The Advanced Level Certificate (A-level), together with the General Certificate of Education (GCSE), is one of two sets of exams students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has its own system) sit in the summer. The GCSE is a ticket to spending two years studying for A-levels, itself a ticket to university, where 40% of England’s schoolchildren end up. The results are... Continue Reading
Not only has UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to learn from other countries’ dealings with COVID-19, he has stubbornly refused to learn from his own experience. He is the true king of fools. It would be laughable were it not for the tens of thousands of deaths he and his government are responsible for. History Will Judge Britain’s COVID-19 Response READ MORE On March... Continue Reading
The catalog of omissions in the British government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is well known. The decision to lock down was taken far too late in the day. Scientists have been too slow to criticize one another and too sure of their assumptions and methods. Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) are killing nurses, doctors and care workers. Homes for the elderly have been... Continue Reading
On March 9, I wrote that the British government is not just failing to safeguard its people, but is willing to trade lives for economic stability and an air of normality. Since then, the number of reported infections and deaths has risen to 5,863 and 289 respectively at the time of writing, and the government has modified its tactics. People were at first encouraged to work from home... Continue Reading
Boris Johnson, the British prime minister who fancies himself a reincarnation of Winston Churchill, who talks of wars and battle plans and war rooms, and who has been pictured wearing something akin to a boiler suit, presides over studied inaction when it comes to the country’s coronavirus outbreak. Johnson and his chief medical officer, a phlegmatic Professor Chris Whitty, are determined to... Continue Reading
It is easy to sympathize with anxieties over the extradition bill and worsening living standards that prompted the current eruption of protests in Hong Kong. But many people are talking and behaving as if the territory will not be fully integrated with mainland China by 2047. This is fanciful. The question of who controls Hong Kong today was answered long before any of us were born. In these... Continue Reading
