News Round-Up

• “The Civil Service is making it impossible to stop the boats” – It beggars belief that efforts to house illegal migrants in camps are proving more expensive than the hotels, writes Isabel Oakeshott in the Telegraph.
• “Farewell Leo Varadkar, no one will miss you” – Whatever may lie behind the decision, Ireland’s Taoiseach has plenty to resign over, says Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Telegraph.
• “Tory backlash over Hunt’s Brexit carbon border tax” – Jeremy Hunt is facing a backlash from senior Tories over his plans to copy the EU by introducing a Brexit carbon border tax, reports the Telegraph.
• “Scotland is no longer a free country” – Leaked material from Police Scotland suggests a new law will target performers, including comedians, for “stirring up hatred”. It’s insanity, says Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “‘Will the SNP’s new hate crime bill get me arrested?’” – In UnHerd, Andrew Doyle announces plans to put the SNP’s new hate crime bill to the test.
• “Clypes will have a field day with this stupid new act” – The SNP’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act will encourage sanctimonious allegations and waste police officers’ valuable time, warns Alistair Bonnington in the Times.
• “Police accused of attacking J.K. Rowling at LGBT event” – Scottish police have been accused of targeting J.K. Rowling by inventing a fictional character called “Jo” who thinks that sex is binary and calls for trans people to be sent to gas chambers, reports the Telegraph.
• “The West is still swallowing Hamas’s propaganda” – The media coverage from Gaza has totally distorted the truth about this conflict, writes Daniel Ben-Ami in Spiked.
• “Fear, shame and peer pressure to promote compliance with COVID-19 restrictions” – On the PANDA Substack, Dr. Gary Sidley reports on ongoing research into the U.K. Government’s use of behavioural science ‘nudges’ in Covid communications to promote compliance and vaccine rollout.
• “Science Magazine reaches new low, defames their critics” – Collaborating with their friends in biodefense virology, Science Magazine has vomited up a malicious hit piece to silence researchers pointing out scientific fraud, says Paul D. Thacker on Substack.
• “Farage hails new debanking law as he prepares for legal battle with NatWest” – Nigel Farage has backed a new law to protect victims of debanking as he gears up for a legal tussle with NatWest, reports the Telegraph.
• “Chris Whitty urges Liz Truss and critics of smoking ban to change tack” – Chris Whitty urges Liz Truss and her pro-libertarian allies not to oppose Rishi Sunak’s flagship smoking ban, says the Mail.
• “Why is the BBC smearing Reform as ‘far-Right’?” – The BBC’s branding of Reform as “far-Right” is an outrageous smear, writes Fraser Myers in Spiked.
• “Unemployment is not a mental-health problem” – Vast swathes of the British workforce have been put out to pasture, says Tim Black in Spiked.
• “Britain’s shameless appeasement of Islam” – The authorities have already surrendered to Islamic extremism and by their every move we can infer they’d prefer the populace did too, writes Frank Haviland in the New Conservative.
• “Why we don’t police anti-Christian hate” – Jewish and Muslim communities rightly get protections and attention from the Government, but Christians are routinely overlooked, says Hardeep Singh in the Critic.
• “Investigation launched into King’s Cross Ramadan messages” – Rail bosses have launched an investigation into how Ramadan messages were shown on departure boards at King’s Cross station, reports the Telegraph.
• “Preferential treatment has no place in multi-faith Britain” – If Network Rail displays a Hadith during Ramadan, it should also show Christian messages over Easter, argues Rakib Ehsan in CapX.
• “Now the EU wants to regulate online influencers” – The Belgian EU presidency doesn’t trust Europeans to judge online content without government intervention, writes Tristan Vanheuckelom in the Times.
• “American C.J. Hopkins, charged again in Germany, describes global censorship effort” – Acquitted on German hate speech charges in January, American playwright C.J. Hopkins is being charged again for the same offence. He has a scary message for Americans, says Matt Taibbi on Substack.
• “Security law will not stop us doing business in Hong Kong, says Prudential” – British insurer Prudential has said it will continue doing business in Hong Kong despite the introduction of a draconian new security law, reports the Telegraph.
• “Unprecedented surge in offshore wind needed for Starmer’s Net Zero plan” – A report claims that Labour’s 2030 Net Zero target is so ambitious that Britain could run out of steel for undersea cables, according to the Telegraph.
• “Trans row shows BBC still under Stonewall’s sway, says John Humphrys” – Veteran presenter John Humphrys has criticised the investigation into Justin Webb over his Today show trans comments, reports the Telegraph.
• “The Financial Times: ideologically captured” – On Substack, James Esses reveals that the Financial Times’s ‘Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit’ have been leaked to him – and it’s every bit as horrific as you’d imagine.
• “Banksy and the tyranny of elite opinion” – Now even graffiti artists are mouthpieces of bourgeois orthodoxy, writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “Censor Agatha Christie? Not on my watch, says French Culture Minister” – France’s new Culture Minister has told the National Assembly that ‘modernising’ Agatha Christie and other authors’ works to avoid offending contemporary readers amounts to censorship, according to the Times.
• “‘We need to tear up the idea of BAME’” – On the latest episode of The Brendan O’Neill Show, Tony Sewell joins Brendan to discuss the myth of systemic racism in Britain.
• “AI image generators often give racist and sexist results: can they be fixed?” – Researchers are tracing sources of racial and gender bias in AI generated images and making efforts to fix them, says Ananya in Nature.
• “‘Sorry, I might have to get back to you’” – During a Home Affairs Committee meeting, Rebecca Knox, Chair of Dorset’s Fire and Rescue Authority, found herself at a loss for words when quizzed by Lee Anderson about her force’s alleged “institutional racism”.

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