In the headlines
Scotland Yard has told Sue Gray not to publish key passages from her report into Downing Street parties in case they prejudice its criminal investigation. “Anything worth reading will now have to be held back,” a Whitehall source tells the Sun’s Harry Cole. The intervention will potentially give Boris Johnson more time to placate angry Tory rebels. There is growing speculation that the PM will delay the planned national insurance rise this April. This is one of the big dividing lines within the Conservative Party, says Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph: Chancellor Rishi Sunak and others want increases in NHS and social care spending to be funded by tax hikes, “rather than dumped on the next generation via national debt”. The much-loved British comedian Barry Cryer has died aged 86. One of his trademark one-liners: “Quick – the noise made by a dyslexic duck.”