‘Hungriest place on Earth’: UN accuses Israel of drip-feeding Gaza aid
Gaza is the “hungriest place on Earth” and facing catastrophe, the UN has warned, as aid continues to struggle to reach starving Palestinians.
The UN’s humanitarian office said Israel was allowing a “trickle” of food into the enclave when it should be a “flood”, with 300 aid trucks unable to offload due to operational bottlenecks.
It comes as hopes for a 60-day ceasefire and hostage exchange proposed by the Americans hang in the balance. Hamas said it was “reviewing” the Israel-backed plans but has already claimed the deal lacks a commitment to end the conflict.
Meanwhile, the crisis on the ground continues to escalate, with Israel ordering the evacuation of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, while at least 14 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Friday.
Last week, Israel partially lifted an 11-week blockade of aid into Gaza, allowing a limited amount of aid into the territory through a new but heavily criticised system introduced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesperson Jens Laerke said aid deliveries were still severely restricted, as hunger and malnutrition spread among the increasingly desperate 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
“It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” he said in a press briefing in Geneva. “It’s not a flood.”
Mr Laerke called for immediate changes to how aid was being allowed into the enclave so food could be delivered “directly to families”, pointing out that almost no ready-to-eat food was entering.
“Gaza is the hungriest place on Earth,” he said. “It’s the only defined area, a country or defined territory within a country where you have the entire population at risk of famine, 100 per cent of the population at risk of famine.
“The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in the recent history of global humanitarian response anywhere.”
Médecins Sans Frontières secretary-general Christopher Lockyear agreed the new system was not working.
“The most vulnerable – especially the elderly and people with disabilities – have virtually no chance of accessing the food they desperately need,” he said. “The claim that this unprincipled, failing mechanism is necessary to prevent the diversion of aid is false.”
Israel’s foreign ministry rebuked criticism of the flow of aid, saying on Friday: “There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie.”
The ministry said it was facilitating the entry of aid in two ways: first, by allowing nearly 900 trucks to enter Gaza this week.
“Hundreds of these trucks are still waiting for the UN to collect and distribute them in Gaza,” the ministry said.
The ministry also said it was distributing aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and claimed the Ghf had handed out more than two million meals within four days of starting operations in southern Gaza as well as “tens of thousands of aid packages”.
But Palestinians described chaos at all three of Ghf’s aid hubs on Thursday; multiple witnesses reported a free-for-all of people grabbing aid, and they said Israeli troops opened fire to control crowds.
Mnawar al-Rai said she has to walk to three or four locations each day to find a plate of food to feed her children, and when her family tried to collect aid in recent days, they came under fire. Fuad Muheisen, from Deir al-Balah, said if charity kitchens shut down “all of Gaza will die. No one will stay alive”.
Hamas is expected to respond to the US ceasefire proposal this weekend, after the White House said Israel had agreed to Washington’s new plan to halt hostilities in Gaza.
Under the new proposal, guaranteed by US president Donald Trump, Hamas would release 28 of the remaining 58 living and dead Israeli hostages in the first week of the 60-day ceasefire, in exchange for the release of 1,236 Palestinian prisoners and the remains of 180 dead Palestinians.
Humanitarian aid would flow into Gaza as soon as Hamas agrees to the deal, and the plan stipulates the militant group would release the remaining 30 hostages once a permanent ceasefire is in place. At that time, Israel would also cease all military operations in Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister, who underwent a routine colonoscopy on Friday morning in Jerusalem, has told the families of Israeli hostages that he has accepted the new ceasefire proposal presented by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, according to local media reports.
Families of the remaining hostages held in Gaza are again pleading with Mr Netanyahu to ensure that any agreement to end the war must include their freedom.
Ayelet Samerano, the mother of Yonatan Samerano, whose body is being held in Gaza, was among the family members who met with Mr Netanyahu on Thursday. She said the news that only some hostages and several bodies would be released had once again plunged the families into indescribable uncertainty.
“It’s again a selection,” she said. “All the families, we are right now standing and thinking, ‘Is it going to be my son? Isn’t it?’”
Hamas said it would respond to the ceasefire proposals by Saturday, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Thursday that the terms of the proposal echoed Israel’s position and did not contain commitments to end the war, withdraw Israeli troops or admit aid as Hamas has demanded.
Even as those negotiations continue, Israel has ordered more evacuations from the north of Gaza, including from the al-Awda hospital – one of the last functioning medical centres in the area – while Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 people, including women, and injured many more.
So far, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. The war began with Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, which left around 1,200 dead and some 250 taken hostage.
Additional reporting by Reuters, AP
Lionesses hit five in flying start against Portugal
England begin life without Mary Earps and continue their build-up to Euro 2025 as they host Portugal at Wembley in the Women’s Nations League.
The Lionesses were rocked this week by the news that Earps, the Euros winner and two-time goalkeeper of the year, would be retiring from international duty after losing her starting place to Hannah Hampton.
England captain Leah Williamson said she was “devastated” by Earps’ retirement and it leaves the Lionesses without one of their most important leaders ahead of this summer’s Euros in Switzerland.
With just over a month to go ahead of England’s opening game against France, Sarina Wiegman’s side will conclude their Nations League campaign against Portugal and away to Spain
England trail Spain by two points, with the top side qualifying for the Nations League semi-finals, so a victory for the Lionesses would keep their hopes alive before travelling to Spain on Tuesday.
Follow live updates from England vs Portugal at Wembley, below
Russia won’t agree a ceasefire in Ukraine while Europe continues to fund Putin’s war
The White House is wagging its finger, the Brits and other Europeans will be alongside Ukraine and Turkey has high hopes.
And when they all come together in Istanbul on Monday for ceasefire talks with Russia the Kremlin’s reaction will be “ish-to” – so what?
Vladimir Putin is facing no significant consequences from either Donald Trump or Europe for his continued war in Ukraine.
Indeed, the latest research shows that Russia is making billions from European gas exports that are funding its war – in Europe.
The heaviest sanction threatened by Trump, and repeated by his envoys, is that the US will “walk away” from engagement with Russia and Ukraine over getting a 30-day ceasefire agreed, let alone any kind of peace process.
On top of that, Keith Kellogg, the lead US envoy to Ukraine, has repeated the White House mantra, which is also a Kremlin demand, that Ukraine will never join Nato.
The Trump administration has many levers it could pull to drive Russia towards a ceasefire. It could threaten to up military and intelligence support for Ukraine, it could back its Nato ambitions or it could offer troops to underwrite Ukraine’s future security.
It has inexplicably given up every one of those levers. As a result, the 32 members of Nato meeting at the end of June will have to decide what the alliance is actually for, as America has pivoted into camp Kremlin.
There is a large dose of double-think and hypocrisy here, though. Europe’s leaders and the EU say they have most to fear from Putin and yet are spending a vast amount of their money on Russian gas, which is used to fund its war that European leaders say is an existential threat.
“The EU was the fourth largest buyer of Russian fossil fuels in December, their imports accounting for 17 per cent (EUR 2.5 bn) of the top five purchasers. LNG comprised the largest share of the EU’s purchases of Russia’s fossil fuels (39 per cent), followed by pipeline gas (38 per cent),” according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).
A study by the BBC using Crea figures and data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks aid to Ukraine, found that Russia made $939bn (£697bn) from fossil fuel exports since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine has been allocated $309bn (£230bn) in foreign aid over the same period.
On top of that, the tax revenue available to the Kremlin has been further boosted by a loophole which allows countries, including the UK and EU members, that have imposed economic sanctions on Russia to import refined Russian oil products from countries that have not.
“In 2024, sanctioning countries imported €15.8 bn of oil products from six refineries in India and Turkey. An estimated €6.6 bn of this was refined from Russian crude. An estimated €6.1 bn of Russian crude oil was used by these six refineries to create products for sanctioning countries … imports of refined oil products from these refineries using Russian crude has generated €3.9 bn in tax revenues for the Kremlin, financing its brutal war on Ukraine,” the Crea report said.
“Over a fifth of these refineries’ total exports were directed to the EU in 2024, during which India became the largest exporter of oil products to the bloc.”
The EU has a plan to wean itself off Russian gas by 2027 and has cut its consumption from 45 per cent in 2021 to about 19 per cent.
But Hungary and Slovakia, both sympathetic to Putin, continue to receive piped Russian gas.
And while the oil and gas flow out of Russia, the cash flows in.
Russia has unleashed its biggest campaign of airstrikes against Ukraine in the entire conflict over the last few weeks. It is massing troops on its border close to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. The Kremlin’s forces have attacked the centre of the 1,000-mile front line with renewed vigour around Kostyantynivka, and it has rapidly adjusted to drone warfare.
None of this would have been possible without the vast oil and gas revenues available to Putin. Crea estimates Russia is making €652m a day from fossil fuel exports, which include legal sales and illegal smuggling operations that avoid the oil price “cap” on Russian crude set at $60 a barrel.
The Europeans want this cap lowered to $50, but that is being resisted by the Trump administration.
This leaves the US floundering in a soup of embarrassing platitudes.
“We want to work with Russia, including on this peace initiative and an economic package. There is no military solution to this conflict,” acting deputy US ambassador John Kelley told the UN Security Council. “The deal on offer now is Russia’s best possible outcome.
“If Russia makes the wrong decision to continue this catastrophic war, the United States will have to consider stepping back from our negotiation efforts to end this conflict,” he warned, adding that Washington could also impose further sanctions on Russia.
The US has very little trade with Russia. New US sanctions mean nothing. And if Trump wandered away from the diplomatic process, it is hard to see why that would worry Putin.
But a worldwide effort to strangle Russia oil and gas exports would cripple his war effort. The problem is that the four biggest importers of Russian fuel – China, India, Turkey and the EU – are not prepared to pay the price to give peace a chance.
Captain Tom’s daughter and husband owed huge sum by their own company
Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter and son-in-law, disgraced for their misconduct in handling the charitable foundation set up in their father’s name, are now owed increasingly large amounts of money by their own business.
Hannah Ingram-Moore, 54, and her husband Colin, 68, are owed £59,323 from Maytrix Group Limited in 2024, according to the latest figures in Companies House.
This has grown from the £30,523 they were due from the management consultancy company in 2023. The company’s net assets have also now plummeted from £5,385 to -£117,880 in the same period.
Ms Ingram-Moore has been contacted for comment by The Independent.
The family of the renowned pandemic fundraiser, who made international headlines when he raised millions of pounds by walking 100 lengths of his garden in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, has been embroiled in scandal due to the misuse of the funds via the Captain Tom Foundation. Captain Sir Tom died in February 2021.
A damning report by the charities watchdog concluded there had been repeated instances of misconduct by the veteran’s daughter and her husband.
But separately, a £1.4 million book deal and an £18,000 awards ceremony appearance fee were among the financial benefits Mr and Ms Ingram-Moore enjoyed through their family links to the Captain Tom Foundation.
The Charity Commission found a “repeated pattern of behaviour” which saw the pair make private gains and which the watchdog said will have left the public feeling “misled”.
The couple were found to have used funds to build a pool house, prompting Central Bedfordshire Council to order its demolition. Mr and Ms Ingram-Moore were disqualified in June 2024 from serving as charity trustees for the foundation for ten and eight years respectively, a decision they did not appeal.
When her fundraising father Captain Sir Tom hit the headlines for his pandemic efforts, his daughter Ms Ingram-Moore was never far from the spotlight.
But before that, she was “one of Britain’s leading businesswomen”, according to her official website.
Alongside her chartered accountant husband, Ms Ingram-Moore co-founded Maytrix. Both are also co-directors of the private limited company Club Nook.
Ms Ingram-Moore accompanied her father to the regal surrounds of Windsor Castle in the summer of 2020 to see him knighted, and took a seat in the Royal Box at Wimbledon months after he died in 2021, where she stood to applause and cheers.
But just three years later, she and her husband had been banned by the Charity Commission from being charity trustees.
Ms Ingram-Moore said the commission’s inquiry was a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal” which had left the family feeling suspended in “constant fear and mental anguish”.
On her website, Ms Ingram-Moore described how she feels a “weight of responsibility for doing the right thing, for not letting people down and responding to the love and compassion that has come our way”.
With a wave of his hand, Macron sends up ‘le slap’
With a wave of his hand, French president Emmanuel Macron has taken a different tack to diffuse the controversy over his wife appearing to hit him, this time by making light of it.
On Monday, cameras caught the moment Brigitte Macron pushed her husband in the face as their plane arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, for the start of their southeast Asian tour. The French leader, who was standing in the doorway of the plane, looked momentarily stunned after the then-unidentified hand hit him in the face.
But after playing down headlines of the pair appearing to have been caught in the middle of a heated argument, the French president on Tuesday instead made fun of it.
After touching down in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, for the second leg of their tour, an unidentified hand was seen waving to the cameras from the same side of the doorway of the presidential plane from which Brigitte had seemingly hit her husband in Hanoi. Mr Macron then appeared in the doorway and walked down the stairs arm-in-arm with his wife.
A close friend of the couple told Radio France that they had staged the video to mock the fallout from the previous video, nicknamed “le slap” in the media.
“They wanted to respond with self-mockery,” the source said.
Mr Macron initially dismissed the incident from Hanoi as a joke between the couple, but he later expressed frustration that the video had “become some kind of planetary catastrophe”.
At the time, he cautioned that this was not the first time in recent weeks that the content of videos of him had been twisted by people he described as “crackpots”.
Earlier this month, Russian social media channels seized on a video of Mr Macron hiding a tissue, suggesting the French leader was attempting to conceal a bag of cocaine.
Mr Macron was sitting in a train carriage on the way into Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, alongside Sir Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz, when the footage was taken.
The Russian channels also claimed that a coffee stirrer clutched by Mr Merz was a cocaine spoon.
Those ridiculous claims were endorsed by high-level Russian officials, including the Kremlin’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
Paris openly mocked the claims in a social media post. It carried two photos depicting the tissue in question and a photo of Mr Macron shaking hands with Sir Keir. “This is a tissue for blowing your nose,” the caption for the first photo read. “This is European unity to build peace,” read the second.
Win a luxury ticket package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival
Music fans can win a luxury package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival, all courtesy of Audi.
Wilderness returns this year to the picturesque nature reserve at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, and will be headlined by rock band Supergrass, Nineties rave duo Orbital, and Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated indie-rock duo Wet Leg.
Completing the headliner lineup are Basement Jaxx, who are making their return to live shows for the first time in over a decade, as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their groundbreaking album, Remedy.
The winner will receive a pair of complimentary festival tickets and boutique accommodation in a luxury cabin for two. They will also be treated to an Audi Kitchen experience and, for the ultimate luxury, your own private chauffeur to take you and your guest to the festival and return journey.
Enter the prize draw here.
Wilderness Festival is known for its eclectic music lineup, which this year includes performances from pop singer Lapsley, singer-songwriter Bess Atwell, Scottish musician Jacob Alon and DJ Craig Charles.
At The Sanctuary and Spa, guests will discover an oasis of calm, whether that means taking part in disco yoga or a workshop to explore your sensuality. Highlights include boating, massage treatments, sauna rituals, hot tubs, a wild sauna, Wim Hof method ice baths and wild swimming.
Gourmet food offerings can be found at Ben Quinn’s long table banquet in the woods, a once-in-a-lifetime experience set in the woods and lit by chandeliers. There, Quinn and his team will serve up a feast of flavour cooked right in front of you five courses of carefully curated, responsibly sourced, local and seasonal ingredients.
Elsewhere, attendees can join a number of talks, comedy sets and conversations, from Food Stories with Jay Rayner to a live recording of Jamie Laing’s podcast, Great Company.
Comedian, writer and NHS doctor Matthew Hutchinson will share a sharp and moving look at life on the frontline of British healthcare, while cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith will uncover a bold and fascinating alternative history of female friendship.
The prize draw will open for entries at 3pm (BST) on 7 May 2025 and close at 3pm BST on 17 June 2025. Only one entry per person is permitted for the Prize Draw. Terms and conditions apply.
Mapped: Where hosepipe bans could come into effect
A hosepipe ban could be on the cards this summer, experts have warned, following one of the driest springs on record.
The Environment Agency (EA) said Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Cumbria and Lancashire have moved from “prolonged dry weather” to “drought” status.
Despite recent rain, water levels in the region remain low, the EA said, although no other areas of the country are in drought. There are no current plans to impose a hosepipe ban.
Dr Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said the northwest of England had seen the driest spring in nearly 100 years, which led to low water levels in reservoirs and rivers.
She told The Independent: “The risk of a hosepipe ban in England is currently at a “medium level” according to the EA following an unseasonably dry spring across most of the country.
“In the North West, there is a good chance that water-saving measures will need to be introduced if there continues to be a lack of rain in the region.
“However it is hopeful that with a change in weather called a hosepipe ban) can be avoided.”
The map below shows the areas in the UK where a potential hosepipe ban could be implemented if the drought continues:
When a hosepipe ban – officially called a temporary use ban – is imposed, people are banned from using them for things such as watering their gardens, filling a paddling pool and washing their cars.
People who breach the ban without permission from the water company could be fined up to £1,000.
The EA said hosepipe bans were a matter for water companies, but they were expected to follow their drought plans, taking appropriate steps to reduce demand and leakage, to ensure more water is left in the environment for farmers and wildlife.
United Utilities, the region’s water company, said the EA’s drought status for the North West doesn’t have any immediate impact on customers but has encouraged customers to use water wisely.
A spokesperson said: “We are grateful for the support of customers as we’ve seen demand reduce thanks to their efforts in saving water where they can, combined with more recent rainfall and cooler temperatures.
“Reservoirs, however, are still lower than we’d expect at this time of year and so we’re continuing to move water around our integrated network to get it to where it is needed, as well as bringing extra water into the system from other sources around the region.
“Leakage is at its lowest level and we’re repairing record volumes, with customers supporting us by reporting more leaks and we’d ask that they continue to do that as well as doing all they can to save and recycle water, to help protect their local environment.”
GB News is starting to challenge the BBC – we should be worried
Listen to Laurence “Lozza” Fox’s dog whistle: “You cannot hate them enough,” he posted on Elon Musk’s X, in reaction to a carefully neutral breaking Sky News story about a car ploughing into Liverpool fans. And then: “You cannot loathe or despise the state propaganda arm @
I understood Lozza to be signalling to his 600,000 followers that an establishment cover-up was happening in front of their eyes. “They” were about to lie about the perpetrator. “What is coming next is inevitable,” he posted moments later. I think he was anticipating riots on the streets.
The man eventually charged with driving into the crowd is 53, white, and a former Royal Marine. Neighbours have been quoted as calling him a “nice family man”. There have been no riots.
Park any thoughts of Lozza for the moment, and let us consider a major speech delivered at Oxford recently by Sir Paul Marshall. It was titled “Reflections of a Reluctant Media Owner”, and it sought to explain why an ultra-wealthy hedge fund manager ended up creating GB News, along with Unherd, a commentary platform, before acquiring The Spectator.
His views command attention, if only because of his prediction that by 2028, the UK will have only two dominant news channels: the BBC and his own GB News, in which he has a 40 per cent stake, and which has lost more than £100m to date.
Sir Paul’s speech was a conventional enough analysis of the British media landscape. He has noticed that most national newspapers tilt to the right. He shares the belief of those on the right that the BBC tilts to the left. It’s all a bit tribal for him.
He believes The Times, alone among newspapers, presents opinion pieces each day “from all sides of the political spectrum”. This may surprise some of its readers. His favourite word is “heterodox”; his least favourite adjective is “metropolitan.”
When it comes to the BBC, he believes that BBC Verify, a fact-checking unit, “is frankly an abuse of taxpayer money and should be shut down”. In an ideal world, the entire BBC – which he describes (just like Lozza!) as “the propaganda arm of the state” – should be sold off. Failing that, it should be broken up. For Marshall, the BBC began to lose its way when – under Blair! – it stopped playing the national anthem on a daily basis: “This is the point at which patriotism was quietly erased from its mission.”
There are frustrating lacunae in the speech. Sir Paul does not, for instance, reflect on whether an ultra-wealthy hedge fund manager is well placed to make fine judgements about impartiality or bias. If it is not to be hedge-fund managers, then who?
But the most striking thing missing from Sir Paul’s lecture is the gap between his analysis of what’s wrong with the media and his answer: the creation of GB News.
Here is a man who hates tribalism, says he likes his own biases to be challenged, and admires the “open-minded centrist ground” represented by The Times. And who then thinks the answer is to create a monocultural TV channel representing every political view on a spectrum from Jacob Rees-Mogg to Lee Anderson via Nigel Farage and the Reclaim Party’s “leader”, Laurence Fox?
If you think the BBC is a bit lefty and iffy with the facts, then why would you reach out for a cast which included the wacky cleric Rev Calvin Robinson, Dan Wootton, Darren Grimes, former Reclaim candidates Leo Kearse and Martin Daubney, Brexit’s Michelle Dewbury, and climate change rubbisher Neil Oliver? What is the societal problem you’re trying to fix with your investment in British television of tens of millions of pounds?
Sir Paul is pleased with the ratings, which – as a rolling news channel with an energetic social media wing – sometimes nudge the BBC. I wonder if he’s ever looked at surveys of trust, which regularly show the hated BBC outperforming all others – and trouncing GB News?
YouGov in 2023 scored the BBC at net plus 23 compared with GB News on minus 15. Another YouGov poll the following year found 41 per cent trusting the BBC “a great deal or a fair amount” against 24 per cent for GB News. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report finds that the BBC, at 62 per cent, is easily the most trusted news brand in the UK. GB News scores 29 per cent.
Are all these people who trust the BBC’s approach to journalism deluded? Is Sir Paul the only one who can see clearly? If he truly wished for better-informed citizens, did he consider other uses for his riches? Has he, for instance, noticed the local newspaper industry gasping for breath as towns and neighbourhoods across the UK threaten to turn into news deserts? Did he really think hiring Laurence Fox (later sacked for misogyny) was the best response to the age of information chaos?
As it happens, I get a namecheck in Sir Paul’s speech. I am, apparently, one of the “biggest advocates of censorship and control narrative” – up there with Hillary Clinton, Plato and the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen. I take it this is because I’m a member of Meta’s oversight board, which aims to protect free expression online while balancing it with possible harms.
In most of our decisions, we actually vote to restore content to Meta’s platforms that, in our view, has been mistakenly removed, but no matter.
There are people who call themselves free speech absolutists, for whom any restraints amount to censorship. Elon Musk sails under that flag, as does Lozza. Sir Paul doesn’t quite pinpoint where he himself sits. At one point, he muses on the dangers of truth being sacrificed in favour of conspiracy theories and tribalism. And yet it feels that the point of GB News is precisely its tribal nature.
One of the recent decisions by the oversight board related to the aftermath of the Southport killings, when social media was widely used to spread disinformation about the ethnicity, religion and asylum status of the killer. More than that, it was used to whip up mob violence and hatred against Muslims. Real violence, real hatred.
One of the posts which Meta left up called for mosques to be smashed and buildings where “migrants,” “terrorists” and “scum” live to be set on fire. Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Northampton councillor, was controversially jailed for 31 months for posting something similar.
Is it actually “censorship” to want Meta to remove such posts? Is that an example of biased metropolitan elitism? The “we-know-best” brigade? Or is it a responsible instinct for there to be limits on extremists who, in crowded theatres, shout “Fire!”
And Sky News and the BBC, with their restrained let’s-stick-to-the-facts approach. Is that really (per Lozza) loathsome and despicable? Do you (per Sir Paul and Lozza) really think the BBC is the “propaganda arm of the state” and should be sold off? Or that BBC Verify is an “abuse” and should be closed down? Who should make judgements about impartiality – ultra-wealthy hedgies, or Ofcom? Who is in touch with the “common sense centre ground” here, and who isn’t?
I do not wish to be mean about Sir Paul. I’m glad he founded Unherd. The Spectator remains a great magazine. He is a generous philanthropist. But, by his own account, he is on course to be a mini-Murdoch in the not-too-distant future. His views matter. But some of those views range from unformed to unsettling. Keep an eye on him.