lockdown
Real life
Panic at the country feed store. Panic in the horse and pony aisle. I wonder to myself: could life ever…
Wishful drinking
Pubs have always been good at bending the rules
Real life
The cyclist pulled into our gateway, got off his bike and grabbed hold of the electric fencing. Installing game cameras,…
Nous sommes tous Emily in Paris – why can’t we admit it?
A frothy new drama called Emily in Paris arrived on Netflix last month. Starring Lily Collins — daughter of Phil…
This lockdown is much riskier
Keir Starmer has his first attack line of the next general election campaign. He will say that England’s second lockdown…
Letters
Woeful Wales Sir: Allison Pearson succinctly points out the absurdity of the so-called Welsh government and its assembly, now trying…
No respite
What lockdown means for families with disabled children
The ethics of lockdown
Is the harm it causes justified?
Portrait of the Week
Home The government imposed a lockdown on England to last until 2 December. On television, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister,…
Singing the blues
A second lockdown won’t cause me much suffering. I don’t have a shop selling ‘non-essential’ goods (e.g. books) that will…
A lockdown too far
The benefit of having a lockdown announced some days in advance is the ability to savour what is about to…
Barometer
The start of lockdown The earliest known use of ‘lockdown’ in its current sense was in a 1973 story in…
There is no Santa Claus, Sir Patrick
It seems, then, that this latest lockdown has been instigated simply to protect two very questionable institutions — the National…
Backsliding on a lockdown end-date has begun already
Will England’s lockdown end on 2 December? Even before this morning’s media round there was good reason to suspect it…
Instead of lockdown, let’s create a National Shielding Service
So what would you do? That was the question that cropped up on my Twitter timeline after I’d sent out…
A long winter
The ‘worst-case scenario’ for Covid
Cream of the crop
Theatres can open if they want to. That’s the current position. The only factor keeping a playhouse dark is a…
Wales of grief
My homeland is quite rightly a laughing stock
Trust is fraying – a circuit break would save it
Nearly a month ago I called for an urgent 24-day full national lockdown, arguing that the restrictions were unlikely to make a significant…
Portrait of the week
Home ‘The weeks and months ahead will continue to be difficult and will test the mettle of this country,’ Boris…
Angry Burnham takes on No. 10
Keir Starmer has made life difficult for Boris Johnson this week with his demand for a circuit-breaker lockdown. But the…
How new Covid restrictions are stalling the economy
The theory behind a V-shaped recovery relied on the assumption that the economy would open up almost as quickly as…
Diary
I first visited Orford in 1970, at peak Cold War when this stretch of the East Anglian coast was one…
Dog pounds
The hidden costs of the lockdown puppy boom
Barometer
Vice squad Donald Trump catching Covid-19 has concentrated minds on what happens if a US president dies in office. Normally,…
