News Round-Up

• “Labour suspends second parliamentary candidate in wake of Rochdale antisemitism row” – Keir Starmer has been forced to suspend Graham Jones, a former MP standing for Hyndburn, after he was recorded saying Britons fighting for “f***ing Israel” should be “locked up”, according to the Telegraph.
• “How three hours of Starmer dithering left Labour’s Rochdale by-election campaign in ruins” – A prominent Labour member has said that Sir Keir Starmer had to be “dragged kicking and screaming” into disowning Azhar Ali after he took five hours to publicly act over fresh antisemitic comments by the prospective MP, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour MPs are at risk from the pro-Palestine vote” – Starmer dithered on Azhar Ali because he fears encouraging anti-Zionist candidates like George Galloway who can wreck his majorities, writes Gordon Rayner in the Telegraph.
• “What the Rochdale disaster says about Keir Starmer” – What Starmer’s appalling handling of an obviously open-and-shut case of indefensible bigotry offers is a troubling glimpse into the likely course of his looming premiership, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
• “The real reason for Labour’s Rochdale muddle over Islamists” – For his unscrupulousness Azhar Ali deserved to be disowned, but if George Galloway wins, extremists will be overjoyed, writes Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
• “When Gaza came to Rochdale” – For UnHerd, Michael Crick reports from inside the nastiest by-election in modern history.
• “Jews ‘hounded out’ of comedy show after refusing to stand for Palestinian flag” – Soho Theatre is investigating an antisemitic incident during comedian Paul Currie’s stand-up gig at the London venue, reports the Telegraph.
• “Paul Currie is not a comedian – he’s an intolerant fool with a microphone” – Paul Currie’s treatment of an Israeli audience member crossed a line, says Stephen Armstrong, the Telegraph’s comedy critic.
• “Three women guilty of terror offence for Hamas paraglider images” – Three women who glorified Hamas with images of paragliders, days after the worst attack in Israel’s history, have been found guilty of a terror offence but not punished, reports the Mail.
• “The UN is siding with terrorists” – Spiked’s Daniel Ben-Ami on the discovery of a Hamas data centre beneath UNRWA’s Gaza City headquarters.
• “A malign inversion” – David Cameron and the Americans are doing the Palestinian genocidists’ work for them, writes Melanie Phillips on Substack.
• “The commodification of Palestinian pain” – Western activists have turned the war in Gaza into a moral snuff movie. It is obscene, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “Why progressives don’t face real consequences” – There’s one law for progressive and non-progressive alike, but the punishments differ, observes Gareth Roberts in the Spectator.
• “The SARS-CoV-2 transmission riddle – part 5” – Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan navigate the maze of COVID-19’s asymptomatic transmission.
• “Planning laws must be eased because of immigration crisis, minister insists” – Planning laws have to be eased because of the “pressure” record immigration is putting on housing a minister has said, according to the Telegraph.
• “Rishi Sunak should ignore this biased Rwanda Bill report” – In the Spectator, Andrew Tettenborn scrutinises a critical report on the Rwanda Bill, and advised the Prime Minister to ignore it.
• “Could the Lords stop the Emirati bid for the Telegraph and the Spectator?” – The best thing that politicians can do for the press is leave it alone: protect its independence (from politicians and government) but also protect it from politicians and governments of other countries, writes Fraser Nelson in the Spectator.
• “Too many people in Britain aren’t working” – The number claiming out-of-work benefits in the U.K. has hit 5.6 million, reports Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
• “The SNP can’t handle that Scots were the real ‘oppressors’” – In their resentment of all that is British, foolish Scottish nationalists are willing to rubbish their own heritage, writes Robert Tombs in the Telegraph.
• “The tyranny of the 20mph limit” – The 20mph speed limit in London has led to many a speeding ticket and speed awareness course. But it’s unfair, says John Sturgis in the Spectator.
• “Labour’s North Sea tax raid will ‘trash oil and gas production’” – Energy experts warn that Labour’s proposed North Sea tax increases would drive out investment, destroy up to 100,000 jobs and cost the Treasury £20 billion in lost revenues, reports the Telegraph.
• “The deindustrialization of Europe in five charts” – On Substack, Robert Bryce illustrates how industrial electricity use in the EU is collapsing.
• “Britain no longer has a military” – A well-organised and targeted attack is underway against our national defence, and few seem to care, says Tom Collins in the Telegraph.
• “Diversity and inclusion won’t fix an army unprepared for war” – In such uncertain times as these, anything other than the army’s core purpose is simply irrelevant, writes Robert Clark in CapX.
• “I’m an Army recruiter – I dread being made to meet woke targets” – “As a white male, I am well aware that the Army no longer actively tries to recruit men like me,” says Robert Clark in the Telegraph.
• “Is diversity actually good for business?” – When you take off your blinkers and look at the evidence with a clear head, you can see the glaring errors in these widely touted diversity studies, writes Alex Edmans in the Spectator.
• “The obsession with ‘diversity’ is putting Britain in danger” – Identity politics is crushing the vital Western principle of meritocracy – just ask the Armed Forces, says Rakib Ehsan in the Telegraph.
• “Scottish parents at risk of jail if they refuse to allow children to dress provocatively” – A KC warns that loving parents, who refuse to allow their teenage children to dress in a sexually provocative manner, could face jail under the SNP’s conversion therapy ban, reports the Telegraph.
• “Gender-critical Stonewall founder named Edinburgh University rector” – The University of Edinburgh has announced that the writer and Stonewall co-founder Simon Fanshawe will be its next rector, according to UnHerd.
• “Cosmetic clinic loses legal action against negative reviewer” – A cosmetic surgery clinic, that is suing patients over bad reviews, has been criticised by a judge for bringing oppressive legal action and making threats, reports the Times. Another victory for the Free Speech Union!
• “Why did three journals reject my puberty-blocker study?” – Trans children deserve to know the facts, says Sallie Baxendale in UnHerd.
• “Coleman Hughes on the New Racism” – The rise of a new race consciousness has turned elite American institutions into neo-racist strongholds, writes Coleman Hughes in the Free Press.
• “Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression rebukes Harvard with ‘lifetime censorship award’” – A prominent free speech advocacy group has rebuked Harvard University with an ironic ‘lifetime censorship award’, according to the Washington Times.
• “Quite unbelievable” – A GB News report reveals that Heba AlHayek, one of the three women convicted of terrorism offences for celebrating Hamas’s tactics by displaying images of paragliders, sought asylum in the U.K. from Gaza for fear of persecution from Hamas.

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