Day: 13 November 2020

by Sinead Murphy On Tuesday night last week, my ten-year-old had his final football session before England entered upon its second national lockdown of 2020.  Fifteen young boys, cheeks glowing on a cold, dark night, sent back indoors, lest they infect someone by calling out for the ball or by tackling to defend their goal. Fifteen young boys and their coach, running about together on a football pitch in the brisk northern air – a health risk, it turns out.  Meanwhile, at the elite end of football, it is ‘safe’ to continue, the big clubs observing strict measures and administering tests for Covid as a daily routine.  There was resistance to the Government’s decision, a letter signed by over a hundred sports personalities. It was not successful; few rational interventions in this Covid year have been successful.  But even if it had succeeded, it would have granted only a brief reprieve from what seems to be an established pattern in football, emerging long before Covid was ever heard of. This pattern is worth our notice, because it is one thread in that knot of converging agenda that is the Covid crisis. It is: the assault on our physical lives.  COVID-19 is being widely proclaimed as the only assault on our physical lives that is currently worth our notice – it ...

Treasury Made No Forecast For Lockdown 2.0 SAGE say it's not their job to take into account the economic impact of lockdown. It's the Treasury's job. Why then has the Treasury now admitted that it produced no forecasts in the run up to the second lockdown? Why did SAGE on September 21st claim they were in hand? These were the questions MPs put to Treasury officials on Wednesday. Kate Andrews in the Spectator has the details. Chair of the Committee Mel Stride asked Clare Lombardelli, Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury, to comment on specific economic analyses conducted around lockdown restrictions, ranging from the closure of pubs, gyms and restaurants to "circuit breakers" and working from home directives. It was quickly revealed that no analysis has been done.Stride’s interest stemmed from SAGE meeting minutes dated September 21st, which referenced a "package of measures" that the Committee said "need to be adopted to reverse exponential rise in cases". These included some of the more radical measures implemented during the first lockdown, including changes to "working from home" rules, banning contact between households, the closure of hospitality and leisure sectors, and even the return of a (shorter) lockdown. In the minutes, SAGE states that the economic impact of these measures was being modelled by the Treasury: "Policy makers will need to consider analysis of ...