Annabel Denham is deputy comment editor at the Daily Telegraph
On the eve of the five-year anniversary of the Brexit referendum, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Brexit was the dog that never barked. Project Fear portended half a million job losses – a hard measure to test given a year of lockdowns and furlough, but before Covid hit (and now) the unemployment rate
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
Less than a year into e-scooter trials, ministers are coming under pressure to ban the new transport technology, with concerned critics claiming they need to be made safe and the public educated on the law. Matthew Scott, Kent’s police and crime commissioner (PCC), has written to the Transport Secretary calling for a clampdown on electric scooter
National Work from Home Day might not be a calendar highlight but it has undoubtedly taken on increased significance during the pandemic. Remote work is du jour and the big question now is: will it become the new normal? Take headlines at face value and we’re living in both a Zoomshock dystopia and a commute-free
Can the High Street recover from the Covid crisis? Even before lockdown, around 14 shops were shutting every day, and 2019 was the worst year for sales in a quarter of a century. After months of enforced closure, shops have finally reopened. But with mandatory face masks, social distancing and roped-off fitting rooms – and no indoor cafes, or restaurants to
Before too long, news that Uber will offer 70,000 drivers holiday pay and the national living wage will be viewed less as an unmitigated triumph than a Pyrrhic victory. In the UK you can be an ’employee’ with an ever-growing raft of employment rights, a ‘worker’ with rather fewer rights, or ‘self-employed’. These statuses have
When Rishi Sunak takes to the Despatch Box on Wednesday it will be against a backdrop of colossal national debt, the recent rise in government bond yields and the ongoing Coronavirus crisis. The British state owes £2.1 trillion, ten times the size of the entire economy of an independent Scotland. Yet some concerns over the
It won’t come as much of a surprise to learn that the National Audit Office thinks the BBC faces ‘significant’ uncertainty over its financial future due to changes in viewing habits. The NAO’s findings are about as ground-breaking as your average anodyne Beeb drama, but they do tighten the cilice on a funding model that
Some bright spark at the National Institute for Healthcare Excellence wants all alcohol intake by expectant mothers to be recorded, regardless of whether they consent. This would reveal whether a mother had consumed a single drink during the first week of pregnancy – a time when they may not even have realised they were expecting. There is
The rapidity and willingness with which workers have adopted and adapted to remote working has led some – including Rory Sutherland in this week’s Spectator – to hail a home-working revolution. But there are convincing reasons why the office won’t be another Covid casualty. First, while it is not inconceivable that coronavirus could accelerate the
Today, a Government in dire need of a good news story has mooted legislation resulting in the very opposite. The Conservative manifesto from 2017 said: ‘Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree.’ Now the Tories are delivering on their promise. But their
