Fleur Elizabeth Meston

Bridget Phillipson’s proposal to extend 30 free hours of childcare to families on benefits is lunacy. Over eight years working on and off in childcare, as both a nanny and in nursery settings, I spent countless hours changing nappies and managing meltdowns, including leading the two-to-three-year-olds class of a nursery in a town made famous by Raoul Moat’s shooting spree. More often than anyone in Whitehall would care to admit, I was raising other people’s children for most of their waking week. What I saw in my time working in the nursery makes me convinced the Education Secretary's proposal is a bad idea.

'Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes,' declared Stella Creasy in 2022, in a moment of characteristic defiance against biological common sense. The Walthamstow MP has built a career on provocation, ideology, and showmanship, but her latest crusade is more than just performance. Creasy is seeking to remove all legal deterrents to abortion up to and including during birth, even if the baby is capable of surviving outside the womb. Creasy’s latest campaign to ‘decriminalise’ abortion is not about minor tweaks or supposed modernisation. Her amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill would tear up what little remains of Britain’s ethical red lines on abortion.

Kim Leadbeater has earned plenty of praise for her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life), or assisted suicide, Bill. The Labour MP even won a gong for Political Speech of the Year award for her opening contribution to the parliamentary debate. If we cannot trust Parliament to debate life-and-death decisions responsibly, how can we trust it to implement them? “We saw Parliament at its best because the tone, the compassion, and the understanding that was shown was something we can all be proud of," says Leadbeater, who has also described the bill as “Parliament at its best”. If only this were true. The reality is that the bill – which enters the Report Stage this week – shames parliament.