lockdown
The virus is in retreat. Isn’t it time the public is trusted to decide how to behave?
Since the start of this year, cases of Covid-19 have been in decline. Hospital admissions have fallen 80 per cent…
The UK economy is suffering worse than most
Last week The Spectator highlighted new data from the OECD that offers a weekly update comparing a country’s current GDP…
Beware the hobby bobby
‘Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you have anything to say?’ I looked at the baby-faced police…
What will life look like after 21 June?
‘Alas’ is a word used many times by Boris Johnson during the pandemic. It is how he prefaces announcements that…
For lovers who live apart, it’s been a long year
When will it be legal to hug my girlfriend again?
Do we really want lockdown to end?
Despite it being highly unfashionable to change your opinion, my lockdown stance has shown agility. For most of last year…
Will freedom always be just over the horizon?
We should talk about horizons, and the setting of desirable ones. A newspaper gave it a go the other day…
Do gender studies departments have a gender problem?
Target practice The government hit its target of giving a first Covid vaccine to 15 million of the most vulnerable…
Vaccines are working – so why isn’t society reopening?
When the Prime Minister sets out his ‘roadmap’ for easing Covid restrictions on Monday, it will be against a backdrop…
The need for speed: can we outpace Covid?
Can we outpace Covid?
Universal Credit and the future of the welfare state
Amid the many failures of public policy during the Covid crisis, one success has gone largely unnoticed. The Universal Credit…
Tory nerves are growing over Boris Johnson's Covid strategy
When the third lockdown was voted on in the House of Commons last month, there was a smaller Tory rebellion than the previous…
Isolation nation: how Australia is dealing with its pandemic
At 6.20 p.m. on Friday evening, Scarborough Beach, an oceanside suburb of Perth, looked like it always does: families picnicked…
Lockdown has added to the pain of my mum's Covid death
Last week, my mum died. In just a few short minutes, she went from being a living, breathing human, to…
Holy relic: what will be left of the Church of England after the pandemic?
The Church of England as we know it is disappearing
Had the kitchen shop assistant been drugged and handcuffed?
The kitchen tap began dripping as if it knew perfectly well that this would land me in a predicament whereby…
Lockdowns can destroy the lives they’re intended to protect
Some Leavers are perturbed that Lord Frost was suddenly stood down as the next National Security Adviser. This anxiety may…
The misguided priorities of church authorities
The church authorities’ priorities are all wrong
What if Covid had struck in the 1970s?
We have reached Covid-19’s first anniversary in the UK — and I really think we should do something fitting to…
‘Inessential’ workers have helped keep the country afloat
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
The horrifying toll of lockdown on the poor and mentally ill
I start the week with someone throwing faeces at me. I thought people were supposed to clap for doctors these…
Quarantine and the freedom paradox
Who would have thought, this time last year, that the British government would be planning to detain British nationals at…
Inside the Dutch anti-lockdown riots
Images of Dutch rioters throwing stones and fireworks at police, looting shops and facing water cannon have been published all…
Vaccination is the only way out of this catastrophe
Monday started with me opening my bedroom windows to let what little light there is come through, only to find…
What makes us think they’ll release lockdown after vaccines?
Has the coup happened yet? You have the advantage over me. It was supposed to have taken place on Sunday.…
