What was Fauci’s motive for misleading the world? That is clear as a bell: he had spent decades championing the idea that gain-of-function research on risky viruses was a good idea, even as others expressed serious doubts. Specifically, Fauci’s NIAID funded the work on coronaviruses, first at the University of North Carolina, and then in Wuhan. Fauci himself knew this by 23 January 2020, when an email was sent with the following subject: ‘Urgent for Dr Fauci: China’s lab for studying SARS and Ebola is in Wuhan, the outbreak’s centre’, which discussed the grant NIAID had given the intermediary body, EcoHealth Alliance, to fund the work in Wuhan. So Fauci knew from then onwards that if a lab leak looked plausible, his own role in godfathering the research would come out. He had to keep a lid on it for a few weeks until the outbreak petered out. Only it did not peter out.

Think how much it must go against every instinct to make this generous offer to defend and help a vile bigot who revelled in the murder of a dear friend and champion of free speech. But that is the point of free speech. To defend even vile bigots’ right to be heard.