Children In England Have Fallen Behind In Their Education As A Result Of The Pandemic

A damaging Ofsted report warned that almost every child in England has fallen behind in their education and suffered as a consequence of the COVID lockdown.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned that many of the youngest children’s growth and development wavered amid the pandemic, with some regressing in basic communication and social skills.

She said that loneliness, boredom and anxiety became endemic amongst the young, and the lack of education, interrupted routine, and fewer activities led to physical and mental health problems for numerous children.

Ms Spielman urged that the younger generation should not be denied the opportunity to enjoy childhood and achieve its potential in the year ahead, and she called on schools to offer students sport and extracurricular activities to ensure children regain a feeling of normality in their lives.

Her comments came after the latest Department of Education (DfE) figures revealed that the number of children and staff off school for COVID related reasons in England had surged in recent weeks.

Education unions have warned that disruption to education was expected to worsen following the emergence of the recently identified Omicron coronavirus variant.

In Ofsted’s annual report, Ms Spielman said the message around the harm that lockdowns cause children, and the importance of in-person schooling needs repeating now, and she added that although many children aren’t necessarily out of school because of COVID or other ailments, it’s essential that they attend every day that they possibly can.

The watchdog’s report assesses education and children’s social care over the 2020-21 academic year.

During this period much of Ofsted’s routine inspection work was suspended, but the inspectorate began monitoring visits to see how schools, colleges, nurseries and social care providers responded to the pandemic.

Ofsted discovered that despite the greatest efforts of many thousands of parents, teachers, social workers and carers, the challenges of the pandemic were so great that almost all children fell behind in their learning.

The report said that in primary and secondary schools, children struggled with a hokey-cokey education, in the classroom, at home, isolated in bubbles, separated alone.

Further education (FE) students and apprentices saw their classroom doors closed, their placements curtailed and their career prospects limited, and prisoners seeking a second opportunity through education were unable to leave their cells to learn.

The report said that children with special education needs or disabilities (SEND) were unable to access the local support services they rely on, while many vulnerable children disappeared from teachers’ line of sight.

Our children and their futures are the real victims of this COVID, and our children are regressing in basic language skills. This lockdown did far more harm to them than it benefitted them, and most youngsters are now dreading the thought of another lockdown.

Most children are now socially stunted and educationally backward from where they should be because you can’t just close schools for years with no consequence.

Our children’s education is in crisis. Child care is in crisis, but apparently, we can still afford to bring in thousands of boat people that they clothe, feed and house, and if our government can provide all of the above, then why are our children suffering?

Of course, you wouldn’t think that a child’s language abilities would regress at home but it has, and there are a number of children that returned to school with stammers and stutters, partly due to not socialising with children of their own age for such a long time, and partly due to the anxiety and worry of living through this pandemic and having their lives turned upside down.

Tesco Strike Threatens Food Supplies In Run-Up To Christmas

Strikes by warehouse workers and drivers are set to create chaos in the run-up to Christmas at Tesco.

More than 1,000 workers are organising walkouts in a pay row, adding further stress on the supply chain where Tesco bosses had earlier warned of reduced choice on supermarket racks due to driver deficits.

The Unite union said the company offer of a four per cent pay increase was well below the rate of inflation, currently 6 per cent according to the retail price index.

Tesco said the offer was one of the highest awards made within their distribution business in the last 25 years.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said their members have gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep Tesco racks loaded during the pandemic, and said that at the very least the UK’s biggest and most prosperous retailer should be making their members a fair pay proposition.

Workers at depots in Didcot and Doncaster will strike for 48 hours from 6 am on December 16, with a five-day stoppage from December 20.

Unite members at Tesco Antrim and Belfast distribution centres will begin an all-out, continuous strike from 7 am on December 16.

The union announced that a strike ballot result of its members at Tesco’s distribution centre in Livingston, Scotland, would be known today.

The union announced that a strike ballot result of its members at Tesco’s distribution centre in Livingston, Scotland, will be known today.

The union said that if workers vote for industrial action they will be likely to join the strike action before Christmas.

Unite national officer Adrian Jones said that Unite is taking strike action as a last resort having drained all other options.

He said that even at this late stage, Tesco could still avoid critical disruption in its stores by returning to the negotiating table and making a greatly improved offer.

Tesco said that their distribution colleagues had worked tirelessly through the pandemic in order to keep stocks moving for customers, and he said that the pay offer they’d made was a clear recognition of this and was one of the highest awards made within their distribution business in the last 25 years, building on their highly competitive pay and rewards package and that they welcomed the decision by their co-workers at the sites who’d voted against industrial action.

He said that they’re saddened that some have voted to proceed and that they have contingency plans in position to help alleviate any impacts.

The taxpayer is subsidising Tesco shareholders by millions every year, giving them bonuses that are paid by us, the people, but if Tesco paid their workers a proper wage they wouldn’t have to claim Tax Credits, which comes out of the public purse, and let’s hope that the workers get the pay rise which they justly deserve.

However, if they do get the pay rise that they want, who do you think pays for it, it’s certainly no mythological billionaire. All it means is that our shopping will become more costly when they put all their prices up, but of course, it will all get blamed on COVID.

But it’s not only shop workers that haven’t had a pay rise. Pensioners haven’t had a pay rise in years, yet they’re still having to pay rent, rates, gas, electric et cetera – what about their lack of pay rise – oh, I forgot, they don’t matter, and it’s not just the elderly, what about the disabled as well?

A Mother Is slammed For Sending An Inappropriate Lunch To School

A mum has been inundated with backlash after packing an inappropriate lunch for her daughter in kindergarten.

Mum of one Jane, from New South Wales, Australia, was pleased with the Squid Game inspired lunchbox she prepared, but hundreds of other parents weren’t impressed.

Sharing an image to a popular Facebook group, Jane packed rice balls covered in yaki nori seaweed which were finished with triangles, circles and squares that represented the show.

The fictional survival drama television series Squid Game sees contestants fight to the death in an endeavour to win a large amount of prize money, and while some thought it to be wrong to include references to the gruelling show in a child’s lunchbox, others said it’s just shaped food.

One woman wrote in the comments of the Facebook post that they wondered if the mother had actually let the child watch the show and that it was just some shapes on some food and that people should just lighten up, and that if nothing had been said about Squid Games, they would have thought that it was Playstation themed.

But someone else said that if she was making a theme for the child, then she presumably lets the kid watch it because why bother making a themed lunchbox that they won’t understand.

The lunchbox was also loaded with fresh sliced strawberries, M&Ms, miniature sausages and soy crisps.

Another parent disregarded the Squid Game references and called the lunchbox wholesome and praised Jane for her efforts.

One woman wrote that it looked yummy. Well done mumma bear, keep up the lunches.

Sometimes these headers are just pitiful. Obviously, this child is loved, but so many children go to school without a decent lunch, and if the highlight of your day is criticising a child’s lunchbox, especially some child you don’t even know, or the child’s mother, then you really do need to get a life.

Stop the judgement, it’s nobody’s business.

What’s highly inappropriate is the fact that people are sitting there telling a parent or guardian what to do with their own children, and this stupidity needs to stop because ultimately it’s a parents choice on what they determine is good and what’s not.

Look around you people! And you’ll see so many delinquent children and youths in our communities due to the fact that all control has been taken away from the parents, including the disciplining of their children, and why on earth would anyone care about what a parent puts in their child’s lunchbox?

I really do hope a time machine is never built because no one would want to come back to this era, and this barking about references to Squid Games is just absurd. Honestly, do you really believe this child is going to have the slightest clue? And even if the child did watch the show, at five years old, she would be too young to even be able to draw a parallel between the show and the abstract shapes in her lunchbox, but still, the barking will go on.

There’s nothing bad in the lunchbox. I myself wouldn’t have packed that sort of food, but every parent is different. My granddaughter loves Sushi, and her parents let her eat it from time to time, but I don’t suppose they would put it in her lunchbox. The point that I’m trying to make is that every parent has different ideas and other parents should mind their own beeswax.

This is all opinion based and objective, but what it does demonstrate is that people think the worst of each other, just so they can look like they have some sort of intelligence!

A Time Capsule Believed To Contain A Picture Of Abraham Lincoln

The graffiti-covered granite plinth that once held a controversial statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee will be removed by the State of Virginia, three months after the bronze monument to Robert E Lee was removed.

Governor Ralph Northam said in a statement that preliminary work at the site in Richmond will start and the pedestal is expected to be completely removed by December 31.

Governor Ralph Northam said that this land is in the middle of Richmond, and Richmonders will decide the fate of this space, and that the Commonwealth will remove the pedestal and that they anticipate its safe removal and a triumphant conclusion to the project.

The statue the plinth supported was removed on September 8 after becoming the latest Confederate statue to be toppled by the Black Lives Matter movement amid objection from some white residents who thought it should be preserved in history.

The plinth was defaced with graffiti on May 2020 as demonstrations over the death of George Floyd continued, with messages such as ‘no more white supremacy’ where left in spray paint.

Both items will be preserved rather than destroyed, although a decision hasn’t been made on if, or how, to display them in public again.

Meanwhile, the city of Richmond will be allowed to decide what happens to the traffic circle that once held the plinth, but has yet to tease any possible plans.

As the 12-ton bronze statue, America’s largest Confederate icon, that stood on it was winch away last autumn, BLM supporters applauded and chanted ‘Na Na Hey Hey’.

The 40-foot concrete pedestal remained in place while officials determined what to do with it.

The release said that once the pedestal has been removed, it will be dismantled and stored until the next steps have been determined.

It’s likely that the 1887 time capsule, thought to have been concealed under the statue will be recovered when the plinth is removed.

Officials in September called off the search for the capsule, which was said to contain a photo of Abraham Lincoln, after just 12 hours of digging.

Crews removed up to 8,000 pounds of granite blocks from the bottom of the 40-foot high concrete pedestal on September 9 in search of the copper box loaded with Civil War artefacts before an aide for Northam called it a night and said the search was over.

Sadly the US is destroying its history, well the little that it has, and it’s a crime to try to eradicate history.

It would have been cheaper to put a railing around it, rather than give in to the wokes and remove it, and why change history because a few people are offended.

The removal of these monuments really makes me sad. Whether or not one agrees with the honoree’s cultural or political views, makes them no less worthy.

They’ve existed for decades and some even centuries, and I don’t suppose everyone is a fan of Robert E Lee but these statues shouldn’t be removed, otherwise, soon, the American country will have nothing more than car dealerships, gas stations and fast-food outlets. Oh, they already have!

And the US is a comparatively young country in terms of history, and it’s such a shame when they destroy the very little history that they have.

Countries only learn from their past mistakes and all history should be preserved for future generations to learn by and not be destroyed by minority pressure, and it’s important to remember what was fought against so that people can recognise it when it reappears.

Don’t be fooled, fashions go in circles and ideology will reappear when the wheels turn, but erasing the past, it will allow the same to return unchallenged.

British Prepare For Explosive Storm Barra

Thousands of British families still dealing with the fallout from Storm Arwen have been informed of more chaos on the way as Storm Barra is set to hit tomorrow bringing up to four inches of snow, 70 mph winds and driving rain.

Around 3,200 homes, mainly in North East England, remained without power overnight ten days after Storm Arwen, and Barra, after a deep area of low pressure moved in from the Atlantic and is now set to have a significant impact.

The Met Office issued a warning covering the whole of England and Wales for tomorrow and into the night with winds of up to 70 mph expected in exposed seaside areas and about 50 mph in numerous regions.

It warns that short term loss of power is likely, which is sombre news for families who have already endured days of power cuts in the wake of Storm Arwen which hit supplies to more than one million homes on November 26.

The Energy Networks Association (ENA) said that 3,190 homes were still waiting to be reconnected as of 2 pm yesterday. This was down from 4,025 homes yesterday morning, with the majority in the North East of England.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) said power had been restored to all 135,000 of its affected customers by yesterday morning, but forecasters warned of another explosive event from the Atlantic tomorrow.

Now restoration crews are bracing for more disruption after meteorologists said electricity lines could be brought down again by the weather bomb, a phenomenon that occurs if the central section of a low-pressure system deepens by 24 millibars in 24 hours. It’s expected the storm building in the Atlantic will exceed that level.

The Irish weather service Met Éireann named it Storm Barra yesterday and the Met Office then followed suit.

Met Office meteorologist Annie Shuttleworth said a dusting of snow was expected on northern hills, such as the Peak and Lake District today, with showers and hail also giving a somewhat wintry feel.

She added that the snow was likely to create significant disruption on higher routes with delays to rail, air and road travel on higher ground.

The worst-hit northern areas could also see overnight temperatures fall to -6C (21F) and it may not get above freezing by day in those areas.

The Army continued to support residents without electricity over the weekend.

Winter usually means that we do get storms, winds, rain, sleet, snow and ice, so why do we need all these fangle dangled names for them, why don’t they just say there’s a huge storm on the way? We’ve had severe winters and storms for millions of years, so why all the excitement? All they should be doing is getting people ready for what’s coming without all the hysteria.

Perhaps it’s all part of the grand plan to make climate change a public health emergency. Next, they’ll be imposing lockdowns during a drought or whenever we get snow, it’s all about control.

Back when I was a kid they were just called weather fronts, and there are so many of them each year, it’s pointless naming all of them. Let’s face it they don’t give names to heatwaves.

It’s unfortunate that everyone lost their power supply but then like most things in Britain, power cables and towers are 20 years behind their intended lifespan anyhow.

People in Canada and Scandinavia must be laughing their heads off, but then they’re prepared for severe weather, whereas in England we’re never prepared for anything.

People Are Dying From Heart Attacks

A newspaper outlet told that heart attack victims have lost their lives because doctors are still required to put on full COVID protection equipment before resuscitating them in hospitals.

Doctors at a leading health trust in London said that precious time is being wasted when patients go into cardiac arrest as doctors struggle to put on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Although the guidance from Public Health England (PHE) is that they strongly advise that there’s no possible delay in delivering this life-saving intervention for COVID purposes, it’s still left to Healthcare organisations to decide whether or not to advise their clinical staff to wear FFP3 respirators, gowns, eye protection and gloves when performing chest compressions.

The newspaper also understood that some doctors have even suffered disciplinary action for giving CPR to save patients’ lives without first putting on full PPE.

A doctor at one London trust said that it takes between one and two minutes for them to put on the PPE and that can be the difference between life and death, and Tory MP Marcus Fysh said it was quite wrong to implement the restriction.

Marcus Fysh said that if everyone’s vaccinated among hospital staff anyhow, then it wasn’t a real risk to those staff in any sense to be interacting with a patient who has COVID. That’s what the statistics tell us. So he believed it was quite wrong to insist that a doctor who needs to administer CPR couldn’t do so because they weren’t wearing PPE.

And Tory MP Alicia Kearns said she would raise this lunacy of a policy with the Health Secretary, and she told a newspaper outlet that no doctors wants to lose a patient, and she said it was difficult to believe that any Trust would direct their doctors who are completely vaccinated to potentially take the life of a patient.

In other developments, international visitors to the United Kingdom will again have to take pre-departure COVID tests in an effort to tackle the Omicron variant, according to Sajid Javid.

From 4 am on December 7, all tourists visiting England, Scotland and Wales, or returning home after a holiday, will be expected to take a pre-departure lateral flow or PCR test.

Nigeria will be added from Monday to the red list of countries from where people arriving must quarantine in a hotel for ten days.

The latest figures revealed that hospital admissions decreased by 0.8 per cent over the past seven days to 812, while deaths fell 3.6 per cent to 127. The number of positive tests was up 2.5 per cent to 42,848.

Analysis by a newspaper outlet reported a postcode lottery for booster shots, and some UK residents are having to travel more than 50 miles for their top-up jab.

There have been loads of people who have had their two jabs, which has made them quite sick. There are also lots of people that got their two jabs and still got COVID and were pretty sick – I thought the idea of having the jab was so that we didn’t get infected.

This is all very wrong and the political elite knows this, but want us to get the vaccine, and they say it’s extremely safe, but then they’re desperate to protect their backs, and they must ensure that everyone is vaccinated so that in the future when people start becoming ill because of the vaccine, there’s no comparison group of unvaccinated people to reveal just how damaging the vaccines have really been.

A Rare Gene Variant That’s More Common In Amish Communities

According to researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a rare gene variant that typically arises in Amish communities may hold the answer to preventing heart disease.

The study found that those that have this particular gene, known as B4GALT1, seem to have lower levels of heart-damaging cholesterol, as well as a blood-clotting protein called fibrinogen.

Less than one in 10,000 people have this gene, yet amazingly 12 per cent of the Pennsylvania Amish community in Lancaster County carry the gene variant.

Past studies on the gene showed that specific mutations can change one’s cholesterol levels, too much of which can cause obstructed arteries and cardiovascular disease, which remains the leading cause of death worldwide.

Researchers involved in the study claim this is the first time scientists have isolated a gene that reduces two separate yet important heart disease risk factors.

Study leader and University of Maryland School of Medicine assistant professor May Montasser, PhD, in a media release, said that leveraging data from more than 500,000 from the general population, it was found that those who carried the variant had a 35 per cent lower risk of heart disease compared to those who didn’t.

And she said that the genetic variant seems to either repress the synthesis of cholesterol and fibrinogen or stimulate their removal from the blood, which protects the heart, and that this finding could lead to targeted drugs that imitate the action of this variant to keep arteries free of plaque and clots.

The study revealed that genetic samples taken from approximately 7,000 Amish participants, who have been working with the University’s Medical School team since 1995, were sequenced by researchers.

The study finally found a link between having the B4GALT1 gene variant and approximately 14 mg/dL lower LDL cholesterol with 30 mg/dL lower fibrinogen.

The research team studied how the gene variant affected mice genetically altered to carry B4GALT1 based on this connection.

Reports study leader Guisy Della Gatta said that the mouse model, encoding for this gene mutation, also showed reduced levels of LDL cholesterol and fibrinogen, establishing the effect of the variant.

She said this model served as an invaluable tool to unravel the molecular mechanisms that help protect against cardiovascular disease.

Researchers revealed that the reason behind the highly concentrated amount of the rare gene variant among the Amish population stems from their common lineage and homogeneous lifestyle.

It seems that the Amish people have lower cholesterol and better overall health because they actually work hard for a living and aren’t couch potatoes eating processed foods, and they don’t smoke or drink, don’t stress about nonsense and their version of social media is meeting up with their neighbours for supper.

The Amish community have lived this kind of lifestyle for a long time and they don’t know any different, but it works extremely well for them. If we all went back to horses and carts, with no radio, TV, internet et cetera, nobody would last a week because they wouldn’t be able to handle the boredom.

They live a different lifestyle, eat healthier and are more productive, so I’m sure that’s a huge factor.

Amish health is probably more to do with their lifestyle than a genetic sequence. Manual labour outdoors, unprocessed food, family values and avoiding the toxic modern culture of instantaneous gratification and snap chatting. There, that’s saved millions of dollars of research, and it’s absurd to think that scientists have secured millions in funding to find out what’s in plain sight.

COVID Antiviral Pill Could Be Offered To Vulnerable Patients Before Christmas

The first at-home treatment for COVID 19 could reportedly be given to patients before Christmas in an effort to protect vulnerable people from the Omicron strain.

According to a newspaper outlet, Health Secretary Sajid Javid is set to start a national pilot of the Molnupiravir antiviral pill, also known as Lagevrio.

Molnupiravir, which can be taken at home, is for people who’ve had a positive COVID test and have at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, being over the age of 60, diabetes or heart disease.

Under the plans, the NHS is reportedly expected to deliver courses of the tablet to clinically vulnerable and immunosuppressed patients within as little as 48 hours of them testing positive for COVID.

It’s understood that hospitals and GPs have been told a series of COVID medicines delivery units were being established to ensure the treatment gets to patients as soon as possible, once it’s established they have the virus.

It comes after the UK Health Security Agency said a further 26 cases of the Omicron variant had been recorded across the United Kingdom, with 25 of those in England, meaning the total number of confirmed cases of the variant in Britain now stands at 160.

Last month, the UK became the first country in the world to licence the use of the drug, from Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), in a move described as a game-changer by Sajid Javid, but just over a week ago, England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty warned its use may have to be reconsidered in the light of the emergence of Omicron.

Professor Chris Whitty told a Downing Street press conference that on the antivirals, they were going to have to do a bit of a rethink on the basis of this new variant, just to be sure they’ve got the right indications from it.

He said there’s a variety of ways it could be used in a different way, and what they need to make sure they’ve got the stock of these, what appear to be extremely effective drugs, and that they use it in the most effective way and for the right people.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had previously said the drug was safe and effective at reducing the risk of hospital admission and mortality in people with mild to moderate COVID who were at additional risk from the virus.

However, this is another drug that’s skipped the usual 5-year clinical testing phases, which all seems rather ominous, and if vulnerable people have not been protected by the jab, then what was the purpose of having the vaccine in the first place? And we all know that pharmaceutical companies aren’t there to make you better because they wouldn’t profit from that, would they now?

It’s certainly making big pharma incredibly rich, but is it really keeping the virus at bay or stopping people from dying?

Pfizer reported that the vaccine brought in $3.5 billion in revenue in the first three months of 2021, almost a quarter of its total revenue, which means it’s been Pfizer’s biggest source of income. Yet two initial jabs didn’t work, now the so-called booster which doesn’t appear to have worked and now a pill, what will they think of next? They’ll be putting it in your food next.

And all those people who had their first two jabs, do they actually think that the booster will work better?

The Driving Licenses And Passports Of Middle-Class Drug Users Could Be Revoked

Boris Johnson has announced that middle-class druggies could be stripped of their passports and driving licences under a tough new clampdown on Class A use.

The Prime Minister hit out at ‘lifestyle’ use of Class A by people who believed they were committing a victimless crime by only dabbling at the weekends.

He said he wanted to bring in examples that interfere with their lives as he accused them of being complicit in driving up drug-related crime across the United Kingdom.

Launching a ten-year blitz on county lines drug gangs he said narcotics were causing misery and rejected the notion of liberalising the law.

In a twin-track approach, resources will also be made available to help wean addicts off heroin, crack and other hard drugs.

Talking to a newspaper outlet Boris Johnson distinguished between addicts and social users of drugs, and he said that he didn’t want to stereotype them but he was speaking about lifestyle drugs. Those people who think it’s a victimless crime, and he said that it wasn’t, and that the country was littered with victims of what’s happened, and that they were going to look at different ways of punishing them. Things that would actually hinder their lives so they’ll be looking at taking away passports and driving licences.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab told BBC’s Andrew Marr programme that they didn’t think the so-called middle-class taking of cocaine was somehow okay so that in that sense they were going to be tough.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce millions of pounds in additional funding for the police to tackle the gangs which use children to traffic drugs in provincial towns and cities.

The funding package will build on the success of Project Adder, a police pilot scheme that has already had a real impact in disrupting the county lines operations by allowing forces to dedicate more resources to clandestine operations.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has described the aim of the scheme as cutting the head off the snake of criminal gangs.

The Government announced in July it would establish a new unit to help stop illegal drug-related illness and mortality, as the second part of Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs was released.

The first phase of the review, published in February last year, estimated there were 300,000 opiate or crack users in England, and about one million people using cocaine per year.

If the Government are bringing in this policy, then regular drug testing for MPs needs to be brought in as well because it’s not do as I say and not as I do.

And why is this just for the middle classes? Is it so that they can keep their wealthy families and friends safe from the judgement they lay on others?

This might appear a great idea initially, but you actually do have to consider the implications. What will be the next thing the Government curtails when it comes to our freedoms. This is dictatorial control.

Of course, MPs and such don’t consider themselves middle class so they will eliminate themselves as they did from the restrictions during draconian lockdowns, and if they didn’t exclude themselves, MPs, judges, bankers, footballers and celebrities would all be stuffed.

They all escape these sanctions, including being stopped by the police, they’re untouchable, so if they want to sniff a bit of cocaine up their nose, nobody’s going to say a dicky bird.

And I guess there’s no point targeting gutter druggies because they won’t have a car, although they might be driving a stolen one with no insurance, tax or MOT, and they probably wouldn’t have a passport, and I’m sure some of those Bullingdon boys at Eton dabbled in a bit of everything when they were younger.

A Free Speech Law Is Under Consideration By The Ministers

Ministers are contemplating altering the law to protect free speech after the Appeal Court ruled in support of the Duchess of Sussex in a privacy row against a newspaper outlet.

Downing Street said publicly that ministers would study closely a ruling which upheld the High Court’s ruling that Meghan had a reasonable expectation of privacy over a letter written to her estranged father Thomas Markle.

But senior figures in Government went further and told a newspaper outlet that a change in the law may now be required to rectify the balance between the competing rights of privacy and free speech.

Legal experts have said the case could have a chilling impact on free speech.

A Cabinet minister told the newspaper outlet that judges in the case seemed to have gone far beyond what Parliament intended when including a right to private life in the Human Rights Act, and gave too little weight to the right to freedom of expression, which was also included in the law.

The source said the judges had created a privacy law that Parliament never voted for and that MPs never agreed to a privacy law because they knew it would be used by the rich and famous to cover up their transgressions.

The source said that the balance between privacy and free speech was definitely wrong, and if this is what the law says then it needed to change, and that it felt like this was a judge invented law, and that it draws on laws enacted by Parliament but it’s not what Parliament ever intended and it should be changed.

Downing Street also hinted at action, and asked whether the Prime Minister thought the judges were getting the balance right between privacy and free speech, a No 10 spokesperson told reporters that they would examine the implications of the judgement thoroughly.

And that you’ve heard the Prime Minister say before that a free Press was one of the foundations of any democracy, and this Government understands the important role that newspapers and the media play in holding people to account and shining a light on the issue which matters.

The spokesperson said he couldn’t get into the hypotheticals about what action the Government might take, but a Whitehall source said ministers might consider changing the law to protect free speech in light of the judgement.

The source said the feeling of a lot of people in Government is that something has gone too far, and that individual judges are making large pieces of case law without reference to Parliament, and that’s troubling.

In the end, if this goes through, all our private letters and emails will be made public, maybe even recordings we’ve made. Maybe we’ll even have a Snoopers Charter, but do we really want our entire private life on display?

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