Opinion

Meet the non-vaccines that promise to boost Covid immunity

Vaccines never promised us perfect protection. Yet studies are showing that our defenses are declining faster than expected.One from Oxford University published last week showed that the efficacy of the BioNTech/Pfizer Inc. vaccine was halved after four months. Another, published Tuesday by the U.S....

Opinion

At this point, the UK’s Covid-19 rules follow politics as much as science

If the last 18 months have taught us anything, it’s that a successful COVID-19 policy requires three things: high levels of public trust, a coherent strategy and effective implementation. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is in danger of squandering all of them.Just as the U.K. p...

Opinion

Face masks will be around for a while yet

In the U.K., July 19 is being called Freedom Day. To some, it will feel a bit like England winning the Euros. After 15-plus months of setbacks, uncertainty and constraints on everyday life, there will be something to celebrate: Brits can congregate without restriction and are free to bin or burn the...

Opinion

Matt Hancock’s ‘clinch’ should really worry Boris Johnson

It wasn’t the extramarital affair with an aide — exposed in a photographic scoop by British tabloid The Sun on Friday — that cost Matt Hancock his job as U.K. Health Secretary. For better or worse, such private indiscretions are no longer considered a cause for resignation.But it q...

Opinion

UK's radical new rail plan

Some problems fester for decades until a crisis makes them impossible to neglect any longer. In that respect, the pandemic may hold a silver lining for Britain’s troubled rail sector.After years of bitter debate, it’s finally getting a major overhaul. There will be a new public organizat...

Opinion

Boris Johnson faces his first real Brexit trade test

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet met this week to debate whether to approve the terms of a free-trade agreement with Australia. What, you might wonder, could be less controversial?After all, there’s nothing more Brexity than free trade. In a set-piece speech in early 2020, Joh...

Opinion

Britain really doesn’t rule the waves

Despite the jokes on social media, Britain and France aren’t going to war. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered HMS Severn and HMS Tamar — two Royal Navy offshore patrol vessels — into the waters around the island of Jersey, it wasn’t with the intention of doing combat w...

National

Why Greensill texts are worse than a Dominic Cummings blog

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting (at least) two big political fires. They may not substantially impact the Conservative Party’s fortunes at the May 6 local elections, but these blazes suck oxygen from policy making, undermine public trust and distract from attempts to rebuild and rebal...

Opinion

Is Boris Johnson serious about climate change?

The climate action shifts to President Joe Biden on Thursday as he attempts to regain U.S. credibility on the topic at a two-day green summit. But as hosts of this year’s COP26 — and as the first country to pledge to get to net zero by 2050 — there’s also a lot at stake for t...

Opinion

Boris Johnson can limit Brexit’s economic damage

Last week, the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party broke its three-month silence over Brexit to accuse the government of hiding evidence by not publishing an economic impact assessment. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves cited Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that leaving t...

Opinion

Britain plans for a big summertime blowout

Wednesday’s U.K. budget offered yet more in the way of pandemic pain medication, but thanks to the success of Britain’s vaccination program, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak could make a start at mapping out a post-Covid order. The short-term, at least, is looking rosier for Brita...

Opinion

The Scottish drama Shakespeare couldn’t make up

For two and a half years most people in Britain ignored the brewing fight between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond. No longer. The civil war among Scottish nationalist factions has been justly described as Shakespearean. Scotland’s first minister is vying to save her career while her predecess...

Opinion

Northern Ireland is the first test of the post-Brexit order

Trade deals, like peace agreements, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on without good faith vested in their implementation.Just weeks after the Brexit trade agreement entered into force, intentions over the part of the deal that applies to Northern Ireland have been called into ques...

Opinion

Britain’s virus fight enters its guerrilla war stage

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to provide a roadmap out of England’s lockdown restrictions on Feb. 22, but those in his party who want the curbs lifted are growing impatient. The U.K. government is on track to reach its target of vaccinating the top four priority groups by the middle of t...

Opinion

How did Britain get it so wrong and so right?

Although everyone knew it was coming, the U.K.’s passing beyond 100,000 Covid-related deaths still gave pause. How Britain ended up with one of the world’s worst fatality rates will be subject to much inquiry in the years ahead.But how to square this dismal toll with the other aspect of ...

Opinion

COVID is traumatising our doctors and nurses

Hand it to human beings. We have repeatedly defied predictions that we will buckle under the extreme pressure of adverse events. Time and again, whether it was during the eight-month blitz in World War II, or after 9/11, people have proved remarkably resilient in the face of adversity.Will it be the...

Opinion

Brexit’s troubles aren’t all teething problems

For anyone who thought Brexit was done in 2020, the early signs are that it will, once virus woes settle, become Boris Johnson’s biggest headache. Again.It’s not a great sign when a formerly pro-Brexit lobby is suddenly furious about a part of the deal that was billed as a triumph. &ldqu...

Opinion

Boris Johnson’s travel policy has been a mess

It bears asking: How is it that an island nation ended up in the seventh circle of Covid hell?The UK left the European Union in part because it hated the idea of allowing people free movement, and yet during the public health emergency its borders have been a sieve. That was excusable in the early f...

Opinion

How Boris Johnson could reopen Britain in February

The New Year in Britain begins with a new national lockdown, but Boris Johnson has promised things will get better soon. He has said he will vaccinate 13.9 million of the country’s most vulnerable citizens by mid-February so that schools can reopen and the hardest restrictions can be eased.Tak...

Opinion

Christmas cancelled for Britain and Boris Johnson

Things couldn’t feel less festive in Britain right now. There’s a new — apparently homegrown — virus mutation, rising Covid case numbers, the cancellation of Christmas gatherings, and stalled Brexit talks. Now Europe has put the U.K. into isolation, closing borders because of...