lockdown
Disunited Kingdom
The Covid divide is triggering political tensions
Inside the anti-lockdown rally
The anti-lockdown rally at Trafalgar Square was organised by Save Our Rights UK. This embryonic organisation is so new that…
Revenge of the snitch
If neighbours break whatever new Covid rules might soon emerge, it has been suggested that the Good Citizen might snitch…
Borrowed time
The economic scars of Covid will define the decade
The Covid trap
Will we ever go back to how we were?
The best leader we never had
I spent Monday afternoon with The Wake Up Call, a new book by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge that lambasts…
The chilling treatment of Piers Corbyn
If you were looking for the archetype of a crank it would be Piers Corbyn. Rather like his long forgotten…
Nancy Pelosi’s bad hair day
Does Nancy Pelosi’s unfortunate trip to a hair salon have any news value? Or is it much a hairdo about…
Make America Normal Again
To win in November, Trump should seek inspiration from President Alexander Lukashenko, the 65-year-old autocrat who has ruled Belarus since…
Exam failures
It was obvious that closing schools would hit the poorest hardest, inflicting permanent damage and deepening inequality. While many private…
I’m helping lockdown sceptics find love
I started a dating site last Sunday. Not words I ever thought I’d write, but I’ve become a kind of…
False economy
Britain is losing the race to recovery
Diary
It is a particular pleasure to be returning to the columns of The Spectator, more than half a century after…
Mood shift
Throughout the past few months the government has appeared to face an unenviable choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods.…
How will we handle the next contagion?
There’s nothing unprecedented about Covid-19 itself. The equally novel, equally infectious Asian flu of 1957 had commensurate fatalities in Britain:…
Off track
Is our test-and-trace system ready?
Real life
The whole of Surrey and south-west London seem to have gone abroad on holiday so I’ve got my sanity back.…
Nobody should be forced to shield
The best way (and with politicians sometimes the only way) to know whether people are aware they’ve made a mistake…
London in limbo
The capital is the motor of Britain’s economy. It needs to get moving again
Has Sweden been vindicated?
Sweden has released growth figures for the second quarter – a contraction of 8.6 per cent – and two narratives…
Can Boris avoid a winter lockdown?
As the government struggled on Saturday with the question of whether to impose a quarantine on those returning from Spain,…
Real life
From my seat in the greasy spoon café I looked out on a typical English row of shops on a…
Boomer and bust
Covid-19 is fast-forwarding us into retirement
Diary
Four years ago, I bought a ranch in Wyoming. Not that I was tired of New York, but I’m fascinated…
My plans for a Covid inquiry
The public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has already started. Not the official one, which won’t…
