SubscriptionsCategory: UK Politics
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: The Dysfunction Fuelling the UK’s Care Home Epidemic
Former MP Paul Farrelly investigates how disjointed responses by turf-minded authorities in one English county reflect a nationwide pattern at the heart of the country’s nursing home crisis.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Will Our COVID-19 Lockdown Make Us think More About Why We Imprison So Many People?
Duncan Campbell discusses how the words ‘lockdown’ and ‘stir-crazy” were an all too familiar reality for a section of our society long before the Coronavirus pandemic appeared.
-
Disappearing Cities: Soho — Gangsters, artists, brothels and landlords
Chris Sullivan, the founder of the famous Wag Club, looks at the history of London’s Soho district and how greed and acquisition replaced art and conviviality.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Keeping Faith with NHS Volunteers While Community Initiatives Blossom
Stephen Colegrave investigates whether the NHS Volunteer Responders scheme is working and discovers an amazing array of local and community initiatives.
-
Boris Johnson Said ‘Superman’ Brexit Britain would Take Advantage of COVID Pandemic and Go Its Own Way – Seven Weeks Before Lockdown
In new comments unearthed by Byline Times from a speech the Prime Minister delivered in early February, Johnson said COVID-19 would cause “real and unnecessary economic damage” beyond “what is medically rational”.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Take Back Control
Molly Scott Cato argues that the public-school approach of fighting COVID-19 like a wartime enemy results in needless casualties and no exit strategy.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: We Must Commit Now to a Public Inquiry to Uncover the Truth on COVID-19
Brian Cathcart explains why political parties should back calls in a letter published today in the Financial Times to commit right now to holding a public inquiry into the UK’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Government Not Classing Over-60s as At-Risk as UK Not a ‘Developing Nation’
Why is the UK only defining those over-70 as requiring shielding during the Coronavirus pandemic, in contradiction to guidance from the World Health Organisation?
-
Labour Must Build a New Coalition Under Keir Starmer to Win Again
Mike Buckley gives his take on what the Labour Party now needs to think about in terms of identity, class and the Coronavirus crisis.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: The UK Was Not in a Healthy State Before this Pandemic Descended
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, gives his take on how the next decisions can be made on the UK’s lockdown, the lack of press scrutiny and why the Government’s ‘goal’ of keeping deaths to 20,000 may be affecting their reporting
-
PANDEMONICS: The False Choice Between National Wealth and National Health
Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King’s College London, explains why we don’t need to turn a health crisis into an economic depression.
-
Did Experts Fail to “Speak Truth to Power” Over ‘Targeted Herd Immunity’?
Hardeep Matharu speaks to a NHS consultant about how the politics of inevitability infected the UK Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
-
‘A National Scandal’: A Timeline of the UK Government’s Woeful Response to the Coronavirus Crisis
Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read with comprehensive countdown to how Britain came to have one of highest COVID-19 per capita death rates in the world.
-
Coronavirus: We Must Resist this Exercise in Hypernormalisation
Hardeep Matharu warns against becoming numb to the constructed reality being created by politicians as the UK gets to grips with the immense human cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.
-
COVID-19 SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Leaked Home Office Call Reveals Government wants Economy to ‘Continue Running’ as ‘We Will All Get’ COVID-19 Anyway
Nafeez Ahmed reports on Home Office private advice suggesting a ‘zombie herd immunity’ policy risking hundreds of thousands of deaths.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Does COVID-19 Prove Women Are Best Suited to Lead in a Crisis?
New Zealand and Germany have been commended for their approaches to tackling the Coronavirus pandemic – does the fact that both are led by females hold the key to their success?
-
Nightingale Hospitals Are an Amazing Achievement – But What About Aftercare?
Stephen Colegrave reports ON a new paper that explains what COVID-19 intensive care survivors need to regain their physical and mental health
-
Democracy in the UK – How Worried Should We Be?
Mike Buckley observes how authoritarian takeovers are often led by elected incumbents and finds worrying signs in Boris Johnson’s populist approach.
-
Life on the Covid-19 Frontline: Only the Brave
Mark Conrad talks to senior staff about the risks faced by NHS workers tackling the Coronavirus – and precisely why hospitals become virus “hotspots”
-
Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet: Talking About a New Generation
Former Labour MP Ian Lucas explains how the party’s fresh frontbench team is not Ed Miliband revisited.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Hit it Hard. Hit it Early. New Zealand‘s Response to COVID-19 Puts the UK Government to Shame
James Melville on the fast response of Jacinda Ardern’s Administration which puts the UK Government to Shame
-
Love and Kindness in the Time of a Pandemic
Lee Hudson, a paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital, reflects on his positive experiences of the COVID-19 crisis and finds hope.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Disinformation Rings True As Our Pandemic of Untruth Continues
Musa Okwonga explores why conspiracy theories are finding such an audience and what this exposes about the worrying state of our democracy and the social contract.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: We Must Confront Grave Matters No Matter How Uncomfortable They Are
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, explains why it is wise to give thought during the COVID-19 pandemic to those life and death concerns we never usually want to confront.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: ‘Global Surveillance in Response to COVID-19 Surpassing 9/11’
Campaigners warn that it would be short-sighted for governments to allow efforts to save lives in the COVID-19 outbreak to destroy fundamental rights in societies.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: A “Distraction” of the Government’s Own Making – Why ‘Herd Immunity’ Won’t Go Away
A concept first discussed publicly by the Government itself, the Health Secretary is trying to put the genie back in the bottle – something which must not be allowed when people’s lives are the cost.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Statistics are Patients with the Tears Wiped Off
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, considers the fateful legacy of the Atlético Madrid-Liverpool football match and the Cheltenham races.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Herd Immunity has Infected UK Policy – But Who Was Patient Zero for this Toxic Transatlantic Idea?
Peter Jukes finds more evidence that the origin of the disastrous concept can be traced back to the Prime Minister’s chief advisor Dominic Cummings and his US links.
-
Social Distancing With Scarlet Fever: COVID-19 Brings Back Memories of my Mother’s Childhood Isolation in a Fever Hospital
Stephen Colegrave gains new insight into his mother’s diaries about her time in isolation with Scarlet fever during her wartime evacuation in Scotland.
-
Disaster Capitalism: Conservative Party Donor Cashes in on UK Government-Made PPE Shortages Amidst COVID-19 Crisis
Nafeez Ahmed reports on a new contract with the giant haulage firm whose executive chairman has donated nearly £1 million to the Conservatives.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: The Government Must Go Much Further to Protect Workers and Business
Mike Buckley considers the disadvantages of the Government schemes announced to support the employed and self-employed and whether a universal basic income might be the way forward.
-
Art in the Coronavirus Crisis: When the Cows Come Home
Otto English is given exclusive access to an innovative new project to celebrate the best of British talent.
-
Editorial: The Nation’s Immune System and the Cost of Lies
On Byline Times’ first anniversary, a big thank you to all our readers and subscribers for your support.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Can Rishi Sunak Win the Peace, Not Just Fight the War?
Gareth Roberts argues that the Chancellor must not revert to type after the COVID-19 pandemic eases and preside over the continued under-funding of public services.
-
The Year of Living Distantly: The Cost of Love
John Lubbock describes his enforced separation from his wife during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he believes lays bare once more the hostile environment the UK has cultivated.
-
‘Behind Closed Doors Johnson and his Cabinet Do Not Applaud the NHS – They Ideologically Oppose It’
From his time working with Brexit and Conservative lobby groups, Shahmir Sanni argues that the people in power in the UK actually despise social services, despite their praise of them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Already Vulnerable Groups Should Not Be Forgotten in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dr John Ashton with his update on UK developments on the Coronavirus and the side-effects we are overlooking.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Why Are Lies More Attractive than Science?
Sarah Haque explores the gap between expert and public understandings of science and why this poses such challenges in times of public health crises such as the Coronavirus pandemic.
-
Twitter Cannot Keep Hiding Behind Blanket Anonymity
Why are social media companies so reluctant to accept the harm caused by allowing users to set up anonymous accounts?
-
Listen to Joey: How the Most Vulnerable Can Show Us the Way in this Crisis
Stephen Unwin shares his experience of not being able to see his son Joey due to the COVID-19 outbreak and what he believes Joey can teach us in moments such as these.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: More Austerity Doesn’t have to be the Answer to a COVID-19 Recession
Stephen Colegrave on why using austerity to justify the right-wing claim that the ‘cure is worse than the disease’ is so damaging in the fight against the Coronavirus.
-
Life on the COVID-19 Frontline: Hospitals Warned to ‘Operate at Four Times Capacity’
Doctors outside London describe the “calm before the storm” as the capital deals with a Coronavirus “tsunami”.
-
The Coronavirus Crisis: Oxford Model Touting ‘Herd Immunity’ was Promoted by PR Agency Tied to Ministry of Defence and Nudge Unit
Nafeez Ahmed reports on the story behind a new study suggesting that nearly half of the UK population may already have been infected with the Coronavirus and claims that this could provide ‘herd immunity’.
