There are two kinds of long Covid. One is a medical syndrome, the other manifests as a healthy obsession – an urge to shed light on what happened during the pandemic crisis. Too many questions remain unanswered: why did Sweden come out of the pandemic better than other countries without
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that within 12 weeks asylum-seekers could be flown to Rwanda. This followed the passing of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Five out of 110 people in a small inflatable boat died near the French coast. A BBC correspondent had watched
Most states spy. In principle there’s nothing to stop them. But China’s demand for intelligence on the rest of the world goes far beyond anything western intelligence agencies would typically gather. It encompasses masses of commercial data and intellectual property and has been described by Keith Alexander, a former head
The eight unclued lights are all kinds of soup: COCK-A-LEEKIE (1A), SHCHI (21A) , PHO (40A), VICHYSSOISE (41A), CONSOMME (2D), MULLIGATAWNY (14D), MINESTRONE (19D) and PISTOU (25D). The puzzle’s title cryptically indicates the subject: ‘thus’ = SO, ‘at an end’= UP. First prize Tessa Ferguson, Bath Runners-up William Orriel, Newton Abbot,
It was Walter Map in his 12th century work ‘On the Trifles of Courtiers’ who created the character Eudo, who famously, ‘left no good deed unpunished, no bad one unrewarded’. Human nature has changed little in the intervening centuries at least to judge by the behaviour of 21st century courtiers
The Liberal Democrat candidate in the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency recently released a video clip of herself sitting in a car and saying just the following: ‘As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that women can have a penis.’ When I’m feeling depressed or under the weather, I play
After six months of delay, the US Senate has finally passed a $60 billion foreign-aid package which will send urgently needed ammunition and military equipment to Ukrainian soldiers. It may well be the last such cheque to be signed in Washington. Donald Trump is favourite to be the next president
David Martin Jones, a philosopher and political commentator who made his career in Singapore and Brisbane, London and Budapest, died last week at Charing Cross Hospital in London, with family at his bedside. He was 73. David was witty and intellectually generous to the end. I had the pleasure of
On Sunday, the BBC did something unusual. It invited Luke Johnson, a climate contrarian, to join a panel with Laura Kuenssberg to discuss net zero. As followers of this debate will know, the BBC’s editorial policy unit issued guidance to staff in 2018 saying: ‘As climate change is accepted as
Some things in life acquire an outsize popularity which defies all common sense. The outlandish appeal of such things cannot be explained except by reference to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire – the idea that there are many things we value not for their intrinsic utility and enjoyment but
Most Australian politicians, with notable exceptions, treat as infallible the discredited theory of anthropogenic global boiling. Yet few, if any, significantly curb their enormous CO2 footprints. A good number probably doubt the theory. The situation in the mainstream media is similar, mainly ignoring, for example, the latest powerful exposé, Climate:
There are two kinds of long Covid. One is a medical syndrome, the other manifests as a healthy obsession – an urge to shed light on what happened during the pandemic crisis. Too many questions remain unanswered: why did Sweden come out of the pandemic better than other countries without
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that within 12 weeks asylum-seekers could be flown to Rwanda. This followed the passing of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Five out of 110 people in a small inflatable boat died near the French coast. A BBC correspondent had watched
Most states spy. In principle there’s nothing to stop them. But China’s demand for intelligence on the rest of the world goes far beyond anything western intelligence agencies would typically gather. It encompasses masses of commercial data and intellectual property and has been described by Keith Alexander, a former head
The eight unclued lights are all kinds of soup: COCK-A-LEEKIE (1A), SHCHI (21A) , PHO (40A), VICHYSSOISE (41A), CONSOMME (2D), MULLIGATAWNY (14D), MINESTRONE (19D) and PISTOU (25D). The puzzle’s title cryptically indicates the subject: ‘thus’ = SO, ‘at an end’= UP. First prize Tessa Ferguson, Bath Runners-up William Orriel, Newton Abbot,
It was Walter Map in his 12th century work ‘On the Trifles of Courtiers’ who created the character Eudo, who famously, ‘left no good deed unpunished, no bad one unrewarded’. Human nature has changed little in the intervening centuries at least to judge by the behaviour of 21st century courtiers
The Liberal Democrat candidate in the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency recently released a video clip of herself sitting in a car and saying just the following: ‘As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that women can have a penis.’ When I’m feeling depressed or under the weather, I play
After six months of delay, the US Senate has finally passed a $60 billion foreign-aid package which will send urgently needed ammunition and military equipment to Ukrainian soldiers. It may well be the last such cheque to be signed in Washington. Donald Trump is favourite to be the next president
David Martin Jones, a philosopher and political commentator who made his career in Singapore and Brisbane, London and Budapest, died last week at Charing Cross Hospital in London, with family at his bedside. He was 73. David was witty and intellectually generous to the end. I had the pleasure of
On Sunday, the BBC did something unusual. It invited Luke Johnson, a climate contrarian, to join a panel with Laura Kuenssberg to discuss net zero. As followers of this debate will know, the BBC’s editorial policy unit issued guidance to staff in 2018 saying: ‘As climate change is accepted as
Some things in life acquire an outsize popularity which defies all common sense. The outlandish appeal of such things cannot be explained except by reference to René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire – the idea that there are many things we value not for their intrinsic utility and enjoyment but
Most Australian politicians, with notable exceptions, treat as infallible the discredited theory of anthropogenic global boiling. Yet few, if any, significantly curb their enormous CO2 footprints. A good number probably doubt the theory. The situation in the mainstream media is similar, mainly ignoring, for example, the latest powerful exposé, Climate:
