THE attack on the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, the Insulate Britain imprisonments and the ongoing Tory sleaze scandal were the topics raised by columnists in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Sarah Vine said there was something about the case of Emad Al Swealmeen, the Syrian asylum seeker who tried to blow up Liverpool Women’s Hospital that speaks of the best and worst of Britain.’

“From start to finish, a tale of trust, generosity and faith in a stranger who had sought refuge,” she said. “This open-minded, open-hearted community treated him with kindness and respect. And so to the worst. Al Swealmeen. We don’t yet know enough to truly fathom his motives or his intentions. As things stand he has not been linked to any terror organisation or group.”

She said he may be just a ‘deeply unstable individual who, frustrated with the system and angry that his attempts to claim asylum had been rejected, lost his mind and decided to exact some kind of twisted revenge.’

“People like Al Swealmeen test us. They undermine and threaten to destroy our fundamental values, and make us question the Christian principles that underpin our society. We must not let them.”

The Daily Express

Paul Baldwin said nine lives has been ‘utterly ruined’.

“Nine pawns in a political game played out by the strategists of climate change activist groups looking for martyrs to their cause,” he said.

“Annoying as hell they may have been as they glued their backsides to the motorway but the poor buggers’ lives are now wrecked - sacrificed at the altar of the rampaging egos of their ringleaders.”

He said they were going to be ‘eaten alive’ in jail.

“It doesn’t take a genius to see this was always the ultimate end game of the climate change puppet-masters’ plan. And, like the First World War generals ordering the carnage in northern France from well-upholstered armchairs in gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, they don’t much seem to care.”

The Independent

Andrew Grice said Keir Starmer told Labour MPs at their private weekly meeting on Monday night that while the sleaze allegations had eroded the Conservatives’ support, it would not win his party the next general election.

“Less than 24 hours later, he was proved right: in a cynically-timed but effective move, Boris Johnson lobbed a rock into a Starmer press conference by announcing his support for curbs on MPs’ second jobs,” he said.

“Starmer deserves credit; if Labour had not forced a vote on the issue, Johnson would probably not have backed down. Yet Johnson is more likely to get the credit from the public. That’s the difference between government and opposition, and a reminder that it’s hard for any opposition to make the political weather.”