Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

COVID-19 has made the social determinants of health painfully obvious. Social geographers like Danny Dorling have pointed out that the map of the three-tier system of Covid-19-related restrictions looks uncannily like “a depiction of the north-south divide.”
The north is, on average, poorer than the south. People are more likely to have jobs where they cannot work from home, and to live near to their extended family who provide childcare. These, along with other factors, mean that Covid-19 can spread more easily.
Currently, the government recommends that those with Covid-19 symptoms should self-isolate for ten days. A minority of people are following this. One study, not yet peer-reviewed, found that fewer than one in five people reported that they had adhered to the full self-isolation period, despite around 70 per cent having the intention to.

A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

