Cheer up, crisis and trauma can spur positive growth June 9, 2020 Do you have a corona-buddy — someone you can talk to about your experiences during the pandemic and its aftermath? Psychologists suggest that a post-pandemic buddy system might help us get back to some sense of normality at work and in life. For many of us, the pandemic has been a traumatic experience. Even for [...]
Is the government brave enough to let markets fix the social care crisis? June 9, 2020 We have all seen, with the direst of consequences, the deficiencies of the current social care system. As Covid-19 has raged through the UK, tens of thousands have died in under-resourced, under-invested, and ill-designed care homes. With the focus in those early weeks on protecting the NHS at all costs, central planners sent potentially infectious [...]
DEBATE: Is the proposal to suspend Sunday trading laws misguided? June 9, 2020 Is the proposal to suspend Sunday trading laws for a year misguided? Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, says YES. Shop workers have been at the forefront of responding to our needs during this crisis. They immediately stepped up to meet the demands in their communities to ensure that everyone was able to receive [...]
The new counter-terror bill threatens our civil liberties and our justice system June 9, 2020 As More points out to Roper in A Man For All Seasons, if you flatten all the laws in England to get to the devil, you will have no protection when he turns round to meet you. This often goes to the heart of questions of individual liberty. You may one day need to rely [...]
The quarantine isn’t just absurd – it could be unlawful too June 8, 2020 Priti Patel’s new quarantine, which comes into force today, has sparked fresh fury from Britons who brand the measures as “too little too late”. I believe that the tardiness of these restrictions is by no means a clumsy error — it looks like a pricey, harmful stunt. Back in March, the UK blindly followed other [...]
Quarantine will hit the City’s vital connections June 8, 2020 Starting today, people coming into the UK from overseas by plane, train or ferry are being told they must self-isolate for 14 days – or risk a fine of up to £1,000 or prosecution. The Government’s new quarantine policy, which was set out by the Home Secretary last week, has raised a number of concerns [...]
DEBATE: Should we be worried about the privacy issues around the contact tracing app? June 8, 2020 Should we be worried about the security and privacy issues around the government’s contact tracing app? Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, says YES. The government’s contact tracing strategy raises many questions and offers few answers. Why does the UK government, unlike other democracies, want a state-controlled contact tracing app? Why do they want [...]
Can the Boris government really avoid Austerity the sequel? June 8, 2020 There is still a widespread view that austerity at the start of the last decade was somehow a political choice — that David Cameron and George Osborne (remember them) thrust the term into the political discourse simply as an ideological excuse to shrink the size of the state. But far from being a political smokescreen, [...]
IP lock-out: Is Britain handing the EU the keys to a billion-pound industry? June 8, 2020 We are getting close to crunch point in the Brexit negotiations. Last week saw the culmination of the final round of talks between the EU and the UK ahead of the 30 June deadline to agree an extension to the transition period. Given the glacial progress so far, a sudden breakthrough appears highly unlikely, with [...]
Putting out the fire in America June 6, 2020 Following almost two weeks of nationwide riots in the US in response to the sickening murder of George Floyd by a brutal Minneapolis police officer, this week I could in good conscience write of nothing else. Now is the time for the bravery to alienate both “sides”. Now is the time for truth-telling if the [...]