Ross Clark

Could flu really kill 30,000 people in Britain this year as our immune systems, rendered naïve after two years of lockdowns and other anti-Covid measures, are over-ridden by the virus? That suggestion has been reported in places this morning. There has certainly been a sharp increase in people reporting flu symptoms over the past couple of weeks, as shown up in the various metrics used by the UK Health Security Agency. For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic there are now more people being admitted for flu – at 6.8 per 100,000 in the week to 11 December – than are being admitted for Covid (6.6 per 100,000).

It will come as no comfort to those who have already lost fortunes, but it is remarkable how resilient the crypto currency market has been this year, especially following the collapse of the FTX exchange in November. But if the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas and the request by US authorities for his extradition isn’t a sign to rush for the exits then I don’t know what is.   Without trying to pre-judge his case, there is going to be a lot more of this to come. FTX, it is easy to forget, was one of the more trusted players in a market that remains largely unregulated. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair both judged Bankman-Fried to be respectable enough to risk their reputations appearing on a platform with him at a public event.

Oxford councillors are feeling rattled by opposition to their proposal to divide the city into six districts and to limit the passage of road traffic between them. The city and county councils put out a press release last week accusing residents of spreading ‘misinformation’ about the scheme. It complained of abuse received from members of the public and said that its staff had been offered ‘support’ to cope with the tirade of abuse, the worst cases of which had been reported to police. If anyone working for the council has been threatened then that, of course, is deplorable and quite properly a police matter. But are residents justified in complaining about the proposals?

For climate campaigners, Donald Trump was the anti-Christ, pooh-poohing climate change and withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement. But what of the Biden administration – is it really going to make the climate lobby any happier? Things may be a little clearer following the visit to Britain of John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, who gave the annual Fulbright lecture at King’s College London on Friday evening. He was certainly keen to assert that America is now wearing a different pair of boots than it was under Trump, telling his audience ‘you need guideposts, and unfortunately in my country many of those guideposts were torn down.

I hate to pour cold water on the Prince of Wales’ big night out in Boston on Friday, where he hosted the Earthshot Prize for climate change solutions. William needs all the help he can get to distract attention from his brother and sister-in-law as they continue their crazed attack on the royal family. And there is nothing wrong with the Earthshot Prize in itself, as a means of recognising and rewarding entrepreneurs who are developing environmentally-friendly innovations. Good luck to them.  But sorry, the heir to the throne’s big idea does not even nearly live up to its lofty, climate-transforming ambitions.

The vote for strike action by 10,000 ambulance drivers who are members of the GMB union is more about public safety than about pay, insists the union. How it will benefit patients to have ambulance drivers go on strike is a little hard to fathom. Particularly so as the GMB has chosen to call a strike at a time when ambulance response times are the longest they have been at any time since records started to be kept in their current form in 2017.  In many ways the NHS seems to be coping a lot less well now that it was at the height of the pandemic. The latest statistics on ambulance response times, for October, certainly bear this out.    Ambulance calls are divided into four categories.

Just why is Britain still spending over £50 million a year in development aid to China? Despite it being the world’s second largest economy and investing in UK infrastructure projects, the latest statistical release by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office shows that in 2021 more than £50 million of bilateral aid money was spend there, putting it just outside the top 20 of countries which received the most UK aid. And this is after the UK government promised to phase out foreign aid making its way to Beijing. Is China still a developing country, and if so then at what stage do we declare it finally to be developed?