News Round-Up

• “Victory for partners supporting their wives and girlfriends in labour” – The Covid inquiry Chairwoman Baroness Hallett concluded that the issue of partners being banned from maternity wards during the pandemic should be included as a result of the “overwhelming weight of opinion”, the Mail reports.
• “Comparing Covid in Eastern and Western Europe” – A HART analysis makes the striking finding that geographical differences are more significant than differences in vaccination rates for explaining Covid death rates.
• “Who is responsible for unethical behavioural ‘nudges’? Not the SPI-B, claims their co-Chair” – HART notes that the pervasive reluctance of the powers-that-be to discuss the dubious ethics of the covert behavioural-science techniques used by the Government throughout the pandemic continue as the advisory committee passes the buck to ministers.
• “Reflections of a Child Psychologist on the Pandemic Response, two years on” – Child Clinical Psychologist Dr. Zenobia Storah looks back for HART at the errors and tragedies of the last two years.
• “The Memo that Closed the Nation’s Schools” – Jeffrey A. Tucker at the Brownstone Institute publishes an early pro-lockdown memo sent to senior U.S. officials: “Just watch kids with runny noses and coughing and sneezing and touching one another (especially the younger ones). You couldn’t design a better system to spread disease.”
• “Probe to check Covid deaths of vaccinated” – Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has agreed to launch an investigation to find out why so many people have died from COVID-19 despite having had three vaccination shots, reports the Bangkok Post.
• “Notices can spread Covid, according to the Church” – Phil Button writes for TCW Defending Freedom that an official church notice put up in March reads “Please do not touch this Notice (to avoid possible spread of COVID -19)”.
• “The good death of my friend Gill” – Sean Walsh in TCW Defending Freedom reflects on the meaning of death in an era that confines the population to their homes to try to avert it for a few.
• “A magnet for rip-off artists’: Fraud siphoned billions from pandemic unemployment benefits” – Identity theft and other sophisticated criminal schemes contributed to potentially $163 billion in waste, while inflicting harm on unwitting victims, reports the Washington Post.
• “National Grid slashes gas shipments meant to tackle energy crisis” – The company fears the network will be overwhelmed by deliveries to LNG terminals, the Telegraph reports.
• “Heat pump costs soar because Britain’s radiators are ‘too small’” – Homeowners have received £30,000 bills to replace their central heating system, the Telegraph reports.
• “Finland’s president formally announces bid to join NATO” – President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin made the announcement at a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, the Mail reports.
• “Weekly Briefing: The food zealots should BOGOF” – It’s not for the state to endlessly micro-manage our lives to stop people doing things that are sub-optimal for their own health, says John Ashmore on CapX.
• “Meet the ‘anti-woke’ investor flying the flag for capitalism” – The Telegraph reports on an entrepreneur leading the fightback against an “ideological cartel”.
• “Revealed: Protester who egged Margaret Thatcher statue” – The protester who threw eggs at a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Grantham less than two hours after its unveiling is the Deputy Director of an arts centre, the Mail reports.
• “New Chief Inspector says forces must ‘avoid politics’” – Andy Cooke, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector who oversees the assessment of forces and makes recommendations for improvement, said police should focus on crime and not on politics, the Mail reports.

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