Politics

"We know children carry the virus, we don't know the degree they transmit it to adults, we also don't yet know how rare it is for children to have this delayed, inflammatory, multi-syndrome condition which means that some weeks after exposure to the virus they have this severe inflammatory reaction." … [Read more...] about Primary schools and nurseries will reopen in one week despite fears it’s unsafe

“I would not want to claim all regulation is perfect,” says Tony Yates, professor of economics at the University of Birmingham, “but the positive case for it often does not get a hearing. Sometimes, as with food safety, health and safety, and fire regulations, they are there as a way of solving a problem of information-collection – how safe is this thing I’m going to do or buy? – that some may be ill-equipped to do themselves, or it may be inefficient for them to have to do. We can all avoid being food safety experts if the state does it for us. At other times they avoid what economists call an externality – so fire safety regulations are partly there because the cost of one builder deciding to cut corners is borne not just by them but by all around.” … [Read more...] about ‘Deadlier than terrorism’ – the right’s fatal obsession with red tape

But privately many Tory MPs and ministers were dismayed. The police, while cautious in public, were in private clearly furious. Scientists were incredulous and civil servants confided fears that Cummings was completely out of control. One senior mandarin said the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill should investigate whether Cummings had breached the civil service code by so clearly going against the spirit of government policy, at a time of and on a matter of, national emergency. “Someone should be asking if Cummings’s behaviour was consistent with the civil service code, and if not what are they going to do about it?” said the civil servant. … [Read more...] about In private, Tories were dismayed. In public, they rallied to save Dominic Cummings

“We take the view that the vote in June was a vote for departure from the European Union. It was not a vote for destination,” he said. “There should not be a stitch-up between Whitehall and Brussels over the content of our new relationship with Europe. The British people should have this final say.” … [Read more...] about Final Brexit deal must not be Whitehall ‘stitch-up’, says Lib Dem leader

German asylum scandal: A timeline Seehofer to face parliamentary committee German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer meanwhile confirmed that he would testify before a special meeting of the Bundestag internal affairs committee to be convened at the request of the Green Party. The committee hopes to avoid a full-blown parliamentary investigation, which two other opposition parties — the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the center-right FDP — are calling for. … [Read more...] about How Germany’s BAMF refugee agency became a ‘political scapegoat’