But the details need to be worked out The main pandemic story for several of the tabloids this morning is the announcement that the government is building up an army of NHS volunteers to help in the fight against the coronavirus In a way this is simply building and what is already happening. I’m in my mid 70s and even before the announcement notes were being popped through the door about an effort by some people in our street to…
Women finding it harder than men New polling just published by Ipsos-MORI gives us a good snapshot of how the Britain is coping with the coronavirus crisis. Some key details: Women are significantly more likely to be finding it harder. Three-quarters (72%) are struggling to look forward to the future compared to around half of men (51%). Youngsters are also finding it harder to be positive. Two-thirds (67%) of 18-34-year olds are finding it more difficult, while only half (54%) of…
My overnight bet that he won’t be the nominee What has become a truism in the fight for the US presidency is that Joe Biden’s biggest problem is Joe Biden. The current tight odds-on betting favourite who is 77 year old and on his third bid for the presidency has for decades been regarded as gaffe-prone but some recent instances suggest that he might be afflicted by cognitive decline. So far the Democrats are so keen on ousting Trump that…
Johnson should restructure the government as soon as the Lab leadership election is over If the Covid-19 virus were a sentient enemy, we’d credit it with having pulled off a rather neat trick. The scale of the crisis calls for the government to be granted extraordinary powers with which to combat that enemy: to be able to close down large parts of economic and social life – yet that abundance of power must come almost unchecked by parliamentary oversight because…
One person who is having a good coronavirus crisis is the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak who is now 5/2 favourite to become the next Prime Minister with SportingIndex leapfrogging LAB leader hopeful Kier Starmer in the betting. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was praised last week for his rousing speech detailing how local businesses and households would be supported during the Coronavirus outbreak, which has led the betting firm to slash his odds from 9/1 to 5/2. Sir Kier Starmer, who was…
The potential of the coronavirus crisis to change our politics One of the great ironies of the current fight against the coronavirus is that the prime minister overseeing the biggest clampdown on personal liberties in peacetime is Boris Johnson who as a journalist made a name for himself by taking on what he would often term the “Nanny State”. The headline that stands out on this morning’s front pages is that in the Daily Telegraph the paper that Boris used…
The question is how does this end? By any standards the live TV broadcast by Boris Johnson tonight was with without precedent in peacetime given how it takes away a huge amount of the freedom and discretion enjoyed by the individuals with the aim of impeding the impact of the coronavirus. Looking back we were being prepared for this over the past few days and in many ways it is less rigid than perhaps some of us had feared. I…