Politics

Ding, ding, ding! In the blue corner, it's Joy Morrissey, government whip and the Tory member for Beaconsfield. And, er, in the other blue corner, it's Simon Clarke, fellow Conservative MP and representative for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. The cause of today's metaphorical bout? Planning and the thorny issue of where to build much-needed new homes. Conservative MPs have often faced accusations of talking a good game on such issues, only to then turn around and block developments when they occur in or around their own local patch. Recent examples could include Maria Miller and Theresa Villiers, both of whom backed an amendment this month to scrap housing targets and the presumption in favour of development.

'Nothing has changed' – the words of Theresa May could have been tattooed on Rishi Sunak's forehead this afternoon. Appearing before the liaison committee for the first time, the new Prime Minister sought to convey an impression of authority. He deliberately tried to downplay issues of potential conflict like a second independence referendum and rigidly stuck to the government line on strikes and spending restraint. Sunak made much of his inexperience – dropping in several references to only having held the premiership for seven weeks – and ducking a question from Joanna Cherry on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights by saying he 'wasn't in government' at the time that Suella Braverman suggested the government might have to withdraw.

Journalists and editors make decisions every day about what stories to report and what to skip. That’s not just because there isn’t enough time, or enough staff, to report on everything. They also prioritise what they, or their publication, believe is most important, or interesting, to their readers. This is especially true for publications with a specific audience, like Edinburgh University’s Student newspaper, where I am editor. My decision not to report on Adult Human Female, a documentary due to be shown at my university by campaigners and academics who might call themselves 'gender critical', sparked something of a backlash.

Exactly a year ago today, the cabinet met to decide whether or not to lock down to tackle Omicron. At the time, published Sage documents had outlined a range of 600 to 6,000 daily deaths unless more action was taken. Recalling the anniversary, I had an interesting exchange with Graham Medley, who chaired the SPI-M modelling committee that fed into Sage. ‘We obviously made sure that the people we were talking to did understand,’ he told me. That raises the prospect that a subset of people may have been briefed that Sage was discarding real-world South African data on the mildness of Omicron – so its ‘scenarios’ could bear no resemblance to reality. As proved to be the case.