News Round-Up

• “Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions” – The Institute of Economic Affairs publishes the new study into lockdowns by Jonas Herby, Dr Lars Jonung and Professor Steve H. Hanke. Key Finding: “Lockdown benefits were a drop in the bucket compared to the collateral damage.”
• “Lockdown was burning down home to destroy wasp’s nest” – Writing in the Daily Mail, Peter Hitchens says he doubts that the IEA report will persuade many lockdown enthusiasts to abandon their position.
• “The Plan: Lock You Down for 130 Days” – Professor Jay Bhattacharya warns Brownstone Institute readers that President Biden’s new pandemic plan means ongoing gain-of-function research and cutting corners in the evaluation of new vaccines. Oh, and Lockdowns too, of course.
• “Myocarditis from mRNA Covid jabs likely killed hundreds of healthy young adults globally, a new study suggests” – Alex Berenson flags up new research from South Korea which finds that mRNA Covid shots caused more sudden cardiac deaths in people under 45 than doctors have realised or reported.
• “Hold the front page! Telegraph discovers Government curbed Covid dissent” – John Ellwood is unimpressed with the Telegraph‘s recent lockdown reporting. Readers of TCW Defending Freedom have known about the Government stifling Covid dissent for the last three years, he says.
•  “Electric cars were hailed as cheaper way forward… but they cost more” – It can now cost more than £50 to recharge an electric car at a public power point, according to the Mail, making them more expensive to run than normal petrol cars.
• “Electric cars too heavy for old multi-storey car parks, engineers warn” – The Institute of Structural Engineers has said that weight limits should be imposed in older carparks that are struggling to cope with increasingly heavy electric vehicles, reports the Telegraph.
• “How green electric cars really are as Rowan Atkinson says he was duped” – The Mail enlists the help of some experts to scrutinise Rowan Atkinson’s sceptical claims about electric cars.
• “Heat pumps are becoming a plague on all our houses” – Writing in the Telegraph, Ross Clark wonders if there has “ever been a form of mis-government in modern times which will prove so disastrous, reaching into almost every home in Britain, as the Government’s attempt to force heat pumps on us”.
• “Workers slam universal income benefits trial handing out £1.6k a month” – The Mail reports that plumbing boss Charlie Mullins is one of many to lambast the universal income trial which will see a group of 30 people get paid £1,600 a month without having to work.
• “Mother shouts at Just Stop Oil to let her ‘take her kids to school’” – The Mail reports that members of the public have been venting their fury at Just Stop Oil protesters who are entering their seventh week of slow march protests in London.
• “Government must not curtail free speech, minister says” – Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has told GB News that free speech was one of the great ‘tenets’ of this country, reports the Telegraph.
• “Tim Minchin is right: cancel culture is ‘psychopathic’” –  Spiked’s Fraser Myers applauds comedian Tim Minchin’s stand on cancel culture
• “‘Diversity, equity and inclusion’ is corroding the civil service” – “The Cabinet Office should be focussed on serving the people – not stoking identitarian grievances,” says Ian Acheson in Spiked.
• “Is It possible to be both moderate and anti-woke?” – In the New Yorker, Emma Green tells the story of FAIR, a small anti-woke organisation set up by Bari Weiss and others which, she says, has succumbed to tribalism (although it’s recently been relaunched under new leadership).
• “The letters of the law” – In the Critic, Harry Miller provides an update on the case of the British Army veteran who was arrested for posting a picture of the Pride flag reconfigured as a swastika on Twitter.
• “’Careless’ Matt Hancock ordered to apologise to the Commons” – Matt Hancock has apologised to MPs for lobbying the standards watchdog while it investigated an MP for lobbying, the Mail reports. Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg says the breech was “likely due to inattention and carelessness”.
• “Jacinda Ardern made a dame in King’s Birthday Honours” – Avowed republican Jacinda Arden was in “two minds” about accepting the honour from King Charles for her services to the state, according to 1news. But, needless to say, she overcame her reservations.
• “EU’s Digital Services Act threatens Americans’ free speech” –  Writing in Reason, J. D. Tuccile encourages U.S. social media companies to resist complying with the Digital Services Act, the EU’s new law requiring social media companies to remove illegal content and ‘disinformation’.
• “Musk: Twitter to publish all government censorship requests” – The European Conservative highlights Elon Musk’s announcement that Twitter is going to publish government requests to censor content.   
• “Police fail to solve single burglary in half of neighbourhoods in last three years” – Official data show that, over the last three years, police have failed to solve a single burglary in neighbourhoods across nearly half of England and Wales, according to the Telegraph.
• “U.S. has secret UFO crash wreckage, claims Pentagon whistleblower” – The Mail reports on a whistleblower’s claims that the U.S. has a trove of parts and equipment from ‘non-human origin’ UFOs which have crash landed on planet earth, including in tact vehicles.
• “Yes, the Governments can affect the numbers of lives, but it’s very small compared to the large cost” – Jonas Herby, one of the authors of the IEA report, explains its findings to Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.