On 2 May 2016, in a bad-tempered game that became known as the Battle of the Bridge, Tottenham were held to a 2-2 draw by Chelsea. As the final whistle sounded, a city more than 100 miles away started to …
The false lesson of lockdown scepticism
Now that the US and WHO have both declared an end to the Covid health emergency, one might be tempted to think the pandemic nightmare is finally over. Indeed, for most people, it had already been overtaken by more pressing …
How egg politics failed Britain
We’re still eating a glut of chocolate from the Easter egg-hunt. But we also have a glut of real eggs: over two dozen, from our six back-garden chickens. As my house struggles with an egg surfeit, though, Britain’s shops have …
We must become barbarians
Call me a cynic or an anarchist, but these days I find it impossible to trust anything which comes to me with a seal of authority stamped upon it. I’m not defending this as a healthy response. But it is …
India’s lost lockdown generation
All his life, 15-year-old Rehan Shaikh was known as a quiet, respectful, promising boy. His teachers praised him, frequently telling his mother how bright his future was going to be. In his hometown of Anjangaon, in central India’s Wardha district, …
Why doesn’t Britain regret lockdown?
“In retrospect, lockdowns were a mistake.”
If you agree with the above statement, you are, I’m afraid, still in the minority. Three years to the day since Britain brought in its first nationwide lockdown, the latest wave of UnHerd Britain …
The truth about conspiracy Britain
“The world is controlled by a secretive elite.” This claim will strike some as conspiratorial nonsense and others as an obvious statement of fact. Either way, it is now beyond doubt that a large minority of the adult population believes …
Is the Government spying on you?
“Government cracks down on spread of false coronavirus information online,” announced a UK Government press release on March 30, 2020. “Specialist units” are tackling dangerous misinformation, disinformation, criminal fraudsters, and “false and misleading narratives”, we were told.
But, as Big …
Why are excess deaths still so high?
Around the middle of last year, researchers in several countries started noticing something disturbing: despite the fall in Covid deaths everywhere, excess deaths (compared to the pre-pandemic five-year average) were actually rising. Even more worryingly, a disproportionate number of those …
Why is the West locking down China?
The start of the new year has unshakeable feeling of Groundhog Day to it. We’re not even a week into January, and already epidemiologists are warning of new Covid variants, while passengers travelling from China to the UK will once …
Christmas is still scarred by Covid
As my daughter grows, ever more of our Christmas tree ornaments originate with her: decorated by her at school or preschool, or little end-of-term gifts from teachers. When we decorate the tree, unwrapping each one comes with a little payload …
What I discovered at Twitter HQ
One name at the centre of the story about Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” is that of Jay Bhattacharya. A professor at Stanford’s medical school, he rose to prominence as a co-author of the “Great Barrington Declaration”, which opposed Covid lockdown …
The triumph of the introverts
Before scooping up your grandson, niece, or little cousins for a hug this holiday season, the internet would like you to know: “Kids who think they need to comply with adult requests for affection are more likely to be sexually …
How we appeased China’s Zero-Covid regime
In the streets of China, people are rising up to reassert their human dignity in the face of the most dehumanising machine of social control in the world today: the Chinese Communist Party’s Zero-Covid terror-state.
For three years, the Chinese …
Nicaragua’s inconvenient Covid victory
In Nicaragua, Latin America’s third poorest country, people who don’t work don’t eat. Three-quarters of jobs are in small businesses or the informal economy. So when its first Covid case was diagnosed on 18 March 2020, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega …