Parliamentary objections

The US Capitol was raided by Donald Trump supporters trying to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory. How close have protestors come to entering our own parliament?

— In May 2004, protestors calling for fathers’ access rights to their children threw a condom full of purple flour from the public gallery of the Commons, hitting the then prime minister, Tony Blair.

— Four months later, five pro-hunt protestors succeeded in entering the Commons chamber, after getting into parliament by posing as building contractors.

— In January 2008, protestors against airport expansion tried to storm parliament but got no further than hammering on St Stephen’s door.

— In June 2015, police formed a human chain to prevent disability campaigners wheeling their way into the Commons chamber.

— In April 2019, climate change protestors stripped partly naked in the public gallery of the Commons.

— In November 2020, three climate change activists succeeded in scaling scaffolding outside the Houses of Parliament.

Low standards

Spain recorded its lowest-ever temperature, -35.8°C at Vega de Liordes. Some other countries whose lowest temperature records have been set in the past decade, in spite of a rising trend in global temperatures:

Buffelsfontein, South Africa (23 Aug 2013) | -20.1°C

Shoubak, Jordan (15 Feb 2013) | -16°C

Meron Golan, Israel (10 Jan 2015) | -14.2°C

Dieng Plateau, Indonesia (26 June 2019) | -9°C

Hong Kong (24 Jan 2016) | -6°C

Abu Samra, Qatar (5 Feb 2017) | 1.5°C

Tetulia, Bangladesh (8 Jan 2018) | 2.6°C

IPSO correction

An opinion piece by Matthew Parris, published on 25 July 2020, headlined ‘In an age of science, why are face masks a matter of opinion?’, stated that Covid-19 was ‘killing millions worldwide’. However, this was incorrect. The global death toll, at the time of publication, was significantly lower (circa 650,000). This has been published following a complaint upheld by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

Editor’s note: Matthew Parris was referring to the expected total global death toll for the pandemic, as yet unknown. Estimates vary from two million to four million.