By @HelenRamscar Encouraging data released from the Pfizer[1], Moderna[2] and Oxford University[3] vaccine trials have hit headlines worldwide. Yet indications of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant named 20A.EU1[4], which originated in Spanish farms and spread successfully across Europe, followed by confirmation that a SARS-CoV-2 mutation found in mink in Denmark has transmitted into humans in no fewer …

Continue reading As The Virus Mutates, So Will Vaccine Nationalism

Letter to the Editor, published online on 19 November 2020, can be found here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-boris-johnson-s-green-industrial-revolution-g76s2przl

The Financial Times article of 19 November 2020 can be found here: https://www.ft.com/content/e72674cc-6063-4146-ac7a-bf3c72840432

Financial Times article of 19 November 2020 can be found here: https://www.ft.com/content/684a9881-c964-478b-b87b-84aa697810f2

@MikeClarke2020s In the astonishing aftermath of Joe Biden’s convincing win in the US Presidential Election there now seem to be three separate Donald Trumps locked in the White House. None of them are him; but he is simultaneously all of them. Shakespeare would have understood this figure; at once propelled to the throne by the …

Continue reading Three Donald Trumps and the Judgement of History

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has produced its report on The Future of the UK’s International Policy, looking at how the UK should marshal its resources for the future. Michael Clarke’s evidence for the report was published by the Committee. In it, he stressed how Britain must keep its focus on the post-Covid world it will …

Continue reading The Future of the UK’s International Policy

The Overseas Operations Bill has been passed by the Commons and will now be examined in the Lords. The Bill seeks to protect troops from vexatious legal claims by creating a ‘triple lock’ that would make it very difficult for any claims to be pursued after five years. But General Sir Nick Parker, former Land …

Continue reading Overseas Operations Bill: Aiming at the Wrong Target

Helen Ramscar points to the urgent need to protect the UK life sciences sector from the impact of halted clinical trials across therapy areas and reduced research funding due to Covid. For the buoyancy of the sector is critical to the UK’s ability to continue pioneering pharmacological countermeasures (medicines, treatments, vaccines) to biosecurity risks like …

Continue reading Written Evidence to the JCNSS Inquiry into Biosecurity and National Security

The following book review by Derek Hawes features in the March 2020 edition of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies 28 (2): 1-2. The original can be accessed here. JCES Book Review Derek Hawes. February 2020 Slipping Loose: The UK’s Long Drift Away from the European Union. By Martin Westlake. (Agenda Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK) 2020. …

Continue reading Tipping Point review: Journal of Contemporary European Studies

The Evening Standard article of 22 October 2020 can be read here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/british-forces-struggle-new-drone-swarms-a4572560.html