May 2020

‘We are told that “we’re in this together” by people who can afford to wait out the epidemic in the way the aristocrats of old retreated to their estates when the plague arrived in the city. It is more accurate to say that we are, as this edition’s cover puts it, “together, alone”.’


Africa’s invisible epidemics

What I respected about the people in Baidoa was that every famine victim who died was an individual

Aidan Hartley

Is there any better place for an EU-subsidized arts festival than Galway?

I hoped my flight would be canceled but we left right on time

William Cook

Fear and adrenochrome

The conspiracy theory right is addicted to crazy ideas about a drug

Ben Sixsmith

Will American exceptionalism survive the pandemic?

By and large, the world’s most powerful and most expensive military establishment is not proving terribly relevant

Andrew Bacevich

Politics May 1, 2020

There are lies, damned lies and epidemiological models

What will be the fatality rate of our insane overreaction?

Roger Kimball

Politics May 1, 2020

What if a virus were ever used as a WMD?

We ain’t seen nothing yet

Paul Wood

Europe May 1, 2020

Whatever happened to dissent?

The British have bought the lockdown hook, line and non-thinker

Lionel Shriver

Spectator Editorial May 1, 2020

After the lockdown, the breakdown

The Trump administration’s $1,200 subvention to citizens is a drop in the swelling ocean of debt

Spectator Editorial

Politics May 1, 2020

Who will win the corona wars?

History shows plagues are bad for big empires with weak frontiers: ask the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius

Niall Ferguson

Politics May 1, 2020

Sovereignty rules

The viruses-don’t-respect-borders slogan is dead wrong

Christopher Caldwell