News Round-Up

• “Covid guru Sir Patrick Vallance doesn’t rule out virus lab leak theory” – The nation’s former top scientist has said that, while unlikely, it’s possible the Covid pandemic could have been the result of a lab leak in belated admission.
• “Excess Deaths – 56,000 More Deaths In The Last Year in England & Wales” – The Naked Emperor tots up the latest excess death totals for England and Wales in 2022.
• “Pothole deaths” – Given the scale of the problem, it’s surprising that we haven’t yet decided to shut down the roads, write Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson in their latest Substack post.
• “Britain will be paying price for lockdown generation for years to come” – Lockdown malaise is infecting many of our youngest and brightest graduates, according to the Big Four accountancy firms.
• “On targeting a university president for the thoughtcrime of questioning how well mRNA shots work” – Alex Berensen writes about the latest assault on academic freedom in America – the hit job in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the President of Thomas Jefferson University for liking some of Alex’s tweets.
• “Ireland’s new thoughtcrime bill is shockingly draconian” – According to Fraser Myers in Spiked Online, the new ‘hate crime’ bill in Ireland will mean you could soon be sent to jail just for ‘possessing’ offensive material.
• “Media freedom in dire state in record number of countries, report finds” – World Press Freedom Index report warns disinformation and AI pose mounting threats to journalism, although, weirdly, it has promoted Ireland to number two in the world when it comes to media freedom.
• “Oppressive regimes are waging war on vital press freedom” – The Times publishes a strong leader in response to the World Press Freedom Index report.
• “World on cusp of woke totalitarianism as governments act to end freedom of speech” – Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag raise the alarm about all the laws that are about to be passed across the West banning so-called ‘misinformation’ and ‘hate speech’.
• “There is no free speech in Britain for gender-critical feminists” – The cancellation of Joanna Cherry is the latest in a long line of attacks on women willing to stand up for sex-based rights, writes Julie Bindel in the Telegraph.
• “Trans activists will regret picking on Joanna Cherry” – Iain Macwhirter comes to the defence of Joanne Cherry in the Spectator.
• “Modern businesses must stop pandering to their woke Gen Z staff” – When your self-righteous juniors refuse to work an event featuring gender-critical feminist Joanna Cherry, it’s simple – sack them, argues Telegraph columnist Michael Deacon.
• “Sweden’s second-largest party says it’s time to ‘re-think’ EU status” – The leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Akesson, says the country should seek more exemptions from EU laws as part of a reset in relations with the 27-member block, reports the Daily Mail.
• “The heat pump rollout is an entirely predictable fiasco” – The Government wants us to rip out cheap and effective heating for expensive new hardware. No wonder uptake is slow, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
• “EPC eco-rules are forcing landlords to spend £20,000 on green homes” – Landlords will soon be barred from letting out properties in England and Wales unless they upgrade them to an Energy Performance Certificate rating of C or higher, according to the Daily Mail.
• “Crickets and worms are dished out to kids at £20K a year girls’ school” – North London Collegiate School, an all girls’ private school that counts Rachel Weisz, Esther Rantzen and Anna Wintour among its alumni, has added insects to the menu, says the Daily Mail.
• “George Osborne’s smoking ban is deluded” – Former Chancellor George Osborne wants to make it illegal for anyone born after 2008 to buy cigarettes, reports Matthew Lesh in the Spectator. And to think he named his daughter Liberty.
• “The war on cash poses an existential threat to our financial independence” – It’s terrible for the elderly, and risks giving massive power to social engineers and faceless bureaucrats, writes Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
• “Grays pub that displayed golly dolls closes after supplier boycott” – The leaseholder of the White Hart in Essex that was raised by the police for displaying golliwogs behind the bar says she has “had enough” and is giving up the lease after Heineken, Carlsberg and Innserve have all decided to boycott the pub.
• “Fury as journalist calls Royal Family ‘cartel of very weird people’” – Ash Sarkar, senior editor at Novara Media, tore into the Royal Family on Newsnight, upsetting Royalists, according to the Daily Mail.
• “Did Corden quit because A-list chat show was losing $20m every year?” – The Mail reveals that the real reason behind James Corden’s departure from The Late Late Show is that it was losing $20 million a year.
• “‘It’s not how white men fight,’ Tucker Carlson reportedly said in text that led to sacking” – Tucker Carlson said Trump supporters attacking an Antifa activist mob handed is “not how white men fight” in a supposedly racist text message that was clearly leaked by Fox in an attempt to discredit him.
• “Compilation of video footage of teaching union leader Randi Weingarten calling for school closures throughout 2020 and 2021, despite her claim she did no such thing” – Michael P. Senger highlights a collection of clips Randi Weingarten demanding schools close during the pandemic to protect teachers.

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