A NEW emergency phone line to protect women, Insulate Britain and the rise of Matt Hancock were the topics discussed by columnists in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Sarah Vine said the chief executive of BT had raised plans for a new emergency phone number designed to protect lone women, in the wake of the death of Sabina Nessa and murder of Sarah Everard.

“The ‘888 number’ could even work as an app, and would enable anyone to have friends or family track their progress home, triggering alerts if they failed to reach their destination within a certain time limit,” she said. “The problem is not the technology — that already exists, it would simply be a case of modifying it to suit the purpose. No, as ever, it’s the politics of the thing.”

She said the accusation — as put forward on Radio 4’s PM programme at the weekend — is that the plan might even be ‘positively harmful’, on the basis that it puts the onus on women to take steps to keep themselves safe.

“Yes, let’s work towards a safer world for all,” she said. “But let’s not, in the meantime, make the best the enemy of the good. If [this] idea can help keep just one person safe, it will have been worth it.”

The Daily Express

Paul Baldwin said ‘those infuriating dullards Insulate Britain’ are finally being dragged off the roads.

“About time,” he said. “We’ve put up with this mob of the faintly mentally ill and the sinisterly fascist for too long. As they used to say in the 70’s, you’re going to get your flipping head kicked in.”

He said the police, with their’ incomprehensible inaction’, will have to take their fair share of the blame for enabling and escalating the situation.

“We pay the force to protect and serve us - but they prefer to virtue signal and interpret the law to fit their force’s woke strategies,” he said. “As a nation we are tolerant to a fault and generally against violence over debate but how many of you cheered to see the numpties being dragged away by the very members of the public these idiots think they are here to save? I know I did.”

The Independent

Rupert Hawksley said Matt Hancock has been doing rather well for himself since leaving Government.

“There was the holiday to the Swiss Alps; a first attempt at the London marathon; and now an exciting new job,” he said. “Hancock announced last night that he will take up the role of United Nations special representative, working ‘to help African economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.’

“The letter from Vera Songwe, the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, appointing Hancock to the role, is unequivocal. No mention anywhere of the lives lost or the fact that Hancock’s previous boss, the prime minister, described him as “totally f**king useless”. He obviously interviewed well.”