News Round-Up

• “Anti-gay discrimination not qualification for asylum, says Suella Braverman” – The Home Secretary says that fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for international refugee protection, reports BBC News. Cue massive row.
• “Doctors to take legal action against GMC over ‘inaction’ on Covid vaccine misinformation” – A group of doctors has initiated legal proceedings against the General Medical Council, courtesy of the Good Law Project, for not doing more to censor Aseem Malhotra, according to Pulse Today.
• “What happened to London’s post Covid return to the office?” – Millions of train journeys that took commuters in and out of the capital during the week are no longer taking place, prompting fears that the drive to return workers to London is failing, says the Mail.
• “Why do public sector workers take more time off sick?” – The number of people taking time off work due to supposed illness is at a 15-year high and is up sharply from just before Covid, writes John O’Connell in the Mail.
• “England and Wales mortality bulletin” – On Substack, Joel Smalley outlines a method to calculate excess mortality, emphasising the need for precise data and careful analysis.
• “Five evidence-based early known Covid facts – ignored and censored” – Highly acclaimed experts presented evidence-based facts on COVID-19 at the beginning of the crisis in 2020, but were ignored and censored by the authorities, says Theo L. Glück on Substack.
• “Will the pandemic approach be more like Sweden’s next time?” – Can we trust Dame Jenny Harries, head of the U.K. Health Security Agency, given her history of flip-flopping, ask Prof. Carl Heneghan and Dr. Tom Jefferson on Substack.
• “‘Disease X’ is 20 times more fatal than COVID-19 – or so say the ‘experts’” – “Disease X’ is the newest diversion to create fear worldwide, says Dr. Robert W. Malone on Substack.
• “Why smart people seem to believe all manner of crazy things, and smarter people seem to believe them even harder” – A Swedish study found a link between higher intelligence and COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, which suggests it’s a mistake to assume that whatever smart people are doing is always a good idea, writes Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Nick Robinson blames ‘news avoiders’ for Today programme’s ratings slump” – Nick Robinson has blamed the Today programme’s falling ratings on “news avoiders”, reports the Telegraph.
• “Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is sheer hell for Matt Hancock – and a balm for the nation” – The notoriously tough reality show, Celebrity SAS, does not pull its punches with the former Health Secretary, says Alex Diggins in the Telegraph.
• “Boss of South Cambridgeshire council edited ‘independent’ report to remove negative comments about trial of a four-day week” – A council boss intervened to remove negative comments from a Cambridge University report into a four-day week trial at her local authority, reveals the Mail.
• “Italian PM Meloni slams Germany for funding migrant rescue charities” – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she was “astonished” to learn of a German Government initiative to finance migrant rescue charity groups operating in the Mediterranean, according to the Mail.
• “Why the West’s elites invented a ‘permacrisis’” – ‘Permacrisis’ neatly encapsulates the panic of Western elites: It is their global order, their dominant position in the global food chain, that is under threat, argues Thomas Fazi in UnHerd.
• “China prepares to crack down on ‘hurt feelings’” – Major Chinese media outlets have remained largely silent on Beijing’s recent proposal to ban merchandise and behaviours that hurt people’s feelings. But the Chinese people are outraged, writes Benjamin Qiu in the WSJ.
• “Fewer than half of drivers want to buy electric cars” – The number of people considering an EV has dwindled over the past two years because of the “perceived barriers” of cost and charging infrastructure, says the Times. Surely, those barriers are real?
• “Mark Drakeford’s miserable war on the car” – The new 20mph speed limit in Wales seems designed purely to make life difficult for motorists, writes Austin Williams in Spiked.
• “Greens, stop using kids to fight your battles” – The spectacle of school children suing national governments over climate change is absurd, says Joanna Williams in Spiked.
• “How war in Ukraine sank Europe’s Net Zero plans” – European politicians are reconsidering climate change action as they fear being punished by voters facing surging food and energy prices, according to the Telegraph.
• “World must invest more than entire German economy each year to hit Net Zero, says IEA” – According to the International Energy Agency, vast spending is needed on clean energy technologies to reach Net Zero by 2050, reports the Telegraph.
• “Is it foolish to think the world can achieve Net Zero by 2050?” – Rising global emissions are a reminder of just how difficult it is to decarbonise the global economy, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “The deep absurdity of HS2 diversity’s agenda” – Britain has created vast, crazy, self-enhancing and Kafka-esque bureaucracies dedicated to ensuring that absurd bureaucrats get paid long before anything gets built, says Sean Thomas in the Spectator.
• “Harry Potter panel axed from London Comic Con to keep transgender fans ‘safe’” – A Harry Potter panel has been axed from one of the country’s largest pop culture festivals to keep transgender fans “safe”, according to the Telegraph.
• “The young must learn to confront disagreeable ideas” – Words can cause pain and distress, but safe spaces and censorship will not build resilience, argues Joanna Williams in the Times.
• “Why is TED scared of colour blindness?” – In the Free Press, Coleman Hughes asks why TED is shadow-banning his talk extolling the virtues of colour blindness when it comes to race.
• “Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom to hold televised debate” – After taunting each other for months, the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom have agreed to debate each other head-to-head, according to the Times.
• “Have you heard dis information?” – Elon Musk has shared an eye-opening video montage on X, featuring headlines making weaker and weaker claims about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines.

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