The government’s announcement of an improvement in the legal status of grandparents to maintain contact with their grandchildren after a family breakdown or divorce was received enthusiastically.
Research shows almost half of grandparents never see their grandchildren again after their children divorce, prompting Cristina Odone to hail the reform as “brilliantly humane” in The Daily Telegraph.
“Grandparents, in one in six families with working parents, provide (usually free) baby-sitting,” she wrote. “Someone has calculated that grandparents’ services add up to £50 billion a year in childcare. Increasingly, too, grandparents provide financial support at a time that can prove ruinous for many couples. Even the most bitter and twisted warring partners will realise that it would be short-sighted to ban grandparents — and their generous purses.”
“Not before time,” Virginia Ironside commented in The Independent. “A child needs to have someone in their life who’s unable to see their flaws, and who just thinks they’re the bee’s knees. Grandparents shouldn’t ever be dismissed. Whatever else is going on around the family at the time, they’re worth cherishing.”
A final goodbye to the circus
Annie, Britain’s last circus elephant, whose plight made headlines after footage emerged of her being beaten and stabbed by her pitchfork-wielding groom, is to retire following a public outcry. The Daily Mail, which led the campaign to free Annie, was delighted. “We applaud those who have come forward offering to find Annie a safe home. With their help, we trust that she will be able to live out the remains of her time in dignity and start to learn something of human kindness,” it said. Others condemned circuses outright. “This is merely the tip of the iceberg of what is the ugliest show on earth, the great British circus,” raged Bonnie Estridge in the Daily Express.
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Cameron rattled by Balls bouncer
Much to the delight of the Westminster village, the prime minister lost his temper and branded the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, “the most annoying man in modern politics” in a noisy Commons session on Wednesday.
Although conceding that the prime minister’s retort was a “brilliant comeback”, James Forsyth, The Spectator's political editor, thought it reflected badly on David Cameron. “Prime ministers shouldn’t lose their temper in the chamber,” he said.
Kevin Maguire in the Daily Mirror agreed. “The public won’t like Dave Flashman’s arrogance,” he commented.
Others also thought the insult worked in the shadow chancellor’s favour.
“We fear Mr Balls will regard it as a great compliment to be singled out in this way, and will go on being insufferable,” Andrew Gimson wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
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“It is probably true that Mr Balls was pleased,” Quentin Letts argued in the Daily Mail. “What Mr Cameron has done is reinforce the suspicion that Mr Balls, for all his flaws, is the biggest personality at present on the Labour front bench. Bigger, I fear, than Ed Miliband.”