If Obiter were asked to name the one person in Britain least likely ever to have set foot in a Wetherspoons, we’d probably plump for Jonathan Sumption QC. But Covid-19 has pitched together some unlikely allies. Colourful ‘Spoons landlord Tim Martin, who is rarely short of a saloon bar opinion, has joined the former Supreme Court justice to his campaign for liberty in the face of Covid-19. At our local branch, Sumption’s withering denunciations of lockdown have been pinned up outside for the enlightenment of passers-by. This inevitably calls to mind brave apostate Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg.

Obiter has not visited the William Webb Ellis in Twickenham for some time. But only because it’s shut. Anyway, ‘Ministers stoked fear to justify lockdown’, a piece culled from the Daily Telegraph, has rather been overtaken by events. Time to slap an ad for cheap lager over the top, surely.

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