John Harris

In shifting Covid risk to individuals in an already battered society, the British state has set the scene for countless futile conflicts
England has now entered the strangest phase to date of its Covid experience. Though the health secretary insisted, in a tweet he eventually deleted, that we must not “cower from” the virus, the contradiction between the lifting of restrictions and most epidemiological wisdom sits in the midst of our national life…

The aftermath of Euro 2020 shows there’s a better story to be told about a country too often defined by Brexit
Just under a fortnight ago, I watched England’s Euro 2020 semi-final against Denmark in another country. I was in Wales. In the bar of a Swansea hotel, I took my pre-booked place next to an English guest apparently sent by central casting. There he was: as the great Billy Bragg sang, “one of…

It should not be difficult. Covid has highlighted a new public mood, and the injustices caused by a decade of Tory government
Midway through her campaign to be the MP for Batley and Spen, Kim Leadbeater put up a 90-second online video. It was a bog-standard tumble through the kind of things that parties tend to bang on about in byelections: pledges of “a reduction in antisocial behaviour”, “more police on our streets” and…

It should not be difficult. Covid has highlighted a new public mood, and the injustices caused by a decade of Tory government
Midway through her campaign to be the MP for Batley and Spen, Kim Leadbeater put up a 90-second online video. It was a bog-standard tumble through the kind of things that parties tend to bang on about in byelections: pledges of “a reduction in antisocial behaviour”, “more police on our streets” and…

Whoever may come and go in the new era of ‘living with the virus’, this government lacks the skills to see us through
Two days before Matt Hancock began his tumble towards resignation, you could sample news stories about the immediate future of the Covid crisis and choose from two completely different narratives: one all about apparently boundless optimism, the other a mixture of caution and despair.
Thanks to government sources, the Times announced…