Good evening. The older I get, the less certain I am about things, which seems directly contrary to the spirit of the age.

Take the pandemic. The first anniversary of lockdown this week has prompted a rush to judgment, much of it condoneatory.

All right, there are those who say the situation was unknowable, the choices were dire, muddle and mistakes inevitable.

But it's certainty that holds the floor,

those that see it as either a catalogue of indecision and lethal incompetence, or think the

common good has been sacrificed in a panic over individual harm. In this, as in much of our

public and maybe private discourse, its moral certainty expressed as outrage that makes most of the noise.

What price certainty? Do we need moral clarity, they call it, to get the right things done?

Or should we acknowledge complexity that others might have a point, and what's right can be

difficult to define? That's our moral maize tonight. The panel, Melanie Phillips, social commentator on The Times, Anne McElvoy, senior editor at The Economist, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter-Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and the comedian, Andrew Doyle. Melanie, Melanie Phillips, you're not known for self-doubt. Do you have a sense of certainty about the pandemic?

Well, it's a terrible mistake to confuse moral clarity with an absence of doubt.

Many, such as myself, wrestle all the time with complexities both moral and practical.

But ultimately, I think it's wrong to duck a moral position,

while all the time keeping an open mind to the possibility you may be wrong.

Andrew, Andrew Dole?

I think one of the most chilling aspects of today's political tribalism that we see is the sheer certainty.

And whenever I see these people on Twitter just going out of control and accusing people of all sorts of horrible things,

you can tell they've never doubted themselves.

They've never thought to themselves, I could be wrong. And if that comes from a political leader, then if a political leader says he's got all the answers, I don't trust him.

Mona. Mano Siddiqui. I think you're right, Michael, that as you get older, you realize how complex things are. But I think we can show moral clarity and certainty on things, on anything which helps alleviate suffering for anyone. When it comes to leaders, though, I think it's important that we don't confuse

humility and hubris. And I'm a McKelvoy. There's a great poem by Bertolt Brecht called in

praise of doubt, which lays out the arguments for not being so certain about the world. But there are

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