News Round-Up

• “‘It’s about time’ – Bates hails move to quash postmasters’ convictions” – Alan Bates said that it was “about time” as his 21-year campaign for justice won a historic victory that will lead to hundreds of postmasters’ convictions being quashed, reports the Times.
• “Post Office paid out bonuses for every conviction under Horizon scandal” – It has emerged that Post Office investigators were offered cash bonuses for every sub-postmaster convicted during the Horizon scandal, according to the Telegraph.
• “Ex-Post Office chief Paula Vennells nearly became Bishop of London” – Disgraced former Post Office Chief Executive Paula Vennells narrowly missed out on becoming the Bishop of London, reports the Mail. She was the favoured candidate of Justin Welby.
• “Sir Keir Starmer was in charge of the CPS when sub-postmasters were taken to court” – Sub-postmasters were taken to court by the Crown Prosecution Service during Sir Keir Starmer’s time as its head, according to the Sun.
• “Calls for Davey to resign ramp up while Lib Dems paint him as a victim” – Ex-postmistress Sally Stringer has called for Ed Davey to resign over his role in the Post Office scandal, while the Lib Dems have been sending out emails painting Davey as a victim, says Guido Fawkes.
• “Postmistress plots election challenge to Sir Ed Davey amid anger at his role in Post Office scandal” – Ed Davey is facing an election challenge from a former postmistress amid warnings that his role in the Post Office scandal will cost him votes, reports the Telegraph.
• “‘Trial by media’ saved the sub-postmasters. Ministers should know better than to attack the press” – We have ended up with the media in control of the Horizon story because the criminal justice system failed so spectacularly, says Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
• “JN.1: Major dominant Covid variant since XBB.1.5 – what you need to know” – JN.1, the latest COVID-19 variant, has rapidly spread across the U.S., with the variant reportedly accounting for over 60% of all cases, reports the Epoch Times.
• “Covid hasn’t gone away so where’s the plan?” – Mainland Europe is taking the threat of the Juno variant seriously, but Rishi Sunak is sticking his fingers in his ears, writes Alice Thomson in a typically hysterical piece in the Times.
• “Keep calm and resist ‘muzzle mania’ over face masks” – The evidence-light campaign to get us all to go about with soggy pieces of cloth on our faces is back, laments Peter Hitchens in the Mail.
• “Covid jab gave me ruinous side effects, but Facebook is censoring me” – A woman who says she suffered chronic health complications after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, claims to have been censored from sharing her story on Facebook, reports the Mail.
• “Controversial zoologist is gathering pathogens with pandemic potential” – A British zoologist says he’s found a close relative of the Covid virus living in bats found in Thai caves, according to the Mail.
• “Embalmer survey 2023: Over 75% are still seeing novel white fibrous clots” – The mainstream medical community, media, FDA, CDC, NIH and Congress are still not investigating the issue of novel white fibrous clots and determining which are Covid jab-related, says Steve Kirsch on Substack.
• “Smokescreens – Part Eight” – Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan explore the challenges in understanding and identifying respiratory viruses given their constant mutation.
• “Will Israel be charged with genocide at The Hague?” – The Telegraph’s Paul Nuki discusses the impending charge of genocide against Israel shortly to be considered by the International Court of Justice.
• “The double-standards of Israel’s critics” – In the New Conservative, Peter Harris suggests that the holding of Israel to a higher moral standard may be rooted in a form of condescension from the liberal Left.
• “Why I quit my dream job at MIT” – In the Free Press, Mauricio Karchmer discusses why he refuses to teach students who lack basic critical thinking skills or who condemn his Jewish identity.
• “Starmer to embrace ‘nanny state’ with plan for toothbrushing in schools” – Keir Starmer has announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools, says the Guardian.
• “Why Mandelson’s links to Epstein could come back to haunt Starmer” – Lord Mandelson, one of the best-known New Labour spin doctors, features in the latest tranche of released Epstein court documents, notes Victoria Ward in the Telegraph.
• “Varadkar has no ‘sustainable figure’ in mind for asylum seekers” – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that he has no “particular figure” in mind for what would be a “sustainable” number of asylum seekers Ireland could accommodate, reports Gript.
• “Marine Le Pen already rules France” – Macron may hope the appointment of a new PM will revive his Presidency, but it’s highly unlikely, says Gavin Mortimer in the Telegraph.
• “France gives up on meritocracy” – Can you guess where France’s youngest Prime Minister graduated from? asks the Naked Emperor on Substack.
• “Welsh village cut off because 20 mph limit means buses don’t have time to go there” – Residents of a Welsh village say they are being isolated after a bus company axed the only local route as a result of the new 20 mph speed limit, according to ITV News.
• “Replacing Westminster gas lamps with LED replicas would be ‘cultural vandalism’, say Tory MPs” – Senior Conservative MPs have warned that a Net Zero push to replace London’s historic gas lamps with LED replicas would represent “cultural vandalism”, says the Standard.
• “Met Police: Ignored eco activists risk becoming radicalised” – The Met Police warns that eco activists risk becoming radicalised as they sense “they are not being listened to by the Government”, reports the Epoch Times.
• “Chris Skidmore and the scourge of the Tory eco-zealots” – Chris Skidmore’s political tribe has done untold damage to his country, writes Andrew Orlowski in Spiked.
• “How the ideological fantasy of a permadrought caused German dam operators to overfill their reservoirs and exacerbated the massive December floods” – On Substack, Eugyppius blames dam mismanagement for the recent flooding in Germany, where ideological influences led to dangerously full reservoirs.
• “The disgusting attempt to silence Joey Barton” – What’s more “dangerous” and “disgusting”, Joey Barton sounding off or a Government minister threatening to clamp down on speech? asks Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “An unhappy ending for the gender war telltales” – Let’s hope the case of the social worker Rachel Meade is the last time anyone is persecuted merely for stating scientific facts, writes Janice Turner in the Times.
• “Banksy and the death of satire” – Progressive comics who attack the Establishment don’t realise it’s their view that dominates, remarks David James in CapX.
• “Stop moaning about ‘fatphobia’ – obesity is nothing to celebrate” – It’s no more bigoted to tell people they shouldn’t eat too much than it is to tell them they shouldn’t drink too much, argues Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Tennis bodies are monitoring social media, aiding in speech removal ” – Tennis organisations are actively getting on board the (online) content surveillance and suppression bandwagon, says Didi Rankovic in Reclaim The Net.
• “An open letter to Armando Iannucci” – In Spiked, Graham Linehan asks why Britain’s most-celebrated satirist has turned a blind eye to woke authoritarianism.
• “Scotland is abandoning children to trans extremists” – Encouraging young gay people to think they should change gender in order to become ‘straight’ is surely itself a form of conversion therapy, argues Julie Bindel in the Telegraph.
• “The Washington Post is collapsing, and only Donald Trump can save it” – Jeff Bezos’s prized paper is losing $100 million a year, writes Jordan Schachtel on Substack.
• “Group preps to sue MIT, alleges it rejects male applicants for less-qualified female ones” – A group of MIT alumni are set to sue the school for unlawfully rejecting male applicants for less-qualified female ones to advance gender equality, according to the College Fix.
• “Marvel went woke, now it’s going broke” – The superhero-film studio is paying a heavy price for trying to lecture its fans, says Laurie Wastell in Spiked.
• “Police wrap blankets around eco-activists” – A video posted on X shows police delivering warm blankets to eco-activists frightened by global warming…

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