The Critical Commentator

  Britannia's Realm John Brett ( 1831-1902) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] We are a nation happiest in self-flagellation. Yes, our death rates are shameful, lockdowns came too late and our borders are bafflingly porous. But for a second, silence your negativity, park political recrimination, transcend the shrill social media moment and pause to take pride in something we've done right. Because those who detest this government seem almost disappointed that the vaccine programme is - so far - a success... Perhaps this is the government's one pandemic success because it was not outsourced to private firms employing atomised and disgruntled gig-economy staff. We may over-romanticise the NHS but nothing matches its esprit de corps. The Excel team is driven by concern for exhausted colleagues: every injection is another patient whose dying moments a nurse in ICU won't have to Face Time to sobbing relatives. Many hospital medics come straight off shift and grab a syringe. Yo...

  Seven Insects unknown artist Photo Credit: Wellcome Collection [Public Domain] Yellow mealworm smoothies, biscuits, pasta and burgers could soon be mass produced across Europe after the insect became the first to be found safe for human consumption by the EU food safety agency. The delicacies may not be advisable for everyone, however. Those with prawn and dust mite allergies are likely to suffer a reaction to the Tenebrio molitor larvae, whether eaten in powder form as part of a recipe or as a crunchy snack, perhaps dipped in chocolate... The insects main components are protein, fat and fibre, offering a sustainable and low carbon source of food  for the future. When dried, the maggot-like insect is said to taste a lot like peanuts... Insect-based food has long been seen as a part of the solution to cutting the emission of greenhouse gases in food production... Mario Mazzocchi, an economic statistician and professor at the University of Bologna, said: "There are clear envi...

Almost a quarter of all household wealth in the UK is held by the richest 1% of the population, according to alarming new research that reveals a historic underestimation of inequality in the country. The study found that the top 1% had almost £800bn more wealth than suggested by official statistics, meaning that inequality has been far higher than previously thought... The revelation comes amid calls for ministers to consider a new wealth tax or substantial reforms to existing levies on the rich, so that they play a bigger role in helping the country deal with the Covid fallout and the costs of an ageing population. Demand for a mansion tax are also being revised... The foundation [The independent Office of Tax Simplification] is calling on the chancellor to embark on the biggest reforms to wealth taxation in a generation - including via the restriction of capital gains and inheritance tax reliefs (together raising several billion), and adding a council tax supplement of 1% on propert...

 Unicef has launched a domestic emergency response in the UK for the first time in its 70-plus-year history to help feed children hit by the coronavirus crisis. The Seven Works of Mercy Frans Francken 11 (1581-1642) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY -NC-ND] The UN agency, which is responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children worldwide, said the Covid-19 pandemic was the most urgent crisis affecting children since the second world war. A YouGov poll in May, commissioned by the charity Food Foundation, found that 2.4 million children were living in food-insecure households. By October an extra 900,000 children had been registered for free school meals. Unicef has pledged a grant of £25,000 to the community project School Food Matters, which will use the money to supply 18,000 nutritious breakfasts to 25 schools over the two week Christmas holiday and February half-term, feeding vulnerable children and families in Southwark, south London, who have been severely imp...

  Elephant in the Room Hannah Stewart (b. 1976) and Chierol Lai (b. 1995) Photo Credit: Queen Mary, University of London [ CC BY-NC] Throughout the pandemic we have been urged to put our faith in science... and at the very time we need expert, authoritative advice on the efficacy and reliability of the vaccine, we are urged instead to put our faith in Lulu and Michael Palin. The Government's leaked plan to enlist "very sensible" celebrities to encourage the public to take up the vaccine (alongside the others, like Palin, who have thrust themselves forward), could be seen as the ultimate expression of the age of the influencer. For much of the year, we have been paying earnest attention to the latest scientific advice...We know more about epidemiology than we ever thought possible. We understand the R rate. We can expostulate on the pros and cons of herd immunity. But now, when we want to hear from those who really know about, for instance, the potential dangers of the vac...

  Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future - Pope Francis Dreams William Strang (1859-1921) Photo Credit: Museums and Galleries Edinburgh [CC BY-NC-Nd] ... "This is a moment to dream big... to rethink our priorities - what we value, what we want, what we seek - and commit to act in our daily life of what we have dreamed of." The Covid crisis, argues the pope, has given the lie to a "myth of self-sufficiency" that sanctions rampant inequalities and frays the ties that bind societies together. Pitilessly, the virus has demonstrated our mutual dependency and common vulnerability. We have collectively relied on the state as never before. The doorstep applause for the nurses and doctors risking their lives and the key workers who kept essential services going, was a collective lightbulb moment. "They are the saints next door, who have awoken something important in our hearts... the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift a...

 ...Moving to a Welsh castle from the Australian jungle ( I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here ) represents a big shift. And as a regular holidaymaker in Wales these past 20 years, I reckon they could do more to add a flavour of the country to the trials. Snowdon Range Kyffin Williams (1918-2006) Photo Credit: The National Library of Wales [Public Domain] ... For instance they could challenge the remaining contestants to watch the rugby, England v Wales, in a packed pub in, say, Llanelli. Triallists would have to tell them to burst into a rendition of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot a minute after kick off. For every minute they lasted without getting flattened after that they would earn a meal for the camp. Then at rush hour on the Monday morning, they would be forced to do the ten-mile stretch of the M4 near Cardiff in less than two hours or starve. I'd also send them into the Labour club in Merthyr Tydfil and get the one with the poshest English accent to shout: "Nye Bevan, e...

 ... It was in his reporting of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that the full range of Fisk's own formidable armoury, both as a human being and a reporter, was deployed to its greatest effect. Bravery, honesty, knowledge, passion, experience, understanding, empathy and a gift for prose all coalesced in daily despatches that brought the Iraq war, with all its horror and chaos and human cost, vividly into focus for readers of The Independent ... The Combat William Etty (1787-1848) (after) Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain] War made Fisk angry, and he hated the way it was presented - sanitised, he'd say - by the world's media. "If you saw what I saw in wars," he told Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs in 2006, "which you don't, because television cuts out the bloodiest scenes - oh no, we can't see the pornography of death. But we should. We should see the pornography of death. Because if you saw what I saw - dogs tearing corpses to pi...