News Round-Up

• “Former Children’s Commissioner links knife crime surge to lockdowns” – Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England during the pandemic, tells the Telegraph that a surge in knife crime and pupil violence has followed the Covid lockdowns.
• “London Marathon inject £1.19 million in Parkrun after drop in kids’ activity during lockdown” – A children’s activity crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 lockdown will be addressed with over 120 new junior parkruns nationwide, thanks to a £1.19 million funding infusion from the London Marathon, reports the Telegraph.
• “Japanese Government study finds silent school lunches were pointless” – What Japan’s Covid response lacked in authoritarian nastiness, it made up for in innovative stupidity, writes Guy Gin on Substack.
• “Swine flu could return this winter, warn experts, as ‘vulnerable’ told jabs are vital” – The virus responsible for the 2009 swine flu pandemic is set to be the dominant strain this winter, health officials have warned in a plea to the public to be jabbed, reports the Telegraph.
• “NHS Trust staff given paid leave for ‘male menopause’” – An NHS Trust is allowing staff to take a year of paid leave for the ‘male menopause’, despite the condition not being clinically recognised, according to the Telegraph.
• “Trans women to be banned from female hospital wards” – Trans women will be banned from female hospital wards under the Health Secretary’s plans to restore “common sense” to the NHS, reports the Telegraph.
• “Petition: Fund the reopening of the three state-of-the-art Rutherford Cancer Centres” – Three state-of-the-art cancer centres lie empty in Newport, Reading and Northumberland – a concerted Government effort and funding would get these centres back open and potentially help 20,000 cancer patients every year. Sign the petition here.
• “GB News bosses hold crisis talks following Laurence Fox sexism storm” – Regulator Ofcom has opened 12 investigations into GB News, including one examining the sexist on-air comments made by the actor Laurence Fox, reports the Mail.
• “Sunak has discovered his path to redemption. Now the battle begins” – The Tories can block Keir Starmer’s route to Downing Street, but only if they’re prepared to band together and fight, says Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph.
• “Just 3% of small boats migrants will be removed if Rwanda plan fails” – Stark analysis by the Refugee Council predicts that more than 35,000 small boat migrants a year, at current rates, will face possible “destitution” in the U.K., reports the Mail.
• “The West must choose: Borders, or destruction” – Suella Braverman has said what everyone else was thinking: Illegal migration is an existential threat, writes Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
• “Firm forced to axe four-day week trial after it made staff more stressed” – A London tech firm has scrapped its plans for a four-day working week after discovering it made staff even more stressed, says the Mail.
• “Dame Sharon White to stand down as Chairman of John Lewis” – John Lewis’s next Chairman could be part-time after Dame Sharon White asked the partnership to consider changes to the position as she announced plans to step down, reports the Telegraph.
• “A school phone ban is long overdue” – In the Spectator, Linden Kemkaran gives her take on Education Secretary Gillian Keegan advising headteachers to ban kids from using their smartphones during the school day.
• “Why has the ban on smartphones in schools taken so long?” – In the Mail, Molly Kingsley celebrates the news that the Education Secretary is to announce a ban on smartphones for pupils during the school day.
• “Lecturers make bid to oust universities union boss” – Lecturers at some of the U.K.’s leading institutions have called for a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the Universities and College Union boss, Jo Grady, over the “ineffective” strikes she led, according to the Mail.
• “Killing cash will make us all poorer” – A true cashless society would be a dystopian nightmare, argues Darragh McManus in Spiked.
• “Claire Coutinho: Net Zero has become a religion” – Britain’s Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho has claimed that Net Zero “has become a religion” among climate activists, according to UnHerd.
• “‘Sinister’ misuse of 15-minute cities faces crackdown” – The Transport Secretary is looking at ways to cut off access to driver licence databases if councils use them to police traffic restrictions, reports the Telegraph.
• “Now anti-Ulez warriors stage demo outside Sadiq Khan’s house” – Furious drivers have set up tents and signs outside the Mayor Sadiq Khan’s home in South London, says the Mail.
• “Ulez van wardens wear balaclavas after Blade Runner TikTok videos” – Wardens policing Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone are wearing balaclavas after Blade Runners activists mocked them on social media, reveals the Telegraph.
• “HS2 nowhere” – Britain’s major Blairite vanity project, the HS2 rail line, is nothing short of a national disgrace verging on scandal, says Prof. Roger Watson in the New Conservative.
• “The war on motorists has reached its Stalingrad” – An advanced industrial society cannot live without efficient road transport, and it is welcome that the Prime Minister has recognised that, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
• “The unseen emissions: Tyre dust and the environmental mirage of electric vehicles” – Electric vehicles, often seen as eco-friendly alternatives, produce more tyre dust, a largely overlooked aspect of vehicular pollution, due to their heavier weight and high torque, says Charles Rotter in WUWT.
• “‘Reckless’ XR activists walk free after paint attack on Telegraph offices” – “Reckless” Extinction Rebellion activists, who spray-painted the offices of the Telegraph, claimed they tried to minimise damage to the building as they walked free from court.
• “After Letzte Generation vandalise the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, journalists and intellectuals line up to explain why it’s not a big deal, why the gate looks better now and why we deserve it anyway” – On Substack, Eugyppius responds to the most recent act of vandalism committed by the activist group Letzte Generation in Berlin.
• “Stop this green gloating over New York’s floods” – The recent flooding in New York was bad, but it was not an eco-apocalypse, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “The green elites are gaslighting us” – The same politicians waging the war on motorists are now saying it is a Right-wing myth, writes Lauren Smith in Spiked.
• “Eric Kaufmann: Why I’m leaving Birkbeck” – It is difficult for people with heterodox opinions to survive in modern universities, says Eric Kaufmann in the Critic.
• “Eton’s new provost will restore balance after woke shift, say campaigners” – Sir Nicholas Coleridge has been announced as the next provost of Eton College, a move welcomed by campaigners who hope he will restore the school’s “Enlightenment values”, according to the Telegraph.
• “This is now a ‘nudgocracy’” – These days, ‘nudging’ is used by the Government and its influencers to change the will of the people from the top-down, argues Laura Dodsworth on Substack.
• “New MCC President Mark Nicholas: Eton v Harrow has ‘no place at Lord’s’” – In an interview with the Telegraph, the new President of the Marylebone Cricket Club, Mark Nicholas, suggests that the Eton-Harrow match at Lord’s has lost relevance and proposes a greater emphasis on inclusive cricket initiatives and youth engagement.
• “Kemi Badenoch: Nowhere is better than Britain to be black” – Britain is the best country in the world to be black, Kemi Badenoch has declared, as she accused Labour of bending the knee at the “altar of intolerance”, reports the Times.
• “How Ofcom signed off on Channel Four’s lies” – In History Reclaimed, the historian David Elstein criticises Ofcom, Channel Four and the makers of the programme A Very British Way of Torture on the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya for broadcasting distortions and falsehoods.
• “Father Ted writer Graham Linehan demands answers after attempt to cancel his appearance at free speech event” – Graham Linehan has informed Tory members that he demands answers after initially being denied access to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, according to GB News.
• “Graham Linehan says agent has dropped him over David Tennant criticism” – The creator of Father Ted has claimed he has been dropped by his TV agent after branding David Tennant an “abusive groomer” on social media, reports the Mail.
• “What went wrong with Billy Bragg?” – “I am not a pot, or a kettle; I am especially not a hypocrite, unlike Billy Bragg,” says Julie Burchill in the Spectator.
• “Dis-empanelling anthropologists” – Bowing to political pressure, two leading anthropological associations have cancelled a conference discussion on the centrality of biological sex. The cancellation shows the extent to which gender ideology has captured academic anthropology, writes Colin Wright in City Journal.
• “Canadian parents are sick of progressives” – A huge range of Canadians have come together in support of a common cause: A right to have a say in their children’s education, says Hina Husain in UnHerd.
• “Elon Musk torches Trudeau for ‘trying to crush free speech in Canada’” – X owner Elon Musk took to his own platform to blast Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal-controlled Government over its efforts to control and censor speech, according to PM.
• “Trump tells cheering Iowa rally he’ll ban ‘child sexual mutilation’” – In a bid to secure Iowa, former U.S. President Donald Trump promised a cheering Iowa rally that he’ll allow gasoline engines if re-elected in 2024 but will ban “child sexual mutilation”, reports the Mail.
• “Can an English-loving tantric sex expert really be Argentina’s next leader?” – Javier Milei, who sports an Austin Powers haircut and identifies as an anarcho-capitalist, is leading in the polls in Argentina, writes Simeon Tegel in the Telegraph.
• “Social media, streaming services must register with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by November” – All online services with audio or video content, including social media, that meet a revenue threshold in Canada will have to register with the federal broadcast and telecom regulator by November 28th, reports the National Post.
• “AI will let people live to 100 and work shorter weeks, says J.P. Morgan boss” – The boss of Wall Street’s biggest bank, Jamie Dimon, has said that AI will eventually enable people to live to 100 and work just three-and-a-half days a week, reports the Telegraph.
• “The science did not change. Why did Dr Fauci?” – On X, Dr. Kevin Bass has posted a reminder of what Anthony Fauci used to believe back in 2019 when asked whether people should wear masks and socially distance to avoid Covid infection. The advice he gave could have come straight from Joe Rogan.

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