lockdown
What's more disturbing: Cummings' behaviour - or the mob pursuing him?
The Dominic Cummings story is deeply disturbing. No, not the fact that Cummings and his wife, Mary Wakefield, took what…
X days to save the economy!
I wonder what the Labour party will use as its scare slogan at the next election? After all, the usual…
Liberal fears are contagious
It has become a commonplace among social psychologists that one of the characteristics that unites conservatives is our sensitivity to…
Rules for a deconfinement dinner party
The most visible local landmark is a solitary two-headed Jurassic mountain called Le Bessillon, six miles long and 800 metres…
Rico Back’s departure is a first-class opportunity for Royal Mail
The Royal Mail worker who rang my bell to deliver an Amazon package on Friday was wearing a glittery ball…
Are you a lockdown eel or a pygmy goat?
I identify strongly with the garden eels in the Tokyo aquarium. Pre-corona, they were perfectly sociable. Come opening hour, when…
Did the behavioural scientists have a point?
For all the abuse heaped on the Behavioural Insights Team early in the crisis, let’s not forget that the only…
The lost world of lockdown
It started when, the day after the announcement of some lockdown easing, I drove five miles along the coast road.…
Lockdowns are as contagious as Covid
What if the virus had started somewhere other than China?
Coromance is blossoming
Being stuck at home will make our relationships stronger
My first post-lockdown party
France is divided into a red zone and a green zone. We’re green. Green for go. From this morning we…
This lockdown may kill me
I have a new job, which is maintaining a website called Lockdown Sceptics (lockdownsceptics.org). It’s a compendium of evidence that…
Lives vs lives – the global cost of lockdown
The global cost of lockdown
This is not a natural disaster, but a manmade one
Should our future permit an occupation so frivolous, historians years from now will make a big mistake if they blame…
The revenge of the oldies
Entering my 54th day of quarantine, I recall how much I was looking forward to this spring in England. There…
Portrait of the week: Europe’s lockdowns ease, England stays alert and Broadway stays shut
Home The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus,…
Reopening schools must be our first priority
It would be a tragedy if one of the legacies of Covid-19 — a disease which hardly affects children physically…
How to get your racing fix under lockdown
There is racing elsewhere in the world. It restarted in France on Monday, la course de chevaux being classed in…
When money dies
This article is in The Spectator’s May 2020 US edition. Subscribe here to get yours. ‘Money for Nothing’ is more than just…
In the Covid era, age isn’t just a number
When I told my seven-year-old granddaughter, over Zoom, how much I missed being with her, I added: ‘Maybe it won’t…
Hope in a takeaway bag: Mackerel Sky reviewed
You don’t dine in the age of pandemic: you scuttle about in the wreckage. If you can afford food, and…
Track and trace should not be our only exit strategy
The concept of the state tracking our every movement is anathema to this magazine and, we assume, to its liberal…
Professor Lockdown’s spell has been broken
I originally had Neil Ferguson down as a kind of Henry Kissinger figure. The professor of mathematical biology at Imperial…
Dear Mary: What do I say to the neighbour who comments on my daily exercise?
Q To your correspondent with a guest whose table manners offend (2 May), you suggest screening him off with a…
The importance of the Natural Health Service
Spending time outside is vital for mental health