Latest News
No prizes for guessing what story dominated this morning's papers: Professor Pantsdown. A couple of weeks ago I dubbed Neil Ferguson "Dr Strangelove", trying to capture the mesmeric effect he seems to have had on successive British Prime Ministers. But it turns out the "Strange Love Doctor" would have been more appropriate. According to the Telegraph's spellbinding scoop – a marmalade-dropper if ever there was one – Ferguson has been carrying on an affair with a married mother-of-two during the lockdown. Talk about breaking the social distancing rules! And the icing on the cake is that the name of his 38 year-old mistress is Antonia Staats! You couldn't make it up, as we say on Fleet Street. The punning possibilities are endless. (Guido Fawkes: "Who could blame a boffin for wanting to massage his staats?") Incidentally, if you can't get past the Telegraph's paywall, not to worry. The story is also in the Mail, the Guardian, the Metro, the Independent, the New York Times... it's everywhere. The BBC even has it, although in a very muted form. The latest development is that Matt Hancock says it's now in the hands of the police. Are we about to see Imperial's Professor of Mathematical Biology led away in handcuffs? The intellectual architect of Britain's draconian coronavirus policy may be about to experience what ...