This live blog is now closing. Thanks for following along. You can read our latest full report on this story here:
Afternoon summary
Rishi Sunak has refused to back Suella Braverman’s claim that the men in grooming gangs are mostly British-Pakistani. (See 1.01pm.) But, as he launched a crackdown on grooming gangs, he did claim that “political correctness” had played a role in part in protecting these gangs (because the police were worried about being accused of being racist if they acted against the perpetrators, he implied – see 8.53am.) As Peter Walker reports, the NSPCC and experts on grooming gangs have warned ministers against framing the issue as one based on ethnicity, warning that this could hamper efforts to tackle a crime that a Home Office report said was carried out predominantly by white men.
DUP should be given 'bit of space' to decide on resuming power-sharing, says Gerry Adams
The DUP should be given “a bit of space” to decide whether to resume power-sharing at Stormont, Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin president, has said.
But if the DUP were to block power-sharing permanently, then the Irish government should have a say in the administration of Northern Ireland, he said.
Adams was speaking to PA Media in an interview to mark the forthcoming 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
The power-sharing executive at Stormont has been suspended for more than a year because the DUP is boycotting it over the Northern Ireland protocol, which it would like to see abolished. With the executive not sitting, decisons are being taken by officials and by the government in London.
The DUP has refused to support the changes to the Northern Ireland protocol negotiated by Rishi Sunak, but there has been speculation that it might drop its objection to power-sharing soon, perhaps after the local elections in Northern Ireland on 18 May.
Adams said it was acceptable for the DUP to take a bit of time. He said:
The unionists have to make up their minds. I think we need to give them a wee bit of space to do that.
So in the immediate term, Jeffrey Donaldson has a panel which has given him a report. He then has to respond to that.
The damage that has been done in relation to the institutions can be repaired if the institutions were up and running as they should be.
But Adams said it would be a “different matter” if the DUP refused to return to Stormont. He went on:
If they decide they’re not going to go in, then that’s up to the two governments to come back because we can’t have a return to English rule.
We have to have a full involvement by the Irish government along with the British government, unfortunately, with them seeking to fill the gap, which plainly would be the responsibility of unionists’ failure to grasp the new dispensation.
Adams also said he did not believe that the DUP was refusing to return to Stormont because it did not want to support an executive with Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill as first minister. “I think Jeffrey has spoken the truth when he says that it’s not an issue for him,” he said.
But he said “an awful lot of people” would assume that that was the reason for the DUP’s boycott, if it continued much longer.
Small boat crossings down 17% in first 3 months of 2023 compared with last year, analysis shows
The total number of asylum seekers who crossed the Channel to the UK in the first three months of this year was 17% below the figure for the same period in 2022, PA Media reports. PA says:
PA news agency analysis of government figures shows 3,793 migrants made the journey from France by the end of March 2023, compared with 4,548 in the first quarter of last year.
Last month 840 people arrived on the south coast after crossing the Channel – just over a quarter of the 3,066 recorded in March 2022 – and only slightly higher than the figure for March 2021 (831).
According to Home Office data, 1,180 people made the journey in January this year, followed by 1,773 in February. This is compared with 1,339 in January 2022 and 143 a month later.
Amid changeable weather conditions at sea, no crossings have been recorded since 29 March.
Updated
Nadine Dorries' 'non-news programme' interview with Boris Johnson on TalkTV did not break impartiality rules, Ofcom says
But Ofcom has also rejected complaints that TalkTV broke impartiality rules when Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, interviewed Boris Johnson on her new Friday night show on the channel. In the summary of its ruling, it says:
We received 40 complaints that a programme presented by a serving Conservative MP and featuring an interview with former prime minister and currently serving Conservative MP, Boris Johnson, was not duly impartial. We concluded that the programme: was a non-news programme and therefore could be presented by a politician; and adequately reflected alternative viewpoints and provided sufficient context. It did not, therefore, raise issues which warranted investigation under the Broadcasting Code.
TalkTV may consider “non-news” a bit harsh given that it sent out several press releases about the contents of the interview. The most interesting line was probably Johnson implicitly calling for tax cuts. But others were definitely in the “non-news” category.
Ofcom to investigate whether GB News broke impartiality rules by having Hunt interviewed by two Tory MPs ahead of budget
On the subject of GB News (see 1.57pm), Ofcom has launched an investigation into whether GB News breached impartiality rules by airing an interview between two Tory MPs and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, PA Media reports. PA says:
Esther McVey and Philip Davies spoke to Mr Hunt on 11 March ahead of the spring budget, prompting criticism from some.
Media watchdog Ofcom said it was looking at whether the show broke its rules “requiring news and current affairs to be presented with due impartiality”.
It added: “Our investigation will look at the programme’s compliance with our rules on politicians presenting programmes, and whether it included an appropriately wide range of significant views relating to a matter of major political controversy or current public policy.”
One person who won’t be surprised by the government’s crackdown on grooming gangs, and Suella Braverman’s take on it (see 1.01pm), is Prof Tim Bale, who has just published The Conservative Party after Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation, a robust and very well written narrative history of the Tories from 2016 until now. Well, not quite now. It was finished last year, and my advance copy arrived before Christmas, but even then Bale could tell where the Sunak premiership was heading. He says:
Given all this [problems with the economy and the failure of levelling up], the temptation for Conservative politicians to pursue their ‘war on woke’ against ‘lefty lawyers’, universities, the civil service ‘blob’, the BBC, the ‘remoaner elite’, or, indeed, any of the other shadowy forces determined to deny ‘the people’ the ‘common sense’ policies they supposedly long for and deserve is likely to prove overwhelming. Certainly, anyone expecting Rishi Sunak to eschew such an approach is almost certainly deluded. Just because he is a super-rich, super-educated member of the global elite (exactly the kind of green card-holding, Atlantic-hopping hedge fund manager whom Theresa May might have labelled ‘a citizen of nowhere’ back in 2016) doesn’t mean he espouses (out loud anyway) the kind of socially liberal values with which that elite is commonly (if not always accurately) associated. Sunak may have refused in the summer 2022 leadership race to simply tell Tory members what they wanted to hear when it came to tax and spending. But when it came to culture war issues and immigration, that is exactly what he did, claiming, for instance, that ‘I want to stand up to that lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women!’, as well as reassuring them he had a radical plan to finally get to grips with illegal migration’ that would ‘stop the boats, restore trust, and take back control of our borders!’ …
Anyone hoping that, under Sunak, [the Conservatives] will downplay the culture war strategy so evident under Boris Johnson is likely to be sorely disappointed. Indeed, rather than the installation of a supposedly more ‘technocratic’ cabinet halting and even reversing any transformation on the part of the Conservative party from a mainstream centre-right formation into an ersatz radical rightwing populist outfit, it could (on the grounds that said cabinet needs, now more than ever, to show that it’s in touch with ‘the people’) just as easily accelerate and accentuate it.
Updated
Increasingly the Conservative party is starting to look like the parliamentary wing of GB News, and today’s announcement from Rishi Sunak about a crackdown on grooming gangs will increase the impression that they are operating in synch. The channel has put out a news release this morning saying the policy initiative is a “major victory for GB News” because it comes “less than two months after GB News broadcast ‘Grooming Gangs: Britain’s Shame’, the channel’s first documentary under the GB News Investigates brand”.
Updated
No 10 admits 'new processes' have contributed to delays at Dover - while avoiding using word 'Brexit'
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the prime minister’s spokesperson more or less admitted that Brexit was a factor behind the long delays experienced by travellers to France going through Dover at the weekend – although, rather than use the B-word, he spoke about “new processes”. He told reporters:
I think there were a combination of factors that took place over the weekend and obviously it’s pleasing that the port has confirmed this morning all traffic is now being processed through controls and the critical incident has been stood down.
My understanding is that there was very high volume of coach traffic, there were adverse weather conditions, which resulted in longer queues than normal.
Asked whether Brexit was one of the factors, the spokesman said:
We recognise there are new processes in place. That’s why authorities were given a long time to prepare for the new checks, including during the transition period, of course. And we are in discussion with our French counterparts about how we can further improve the flow of traffic.
Asked again if Brexit was a factor, the spokesperson repeated his point about “new processes”.
The new processes involve the French inspecting and stamping all passports, which is something that did not happen before Brexit.
Yesterday Suella Braverman, the home secretary, claimed the delays at Dover were not linked to Brexit. But in his LBC interview this morning, Keir Starmer said “of course” Brexit had had an impact. (See 10.50am.)
Sunak refuses to say if NEU vote for more strikes means offer of £1,000 one-off payment to teachers will be withdrawn
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has suggested that the government will withdraw its offer of a one-off £1,000 payment to teachers in England after their vote for further strike action. Last week she said that the payment was linked to the strikes not going ahead, and today she said:
After costing children almost a week of time in the classroom and with exams fast approaching, it is extremely disappointing that the NEU have called more strike action.
Following a week negotiating in good faith, the government offered teachers a £1,000 payment on top of this year’s pay rise, a commitment to significantly cut workload, and a headline pay increase of 4.5% for next year, above both inflation and average earnings growth.
The NEU’s decision to reject it will simply result in more disruption for children and less money for teachers today. Pay will now be decided by the independent pay review body which will recommend pay rises for next year.
When Rishi Sunak in his TV interview was asked if the offer of a one-off £1,000 payment was now being withdrawn, he declined to say. He replied:
We’ve made a very reasonable pay offer worth around 8% on average for teachers, worth up to 13% for new teachers, combined with reductions on workload, and for the NEU teaching union to be striking in the face of that and impacting children’s education, particularly in the run-up to the exams, is extremely disappointing.
Updated
Sunak refuses to back Braverman's claim that grooming gangs are mostly British Asian
Yesterday, in an article for the Mail on Sunday, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, said that there were four critical facts about the grooming gangs phenomenon, one of which was that “the perpetrators are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values”.
Braverman said this even though a report published by the Home Office in 2020 said the evidence did not support this. The report said most people in involved in child sexual exploitation (CSE) were white. It said:
A number of high-profile cases – including the offending in Rotherham investigated by Prof Alexis Jay, the Rochdale group convicted as a result of Operation Span and convictions in Telford – have mainly involved men of Pakistani ethnicity. Beyond specific high-profile cases, the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending. Research has found that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly white. Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.
In his TV interview, broadcast on Sky News, Rishi Sunak was asked why the government was focusing on the involvement of British Asians when the data says most offenders are white. He did not fully defend the claim made by Braverman. Instead, he replied:
All forms of child sexual exploitation carried out by whomever are horrific and wrong, but with the specific issue of grooming gangs we have had several independent inquiries look at the incidents here in Rochdale, but in Rotherham and Telford.
What is clear is that when victims and other whistleblowers came forward, their complaints were often ignored by social workers, local politicians, or even the police. The reason they were ignored was due to cultural sensitivity and political correctness. That is not right.
Asked a second time why Braverman was talking specifically about targeting British Asian gangs when the evidence suggested this was not justified, Sunak just repeated what he said the first time, more or less word for word.
Updated
Sunak dismisses claim government has been slow to act on grooming gangs
Rishi Sunak has given a broadcast interview, mostly about the crackdown on grooming gangs. Asked to respond to the claim that the government had been “slow to act” on this issue (in effect, Keir Starmer’s accusation – see 10.50am), Sunak said that he promised a new grooming gangs taskforce when he was running for Tory leader last summer and that, having been PM for just a few months, he was now implementing that. He said:
I said last year, before I became prime minister, that if I did become prime minister, I would take decisive action to combat the evil perpetrated by grooming gangs. Today’s announcement represents the most robust response of any government to tackle this awful crime.
He also said that the decision to make it mandatory for professionals to report evidence of child abuse was a response to the report from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which recommended this in its report published in October last year.
Starmer points out he proposed this 10 years ago.
Sunak achieves big increase in his popularity with Tory members over past month, survey suggests
Over the last month Rishi Sunak’s approval ratings with the public at large have been rising. In most polls, he he still behind Keir Starmer, but, as this graph from the New Statesman’s Ben Walker shows, the improvement has been striking.
A "Sunak surge" of sorts, but still 5pts behind LOTO pic.twitter.com/UMCSI7Ulxy
— Ben Walker (@BNHWalker) April 3, 2023
Sunak is also becoming more popular with Conservative party members. The ConservativeHome website surveys its panel of members every month, and it says that over March Sunak has shot up from sixth from the bottom to sixth from the top.
In their write-up for ConservativeHome, Paul Goodman and Henry Hill say the illegal migration bill is probably the most important of several factors explaining Sunak’s growing popularity with activists.
Rishi Sunak has agreed the Windsor framework for the Northern Ireland protocol, seen a backbench revolt against it kept to a relatively small number, announced that Britain will design nuclear-powered submarines for Australia under the terms of Aukus…and fronted for the government’s plan to end small boat crossings …
All these factors have probably helped to raise the Prime Minister’s ratings and his small boats proposals perhaps most of all. Last month, he was sixth from bottom on 7.4 points. This month, he’s sixth from top on 43.7. Though that total is still relatively modest, the jump is very big.
Sunak claims grooming gangs more common than 'people have been comfortable acknowledging'
Rishi Sunak has claimed that gangs that groom children for sexual abuse are more common than people are willing to acknowledge. He made the comment at a meeting at the NSPCC office in Leeds, where he was meeting members of the new grooming gangs taskforce being set up.
In a clip broadcast by Sky News, he said:
The fact that grooming gangs are preying on young people … is a huge failing, both morally and practically.
Now, the problem is more prevalent in our communities that people have been comfortable acknowledging. And that’s why as prime minister I vowed a major crackdown to bring the perpetrators of this awful crime to justice.
After summing up how the taskforce will work (the government published details overnight), and confirming that the government will make involvement in a grooming gang a statutory aggravating factor during sentencing, Sunak said that taken together these were “a very significant set of actions”.
Updated
Starmer accuses Tories of 'lost decade' for child protection because they ignored mandatory reporting recommendation
There was more news than usual in today’s ‘Call Keir’ LBC phone-in. Here are the main lines.
Keir Starmer accused the government of a “decade lost” for child protection, saying that the government is only now implementing something he proposed a decade ago. He was referring to a law saying professionals working with children should be under a legal obligation to report suspected abuse. The government says today it will implement this. Starmer called for this in 2013, after standing down as director of public prosecutions. (See 9.12am.)
He implicitly criticised Rishi Sunak’s claim that “political correctness” is to blame for minority ethnic grooming gangs escaping prosecution, saying the “vast majority” of abuse cases do not involve ethnic minorities. (See 9.12am.)
He said grooming a child to go into drugs or a gang-related activity should be a specific offence. The current law was unsatisfactory, he said.
At the moment we’ve just got a clumsy way of trying to see whether there’s some other offence. Make it a criminal offence and clamp down on it because it is shocking what happens with young children.
He defended his statement in an interview at the weekend that 99.9% of women do not have a penis. The presenter, Nick Ferrari, said that meant one in a thousand, and that that was too high. Starmer said he was not making a precise, numerical claim. He said he was making the point that for the “vast, vast, vast majority’” of women gender is biological, but that he was also not prepared to ignore the fact that some people are trans. He said he was trying to set out “a common sense, respectable, tolerant position”. Starmer used the 99.9% figure in an interview with the Sunday Times published yesterday. In its report it said:
According to the 2021 census, 262,000 people in Britain — 0.5 per cent of the population — stated that their gender identity was different to their sex registered at birth. Of those, 48,000 — 0.1 per cent — identified as a trans woman.
He said “almost nobody” asked him about trans issues when he was campaigning. He said:
As we go around the country campaigning, I talk to thousands and thousands and thousands of people and they want to talk to me about the cost of living crisis, they want to talk to me about the fact they can’t pay their bills, they want to know what they’re going to do about their council tax. Almost nobody, but nobody, is talking about trans issues. And I do sometimes just wonder why on earth we spend so much of our time discussing something which isn’t a feature at the dinner table or the kitchen table or the cafe table or the bar.
He said Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP who says she has been marginalised in the party because she speaks up for women’s sex-based rights in the context of trans issues, was an “important voice” in the party. He denied a claim that he had not spoken to her since 2021.
He said that “of course” Brexit was a factor in the delays experienced by travellers at Dover at the weekend. In an interview yesterday Suella Braverman, the home secretary, said Brexit was not an issue. But Starmer said:
Of course Brexit has had an impact. There are more checks to be done. That doesn’t mean that I am advocating a reversal of Brexit, I am not. I have always said there is no case now for going back in.
He said the government should “get a grip”. He said:
Once we left, it was obvious that what had to happen at the border would change.
Whichever way you voted that was obvious. Whichever way you voted you are entitled to have a government that recognises that and plans ahead.
Yet again we have got to the first big holiday of the year and we have got queues to the great frustration of many families trying to get out to have a well-earned holiday, and I think my message to the government, their message, would be get a grip.
He said he did not regard Jeremy Corbyn as a friend. When it was put to him that he had described him as a friend in January 2020, Starmer said that was a reference to the fact that they had worked together. He said Corbyn was never a friend “in the sense that we used to visit each other or anything like that”.
He said Labour would reconsider the smart motorway programme if it won the election. He said the party had already caused for a pause in the rollout of smart motorways. He went on:
We’ve seen the safety problems with these schemes. We need to look again at them in my view.
Updated
NSPCC warns against framing grooming gangs problem as ethnicity-based
The NSPCC and experts on grooming gangs have warned ministers against framing the issue as one based around ethnicity, warning this could hamper efforts to tackle a crime that a Home Office report said was carried out predominantly by white men, Peter Walker reports.
Schools in England brace for more strikes as NEU rejects pay offer
Parents in England face another wave of strikes and school closures after teachers belonging to the National Education Union decisively rejected the government’s pay offer, Richard Adams reports.
Q: Would Labour get rid of smart motorways?
Starmer says there are clearly safety problems with them, so Labour would look at this again, he says.
And that’s the end of the Q&A.
Starmer claims 'almost nobody' wants to talk about trans issues when he is out campaigning
Ferrari ends by asking Starmer about his comment at the weekend that 99.9% of women do not have a penis.
Q: Does that mean one woman in 1,000 has a penis?
Starmer says he does not want to get into a debate about numbers.
He says “biology matters”. Women have won many rights, and he does not want to see those rolled back, he says. He says his comment at the weekend was acknowledging that there are a small number of people who are transgender.
He says “almost nobody” asks about trans issues when he is out campaigning. He asks why the media spends so much time discussing a question that does not feature in ordinary conversations.
Updated
Q: When will Sue Gray start working for you?
Starmer says the committee deciding when she can start, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), is still looking at that.
Starmer says grooming child to go into drug dealing should be specific offence
Starmer says grooming a child to go into drugs or gang related activity should be a specific offence.
At the moment this has to be prosecuted under other offences, he says.
Updated
Q: Will you renationalise water companies?
Starmer says he has looked at this. But renationalisation would cost an awful lot of money. He says he would rather spend the money training doctors and nurses.
Starmer says he does not consider Corbyn to be a friend
Starmer says he has not talked to Jeremy Corbyn for two and a half years.
Q: Is he a friend?
Starmer says Corbyn is not a friend.
Q; You called him a friend?
Starmer says he worked with him as a colleague. But he was never a friend in the sense that they used to go and visit each other.
Asked about the delays at Dover, Starmer says the government should “get a grip”. He says it was obvious that border arrangements would change after Brexit, and he says they should have planned for this.
Starmer says the decision to deny Charles Bronson parole was right.
Asked if the double child killer Colin Pitchfork should get parole, Starmer says he does not know the circumstances, but he does not think he should be released.
And asked if Levi Bellfield should be allowed to marry in jail, Starmer says he prosecuted Bellfield and has no sympathy for him at all.
Updated
Starmer says the children most likely to end up in jail are children who have problems in primary school, and then get excluded at secondary school. He says the government should be focusing on this group, to stop them offending in the first place. That is why initiatives like Sure Start from the last Labour government were so important.
Starmer says it is “shocking” that, for every 100 cases of sexual violence against women, only 1.6 gets prosecuted. He says when he first heard the figure, he had to ask his team to check it because he found it hard to believe it was true.
Q: Rosie Duffield says you have not spoken to her since 2021. Shouldn’t you be supporting her given the abuse she has faced.
Starmer says that comment was from a few weeks ago. He spoke to her recently, he says. He says she is an important voice in the party.
Q: She complained you did not notify her when you visited Kent recently?
Starmer says it is normal to notify the constituency MP, but not MPs from the county.
Updated
Nick Ferrari says NEU members have voted by 98% to reject the government’s pay deal.
Starmer says he is “disappointed” because he wants this to be resolved. He urges both sides to compromise.
Q: Do you support teachers going on strike during the exam period?
Starmer says he supports their right to go on strike. But he does not want to see the strike go ahead.
Updated
Starmer says he cannot commit to giving junior doctors a 35% pay rise.
A caller tells him junior doctors stack up so much debt as they are training it is no longer a sensible career choice.
Starmer accepts that this is an issue.
Starmer says 'vast majority' of sexual abuse cases do not involve ethnic minorities
Keir Starmer is starting his LBC phone-in. He is broadcasting from Hartlepool.
Nick Ferrari, the presenter, starts by asking about the Rishi Sunak announcement about grooming gangs.
Starmer says, on child exploitation, we should do anything possible.
He says, as DPP, he gave the green light to prosecute the Rochdale case. That involved Pakistani men, he points out.
On mandatory reporting, he says he called for that 10 years ago.
That is “a decade lost”, he says.
That is 10 years ago and this government has been in power now for 13 years. That is a decade lost and I think the prime minister and others have to really explain why they have wasted that decade.
On ethnicity, he says “the vast majority” of sexual abuse cases do not involve ethnic minorities.
It is right that ethnicity should not be a bar, and political correctness should not get in the way of prosecutions. But the vast majority of sexual abuse cases do not involved those of ethnic minorities and so I am all for clamping down on any kind of case, but if we are going to be serious we have to be honest about what the overlook is.
And he says it was really instructive for him, when his team asked him for permission to prosecute the Rochdale cases, one of the men they were prosecuting had been arrested but not charged some years before.
He asked why. And what he found was that good faith police officers, and good faith prosecutors, had made assumptions about the young girl victims. Because they had not reported the abuse early, and because they had gone back to the perpetrators, and because they had been drinking, it was assumed they would not be believed.
He says he insisted on a change in approach.
Updated
Labour calls for 'serious strategy' on grooming gangs after Sunak claims 'political correctness' part of problem
Good morning. Rishi Sunak is today announcing a crackdown on grooming gangs. He is announcing a “grooming gangs taskforce” which will see “specialist officers parachuted in to assist police forces with live child sexual exploitation and grooming investigations to bring more of these despicable criminals to justice”, according to the No 10 news release. But Sunak is also presenting this as a crackdown on “political correctness” because, as Pippa Crerar reports in her story, he also claims this is a threat to women and girls too. In a statement issued overnight Sunak says:
The safety of women and girls is paramount. For too long, political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women. We will stop at nothing to stamp out these dangerous gangs.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has been giving interviews this morning, and she told the Today programme that Sunak’s announcement did not amount to a serious strategy. She said:
I think what is happening is the government is trying to distract everybody from focusing on the issues and the policies.
If they were serious about tackling child abuse and tackling child sexual exploitation, why are they cutting support for taking action on trafficking? Why are they not having proper support for victims?
This isn’t a serious strategy to take action, and we need a serious strategy because this is one of the most serious crimes of all.
We will hear from Keir Starmer himself on this shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The National Education Union announces the result of its latest strike ballot.
9am: Keir Starmer holds a ‘Call Keir’ phone-in on LBC.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Sunak and Starmer are both doing visits this morning, in Leeds and Hartlepool respectively, so we will be hearing more from them too.
If you want to contact me, do try the new “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. (It is not available on the app yet.) This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
Updated
