Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor
The government is reeling from the Post Office Horizon scandal. ‘Lessons must be learnt’, goes the cry around Westminster. But a computer scandal with striking similarity to the bugs in the Horizon system has been brewing under the Department for Work and Pension and HMRC’s noses for over a decade. When Universal Credit was introduced
The jobs market appears to be slowing down, but can we trust the figures? Vacancies have fallen for the longest continuous period on record, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But there are still just under 950,000 jobs on offer which is well above the pre-lockdown norm. Meanwhile, despite British
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This week: James Heale reads his politics column on Sunak’s migration minefield (00:55), Michael Simmons says that Scotland’s ‘progressive’ teaching methods have badly backfired (05:53), and Mary Wakefield asks: why can’t I pray in Westminster Abbey? (11:40) Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.
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It was a big day in the Covid inquiry as Boris Johnson gave evidence for the first time. Just as Johnson launched into an apology during his opening statement, protestors off-camera made their presence known. There were also revelations concerning the attention he paid to Sage minutes and Cobra meetings and the former prime minister
Scots have, in the past, bragged about having the best education system in the world. Scottish sixth-formers study a broader range of subjects and aren’t forced to specialise too early. And look at our history: the literature, the Enlightenment, our universities, all due to world-class schools. But however true this may once have been, it’s
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On the podcast: In her cover piece for the magazine, The Spectator’s assistant editor Cindy Yu – writing ahead of the COP28 summit this weekend – describes how China has cornered the renewables market. She joins the podcast alongside Akshat Rathi, senior climate reporter for Bloomberg and author of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions, to investigate China’s
Has migration to the UK peaked? Net migration in the year to June hit 672,000, down from 745,000 in 2022. Some 1.2 million people came to Britain whilst 508,000 moved overseas. The ONS says it’s too early to call this a downward trend, but that immigration seems to be slowing whilst emigration is increasing. Perhaps
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This week it is the scientists’ turn to appear before the Covid Inquiry with Sir Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer and Sir Patrick Vallance. James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and The Spectator’s data editor, Michael Simmons to discuss the findings this week.
Did Eat Out to Help Out increase Covid? It’s a conclusion the inquiry and lockdown’s cheerleaders seem keen to push. Today they got their wish with Sir Patrick Vallance telling the inquiry it is ‘very difficult to see how it wouldn’t have had an effect on transmission’. Those comments have already been taken out of
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This week, Michael Simmons looks at the dodgy graph thats justified the second lockdown (00:55), Christopher Howse examines what happened to received pronunciation (05:56), and Melissa Kite wonders whether Surrey’s busybodies have followed her and her boyfriend to Cork (14:47). Presented and produced by Max Jeffery.
Two stories are emerging from the Covid Inquiry: one that it wants to tell and one that it does not. The first is a tale of foul-mouthed incompetence, of which there’s no shortage of evidence dredged from the private messages of the main actors. The more important story can be found in the submitted statements
Did we lock down on a false premise? Yesterday was Ben Warner’s turn at the Covid Inquiry. He was an adviser, and one of the ‘tech bros’ brought in by Dominic Cummings to advise No. 10 on data. He was present at many of the early Sage – and other – meetings where the government’s
Some 140,000 children missed more than half of the school days they should have attended this spring. Research by the Children’s Commissioner, published today, finds that only 5 per cent of these ‘severely absent’ kids go on to achieve five GCSEs. For year ten and 11 pupils who are persistently absent – meaning they miss one
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Fraser Nelson speaks to Michael Simmons about the second phase of the Covid inquiry, looking at political governance. Attending the inquiry today was former No.10 aids Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain.
As many as one in 20 Universal Credit payments to working Brits are wrong. Claimants are at risk of destitution when they’re underpaid and accused of fraud when they’re overpaid, as the Department for Work and Pensions has been using a flawed data stream provided by HMRC to calculate Universal Credit payments. This week The Spectator revealed how
Ten years ago, HMRC unveiled what was billed as ‘the biggest change’ to the tax system since PAYE began in 1944. The taxman mandated employers to report their workers’ pay every time they ran payroll. Introduced to support Universal Credit by providing earnings data in close to real time, it has since been used to
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This week there have been some interesting developments in the public Covid-19 inquiry where scientists and mathematical modellers have been giving testimony on how prepared the government was to tackle the pandemic and how they used expert advise. Within the sessions, WhatsApp messages revealed that Dame Angela McLean – who at the time was chief
SPI-M-O are at the Covid inquiry this week. They’re the shadowy group of mathematical modellers who contributed – more than most – to the evidence that backed up lockdown. On Monday we heard from Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. Surprisingly – for an inquiry that seems from the outset to be focused on the
For perhaps the first time in its history, the Office for National Statistics does not know how many employed, unemployed and economically inactive people there are in the country. This morning, the monthly labour market figures were due to be published. But late last week news slipped out that the employment portion of the release
Britain’s first ‘drug consumption room’ will get the go-ahead later today. A health centre in the east end of Glasgow (where nearly 200 people died from drugs last year) is expected to be used for a pilot project. It will offer nurse-led supervision for drug users while they take heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs.
