The death of four-year-old Alice Stones should shock the nation.
Alice was mauled to death by a dog in the garden of her family home.
She is the second victim of a dog attack this year and the twelfth in the last 12 months.
Once again a family is in mourning. Once again there are expressions of exasperation that more has not been done to prevent the loss of another innocent life.
What is absent is any action to prevent these senseless and avoidable deaths.
It is obvious the current laws are not adequate and the Dangerous Dogs Act needs overhauling. It is also obvious that it is far too easy to own, sell and breed dangerous dogs.
Yet there is absolutely no political will to make these changes. Words of sympathy are not enough. Unless the Government acts then more lives will be lost.
Lesson for PM
There was the biggest show of industrial action for decades yesterday as hundreds of thousands of teachers, civil servants and rail workers walked out.
They did not want to take this step.
They were forced to take strike action because this government fails to value the public sector and those who work in it.
The pay of an average teacher has fallen by 13% in real terms since 2010.
But teachers did not just take to the streets because they cannot afford to make ends meet.
They were protesting at the failure of the Government to recruit more staff and invest in the education our children deserve.
If Rishi Sunak genuinely cared about education he would have funded the post-Covid catch-up programme in full, tackled the £11billion backlog in school repairs and made sure teachers were properly paid.
Kids’ pay gap
Children get less money for baby teeth than they used to from the tooth fairy.
Is this conclusive evidence there is no magic money tree in this cost-of-living crisis?
