The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the difference clinical research can make. The ground-breaking RECOVERY trial was conceived of as two academics – Prof Martin Landray and Sir Jeremy Farrar – rode the Number 18 bus between Euston and Sudbury in early March 2020. Two years later, RECOVERY has recruited 45,000 participants, and led to the identification of two viable now commonly used therapeutics for hospitalised COVID patients. The trial additionally provided definitive conclusions about the efficacy of other debated treatments such as hydroxychloroquine. Coupled with the vaccine rollout, these scientific breakthroughs have helped chart the course out of the pandemic. That single bus ride might have saved more than a million lives.

Lord Hennessy spent his entire journalistic career writing about the machinery of government in Britain. His classic 1996 work “The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing The British Constitution” set out how the British Constitution operated in practice and revealed the often obscure nexuses of administrative power.

The post-BLM trend amongst institutions across the country to take action in relation to the public representation of history on a whim, without a thoughtful and considered process, has been deeply troubling to those who care about national heritage. As at Cambridge and Kew Gardens, recent events in Watford suggest that there is reason to have hope. At a Watford Borough Council cabinet meeting on Tuesday (17 Jan), the Mayor Peter Taylor declared that “We’ve got no plans to rename any streets”. This came after suggestions that the council should rename streets such as Imperial Way and Rhodes Way; and contradicted a BBC headline a few days earlier declaring that “Watford plans to scrap slavery-link street signs” (altered a few days later to the more neutral “Watford residents could get vote on slavery street signs”).

The Ministry of Defence hit a milestone this week with the establishment of the Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC), a little over three years since Policy Exchange first laid out the full case for it in our report, A Question of Power: Towards Better UK Strategy Through Net Assessment.

On Saturday (15 January) Richard Deverell, Director of RBG Kew, announced that Kew would be abandoning the “decolonisation” agenda to which it had committed soon after the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. This welcome announcement comes just a fortnight after the publication of a Policy Exchange report—Politicising Plants: Does “decolonising” the botanical collections at Kew undermine its core mission?—which I co-authored with the celebrated garden historian and writer (and Kew diploma-holder) Ursula Buchan and the Oxford legal scholar Professor Christopher Forsyth QC (Hon.).

Last week (Thursday 13th January), a new electric vehicle charging hub opened in London, replacing an existing petrol station. Ultra-rapid charging hubs like this will be extremely important to support EV drivers who need to charge up quickly on the move.

However, the Government must not overlook the role of “slow” chargepoints (circa 5kW). These chargepoints take several hours to an electric vehicle (EV), but can be installed cheaply in homes and businesses, often without requiring expensive new electricity cables or digging up roads.

My first encounter with Trevor Phillips was not a pleasant one. He was publicly attacking me as a “nice, genteel, racist” in response to an essay ‘Too Diverse?’ I had written in Prospect magazine (which I then edited) about the tension between solidarity and diversity in liberal democracies.

The news this week from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) that people infected with the Omicron variant were between 50 and 70 per cent less likely to be admitted to hospital compared with the Delta strain has created a sense of relief in the Government.

Social care is once more at the top of the political agenda. Paying big bills to fund your relatives’ social care is becoming what Americans call a ‘third rail’ issue in British politics.
Policy Exchange has done a lot of work on funding social care and our conclusion is clear. 21st Century Social Care, the report I co-authored, set out a clear answer to how it should be paid for, offering what we believe is the only sustainable solution.

The publication of Lady Hale’s memoirs is likely to prompt an assessment of her undeniably impressive judicial career. Given its title, Spider Woman: A Life, attention may focus on what Lady Hale has to say about her role in the Supreme Court prorogation litigation in Cherry/Miller (No 2) [2019] UKSC 4. After all, it is that decision, along with the notorious arachnoid brooch, that made her famous with the general public.