Downing Street Parties

Boris Johnson fined by police over partygate.

— The British prime minister, his wife and the chancellor of the exchequer are all in legal trouble over lockdown gatherings. What happens next?

Analysis

What is a non-dom?

— An expert answers our questions about the tax status claimed by Rishi Sunak’s wife and other wealthy people.

COVID-19

My five-year-old is now eligible for a COVID vaccine – Should I get them immunised?

— Severe COVID disease is rare in children, but high case numbers are seeing more kids being affected. There is no such thing as a “mild hospitalisation”, especially when it’s your child on the ward.

Long-Read

Confusion abounds.

— Professor Chris Grey on the confusion of Boris Johnson with a national leader, confusions on all sides about P&O Ferries, confusions in the CBI’s attempts to get behind Brexit, and the different kinds of Brexit failure that shouldn’t be confused.

Long-Read

Vladimir Putin: A risk-taker who is gambling his country’s future.

— How did a young risk-taking politician take complete control of Russia and destabilise Europe and the US? Twenty years on, his dangerously aggressive and risky rule must be ended.

Analysis

P&O Ferries: How some companies can afford to break the law.

— Employment law is all at sea. Rich companies can simply choose to buy themselves out of the legal system.

Analysis

Caught COVID? What you should and shouldn’t do when self-isolation isn’t mandatory.

— The virus is still a threat. Be kind to yourself and others if you catch it because people will continue to get severely ill and die from COVID.

Brexit

Is Brexit being ‘cancelled’?

— With the war showing its pointlessness, and none of its promises delivered, most supporters of Brexit are falling silent. That will not make Brexit go away, though, so what might it lead to? Professor Chris Grey’s analysis.

Analysis

The sacking of 800 P&O staff shows just how precarious UK jobs can be.

— Zero hour contracts remove job security and impact workers’ health, finances and prospects.

Long-Read

Performative politics is gaslighting post-Brexit Britain.

— Professor Chris Grey looking at last week’s events in terms of the blurring of truth and lies that is in part a legacy of Brexit, and has strange parallels with Putin’s ‘spy’ mindset.

War in Ukraine

Ukraine: What might happen if the war spreads to a Nato country.

— Article 5 of the Nato treaty calls for collective defence if a member nation is attacked. But some Nato countries further from the conflict zone might be reluctant to send combat forces even in the event that Article 5 is triggered.

Long-Read

Ukraine and Brexit: Reminders, lessons and hopes.

— Of all the things to discuss in relation to the horrors of Ukraine, Brexit is low on the list. But there are multiple linkages, which Professor Chris Grey discusses as a series of reminders, lessons and hopes.

Analysis

Uptake of children’s COVID vaccines is low in the UK – and their slow, confused approval is to blame.

— Under a quarter of 12- to 15-year-olds are double vaccinated in the UK, while vaccines for younger children are still yet to be rolled out.

Brexit

The dogs that caught the car.

— Professor Chris Grey’s analysis on Rees-Mogg’s early stumbles, a discussion of Solvency II as a case of post-Brexit regulatory change, and Ukraine.

War in Ukraine

Sanctions can still make a difference – but only if done right.

— Economic warfare only works if it really hurts. If Putin’s inner circle and the Russian elite begin to see that their financial and political futures are better secured without conflict, they might seek to abandon it or try to negotiate their own defections.

COVID-19

Eight changes the world needs to make to live with COVID.

— There is no going back to a pre-pandemic normal – only forward to a new one. The world pre-2020 no longer exists.