The mass testing ‘blitz’. Cummings’ Operation Moonshot strategy returns.

The mass testing ‘blitz’. Cummings’ Operation Moonshot strategy returns.

Before his dramatic departure from Downing Street, Dominic Cummings had taken the lead on one of the Government’s most ambitious strategies to manage the Coronavirus pandemic; the “Operation Moonshot” mass-swabbing project. This was the Government’s “game-changer” in the Coronavirus wars – particularly at a time when there was uncertainty over whether a vaccine would be…

Sebastian Rees: The NHS will need more private sector help to tackle its post-Covid backlog

Sebastian Rees: The NHS will need more private sector help to tackle its post-Covid backlog

Sebastian Rees is a researcher at Reform. The pandemic has tested the NHS to the extreme, and while healthcare leaders and frontline workers continue their heroic efforts, the system has been found wanting. Last year’s announcement that Public Health England would be scrapped, and last week’s NHS White Paper reflect a desire to rectify perceived…

Ben Everitt MP: The Chancellor must not let a cliff-edge ending ruin the good work of the Stamp Duty holiday

Ben Everitt MP: The Chancellor must not let a cliff-edge ending ruin the good work of the Stamp Duty holiday

Ben Everitt is the MP for Milton Keynes North. Whatever the reason might be for a home move – a new job, downsizing, more room for a growing family – it’s a decision that no one takes lightly. The home moving process is fraught and emotional at the best of times. Families calculate budgets minutely,…

Fifteen million people were vaccinated against Covid on time. Here are thirty more fields in which Britain leads the world.

Fifteen million people were vaccinated against Covid on time. Here are thirty more fields in which Britain leads the world.

The revelation that Britain possesses world-beating capabilities at vaccine development, procurement and distribution prompts the question of what else we might be very good at. No two Britons are likely to draw up the same list, and every list will contain categories which overlap, but here’s mine, compiled with the help of an ad hoc…

Daniel Hannan: Trade sanctions are a counterproductive foreign policy tool – which play into the hands of oppressive regimes

Daniel Hannan: Trade sanctions are a counterproductive foreign policy tool – which play into the hands of oppressive regimes

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is a Conservative Life peer, writer and columnist. He was a Conservative MEP from 1999 to 2020, and is now President of the Initiative for Free Trade. What can one country practically do to halt crimes against humanity in another? The answer is far from obvious. At one end of the…

Nick Hoile: The tide is beginning to turn on Covid. Ministers should act now to prevent a winter flu crisis.

Nick Hoile: The tide is beginning to turn on Covid. Ministers should act now to prevent a winter flu crisis.

Nick Hoile is a health policy specialist and a Senior Director at MHP Communications. After making it through the most gruelling January in its history, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the NHS. The number of people in hospital with Coronavirus is slowly falling, as the lockdown pays off by…