Sanitising Britain’s imperialist past would require collective amnesia
Many people will find themselves somewhat emotionally torn by the sight of statues being toppled and defaced by angry, if self-appointed, modern iconoclasts. On the one hand, George Floyd’s cruel murder has started a long-delayed and hugely needed confrontation by America with the reality of its shameful anti-black political, economic, penal and social discrimination and […]
What is ‘the science’ politicians must follow?
The publication of an open letter signed by 1000 citizens, including members of our scientific and healthcare community poses a political problem for whoever is in government in the coming weeks and months. The signatories are demanding that the Government doubles down on repressing the coronavirus with a view to hunting it to extinction io the […]
We will laugh at the puritanism of the two metre advice
No-one has a crystal ball. But it might clear our heads a little to let our imaginations wander and to ask ourselves how we imagine that we will, in late May 2021, look back on the first half of 2020. Will this semester look, in retrospect, as one in which the western world over-reacted to […]
How will we proceed in a brave new post-Covid world?
While it may be trite to point out that it was far easier politically to get us into lockdown than it will be to get out of it, that does not mean that the economic, health and social damage being done by lockdown is sustainable or that ending lockdown as quickly as possible is not […]
Black Americans fear the future and so should we
In July, 2017, Donald Trump, newly elected President of the United States, organised a rally of uniformed police officers on Long Island in New York state. His audience were ranged in front of him and a number were seated behind him as he spoke. This was a classical visual format to suggest to television audiences […]
Ireland should be slow to condemn Karlsruhe
Over the last few weeks, a furore has been whipped up about the decision of the German federal constitutional court at Karlsruhe, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (“BVerfG” for short), in relation to the ECB’s €2 trillion stimulus package. The decision, in effect called for the package to be shown to be proportionate to the ECB’s limited monetary […]