandemic have forced him to shift. The fact that the authorities will be able to enforce these new rules is a big shift from Sunday’s press conference when Boris Johnson seemed taken aback by the idea that the police could be asked to

This weekend has been dominated by photos of people having a jolly good time in groups at the park, or strolling along Columbia Road Flower Market as though nothing has changed. Sunday’s Downing Street press conference was therefore dominated by questions about whether the government would clamp down on this behaviour to stop coronavirus spreading still further. But while Boris Johnson urged people to stop ignoring social distancing rules, telling them that ‘even if you think you are personally invulnerable, there are plenty of people you can infect and whose lives will them be put at risk’, he only suggested that there could be ‘further measures if we think that

At least no one can say it isn’t bold. The United States is fiddling around with some possible cuts to payroll taxes. Most of Europe is stuck with some printed money from the ECB. But the UK is embarking on one of the most radical experiments in modern economic theory, and one that will no doubt be studied for decades to come. With his latest announcement today, a whole 48 hours after his last intervention, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has effectively turned the UK into a wartime economy. This is the most extensive intervention in the economy ever made by a supposedly free market government anywhere in the world The

Boris Johnson struck an optimistic note in his fourth press conference of the week. The Prime Minister attempted to answer the question of how long Brits ought to expect to have to change their lifestyle in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Johnson said that he believed the UK could ‘turn the tide’ on the disease within 12 weeks:‘I think we can turn the tide in the next 12 weeks, but it depends on collective, resolute action. The encouraging thing is the more disciplined we can all be in doing that, the greater the chances the scientific community will be able soon to come up with fantastic results on

Last week Britain was a free-market democracy. Now we’re living in a one-party state. The transition became clear at PMQs today where General-Secretary Johnson gave bland and reassuring replies to super-soft questions from tame MPs. The House was half empty. Members practised a sort of semi-self-isolation. They sat apart from each other by a distance of about four feet, or the width of Cyril Smith. The mood – one of hunched defiance – doesn’t suit the Commons which prefers a rowdy, combative carnival atmosphere. All political differences seem to have been cancelled. Previous sins are forgiven. Past idiocies forgotten. Jeremy Corbyn went into a U-turn on small businesses. For years

People over 70 will be instructed by the government to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months, under a ‘wartime-style’ mobilisation effort by the government likely to be enforced within the next 20 days. It is part of a series of measures being prepared by the prime minister, health secretary, chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser to prevent the health service from ‘falling over’ and to save lives as coronavirus, Covid-19, becomes an epidemic in the UK. Other measures already being planned include: the forced requisitioning of hotels and other buildings as temporary hospitals; the requisitioning of private hospitals as emergency hospitals; temporary

The government has bowed to the inevitable and announced that May’s local and Mayoral elections have been postponed. With the Chief Scientific Advisor saying that the coronavirus peak is 10 to 14 weeks away, it was hard to see how you could have had an election campaign within that period. As I said in the Sun last Saturday, Whitehall has been braced for a delay to these elections for a while now. They will now not take place until 2021, meaning that there’ll be no immediate electoral test for the new Labour leader. These elections won’t be the last event to be postponed. The current thinking among those leading the government’s

Boris Johnson faced his first major rebellion of the new parliament on Tuesday. Parliamentarians are waking up to the fact that this decision has far greater diplomatic ramifications than was originally appreciated. Despite their sizeable majority, the government narrowly avoided defeat and will be vulnerable when future bills relating to Huawei are tabled. The reaction in Washington DC to Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Huawei to tender for the 5G contract validates the concerns of the new ‘awkward squad’ of former cabinet ministers and Tory select committee chairs. Rarely have Democrats and Republicans been so united. Capitol Hill seldom pays much attention to Britain, but everyone from Chuck Schumer, the leader

It’s always tempting for governments to respond to economic trouble with a debt-fuelled spending splurge, but it’s a notoriously blunt tool. The root of the current problem is not financial panic but a rational response to the coronavirus. People are travelling less, staying away from shops and the workplace, delaying various projects, and they will keep doing so while the uncertainty remains. This disruption is painful but temporary. It is not symptomatic of financial malaise. It would be a mistake for the Conservatives to use this as a pretext to abandon their five-year plan to control the public finances. The £30 billion stimulus to address jitters over coronavirus was quite