As he is careful to point out, Professor Michael Levitt is not an epidemiologist. He’s Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for “the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” He’ … | Continue reading
The appeal of Johan Giesecke or Neil Ferguson is about world view as much as an assessment of the facts | Continue reading
Hindsight makes it easy to blame the Government for listening to the wrong people, not the right ones | Continue reading
A stint in prison showed me that, with preparation, an isolationist journey can be delightful | Continue reading
That was one of the more extraordinary interviews we have done here at UnHerd. Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scient … | Continue reading
Contact-tracing apps are touted as a way out of lockdown. But what about privacy? | Continue reading
An orgy of borrowing, speculation and euphoria has left the markets on the verge of catastrophe | Continue reading
The sudden change in strategy regarding the pandemic is welcome — if dangerously overdue | Continue reading
There's nothing like a bunch of paintbrush-toting nerds telling each other that they’re doing nice work | Continue reading
A process of moral outbidding is corroding small communities from within | Continue reading
Some of Alastair Stewart’s friends will fight for him — but too many of us will let him simply disappear | Continue reading
Her disabilities forced me to see everything differently | Continue reading
Bored, white elites flock to XR in search of meaning and purpose | Continue reading
Higher education expansion will leave thousands in debt and disappointment | Continue reading
Sometimes history is written — or re-written — by the losers | Continue reading
Could the manufacturing powerhouse go extinct? | Continue reading
Human rights occupy a peculiar position at the present time. Pretty well every other idea and practice — gender, nation, family and the like — is deconstructed and dismissed as an artefact of power. But deconstruction seems not to extend to rights, and even as other values and in … | Continue reading
The state of the planet is forcing itself into the centre of the human mind. For increasing numbers of people, climate change is a palpable fact. Island communities and coastal cities are suffering the effects of rising sea levels, and all of us experience extreme weather and dis … | Continue reading
Good news: a new season of Game of Thrones starts next week. Bad news: it’s also the final season. But fans of fantasy with a political edge can look forward to a new TV epic. Amazon Prime is developing a series set in JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Reports suggest it will be a preq … | Continue reading
It was a straightforward political point. “Labour comes out in favour of keeping free movement – an utter betrayal of traditional working-class people, the majority of whom oppose it and voted to end it in the referendum. The party will pay a heavy, but deserved, price for this a … | Continue reading
MarketWorld is a power elite defined by the concurrent drives to do well and do good, to change the world. It consists of enlightened businesspeople and their collaborators in the worlds of charity, academia, media, government and think tanks. One recent November, they found them … | Continue reading
“Put the Christ back in Christmas”, we’re told. “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” they keep saying. Good people speak these things, earnestly and frequently. The other day, a shopping centre up in Glasgow had to back away from its plan not to host a nativity display. Having fi … | Continue reading
Not long after she won a large majority in the general election of June 1987 and formed her third government, I had an exchange with Margaret Thatcher. I had heard she was planning to abolish academic tenure. I had no thought of changing her mind, but I was curious how she would … | Continue reading
Seoul is a city of mirrored skyscrapers, drenched in neon. QR codes on billboards to order your dinner, and electric adverts on the subway that chase your train through dark, winding tunnels. A city of blisteringly fast internet, real-time data and wide-eyed cartoons, where the d … | Continue reading
The occupation of Afghanistan by American, British and allied forces – which followed soon after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, lasted officially until the end of 2014 and continues in a diminished form today – was not only a military campaign. In fact, since the occupation lacked any … | Continue reading
The growing trend in young people suddenly deciding they are “in the wrong body” and must “transition” to the opposite sex is alarming. It means that more and more kids are being sent down a path of drastic body and life changes. The consequences of getting this wrong could not b … | Continue reading
Previously on UnPacked, I looked at the case for a Land Value Tax. The basic argument is that when land prices – and, therefore rental values – soar (largely as a result of other people’s efforts), the returns to the landowner shouldn’t just be taxed, but taxed in preference to m … | Continue reading