Ealing Council may install buffer zones outside a Marie Stopes abortion clinic to ban the presence of pro-life protesters within 150 metres. It would prohibit silent praying, singing hymns, displaying foetus images and distributing leaflets. Only after twenty years of activity outside the clinic has the council considered them a threat. Pro-lifers have never altered their tactics or adopted any aggressive policies. They organise the prayer vigils and provide counselling for pregnant women in crisis. They repeatedly asked Ealing councillors to meet and listen to women who have been helped by their pavement counsellors; their offers were ignored. Video footage of ‘intimidating protesters’ simply shows three people at prayer opposite the clinic. Meanwhile on 24 January Manchester council voted to ‘take all necessary actions within its powers’ to stop what it said was protesters’ harassment of women using their abortion clinics. See

Police figures show offences up 14% in a year, with knife and gun crime rising even more steeply. Statistics also show the number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by 930 in the same period, to the lowest since records began. Offences such as domestic burglary and car crime are also increasing: however, there has been a 15% fall in fraud and online computer misuse. Nevertheless the increasing levels of gun and knife offences, stalking, harassment, and robbery will set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street. God’s plans are for good and not for evil. Let us pray for our nations to experience peace, stability and justice, pushing back every plan and purpose of Satan for confusion, criminality or deception.

Ireland's Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said Britain should be offered a bespoke trade deal with the EU after Brexit, rather than an ‘off-the-shelf’ agreement. He added that Ireland would like Britain to ‘stay closer in the EU’s orbit’ than non-member states, and mentioned the example of Norway, which currently implements EU single market rules with free movement within the bloc. He also suggested that although Theresa May had pledged to leave the EU customs union and single market, ‘perhaps we can negotiate something that isn’t very different from that’. Brussels wants the UK’s future relationship with the EU to be either Norwegian-style implementation of all EU rules, or a Canadian style free-trade agreement that would not cover large areas of the economy, including services. British negotiators have been given until March to decide what they want the future relationship with the EU to look like.

A leading Irish expert has called Church leaders to appoint a team of exorcists to cope with what he sees as a rising tide of evil in the country. While many believe exorcisms only happen in Hollywood blockbusters, exorcist Fr Pat Collins said he is besieged by desperate people seeking help to deal with what they believe to be demonic possession and evil activity. He is ‘baffled’ that Irish bishops are not taking more action to appoint priests to deal with everything from ghostly encounters, being pulled from their beds, and full-blown possession. ‘What I’m finding is people who in their own minds believe - rightly or wrongly - that they’re afflicted by evil spirits. In many cases it is wrongly, but when they turn to the Church we don’t know what to do, and often they are not helped.' He also said there was growing apostasy within the Church. 'As this has happened, there is increasing evidence of the malicious activity of the evil one.’