covid

A geriatric Lord of the Flies: Killing Time, by Alan Bennett, reviewed

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Chaos reigns at an old people’s home when Covid strikes, but the more rebellious residents won’t take the situation lying down

One damned thing after another: Britain’s crisis-ridden century so far

29 June 2024 9:00 am

The Iraq war, the financial crisis, Brexit and Covid have seen many prime ministers blown off course. Will Keir Starmer be any luckier than his predecessors?

Have I finally found the most incongruous leftie?

22 June 2024 9:00 am

As the disappointingly unmacho South African toddled off after giving us a lecture about hedgehogs, I declared the contest over.…

Paris, city of blight

4 May 2024 9:00 am

You know that feeling when you haven’t seen someone for several years and when you do, you really notice the…

My parents and the sorry state of the NHS

4 May 2024 9:00 am

Pushing through a crowded hospital corridor behind my father, I heard a voice calling me. Then a nurse grabbed me…

Why were Germany’s Covid files redacted?

27 April 2024 9:00 am

There are two kinds of long Covid. One is a medical syndrome, the other manifests as a healthy obsession –…

Are we all becoming hermits now?

20 April 2024 9:00 am

A new anthropological type is emerging, says Pascal Bruckner – the shrivelled, hyperconnected being who no longer needs others or the outside world

Ménage à trois: Day, by Michael Cunningham, reviewed

13 January 2024 9:00 am

When Dan, his wife Isabel and her brother Robbie decide to spend lockdown together, claustrophobic domesticity develops into a painful love triangle

Baroness Mone ‘can’t see what we’ve done wrong’ over PPE pandemic profits

17 December 2023 11:30 pm

Baroness Mone: ‘I can’t see what we’ve done wrong’ Laura Kuenssberg’s show this morning was dominated by her interview with…

Fast and furious: America Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien, reviewed

9 December 2023 9:00 am

As the avalanche of lies issuing from the White House morphs into the pandemic, Covid becomes in an engine of justice in this rollicking satire on Trumpworld

Why was an erroneous graph used to justify the second lockdown?

11 November 2023 9:00 am

Two stories are emerging from the Covid Inquiry: one that it wants to tell and one that it does not.…

If I told my new friend the truth, our friendship would be over

17 June 2023 9:00 am

‘Achoo!’ was the first thing the girl sitting next to me on the plane said as I took my seat…

Pouria Hadjibagheri and the UK’s abandoned open data revolution

2 January 2023 3:42 am

With a new year comes the New Year’s Honours and I’m struck to see an MBE given to Pouria Hadjibagheri. He’s the…

Britain needs more honesty about unemployment

18 October 2022 4:30 pm

Is low unemployment causing us more problems than we realise? The suggestion might seem absurd, offensive even. It’s reminiscent of…

The 100-year-old opiate had lost none of its potency

15 October 2022 9:00 am

Our neighbour Michael is a keen and knowledgable attender of vides-greniers, the equivalent of our car-boot sales. His focus is…

Vaccines disguised the errors of our lockdown policy

4 September 2022 4:00 pm

Liz Truss’s statement that she would never authorise another lockdown and The Spectator’s interview with Rishi Sunak have triggered a…

What Rishi Sunak gets wrong about lockdown

1 September 2022 4:45 pm

Rishi Sunak presents an alarming picture of what happened during lockdown in last week’s Spectator interview – one echoed by…

We’re at pandemic levels of death. Why is no one talking about it?

23 August 2022 9:10 pm

At the peak of the lockdowns, thousands were dying every week. Newspaper front pages demanded action. But in the latest…

Farewell, St Anthony Fauci

23 August 2022 3:30 pm

So farewell, Anthony Fauci, the unfortunate face of America’s pandemic response. Well, not so unfortunate – the doctor is stepping…

Tony Blair's Covid grift

17 August 2022 10:39 pm

Have we yet seen the end of Covid restrictions? It is tempting to think so. For many people, Covid and…

Has the lab leak theory really been disproved?

28 July 2022 1:19 am

The BBC carried a story this week with the headline ‘Covid origin studies say evidence points to Wuhan market’. Bizarrely…