Month: January 2021

by Sinéad Murphy Giorgio Agamben Universities have been dying for some time. As their prospectuses have grown glossier, their gateway buildings more spectacular and their accommodation for students more stunningly luxurious, the Humanities subjects have been gradually hollowed out. Academics’ intellectual work has been streamlined by the auditing procedures of the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ and by growing pressure to bid for outside funding, which is distributed to projects that address a narrow range of approved themes – Sustainability, Ageing, Energy, Inequality… Student achievement has been dumbed down by the inculcation of a thoughtless relativism – Everybody’s different; That’s just my interpretation – and by the annual inflation of grades. The curriculum has begun to be tamed by continual revision – never broad enough, never representative enough – and by the drive for ‘equality and diversity’. And teaching has been marginalized by the heavy requirements that it represent itself on ever proliferating platforms and review itself in endless feedback loops. Universities, in short, have been gradually transforming into what they proudly trumpet as a Safe Space, a space that has been cleared at greatest expense to Humanities subjects, a space in which the slightest risk – that a thought might lead nowhere, that a student might be uninterested, that an idea might offend or that a teacher might really persuade – ...

Lockdown Set to Last Beyond Easter The goalposts are moving yet again, according to reports in the papers today. The Mail has the story. Lockdown measures could last "beyond Easter" despite the rollout of the Covid vaccine after the deadliest day on record saw 1,610 new victims.Ministers have been warned that, with the possible exception of schools, there is unlikely to be any relaxation of the lockdown at the first formal "review point" in the middle of next month. Reports yesterday claimed that Boris Johnson was targeting Good Friday on April 2nd as the earliest date for a significant lifting of the lockdown.The PM has started "top secret" planning for millions to meet their families over Easter, according to the Sun.But several sources told the Mail that even this date could look optimistic if the vaccine rollout ran into difficulties.One attendee at a Government summit with business leaders on Monday claimed ministers had warned that heavy restrictions could remain until May or even June. Concerns yesterday grew that the rollout of the jab had already stalled as the number being vaccinated dropped for the third day in a row.Around 204,000 people were given their first dose, slumping from 225,000 on Sunday, 277,000 on Saturday and a high of 324,000 on Friday.  Meanwhile Britain maintains the worst Covid death rate in the world. Tuesday's new daily record marked a ...

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 ...

Welcome to the Hotel... Quarantine The Sunday Times reports that the UK is set to copy countries such as New Zealand and introduce mandatory hotel quarantine for all arrivals into the country, replacing what has hitherto been a requirement only to go home directly and self-isolate there: Ministers have ordered plans to be drawn up for a fresh crackdown at Britain’s borders to stop new variants of the coronavirus undermining the vaccination effort.Officials have been told to prepare for the creation of quarantine hotels for those arriving in Britain and to use GPS and facial-recognition technology to check that people are staying in isolation. This is a significant change in policy and comes as the Government is simultaneously downplaying suggestions that the various mutations of the virus may be resistant to the vaccine when talking about their ongoing roll-out of it to millions of Brits, and, at the same time, using precisely those fears to justify more travel restrictions. Last week officials were ordered to study New Zealand’s policy of “directed isolation”, where everyone arriving is charged for a stay at an airport hotel and forced to remain in isolation for two weeks.In Australia it is between 14 and 24 days, with travellers charged between £1,500 and £2,500. The UK Government is only considering a system where visitors pay the ...

by Ben Hawkins Ludwig Wittgenstein There’s an excellent Mitchell and Webb sketch in which a pair of ministerial aides are reporting back to their minister on potential solutions for dealing with a recession… “raising VAT, cutting VAT, raising interest rates, raising interest rates and VAT, lowering income tax and raising VAT”. But despite their efforts, they haven’t been able to land on anything – when their proposed measures are put through their computer models, none of them seems to work. Suddenly the minister interrupts. "Have you tried 'kill all the poor'?" When the shocked aides protest the minister replies, “I’m not saying do it, I’m just saying run it through the computer ­– see if it would work.” Whilst undoubtedly a broadside aimed at the austerity policies of the time, the sketch works as it highlights a feature of our moral reflexes that is often overlooked: for most moral agents with genuinely held moral beliefs, it is not enough to avoid doing wrong; to merely consider doing that wrong action feels like a moral transgression in and of itself. A serious moral agent, believing that killing people is wrong, would never consider running “kill all the poor” through the computer, as doing so would seemingly violate the principle of the sanctity of life which the belief in not killing people ...

Did the Virus Escape From the Wuhan Institute of Virology? The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province (AFP) In one of his last acts as President of the United States, Donald Trump has directed the US Department of State to issue a fact sheet about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the pandemic. Suffice to say it's a marmalade-dropper. For more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin, choosing instead to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation. Nearly two million people have died. Their families deserve to know the truth. Only through transparency can we learn what caused this pandemic and how to prevent the next one.The U.S. Government does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, was transmitted initially to humans. We have not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.The virus could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic. Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection. Scientists in ...

by Dr J In 1534, Parliament, under the influence of Thomas Cromwell, passed the Act of Supremacy and ‘recognised’ Henry VIII as the only supreme head of the Church in England. Later, and after many more convulsions, upheavals and a short lived return to Catholicism under his daughter Mary, there was recognised in England, an established Church. The Church in England, now with our good Queen as its head and perhaps only remaining adherent who remembers and believes what is in the Book of Common Prayer and 39 Articles, resulted from something no one thought would ever happen – a sudden and seeming overnight change and adherence to the new religion and its new rules. The CofE became the cultural and religious foundation for many years to follow, eschewing all things ‘papistical’ and embedding itself into society as its beacon and moral compass. Eventually, with the dawn of the 60s and the arrival of hip and cool vicars, it became an afterthought for many but not all. Occasionally some remember it is there. Vicars seem to have ceased to bother with the sort of preaching that helped those in the past to know how to live a good life and, just as importantly, how to have a good death.  Then, in 1948, arising out of perceived need, the National Health Service was born, ostensibly to be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery, based ...

New Travel Ban Reuters Another day, another press conference. This time the Prime Minister announced the closure of all travel corridors in order to shut out new Covid strains. The BBC has the details. The UK is to close all travel corridors from Monday morning to "protect against the risk of as yet unidentified new strains" of Covid, the PM has said.Anyone flying into the country from overseas will have to show proof of a negative Covid test before setting off.It comes as a ban on travellers from South America and Portugal came into force on Friday over concerns about a new variant identified in Brazil.Boris Johnson said the new rules would be in place until at least February 15th.A further 1,280 people with coronavirus have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive test, taking the total to 87,291.Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the Prime Minister said it was "vital" to take extra measures now "when day by day we are making such strides in protecting the population"."It's precisely because we have the hope of that vaccine and the risk of new strains coming from overseas that we must take additional steps now to stop those strains from entering the country."All travel corridors will close from 04:00 GMT on Monday. After that, arrivals to the UK will need ...

Steve Baker Demands Boris Publish a Freedom Plan Steve Baker, the Deputy Chair of the anti-lockdown Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of Conservative MPs, has issued a rallying cry to the group's members. The Sun has the story. In an explosive rallying call to fellow members of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, the ex-minister blasted: “People are telling me they are losing faith in our Conservative Party leadership.”The group represents dozens of Tory backbenchers who are worried about the side effects of long lockdowns.Mr Baker urged those colleagues to make their concerns directly to Mr Johnson’s Commons enforcer, Chief Whip Mark Spencer.In a bombshell note to MPs seen by the Sun, Mr Baker writes: “I am sorry to have to say this again and as bluntly as this: it is imperative you equip the Chief Whip today with your opinion that debate will become about the PM’s leadership if the Government does not set out a clear plan for when our full freedoms will be restored."He told them to demand "a guarantee that this strategy will not be used again next winter”.The major intervention reads: “Government has adopted a strategy devoid of any commitment to liberty without any clarification about when our most basic freedoms will be restored and with no guarantee that they will never be taken away again." The action appears to have been triggered ...