Lionel Shriver is a columnist at The Spectator and author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, among other books.
I sympathised with Leave voters who yearned to ‘take back control’ of British borders. After all, if being a country means anything, it surely entails first and foremost a clear understanding of who comes under that country’s protection — and who doesn’t. Otherwise a country is just a patch on a map. Yet I’ve always
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On this week’s podcast, Lionel Shriver says that the real determinant of coronavirus isn’t race – it’s obesity (01:00) Simon Cooper asks whether the return of beavers to English rivers is really something to be celebrated (09:35) Gerri Peev asks why the European Union keeps backing Bulgaria’s kleptocratic government. (15:40)
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While the government’s U-turn on A-level and GCSE results has been widely welcomed, universities are still in a dire state – why? (00:55) Plus, has Boris Johnson got the right approach in his war on fat? (15:00) And finally, are illegal raves during the pandemic socially irresponsible, or just young people sticking it to The
In the UK’s capital city, where do the fewest obese people live? North London. The most? East London. The weight disparity between largely white and largely immigrant residents might seem to concern race, but I will argue — against the tide, as right now everything is about race — that, deep down, the fat differential
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On this week’s edition, Joanna Lumley recalls her meeting with Mongolia’s former champion wrestler – now the country’s president – and reflects on the joys of eating birdseed (01:14). Lionel Shriver argues that the true novelty of coronavirus is just how scared it’s made us all (07:14). Andrew Doyle suggests that the SNP’s hate crime
There’s nothing unprecedented about Covid-19 itself. The equally novel, equally infectious Asian flu of 1957 had commensurate fatalities in Britain: scaled up for today’s population, the equivalent of 42,000, while the UK’s (statistically flawed) Covid death total now stands at 46,000. Globally, the Asian flu was vastly more lethal, causing between two and four million
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Owen Matthews on Russia’s plan to unleash chaos in the West (00:50); Lionel Shriver on the peculiar similarities between the open letter and the ransom note (11:00); and Peter Hitchens on why he won’t be wearing a mask when he’s giving blood (19:40).
In the States, the ‘open letter’ is enjoying quite the formal renaissance. Curiously, recent examples of this newly popular epistolary genre exhibit striking similarities to the ransom note. During June’s riots following George Floyd’s murder, a beloved independent bookstore in Denver called The Tattered Cover posted online that the shop would be politically impartial, the
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White working class boys consistently perform worse than other demographics in the UK’s education system – why? (00:45) What is it like to be ‘cancelled’? (14:20) And is it time to return to the office? (24:50) With the IEA’s Christopher Snowdon; former Ucas head Mary Curnock Cook; journalist Kevin Myers; the Spectator’s columnist Lionel Shriver;
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Liam Halligan on the inflationary dangers of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing; Lionel Shriver on the vanity of white guilt; and Ysenda Maxtone Graham on the existential danger that choirs are facing.
When I was about ten, on return home from church I ate a peach, the juice of which dribbled down my new pink frock. I scuttled to my room to change, bunching the dress under the bed. I emerged the picture of innocence, but I felt guilty. For weeks, the garment pulsed with accusation. Going
When the media have gone large on the conclusions of an overpoweringly tedious report, one of the biggest favours a columnist can do for a readership is to read the source. Friends, you owe me. I will expect flowers and chocolate. For I have located Public Health England’s ‘Beyond the Data: Understanding the impact of
When I first saw the footage of George Floyd being asphyxiated by a policeman’s knee on his throat, my reaction was pretty standard. My eyes bugged. I stood up. I exclaimed something like: ‘Bloody hell!’ We’ve all seen the video dozens of times now, but it’s worth clinging to that initial shock, the better to
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Hear Katy Balls on the long term impact of the Cummings affair; Dr John Lee on the problem with the way we are counting Covid deaths; and Lionel Shriver on how life isn’t worth living without a little risk. Get a month’s free trial of The Spectator and a free wireless charger here.
Taking my life in my hands — as we all do when getting out of bed — I walked along the Thames last week. On the northern footpath east of Blackfriars Bridge, a young man ran atop the adjacent wall and jumped across a gap in the brickwork. The gap was six feet long, the
Should our future permit an occupation so frivolous, historians years from now will make a big mistake if they blame the nauseating plummet of global GDP in 2020 directly on a novel coronavirus. After all — forgive the repetition, but certain figures bear revisiting — Covid’s roughly 290,000 deaths wouldn’t raise a blip on a
Under the cloud of conformity that has settled over the land as a replacement for air pollution, heretics who doubt the wisdom of annihilating a nation in the name of saving it are obliged to navigate around numerous disputational booby traps. You hate old people and want them to die (though some oddballs questioning the
Last week, a friend quoted a two-year-old email of mine: ‘I’m starting to root for a plague or world war to purify western culture, burning to cinders all the petty, neurotic, witch-hunting cliques with the white heat of real problems.’ Depressed by my own foresight, I wrote back: ‘The trouble with this solution is that
I am a type. I don’t like groups. I maintain few memberships. I question and resist authority, especially enforcement of rules for the rules’ sake. I’m leery of orthodoxy. I hold back from shared cultural enthusiasms. Everyone’s met such obstreperous specimens — the original self-isolators — and some readers out there are just like me.
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Matthew Parris warns against comparing coronavirus to the war, Lionel Shriver fears the economic repercussions, and Isabel Hardman explains why stockpiling hens isn’t such a good idea.
