Before the next outbreak, we need a serious conversation about how to cope, but first, the more strident, misguided voices must be muted

• Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

Once, we all respectfully listened to what epidemiologists said. We queued up for vaccines, observed distancing lines and confidently asked unmasked passengers on public transport to cover their faces. A tyrannical virus ruled over us, and we did everything in our power to limit its ravages.

Five years on from the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s the masked passenger who is suspect, nobody notices the scuffed distancing lines and trust in vaccines has taken a tumble. A different narrative has invaded the conversation: it wasn’t the virus that ruined our lives, but the response.

Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

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Omar Prempeh, 32, from Forest Hill, charged after 16-year-old shot dead in Stockwell on Tuesday

A man has been charged with the murder of a teenage boy who was shot dead in Stockwell, south London, the Metropolitan police said.

Lathaniel Burrell, 16, was shot dead in south London on Tuesday. Officers were called to the scene at about 3pm after reports of a shooting on Paradise Road. The teenager died while being treated at the scene by paramedics.

Richard Tice tries to calm party row in Sunday media round after pair attack each other in newspaper articles

The fierce clash at the top of Reform UK has escalated as Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe launched fresh attacks against each other and the party denied its suspension of Lowe was politically motivated.

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, was dispatched to the Sunday media studios to try to calm the row that has engulfed the party less than two months before a pivotal set of local elections.

Richard Branson’s group plans rail routes linking London to Paris and Brussels, and maybe Amsterdam

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is aiming to raise £700m to fund its plan to launch cross-Channel rail services that would compete with Eurostar.

Virgin, which previously operated intercity trains in Britain including between London and Glasgow, plans to start rail services connecting the UK capital with Paris and Brussels. It would also look to run trains to Amsterdam.

A series of major exhibitions focusing on the era has unleashed a wave of nostalgia for those who were there and curiosity from the young who envy its freedom

In the future everyone will blame the eighties for all societal ills, in the same way that people have previously blamed the sixties,” Peter York, the quintessential observer of 1980s’ style and cultural trends, said recently. He was referring to what he called the “big bangs” of monetarism, deregulation and libertarianism which “have been working their way through the culture ever since”.

Curiously, he did not mention one of the eighties’ equally enduring, but more positive “big bangs” – the “style culture”, which began in that much-maligned decade and continues to echo through contemporary culture in an altogether less malign way. It is currently being celebrated in three exhibitions across London.