News Round-Up

• “Record 5.7 million people in England waiting for hospital treatment” – The waiting list is rising by about 100,000 a month as more people who did not seek or could not access NHS treatment over the past 18 months visit a GP and are referred to hospital, reports the Guardian.
• “What will history have to say about lockdowns?” – “The House of Commons report steers clear of asking the all-important question: did lockdowns work? And did the benefits of locking down outweigh the costs,” reads the lead article in the latest issue of the Spectator.
• “Britain’s Covid record is not the global horror story some wish to believe” – The Commons report is right to criticise groupthink, inertia and scientific smugness – but the idea the U.K. is an egregious outlier is wrong, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph.
• “No reason to scrap New Year’s Eve London fireworks, Sajid Javid tells Sadiq Khan” – The Health Secretary has hit out after the Mayor cancelled the display which could boost the capital’s economy by up to £12 million, reports the Telegraph.
• “Lateral flow tests work better than thought for Covid, study finds” – Lateral flow tests are more accurate at detecting Covid than previously thought, according to a new University College London-led study.
• “Sajid Javid is right to make the NHS more accountable” – “More money being announced for the NHS is a story we’ve heard time and time again – but this time the details are different,” writes Kate Andrews in the Spectator.
• “The pandemic has made cynics of us all” – “Today the American right is openly contemptuous of institutions and individuals it revered only a few years ago,” writes Douglas Murray in the Spectator.
• “For poor countries, lockdowns cost more lives than they save” – In tackling the Covid pandemic, solutions for rich countries do not apply universally, writes Toby Green in Prospect.
• “Covid Insanity: A Further Surge” – “A viral strain cannot be a peg by which we assess what we can and cannot achieve, who we can or cannot be, or the contours of social, economic and national destiny,” writes Omar Khan in Uncommon Wisdom.
• “It’s imbecilic for people like Fauci, who acts like he’s God’s right-hand man, to silence opposing scientific viewpoints on Covid” – In the race to overcome the threat of this disease, we need to not only listen to those who don’t share the elite’s arrogant orthodoxy, but to understand their arguments. That’s the proper scientific approach, writes Walter Block in RT.
• “Boris Johnson’s eco-Micawberism will not pay the bills of net zero” – The country has been told precious little about how reaching carbon neutrality is going to be delivered, writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph.
• “Waterstones is blasted for ‘selectively censoring’ books on feminism” – Feminist authors including the professor at the centre of a trans harassment row are being ‘selectively censored’ by bookshop Waterstones, reports MailOnline.
• “Shoppers slam ‘woke’ name for Primark’s ‘parenthood’ collection” – Shoppers have slammed the ‘woke’ name for Primark’s new pregnancy range – ‘parenthood collection‘.
• “This is price of the Church prostrating itself” – When a Church of England bishop defects to the Roman Catholic church, that is the price of prostrating itself on the altar of trendy obsessions, writes Stephen Glover in the Mail.
• “Why the new John Lewis advert is everything that’s wrong with modern Britain” – The retailer’s home insurance ad is a vision of destruction that’s peak 2021, but you can’t criticise it without being called transphobic, writes Judith Woods in the Telegraph.
• “What hope is there when even the Rolling Stones roll over and cancel ‘Brown Sugar’ for fear of offending the woke mob?” – Mick, Keith, and Ronnie have yet to play the song “Brown Sugar” on their latest tour because of its lyrical links to slavery. Maybe they are just a corporate nostalgia act these days, but the impact of caving could be far-ranging, writes Charlie Stone in RT.
• “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s bi-sexual Superman!” – “It’s all very tiring, I’m sure you will agree. There is perhaps nothing less conformist in today’s world than trying to shoehorn identity politics into every nook and cranny possible,” writes Frederick Edward in Bournbrook Magazine.
• “‘Retain and Explain’ won’t end the culture wars” – “If the Government forces the custodians of statues and monuments to keep them against their will, those custodians will ‘retain and denounce’ rather than make a good-faith effort to contextualise the historical figure in question,” writes Toby in the Spectator.
• “France’s Senate rejects Covid vaccine mandates/passports with an overwhelming majority” – That’s the good news. The bad news is that French Covid ’emergency’ powers (including powers to enforce vaccine mandates/passports) have been extended until July 2022.