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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm John Connolly,

and I'm joined today by James Forsyth and Katie Balls. Today, there have been increasing

rumours that London is heading for Tier 3 restrictions after increases in cases across the capital.

James, starts off how likely do you think we are to be heading towards Tier 3 now?

Well, there's a statement coming at half-past 3, and I think the only question is when, not if.

So I think the view is that London will end up in Tier 3. The question is, is that brought forward?

Does that end up in Tier 3 sooner than the review on the 16th of December or not?

And I think the kind of question comes now, what happens after Christmas?

If you think that the Christmas easing of restrictions, we know that the view of government scientific

advisors is that for every day of easing over Christmas, you would need five days of tighter restrictions.

I mean, that implies that lightly on that analysis, London would spend most of January in tier three, or as Katie

suggests in her blog today, a kind of even tougher than tier three set of restrictions. I mean,

there is some concern that in the Medway towns, Tier three has not delivered. Now, it's worth

in a notion that there is obviously there is a, I don't

know what, which precise number wave, but you say this is another bit of a second wave or a third

wave. You see that Mark Rutter, the Dutch prime minister, has brought forward his statement on this.

You've had Angela Merkel yesterday shutting shops in Germany until January the 10th. I mean, the question is,

yes, London is very badly hit now, but what will the nationwide picture be after this Christmas

easing? And Katie, James mentioned there, Tier 3 plus. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

What that could involve? Yes, I think just in terms of the discussions, I mean, it's not

...