News Round-Up

• “Did Rory Stewart just admit that lockdowns were a mistake?” – Rory Stewart just made an intriguing statement regarding lockdowns during UnHerd’s latest These Times podcast, notes Freddie Sayers.
• “New Pfizer-funded study shows properly dosed mRNA Covid jabs are useless in children under five” – The standard three-shot dosing regimen did not help young kids avoid medical care for Covid. So why does the U.S. Centres for Disease Control continue to push jabs on them, wonders Alex Berenson on Substack.
• “The last nail in the coffin of Covid boosters” – It may very well be that adverse consequences of repeated Covid boosters will vastly exceed temporary small benefits, writes Prof. Eyal Shahar on Substack. Safe and effective, they are not, he says.
• “How Cochrane review A122 became a political football” – On Substack, Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan discuss how science can be influenced by politics and why researchers need better support.
• “Elon Musk and Andrew Tate offer support to Russell Brand amid ‘serious criminal allegations’” – Elon Musk, Andrew Tate and Laurence Fox are among those who have come out in support of Russell Brand following allegations of sexual assault, reports the Telegraph.
• “Could Russell Brand’s defenders and accusers both be right?” – Good, balanced piece about the Brand affair my Mary Harrington in UnHerd.
• “Wind industry on hold after auction flop spooks developers” – Offshore wind farm developers are delaying non-essential work on U.K. projects after a Government renewables auction flopped, according to the Telegraph.
• “Insurance on an electric car could be twice that of its gas equivalent” – The Mail has analysed insurance data and found that in various scenarios the approximate cost of insuring an electric car was more than the gas alternative.
• “The Welsh 20mph speed limit is just the latest step in Labour’s war on cars. England will be next” – Labour’s war on the car is not a laughing matter, warns Welshman Jamie Jenkins in the Telegraph. The benefits are few, the costs are high and the risk to the emergency services all too real.
• “The boats aren’t going away…” – Migrants aren’t taking treacherous journeys in precarious dinghies because they were duped by crafty people smugglers, writes Noah Carl on Aporia. The people traffickers are just responding to demand, not creating it.
• “Was Liz Truss wrong – or wronged?” – Reflecting on Liz Truss’s brief time in office, the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson examines what she got right and what she didn’t.
• “The Iranian regime is primed for total collapse” – The smallest concession by the Iranian Government could trigger another uprising across the deprived and suppressed nation, writes Maryam Rajavi in the Telegraph.
• “Young Germans ‘unhappiest in Europe’ as Millennials turn to far-right AfD” – Young Germans are among the “unhappiest in Europe” as polls show a drift among Millennials to the far right, reports the Telegraph.
• “Free speech law tackles Confucius interference” – Chinese-run Confucius Institutes could face investigation under new free-speech legislation if they try to stifle debate at English universities, reports the Telegraph.
• “The paranoia behind China’s spy war” – Espionage is a fact of geopolitical life, writes Nathan Levine in UnHerd. It may be best for Western leaders to come to terms with this not-so-unprecedented reality and move forward with open eyes.
• “The globalisation of sin taxes” – Few people recognise the now permanent international reach of nannying technocrats, says Tom Ryan in the Critic.
• “Britain is now a nation of shoplifters” – “If the idle and parasitic can carry on attacking the industrious and productive without fear of punishment, we will turn from a nation of shopkeepers into a nation of shoplifters,” warns Julie Burchill in the Spectator.
• “Oxbridge dons hit out at claim British inventor stole his idea from slaves” – Oxbridge dons have accused a rival scholar of “undermining the history of Britain” in a row over claims that a key inventor of the Industrial Revolution stole his idea from Jamaican slaves, reports the Telegraph.
• “Harvard’s woke student newspaper claims word limits are racist” – Harvard’s student newspaper claims that a new admissions test is racist due to its 200-word essay limit, which is too short for applicants from ‘non-traditional backgrounds’ to explain themselves, says the Mail.
• “Garrick private members’ club ‘may lift its ban on female members’” – The Garrick, which had previously relied on a legal opinion to justify its refusal to allow women to become members, may have to do a reverse ferret after its eminent lawyer changes his mind, reports the Mail.
• “Campaigners call for the posting of fake reviews to be made an offence” – Campaigners have called for the posting of malicious fake reviews on sites like Trip Advisor to be made a criminal offence after the Gourmet Goat Farmer in Wiltshire was targeted by ‘militant’ vegan activists, says the Mail.
• “How museums lost their way” – According to researchers at the University of Leicester, museums should help children explore their gender identity, according to Joanna Williams in the Spectator.
• “BBC News prefers some voices to others” – The Beeb is failing to inform, says Joe Hackett in the Critic. Its recent headline ‘Lies fuel racism ahead of Australia’s indigenous vote’ is a case in point.
• “The culture war has become the culture” – Something has changed in the balance of politics and culture, observes Pierre d’Alancaisez in the Critic.
• “GMC removes all references to ‘mother’ from maternity document” – The General Medical Council has removed all mention of ‘mothers’ from a maternity document for its staff, reports the Telegraph.
• “We can’t lose the word ‘woman’” – Women face enough ignorance about their health without gender ideology making it worse, writes Jean Hatchet in the Critic.
• “Richard Dawkins: I shall continue to use every one of the prohibited words” – The evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins talks about the gender wars with the Telegraph’s Judith Woods.
• “To silence cancel culture, our craven elite needs only to change its tune” – The Róisín Murphy furore is another example of bosses buckling to the tyranny of an activist minority, laments Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times.
• “The decline of the West: America’s Pacific cities face a bleak future” – Cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles face a bleak future, amid crime, drug and unemployment troubles, writes Joel Kotkin in the Spectator.
• “Britain plots labels for deepfake pictures and videos in crackdown on wild west AI” – Britain will require AI companies to label deepfake photos and stress test their systems under plans being considered to address concerns about the technology, reports the Telegraph.
• “AI power consumption about to skyrocket – and no one is prepared” – AI is a power hog. And it is about to explode in size, warns Terry Etam for the BOE Report.
• “Angry mother rips down LGBT flag in a classroom” – Watch an angry American mum tearing down and binning a rainbow flag in a classroom, to the consternation of the woke teacher.

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