Lockdown

One in seven Britons is now under increased lockdown restrictions, after a return of measures in the north-east added an additional two million people to the list. Those in Northumberland, Newcastle, Sunderland, North and South Tyneside, Gateshead and County Durham will not be able to mix with other households (outside of support bubbles) from midnight, while restaurants, bars and pubs will be subject to a 10 p.m. curfew. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the latest lockdown measures in the House of Commons this morning, citing a rise of Covid-19 cases in the area. Despite more than ten million people in the UK now being subject to some level of increased restrictions, the official metrics for deciding whether an area will be put into lockdown has not been published.

Does Nancy Pelosi’s unfortunate trip to a hair salon have any news value? Or is it much a hairdo about nothing? Compared to the big stories of the day, it hardly matters. The country faces violent disorder, we’re unsure who will become our next president and millions of people are trying to get back to work and school. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, 'It doesn't take much to see that the problems of one person getting a shampoo and blow-out don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.' But even in this crazy world, Pelosi’s misstep deserves some attention because it so perfectly encapsulates a larger, more troubling problem. Insiders like Pelosi are allowed to play by a different set of rules than the rest of us.

To win in November, Trump should seek inspiration from President Alexander Lukashenko, the 65-year-old autocrat who has ruled Belarus since 1994. He trounced his liberal opponent in the presidential election in August with 80 percent of the vote. I’m not suggesting Trump emulate Lukashenko’s methods. Among other things, the man dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’ disqualified his three main political opponents at the beginning of the race, imprisoning two of them. He has never won an election with less than 75 percent of the vote, although none have been found to be free and fair by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an election monitoring body.

It was obvious that closing schools would hit the poorest hardest, inflicting permanent damage and deepening inequality. While many private schools and the best state schools maintained a full timetable of lessons throughout lockdown, a study by UCL in June found that 2.3 million pupils — one in five of the total — did virtually no schoolwork at all during the weeks of lockdown. The official response has been to turn a blind eye, and imagine that the damage can be covered up by simply awarding decent exam results. This year’s students are right to protest about the injustice of the system. From the moment the decision was taken to cancel exams, rather than carry out exams with social distancing, this year’s mess was guaranteed.

Throughout the past few months the government has appeared to face an unenviable choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods. Nevertheless, a fortnight ago the path seemed clear. The numbers of Covid infections were falling, but the economic news was dire — hence Boris Johnson was engaged in a drive to reopen the economy as quickly as he could without prompting objections from his scientific advisers. Now things feel rather different. Economic figures from recent days have surprised on the upside: the CBI’s figures for retail sales in July show a sharp V-shaped recovery. Sales of cars and houses were running ahead of last year — during July at least. At the same time, though, the outlook on Covid-19 has darkened.

Sweden has released growth figures for the second quarter – a contraction of 8.6 per cent – and two narratives are circulating. The first is that the Swedish experiment has failed spectacularly, resulting in both a higher death toll than its Scandinavian counterparts as well as a collapsed economy. The second is that Sweden has been vindicated, taking a much less severe economic hit than the EU’s average and in a better position to recover as well. Which is the fairer assessment? Sweden has indeed taken an economic beating despite never instigating a full lockdown.

Two weeks ago, I updated you from this podium on the progress we had made as a country against coronavirus. And in many ways that progress continues: the number of patients admitted to hospitals is still falling, and now stands at just over 100 each day; in April there were more than 3,000 coronavirus patients in mechanical ventilation beds, but now the latest figure is 87; the number of deaths continues to fall. That is obviously encouraging But I have also consistently warned that this virus could come back and that we would not hesitate to take swift and decisive action as required. I am afraid that in parts of Asia and Latin America the virus is now gathering pace, and our European friends are also struggling to keep the virus under control.