**The real danger for most of us now comes not from Omicron or any other coronavirus

variant. Instead, it comes from ministers and officials apparently flirting with taking us into

yet another era of ruinous restrictions, cancelling Christmas or other cherished holidays,

dashing all hope of foreign travel, wrecking the economy and otherwise immiserating our

lives at the whim of the state.****Today, nearly 400 years after Barbados was claimed for her ancestor King James I by an

English ship, the Queen's role as head of state of the island comes to an end. The move

by the nation's politicians to turn it into a republic comes more than 50 years after it became

fully independent in 1966.

An 'evil' gunman aged 14 who shot schoolboy Keon Lincoln with a revolver in a vicious

daylight gang attack in Birmingham has been jailed for life. ...........

Millions of Britons are cranking their thermostats to 22°C or higher, making homes from

Lossiemouth to Land's End hotter than Lanzarote, new research reveals. This is some 3°C

above climate change recommendations and is adding hundreds of pounds.

The gender pay gap is rooted in the issue of 'greedy jobs', rather than sex discrimination,

gender bias or a glass ceiling, a Harvard economics professor has claimed...............

An eminent theatre director has admitted 'stupidity' after he was allegedly ousted from his

own company when he told a colleague that if he were younger he would have approached

her 'like a rat up a drainpipe'.****Max Stafford-Clark, 80, left London's Out of Joint theatre

company in October 2017 after he reportedly made inappropriate and sexualised comments

towards three women.**