Locking down care homes risks the very lives we are trying to protect November 16, 2020 An overwhelming number of the UK’s elderly population are at risk — not just from Covid-19, but from our response to it. The recent news that Pfizer has developed an effective vaccine has been a source of optimism for millions, but mass immunisation is still a long way off. Many of our most elderly, especially [...]
Cronyism and incompetence: The government is undermining trust in the private sector November 10, 2020 It should surprise no one that a Conservative government turns to the private sector for the efficient delivery of services. Private enterprise is agile, responsive, innovative and provides good value for money (or at least, it can do), and public money should always be spent in the most effective way possible. This is the ideology [...]
Social media firms to crack down on Covid-19 vaccine disinformation November 9, 2020 Major social media platforms have agreed a package of measures with the government in an effort to limit the spread of disinformation about any Covid-19 vaccine. Following a meeting with health secretary Matt Hancock and digital secretary Oliver Dowden, Facebook, Twitter and Google endorsed the principle that no company should profit from false or misleading [...]
St Paul’s Cathedral awarded £2.1m in government funding November 7, 2020 St Paul’s Cathedral has been awarded £2.1m of government cash as part of a series of lifeline grants for cultural venues during the pandemic. The latest raft of government funding has seen more than £18m handed out to 182 cultural icons around the country. Thirty per cent of the money was awarded to London venues [...]
Bother: The startup looking to disrupt the grocery market October 30, 2020 The days of empty shelves and loo roll shortages seem a distant lockdown memory, but one London-based startup thinks it speaks to a wider problem within the UK’s grocery market. Startup Bother is on a mission to disrupt the saturated grocery market by offering what it considers to be a convenient and cheaper online alternative. [...]
Generation Covid are being denied the opportunities we all took for granted October 29, 2020 This week, a new study by the London School of Economics — the most comprehensive of its kind — confirmed our worst fears about the economically divisive impact of the pandemic. Any pretext that we are “all in this together” has been utterly dashed. According to the research, young people have seen their job prospects and earnings [...]
Forget the polls endorsing lockdowns and look at how people actually behave October 28, 2020 Economics is at long last storming the bastions of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). This citadel of epidemiologists and health professionals has for many months resisted the lessons which the so-called gloomy science can bring. In the context of Covid-19, economics is in fact a beacon of hope. This week, news broke of [...]
FC Nordsjaelland: How a Danish club’s global outlook has helped it to weather the Covid crisis October 23, 2020 An Englishman with no experience of running a football club and no track record in Scandinavia was always going to attract scepticism when he took over one of Denmark’s top teams. Throw in a wildly unconventional ownership model and radically idealistic notions of how the sport should be run and it is no surprise Tom [...]
Entrepreneurs don’t want Rishi’s restaurant handouts — they want to be allowed to do their jobs October 23, 2020 The Conversative Father Christmas — Rishi Sunak, to you and me — has visited once again. In a better-late-than-never display of magnanimity, the chancellor has finally realised that conditions in Tier 2 Covid areas — which now cover 26.7 million people — make operating impossible for thousands of businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector. Whereas [...]
When will the government stop hanging bars out to dry? October 23, 2020 “Dreadful evening, so many bookings cancelled, sent half the staff home” “So many cancellations after new announcements — no way we could police it.” “Much, much lower takings, any good momentum we had is gone.” This is the real, unfiltered voice of the hospitality industry. These direct quotes from our bars’ manager reports last Saturday [...]