The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: What cycle helmets can tell us about face masks

From our UK edition

Masking the truth Sir: Matthew Parris is right to laud the importance of embracing the scientific method (‘Why should opinion matter more than science?’, 25 July) to determine the efficacy of face masks. However, his proposed experiment contains a significant oversight — the human factor. That is, how the very wearing of a mask (or a conscious decision not to) may itself result in behaviours that alter transmission risk. Multiple studies into the benefit of wearing a bicycle helmet provide a useful reference. Those forced to wear one by law may do so incorrectly simply to avoid a penalty. Meanwhile they may also indulge in ‘risk compensation’ — more dangerous cycling because they feel safer.

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If curiosity doesn’t kill the cat, what does?

From our UK edition

The first nanny state The Prime Minister’s strategy on obesity has been labelled a work of the ‘nanny state’ — not least because Boris Johnson himself, during his campaign to become Conservative leader last year, promised to banish ‘the continuing creep of the nanny state’. The term can be traced to the 12 February 1965 edition of The Spectator, under a piece with the byline ‘Quoodle’ — a pseudonym used by the then editor Ian Macleod — about the government’s decision to prohibit cigarette advertising on commercial television. ‘Personally I regard the proof of a causal link between heavy cigarette-smoking and the incidence of lung cancer as overwhelming,’ he wrote.

Wednesday

Thursday

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Letters: Why is the problem of working-class white boys not considered worth solving?

From our UK edition

Left-behind boys Sir: Christopher Snowdon’s perceptive and informative article (‘The lost boys’, 18 July) reflects perfectly my own experiences in trying to highlight the under-attainment of white working-class boys in higher education, particularly in chemistry, a frontline Stem subject. I was elected to the Inclusion and Diversity Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry to investigate this matter. Despite strong acknowledgment of the under-representation of ‘white working-class males’, any positive action remains painfully slow. It is abundantly clear that while white working-class males are the largest group of disadvantaged young people in this country, their cause is the least fashionable and the problem not considered worth solving.

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New fault lines are appearing in the EU

From our UK edition

Anyone who imagined that the departure of Britain would make for more harmonious EU summits in future will have been disabused of this belief by the four days of meetings to establish an EU coronavirus recovery fund, which came within an hour of being the longest on record. Agreement was reached on a €750 billion package — just over half of which will be made up of grants and the rest loans — but not before the French President, Emmanuel Macron, had reportedly thumped the table and accused a group of countries of putting the entire European project at risk through their refusal to sign for an even higher sum. Even now, the deal might still run into trouble: the European parliament is already voicing objections.

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Portrait of the week: Vaccine hopes, the Russia report and a knighthood for Captain Tom

From our UK edition

Home A coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, tested on 1,077 people, was found to induce antibodies and T-cells that could fight the virus. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he hoped for a ‘significant return to normality from November, at the earliest, possibly in time for Christmas’. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 19 July, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 45,273, with a seven-day average of 68 deaths a day. But Professor Carl Heneghan of Oxford University discovered that anyone who had tested positive for coronavirus but died later of another cause was included in the Public Health England figures. The Queen knighted Captain Sir Thomas Moore, aged 100, on the grass of Upper Ward in Windsor Castle.

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How many people would refuse a Covid vaccine?

From our UK edition

Worth a shot? How worried should we be about people refusing to have a Covid-19 vaccine if one is developed? In a YouGov poll for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate this week, 6% said they would definitely refuse a vaccination, a further 10% said they would probably refuse and a further 15% said they weren’t sure. A better guide, perhaps, is how many allow their children to be vaccinated. According to government statistics, the rate of vaccination among children varies from 86.5% for the MMR2 vaccination at five years to 94.2% for the DTaP/IPV/Hib at two years. Poor third The rapper Kanye West launched his campaign for the US presidency. What is the record of third candidates in the US presidential election?

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2464: Topsy-turvy solution

From our UK edition

14 Down, TAPSALTEERIE, yields TAP 10, 15 and 35, three anagrams of SALTE (16, 32 and 36) and ERIE and three Great Lakes (2, 24 and 26) First prize Roger Howell, Lympstone, DevonRunners-up J. Selvidge, St Andrews, Guernsey; Arabella Woodrow, Riddlesden, W.

Tuesday

Thursday

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The confusion in government goes beyond face masks

From our UK edition

When Michael Gove delivered the Ditchley Annual Lecture last month he spoke about why citizens feel that the political system has failed them. ‘The compact leaders offered — trust that we are the best, trust that we have your best interests at heart, and trust that we will deliver — was broken.’ It was a powerful message. Voters have a right to expect honesty and competence from their leaders, not just decisiveness. So Mr Gove will have thought carefully before saying on television last weekend that face masks should not be mandatory, and people should instead be left to use their own judgment.

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Letters: We must sing again

From our UK edition

Growing pains Sir: James Forsyth (‘Rewiring the state’, 4 July) shocked this loyal Spectator reader with the following: ‘Even before Covid, this country was in a productivity crisis and it’s nigh-on impossible to improve productivity without government involvement. Increasing productivity requires improvements to be made to physical and digital infrastructure and to the skill base, and those need public investment.’ James clearly has not studied the sources of productivity growth (or lack of it). In the 50 years to 2008, the UK experienced around 2 per cent p.a. growth in real Gross Value Added per hour worked — which is what politicians generally mean when they talk about productivity. Since then, productivity growth has effectively stalled.

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Portrait of the week: Face masks in, Huawei out and Amazon’s TikTok trouble

From our UK edition

Home New regulations would compel people to wear a face covering in shops in England from 24 July on pain of a £100 fine. Similar regulations had been imposed in Scotland. A report requested by Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, said that, without lockdowns, treatments or vaccines, in a reasonable worst-case scenario, a second wave of infection could see coronavirus deaths in hospital alone range between 24,500 and 251,000, peaking in January and February. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 12 July, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 44,798, with a seven-day average of 85 deaths a day; but in the following two days the number of deaths was 21 and 11.

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The bill for a Banksy: how much does graffiti cost railways?

From our UK edition

Take cover The government has said it will make wearing masks compulsory in shops. Mandatory masks rather run against the general trend in legislation in many countries, with face coverings increasingly banned. In Britain last year a man was fined £90 for covering his face while walking past a police facial recognition camera. Hong Kong banned masks in October to try to stifle student protests. France, Belgium, Denmark and Austria have all passed laws against face coverings in public over the past decade. In Canada since 2013, rioters who cover their faces have risked ten years in jail. In the US, many states have enacted laws on facial coverings dating from 1845 to deal with bandits.

Thursday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: most of the UK is almost corona free

From our UK edition

Britain is now doing more Covid-19 testing than anywhere else in Europe, offering a detailed regional picture that shows how rapidly the virus has receded in most of the country. The latest figures were released earlier this afternoon, for 29 June to 5 July, using the German definition: how many weekly positive infections per 100,000 people? The German danger zone is 50. Of 150 upper-tier local authorities in England, only one is over that limit: locked-down Leicester. And even now it’s unclear if this is due to more testing or more virus. Some 73 per cent of local authorities now have a score of 5 weekly infections or less per 100,000 people.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sunak’s statement, shop closures and a hoo-ha over Boohoo

From our UK edition

Home Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced measures intended to stimulate the economy. Under a £111 million scheme, companies in England would be given £1,000 for each new work experience place they offered. Under a £2 billion scheme, householders would be given two-thirds of the cost of energy-saving work such as insulation, up to £5,000. The government made available £1.57 billion in emergency support for the arts and heritage sites; it was to go to institutions, not freelance performers. Among business failures and job losses, sandwich chain Pret A Manger was to close 30 of its 410 shops and lose 1,000 staff. Up to 5,000 jobs were to be cut at the Upper Crust sandwich chain and other cafés owned by the SSP Group. T.M.

The Spectator

Letters: Why Hugh Dowding deserves a statue

From our UK edition

Police relations Sir: As a former Met Police officer, with a similar background to Kevin Hurley, I was surprised how much I disagreed with his article (‘Cop out’, 27 June). Central to this was the lack of emphasis he placed on the attitude of police officers. The emphasis on violent gang crime undoubtedly leads to a distortion in how young black men are perceived by the police, and this in turn can quickly lead to confrontation on the street. The attitude of young police officers is key to avoiding an escalating reaction between them and members of the public. Senior officers need to develop more holistic ways of addressing crime, and acknowledge that the police cannot arrest their way to safer communities. Communities need to be integral to policing solutions.

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At last, we have a foreign secretary who’s not shy to make a stand

From our UK edition

It is hardly a profound observation to say that the government has not functioned as well as it might have done for the past few months. Yet there is one important exception to the general picture of confused and counterproductive activity. Britain, for the first time in years, is developing a logical and — to use the words of Robin Cook — an ethical foreign policy. In the Commons this week, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, listed the first 49 individuals to fall foul of Britain’s ‘Magnitsky law’ — a provision to freeze the assets of, and impose travel bans on, foreign citizens who have been implicated in human rights abuses.

The Spectator

2462: Over and Out? solution

From our UK edition

The seventeen entries clued by definition only required removal of the abbreviation BR ( = Britain), in keeping with the highlighted ‘BREXIT POLICY’. First prize Elizabeth Hogg, London SW13Runners-up Peter Moody, Portchester, Hampshire; J.

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What are online shoppers most likely to snap up?

From our UK edition

Price of protest Greenpeace was fined £80,000 for defying a court order and occupying an oil rig in the North Sea. What else have protestors been fined for in Britain in recent times? £750 for spray-painting a war memorial in Whitehall in a climate change protest. £430 for spraying slogans on a pavement against Barclays, accusing it of investing in fossil fuels. £400 for eating a raw squirrel at a vegan food market in Soho. £150 for chaining themselves to the gates of a nuclear submarine base. Travel money The tourism industry is opening up again. Who spends the most: Britons holidaying abroad or overseas tourists coming here? — In the 12 months to August 2019 there were 71.6 million trips abroad by UK nationals. In all, they spent £46.