Leading article
Advisers advise – but it must be ministers who decide
From the outset of the Covid-19 crisis, the government was determined that scientists would play a central and highly visible…
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…
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…
The NHS has been protected – care homes have not
As the NHS was preparing for the Covid onslaught, thousands of hospital patients were discharged to care homes in an…
The case for trusting the public is stronger than ever
Our Plan is entirely new, comprising – 1. The whole News of the Week: selected, sifted, condensed and arranged as…
Trump has a point – the WHO has failed
The United States has long regarded itself as better prepared for a pandemic than any other country in the world,…
Difficult decisions about ending lockdown need Boris’s instinct and judgment
Ending the lockdown will require a leap of faith – one that can really only be made by the PM
One thing is missing from the government’s coronavirus response: an endgame
The failures of Britain’s pandemic planning have been brutally exposed in the past few weeks. The scandalous lack of protective…
The government must be as ready to remove restrictions as it was to impose them
For days, the Prime Minister had been resisting the kind of measures which have placed many other countries into lockdown,…
The cure to this crisis can be found in our communities
For the Chancellor to produce an emergency bailout package just six days after delivering his Budget is an extraordinary state…
Is Boris about to abandon his own debt rules?
It’s always tempting for governments to respond to economic trouble with a debt-fuelled spending splurge, but it’s a notoriously blunt…
The Tories cannot afford a war with the civil service
Thirteen years ago, when John Reid became Home Secretary, he declared the ministry he presided over ‘not fit for purpose’.…
The ‘Westminster paedophile ring’ is a lesson in how not to carry out a police investigation
A cornerstone of any -functioning democracy is the separation of police and the courts on one hand, and government and…
Britain is booming – despite Brexit
After the vote for Brexit, it was often said that our departure from the EU was most likely to harm…
Borrow-and-spend Boris risks repeating Gordon Brown’s mistakes
The nature of the Johnson government is still not clear, but has become more so with the announcement this week…
Boris must have the courage to spell out the true cost of ‘net zero’
After being sacked as the chairman of the COP26, the UN climate conference which is to take place in Glasgow…
Britain is taking on a new role – as the European Union’s strongest ally
The moment of Britain’s departure from the EU was always likely to be an anticlimax, both for those who expect…
Britain’s misguided approach to asylum is threatening lives
The news this week could easily have led with the deaths of 14 Afghan and Iraqi migrants in the English…
Treating oil companies as pariahs will kill off any green revolution
When fossil fuel divestment was merely a gesture by universities, the Church of England and the Prince of Wales it…
There will never be a better time for Tory radicalism. Is Boris ready?
What is the point of a Conservative majority? The answer might once have been to implement Conservative policies. But now…
Twelve things we’ve learned from the 2019 election
Britain’s parliamentary democracy is easily mocked: the medievalisms, the men in tights, the ayes to the right. But it has…
Politics has fractured along new fault lines – those elected must repair the cracks
It’s easy to see why the Labour party tried so hard to avoid this general election. They looked certain to…
This is the most important election in modern history – so vote, and vote Tory
Next week, voters will decide the future of the government, of Brexit, and perhaps of the Union. Jeremy Corbyn has…
Does safety-first Boris Johnson have any ambitions on the world stage?
There is a large vacuum at the heart of this general election campaign. Aside from the topic of our relations…
The Tories must be careful not to pave the way for Corbynism
To say one thing for John McDonnell, he shows a refreshing preparedness to use a general election to lay out…
