Editorial

Contributors

Joanna Bourke teaches history at Birkbeck. She is director

Letters

Going it alone?

A motion to regret virtual parliaments

Well it finally happened. Parliament, like your mum

Human suffering, political advantages

Now Boris Johnson has recovered from a nasty bout of

Shakespeare’s answer to the plague? More sex and comedy

It says something about the apocalyptic tone of lockdown

Criminalising ordinary life

AT LAW

The benefits of staying boring in terrifying times

If I’ve learnt one thing in a decade living in Sweden

Lopsided lockdown

A familiar phrase from the news is that coronavirus

Is it more important to save younger lives?

YES If we are faced with a tragic choice, as doctors

The dawn after the darkest hour

From the Black Death to the world wars and now Covid-19, serious crises do not merely test societies but reorder them- sometimes to the good. With effort and imagination can we, once again, shake off a nightmare and wake ourselves into a brighter tomorrow?

Apatchwork planet

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed the arbitrary way in which we have stitched globalisation together. It’s time to go back to first principles, and tailor a new set of international rules around them

Who is the WHO?

As it manages a gruesome pandemic in a messy world, the World Health Organisation stands attacked from all sides. But things would be a lot better if everyone had taken its advice

Passing the test How Germany fought back against Covid-19 while the UK floundered

The two nations logged their first coronavirus cases just two days apart. But while the UK has one of the highest death tolls in the world, Germany has one of Europe’s lowest. Why?

The new ministry of food

How the government outsourced food security to the supermarkets

Infinite possibility

Bernardine Evaristo spent decades on the margins of the literary mainstream, telling the stories of black British women. Then she won the Booker Prize

In search of sleep

We crave it, we worry about it, we buy things to improve it. But is our growing obsession with slumber dragging us further away from a restful night?

Satan’s finger

He is condemned for his cynicism and lauded as the

Constitutional weakness

Indian democracy relies on a much-mythologised founding document that has failed to protect minorities from Narendra Modi, argues Shruti Kapila

The shame game

Social stigma can be a potent political weapon, finds Joanna Bourke

An extraordinary mind

Although he died at 26, Frank Ramsey was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, says Alex Dean

Books in brief

The Shame Game: Overturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative

Recommends

Emma Crichton-MillerMuseum of the Worldbritishmuseum.withgoogle.com

Prospect life

Home front

Policy report: Trade

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic is now the overwhelming priority for governments the world over. But as the economy craters, some other policy issues become even more pressing-including global trade. It is profoundly important to Brexit Britain’s hopes of prosperity, but with Covid-19 it is shrinking. New barriers have emerged, with some countries even imposing export controls on essential medical supplies. How can the UK navigate this newly tough trading landscape and thrive in the years ahead? The relevant secretary of state and committee chair set out their answers below.

Economics and investment

The analyst: Paul Wallace

The generalist by Didymus

ACROSS

Brief encounter

Journalist and broadcaster