Harsh as it may sound, the retail and hospitality sector of the economy which has suffered most immediately under the Covid restrictions was also the least productive.  For those who follow conventional economic models, then, the damage currently being wrought on that sector is of little concern.  Shops and cafés …

Thousands of patients are queuing on trolleys in the corridors of overstretched hospitals.  NHS managers have appealed to the public to only seek hospital care in a genuine emergency.  Those genuine emergency patients have been told to take taxis to A&E because of a shortage of ambulances.  Meanwhile, ambulance paramedics …

It has been a year since I last wrote about Brexit.  My reason was simple; there was no longer anything to discuss.  Despite having written extensively about the process between 2015 and 2019, Boris Johnson’s massive election victory a year ago brought the process to an end.  In short order, …

Those of us of a certain age can remember a more benevolent time[1] in which schoolchildren were given free milk every morning.  Some may also remember the free NHS orange juice and rosehip syrup that was given to young children due to concern that they had insufficient vitamin C in …

Exactly when the Guardian made the transition from serious newspaper to neoliberal propaganda sheet is a matter of debate.  Some would argue it goes back to the mid-1990s and the rise of Blair’s New Labour; others say that is only since 2008 that it changed for the worse.  Whatever, the …

In the more conspiratorial corners of the Internet, the “Great Reset” is a sinister public face of an elite plan to enslave humanity by creating a global authoritarian surveillance super-state, compete with re-education camps for those who suffer from wrongthink, and Soylent Green-style euthanasia camps for addressing the twin problems …

Central to the UK government’s 10-point version of a green new deal is the ambitious promise of: “Phasing out sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles and investing in grants to help buy cars and charge point infrastructure.” The …

The UK government’s version of a green new deal is very likely to go the same way as its strategy for responding to a pandemic… and mostly for the same reason.  Rather like the pandemic plan, it looks good on paper, so long as nobody gets into the fine detail …

Age is the most important factor in the current pandemic.  Put simply, once you pass 50, each additional year adds to the risk of your developing and succumbing to Covid-19.  But age may play a less obvious role in determining your relative risk – one that speaks volumes about the …

In the 1970s, the developed states were shaken by oil shortages.  Although largely artificial – the result of OPEC flexing its muscles, and later the Iran-Iraq war – the oil shocks briefly caused people to take seriously the prospect of running out of oil.  The shock was all the more …