Chris Skidmore: Global Britain must lift its gaze beyond the sunlit uplands to the stars – and beyond
By seizing our moment, there is no better way of the UK demonstrating its belief in those famous words, per ardua ad astra.
Conservative MPs on when lockdown should end. “We should start on March 8.”
But as ever, trying to make out a consensus position is like trying to pick out a tune when a drunk pianist is playing a broken piano.
David Gauke: Ten years for lying on a form. Disproportionate – and characteristic of our cavalier approach to sentencing.
If we impose yet more draconian prison sentences to win a political arms race, the burdens on the taxpayer will become unsustainable.
“We have been terrific at pure research, and useless at translational research.” What our industrial strategy should aim to change.
The best way of thinking about it isn’t to fix one’s gaze on direct subsidies, but to look wider – at our failure to turn British ideas into British prosperity.
Profile: Nadhim Zahawi, vaccines minister and a rising star who knows what it is like to fall
When his family fell on hard times, education made the difference. Were there to be a vacancy in that department, he would be an obvious candidate.
Iain Dale: Why would any sensible person even think about booking a holiday in countries with low immunisation rates?
Plus: Twitter seems to know more about my medical state than my GP. And: Kuenssberg’s unguarded moment.
Ryan Shorthouse and Phoebe Arslanagic-Wakefield: Domestic abuse is everyone’s business
Employers, not just government, have an important role, to help victims – especially during this crisis.
The Great Reset (of property)
The pandemic offers the Government an inadvertent opportunity to “level up” Britain through the working from home revolution.
Stephen Booth: The main benefits of joining this Pacific trade partnership would be strategic
Future deals will be important but they should be viewed as a means to an end rather than an end in of themselves
Alan Mak: Industrial strategy. Focus narrowly and don’t spread thinly – concentrating on key innovative sectors.
The third piece in a ConHome mini-series this week on industrial strategy after the pandemic.
Bordering on impossible
There is no good option for Ministers – but it must be better to stop infected people entering the country rather than quarantining them afterwards.
Emily Carver: An online sales tax would be a clear-cut case of levelling down
The belief that by hammering one sector of the economy you’ll help another is more reminiscent of socialist ideology than free market conservatism.
Robert Halfon: Let’s extend the school day to help children catch up after Covid – and civil society can step in
Organisations should be invited in, to offer pupils professional mental health support, as well as sports activities and academic catch-up tuition.
John Macdonald: Are the Tories becoming the party of high taxes and picking industrial winners?
The second piece in a ConHome mini-series this week on industrial strategy after the pandemic.
Who’s in charge of the Government’s clattering China train? It’s heading for a crash.
Behind today’s genocide row about the Uighurs stand the Hong Kongers, Biden – and our own trade and security irresolution.