Advertisement Lancashire is set to follow the northeast into a coronavirus curfew tomorrow as fears grow the whole of England could face new restrictions. Reports this morning said ministers were considering nationwide 'circuit breaker' rules, forcing hospitality businesses to close in a bid to lessen a second peak of the …...Read More
Lancashire 'will be placed under Covid curfew TOMORROW'
The £1bn cost of maternity blunders: Jeremy Hunt exposes damning toll of lawsuits against NHS
Blunders on maternity wards are costing the NHS nearly £1billion a year, the former Health Secretary warns today. Jeremy Hunt has revealed that almost twice as much is spent on lawsuits following poor care of mothers and babies as on the combined pay of all the labour doctors in England’s …...Read More
HENRY DEEDES watches Dido Harding explaining the coronavirus testing shambles
An eerie silence suddenly befell Committee Room number six just after 4pm yesterday. Baroness Dido Harding had just explained to the Commons’ science and technology committee how she’d come to be head of our vital testing programme. The matter had been raised by Graham Stringer (Lab, Blackley and Broughton) who …...Read More
Ofsted officials will mark down schools that don't teach pupils LGBT relationships
Schools that fail to teach about same-sex relationships risk being marked down by inspectors. They will have their 'readiness' to teach the Government's new relationships and sex education curriculum assessed from early next year. Oftsted will comment in their reports if they find that schools fail to teach about LGBT …...Read More
Martin Amis's new book Inside Story tells the story of his life in the form of a novel
INSIDE STORY by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape £20, 576pp) Martin Amis says his latest book — on the boil for almost two decades — grew out of a long-abandoned manuscript called, simply, Life: A Novel. Inside Story is a fit-to-burst ragbag of memoir and musing on all his usual hobbyhorses, …...Read More
Earl Spencer's book The White Ship reveals how Henry I's heir William drowned trying to save sister
HISTORY THE WHITE SHIP by Charles Spencer (William Collins £25, 352 pp) On a cold but clear November night in 1120, almost exactly 900 years ago, a ship sailed out of Barfleur harbour on the Normandy coast, bound for Southampton. Everyone on board was cheerfully drunk but perfectly optimistic. The …...Read More
SIMON WALTERS: Sasha Swire left out claims her Tory minister husband had an affair in her new book
The wife of ex-minister Hugo Swire fled to David Cameron in 'distress' after claiming her 'pig' of a husband had an affair. Sasha Swire, who has lifted the lid on sex and political shenanigans in the Tory party, reveals in her new book that she dashed to Chequers, the prime …...Read More
Lily James dons 1930s attire as she films The Pursuit Of Love with Freddie Fox in Bath
Her roles in period dramas from Downton Abbey to War & Peace have meant having to struggle into all manner of extravagant costumes. So Lily James will have welcomed the chance to slip into something more comfortable for her latest part – the bath. The actress cast off her 1930s …...Read More
Cotswolds mother renowned for her perfect scones was also Soviet spy Colonel Ursula Kuczynski
BOOK OF THE WEEK AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre (Viking £25, 416 pp) Her scones were the envy of the Oxfordshire hamlet of Great Rollright, where the friendly woman known as Mrs Burton lived in a stone farmhouse. In her late 30s, she moved there with her three children and …...Read More
New book Eat The Buddha by Barbara Demick tells the tragic story of the people of Tibet
POLITICS EAT THE BUDDHA by Barbara Demick (Granta, £18.99, 272pp) The very word 'Tibet' has romantic, resonance. The 'Roof of the World' conjures the vast snowy wastes of the High Himalayan plateau, populated by yaks, nomadic herders, yetis and Buddhist lamas in russet robes, capable of levitation and clairvoyance. Alas, …...Read More
