coronavirus
Should businesses receive more Covid support?
As government considers whether to lock us down once again, should it put economic support for businesses affected back on…
Is Omicron now falling in South Africa?
Man makes Covid predictionsand God laughs. Yet with the stakes this high in Britain, every bit of real-world data is…
How the BBC lost its way on Covid
I have been a BBC journalist for many years, and in that time I have been committed to impartiality and…
Don’t underestimate the Omicron variant
As the Omicron variant makes its way through the population of the UK, the Chief Medical Officer’s warning that we…
My Twitter conversation with the chairman of the Sage Covid modelling committee
The latest Sage papers have been published , envisaging anything from 200 to 6,000 deaths a day from Omicron depending on how…
Our growing unwillingness to understand the past
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
It’s not up to Boris to save Christmas – it’s up to us
How well-behaved have you been in the second year of Covid? I wouldn’t say I’ve been perfect but I haven’t…
The Covid dissidents who’ve made my Christmas merrier
A few years back, a hackneyed journalistic come-hither led me to a sober reckoning: would I write about someone alive…
What musicians like me learned from the pandemic
My mother died earlier this year aged 85. She left me her old pianola. These were popular in the 1920s…
‘Politics exacts a very high price’: an interview with Michael Gove
Michael Gove on levelling up, Plan B and the price of politics
The PowerPoint plot against Joe Biden
If the revolution won’t be televised, the counter-revolution will at least be on PowerPoint. A series of 36 corporate-style PowerPoint…
Lockdown, protests, parties and Matt Hancock’s kiss
January The United Kingdom found itself in possession of a trade agreement with the EU. Coronavirus restrictions were tightened. The…
Omicron is now Britain’s dominant Covid strain
If you test positive for Covid now in Britain, the odds are that it’s Omicron: it’s now the dominant strain…
Boris is in deep trouble
This evening feels eerily familiar to anyone who remembers the meaningful votes of Theresa May’s premiership. The Tory rebellion on…
The ethics of the Omicron travel ban
The Omicron variant had not even been named when the government’s reflexes sprung into almost involuntary reaction last month, and…
Vaccine passports may prove a pointless distraction from Omicron
Sajid Javid ditched vaccine passports when he became Health Secretary but he now has to bring them in again, albeit…
Should we be scared of the Omicron variant?
Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility…
Punishing the unvaccinated threatens everyone's liberty
How should we treat the unvaccinated? Should we stop them from participating in normal life? Castigate them in the media?…
Boris takes his colleagues for fools
Is Boris Johnson really deploying a ‘diversionary tactic’ in announcing vaccine passports on the day he has had to perform…
What’s the evidence for England’s vaccine passports?
The Prime Minister has just announced Plan B. Working from home has been all but mandated and large venues —…
Will the public take Plan B seriously?
After holding strong for two weeks, fears over the Omicron variant look set to change the government’s course on Covid…
Boris throws his staff under the bus
What possible lines of defence could the Prime Minister come up with after the leaking of footage showing his Downing…
Watch: No. 10 staff joking about Downing Street Christmas party
Downing Street have spent the week trying to play down reports of a secret No. 10 party last Christmas when the rest of…
Omicron: cause for hope?
It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem…
Unless Omicron changes everything, Covid is on the way out
There are good reasons to be concerned about the Omicron variant. For starters, this strain has 50 mutations, twice as…
