The 'lockdown sceptics' want a culture war, with experts as the enemy | Peter Geoghegan & Mary Fitzgerald

The dismissal of coronavirus expertise, the pitting of elites' against the people' - it's Brexit all over again for the high-profile contrarians

Within days of Boris Johnson announcing lockdown restrictions in late March, Toby Young - self-appointed general secretary of the Free Speech Union - had his own take on the government's tripartite slogan. Stay sceptical. End the lockdown. Save lives."

Scepticism has a long and venerable history. From Descartes's musings on metaphysics to Carl Sagan's fine art of baloney detection", sceptics are unafraid to ask unpopular questions. Even if it means being branded a heretic.