Andy Richardson: Imagine voting for a pay-rise while refusing to help hungry children

Imagine seeing a man who’d previously suffered, the footballer Marcus Rashford – who was now devoting his adult life to righting that wrong so that others don’t suffer – then thinking ‘whoa, hold on there, the kids can go hungry’.

Imagine taking to Twitter and lambasting the campaigner who’s just been honoured for his services to combating child poverty and telling him he holds all the power – then voting against support for the hungry. Thank you, Steve Baker.

And imagine at the same time not enshrining high food standards in law while simultaneously rejecting plans to provide nutritious food for those whose parents can’t feed them over Christmas?

What a time to be alive.

Bankrupted

More than 300 MPs think all of that’s fine. Just as it’s fine to give Manchester £8 per person to get through lockdown, while management consultants on the failed track and trace system get £7,000 per day.

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Here’s a few. Boris Johnson told the House of Commons that London Mayor Sadiq Khan effectively bankrupted Transport For London before Covid-19 even hit.

Yet, figures show that the mayor had been fixing a mess that Boris created. Khan had reduced the deficit by 71 per cent since 2016 after inheriting Boris’s £1.5 billion deficit.

Simple communication should be at the heart of the Government’s Covid-19 strategy.

With the nation carved up like a King Lear swansong, people in different regions need to know what’s allowed.

The question is: do they? It would seem not.

An Assistant Chief Constable, Owen Weatherill, told MPs the new system was confusing and even he didn’t understand it.

How are the police supposed to enforce the rules when they don’t know what they are?

It’s not just ministers on radio shows who don’t know what’s going on.

Enforcing

Even those tasked with enforcing the rules don’t know.

Still, the Pope is bringing the Catholic Church kicking and screaming into the 21st century by blessing gay weddings. Love is love, as the pontiff has decreed.

Will someone please pass that message to Ann Widdecombe?

In California, two bank intruders escaped empty-handed after breaking into a branch at Redwood City.

Staff spent 10 minutes chasing them out of the door – they were racoons.

Nobody was injured though a computer was knocked over as they scarpered.