Columnist

Author

Jonathan Gornall

Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist, formerly with The Times, who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now based in the UK. He specializes in health, a subject on which he writes for the British Medical Journal and others.

Latest published

UK should look East for radical healthcare solutions

On May 24, 1948, my maternal grandfather, Herbert Johnson, died suddenly in bed, the victim of a cardiac arrest. He was just 50 years old.
Bert, as the family knew him, had seemed indestructible.

March 04, 2023

Britain’s misplaced immigration anger and the vestiges of empire

Every 10 years, a census is carried out in England and Wales by the Office for National Statistics. Its purpose is to paint an accurate demographic picture of the population, to help with the planning, funding and running of public services.

December 07, 2022

The loss and damage climate agenda will sink us all

Throughout COP27, which ended last weekend, there was the usual juvenile sniping at the engagement in the climate change mitigation process of the oil-producing countries, as if anything could possibly be achieved without their collaboration.

November 23, 2022

To save the planet, follow Gulf’s lead on nuclear power

There is a delightful irony in the fact that, even as the sun sets slowly on the era of fossil fuels, two of the countries with the oil and gas reserves that have powered the global economy for decades are now at the cutting edge of the nuclear power renaissance.

July 22, 2022

When the past is plundered, everyone pays the price

In the Enuma Elish — the Babylonian creation myth found inscribed on seven clay tablets from the 7th century B.C. and excavated at Nineveh in the 19th century — Eridu, in southern Mesopotamia, is named as the world’s first city.

June 20, 2022

How prejudice has its roots in the West’s imperial past

It is an unfortunate and occasionally dangerous reality of international relations that perceptions of whole countries and their entire populations are often reduced to a set of stubborn stereotypes.

May 20, 2022

Shakedown of Russia’s oligarchs harms Britain’s reputation as a country of law and order

LONDON: In the days of imperial heavy-handedness, when Britain ruled the waves and waived the rules whenever it suited its interests, London’s favored technique for dealing with those who dared challenge its global hegemony was to “send a gunboat.”

March 23, 2022