26 April 2020 Sage Penetrated Cummings at the gate. By John Watson Every profession has its holy of holies and, for the medical profession, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is about as holy as you can get. It gives its advice in secret. Membership, until published by The Guardian recently, could only be
Cover Page, 23 April 2020, Issue 230 Welcome to Issue 230. We hope you enjoy its articles, features and puzzles. The Shaw Sheet would like to introduce new writers either on an occasional or regular basis. So have you got some spare time at the moment? If so contact the editors at johnW@shawsheet.com for the
23 April 2020 L’Affaire Raoult Covid-19 and an eccentric professor reveal an old fault-line in French society. By Richard Pooley He is an outsider who has risen to the top but never been accepted as a member of the élite, which he openly despises and whose members loathe him in equal measure. He is not
23 April 2020 The Lessons A report. By John Watson The figures do not look good. The UK, a prosperous and successful country with a population of just over 65 million, has suffered almost 10% of world fatalities from Covid 19. Why? In due course there will no doubt be a public enquiry headed by
23 April 2020 Pestilence Trump’s Strategy by J.R. Thomas The Donald certainly faces differently motivated citizens to The Boris. UK citizens seem happy to stay locked-down in their residences, limited to a little shopping, exercise, and dog walking (if you haven’t a dog, private enterprise will rent you one). In the land of the
23 April 2020 Exit The penguin strategy. By Robert Kilconner Of course the opposition has to call for an exit strategy. After all, they need something to call for if they are to appear relevant and this is something which commits them to nothing. Suppose they called for an early release of restrictions and it
23 April 2020 World Peace A brief moment of hope. By Neil Tidmarsh World peace. A magnificent but impossible ambition. Mankind’s oldest but most hopeless dream. But, in these extraordinary times, no longer impossible, no longer hopeless? On 23 March, the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, announced “Today, I am calling for an immediate global
23 April 2020 Snowflakes All? Lives for leading. By Lynda Goetz In the days before the news consisted of nothing but information about the daily deaths from Covid-19 or the shockingly remiss approach of the Government to sourcing PPE (wasn’t that Public Health England’s job?), there were, at least from some news media, weekly comments
23 April 2020 The Alphabet of Recessions? T, V, L, U, W – or a swoosh By Frank O’Nomics There is no doubt that the UK is in the midst of a recession. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that the pandemic could lead our economy to shrink by 35% by June, and 12.8%
23 April 2020 Diary of a Corbynista Covid-19 as Gameshow by Don Urquhart 16 April On Question Time, a government minister, Robert Buckland, conceded that Germany had a much lower death rate from Coronavirus because they had tested earlier and more often than the UK. Dr Rachel Clarke pointed out that from a similar position
