The Spectator | The Spectator columnists & writers

It’s time Boris Johnson lets science restore our liberty

‘The government would love to put issues such as these beyond the bounds of debate by creating an air of national emergency.’ So this magazine declared on 27 November 2004 in response to Tony Blair’s proposal for national identity cards, which had just been announced in the Queen’s speech. Our editor then, Boris Johnson, argued that their very existence would threaten the character and liberty of the country. If you buckle in an emergency, he argued, the principle will be lost for ever. He urged Tory MPs to rebel and crush identity cards which, he later said, he’d abolish if he ever ended up in government. History now repeats itself. Blair is back, advocating identity cards in the form of vaccine passports or ‘Covid status certificates’.

Portrait of the week: Vaccine passports, Northern Ireland riots and a cocaine-smuggling kayaker

Letters: The inconsistencies of Mormonism

How likely is a false positive from a Covid test?

2498: Cross-country - solution

Portrait of the week: Vaccine passports, Northern Ireland riots and a cocaine-smuggling kayaker

Letters: The inconsistencies of Mormonism

How likely is a false positive from a Covid test?

2498: Cross-country - solution

Full text: First Roadmap Review

Introduction 1. The Government's overriding goal is to protect the lives and livelihoods of citizens across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. The COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021 (the roadmap) set out how the Government would continue to protect and support citizens across the UK and provided a roadmap out of the restrictions in place across England. 2. The Government committed to taking a cautious approach to easing those restrictions, guided by data instead of dates, to avoid another surge in infections that could put unsustainable pressure on the NHS. The roadmap set out “no earlier than” dates for these steps, which are five weeks apart. This allows four weeks for the data to begin to reflect the impact of the previous step and a further week’s notice to individuals and businesses before introducing the changes.

Which football teams are the biggest losers?

Mounting losses The England football team beat San Marino 5-0, taking to 56 the number of competitive games that the micro-nation has gone without a victory since 1990. Has any other football team exceeded this record?— In English league football, the record number of games without a win is 36, held jointly by Derby County (2007/08) and Macclesfield Town, who have achieved the feat twice, in 2012 and 2018.— San Marino, who have won one match, a friendly against Liechtenstein in 2004, can take heart from Fort William FC, which went 73 games without a win before hammering Nairn County 5-2 in a cup game in 2019. Big canals The Suez Canal was blocked by a grounded container ship. Which are the biggest shipping canals? Maximum draft | Maximum beam Suez 20m (66ft) | 77m (254ft)Max.

The false narrative of white vs BAME

Letters: Britain should hang on to its vaccines

2497: Scramble - solution

Portrait of the week: Alex Salmond’s party, China’s H&M ban and protests in Bristol and Batley

The false narrative of white vs BAME

Letters: Britain should hang on to its vaccines

2497: Scramble - solution

Portrait of the week: Alex Salmond’s party, China’s H&M ban and protests in Bristol and Batley

The false narrative of BAME vs white

Almost 20 years ago, Michael Howard spoke about the ‘British dream’: that immigrant families like his could come to this country and find every door open for their children. The same was true for Priti Patel’s parents, both refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda. Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, has spoken movingly about his father, who was a refugee from the Nazis. Our islands are and have always been a beacon of light for those fleeing darkness, or simply seeking a better life for their families. Over the years, our country’s reputation has drawn millions of people who have settled here in search of the British dream. They have faced headwinds of racism and bigotry, as migrants and their families invariably do.

Britain must help Europe fight a third wave

During the referendum campaign five years ago, the pro-Brexit side argued that by freeing ourselves from the EU’s native protectionism and over-application of the precautionary principle, Britain could revitalise its economy and democracy. The EU wanted to seize more power, they argued, by taking control of ever greater areas of public life. Remainers thought these fears were exaggerated. They saw in the Leave vote an eruption of nativism. The EU’s vaccine war, however, could not have better demonstrated the problem of Brussels overreach. While the vaccine programme rolls on in Britain, with more than half of all adults now inoculated, the EU is being drawn ever further down a blind alley of its own making. The European Commission’s threat to ban the export of vaccines to third countries — a move for which it has already granted itself the required powers — has exposed a way of thinking which not only puts lives at risk all across Europe, but also promises to damage inward investment.

Letters: Keir Starmer has failed the country

2496: Depart Paddington - solution

Portrait of the week: Europe’s vaccine wars, a beached walrus and Sturgeon survives

Exclusive Ch Pichon masterclass

Does the UK really have the highest Covid death rate?

Has Neil Ferguson been proved right about Covid?

Calculated risk It is a year since Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College team published the paper that inspired the government to call the first lockdown. How good were its scenarios? — It modelled four Covid-suppression measures: isolating cases for seven days, their household contacts for 14 days, social distancing to reduce household contacts by 75 per cent and the closure of schools and hospitals. It assumed these measures would be repeated for 12-18 months before a vaccine became available. — The model was run with different values for the basic reproduction number, which it estimated to lie within the range 2 to 2.6. If the government introduced none of these measures it estimated there would be between 410,000 and 550,000 deaths.

The Crown Office, The Spectator and a fight for a free press

Letters: What really irritates Meghan’s critics

Portrait of the week: Tributes to Sarah Everard, rows over AstraZeneca and Nokia cuts jobs

2495: Contrary - solution

The Crown Office, The Spectator and a fight for a free press

Letters: What really irritates Meghan’s critics

Portrait of the week: Tributes to Sarah Everard, rows over AstraZeneca and Nokia cuts jobs

2495: Contrary - solution

What did Spectator writers really get up to at school?

Rod Liddle If you leave a Bunsen burner on for about ten minutes, then quickly put the rubber pipe over a water tap and turn it on full, you get a small explosion and a scalding stream of water to be directed at a boy called Harris. Similarly, if you attach crocodile clips to Harris’s jacket and then wire it up to a power source, it makes him jump about a lot. I loved physics lessons. Jeremy Clarke Snow in the playground. The tall caped figure of the headmaster appeared on a short outside staircase — a rare balcony appearance of a benign, reclusive demigod. One long-distance snowball among the flying hundreds, arcing higher than the rest, travelling through the air in slow time, apparently laser guided, is fixed in the memory of all who saw it.