Five things – 8th November 2017
You are probably fed up to the back teeth of sex, tax and Priti Patel so here are a couple of stories worth catching up on as well as one tragic tale that is not being covered enough. On Channel 4, The Fight for Mosul fly on the wall documentary by Olivier Scarbil, is a stunning piece of filming showing the nine-month battle to reclaim the Iraqi city from Isis in all its brutality. Nearly as brutal is Danny the Fink in The Times today with his excoriating take-down of Gordon Brown, while Alex Brummer is brilliant on the power games being played out in the energy market.
Luckily for us, Nigel Farage did not know before the referendum that fossils of early mammals – which led directly to the human line – recently discovered on the Dorset coast suggest that Britannia may be home to the earliest man. You can just imagine the bus adverts.
Finally, where is the outrage over the murdered baby, Elsie Scully-Hicks? As far as I can discover, there has been no serious questioning – either in the Commons or in the press- over why the adoption services refused to allow Elsie to join her grandmother. Or how, over the months leading up to Elsie’s death, the social services and doctors all missed the strange nature of her injuries. Westminster needs to get its priorities straight.
1. The Fight for Mosul Channel 4
2. The Problem all along, Mr Brown, was you The Times, Daniel Finkelstein
3. Beware the power carve-up: Energy giants merger could only reduce competition in an already imperfect market Daily Mail, Alex Brummer
4. Man’s earliest ancestors discovered in southern England Heritage Daily
5. Elsie Scully-Hicks: Baby murder ’rogue’ adoption case BBC