News that military personnel will be helping with the rollout of Covid vaccinations may have been billed in some quarters as Boris Johnson ‘sending in the army’, but the truth is that the Armed Forces have always been an integral part of our pandemic response. As you would expect during an unprecedented civil emergency, the […]
Every person infected with Covid is a viral breeding ground, and we now have more people infected than at any point in the pandemic so far. The virus makes lots of errors in duplicating itself, and while most of those errors lead to non-viable variants or insignificant changes; some of these mutations will generate more […]
New year, new lockdown. I’m instinctively sceptical that such severe restrictions on our lives can ever be justified, but two factors have surely tipped the balance in their favour. The first, of course, is the far more rapid transmission of the new Covid variant. This has increased the benefits of locking down, as the risk […]
Faced with the twin problems of NHS staff shortages and slow vaccine rollout, the fact that 50,000 retired medics have volunteered their services should be a boon. Yet so far, very few of them have actually been used. A major problem, highlighted in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, is the perennial bugbear of ‘red […]
Welcome to the New Year, same as the old one. If 2020 will go down as an annus horribilis, the first few months of 2021 don’t look much better at the moment. What hope there is for a return to normality rests on a speedy and efficient vaccination programme. The UK ought to be ahead of the […]
So here we are again, arguing about whether schools should be closed. Just as they did in March, June, September and November, the teaching unions are showing how little value they place on children’s education. It’s not surprising that Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, should be so passionate about the need for schools to stay […]
Not having sex has long been central to the English national character, and 2020 was no exception. Indeed, for much of last year ‘the clap’ referred exclusively to a solemn Thursday night ceremony performed for the encouragement of our medical professionals. But in the Covid era, have we taken the restraint too far? After all, […]
Over the course of the coronavirus nightmare the Government has repeatedly failed to publish impact assessments and explain how it arrived at a particular policy measure or restriction. When it did finally share the long-awaited cost-benefit analysis of the tier system (after weeks of pressure from Tory MPs), it turned out to be a dossier […]
At 3pm UK time on Christmas day, the Queen’s Christmas message is broadcast across the Commonwealth. Each year the format is largely the same, with the Queen giving her own account of the main personal, national and international events of the year and reflecting on the meaning of Christmas. As such, it has become an […]
We have heard it often enough: Christmas will be quite different this year, in the same way that this year has been quite different. Europe is now almost entirely locked down. Restaurants and pubs, recreational places, and retail stores are closed. Gatherings have been drastically capped to a handful of people. This is well known, […]
For our final CapX Pocast of the year, it’s time to take a look back at this absolute car-crash of a year. Rather than the usual tête-à-tête, we decided to make this a bit more of a panel show format, with each of our guests choosing their hero, villain, moment, policy and idea of the […]
With Government and medical advice changing by the minute, we asked CapX writers what they’re actually planning to do this Christmas and what’s influenced their decisions. Christopher Snowdon I’ll be travelling from one Tier 2 area with a low infection rate to another Tier 2 area with a low infection rate, and if those swineherds […]
I was hoping for a little bit of peace and quiet this Christmas, instead the chap who used to lead the Labour Party has promised us a last minute present that no-one has asked for — a Project for Peace & Justice. In a video released at the weekend, Jeremy Corbyn said that he thinks […]
In Sweden, it seems a long time since February and March, when government ‘experts’ believed herd immunity was only weeks away. Here was the only nation in the world tackling the coronavirus crisis “scientifically”, without the strict lockdowns hobbling other economies. In doing so, Sweden became an unlikely cause célèbre for libertarians the world over, […]
In March, as coronavirus strengthened its grip on our lives and ravaged the health of our families, friends and neighbours, there was a clear message from government: we’re all in this together. Yet policies and rules currently enforced by the same government are preventing asylum seekers who want to play – and penalising immigrants who […]
While most of us have been fixated on the arrival of a vaccine, Boris Johnson has announced what he hopes will be a shot in the arm of a rather different kind. To relatively little fanfare, the Prime Minister has once more ramped up his already ambitious target for decarbonising the British economy. We will, […]
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