Day: 25 September 2020

Molly Kingsley Four months ago I saw a photo which changed me. That photo, now infamous, showed nursery age children sitting alone, looking lost, in two metre squares against the dark concrete backdrop of a playground. It was a photo taken in France but it was a portrait of a future coming our way. A future of regimented children, spilt from their friends; where play – childhood, in fact – was restricted. As a mother of a then three and six year-old, it was a future which I knew I must reject. Before that moment I had been an activist-in-waiting. I’d had many activist-in-waiting thoughts, had even committed one or two of them to paper. I’d a half-built website ready and waiting, biding time for the right moment, or the right people, to come along, and a half-baked vision to go with it all. Something about families, and making the UK a more hospitable environment for them. For, as anyone who is raising a child in this country will know, raising a child in this country is tough. Even before COVID-19 hit our shores, we’re a country with a ruling class apparently unable to make policy for a term spanning their children’s lifetimes as well as their own – a country whose cities and infrastructure cater to young professionals ahead ...

Rishi Moves into Poll Position In the race to succeed Boris, Rishi Sunak moved into poll position yesterday with a cash giveaway that was widely welcomed in the press. The Telegraph's Camilla Tominey is in no doubt whose star is rising, and whose is falling. "Where's Boris?" is a refrain that has dogged the Prime Minister throughout the coronavirus crisis.It even featured on the front of last week's Spectator, as the magazine he once edited asked: "Where is the man we thought we voted for?"Never has Mr Johnson been more conspicuous by his absence than at Thursday's hugely significant Commons statement by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor.As Mr Sunak introduced his winter economy plan, which will replace the furlough scheme with a new Job Support Scheme, the Prime Minister (and First Lord of the Treasury) was nowhere to be seen on the front bench.He later emerged at a police station in Northamptonshire (as seen in the video below), where he busied himself meeting new recruits, sitting in a police car with flashing lights and watching a first aid demonstration involving plastic dummies. Worth reading in full, although, according to Christopher Snowdon in the Spectator, Rishi is driving the nation to ruin. Meanwhile, some members of Team Rishi are no longer bothering to conceal which horse they're backing. https://twitter.com/TomTugendhat/status/1309088618372308994 Toby contributed to ...