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SubscriptionsCategory: UK Politics
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Public Health England – Fit for Purpose in a Pandemic?
As the UK struggles to meet its Coronavirus testing targets, and care home deaths triple, former MP Paul Farrelly takes an in-depth look at the agency fronting the response. Work is still ongoing, despite lockdown, at the New Frontiers Science Park outside the challenged Essex town of Harlow, the site of Public Health England’s planned…
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The Coronavirus Crisis: ‘Following the Science?’ – Boris Johnson and his Government Should Look in the Mirror
The Secret Scientist starts her new insider series for Byline Times by reminding us that there is not just ‘one science’, and its validity rests on constant probing and peer review.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: The UK’s Forgotten Asylum Seekers
Cut off from public funds, with rising food prices and diminishing charity support, Jonathan Fenton Harvey reveals the plight of refugees during the COVID-19 lockdown.
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The Government is Giving Away Your Money to the Mail and the Sun
The stench of corruption could hardly be stronger, says Brian Cathcart, on the bung Boris Johnson’s Government is giving to his employers in the British press.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Patrolling Hearts and Minds? A ‘Red Alert’ Surveillance Warning to the World
Steve Shaw reports on how concerns are already being raised about the introduction of new intrusive surveillance regimes being installed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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When the Political Becomes Personal: A Domestic Row Over COVID-19
Christina Patterson on how the contradictory and unreliable health advice from the UK Government over the Coronavirus crisis is causing tensions at home.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: The Prime Minister Is Not Immune from Scrutiny – Despite what his Cheerleaders Say
With calls being voiced for journalists not to criticise the Government over its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, Otto English explores why this has never been more essential.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: The Public May Not Be Happy with the Government’s Media Critics – But We Must Not Stop Scrutinising
Editor of Scram News, Sam Bright, explains why the notion that critical journalists are the problem in this crisis has to be swiftly rejected.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: ‘We’ve Followed the Science’ – The Ultimate Revenge on the Experts We’ve ‘Had Enough Of’?
Hardeep Matharu explores how those at the heart of Government have quickly switched from deriding experts to loving them – and why this volteface may not be so benign.
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Costs to Spruce Up Big Ben Spiral by 176% in Four Years
David Hencke on a damning report by the National Audit Office revealing how poor oversight, weak governance and high staff turnover have ramped up costs.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Documents Reveal Government and NERVTAG Breached Own Scientific Risk Assessment Guidance
Evidence investigated by Nafeez Ahmed and Rupert Read shows UK pandemic planning broke the ‘precautionary principle’
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Who is the Government Trying to Fool – Us or Itself?
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, explores how the Government has communicated with the public during the COVID-19 outbreak and why the true scale of the crisis is being hidden.
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Could COVID-19 Bring with it a New Inclusive Englishness?
Former MP John Denham considers the return of the nation state, British myths and how the Coronavirus crisis could help forge a new national story for England.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: A New Age of Anxiety
NHS worker Nathan O’Hagan, who has experienced issues with anxiety for most of his life, explores how people who never previously thought about feelings of unspecified dread are now having to contend with them because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Palantir Coronavirus Contract Did Not Go to Competitive Tender
David Hencke reveals that the UK Government’s COVID-19 contract with the data surveillance firm owned by Donald Trump-backer Peter Thiel was approved under an obscure statutory instrument.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: When Did the NHS Become a Charity?
To celebrate the first week of Yorkshire Bylines, a regional news site developed by YesWeWork using the Byline Times news template, Richard Sadler celebrates the formidable Captain Moore.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: The UK’s Perplexing Approach to COVID-19 – As Viewed from Hong Kong
Stuart Heaver reports from Hong Kong on the contrasting approach taken on the island to the Coronavirus pandemic – and the lessons the UK should have learned from it.
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BREAKING: Number of Frontline Health and Care Staff who have Died Reaches 100 as PPE Row Intensifies
Byline Times and Nursing Notes collaborate to pay tribute to the staff who have lost their lives during the battle against COVID-19 — but political questions over personal protective equipment remain.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: ‘Putting Your Hands Up and Admitting When You Have Got It Wrong is the Only Way to Get It Right’
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, provides his take on where the web of deceit being spun at the very heart of Government is going to lead us all.
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In Asking for Public Subsidies the Press Should Live by the Rules they Apply to Harry and Meghan
Brian Cathcart explains why the press asking for public money to help them through the Coronavirus pandemic must follow the same reasoning they applied to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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”.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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‘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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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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”
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
