At the 2022 Robert Menzies Institute Oration and Gala Dinner on 13 October 2022, Lord Jonathan Sumption gave a simply brilliant half-hour speech titled A State of Fear: Covid-19 and Lockdowns.
Throughout the Covid madness, the former UK Supreme Court judge was one of few commentators who calmly and rationally criticised disproportionate and destructive government measures that caused so much damage to our liberal societies.
The full speech can be read here and watched here. For all the wise words that emanated from Lord Sumption’s lips, unsurprisingly they were almost completely ignored by the Australian media.
On 24 November, an excellent but paywalled article by Chris Merritt made reference to Lord Sumption’s speech. The article was about the inadequacies of Victorian and NSW public health legislation which is hardly worthy of a functioning democracy.
The Spectator published a freely available short article mentioning the speech.
On your ABC he only featured during an interview with Tom Switzer (at 20 minutes).
The Australian published an eloquently written column by Lord Sumption a few days before he held his speech, but it too is safely tucked away behind a paywall.
Lord Sumption also got some air time during his speaking tour on Sky News, and he addressed the National Press Club, as reported in this AFR article.
