Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round up: Raab foresees a ‘new normal’ after lockdown

Dominic Raab: Vaccine ‘not likely’ this year The Foreign Secretary was in charge of the government’s media round this morning. Yesterday, hospital figures showed the UK’s official death toll for those displaying symptoms of Covid-19 had now passed 20,000. Acknowledging this ‘grim milestone’, Dominic Raab told Sophy Ridge that the government was ‘driving forward’ in its efforts to combat the virus, but said that previous hopes for a vaccine being ready as early as the autumn were misplaced: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1254328810826346496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw DR: We’re looking at the possibility of a vaccine.

Saturday

Melanie McDonagh

Ten lessons we’ve learned from the lockdown so far

Yep, the end is in sight, courtesy of other countries organising the practicalities for the return to some sort of normal life – shopping and schooling, as in Germany. That means Britain will, like it or not, be playing catchup sooner rather than later. And when this oddly dreamlike existence is over, it’s going to feel like that bit of the Sleeping Beauty when the court wakes up after its hundred year sleep, yawning and blinking and eyeing each other rather shyly. It’s partly the warm weather; being obliged to stay away from work when it’s sunny, with quite a lot of your wages paid by the government (if like me you’re on furlough), has given these weeks an unreal quality.

Rod Liddle

Our impatience will end the lockdown

At the farm shop this morning there was a chap panic-buying a large metal and plaster flamingo. It was the last one in stock and he looked very pleased with himself. I wondered if he had a few score more at home, hoarded in the attic. And then his long-suffering wife saying, when he arrived home: “Did you get the milk and chopped tomatoes?” And him replying with excitement: “No, but I managed to get another one of THESE, love...” As I mentioned in my column this week, the government will be a fait accompli to the ending of lockdown. The glorious silence of two weeks ago is already a fading memory.

Ross Clark

Britain can’t rely on a vaccine to ease lockdown restrictions

Six weeks ago Britain stood as a bit of an outlier among western countries in that our government seemed set to manage, rather than suppress, coronavirus. It rejected the idea that it was pursuing ‘herd immunity,’ but seemed to do just that. Now we stand out for a different reason: we are the only country which appears to be committing itself to remain in lockdown, or close approximation thereof, until a vaccine arrives. In much of Europe, lockdown restrictions are tentatively being relaxed as infection rates and death rates fall. Here, ministers tell us it is far too early for that sort of thing – we will need restrictions on our lives, in one form or another, until we have a vaccine available. Is that a plausible strategy?

Ian McEwan

It’s time to televise corona cabinet discussions

Microphones were installed in the House of Commons chamber in 1950. A mere 38 years passed before a parliamentary debate was broadcast on the radio. We would probably blush now to hear the arguments against our being allowed to follow in real time the intricacies of parliamentary debate. But the institutional habit of treating voters like children dies hard. It spooked most of us to hear that the Prime Minister was suddenly in hospital, then in ICU with a serious condition, so No. 10 disclosed, of being ‘cheerful’. We knew very well that these days cheerfulness can be effectively cured at home. Dread of spreading ‘alarm and despondency’ is one of the more tiresome elements of our second world war inheritance.

Friday

Katy Balls

Predictable politics returns as Brexit talks stall

Although the coronavirus pandemic means that we are living in uncertain times, some things remain predictable. As is the case with the current Brexit talks where Michel Barnier has bemoaned a lack of progress. As round two of the UK-EU negotiations comes to a close, the EU's chief negotiator has voiced his disappointment – while a UK government spokesperson says 'limited progress was made in bridging the gaps' between the UK and the EU. While there are still two rounds of talks to go before the end of the transition period in December, at present the two sides remain far apart. The UK is pushing for a Canada-style free trade agreement and should that fail has said it will pivot to an Australia-style deal (which would rely heavily on WTO terms).

James Forsyth

Britain’s bid to become China’s best friend in the West is over

One consequence of this crisis is that nearly everyone in the Tory party has become a China hawk. Tomorrow sees the launch of a new China Research Group of Tory MPs. The CRG will examine Beijing’s industrial policy, its approach to technology and its foreign policy. But perhaps the most striking thing about the group is its membership. Its chair is Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, its Secretary is Neil O’Brien, a former adviser to George Osborne. Other members include former Cameron SPAD Laura Trott and Boris Johnson’s old economic adviser Anthony Browne.

Kate Andrews

If austerity is off the table, how do we pay for Covid-19 costs?

What is the true cost of Covid-19? No one knows – yet. But it’s not going to be cheap. The Treasury has revised its borrowing plans for May to July up to £180 billion, four times what it planned to raise and over £20 billion more than it planned to borrow all year. So how are we going to pay for all this spending? Policies at the heart of the government’s Covid-19 response, like the furlough scheme, are surpassing all estimations for uptake, and have been granted a limitless price tag by the Chancellor through to the end of June at least.

Patrick O’Flynn

Boris won’t seek a Brexit extension in June, but he might in November

Is there going to be an extension to the Brexit transitional period during which the UK must obey EU rules and keep stumping up cash for Brussels? The answer may appear obvious: David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, has unequivocally and publicly ruled it out. As he tweeted on 16 April: 'Transition ends on December 31 this year. We will not ask to extend it. If the EU asks we will say no.' But, this being politics, Frost’s statement leaves a key question unanswered. Namely: Is there going to be an extension to the Brexit transitional period? I do not mean to cast aspersions on Frost’s integrity here, but I merely note that in his early months as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson promised that we would leave the EU on 31 October, 2019 'come what may'.

Cindy Yu

Can Boris unite the Cabinet?

15 min listen

The Telegraph reports this morning that Boris Johnson is planning to be back at work by Monday next week. He couldn't come back sooner - with the Prime Minister laid up, the Cabinet has split over the question of easing the lockdown (as James Forsyth writes this week). So can Boris unite his team behind one coronavirus strategy?

Robert Peston

The viral transmission rate will be key to relaxing the lockdown

The next big event in the saga (I choose my words carefully) of our Covid-19 lockdown is the preliminary results in early May of the Office for National Statistics (ONS)/University of Oxford survey to find out who has had the virus. Officials and ministers hope this will help them to judge how far the current social-distancing rules have depressed the rate of viral transmission, or the notorious ‘R0’ – which is the estimated number of people infected by a person who is infected. The point is that ministers, advised by the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser, have decided they can modify – though not end – lockdown when R0 is close to 0.5.

Ross Clark

Could this antibody test offer a route out of lockdown?

Finally, the government is to start antibody tests to see how prevalent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus – which causes Covid-19 – is among the general population. Over the next few days, testing kits are being sent to 20,000 randomly-selected households. The results will be crucial because it will inform us how effective lockdown has been – and whether there is any point in continuing with that policy. If, say, five per cent showed signs of having had the virus it would mean that the epidemic potentially had a long way yet to run. If 50 per cent have been infected with the virus it would mean that lockdown has failed and was pointless in any case – we would already be on the verge of herd immunity. So what will be the result?

Thursday

Cindy Yu

The 10,000th

40 min listen

This week, the Spectator commemorates its 10,000th edition. On the podcast, Cindy Yu speaks to David Butterfield and Fraser Nelson about the magazine's two centuries of history, finding out about how the publication started, discussing whether it is still the same now as it was originally intended, and hearing about what David calls its 'industrial drink culture'. Find out more about the history of the magazine with David's new book, 10,000 Not Out. Also on the podcast, Cindy speaks to James Forsyth and former Director of Comms at No 10, Craig Oliver. As James writes in the issue this week, when Boris Johnson comes back to work, he returns to a split Cabinet and a difficult decision - how and when to ease the lockdown?

Cindy Yu

What’s Nicola Sturgeon’s exit strategy?

15 min listen

The Scottish government's document 'Looking Beyond Lockdown' tries to do what it says on the tin. But it comes at an inconvenient time for the government in Downing Street, just as it is facing accusations that it hasn't been clear enough with the public about what is needed to end the lockdown. On the podcast, James and Katy reveal the pressures that the devolved governments' actions put on the national government, in general and in this crisis, and we also discuss the new test, track, and trace approach.

Katy Balls

Nicola Sturgeon offers a glimpse of what lockdown easing will mean

One issue the government is reluctant to discuss publicly is an exit strategy out of the lockdown. Inside 10 Downing Street, there's a sense that it's become a media obsession when the day-to-day focus ought to be encouraging the public to practise social distancing. During Wednesday's press conference, chief medical officer Chris Whitty did discuss how long social distancing could be in place for, suggesting it would likely be for the calendar year as it was 'wholly unrealistic' to expect lockdown restrictions to be lifted wholesale. Today Nicola Sturgeon has gone further than any Conservative minister is currently prepared to. The First Minister has started to set out what a gradual lifting of lockdown could look like.

Alex Massie

There is nothing to lose from a Brexit extension

You might think that the biggest public health and economic crisis since the second world war ought to be a moment at which government should concentrate on the here and now, forsaking grand projects the better to focus all its attention on dealing with both the coronavirus itself and its wider, monumental, impact on almost every aspect of British life. But, no. Other matters continue, even if preposterously so. According to the government, not even this calamity can be allowed to interrupt the hitherto smooth and straightforward passage of Brexit. The ongoing negotiations over the UK’s final withdrawal from the European Union cannot be delayed by anything so trivial as Covid-19. Here, though nowhere else, it is business as usual.

James Forsyth

Squabbling scientists have shocked ministers

The government’s response to criticism of its approach to this pandemic is that it has been ‘guided by the science' throughout. When Keir Starmer accused the government of being slow to introduce a lockdown at PMQs yesterday, Dominic Raab shot back to ask whether Starmer was really saying that he knew better than the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser. The government’s defence is a reasonable one: just imagine the row if it turned out that the Prime Minister had been overruling the advice of his top medical and scientific advisers. But, as I say in the magazine this week, in private, there is an admission that there was, perhaps, a belief early on that the science was more definitive than it actually is.

Matthew Parris

The difficult balance of public vs political agony

Fear is the politician’s friend. When terror grips the public, an opportunity arises for those in power to step forward as the people’s guide and protector in dangerous times. One sees this in wars. One sees it whenever the public suspects hostile conspiracies, networks of spies or mischief-makers. We likewise cleave to leaders who will confound predatory foreign powers, terrorist plots or the danger of being swamped by waves of immigrants. In fear or anxiety the people will hug their leaders closer, and their leaders know this as surely as every priest knows that despair and anxiety are his faith’s most reliable draw.

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

What is the real impact of lockdown on the NHS?

24 min listen

The NHS has been transformed to deal with the coronavirus threat, and it's thus far holding up, despite fears over capacity. But what has been the effect on the rest of the health service, and its usual patients? Fraser Nelson speaks to Alastair McLellan, Editor of the Health Service Journal.