The Week 1564

The “mast year” that has produced a glut of seeds and nuts in British forests has been a boon to red squirrels, The Times reports. At Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, it is believed to have enabled two breeding seasons, and rangers counted 215 reds, from January to September, 24% more than last year. Worryingly, the mast year will also have benefitted greys, but at Whinfell Forest, guests at the local Center Parcs are asked to report sightings, and so far there have been none. A man who lost half his face in a cycling accident four years ago has been fitted with a prosthetic mask which restores his original appearance with remarkable accuracy. Dave Richards, 75, from Devon, was left with devastating injuries, including severe burns, when he was knocked…

What happened Home Office chaos A bruising week for the Government on the issue of migration was capped off by a damning report by MPs accusing the Home Office of “squandering” billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on hotels for asylum seekers. Last Wednesday, it emerged that one of the few people to have been deported to France under Labour’s flagship “one in, one out” scheme had returned to the UK on a small boat. Two days after that, the Government suffered further embarrassment when an Ethiopian migrant whose sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl had sparked protests in Epping was accidentally released from prison, triggering a manhunt. He was arrested two days later in a London park, and deported. In its report, the Home Affairs Committee accused the Home…

What happened Labour’s resounding defeat in a by-election in its Welsh heartlands last week prompted renewed criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Labour had held the Senedd seat in the former mining town of Caerphilly since its creation in 1999 (and has held the Westminster seat there for more than 100 years). But, last Thursday, it was beaten into third place by Plaid Cymru, on 47.4%, and Reform UK, on 36%. Labour’s vote collapsed to 11% (from 46% in 2021). The Tories recorded their worst-ever by-election result, winning just 2% of votes. The PM said he was “deeply disappointed” by the result, which leaves Labour two seats short of a majority in the Senedd. Mainstream, a group linked to the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, said that Labour had become “detached…

Controversy of the week The grooming inquiry “Perhaps the national inquiry into grooming gangs was doomed from inception”, given that the Government had to be dragged into holding it in the first place, said Sonia Sodha in The Independent. At any rate, “it is now in a complete mess”. Four survivors resigned last week from the inquiry’s advisory panel. They claimed that ministers wanted to expand the inquiry’s remit to cover all types of child sexual exploitation, instead of focusing on rape (grooming) gangs, particularly those involving men from Asian backgrounds; they fear it will duck the difficult political issues. Jess Phillips, the Minister for Safeguarding, added insult to injury by describing these claims as categorically “untrue”, even though participants had been sent a consultation document specifically asking whether the…

A couple have advertised for a £180,000 tutor to help their one-year-old son become an English gentleman. According to the ad, the parents, who come from overseas and now live in north London, want the boy to be “truly bicultural” (indistinguishable from a child raised by wealthy British parents in the UK) and ultimately win a place at “Eton, St Paul’s, Westminster or Harrow”. They’d started this process with their older son when he was five, the advert states. That had proved too late, so they were starting younger this time. The tutor – who should be from a “socially appropriate background” – will cultivate the child’s “habits, outlooks, tastes and sporting preferences”, by taking him everywhere, from art galleries to polo matches.…

Minor rule breaking, after Richmond Council, in southwest London, revoked a £150 fine issued to a woman who had poured the remains of her coffee into a gully. Burcu Yesilyurt said she had tipped “a tiny little bit” of coffee down the drain, to avoid spilling it on the bus, when three enforcement officers stopped her and told her it was an offence under the 1990 Environmental Protection Act. They told her she should have poured the coffee into a bin. Children’s writers, who are getting their own Booker Prize. The Children’s Booker will celebrate the best fiction for children aged eight to 12, and will include children on the judging panel. The winner will be given £50,000 in prize money, and the Foundation will distribute 30,000 copies of the…