News Round-Up

• “Joe Biden may be forced to declassify intelligence into COVID-19 origins” – Joe Biden is under pressure to declassify all U.S. intelligence about the origins of COVID-19 after the House and Senate voted unanimously for the information to be released, the Telegraph reports.
• “Scientists dismissed Covid lab leak theory ‘as they feared ban on high-risk experiments’” – Scientists dismissed the COVID-19 lab leak theory because they wanted to continue doing dangerous ‘gain-of-function’ experiments to make viruses more deadly, Anton van der Merwe, a Professor of Molecular Immunology at the University of Oxford has claimed, according to the Telegraph. 
• “Simon Case warned Boris Johnson of the ‘terrible’ consequences of lockdown” – WhatsApp messages obtained by the Telegraph show how Simon Case, the country’s most senior civil servant, insisted “we have to be brutally honest with people” over the consequences of lockdown – including the effects on “non-Covid health”, mental health, education and jobs. He wasn’t arguing against doing it though.
• “Was Sweden right about Covid all along?” – The land of common sense seems to be thriving while Britain is counting the cost of harsh lockdown restrictions, says Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph.
• “Sweden, Covid and ‘excess deaths’: a look at the data” – Michael Simmons in the Speccie with a deep dive into the mortality data that show, whichever way you cut it, Sweden wins.
• “First do no harm” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson suggest that the option to do nothing is underrated.
• “Ukrainian healthcare is better than the NHS” – Despite the war, you can still see a doctor when you need to – no wonder refugees go back for treatment, writes Maria Chaplia in the Telegraph.
• “Iatrogenic deaths: was it mishandling society or mishandling Covid?” – El Gato Malo looks at U.S. excess deaths in 2020 by climate zone and concludes that the death spikes are connected with the virus, but a large proportion of such deaths are likely due to faulty treatment protocols.
• “Three Dots: Well, that was weird…” – Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse report on the evidence that the former and Matt Taibbi gave before the House Committee on the Weaponisation of Government this week.
• “Anatomy of the sinister Covid Project, Part 5” – Paula Jardine in TCW tracks the development of military virus and vaccine research in the years leading up to the pandemic and its connection with SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA inoculations.
• “Lockdown-loving bishops, where is your remorse?” – The egregious failure of the Church of England’s bishops to question, let alone resist, the Covid dictatorship must not be overlooked, writes Julian Mann in TCW.
• “BBC is caught in fresh impartiality row over new David Attenborough show that will not be aired on regular TV amid claims that Beeb bosses ‘fear rightwing backlash’” – A Wild Isles episode that focuses on themes of the destruction of nature across the U.K. reportedly won’t be broadcast to fend off criticism from the Right, according to the Mail.
• “The Green Economy’s Heart of Darkness” – There is no such thing as clean cobalt, writes Noel Yaxley in Compact Magazine.
• “Bit of an eco-hypocrite, Leo! Jet loving DiCaprio heads to green fashion awards in LA – after travelling 12,000 miles in two weeks to chase models in Europe” – The actor has proven to be something of an eco-hypocrite once again for heading to a green fashion event in LA after clocking up 12,000 airmiles in two weeks, the Mail reports.
• “‘Misgendering’ is not a crime” – Still less is it terrorism, writes Tim Dieppe in the Critic, marking the acquittal on appeal of Christian street preacher Dave McConnell after he was previously convicted of the spurious crime of ‘misgendering’.
• “Ofsted chief’s warning over explicit sex education lessons” – Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector of Ofsted, tells the Telegraph she has warned the Government that the current relationships and sex education (RSE) guidance places no limit on what can be taught.
• “The Thing That Swallowed Britain” – Dan Hitchens writes in Compact Magazine about ‘the Thing’: “That combination of postmodern identity theory, religious fervour, pseudo-therapeutic ’empathy’, dogmatic moralism, private bullying and ritualised public humiliation which has swept through Western societies over the last decade.”
• “Colonialism and the culture wars with Nigel Biggar” – In the CapX podcast, Professor Nigel Biggar addresses the question, How bad was the British Empire?
• “ChatCCP? – The ‘Know-It-All With Flair’– Chatbot’s Hidden Agenda” – Randall Bock suspects an ulterior motive to the AI technology.
• “The rise of hyper-tokenism” – Why do TV shows insist on presenting Britain as far more ‘diverse’ than it actually is, asks Patrick West in Spiked.
• “J.K. Rowling-backed petition for Government to make clear that ‘sex means biological sex, not sex as modified by gender recognition certificate’ in Equality Act will be debated in Parliament” – The Harry Potter author was among those to support the proposal which seeks to “make it clear” that “sex” and “gender reassignment” are separate protected characteristics, the Mail reports.
• “BBC faces revolt after Gary Lineker told to step down over migrant Nazi jibe” – Ian Wright and Alan Shearer have refused to appear on Saturday’s flagship football show after the corporation said the presenter breached its guidelines on the use of social media, the Telegraph reports.
• “The Lineker row isn’t about free speech – it’s a moral coup” – The BBC knows that “if it allows big names to wax lyrical on politics, in defiance of the rules, then it would have no way of stopping other Beeb people from using this licence payer-funded entity as a personal soapbox,” writes Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “If Gary Lineker says things like this in future, will it cause financial loss for the BBC? I think maybe” – Watch Toby on GB News discuss the free speech nuances of Lineker’s provocative social media output.

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