The Spectator

Friday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: UK debt jumps to 98 per cent of GDP

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  The UK’s two metre social distancing rule could be relaxed according to medical director of Public Health England Yvonne Doyle, speaking at a science and technology committee hearing.The UK government borrowed £62.1 billion in April, sending net debt to a record 98 per cent of GDP. Details below.Foreigners and UK nationals will be fined £1,000 if they refuse to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival in Britain. They must share contact details with authorities and will then be subject to spot checks in homes by health officials and police.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: When is a sport not a sport?

Save the children Sir: Your leading article is correct that the government should have evaluated the detriment caused by shutting schools, against the risk posed by Covid-19 (‘Class divide’, 16 May). This is not a glib trade-off between protecting lives and allowing children to go to school: the predicament foisted on young people will affect their future for decades. Exams were abruptly cancelled in March. This has left many schools dealing with apathetic individuals. The disparity between disadvantaged and affluent students is widening: middle-class schoolchildren are twice as likely to receive online tuition, and only 8 per cent of teachers in low-income communities report more than three-quarters of work being submitted, compared with 50 per cent in the private sector.

The Spectator

Which football teams have welcomed the strangest fake crowds?

Unusual crowd FC Seoul apologised after using sex dolls to try to create some atmosphere as games went ahead behind closed doors because of coronavirus. It is not the first time a football club has got into trouble over a fake crowd. In 1992 Arsenal covered up works at the north end of its Highbury stadium with a large mural of spectators — but was forced to repaint it after complaints that it did not contain enough women or ethnic minorities. The Italian Serie C side Triestina also experimented in 2010 with a fake crowd of 10,000 virtual fans printed on vinyl sheeting. Covid worldwide Cases and deaths from Covid-19 have been declining in Britain and across Europe. But what about the world as a whole?

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Unemployment up, bathers banned and Corbyn’s brother arrested

Home The United Kingdom seemed reluctant to come out of its lockdown. ‘We are likely to face a severe recession, the likes of which we haven’t seen,’ said Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Unemployment rose by 856,500 in April to 2.1 million. More than two million claims had been made for the grant scheme for self-employed people. The government was estimated to be paying ten million of the UK’s 27.5 million private-sector workers. At quiet railway stations, wardens supposedly trained in crowd control stood around talking to each other. Police in England and Wales issued 14,444 fixed penalty notices for breach of the coronavirus regulations up to 11 May; one person was fined nine times.

The Spectator

It’s time for ministers to stop hiding behind unpublished ‘scientific advice’

From the outset of the Covid-19 crisis, the government was determined that scientists would play a central and highly visible role. The Prime Minister set the tone in his first daily press briefing, when he addressed the nation flanked by the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser. The message was clear: this was a government that cherished, not rejected, experts. They were not going to be kept in a back room, but would be there to explain the reasoning behind all policy-making. But this new relationship between government and scientific establishment risks going sour. Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College advised the government that Covid-19, if left unconfronted, could take 500,000 lives: almost as many as are killed each year by all other causes put together.

The Spectator

2455: Shadow boxing solution

The unclued lights are the four Labour MPs who stood for election as Labour’s leader to succeed Jeremy Corbyn: 11, 18/12, 28/16 and 36/41. The red squares reveal ANGELA RAYNER, the deputy leader. First prize Sara MacIntosh, Darlington, Co.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Cancer deaths, A&E and the lockdown effect

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  Slogan update. After ‘Stay alert’ comes: ‘Keep our distance, wash our hands, think of others and play our part. All together.’Delays to cancer surgery will lead to almost 5,000 deaths, according to the Institute of Cancer Research. Analysis from Fraser Nelson below.The UK has sold government bonds with a negative interest rate for the first time ever: £3.75 billion worth, maturing in July 2023 with an average yield of -0.003%.Cambridge University said it will switch to online lectures in the next academic year.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: How many furloughed jobs will come back?

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the UK rose to 2.1 million in April in the biggest jump since records began in 1971.One in three private sector workers now has some of their wages paid for by the government.The official number of UK coronavirus deaths is now more than 44,000. The number of care home deaths is down 31% on the previous week, according to ONS data.Primary school pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 may return to school from 1 June.

Monday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Measuring the damage of lockdown school closures

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis Children from better-off families spend 30% more time on home learning than those from poorer families, according to new research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.Missing a third of a year of school could cut pupils’ lifetime earnings by 4%, a German study says. More below.More than 500,000 people have accessed a suicide prevention course over the past three weeks, according to a suicide prevention charity.Trains in England are running at increased frequency and stations have put in place crowd control measures.

Friday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Boris Johnson declares war on obesity to tackle the virus

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis Boris Johnson has declared war on fat as an increasing body of research suggests a link between obesity and Covid-19 deaths. James Forsyth has the details below.Some 20% of Londoners are thought to have caught Covid-19 and now less than 24 people a day in the capital are being infected with the virus, a Cambridge model predicts. This chimes with testing data below.The model also suggests that one in five children and one in nine adults – 6.5 million in total – are understood to have contracted the virus.

Thursday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Will antibody tests be a gamechanger?

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  The UK has approved a new antibody test for detecting Covid-19. Details below.It could take ‘many months’ to restart NHS services, according to experts from three leading think tanks. The news comes as A&E attendance fell to its lowest level on record.A study from the University of Manchester has claimed that 29% of the UK population may have already had Covid-19 by the end of April.Plans for the NHS Covid-19 tracing app have been leaked after officials put the documents online by mistake. Details below.

The Spectator

Reopening schools must be our first priority

It would be a tragedy if one of the legacies of Covid-19 — a disease which hardly affects children physically — was a widening of the already broad gap in educational attainment between rich and poor. But sadly, the damage is already well under way. Back in March, Britain was the European country most keen to keep its schools open in the face of the then-burgeoning number of Covid-19 cases. Now it is the other way around. In Denmark, primary schools have been open for a month. This week, children began to return to class in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Next week, schools will start to reopen in Belgium. Yet in Britain, the earliest date we have been given for reopening schools is 1 June, and then only for some children in primary schools.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Europe’s lockdowns ease, England stays alert and Broadway stays shut

Home The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus, save lives’. Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland refused to adopt it. The day after a 13-minute televised speech to the nation by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, the government published a 50-page Recovery Strategy. A 14-day quarantine would bind anyone entering the country (with exceptions, such as people from France). Everyone should continue to work from home if possible, but workplaces ‘should be open’, apart from those required to be closed.

The Spectator

What would a perfectly socially-distanced UK look like?

Safety first The government was criticised for its new coronavirus slogan, ‘Stay alert’. What are the most common safety slogans in use in workplaces?— ‘Safety is our number one priority’— ‘Safety is no accident’— ‘Take five and stay alive’— ‘The key to safety is in your hands’— ‘No safety, know pain’The word ‘alert’ doesn’t appear until number ten: ‘Stay alert, don’t get hurt’.Source: safetyrisk.

The Spectator

Letters: It’s not so easy to boycott Chinese goods

Jobs for all Sir: Charles Bazlington championed Universal Basic Income in last week’s magazine (Letters, 9 May). It is welcome to see innovative ideas being discussed at a time of unprecedented economic crisis. Might I suggest that if we wish to empower citizens, not just pay them, we instead look to provide employment via a National Job Guarantee? A guaranteed job at the living wage backed by the state and administered by national and local government as well as the charity and private sectors. This crisis has proved that people need not only money but purpose, camaraderie with colleagues, and the pride of a ‘job done well’; they want to provide for their families and contribute to society. We have plenty of work that needs doing.

The Spectator

2454: 17 Across Solution

The thirteen unclued lights are all breads, hence the puzzle’s real title at 17A. First prize Nicholas Grogan, Purley, SurreyRunners-up Clare Reynolds, London SE24; Mrs E.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: A £516 billion deficit?

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis A leaked Treasury report warns the UK could face a 1970s-style ‘sovereign debt crisis’ unless the Chancellor introduces new taxes, freezes public sector wages and ends the pensions triple lock. Details below.The UK economy contracted by 2% in Q1, the biggest drop since the financial crash.Self-employed workers can now apply for an income support grant of up to £7,500.Covid-19 hospital admissions are falling more slowly in the north of England than the rest of the country.

Sunday

The Spectator

Full Text: Prime Minister’s ‘roadmap’ to ease lockdown

Here is the full transcript of the Prime Minister's address to the nation: 'It is now almost two months since the people of this country began to put up with restrictions on their freedom – your freedom – of a kind that we have never seen before in peace or war. And you have shown the good sense to support those rules overwhelmingly. You have put up with all the hardships of that programme of social distancing. Because you understand that as things stand, and as the experience of every other country has shown, it’s the only way to defeat the coronavirus – the most vicious threat this country has faced in my lifetime. And though the death toll has been tragic, and the suffering immense. And though we grieve for all those we have lost.

Friday

The Spectator

Covid-19 update: Is lockdown working?

The Spectator brings you the latest insight, news and research from the front line. Sign up here to receive this briefing daily by email, and stay abreast of developments both at home and abroad. News and analysis  Britain will remain in lockdown until June at the earliest, according to theTimes. Meanwhile, No. 10 has been dampening hopes of a significant easing by Boris Johnson on Sunday.Germany has seen its Covid-19 cases rise the most in a week, as it prepares to reopen hotels, restaurants and non-essential shops.A leaked Whitehall report warned three years ago of the serious impact of a pandemic on care homes. Matt Hancock has responded: ‘Everything that was recommended was done.

Thursday

The Spectator

Track and trace should not be our only exit strategy

The concept of the state tracking our every movement is anathema to this magazine and, we assume, to its liberal former editor now resident in Downing Street. Nevertheless, such is the impasse over coronavirus that it is right the government should attempt to exit lockdown via the application of a voluntary ‘track and trace’ on mobile phones, trials of which began on the Isle of Wight this week. Track and trace appears to have worked for Asia so, given what’s at stake, it’s reasonable to try it here. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam — the countries which employed tracking and tracing from an early date — appear to have dealt with Covid-19 the most effectively, minimising the impact on their economics and societies.