Society

I am hearing there will be positive news soon (perhaps tomorrow) on initial trials of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine that is backed by AstraZeneca and supported by tens of millions of pounds of government money. The first data is due be published in the Lancet. Apparently the vaccine is generating the kind of antibody and T-cell (killer cell) response that the researchers would hope to see. That said, the efficacy will only be properly established in the large phase III programme that is underway in the viral epicentre of Brazil, to deliver a large database that assesses safety as well as efficacy. One source told me: ‘An important point to

Is Banksy a Tory propagandist now? His latest juvenile stunt suggests he might be. On the day the government announced that it will soon be mandatory to wear face masks in shops, Banksy released a video showing himself daubing a Tube train carriage with pro-mask slogans and images. Way to stick it to the man, Banksy! Banksy’s latest act of politicised vandalism really sums him up. He dressed up as a cleaner, went Underground, ordered Tube passengers to move out of the way, and then got to work on his latest sneer at the masses. He stencilled rats inside the Tube carriage. One rat is sneezing. Another is struggling to

Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument was raging, with the country split between those who wanted the wearing of gas masks to be made compulsory on pain of financial penalty, and those who maintained it should be an individual choice. Unlike today’s virus, the threat facing the country in the summer of 1940 was a destructive Nazi war machine that in a matter of months had torn through most of western Europe. Britain was next in Hitler’s sights and an aerial gas attack was what the government feared most. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain’s government, aided by

The Domestic Abuse Bill, championed by Theresa May, could easily have fallen foul of Brexit, Boris Johnson, the suspension of Parliament, a new government or coronavirus. But the Bill has beat the odds: it was passed by the House of Commons this week and is currently making its way to the Lords. It’s pure coincidence that this Bill should be in the news at the very point the nation is emerging from lockdown and, collectively, beginning to take stock of the damage wreaked, not just by Covid-19, but the confining of people to their homes. One sadly predictable result of lockdown is that rates of domestic abuse are likely to

There are plenty of mysteries about how coronavirus spread around the world so quickly. But could we shed some light on this by looking in an unusual place? Several studies have been doing just that: tracing the emergence of covid-19 by investigating frozen faeces samples from sewage. This analysis cannot tell us where the virus originated from, nor can it tell us whether the recovered micro-organisms are still infectious. But they can give us ideas about how long we have been living alongside a virus which has so far killed more than half-a-million people. Coronavirus has been found in sewage from several countries predating the detection of the first confirmed cases

The Black Lives Matter movement has put racial sensitivity at the top of the agenda. A new atmosphere of moral rectitude has taken hold, and anyone who makes a tactless or unwelcome statement about race is likely to be fired. That’s what happened to Jack Hepple after a ‘White Lives Matter’ stunt over Man City’s football ground last month. He lost his job. His girlfriend, Megan Rambadt, a reflexologist, was also let go after her employer had earlier suggested it was willing to keep her on if she undertook racial sensitivity training. Meanwhile Keir Starmer has suggested that Labour party workers will be made to follow his example and complete