News Round-Up

• “Covid planners gave ‘potentially massive’ lockdown impact ‘very little thought’” – The Covid inquiry has heard that there was a failure to consider the “potentially massive impact” that restrictions on civil liberties would have, the Telegraph reports.
• “COVID-19 inquiry’s impartiality already in the spotlight” – The impartiality of the Covid Inquiry has been called into question, the Telegraph says, after its counsel Hugo Keith claimed that preparation for a “no-deal Brexit” got in the way of pandemic planning.
• “The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted” – An analysis by the Associated Press has found that fraudsters in the U.S. may have got their hands on more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding, and that another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.
• “First people sickened by COVID-19 were Chinese scientists at Wuhan Institute of Virology, say U.S. Government sources” – According to Public,  the first people infected by the virus included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s gain-of-function research on SARS-like coronaviruses.
• “‘Upsetting’ Covid inquiry memorial tapestry given trigger warning” – The first four panels of the Covid Inquiry memorial tapestry have been unveiled at hearing centre in Dorland house, but, reports the Telegraph, viewers are warned that it contains “upsetting material”.
• “Quarter in U.K. believe Covid was a hoax, poll on conspiracy theories finds” – A Savanta Survey has found that almost a quarter of the population believe that COVID-19 is a hoax, the Guardian says. Treat with large dose of salt since the poll was commissioned by the BBC and Marianna Spring will no doubt cite it as a reason to suppress ‘mis-’ and ‘disinformation’.
• “Don’t blame scientists for what went wrong with Covid – ministers were the ones calling the shots” – Guardian columnist Professor Devi Shridhar, who was a member of the Scottish Government’s expert group on Covid, makes it clear that she is not at all to blame for what went wrong.
• “Government’s new Net Zero plan might be its most idiotic yet” – Ross Clark in theTelegraph pours scorn on the idea that solar-generated power beamed down from space is going to help the Government reach its Net Zero target.
• “SNP moves to ban gas boilers as Scotland rushes towards Net Zero” – According to the Telegraph,  the Scottish Government is drawing up plans to ban gas boilers in new buildings from Spring 2024.
• “The summer doesn’t need a health warning” – “These new ‘heat-health alerts’ show that climate alarmism is out of control,” says Tim Black in Spiked.
• “Germany’s self-destructive Greens” – In a piece for UnHerd, Lily Lynch explains the decline and fall of the German Greens, who, she notes, are currently trailing the AfD in the polls.
• “The dangers of being a germophobe” – Jordan Peterson welcomes Dr. Steve Templeton to his podcast to discuss how germaphobia makes us less safe.
• “BOGOF deals face axe despite Government predicting minimal impact on calorie consumption” – The Government is ploughing ahead with its plan to ban ‘buy one, get one free’ offers in supermarkets, the Telegraph reports, despite its own analysis suggesting that it will only result in a reduction of four calories per person.
• “Jess Phillips calls for protection of single-sex spaces in apparent challenge to Keir Starmer” – Jess Phillips has called for single-sex spaces to be protected, but, the Telegraph reminds readers, Keir Starmer says he “supports the right to self-identification”.
• “That is a dangerous thing to say” – “What would the administration say to parents who are worried that their daughter may have to compete against a male and worried about their daughter’s safety?” a journalist asks at a White House press conference. “That is a dangerous thing to say,” replies White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre.
• “Women still have penis envy” – “More and more women are discovering the benefits of the dingle-dangle,” writes Frank Haviland, in his latest piece of satire for the New Conservative.
• “Andrew Lloyd Webber says he was told to play it ‘safe’ with musicals” – Andrew Lloyd Webber says he has been discouraged from setting musicals in other countries, the Mail reports, because it would be cultural appropriation.
• “Amazon shuts down customer’s smart home for a week over ‘racial slur’” – The Mail tells of how Brandon Jackson was locked out of his Amazon Echo after a delivery guy complained he had heard a racist remarks through his door bell.
• “Why do we never talk about Islamic slavery?” – “Perhaps it is because Muslims do not have a special class of academics, weaponising ‘intrinsic’ Muslim evil against Muslims themselves,” suggests Sean Thomas in the Spectator.
• “Believe in Believers” – “Those of us committed to fighting back against the ‘woke’ must come to terms with the fact that only Christianity is potent enough to defeat the cult of diversity, equity and inclusion,” writes Evan Riggs in an essay for the European Conservative.
• “This is your chance to intern at spiked” – An opportunity to kickstart a career in journalism at Spiked, with a six-month paid internship.
• “Plot to dismantle the censorship-industrial complex” – Find out how Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Russel Brand are going to bring down the censorship-industrial complex. More details available here.

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