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Britain has its first punk-rock government

The most surprising thing about the letter from Guardian and Observer journalists moaning about Suzanne Moore’s supposed ‘transphobia’ is that it contained 338 signatures. This must be the first time a newspaper has had more writers than readers. What an extraordinarily bloated institution — how does it survive? Through those often advertised workshops where Owen Jones explains to people how to write a column? Most bizarre. Surprise number two was that these hacks were prepared to get themselves worked up about a perfectly reasonable piece, for once, by Moore — but found no problem what-soever with Steve Bell’s disgusting and frankly racist depiction of Priti Patel in a cartoon. Patel,

A guide to coronavirus hoarding

We have now got past the absurd stage of glaring in a reproachful manner at Chinese people on the tube. Coronavirus is disrupting sporting events, so this rather mild-mannered little bug has acquired crisis cachet and we must all take it very seriously. Lots of us will die of it, apparently — in this country some 500,000, according to one estimate. Almost certainly older people with under-lying medical conditions, i.e. the very people who voted for Brexit and ensured Labour’s red wall was dismantled in December. If this worst-case scenario does actually happen, expect the Remainers to demand a rerun of that referendum. Health professionals will be able to enumerate