“Dear Neighbor, don’t be afraid to study this,” the leaflet on my doormat read, in tiny, six-point text. “I am writing this because I would like my opinion heard, in my local area and beyond. We are at war.” 

It proceeded to offer eight pages of reading material that were startling in their breadth. Quotes from the Bible and the libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand jostled against 9/11 conspiracy theories, stories of UFOs and antisemitic tropes about the Rothschilds controlling the world. But, above all, there was one overarching theme: that Covid-19 is a hoax, perpetrated by the deep state to oppress the global population.

Friends, living miles away in another London borough, received the same glossy pamphlet. “They must have printed thousands,” one messaged me. The next day, I checked in on my local print store to see if they had fulfilled any bulk orders for material that seemed unusually concerned with Bill Gates. The manager frowned. 

“I would have noticed something like that,” he said. “You don’t mean these?” He then showed me a poster complaining of recent changes to the borough’s parking restrictions. No, I didn’t mean them.