Health News at Your Fingertips

The Resolution Foundation thinktank has published a report today setting out two options for addressing the energy bills crisis. It says other proposals on the table to address the problem do not go far enough. It is particularly scathing about the plans for tax cuts from Liz Truss, who seems all but certain to be next prime minister. Her ideas are “largely irrelevant to the problem facing the country this winter”, the thinktank says.

My colleague Larry Elliott has a summary of the report here.

And Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation, has posted a good thread about the report on Twitter. It starts here.

Prof John Edmunds, head of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and one of the most prominent and influential figures on Sage during the pandemic, has responded to Rishi Sunak’s criticism of the pandemic scientists. He says that if Sunak thinks the economic consequences of lockdown did not receive enough attention, then Sunak himself is to blame, because as chancellor he should have been commissioning that analysis.

In a statement for the Science Media Centre, Edmunds said:

It is not well understood, but Sage’s role was quite narrow: to review and assess the scientific evidence to help inform the decision-makers. It did not consider the economic aspects – it was not asked to do so and was not constituted to do so.

There may be some truth to the argument that the scientific evidence often outweighed the economic data; however, the answer is not to get less scientific evidence (or ignore some scientific evidence), but to build up a clearer picture of the economic and wider impact of different policies, using the best evidence available at the time. I am not aware of this happening in a systematic, open, peer-reviewed way.

Where, for instance, was the equivalent of Sage and all its subgroups on the economic side? Was there an army of economists in universities and research institutes across the country working night and day to collect, sift, analyse and project the possible impact of different policies? And if not, why not? As the chancellor of the exchequer Mr Sunak could have set up such a system, but did not.

Tom Whipple, science editor at the Times, has joined those saying that Rishi Sunaks’s criticisms of Sage over Covid policy are unfounded. (See 9.22am and 9.47am)

The epidemiologists did explain how their modelling worked, Whipple says.

And there was intense debate about whether it was right to close schools, Whipple says.

Labour campaigners have been posing on Parliament Square as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak relaxing in deck chairs on holiday, for a stunt photocall.

They are out to make the point that the Tories are “chilling on the job” at a time of national crisis, while Labour has a plan to address the energy bills crisis.

(You can see the point, and Labour is right to say that the government has been on autopilot in recent weeks, but visually it does not work because in one sense it is completely wrong; Truss and Sunak are probably about the only MPs who have not had a holiday this summer, because they have been participating in endless leadership hustings.)

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has signed a deal with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksandr Kubrakov, saying the UK will help Ukraine repair its transport infrastructure. The Department for Transport says:

After a presentation from Ukrainian officials on the true impact of the war to their train network, roads and bridges, the two transport leaders signed a joint action plan to help restore these vital links. It agrees to share expert advice from prestigious UK-based private-sector organisations. The UK will also send five buses from the Go Ahead Group to support reconnecting the Ukrainian public and buy equipment to repair routes which are crucial for the exportation of grain.

Experts will offer knowledge in airport, runway and port reconstruction, and will work with the Ministry of Infrastructure to identify training opportunities for airport staff, air traffic controllers and aviation security.

A question from below the line.

Andrew,

What does Dominic Cummings’ shopping trolley emoji mean?

Dominic Cummings regularly refers to Boris Johnson as the shopping trolley, or trolley, or just by using the emoji, because he says Johnson is indecisive and veers all over the place on policy, like a shopping trolley.

But, interestingly, it was not Cummings who coined this insult; it was Johnson himself. In the run-up to Brexit, before he had decided whether to back leave or remain, he described himself as “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley”.

In his World at One interview, Rishi Sunak also ruled out leaving politics if he loses the leadership campaign. When it was put to him that Dominic Cummings, the PM’s former chief adviser, said today that Sunak’s Spectator interview read like something from someone “whose epicly bad campaign had melted his brain” and who was about to quit politics (see 12.11pm), Sunak laughed briefly and said this was “absolutely not” the case.

Rishi Sunak has said that he would vote for a Liz Truss emergency budget if she became prime minister. At the Conservative party hustings on Tuesday night, and again in a BBC interview yesterday, Sunak pointedly refused to answer when asked whether he would vote in favour of such a measure. He has repeatedly argued that Truss’s plan to reverse the national insurance increase in that emergency budget would be a mistake because it would be inflationary, unfunded and most beneficial to the rich.

But in an interview with Sarah Montague on the World at One a few minutes ago, Sunak said he would back a Truss budget. Asked about his refusal to say he would vote for it, he replied:

Of course I would. I would always support a Conservative government, of course I would. It goes without saying.

He claimed that, when he gave a different answer earlier this week, he did so because he was refusing to acknowledge the possibility that he might lose the contest. He was still fighting to win, he said. He went on:

But, of course, I’m going to support a Conservative government. I believe very strongly in the Conservative party, and I want it to do well and I will always – whether as a minister or as a backbencher – always support Conservative government because I believe that’s the best thing for this country. I want to make sure that we beat Labour at the next election.

Labour says today’s GCSE results show the Conservatives are failing to close the attainment gap in schools. The party says the results show that 53% of grades given to independent school pupils were at grade 7 or above, up from 47% in 2019. But for secondary comprehensive schools the figure was just 23.3%, up from 18.5% in 2019.

Labour also says the number of awards at grade 7 or above in London has risen 50% faster than in Yorkshire or the north-west.

Stephen Morgan, the shadow schools minister, said:

Students receiving their results today have worked incredibly hard through unprecedented disruption.

Yet the Conservatives are holding back our kids, enabling the gap in grades between state and private schools and across different parts of the country to grow.

A leading member of Sage, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, has criticised Rishi Sunak for suggesting it had too much power to determine policy during the pandemic. (See 9.22am and 9.47am)

In a statement for the Science Media Centre, Prof Graham Medley, a member of Sage and chair of SPI-M (the Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Modelling – a Sage sub-group) said:

Government have the power, so if one member of cabinet thinks that scientific advice was too ‘empowered’ then it is a criticism of their colleagues rather than the scientists.

Prof Ian Boyd, another Sage member, also said Sunak was wrong to suggest the scientists took the decision. And he dismissed Sunak’s suggestion that Sage ignored the downsides of lockdown. He said:

Sage was established to provide advice based on scientific evidence and inference about how best to tackle the pandemic. The advice was based on the information available at the time.

Retrospective analysis of that advice needs to take account of what was known, and not known, at the time the advice was provided. Especially in the early stages of the pandemic, an immense amount was not known, and this meant that risks were high, and therefore precaution was called for.

Sage did not make decisions, it tried to reflect its uncertainties in its advice and it worked by consensus. Members were acutely aware of the trade-offs associated with implementing specific actions. To the extent that it was possible with the information available at the time, these trade-offs were included within the uncertainty expressed in the advice.

Mel Stride, the Tory MP and Rishi Sunak supporter, is hosting the Q&A. He ends with some quickfire questions.

Q: What does your wife make of you being called “dishy Rishi”?

“Mild amusement” is her reaction, Sunak says.

Q: Have you got favourite food from childhood?

Sunak mentions his mother’s chicken curry. And his dad was a master of the barbecue, he says.

Q: What would you like your children to learn from you?

Sunak says people try to bring up their kids with good values. From his own parents he learnt the importance of working hard, and treating everyone with respect. As a GP and pharmacist, they served the community. And the third thing is value for money, he says.

And he says he hopes, from seeing him in his job, his children have learnt the importance of perserverance.

Q: What was your favourite moment in the Commons?

Sunak says it was giving his maiden speech. But he also mentions taking Treasury questions with his daughter watching from the gallery.

Q: Have you ever been starstruck by someone?

Yes, says Sunak. He recalls meeting Matthew Le Tissier and Alan Shearer together. He also mentions meeting David Beckham and David Gower. And, admitting this may sound surprising, he admits he was “very starstruck” when he was interviewed for the first time by Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s then political editor, when he was chancellor.

In his Q&A, Rishi Sunak says that, if there are jobs that need to be filled, people who are unemployed should be doing those jobs. He says he wants to reform the welfare system. He wants to support people into those jobs, he says.

The Rishi Sunak Q&A has started. Sunak is now responding to a question from someone who says Brexit has clearly damaged the economy and should be reversed.

Sunak says we have to respect the result of the referendum and “move on”. He claims that he came up with the idea for freeports as a backbench MP, and he says that that is an example of a benefit of Brexit.

Responding to the claim that Brexit has reduced the intensity of trade with the EU, Sunak says the questioner is right to say it has fallen. But he says it is still not clear how much of that is due to the effects of the pandemic, and an increased focus on resilience (which would lead to people cutting their reliance on imports), and how much of that is due to a change in trading patterns.

But he says with Brexit the UK can negotiate new trade deals.

(In fact, the Office for Budget Responsibility says the evidence shows that it is Brexit, not the pandemic, that has reduced trade intensity.)

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, has described Rishi Sunak’s Spectator interview on lockdown policy as “dangerous rubbish”.

Cummings has revealed that he was one of the people in government arguing for a firmer lockdown policy. Since he left government, he has repeatedly criticised Boris Johnson for not imposing the lockdown more swiftly.

At the start of the leadership contest Sunak was accused of being in league with Cummings, a figure hated by Boris Johnson loyalists, and also by many MPs. Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary who is supporting Liz Truss, claimed Cummings was backing Sunak.

At the time the claim was denied, and today’s tweets should quash it for good.

Rishi Sunak is about to do a live Q&A for Facebook and YouTube. There is a live feed here.

The Home Office has now released its news release on the announcement to fast track the removal of Albanian migrants who have no right to be in the UK. (See 10.33am.)

Daniel Sohege, director of Stand for All, a refugee rights advocacy organisation, says that the detail does not quite match up with the story as it has been reported on the basis of the overnight briefing. He explains why in a Twitter thread.