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Responding to a rejection by Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, of calls for a government inquiry into historical child abuse in Oldham, Elon Musk tweeted that she was a ‘rape genocide apologist’ and ‘deserves to be in prison’. After a day or two of tweets suggesting such things as the dissolution of parliament by the King, Mr Musk tweeted: ‘The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.’ Nigel Farage had dissociated himself from the far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson, who is serving 18 months for contempt of court. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, tweeted: ‘Importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women, brought us here.’ Professor Alexis Jay, the chairman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which published 19 reports over seven years, the last in October 2022 (none of the recommendations from which had been implemented), said: ‘I am pleased that the subject matter and the inquiry recommendations are finally getting the attention they deserve but this is definitely not the way I would have chosen for it to happen.’ In the first week of 2025 only 61 migrants arrived across the Channel by small boat; for 2024 the total was 36,816.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said in a speech that he meant ‘to expand the relationship between the NHS and the private healthcare sector’, to reduce by more than 450,000, by March 2026, the three million who were waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment. Wes Streeting, the Health and Social Care Secretary, said that the government would sort out adult social care only after an independent commission, chaired by Baroness Casey of Blackstock, which begins work in April, publishes its final report in 2028. Patients at Royal Liverpool University Hospital’s accident and emergency unit faced waits of up to 50 hours amid a rise in cases of flu. In Nottinghamshire, 20 members of Broxtowe borough council left the Labour party.
The cost of long-term government borrowing rose to its highest in 25 years, with £2.25 billion of 30-year gilts auctioned to investors at an average yield of 5.198 per cent, straining the Chancellor’s fiscal rules. Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, resigned as president of global affairs at Meta, the social media outfit. Molly Rosenberg, the director of the Royal Society of Literature, and Daljit Nagra, its chairman, were to step down after it was said that they had encouraged diversity among the society’s fellows at the expense of literary merit. David Lodge, the novelist, died aged 89. Luke Littler, 17, became world darts champion.
Abroad
Justin Trudeau, 53, said he would resign as Prime Minister of Canada and the leader of its Liberal party once a new leader could be found. The Canadian parliament was prorogued until 24 March. Mark Carney, 59, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, thought he might like to be prime minister. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right French politician, died aged 96. The President of Austria asked Herbert Kickl, the leader of the country’s far-right Freedom party, to form a coalition government.
A Texas man, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, aged 42, a former US soldier, killed 14 people and wounded dozens when he drove a pick-up truck into crowds in New Orleans. He had posted videos declaring allegiance to the Islamic State group; police shot him dead. On the same day, the driver of a Tesla Cybertruck, a 37-year-old former Green Beret, was killed when the vehicle, filled with gas canisters and firework mortars, exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. Thousands left their homes as wildfires encroached on Los Angeles. China experienced outbreaks of human metapneumovirus (HMPV).
Russian gas supplies to EU states via Ukraine ended when a five-year agreement between Ukraine’s gas transit operator Naftogaz and Russia’s Gazprom expired. Ukraine launched a new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region. Russia said it had captured Kurakhove in the Donetsk region. The Palestinian Authority suspended broadcasting by the Qatari-owned channel Al Jazeera in parts of the occupied West Bank. America sent 11 Yemeni detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Oman, leaving only 15 prisoners at the base in Cuba. Donald Trump Jr privately visited Greenland, ‘ownership and control’ of which his father said last month was ‘an absolute necessity’. CSH
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