lockdown
Johnson’s guilt
An ability to survive narrow scrapes has been one of Boris Johnson’s defining qualities. The pictures of Downing Street’s lockdown…
How to handle the next pandemic
There has been a considerable hoo-hah in the press about the recent World Health Organisation report estimating Covid-related deaths internationally…
A fine mess
The lockdown penalty charges keep coming
Ever decreasing circles
The decline of male friendship
Partygate’s hangover
Afew weeks ago it seemed that the issue of Downing Street parties over lockdown had been usurped by a more…
The beast in the east
China appears not to have defeated Covid after all
Covid is rising again. Should we worry?
For some time now, Covid has been rising in Scotland – there are now more Scots in hospital with Covid…
Liberty restored
Shortly after Covid emerged, our civil liberties were suspended. The government took control of when and for how long we…
Two years on, what’s the evidence for lockdown?
Did lockdowns save lives? We will never have a definitive answer to this vital question because it was impossible to…
The real problem with the BBC’s partygate coverage
As a journalist, it’s never a comfortable feeling when the news organisation you work for becomes the story. But with…
We must never abandon children during lockdown again
Schools are far more than mere exam factories. Across the UK, teachers in 32,000 schools and colleges care for children…
The Netherlands is growing tired of lockdown restrictions
On Wednesday at De Kleine Komedie, the oldest theatre in Amsterdam, the sound of comics on stage will be interspersed…
Dishonest mistakes
On 20 May 2020, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement on social media which summed up the conditions in the…
Reading and self-reflection
‘Male writers now are the opposition party, and that may not be such a bad thing for them.’ So Rob…
Boris Johnson is running out of road
There has been no good news for Boris Johnson today. After an email leaked on Monday evening showing that the Prime…
How long until we tire of Boris?
The brilliant but troubled footballer Mario Balotelli once scored a goal in a Manchester derby match and then lifted up…
Sage memo makes the case for lockdown
On Monday, Covid restrictions were rejected after the cabinet debated the issue robustly for the first time since the pandemic…
It’s time to end the era of forced lockdown restrictions
Monday’s Cabinet meeting held over Zoom was a fraught affair by the sounds of it. Michael Gove and Sajid Javid…
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…
Five lockdown questions the cabinet must ask
The cabinet will meet this afternoon, with more restrictions and even a new lockdown on the agenda. But have ministers…
History is less clear as you are living through it
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
Wishing for a merry Christmas
How well-behaved have you been in the second year of Covid? I wouldn’t say I’ve been perfect but I haven’t…
Portrait of the year
January The United Kingdom found itself in possession of a trade agreement with the EU. Coronavirus restrictions were tightened. The…
Night on a bare mountain
Novelists are leery about letting the buzzwords of recent history into their books. The immediate past threatens to upstage the…
Lockdown creations
‘I may, one day, stop making notes and writing down recipes,’ Nigel Slater says in A Cook’s Book (Fourth Estate,…
