So inspirational

WE challenge you to read about nine-year-old Harry Byrne, star of The Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards, and not to have a tear in your eye.

Or to read about any of our fantastic winners and not to feel uplifted.

Harry and his family have seen at close hand the remarkable dedication of our healthcare heroes during their tragically frequent interactions with the NHS.

Harry has proved just as inspirational.

Details of his loving care for little brother Reuben throughout his short life, and his astonishing fund-raising in Reuben’s memory, melted the hearts of everyone at our star-studded ceremony and there were similarly touching tales wherever you looked.

Members of the Windrush generation and their descendants who came to Britain to work in the NHS were lauded by the King.

And we paid tribute to the many since who have devoted their lives to helping others, like Bulgarian-born midwife Valentina Burnett.

And like the cardiologists at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, without whose skill two-year-old Beatrix Archbold would not have been alive to captivate guests at our televised awards ceremony.

It is one of the highlights of our year to celebrate the everyday heroics of the nation’s carers.

We are proud to salute them all.

End of the line

CABINET minister Grant Shapps has dropped the biggest hint yet that the Government might rein in the billions taxpayers are forking out on HS2 and scrap the Manchester leg.

The challenge the Prime Minister faces is to take an axe to this white elephant while still delivering the massive transport improvements that travellers in the north have been promised and desperately need.

Billions have already been wasted on the project in the south, as politicians in the north have been quick to point out.

But a much more efficient rail alternative for the north, much sooner, and at a fraction of the cost, would be a far better deal for them, and the whole country.

The PM must be ready with a clear-eyed strategy to replace the eye-wateringly expensive and pointless HS2 link.

Under a cloud

THE weather is our national obsession and it’s reckoned we have more than 100 ways to say it’s raining.

But why does the BBC have to employ so many weather forecasters to say it?

With no fewer than 22 national forecasters across the Beeb’s main TV and radio channels, and another 23 for its regional programmes, all funded by licence fee payers, the Taxpayers’ Alliance has reacted frostily.

We forecast a storm brewing.