Keir Starmer has criticised “those spreading lies and misinformation”, in response to Elon Musk’s recent comments about the grooming gangs scandal. The PM said that when the “poison of the far right” leads to serious threats being made against safeguarding minister Jess Phillips – who refused Oldham council’s request for a government inquiry into the issue – “a line has been crossed”. Ukraine launched a surprise counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk region yesterday. The aim of the renewed push is unclear, says the FT: the operation will use up “precious weapons and manpower”, which are in desperately low supply on the eastern front where Russian troops have been advancing. Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist were the big winners at last night’s Golden Globe Awards. The Spanish-language musical took home four awards, including the top prize for a musical or comedy and the best non-English language film, while the three-hour architecture epic won best drama film, best director for Brady Corbet and best drama actor for its star Adrien Brody.

The “sinister synergy” that threatens racial integration

I hate to sound alarmist, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times, but the great strides on racial integration of the past 50 years – “the most uplifting story of my lifetime” – are under threat. The danger comes from the “equal and opposite forces” of ultraprogressivism and racism, a “sinister synergy” that is revealed most starkly in the child rape scandal in Rotherham, Oldham and elsewhere. Let’s avoid the “craven euphemisms” that have characterised this tragedy for too long: predominantly Pakistani men targeted predominantly white girls, who were drugged, trafficked, gang-raped and tortured. And all this happened in plain sight, because bureaucrats feared undermining “community cohesion” or, worse, appearing racist.

The victims are not just the children whose lives are forever tainted by abuse, but also our “shared sense of tolerance”. Over the past few years, and particularly the past week, “proto-fascists” like Tommy Robinson have become folk heroes to many on the right, precisely because they are willing to speak frankly about this issue, while progressives continue to attack those who dissent from their narrow worldview. The more Robinson and co spout “incendiary half-truths”, and the more they are amplified and applauded by the likes of Elon Musk, the more incandescent the ultraprogressives become, and so on in an increasingly vicious cycle. Britain is one of the most “wonderfully cohesive societies in the world”. We must not let the twin evils of wokeism and racism spoil it.

👋💰 After Nigel Farage refused to endorse Musk’s support for Robinson, the billionaire tweeted that Reform UK “needs a new leader”. Farage is probably delighted, says Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. He is trying to make Reform a serious party of opposition, purging candidate lists of extremists and appointing a Muslim businessman as its CEO. Refusing to pander to Musk is not just morally obvious, it’s also electorally astute: for every far-right nutter Robinson might attract, 10,000 moderates would flee. Forget Musk’s mooted £100m donation to Reform. Splitting with him gives Farage something far more valuable: credibility.

Keir Starmer’s phone call with Donald Trump before Christmas was an introduction to “international diplomacy, Trump-style”, says The Times. While the PM tried to keep the conversation on track, the US president-elect “veered off on a series of tangents”. At one point he became fixated on the number of birds flying into wind turbines, joking that the coyotes eating the falling birds are getting so fat they need Ozempic. He talked about his golf course in Scotland, and complimented Prince William’s “modern” beard. And he had “warm words” for Starmer’s wife Victoria, telling the PM she was “beautiful” and his “greatest asset”.

The prize for history’s “rowdiest port-drinker” goes to a 19th-century Shropshire squire called John Mytton, say Henry Jeffreys and Tom Parker Bowles in their new podcast Intoxicating History. He went up to Cambridge University with 2,000 bottles of port. “He left without any port or a degree.” The Regency eccentric, briefly MP for Shrewsbury, was thought to have been “permanently drunk for most of his adult life”, getting through six bottles a day and once setting fire to his nightshirt to cure hiccups. It was said of “Mad Jack” that “not only did he not mind accidents, he positively liked them”, once riding a bear into his drawing room in full hunting kit. Pricked by a spur, the beast bit his rider through the calf. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mytton died, skint, aged 37.

Hey, Starmer, leave our kids alone

Many public services in Britain are in a “wretched state”, says The Economist. “England’s schools are a clear exception.” Pupils are increasingly numerate and literate, compared with peers abroad: in maths tests for the OECD, English teenagers jumped from 27th in 2009 to 11th in 2022. A recent reading test placed English primary schools fourth in the world. “Foreigners tour England’s classrooms in search of tips.” But the new Labour government hates to admit that “unfashionable Tory policies” like stiffer curriculums and exams have triumphed. So instead of working to improve English education further, “Labour promises to tinker”. At best this is a waste of time; “at worst, it will do serious damage”.

Labour’s approach to education “typifies the government’s broader failings”. They have a “juvenile fixation with social class”, pointlessly stoking a row about private schools that educate a mere 6% of students. They are shamefully deferent to unions, offering concessions that put standards at risk, like ordering Ofsted inspectors to issue “vaguer, gentler” (and thus less useful) reports, and promising to reduce schools’ freedom to set their own curriculums and pay star teachers properly. Some in the party want to shift schools’ emphasis away from exams and towards nice-sounding “life skills” like creativity and teamwork – even though places that have tried this trendy path, like Scotland, have seen grades plummet. There are real problems in education, like rampant absenteeism and the soaring cost – and flatlining results – of helping children with special educational needs. But the government has no plans to address them, and instead looks likely to keep “meddling ham-fistedly”. Labour should leave well enough alone, or risk harming one of the few public services its predecessors left in good shape.

On a foggy night in December 1952, says BBC News, Albert Gunter was driving his double-decker bus with 20 passengers across Tower Bridge when he noticed that the road in front of him “seemed to be falling away”. The traffic lights were green, there was no ringing of a warning hand-bell – but the bascule bridge was going up. Deciding it was “too late to go back”, the former wartime tank-driver dropped down two gears, slammed his foot on the accelerator and “jumped” the bus across the gap. Executives at London Transport were so impressed they gave Gunter £10 (the equivalent of about £350 today) and a day off.

The “doom and gloom” about Britain’s economy is totally overdone, says the FT. Economists reckon the UK will outgrow France and Germany this year. The dominance of services exports – as opposed to goods – means Britain is less exposed than its European peers to potential US tariffs. Wall Street banks and fund managers are saying they are “more upbeat” about UK equities, with the FTSE 100’s oil and banking stocks in particular expected to benefit from Donald Trump’s deregulation agenda, and private sector investment has picked up in recent quarters. For all the pessimism – much of it from the Labour government – the UK economy looks “relatively attractive”.

It’s possibly the largest tree in the Amazon, with a crown that stretches more than 60 metres across. Fabien Wagner, a researcher at the carbon-tracking company CTrees, spotted the 50-metre tall behemoth in satellite images used to monitor deforestation. Its spread, equivalent to a little over five London buses end to end, is about 10% to 20% wider than anything else he has found in the South American rainforest. “It is enormous,” says Wagner. “All the other nearby trees, even the largest ones, look pretty small in comparison.”