The Spectator

Home Boris Johnson appeared before the Privileges Committee, publishing in advance a 52-page defence of his actions while Prime Minister regarding Covid regulations. He said that ‘the House of Commons was misled by my statements’ but they were ‘not intentionally or recklessly’ misled. Before the hearing he was reselected as the Conservative candidate for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency. The review of the behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan Police by Baroness Casey of Blackstock found ‘institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia’ in the force. London no longer had a ‘functioning neighbourhood policing service’, she said.

Something in the air A US fighter plane shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon which had drifted across Canada and the US. Balloons have a long history in military operations, being deployed widely in the American Civil War and in the Siege of Paris in 1870, when they were used to get messages out of the city. But the first use of a balloon in wartime goes back to the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, when the French flew a hydrogen balloon, L’Entreprenant, over the battlefield for nine hours to spy on Austrian positions. The French won the battle but Napoleon was not convinced of the role of military balloons and later disbanded his balloon corps. Major scale Turkey was struck by a series of earthquakes measuring up to 7.8 on the Richter scale.

Home The Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish government does not have the power to hold an independence referendum without the UK government’s consent. A meeting of NHS Scotland heard that ‘unscheduled care is going to fall over in the near term before planned care falls over’. One proposal was for rich people to pay; Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, repudiated the idea. Labour said that it would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a ‘new, reformed upper chamber’. The Manston migrant processing centre, crowded during the summer with thousands who arrived in England on small boats, was cleared of people. The RMT union announced more rail strikes on 13, 14, 16 and 17 December and 3, 4, 6 and 7 January.