Pregnant women and three children were among 27 Kurds from Iraq and Iran who drowned trying to cross the Channel. Two male survivors are being treated for exhaustion and hypothermia in a Calais hospital. A criminal investigation has been opened; five men are suspected of direct involvement in the attempted crossing. The bodies were brought by boat and helicopter to Calais, where volunteers with local migrant aid associations lit candles and held aloft placards reading ‘How many more?’ Despite the terrible loss of life, crossings have continued. The next morning forty migrants were brought to Dover by a lifeboat. It is windy on the water and extremely cold, but the determination to get to the UK remains as strong as ever. Boris Johnson said that there are ‘difficulties’ persuading France ‘to do things in a way that the situation deserves’; it was clear French attempts to stop the migrant boats leaving ‘haven't been enough’.

Nikki da Costa, Boris Johnson's former director of legislative affairs, said senior advisors are letting Stonewall dictate the Government's trans rights policy. She believes the advice being given to the PM is undermining women's rights. She said there is no other organisation - no business, or charity, no matter how big - that can pick up the phone to a special adviser sitting outside Boris Johnson's office and get them to speak directly to the prime minister. 'But that is the kind of access that Stonewall has.'’ Ms da Costa alleged that a group of aides controlled the views that Johnson was presented with in government papers and stopping him from meeting people with differing views on trans issues.’ Carrie Johnson said Boris was an ally to LGBT people at a pro-Stonewall event in October.

150 Royal Engineers will be sent to help reinforce Poland's border with Belarus. The border is an entry point to the EU, and there have been tensions there in recent weeks. A small reconnaissance team of engineers had already gone to the area to assess the situation. The engineers are not combat troops but ‘guys with diggers’ who would be dispatched ‘within days or weeks’. They will be building or making fences, roads, or checkpoint observation posts, or putting in infrastructure to help the Poles and potentially other Baltic states to secure their border. The UK defence secretary said, ‘I'm particularly worried for the women and children and the vulnerable people who are being trafficked by the Belarusians into this game they seem to be playing. It's a horrendous thing to do to force migrants to be a tool in a game to try to destabilise their neighbours’.

The number of children in care, which has risen 36% in a decade, is putting ‘unprecedented pressure’ on local authorities' budgets. The Government provides councils with £4.8bn for ‘vital front-line services’, including children's care. Funding a child in residential care costs £4,000+ per week. In 2015, 69,000 children were in care: by March 2020, the figure was 80,080. The rise is explained by, among other things, foster carers not keeping up with increased demands. With local authorities spending more time on this growing need, they are unable to do more early family intervention rather than taking children into care. A trial scheme across five counties is looking to address this challenge. The No Wrong Door programme, funded by the Department for Education and the local authority, brings therapists, police and social workers together within the home to work with families before they reach crisis. Since April, the number of children in care aged 12-17 has reduced by 5%.