Matt Ridley
The World Health Organisation is gearing up to persuade the world’s governments to sign a new pandemic treaty in May. Though called an “accord” so as not to frighten us democrats who still like that old-fashioned thing called accountability, it is a significant power grab by this unelected body. Never waste a good crisis, as […]
The six lockdown questions this inquiry is failing to answer
Matt Ridley
The current investigation isn’t doing its job. We need a faster, cheaper rival to actually get to the truth. In his excellent 2014 book Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed begins with the story of an airline pilot, Martin Bromiley, whose wife died because of mistakes made by anaesthetists during a routine operation. He set out […]
Private landowners make better conservationists
Matt Ridley
The Duke of Norfolk is best known for presiding over the coronation as hereditary Earl Marshall, but what really gets him excited is a native farmland bird, the grey partridge. Nearly 20 years ago he was appalled to learn from the veteran ecologist Dick Potts that the species was down to its last three pairs […]
Blue tits vs willow tits: a lesson in subsidies
Matt Ridley
I last saw a willow tit on my farm about a year ago. I’m searching for them again this spring, listening for their ‘chair chair’ calls, but I am worried that they may be extinct here. They are dying out everywhere: down by 92 per cent nationwide in the 50 years from 1967. And the […]
How not to investigate the origins of Covid
Matt Ridley
This book on Covid’s origins is limited to criticisms deemed acceptable to Beijing. At 1.30am on 31st December 2019, an eye doctor in Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr Li Wenliang, a member of the Communist Party, received a peremptory summons to attend an immediate interrogation by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. He was made to wait […]
The True Tragedy of the Covid-19 vaccines
Matt Ridley
The jabs undoubtedly saved lives, but overblown claims sadly damaged the reputation of vaccination. Vaccination is one mankind’s most miraculous innovations. The eradication of smallpox, the retreat of measles and other cruel afflictions mean that vaccines rival sanitation for first prize in the saving of human lives. New vaccines against malaria and melanoma promise great […]
