Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

It’s impossible to know which crisis to take seriously

We’ve had three decades of crying wolf

As I write this, the first day of the heatwave has just dawned. FEAR COMES THE SUN is the Daily Mail headline, while the Mirror has plumped for BLOWTORCH BRITAIN. The Telegraph maybe laments that its house style eschews the use of capital letters for ‘Heatwave meltdown brings Britain to a halt’.

At the same time, there is a counterwave of people scoffing sceptically at all this heated alarm. The meme of a cheerful-looking sun with ‘I survived the summer of 1976’ is doing the rounds across social media, and there are a few contrary souls in public life saying that a spot of sun never did them any harm, with occasional accusations of the Met Office politically pandering to the climate change lobby. Dominic Raab has told us all to enjoy it, which coming from somebody who always looks a bit worried is no help at all.

You are reading this on Tuesday.

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