Day: 10 April 2021

We're publishing a new essay by Guy de la Bédoyère about the cautiousness that is preventing the Government from being more bold. Guy traces it to the cautiousness of the modelling teams.

With approval of the Government's handling of the vaccine rollout standing at 72%, the Tories have extended their lead over Labour up to nine points, according to new polling by Opinium.

Many areas across England have now gone months without enough Covid cases to justify the publication of their data – but will the Prime Minister honour his pledge of follow "data not dates"?

Professor Denis Rancourt, whose paper reviewing research on the harms of masks had been viewed more than 200,000 times, has been banned from academic publishing site ResearchGate for discouraging the use of masks.

A Lockdown Sceptics’ reader imagines a letter he might get from Boris in the run up to May 6th listing his "achievements", i.e. transforming our vibrant democracy into a 'safety first' dictatorship.

There follows a letter that Paul Bird, a Lockdown Sceptics' reader, imagines getting from Boris Johnson in the run up to the May 6th local elections. Dear Voter, At the election in December 2019, just 16 months ago, you weighed up the competing offers of the Conservative Party – sound economic policy, living within our means, reducing the burden of the state on the British people; and the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn – a creeping increase in state power, loss of freedoms, and unsustainable spending pushing up the national debt. You overwhelmingly chose the former and handed a landslide victory to the Conservatives. I am immensely grateful to you for putting your trust in me to deliver on the promises we made. With the local elections coming up in May I would urge you to consider this Conservative Government’s achievements since coming to power. I hope this impressive list will convince you to ‘Vote Conservative!’ in the election. Here’s what we have done: Fundamentally modified the British Constitution to break the link between Parliament and the Executive. Removed all those famous but irritating ‘safeguards’ and ‘checks and balances’ on Government power.Put the entire population into house arrest, including eight million in solitary confinement.Severed the links between family members and between friends.Closed down all social structures and cultural activity to ...

Lockdowns across 2020 alone cost British "non-essential" retail £22 billion in lost sales, according to a new analysis by the British Retail Consortium.

Europe's medicines regulator is reviewing possible links between blood clots and the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine. The UK has ordered 30 million doses of the jab, but it has not yet been approved by its regulator.

A summary of all the most interesting stories that have appeared about the virus in the past 24 hours – not just in Britain, but around the world.