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With M.D.: "To the surprise of no one, Lucy Letby has not been given permission to appeal her conviction, at retrial, for the attempted murder of Baby K. She lost on the narrow legal argument as to whether her retrial was fair given all the adverse media comment about her. Her (now) former barrister Ben Myers KC argued that, after the initial trial, ‘the vitriolic nature of public comment and the prejudicial matters reported created exceptional prejudice’…"
With Bio-Waste Spreader: "From the reaction in some quarters of the press and social media, it would be easy to think the chancellor’s decision to remove agricultural property relief from inheritance tax in the budget had threatened the future of British agriculture. But no inheritance tax will be due on the first £1m for farmland, with 20 percent due on anything above that (half the usual IHT rate) however large the farm…"
With Dr B Ching: "News last month that ministers are to oversee HS2 – including spending the newly committed cash to take the new line into London Euston – inspires little hope, after the National Rail system’s costs spiralled upwards in the decades of ever-tightening Westminster control (Eyes passim ad nauseam). Railway fragmentation is one of the main reasons the HS2 project is a monumental cock-up…"
With Remote Controller: "Although it was still October, and 12 days before the 11th day, remembrance has become so competitive – a pacifist lapel, even so early, potentially career-ending – that presenters and politicians were all poppied up for budget day. This, though, was weirdly appropriate to the scale and tone of coverage that felt less like a fiscal statement than a royal event, referendum or general election…"
With Old Sparky: "Insiders at power company Drax say the company is in permanent crisis mode, following the last Eye’s revelations of the tree-burner’s flaky positions on many fronts. Freedom of information requests and whistleblower reports are pouring into Ofgem and other government agencies; ministers refuse to meet Drax suits; and energy secretary Ed Miliband’s decision on Drax’s urgent demand for more ‘renewables’ bungs has been bounced off the government ‘grid’ into the long grass of 2025…"
With Lunchtime O’Boulez: "Listeners to Radio 3 will know that it rarely misses an opportunity to tell you how wonderful it is. Now it’s running a jingle that starts: ‘Today, for once, would you mind if we blow our own trumpet...’ It goes on to hype listening figures breaking through a supposedly landmark ceiling of 2m, as if this were a new achievement. It’s not…"
With Slicker: "At last we know. The ten-year Serious Farce Office criminal investigation into mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), which was dropped last year due to "insufficient admissible evidence", cost the taxpayer just over £16m – the most expensive SFO investigation not to result in a prosecution. It is almost double the cost of any previous SFO investigation which did not result in anybody being charged…"
Letter from Mexico City
From Our Own Correspondent: "The honeymoon for Claudia Sheinbaum, sworn in as Mexico’s first woman president on 1 October, has been brief. The protégée of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, Sheinbaum promised to continue his security policies. But her first month in power has been scarred by a cartel war that killed and displaced hundreds in the western state of Sinaloa and cost the economy more than US$600m…"