Six of the Best 959

"The party needs a degree of national strength and purpose if it is to present a convincing local challenge anywhere. To do so it needs to champion causes that the Conservatives and Labour are ignoring, but which are both popular and highlight the party’s values. Matthew Green on the Liberal Democrats' search for a strategy.

"Britain is a country where food poverty is an almost invisible national scandal. Almost invisible because, although we see the food bank boxes at the end of the supermarket checkouts when we shop, the people who are going hungry tend to tuck themselves away. The stigma and shame of poverty, and of not being able to afford to feed yourself and your family, means that people sometimes don’t seek help, they don’t talk about their situation." Jack Monroe says no one who has experienced food poverty would stand by and let it spread.

"The UK leaving the EU meant that there would have to be a customs border somewhere between the UK and Ireland, either on land, between Northern Ireland and the Republic, or in the sea, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Once the UK was outside the single market and customs union, there would have to be import/export paperwork, border formalities and checks somewhere between the two." Flip Chart Fairy Tales makes clear Boris Johnson's continuing refusal to face reality.

Richard Byng asks if we should halt the rise in the prescribing of drugs for pain and distress.

In January 1943, a daylight German bombing raid killed 38 children and six teachers at Sandhurst Road School, Catford. Running Past tells the story.

Reggie Unthank takes us to the planes of Norwich.