News Round-Up

• “The day I became a prize contrarian” – “Something rather unusual happened to me a few weeks ago: I was shortlisted for a prize. Not the GQ Men of the Year – shock! – but the Contrarian Prize. This is an award given to people who’ve exhibited ‘independence, courage and sacrifice’ in British public life,” writes Toby in the Spectator.
• “Ihre papiere bitte” – “If I was to fly across the sea and flash my Covid passport at Vienna International Airport, I had best always keep it in hand throughout my travels, and to know that when the Old Bill ask ‘ihre papiere bitte’, it means ‘your papers please’,” writes Luke Perry, who criticises Austria’s unvaccinated lockdown in Bournbrook Magazine.
• “Covid crisis in Europe: fifth wave fears surge – warning unvaccinated are ‘viral bombs’” – Fears of a brutal fifth wave of Covid are surging across Europe, with politicians calling for tougher restrictions to be imposed on the unvaccinated, reports the Express.
• “The non-Covid public health crisis” – Public health has deteriorated since the Government first instructed people to stay at home in order to protect the NHS, argues Telegraph View.
• “The great school-closure u-turn” – Even those who campaigned for school closures now admit they were a disaster, writes Liz Cole in Spiked.
• “An unreformed NHS threatens to lock Britain into a new public health crisis” – The Tories know that extra money won’t fix the health service. But are they brave enough for real change? writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph.
• “The unvaccinated – lock ’em up!” – “Today various media outlets and of course the polling companies are falling over themselves trying to commission polls that say yes, it’s perfectly normal to demand that your neighbour be put under house arrest,” writes Laura Perrins in TCW.
• “The never ending quest for herd immunity” – “The authorities have known since at least spring that the vaccines would not be capable of offering us herd immunity protection,” writes Bartram in his latest Substack update.
• “Children who have had Covid should wait three months to get vaccine” – U.K. Health Security Agency issues precautionary guidance for 12 to 15 year-olds to reduce risks of a rare type of heart inflammation, reports the Telegraph.
• “Poll finds a fifth of Britons are not planning a normal Christmas” – “Almost one in five Brits are not planning normal Christmas and New Year’s celebrations amid lingering fears over the Covid crisis, according to a new poll,” reports MailOnline.
• “Daniel Andrews is accused of ruling ‘by decree’ by Adem Somyurek” – Former Labour Minister Adem Somyurek declared that the Premier has over-reached in his bid for sweeping powers that would permit him to declare a pandemic for an unlimited time, reports the Mail Australia.
• “FDA asks court for 55 Years to fully release Pfizer Covid vaccine data” – “The Food and Drug Administration asked a federal judge on November 15th to give it until the year 2076 to fully release the documents in its possession tied to the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine,” reports the Epoch Times.
• “Disney to ban unvaccinated kids on cruises” – “Children as young as five years-old will need to be vaccinated to travel on Disney Cruise Line ships, the company has announced, in an expansion of its vaccine mandate. It is the first major passenger liner to require jabs for kids,” reports RT.
• “Sweden’s ‘vaccine passes’ should teach us an important lesson.” – “Don’t try and meet insanity in the middle. Deal only in what you can research and observe yourself. Don’t attempt to compromise with the establishment, because they will never compromise back,” argues Kit Knightly in OffGuardian.
• “The original antigenic sin: Covid vaccination and sub-optimal initial immune priming deranges the antibody – cytotoxic T cell immune response” – “It is now abundantly clear that the Covid vaccines are ‘leaky’ (leaky vaccines do not stop infection or transmission and allows for immune escape) and do not sterilize the Covid virus,” reports Trialsite.
• “Andrew Neil is right – on climate change, the BBC is short-changing us” – The COP26 coverage across TV and radio was wildly apocalyptic. This isn’t rigorous journalism, and it doesn’t help us face the future, argues Robin Aitken in the Telegraph.
• “Power prices surge after low winds cause shortfall” – “Low wind speeds pushed U.K. power prices to the second-highest level on record yesterday, forcing the grid to switch to gas-fired power plants and draw on coal generation,” reports the Times.
• “More people referred to Prevent for far-right views than Islamist ones” – Out of 4,915 cases flagged to Prevent in the year ending in March, 25% related to suspected extreme right-wing beliefs and 22% to Islamist ones, reports MailOnline.
• “Trans politics has driven the left insane” – Labour MPs and lefty journalists are now denying basic biological facts, writes Jo Bartosch in Spiked.
• “The Olympics’ shameful transgender cop out” – “The International Olympic Committee have just released a new framework for transgender and intersex inclusion in sports. The old Olympic guidelines from 2015 allowed Laurel Hubbard, a transgender weightlifter, to compete with women in Tokyo and were clearly not fit for purpose,” writes Debbie Hayton in the Spectator.
• “So, are we cancelling Azeem Rafiq?” – The cricketer made racist comments about Jews 10 years ago. Surely he’ll be cast out of polite society? asks Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “Have you got your vaccine passport QR code?” – In preparation for if/when vaccine passports arrive in England, Julia Hartley-Brewer has already acquired her vaccine passport QR code. Have you?