New forecasts from the IMF shows that the UK is still expected to be the fastest growing advanced economy for 2021 at a rate of 6.8%, above the global growth projection of 5.9% and comfortably ahead of the US, France, Germany, Japan and Canada. Welcome news, although this is still a 0.2% cut to their earlier forecast back in July. 

The IMF’s paper says that the effectiveness of the UK’s vaccine rollout is, in large part, responsible for maintaining the UK’s growth – and adds that “great vaccine divide” between high and low income countries poses a serious risk:

“The case of the United Kingdom is instructive in the effectiveness of large-scale vaccination campaigns, even against highly contagious variants.”

“The foremost policy priority is therefore to vaccinate at least 40% of the population in every country by the end of 2021 and 70% by mid-2022.”

The report adds that “widespread vaccinations can also have powerful, positive economic effects, bolstering the recovery.” When you get the call, get the jab…

Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) has accused Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle of “maliciously dismissing anti-Semitism as a smear” in a formal complaint sent to Keir Starmer, after Russell-Moyle apologised to former party members who he claimed had been “purged or set up with false allegations” relating to antisemitism. This comes just days after Guido heard that the Labour Whips’ Office is “giving serious consideration” to withdrawing the whip from Moyle for the same reason… 

Since then, Russell-Moyle has doubled down on his claims, tweeting:

“…there are anti-Semites that have rightly been expelled from party… [others] have been threatened with expulsion or investigation for no reason.”

“Amongst other things, Mr Russell-Moyle has repeatedly promoted anti-Jewish racists and appeared to express conspiracy theory that antisemitism in the Labour Party was fabricated. Elected officials using their platforms in this way should have no place in mainstream political party, and allowing it to continue may also go agains EHRC law.”

Pressure starting to ramp up on Starmer to take action…

Forget Boris’s cabinet reshuffle, the changes going on among the Tufton Street Mafia make for much more interesting reading. Back in September Guido revealed the ASI’s Matt Kilcoyne had decided to depart as their deputy director. Guido now understands he’s to take up the role as director of Lord Hannan’s Initiative for Free Trade. Guido can’t think of a better pick…

That’s not the end of the ASI shake-up. Guido can reveal their head of research Matthew Lesh is defecting to the IEA to fill the role as their new head of public policy. Lesh says he’s “extremely excited to be joining the IEA” who “became a beacon of hope and inspiration to millions seeking freedom across the world” amid the post-war consensus. The IEA’s also been facing staff turnover recently following the departure of Emma Revell and Lord Kamall…

A senior Insulate Britain activist has just accidentally revealed that the failure to insulate their own ringleader’s home before gluing themselves to the road has been a “PR disaster” that she “wouldn’t admit […] publicly“, and that they’re still far short of raising enough cash to fix it. Writing on a public Twitter thread this morning, Phillipa Windsor offered some refreshing candour on the whole fiasco:

If Insulate Britain’s media team could explain to Phillipa how Twitter DMs work they can avoid embarrassment in the future…

It’s really not been a good day for Insulate Britain’s PR machine. The group’s leader Liam Norton also had a few choice words about his self-created “PR disaster“, admitting in an interview with talkRADIO that he’s a “hypocrite” for failing to insulate his house, and even claiming he “doesn’t really care” about the cause in the first place.

At least it was all for a good cause…

While Boris opened Black History Month saying he’s “proud to lead a country celebrated for its dynamism and diversity”, he’d no doubt be uncomfortable sitting through some of the lectures his Whitehall mandarins are putting on for civil servants to elevate their woke credentials this month. Guido’s found evidence of numerous events with activists who have made their views on the PM and other ministers well known, giving a platform to hostile tirades against their own government under the nose of Simon Case and the PM. And they thought Whitehall’s work-from-home obstinance was off-message…

• The Home Office has hosted a talk by Afua Hirsch, who previously condemned the PM’s “litany of racist statements”, saying “his oafish stupidity is part of Boris Johnson’s electoral brand”.
• The new Department of Levelling Up is to be lectured to by David Olusoga, who believes “the north is not going to be levelled up, it’s going to be offered flags and xenophobia instead”, and who claims “Boris Johnson is utterly careless of everyone but himself”.
• The Home Office has invited Priyamvada Gopal to talk, an even more questionable move given she’s said that “Priti Patel is also a reminder that many Asians in British Africa had ferociously anti-black attitudes and were used by colonial administrations to keep black populations in their place. An attitude she brings to government.” She also likened the chair of the PM’s Race and Equalities Disparities Commission to Joseph Goebbels.
• The Home Office permanent secretary will also be appearing alongside John Amaechi, who last year sparked a culture war battle after making a children’s video with the BBC about White Privilege, a concept the Commons’ Education Committee concluded was holding back working-class communities.

Guido suggests Simon Case either steps in to balance these voices, or mandates woke permanent secretaries to invite more mainstream or even conservative BAME speakers to give their perspective. Katharine Birbalsingh, Tony Sewell, Trevor Phillips and Mercy Muroki would all be excellent places to start…

Plenty of noise is being made this morning about the the joint Commons Health, Science and Technology Select Committee’s new report on the government’s handling of the pandemic. Inevitably, some have immediately jumped at the chance to blame Number 10 and the Health Department for failing to contain the spread and naively adopting a herd immunity strategy despite the risks. Obviously, that strategy was wrong: the fact the government later pretended not to have taken that approach would suggest they think so too. 

What caught Guido’s eye in the report, however, was how critical it is of the scientific advice that dictated the government’s response in the first place:

“In the first three months the strategy reflected official scientific advice to the Government which was accepted and implemented. When the Government moved from the ‘contain’ stage to the ‘delay’ stage, that approach involved trying to manage the spread of covid through the population rather than to stop it spreading altogether […] The fact that the UK approach reflected a consensus between official scientific advisers and the Government indicates a degree of groupthink that was present at the time which meant we were not as open to approaches being taken elsewhere as we should have been.”

In other words, the government was wrong to consistently accept the scientific advice, and should have challenged SAGE’s input more often. Quite the departure from the Twitterati’s squawks that the government should always and only “follow the science”…

The report later adds:

“We accept that it is difficult to challenge a widely held scientific consensus. But accountability in a democracy depends on elected decision-makers taking advice, but examining, questioning and challenging it before making their own decisions.”

The government made lots of mistakes last year, yet it’s clear they were also being guided by ill-informed voices. Of course, that’s bound to happen in the chaos of a pandemic; it was a novel virus and no one really had all the right answers. Hindsight makes this look a lot easier. Still, this hardly vindicates Whitty, Vallance, and SAGE – and going forward, as the report says, there should be an effort to “include more representation and a wider range of disciplines” when making these decisions…