Sweden
What percent of Covid deaths were directly from Covid?
Just how many people have died of Covid-19, as opposed to having died with the virus? It is a poignant…
How Covid spread in Sweden’s care homes
Why did Covid prove so lethal in care homes? Between 2 March and 12 June, there were 66,112 deaths of…
Has Sweden been vindicated?
Sweden has released growth figures for the second quarter – a contraction of 8.6 per cent – and two narratives…
The vulgarity of easy money: lessons from Malaysia’s mega-scandal
When I worked in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur long ago, my office looked across Jalan Tun Razak, a…
Has lockdown worked?
Who occupies the post of chief adviser to the prime minister is not generally an issue of great interest to…
Trump picks a Swedish model
Donald Trump is moving toward a Swedish model. His vitality sustained by regular doses of hydroxychloroquine, President Prophylaxis is pushing…
Lessons in terror
Sweden is now properly celebrated as the Land that Called Coronavirus Correctly. But in the distant past, those with long…
Breaking out
Lifting lockdown is a worldwide experiment
Emperor Ferguson has no clothes
I originally had Neil Ferguson down as a kind of Henry Kissinger figure. The professor of mathematical biology at Imperial…
Does lockdown really decrease Covid deaths?
It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes –…
Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdown
Sweden has been the world’s Covid-19 outlier, pursuing social distancing but rejecting mandatory lockdown. Schools, bars and restaurants are open…
The dangers of comparing different countries’ death rates
Using differences in coronavirus death rates between countries to draw out policy conclusions is becoming a very popular pastime. Unfortunately,…
Barometer
People power Boris Johnson said that the reaction to the coronavirus crisis showed ‘There really is such a thing as…
Swede freedom
There’s no lockdown in sight here
Bomb attacks are now a normal part of Swedish life
Stockholm One night last week, explosions took place in three different locations in and around Stockholm. There were no injuries…
A good horror film for those who don’t like horror films: Midsommar reviewed
Midsommar is the latest horror film from Ari Aster, who made Hereditary, which starred Toni Collette and was a sensation.…
Portrait of the week: Tories against Brexit, the Salisbury poisoning and Sweden’s election
Home Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was said to want to throw a lifeline to Theresa May, the…
Sweden’s political panic attack
Uppsala, Sweden When I dropped off my kids at school early last week, I noticed that -another parent’s car was…
The more extreme the left’s screeches, the greater the populist surge
The latest exciting news is that it may very soon be possible for surgeons to perform uterine transplants, so endowing…
There’s much of Astrid Lindgren in the carrot-haired rebel Pippi Longstocking
Pippi Longstocking is a nine-year-old girl who lives alone with a monkey and horse in a cottage called Villa Villekulla…
Violent crime in Sweden is soaring. When will politicians act?
January was a particularly violent month in Sweden. A 63-year-old man was killed in Stockholm by a hand grenade lying…
Norway is hard on migrants – but tough love works
When Angela Merkel invited refugees to Germany in 2015, tearing up the rules obliging migrants to seek asylum in the…
No balls
Borg vs McEnroe is a dramatised account of one of the greatest tennis rivalries of all time — between Bjorn…
Descent into hell
It’s awful, but the surname Rausing (once synonymous only with the Tetrapak fortune) now summons up a terrible stench in…
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
