Tag: Authoritarianism

'Red Wall Toryism' was said to be more authoritarian, more economically statist and, somehow, gruffer, than its southern cousin. But this was a mistake; the 'Red Wall' is not a foreign country.

As liberal democracies increasingly fail to deliver the promise of greater opportunity and prosperity, the young may be increasingly drawn towards authoritarianism.

Lord Sumption has written about the gradually dawning realisation that the lockdown policy was a disastrous mistake. It could be called ‘I Told You So’ – or, since some anger is justified, ‘I F***ing Told You So.’

"There is no debate," they seem to say. "You are to follow these lockdown measures and have this medication because it is obviously good for you. If you do not conform you will be severely punished."

There's a terrific piece in the Tablet by John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine at Stanford, about what has gone wrong in the scientific community in the past 18 months. Why did scepticism lose out to authoritarianism?