This government has a lot of problems piling up. There are pressing issues with the economy, Brexit and above all, still, Covid. There is now a mounting anxiety at worst of a second wave and at best a series of regional, local and sectional lock downs. There are high hopes for a vaccine and reports […]
Suddenly the back to normal by Christmas theme has vanished. While yet far from a wave, there is certainly a Covid surge in parts of Europe and in England, mainly in the North. Boris, minus some of his bounce, cancels at little more than a moment’s notice, most of the extra restrictions which were to […]
We are hit by the effects of Covid 19, which has subsided for the moment, but it has very not gone away. We have to face a stupendous economic challenge of the biggest recession in three hundred years. We are thundering down the track to a no deal Brexit. So we need all the friends […]
The latest miss-step of the Boris campaign (government is not really the right word) is that the daily death rate is found to be so badly wrong that the information has been withdrawn pending the outcome of another irritating ‘review’. Our problem is that ministers are at sixes and sevens over a wide range of […]
Public Services and Frontline Workers During the unique (thus far) pandemic emergency it has been striking and heartening to witness how ordinary frontline workers, not just in the NHS, have kept going, at varying levels of personal risk, to keep the fabric of our integrated and civilised society working. The NHS staff, right at the […]
According to most reports the answer appears to be yes, with both businesses and the public careful to stick to the rules. As expected a small minority abandoned social distancing as the booze began to flow. That resulted in general overcrowding of streets and public spaces in some areas. This may lead to a spike […]
It was trailed and trumpeted. It was well delivered in the heroic barnstorming style. He likened himself to FDR and his 1930s New Deal. Sadly Boris did not impress many, if any. There was grand rhetoric but next to no money. £5 billion for repairs and stuff and a lot of talk about building. But […]
He has to deliver. Next Tuesday he is booked to make a widely trailed speech themed that, post lockdown, there will be no return to austerity. Instead the government will pour huge sums into infrastructure projects, in the hope that it can invest its way out of the unfolding economic crisis. There will be no […]
A new Report sets out out in pretty forensic detail the many reasons why Labour lost in the general Election of 2019. A central theme is that, starting from the early Blair Government years, the bedrock working class base in the crumbling former industrial heartlands, was drifting away, often towards a sullen refusal to come […]
Following through on the vexed education issue, including a briefing from a front line teacher, it is clear to me that the present directives from the government are unrealistic except in the very short term. At the beginning of the pandemic the government was cavalier in its attitude to the risks and over confident in […]