“Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisted “no, no, no” in a furious House of Commons row with another MP over her tax-raising Budget. The Chancellor had been summoned to answer questions from the House of Commons Treasury Committee about leaks in the run-up to her Budget on November 26. But she became angry when Conservative Dame Harriet Baldwin criticised Ms Reeves’s claim that tax rises were the fault of the Tories. Ms Reeves insisted she had inherited a £22 billion “black hole” from the last Conservative government. But Dame Harriet said that claim “has been discredited by the Office for Budget Responsibility”, the official Treasury watchdog.” – Daily Express
Comment
“Attempts to reform the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to make it easier to deport foreign criminals and agree offshore migrant deals are “doomed to fail”, Robert Jenrick has claimed. In an article for The Telegraph, the shadow justice secretary said the demands for change, agreed by 27 of the 46 members on Wednesday, were no more likely to succeed than David Cameron’s failed attempts to reform the EU. A joint statement by the 27 governments, including Britain, called for curbs on how the treaty is applied to migrants and foreign criminals. It recommended that the ECHR must not stop countries from striking Rwanda-style deals for offshore migrant processing centres. The European Court of Human Rights, the ultimate arbiter of the convention, granted a last-minute injunction to suspend the UK’s Rwanda deportation scheme in 2022. The statement said the ECHR should not stop nations deporting foreign criminals even if they had established a family in that state and should introduce constraints on foreign offenders blocking their removals on the grounds that it would lead to inhuman or degrading treatment in their home countries.” – Daily Telegraph
Editorial
Comment
Today
“Childhood criminal records for thousands of people will be wiped under plans being considered by David Lammy. The Justice Secretary is to review the current system in order to prevent people’s childhood convictions from blighting their future job prospects. Mr Lammy is considering “simplifying” the system to ensure that checks are “proportionate” to their crime after evidence that people in their 50s, 60s and even 70s found that childhood offences such as stealing a bicycle or fighting in the street were still being disclosed to potential employers… Mr Lammy is facing a potential backlash over the definition of “serious offences”, such as whether a child caught dealing drugs or racially harassing a bus driver should be entitled to have their current lifelong criminal record erased at some point.” – Daily Telegraph
“Campaigners last night began legal action to halt a trial of puberty-blocking drugs on more than 200 children. The NHS-backed experiment was branded ‘grotesque’ by the Tories, who likened it to ‘state-sanctioned chemical castration’. The legal fight is led by concerned parents and a woman who regretted her own gender treatment. The campaigners say the testing of the controversial drugs on gender-questioning youngsters is unlawful and unethical. They have sent a 40-page ‘letter before claim’ to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and Health Research Authority, which last month gave the green light for King’s College London to carry out the trial. Writing in today’s Daily Mail, Conservative equalities spokesman Claire Coutinho warns: ‘This is nothing less than the state-sanctioned chemical castration of children. And in years to come, it will be seen as one of the darkest acts of this Labour government.’” – Daily Mail
Comment
“Sharron Davies, the former Olympic swimmer, will be made a Conservative peer after leading a campaign to ban biological men from women’s sport. Davies won two gold medals in the 1978 Commonwealth Games and a silver medal in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She began campaigning for female sports to be restricted to biological women in 2019 after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) removed the requirement for athletes who identify as women to have had sex reassignment surgery. She went on to write a letter to the IOC, signed by more than 60 world-class athletes, urging it to ban biological men from taking part in female-only events. She will take her seat in the House of Lords after being nominated by Kemi Badenoch.” – Daily Telegraph
Comment
“Wes Streeting has urged striking doctors to stop “playing games with patients’ lives” as he offered the BMA a last-ditch chance to save Christmas and call off next week’s cruel walkout. The Health Secretary has made a “substantial” jobs offer to the British Medical Association in a bid to finally end the row. He refused to budge on mad pay demands but promised priority access to doctor jobs for UK graduates and an extra 3,000 special training posts, plus the Government will pay all mandatory exam costs and fees. He said: “I am going over the head of the BMA and appealing directly to resident doctors to urge them to vote for this deal. This is a good deal for doctors and offers the chance to end the strikes before Christmas and start the new year on a new page.” He said it will make it easier for doctors to get good jobs straight out of university and save them cash on membership fees.” – The Sun