Day: 19 January 2021

With Brexit now in the rearview mirror, the Government is trying to figure out what to do with their newfound freedom. But since their plans are emerging against the backdrop of the lockdown, they tend to tip toward the absurd. We currently live in an upside-down world where the Treasury focuses on economic minutiae while ignoring the massive collapse that they have engineered with the lockdown strategy they have borrowed from communist China. The Government is looking at ways to deregulate the economy, something they think will boost productivity and competitiveness. But what they are finding is that much of the economy is already lightly regulated. Take finance, for example. Anyone with a smartphone can download an app in minutes and trade everything from stock market ETFs to foreign currencies. This is not a tightly regulated market. When they turn to the labour market, the Government focuses on the 48-hour workweek and rules around taking work breaks. This is hardly the sort of root-and-branch reform envisaged by the Thatcher government when faced with chronic inflation and strikes in the early-1980s. Yet, at the same time, we live under partial house arrest, risking a £200 fine for carrying the wrong beverage in a park and the high street has completely collapsed. The lockdown regulations we face daily are arguably worse than ...

Hancock Refuses to Commit to Opening Up After the Most Vulnerable Have Been Vaccinated Matt Hancock at yesterday's Covid Briefing Health Secretary Matt Hancock led yesterday's Covid press conference from Downing Street and struck a non-committal note regarding any timetable for exit from restrictions. Katy Balls in the Spectator has more. As ministers voice their hope that the country can start to lift restrictions from early March, questions are being asked as to when restrictions can go altogether and normal life resume. Members of the Tory Covid Recovery Group have argued that most restrictions should go as soon as the vulnerable are protected. While officials remain tight-lipped on the issue, Matt Hancock did offer an insight in today's press conference as to the key factors the Government will consider when making that decision. Announcing that over four million people have now been vaccinated in the UK, the Health Secretary urged the public not to blow it as the route out was clear. In the Q&A, he pointed to the factors that will decide when restrictions can go.The first clue came when Josh from Newcastle asked how much it would matter if there were a high surge of cases among young people once the vulnerable were vaccinated. This gets to the crux of the matter: once the most vulnerable are protected (the 20% of the population who account for ...