Dr Mike Fitzpatrick sympathises with the effects of the Covid pandemic lockdown on the elderly, but warns against older people disregarding the restrictions, not least because robustly proclaiming that the interests of young people should not be sacrificed to those who have lived much longer ‘gives succour to those who are inclined to the view that the lives of the elderly are less worthy than those of the younger generation’; he maintains that ‘[d]evaluing people by their age is wrong’ (Doctor’s Diary, Telegraph, November 16

Tim Stanley complains that The Conservative Woman website, in an article entitled ‘Down with Tim Stanley-ism’, condemned him for being ‘the embodiment of a “wishy-washy, we-are-all-in-this-together, on-the-one-hand-this-but-on-the-other-hand-that sort of conservatism” that must be exposed for what it really is: “weakness and cowardice”’, insisting: ‘I see my job, when on television, to explain to the audience what both sides of an issue think and why’ (Telegraph, November 16, 2020).<

Marie Stopes International, ‘[t]he world’s best known reproductive rights charity’, which ‘provides family planning services to women in 37 countries worldwide’, has rebranded itself as ‘MSI Reproductive Choices’; they have dropped ‘the feminist’s name’ coinciding with the launch of ‘a 10-year strategy’, in view of ‘increasing discomfort about its links to Dr Marie Stopes’. Simon Cook, chief executive of the tax-funded charity, told the Telegraph: ‘“Although undoubtedly a family planning pioneer and incredibly successful in her field ...

In the wake of the Marie Stopes abortion charity rebranding itself as ‘MSI Reproductive Choices’, Lisa Williams says that ‘As women and girls face a near global rollback of their reproductive rights, most recently in Poland, its mission – to provide accessible contraception and safe abortion – is as noble as it is important’; she says that the move ‘might seem like another “woke” victory’, but the organisation was ‘right to rebrand’.

Reading the headline ‘No time to waste on tackling climate change, says PM’, initially I thought that Boris Johnson was at last expressing the laudable sentiment that he is far too busy with major issues like tackling the Coronavirus pandemic and ‘doing Brexit’ to waste on something that is only happening in the minds of environmental zealots, anti-capitalists and population controllers; however, a closer reading reveals that he is preparing ‘to unveil a 10-point plan setting out the Government’s priorities for the environment’, and that these priorities do not include a realistic plan to c

The Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield OBE, has issued ‘a series of reports showing how the children’s residential social care system is “broken and is failing many of the most vulnerable children”’; she warns that ‘[c]hildren are being “dumped” in rat-infested care homes’, that ‘thousands of young people are being “failed by the state”’, and that ‘the children who are most “at risk of falling through gaps in the system” are vulnerable to becoming victims of criminal or sexual exploitation.’ The three r