News Round-Up

• “Forget the election – Rishi Sunak’s allies wonder if he’ll get that far” – Senior figures around the Prime Minister think he’ll face a confidence vote if the Tories are thrashed at the local elections in May, which they will be. After that, all bets are off, says the Times.
• “U.K. military ‘couldn’t fight Russia for longer than two months’” – Failure to secure more funding for the Armed Forces puts Britain at a major disadvantage, warns the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff in the Telegraph.
• “There’s nothing conservative about the Tories’ free childcare rollout” – From April, parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours of free childcare. In September, this will be extended to infants of nine months or more. Why, exactly, is this a Conservative policy? asks Fraser Nelson in the Spectator.
• “Tory MPs plan for migrant crime league tables” – A ranking system that shows the percentage of crimes committed by different ethnic groups would allow the Home Office to tighten restrictions on certain countries, according to a group of Conservative MPs, as reported in the Telegraph.
• “Illegal immigrants still come in their thousands. This will be the end of Rishi Sunak” – Ross Clark in the Telegraph is disillusioned by the gap between the Government’s rhetoric on illegal immigration and its actions.
• “Boost for Rwanda plan as ECHR makes it harder to block deportations” – A rule change embraced by the European Court of Human Rights allows injunctions against deportations of illegal migrants only where they face an “imminent risk of irreparable harm”, reports the Telegraph.
• “Justin Welby says he will not block Rwanda Bill” – In a surprising move, the Archbishop of Canterbury accepts that “open borders” are not the answer and promises not to block the Rwanda Bill, says the Telegraph.
• “Let’s kick ‘racial justice’ out of the Church of England” – The Venerable Dr. Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, archdeacon of Liverpool, should read the Bible rather than attend racial justice conferences, says Gareth Roberts in the Spectator.
• “Church tribunal clears clergyman who called trans archdeacon ‘a bloke’” – Brett Murphy described Rachel Mann, a biological male who identifies as a woman who’s an archdeacon in the Church of England, a ‘bloke’ and a ‘fella’, but a CofE review ruled the words were “not in themselves offensive”, according to the Times.
• “Civil servant sued over gender critical beliefs has case dropped” – Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley, who works alongside Defra, was due to appear at an Employment Tribunal this week accused of harassment for comments including “only women menstruate”. But her colleague has dropped the complaint, reports the Times.
• “If the West abandons Israel, we all lose” – The UN ceasefire vote confirms that our rulers are retreating in the war to defend democracy, argues Mick Hume in Spiked.
• “Westminster council scrambles to celebrate Easter after only putting up Ramadan display” – Labour-run Westminster Council rushes to put up Christian decorations after Tory councillor Paul Swaddle pointed out that so far the Council has just honoured Ramadan, says the Telegraph.
• “BBC ‘abandons Christianity’ after dropping traditional Easter service broadcast” – Corporation criticised as celebratory mass from King’s College, Cambridge is no longer being broadcast on the BBC, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why you’re more at risk of cancer than 25 years ago – here’s what to do about it” – Cases of cancer in the U.K. have jumped by about 50% over the past 25 years due to an ongoing rise in risk factors, says the Telegraph.
• “Why are more young people getting cancer?” – Experts say the increase in diagnoses could be down to a rise in obesity, alcohol and smoking, as well as changes in diet and the microbiome, reports the Times. Nothing to do with mRNA vaccines, then?
• “Ultimate guide to going private for cancer treatment amid NHS waits” – Chaotic scenes facing the thousands of cancer patients receiving NHS care every day are comparable to ‘Heathrow on a Bank Holiday’ according to a respected oncologist. Is going private the solution? asks the Mail.
• “Follow the vast sums of money” – Public health is a racket, says Christopher Snowdon on Substack.
• “RKI protocols reveal pandemic managers providing ‘fictitiously accurate’ R-values and overstating Covid risk on the explicit directions of their political overseers in the Health Ministry” – Eugyppius on the latest revelations in Germany about the manipulation of public health authorities by the federal government.
• “Covid and the politics of panic” – Good leading article in the Spectator criticising the panic that informed the pandemic response four years ago.
• “Andrew Bridgen must pay Matt Hancock legal fees of £40,000 in libel claim” – The independent MP cases a costs bill of £40,000, not including his own costs, in his libel case against the former Health Secretary, repots the Guardian.
• “Dems, media push new study linking climate change to inflation, but economists aren’t buying It” – The Earth’s average temperature does not affect the amount of currency in circulation, says Nick Pope in Whats Up With That.
• “New York first U.S. city to introduce congestion charge” – Manhattan motorists will pay a $15 toll from June despite a fierce backlash and string of lawsuits designed to stifle the plan, reports the Telegraph.
• “In the new world of EVs and AI, renewable green energy means more gas or coal capacity, not less” – The development of EVs and AI requires a huge amount of electricity, points out the Telegraph.
• “Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute shows January Arctic sea ice now 20 years stable!” – Winter sea ice in Arctic stable over past 20 years hasn’t disappeared; on the contrary, it’s become more plentiful, according to Whats Up With That.
• “Some classics are slapped with warnings to appease modern readers” – Over recent years, many classic tales and childhood favourites have been given trigger warnings, says the Mail, including Harry Potter, The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and more.
• “Barristers should be allowed to join the Garrick” – the Bar Council is hinting it will forbid any member of the Bar from being a member of the Garrick. That’s a monstrous intrusion into individual liberty, argues Andrew Tettenborn in the Spectator.
• “Police Scotland could reveal complaints over ‘hate incidents” to employers” – Scottish police officers could disclose ‘non-crime hate incidents’ recorded against people’s names in enhanced criminal record checks, according to the Scottish Sun.
• “Bullying, cowardice, and careerism behind BBC disinformation on gender” – Current and former BBC journalists have condemned the media giant for embracing trans rights dogma, says Michael Shellenberger on his Public Substack.
• “Sir Jeffrey Donaldson latest: DUP leader quits after being charged with historical sex offences” – The leader of the DUP has resigned after he’s charged over historic allegations of rape, reports the Telegraph.
• “Iranian journalist stabbed multiple times outside London home” – A U.K.-based Iranian journalist who’s critical of the current regime is in a stable condition after being attacked by two people outside his house in London, according to the Telegraph.
• “Easter egg hunt in Wrexham cemetery pulled after backlash” – Friends of Wrexham Cemetery, who organised the Easter egg hunt, say their aim was to get young people “interested in local genealogy”, reports the BBC. But the event has been cancelled after a backlash from locals whose relatives are buried in the cemetery.
• “Copying the mistakes of Greece” – Labour’s tax raid on private schools was tried by Syriza in Greece and proved to be a disaster that was quickly abandoned, says Mr. Chips on Substack.
• “The UAE bid for the Spectator is over” – In the Spectator, Fraser Nelson celebrates the Government’s amendment to the Digital Markets Bill which will make it impossible for foreign states to own even 0.1% of British newspapers or magazines.
• “This is magnificent to watch” – Watch this clip of the President of Guyana putting a BBC journalist in his place when he tries to lecture him about the risks of climate change.

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