Barometer
Leicester lockdowns Leicester was forced to impose the first local lockdown, in response to a reported surge in cases of…
Solution to 2461: Hot off?
The unclued lights include the name of a British daily newspaper; 3/26A, 9/35, 12, 24, 28/31D and 34/21. First…
Portrait of the week
Home Pubs in England would be allowed to reopen for table service from 4 July, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister,…
Britain emerges, blinking
The Prime Minister’s announcement that pubs, restaurants and many other facilities will be able to re-open on 4 July amounts…
Solution to 2460: Sleaze
The word is TACK. In the order of the headwords in Chambers, except for the fifth, their meanings are indicated…
Barometer
Voyage into history How did the Labour government respond to the arrival of the Empire Windrush on 22 June 1948?…
Letters
Back to schools Sir: I share Lucy Kellaway’s enthusiasm for seeing school-life return and inequality gaps closed (‘A class apart’,…
Portrait of the week
Home Britain went into a frenzy of iconoclasm. The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was hidden by the…
Solution to 2459: 22 down
22D was TABLEWARE, and the quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson reads: ‘The louder he talked of his honour, the faster…
Time to recover
The discovery in Britain that a £5 steroid, dexamethasone, can be effective in treating Covid marks a potential breakthrough in…
Barometer
Made to measure The government started reviewing whether we should stay two metres apart while social distancing or whether one…
Letters
Hong Kong’s success Sir: Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson are right to compare the UK’s Covid-19 response with Hong Kong’s…
Barometer
The Colston chronicles Who, exactly, was Sir Edward Colston? Colston was born into a family of merchants and spent the…
Take back control
There is a grim inevitability to the trickle of round-robin letters from scientists who feel aggrieved at the government’s handling…
Portrait of the week
Home The government lurched uncertainly in dealing with coronavirus. Not all years in primary schools would after all return before…
Letters
Hong Kong’s future Sir: So we have a moral duty to protect the people of Hong Kong and guide them…
Solution to 2458: Bardicarum
The unclued lights Across are Shakespearean LORDS and the Down ones are LADIES. (The plant ‘lords and ladies’ is an…
Letters
Poor treatment Sir: My recent experience supports Dr Max Pemberton’s view that the NHS is letting down thousands of patients…
Barometer
Covid deaths Has Covid-19 evolved to become less deadly? — Global infections reached a new peak on 29 May, with…
Portrait of the week
Home Primary schools were allowed to reopen but many did not want to. MPs voted to return to their physical…
Law and disorder
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, a black entrepreneur had his bar destroyed before he even had a chance…
to 2457: Beginning
Unclued lights suggested a section of the international radio communications alphabet: Bravo (VILLAIN: 6), Charlie (DIMWIT: 16), Delta (DEPOSIT: 19),…
And end to decent dying
From 22 March 1986: They used to say that war is the ruin of serious soldiering. Too much disorder, too…
Barometer
Site test What’s on offer in the town of Barnard Castle? — Ruined 12th-century castle perched high above the Tees,…
Has lockdown worked?
Who occupies the post of chief adviser to the prime minister is not generally an issue of great interest to…
