coronavirus
Floor
In the game of ‘U’ and ‘Non-U’, begun by Alan S.C. Ross (1907-80) and popularised in Nancy Mitford’s volume Noblesse…
Lives vs lives
The global cost of lockdown
Breaking out
Lifting lockdown is a worldwide experiment
Who can still make a Sunday joint last a week?
Sunday lunch was always roast beef and, in the traditional way, the Yorkshire pudding was served first with gravy, supposedly…
This is not a natural disaster
Should our future permit an occupation so frivolous, historians years from now will make a big mistake if they blame…
The British state needs rewiring
‘Covid-19 has been perhaps the biggest test of governments worldwide since the 1940s,’ declares the government’s command paper on the…
Diary
Entering my 54th day of quarantine, I recall how much I was looking forward to this spring in England. There…
Portrait of the Week
Home The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus,…
Class divide
It would be a tragedy if one of the legacies of Covid-19 — a disease which hardly affects children physically…
The Turf
There is racing elsewhere in the world. It restarted in France on Monday, la course de chevaux being classed in…
Misgendering is the real COVID crisis
If it’s true that coronavirus is less likely to kill people with high levels of testosterone, Dr Rachel Levine —…
Is the R number a flawed measure?
Boris Johnson’s address on Sunday was always going to be challenging. The effects of Covid-19 – in terms of its…
When money dies
This article is in The Spectator’s May 2020 US edition. Subscribe here to get yours. ‘Money for Nothing’ is more than just…
Cuomo’s COVID carnage
Have we reached peak Cuomo? I think that the climacteric came when the media was aflutter with rumors that the…
How to save our nightlife after coronavirus
The one certainty about crisis is that it makes bad situations worse. Anyone working in restaurants, pubs, cafes and clubs…
Has coronavirus killed the Democrats’ healthcare referendum?
Late last December, Democrats were heading into the homestretch of their presidential primary optimistic that although they faced an internal…
How Number 10 should illustrate its Covid alert formula
Following the Prime Minister’s address last night, Twitter was ablaze with mockery of the equation the government will use to…
How government can learn from disasters
Soon enough, Congress will hold hearings to investigate the federal response to the Wuhan virus pandemic. It is almost a…
Two big gaps in Boris Johnson’s lockdown statement
There were three messages in Boris Johnson’s address to the nation, and quite a lot of important gaps. The messages…
The R-number – and the danger of false certainty
Not much about Boris Johnson’s Sunday night television address was clear. The one definite new measure – one which will…
New York has mismanaged COVID-19 from top to bottom
Andrew Cuomo is having the time of his life. His approval ratings are through the roof and he’s being talked…
For now, age isn’t just a number
When I told my seven-year-old granddaughter, over Zoom, how much I missed being with her, I added: ‘Maybe it won’t…
It’s not us, China – it’s you
Like nearly everything named a ‘scandal’, ‘affair’ or given the post-fix ‘gate’, almost nobody now remembers the Dalai Lama affair.…
Owls
My tawny owl has been self-isolating. I say mine but in truth she chose the nest box in my neighbour’s…
The health of the people
The Prime Minister recently quoted Cicero’s famous dictum salus populi suprema lex esto, translating it as ‘Let the health (salus)…
