Sad Endings to a Difficult Year

In the hours after the winning numbers in Spain’s massive El Gordo Christmas lottery are drawn every December 22, discreetly dressed men and women carrying suitcases stashed with bank notes fan out across the country headed for bars, lottery outlets, and banks before the fortunate owners of the prized tickets cash them in. Acting on behalf of wealthy clients, their mission is to buy their winning tickets: they pay cash, ask no questions, and offer a generous bonus on top. It’s a very simple way to help reduce their clients’ tax bill. Two left-wing activists have been arrested in the Greek port city of Igoumenitsa after they were discovered attempting to bring eight refugees to Spain by hiding them in the back of a caravan. Motorists in Madrd were hit with unprecedented measures on Thursday to reduce traffic with only vehicles whose license plate ends with an odd number permitted to enter the city center. The regional government of Valencia has announced it will oblige state schools to grant transsexual minors access to bathrooms and changing rooms corresponding to their chosen gender, rather than that they were born with. As The UK still continues to defy Brexit doom forecasts the salaries of high profile business bosses rose by more than 80 per cent in an 11 year period, new research has revealed. Chief executives' pay went up from £1million in 2003 to an average of £1.9m in 2014. The research by the Lancaster University Management School found that during the same period Britain's top 350 companies' performance improved by less than 8.5 per cent. The year has ended with the sad departure of more stars with George Michael and Rick Parfitt heading the UK list. Meanwhile, Paul Gascoine, Gazza, who has battled alcoholism for two decades, was reportedly rushed to an east London hospital after a fracas with other guests at the boutique Ace Hotel in Shoreditch. Figures from the Department for Education show 720 pupils were suspended from school last year and 470 of those incidents were to do with racial abuse. Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's political editor has said she was told that the Queen supported EU withdrawal, but did not report it as she could not find a second source. A boy raider has been locked up for six months for robbing two shops and a man at knifepoint in a five-month reign of terror when he was just 12.