Ryan Bourne: What is the Government using the shutdown for?

Absent a clearly articulated strategy business uncertainty will heighten, and severe non-compliance is risked

Daniel Hannan: The abuse, outrage and viciousness is hurled overwhelmingly at those of us who back ending the lockdown

A common threat, especially in the form of a pathogen, flicks switches in our brains, making us less tolerant of dissent.

Iain Dale: Swinson’s revoke policy disincentivises more Conservative defections

Plus: Why won’t Corbyn come on LBC and give an interview? He hasn’t done once since becoming Labour leader.

Daniel Hannan: That Brexit film works as drama. But it doesn’t as history. I should know. I was there.

The real flaw in Graham’s film was the implication that Vote Leave won by turning the European question into something else.

Interview: James Kirkup on trans. And how campaigners have exploited MPs’ fear of being accused of transphobia.

And he asks: why did the Women and Equalities Select Committee choose an adviser open to the charge of being parti pris?

Iain Dale’s Top 100 Most Influential People on the Conservative Right

In all, there are 30 new entries in the whole list, one down on last year and two down on the 2016 record of 33.

Rebecca Lowe: What Alfie Evans, an IVF-conceived child and the abortion pill all have in common

These concerns, however, often only add to the need for us to remain ethically and democratically engaged, particularly regarding the most emotive cases.

Rebecca Lowe: Gender pay, childcare, flexibility, robots – and the future of work

To my mind, once some kind of base fairness has been established, then it’s best to leave cultural transformations down to demand.

Pro-Remain Cabinet Minister “wants Gove as Chancellor”

Though if May moves Philip Hammond, or seeks to, she is also likely to move Boris Johnson, or try to.

Loudspeaker politicised reactions to tragedies must not be allowed to drown out democracy

Justified calls for a national government’s overthrow are usually confined to those in which there is a serious threat of tyranny or the breakdown of civil order.

Douglas Carswell: An electoral drift to the Left? Not really. The Left isn’t thriving. It’s dying.

From Spain to Italy to America, parties of organised labour are in trouble. The blue collar base didn’t come out for them – and may not come out for Corbyn either.

May’s maids. Watch the Prime Minister’s show-not-tell drive for more women Conservative MPs.

The selections in the two Tory-held seats to date have both been won by women; and there is at least one woman on the shortlist of every such seat yet to select.

Lewis Baston: By-elections – and what has happened in those in which the MP has resigned his seat

The story of who won (like David Davis). And who lost (like Zac Goldsmith).

Jo Johnson moves to open up a closed University system

The free marketeers don’t like all his proposals, and quotas would lower standards. But many of his plans head in the right direction.

Gove flays Osborne. But is he now the Chancellor’s leadership candidate?

The occupant of Number 11 may seek to become what Margaret Thatcher claimed to be after she was brought down: “a good back seat driver”.