NORTHERN soul, an epidemic of violence and ‘just in time’ supply chains were the issues raised by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Andrew Pierce said a year on from the Tories ‘bold’ promise to build an HQ in the north, ‘there was not a peep last week about the new HQ — despite the conference being held in Manchester, just 45 miles from Leeds.’

“The promises fell like northern rain as delegates in Manchester listened to new Tory co-chairman Oliver Dowden’s keynote speech at the party’s conference last week,” he said. “‘Hiring great new staff to build the team to win . . . Recruiting 50 campaign managers — right now. Beefing up by-election capability. Mapping battlegrounds,’ he trilled.

“Yet one pledge went unmentioned. Dowden didn’t refer to last year’s vow to open a new Tory HQ in the North.”

He said one Tory minister told him the project is off, while another said the party is deciding between two buildings in Leeds.

“‘Either way, it’s a shambles,’ the minister harrumphed,” he said. “‘A year ago we couldn’t talk about it enough. Now the cat is out of the bag that we’ve done nothing in 12 months. We’d hoped people wouldn’t notice. ’

“Clearly the Tories have a way to go to prove their northern soul.”

The Daily Express

James Whale asked if it was any wonder that so many women in this country don’t feel safe when our justice system - the police and the judges who are meant to protect us all - are predominantly male?

“I don’t understand why there aren’t more female judges,” he said. “Perhaps that would help curb the epidemic of violence towards women, but it is absolutely shocking to me that so many women live in fear.”

He said he couldn’t understand why men actually feel superior to women.

“Those guys who think they have the right to go, uninvited, and speak inappropriately to a woman, to call out in the street, or to brush close to a girl on public transport, need a very quick awakening.And our police and our judges need to make sure that they get one.”

The Guardian

Kim Moody, a visiting scholar at the University of Westminster, said almost every time you order something online, it is transported via a network of factories, rails, roads, ships, warehouses and delivery drivers that together form the global economy’s circulatory system.

“Once one link breaks or stalls, the impact on today’s just-in-time supply chains can be felt immediately,” he said. “Now, our just-in-time world is becoming increasingly crisis prone. The schedules of container shipping have been unreliable since the pandemic began in early 2020.

“Now is the time to think about not just how we make and consume things, but also how we move them.”