Lockdown

Thursday

Toby Young

The luxury of being pro-lockdown

I’ve just written an essay for the People’s Lockdown Inquiry, a new collaboration between Buckingham University, the Institute of Ideas and the Reclaim party. The question I’ve puzzled over in my contribution is why the global elite became such enthusiastic supporters of the heavy-handed, statist approach to managing the coronavirus crisis — stay-at home orders, business closures, face masks — and passionate opponents of less draconian alternatives, such as those set out by the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration. Choosing between these two positions is far from simple, with powerful moral arguments and compelling research evidence on both sides. Yet most members of the upper professional class across the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The biggest danger to Boris comes from the enemies within

Boris Johnson’s predecessor was destroyed by her inability to meet deadlines. Theresa May extended the Brexit transition period so many times that her party eventually turned against her. Johnson, who was notorious for pushing deadlines when he was a journalist, is now discovering the political problem with missing dates. The Prime Minister may still be flying high in the polls but if he cannot meet the new date for ending restrictions — 19 July — then his own MPs will lose faith in his ability to restore normality. The whole point of the government’s staggeringly long lockdown timetable, announced back in February, was to set an achievable deadline. The theory

Wednesday

Katy Balls

What does the latest ‘Dom bomb’ mean for Matt Hancock?

When Dominic Cummings gave seven hours of evidence to a Commons inquiry into the government’s Covid response, it was Matt Hancock who received the most criticism. The former No. 10 senior aide’s accusation that the Health Secretary was negligent – the most serious charge being that Hancock had misled the government over testing and care homes – led to questions over Hancock’s position. But it quickly became clear No. 10 had no plans to fire Hancock. The Prime Minister opted to rally round his minister rather than cast him out. So, does the publication of WhatsApp messages allegedly showing the Prime Minister heavily criticising Hancock change things? In a new blog on

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Brexit, lockdown and the fracturing of British politics

Is our society becoming less tolerant and more viscerally tribal? Or is our politics provoking people into committing more angry and desperate acts? The harassment of BBC Newsnight political editor Nick Watt in Whitehall this week by a group of anti-lockdown protestors recalled the ugly mood that descended on the environs of the Palace of Westminster during the Brexit stalemate of 2016-20. Back then, it was Remainer MP Anna Soubry who suffered the worst incident of intimidation, while the Leaver Jacob Rees-Mogg was also horribly abused by a pro-EU crowd as he walked home from a key vote with one of his children. Many of us might have hoped that

Raghib Ali

Lockdown delay is a price worth paying

For the first time during this pandemic, I think we should delay lifting restrictions. Looking at the latest data, it seems that the Prime Minister was right to postpone ‘Freedom Day’. I am no zero-Covider. Its clear restrictions can be as harmful as Covid. Last September, it seemed obvious that a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown would have just postponed the wave further into winter. In February, the government did the right thing by explicitly ruling out an elimination policy and introducing its roadmap. At the front of everyone’s minds should be minimising harm. This time around, minimising harm means delaying reopening. The situation is completely different from other stages of the pandemic. Vaccines are preventing hospitalisations

Tuesday

Ross Clark

Covid and the difficulty with ‘following the science’

Did anyone fancy being in Boris Johnson’s shoes before he made the decision to delay the full lifting of Covid restrictions? Keir Starmer, perhaps. But even Starmer might have preferred opposition if he had read the latest paper by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) committee, which will have informed the Prime Minister’s decision. It reinforces just how difficult it is for any government to ‘follow the science’. If you can sum the paper up in one sentence it would be ‘sorry, but we really don’t have much of a clue as to what will happen’. Here are just a couple of highlights: ‘The scale of this resurgence

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is furlough holding back the jobs market?

The latest employment figures, published this morning, confirm a remarkable aspect of the Covid pandemic: that it appears to have caused no more than a little bump in the jobs miracle of the past decade. That is in spite of the economy shrinking by nearly 10 per cent in 2020 — a performance that in the past would have led to millions out of work. In May the unemployment rate fell by 0.3 per cent to 4.7 per cent. By contrast, it reached over 8 per cent during and after the 2008 financial crash. But of course, the unemployment figures don’t tell the whole story — not when we have a

Annabel Denham

The cost of delaying ‘freedom day’

When Boris Johnson announced that unlocking would be guided by ‘data not dates’ he handed detractors ample scope for derision and defiance. In the four months since, lockdown critics have rightly insisted that he uphold the slogan and accelerate a roadmap, designed to move at such a glacial speed, that it risked fraying the DNA of our economy and permanently crushing our joie de vivre.  Why did we spend Easter isolated from loved ones? April in wintry beer gardens? Why did we roll out the vaccine at phenomenal pace only to keep restrictions in place as the number of Covid deaths hit single digits? Contrary to expectation, however, that mantra

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Speaker blasts Boris again over lockdown announcement

The government has just suffered a further verbal drubbing for the way it announced it would be delaying the roadmap out of Covid restrictions.  Matt Hancock gave a statement in the Commons tonight, a couple of hours after the Prime Minister announced all the details of the delay. Before he spoke, though, he had to listen to a still-angry Speaker explaining why this was so unacceptable.  Hoyle wasn’t the only one to complain about the way ministers had behaved Hoyle once again described the government’s behaviour as ‘entirely unacceptable’, adding that it was ‘disrespectful to the House and to our constituents’. He also reiterated a point made by Peter Bone

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris Johnson delays the end of lockdown

Boris Johnson has this evening confirmed that he will delay the lifting of all Covid restrictions by four weeks to 19 July. Announcing the decision in a press conference, Johnson said the Indian variant – also known as the Delta variant – has changed the picture and meant the government was no longer able to proceed with the full unlocking plan they had first hoped.  The Prime Minister said two jabs were very effective against the new variant. The problem? ‘There are still millions of younger adults who have not been vaccinated and sadly a proportion of the elderly and vulnerable may still succumb even if they have had two jabs,’ Johnson

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The lockdown delay has triggered a constitutional crisis

It is not the Battle of Marston Moor, but it strikes me that we are now in something of a constitutional crisis following the Speaker’s dramatic outburst this afternoon. In response to points of order about the fact Boris Johnson is announcing lockdown changes in a press conference rather than to parliament, Hoyle said that he had been told no decisions had been taken only to find out that there was an embargoed document setting out what changes were coming. A visibly furious Hoyle declared from the chair that: ‘This House is being misled’. Considering that misleading the House is a resigning matter, this is a remarkably serious accusation for

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What Tory MPs fear most about a lockdown delay

As Boris Johnson prepares to announce a four-week delay to the final stage out of lockdown, he faces a mixed reaction. Labour plans to back the delay but make clear that it was avoidable and is down to bad leadership. The public is seen to be more forgiving — with a Times/YouGov poll over the weekend finding that 53 per cent think that restrictions should remain beyond 21 June, compared with 34 per cent who say they should end. Many Tory MPs, meanwhile, are opposed to the delay on the grounds that they are losing faith all restrictions will be lifted this year. ‘If you can’t lift restrictions at the height of summer

John Connolly John Connolly

Is Boris right to delay the lockdown easing?

It now seems likely that freedom day is going to involve rather less freedom than everyone had hoped. Later today, Boris Johnson is expected to announce that the 21 June easing of lockdown will be delayed by up to four weeks, until every adult has been offered at least one vaccine by the end of next month. The delays mean that nightclubs will stay closed and work from home guidance will remain in place – although the 30-person limit on wedding guests is expected to be lifted and there will be more outdoor events allowed to take place. The abrupt change to the lockdown easing plan comes as the Indian

Sunday

Kate Andrews

The risky business of delaying 21 June

It seems almost certain that ‘freedom day’ will be delayed. So now we consider the details. On the latest episode of Coffee House Shots, we debate the implications of extending restrictions and what that would mean – not just for the summer – but for the rest of the year. Fraser Nelson makes the case for caution on the podcast (and on Coffee House here), arguing that the Delta variant has changed the equation and the PM should be given the benefit of the doubt, as well as a little more time to get a ‘reasonable grasp of the risks and trade-offs.’ There was broad agreement between us that the issue isn’t so much the

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

The case for delaying 21 June

Word is that Boris Johnson will delay the 21 June re-opening by two weeks, possibly even a month — an announcement that has caused some division of opinion in the offices of The Spectator. In the circumstances (the Indian variant growing exponentially) I can see the case for waiting another week or so until we have more data. That’s not say that I want delay, just that the rise of the Indian variant in the UK has made me see the abolition of remaining restrictions as a finely-balanced argument. Whereas, a few weeks ago, I thought the facts heavily favoured going ahead with a full reopening.  I discuss this with Kate Andrews, Katy

Thursday

Katy Balls

Boris’s three unlocking options for 21 June

What will Boris Johnson announce on Monday? The Prime Minister is due to update the nation on whether the final stage of the roadmap out of lockdown can proceed on 21 June as planned. However, with cases on the rise and the Indian variant spreading, various government advisers have spent the past few weeks taking to the airwaves to warn of calamity ahead should Johnson lift all restrictions. There is also a push from some in the Cabinet to either delay the roadmap or opt for a more limited easing. In truth, no final decision will be made until Sunday. The Prime Minister is currently busy in Cornwall attempting to woo

Philip Thomas

The third wave: it’s here – but it shouldn’t delay our reopening

Lockdowns cannot kill off a virus — they just delay the spread. There was always going to be a new wave of infections as Boris Johnson phased out restrictions. The question was how big it would be and how much protection the vaccines would provide. Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, summed up the case for optimism a few months ago, saying that any ‘new surges will meet a wall of vaccinated people’. His theory is now being tested: the fast-spreading Indian (Delta) variant is making its way through the most vaccinated country in Europe. What to do? And how worried should we be? Since the pandemic began, I have

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Pub staff shortages, a baby called Lilibet and a slap in the face for Macron

Home The government pondered delaying the end of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June. But Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, noted that ‘vaccines have broken the chain between Covid-19 infection and high levels of hospitalisations and then mortality’. Of 126 people taken to hospital with the Indian variant of coronavirus (now designated Delta), only three had been doubly vaccinated and two thirds not vaccinated at all. By the beginning of the week, 52.5 per cent of the adult population had received two doses of vaccine; 76.6 per cent the first dose. Vaccinations were offered to anyone aged 25 or more. Of those aged 70 or more, 96.9 per

Tuesday

Robert Peston

Why the 21 June unlocking will probably not go ahead

The Prime Minister’s roadmap rules would logically dictate not moving to stage four of lockdown easing on 21 June, but delaying by two or four weeks – because the increase in the R transmission rate to more than one is driven in part by the stage two and stage three easings and not just by the greater transmissibility of the Delta variant. As Nadhim Zahawi said on the Peston show last Wednesday, the more significant characteristic of the Delta variant is that one vaccine dose is not terribly effective against it, though two doses provides decent protection. And that good protection kicks in two or three weeks after the second

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Does the data justify a delay to lifting lockdown?

There are still six days to go before the Prime Minister has to decide whether or not to go ahead with the full reopening of the economy and society on 21 June. But there seems little doubt in which way the government is travelling.  It is reported this morning that, following a pessimistic presentation by Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance the likelihood is that the reopening will be delayed by a fortnight, the lifting of some measures perhaps a little longer than that. Is this yet another shifting of the goalposts? It is true that there has been an increase in cases over the past couple of weeks –