Ross Clark

After the death of Pope Francis at the age of 88, the world is waiting to see who will succeed him, as the Cardinals gather in Rome for the Papal Conclave.

Is there anything more dishonest than repeated government promises to pare back the quangos? Two months ago, this doomed process began yet again.

And so it begins. The world's most secretive ceremony to select a new Pope is underway. Never will a chimney have so many eyes fixed upon it.

ROSS CLARK: You can almost sense the jubilation on the faces of EU negotiators as they eye up our fish and dream up ways to trap Britain in their regulatory claws

Rather tragically, we have Sir Keir Starmer to represent UK interests. You can almost sense the jubilation on the faces of EU negotiators as they eye up our fish and dream up ways to trap Britain.

Year by year, the tale of HS2 grows more wretched. The latest report on the fiasco depicts contractors behaving like a gang that tarmacs driveways taking advantage of a widow.

A Gazan family granted the right to settle in Britain under a scheme intended for Ukrainians. A convicted rapist who avoided deportation to Afghanistan.

Banned from working or claiming the benefits for which United Kingdom citizens can apply, it is commonly said they are surviving on as little as £8 a week.

This isn't the 1980s, when there was a spate of thefts of VW badges after American hip-hop band the Beastie Boys turned them into a fashion item by wearing them around their necks.

When I moved to the Cambridgeshire Fens 26 years ago, the electricity substation lying a mile across the fields was an unsightly intrusion, but otherwise innocuous.