News Round-Up

• “Basket-case Britain is the definitive proof lockdown was an epic mistake” – The strikes, inflation, decay and incompetence: all are direct costs of the decision to shut down society, says Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
• “General strike looms as postal workers set to join rail unions in walking off the job” – More than 115,000 Royal Mail staff are expected to take industrial action as Britain’s railways again grind to halt in August, the Telegraph reports.
• “Super gonorrhoea warning: Austrian man catches drug-resistant strain of STI from Cambodian prostitute as experts claim virus poses ‘major global threat’” – Really? In the Mail.
• “What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?” – Western experts are blinded by vested interests, writes Matt Ridley and Alina Chan in UnHerd.
• “Despite the private doubts no one in Holyrood’s debating chamber wanted to listen” – Former MSP Michelle Ballantyne writes for Time for Recovery that she was in a parliament with no opposition to the biggest assault on people’s freedoms and free speech. “It was group think of the worst kind with far reaching consequences.”
• “The NHS is wasting your money – again” – The Messenger Review paints a very different picture to the one I’ve had described to me by disillusioned staff, says Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Petition for Prime Minister to bring back free Covid tests” – The Leicester Mercury reports that NHS campaigners have handed a petition to Downing Street, alongside some MPs, asking for the return of the free lateral flow tests.
• “Young people dying in their sleep is now happening on a regular basis” – Steve Kirsch looks at the evidence that the sudden death of young people has increased significantly following the rollout of Covid vaccines.
• “Pioneering vaccine maker Moderna to open first factory in Britain” – The new site would allow a rapid response to future pandemics with its mRNA vaccine technology, reports the Telegraph.
• “Lies, Propaganda and the Truth” – Eugyppius responds to Michael Senger’s response to his review of Senger’s book Snake Oil, setting out why he doesn’t buy the idea that the pandemic was a creation of Chinese propaganda.
• “Secondary school bans pupils from hugging, high-fiving or shaking hands with each other with strict no contact rule” – Pupils at Mossley Hollins High School in Greater Manchester were also barred from sitting on overcrowded benches, with one pupil slamming the rules after she asked permission for a friend to hug her, reports the Mail.
• “One-Third of German Healthcare Workers Vaccinated Take Sick Days” – TrialSite News reports on a German study which found that out of 1,797 participants, 588 healthcare workers representing 32.72% or nearly a third of the study population took sick leave following Covid vaccination, leading to 1,777 sick days.
• “The Rich World’s Climate Hypocrisy” – Rich countries beg for more oil and coal for themselves while telling developing lands to rely on solar and wind, writes Bjorn Lomborg in the Wall Street Journal.
• “Top ESG Fund Manager Trounces Peers by Hoarding ‘Unloved’ Assets” – One of this year’s top-performing managers of so-called sustainable funds has relied on assets that aren’t normally associated with environmental, social and governance investing, in a strategy that’s ended up trouncing his peers, writes Natasha White in Bloomberg.
• “How DeSantis toppled Mickey Mouse” – Not so magical anymore, Florida is now the most politicised place on earth, says Alex Perez in UnHerd, as Disney succumbs to the activism of its woke employees.
• “Zelensky’s homophobia row reveals a divided Ukraine” – Like much of Eastern Europe, the country is hesitant on ideas Western European governments hold dear, writes Svitlana Morenets in the Spectator.
• “The U.K. now faces a new human rights trap” – The Bill of Rights contains some sensible changes, but there is a risk that it unduly empowers British judges, writes Richard Ekins in the Telegraph.
• “Unilever has caved to the campaign to eliminate Israel” – The Israel licensee for Unilever’s woke company Ben & Jerry’s, who employs Arabs, Jews and refugees, will be laid off because of the boycott, as Unilever’s stocks dive, the Telegraph reports.
• “Unilever secretly fought ban on plastic sachets it branded ‘evil’” – The Telegraph reports that the company privately lobbied against countries’ efforts to get rid of soap packaging, despite its pollution pledge and having branded them evil.
• “They’re coming for behaviour genetics” – Noah Carl writes on his Substack page that the inevitable is happening and the accusations of racism levelled at the scientific study of genetic group differences are now being directed at the study of individual differences as well.
• “Pride rainbow gets ‘inclusive’ makeover – but still not everyone is happy” – The Telegraph reports that the latest flag has incorporated a purple circle on a yellow backdrop to represent the intersex community, but many have pointed out it’s hideous.
• “Biden’s cowardly war on conversion therapy” – It’s not the job of a doctor to affirm your identity, writes Kat Rosenfield in UnHerd.
• “Students want more restrictions on free speech” – The Times reports on a depressing if predictable survey which found students want more restrictions on free speech and safe spaces on campus compared with six years ago.
• “Hi elonmusk. Twitter has labelled a well-researched, evidence-based piece by Dr. Will Jones on LD_Sceptics about a new paper on ivermectin ‘misleading’ and made it impossible to share. Twitter should not be censoring content like this, particularly with no right of appeal” – Toby flags Twitter’s strict censorship of all discussion of ivermectin to the platform’s new boss.

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