‘He manages to make me look like a blond Hitler’: Alan Bennett’s pandemic diaries reviewed
You have to be a major National Treasure to get away with publishing a book of only 49 pages, especially when the text has already appeared in…
‘Boris Johnson considered himself above the law’: Readers on the week’s biggest stories
‘Mr and Mrs Sunak have been gaming the system’ @Pierrot Pierrot: “Mr Sunak might well have told the truth but is this yet another case of being…
Partying was the least of Boris’s lockdown sins
For the rudderless Marie Celeste that is the Conservative Party, each day seems to herald a new public relations disaster. Sometimes, like buses, their catastrophes arrive in…
Britain is now reaping the rewards of Freedom Day
The February GDP data will also not yet reflect the full impact of the war in Ukraine or the growing cost-of-living crisis. However, the more timely business…
Did the Culture Recovery Fund actually work?
On July 5 2020, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unveiled the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF), a one-off investment in the UK arts industry to help it weather…
The public sector is still living in a lockdown fantasy
The ghost of lockdowns past still haunts Britain, despite the Government ending free mass coronavirus testing this week. Covid prevalence is still high, with the official figures…
The Covid inquiry must address misguided measures
The Government’s “living with Covid strategy” has reached a new milestone, with the end of universal free testing for the virus. Of course, it never was actually…
Sophie Ellis-Bextor delivers an unabashedly feelgood echo of lockdown (yes, really)
There was curiously little difference in energy levels between Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s performances in her kitchen to her phone screen during lockdown, and her performance to a packed-out…
Covid inquiry called out for ‘disgraceful’ omission of disabled people
The Cabinet Office has been accused of breaking “assurances” over the scope of the Covid-19 inquiry by a disabled MP. The inquiry will look at the UK’s…
Children must be at the core of the Covid inquiry
Two years ago today the shutters came down on our freedoms as the Government introduced the most draconian set of restrictions on personal liberty in peacetime. In…
Lockdown baby boom myth debunked as birth rates continue to fall
The data, which analysed NHS birth notifications, follows widespread reports of a “baby boom” during the pandemic amid headlines about growing numbers of “Covid babies” or “coronials”. …
New Covid findings should offer a serious moment of reflection
Over the last two years, a popular narrative has come to dominate discussions about the UK’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Britain, it was suggested, had fared…
Britain’s Covid death rate compared with rest of world is not as bad as feared
Many experts believe excess deaths are a better indicator of the true scale of the pandemic because they discount people who would have died anyway during the…
A claustrophobic, horribly gripping 90 minutes of toxic masculinity
It’s an interesting moment to revive Dennis Kelly’s 2005 nasty little two-hander about a man and a woman holed up in a bunker following a terrorist nuclear…
New face covering rules — face masks in London, in hospitals and where else?
While the wearing of face masks has not been compulsory in England since Plan B measures came to an end on January 27 2021, as of Thursday…
‘Mrs P read the lesson with a budgie perched on her shoulder’: how a vicar’s Covid diary went viral
“And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down…
GCSEs and A-levels: What you need to know about how exams are changing in 2022
A-level and GCSE students will be given more “generous” marks this summer, the exam watchdog has said, as it confirmed that students will be given a “safety…
Rule changes have created Covid chaos in our theatres
As for measures like Covid passes, some venues have been stringent in their requirements. Moulin Rouge! The Musical was at the forefront of shows wanting to see…
‘The public has to accept some responsibility for lockdowns’, says senior Tory MP
For Sir Charles Walker, there’s an uncomfortable aspect of the pandemic policies he railed against throughout much of the last eleven months: the support they had from the…
Boris Johnson likely to be among 50 Downing Street party goers to be questioned by police
Another of the gatherings for which attendees are likely to face fines is the “bring your own booze” party held in the Downing Street garden on May…
Long Lockdown is destroying Britain
You feel sleepy and lethargic. Even the slightest effort leaves you short of breath. Everything feels like too much of a hassle, nothing has much meaning, and…
Why Sturgeon can’t apologise for Covid mistakes
Scrolling through Facebook the other day I came across an advert paid for by the Scottish Government advising tenants that they cannot be moved out of their…
New picture shows Boris Johnson near bottle of sparkling wine at Christmas quiz during lockdown
Boris Johnson has come under further scrutiny over Downing Street parties after a picture emerged showing him near an open bottle of sparkling wine at a Christmas…
End mass testing now and let us return to normality
Britain has got itself into a terrible mess on mass testing. A recent study led by Oxford academics, which found that up to a third of people…
The pandemic may be over, but the true cost is only just emerging
Fingers crossed, but for the first time in two years it is possible to say with some degree of certainty that the pandemic, and the measures that…