News Round-Up

• “Two men, aged 32 and 29, are charged with spying for China” – One of the two men arrested for spying for China is the public school-educated son of a GP who co-founded an influential policy group with Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, reports the Mail.
• “Vetting of UN agency staff for pro-Hamas bias needs improving, report finds” – An independent review concludes that the UN’s Palestinian refugee committee must improve its screening of staff to weed out Hamas supporters, says the Telegraph.
• “Why couldn’t the law-abiding Jewish Londoner cross the road?” – Blame our politicians, not our police officers, for the creation of a dystopian society in which basic liberties are sacrificed to the interests of the mob, writes Patrick O’Flynn on Substack.
• “The Met has an antisemitism problem” – If an ‘openly Muslim’ man wanted to peacefully walk through a pro-Jewish protest in London, he would come to no harm at all, remarks Jake Wallis Simons in the Telegraph.
• “Rwanda Bill finally passed by House of Lords after months of wrangling” – Rishi Sunak claims a crucial victory after the Rwanda Bill is finally passed by the House of Lords, reports the Mail.
• “Huw Edwards resigns from the BBC” – TV news presenter Huw Edwards has resigned from the BBC on “medical advice”, the corporation says.
• “Lucy Letby launches second bid to appeal convictions” – Lucy Letby is trying again to appeal her conviction, reports the Times.
• “The idea of free will is dead. Long live the NHS” – After two thousand years, our all-knowing MPs have decided individual choice was a foolish experiment, says Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
• “Humza Yousaf’s house is crumbling around him” – The Scottish Greens are extremist activists parachuted into government jobs. Unless Yousaf ditches them, he’ll condemn his party to share that reputation, warns Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “Alcohol-related deaths soar to an all-time high in wake of Covid” – Official data reveals that deaths from alcohol have soared to an all-time high in the wake of Covid, with experts particularly alarmed by an increase in booze-related fatalities among middle-aged women, reports the Mail.
• “How politicians and nudgers deliberately terrified an already frightened population” – In TCW, Dr. Ros Jones highlights the state’s strategic deployment of fear, shame, peer pressure and scapegoating to promote compliance with Covid restrictions.
• “Twitter/X restricts freedom of reach” – On Substack, Profs. Norman Fenton and Martin Neil accuse X of “selective censorship” after a recent post by Prof. Fenton was shadowbanned on the platform.
• “The EU’s war on cars is destroying its economic foundations” – In a fit of self-loathing, the European Union has begun to destroy the economic engine that pays its bills, writes Andrew Orlowski in the Telegraph.
• “Electric cars are a Trojan horse for the destruction of driving” – EVs are on track to become yet another doomed Net Zero project – and it’s motorists who will suffer, says Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
• “Landowners cover countryside with solar panels in ‘sunrush’” – A new solar panel ‘sunrush’ is being driven by cheaper technology, carbon targets and government subsidies, explain Adam Vaughan and Will Humphries in the Times.
• “Sixteen year-olds who have anorexia could be granted right to die” – Experts warn that teenagers with anorexia could apply for state-backed ‘suicide’ under “extremely dubious” laws proposed in Scotland, reports the Mail.
• “Transphobia at Edinburgh University ‘driving out staff’” – Staff at Edinburgh University claim they are being “subjected to anti-trans rhetoric in the workplace”, says the Times.
• “How Sweden fell again for transgender madness” – In the Spectator, Paulina Neuding reacts to Sweden’s new law which makes it easier to change your legal gender.
• “Now Isla Bryson is claiming to be a victim of hate crime” – Could trans double rapist Isla Bryson have the same impact on Scotland’s illiberal Hate Crime Act as he did on Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-ID plans? Fingers crossed, says Fraser Myers in Spiked.
• “The Scottish Greens are morphing into the Flat Earth Society” – Co-leader Patrick Harvie would rather listen to the rantings of trans activists than the evidence in the Cass Review, writes Lauren Smith in Spiked.
• “Gender dysphoric children facing ‘greatest abuse scandal in modern medicine history’, claims ideology campaigner” – On GB News, gender ideology campaigner Chris Elston hits out at the diagnosis of gender dysphoric children and labels it the “greatest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history”.
• “Kemi Badenoch is right – Empire didn’t make Britain rich” – The Left clings to the idea colonialism was the root of all our wealth. In fact, it was a white elephant project – the HS2 of its day, says Kristin Niemietz in the Telegraph.
• “Hope Not Hate – the ‘charity’ built on deceit: part one” – In the first of a new three-part series for TCW, Karen Harradine scrutinises Hope Not Hate’s role in deflecting focus from genuine extremism.
• “Ex-Manchester City player’s police visits: Joey Barton’s troubling encounters raise questions about U.K. speech police” – Ex-footballer Joey Barton criticises police visits over Twitter posts, drawing parallels to North Korean intimidation, according to Reclaim The Net.
• “Turn of the woke tide will leave many stranded” – Students may be starting to reject pronouns and BLM, but the ideology is embedded in organisations, writes Kathleen Stock in the Times.
• “The cult of ‘my truth’” – NPR is only the latest institution to fall to woke relativism, says Frank Furedi in Spiked.
• “Terms of Enslavement” – The CheckMate Substack examines NewsGuard’s censorship-based business model.
• “The lawfare against Donald Trump hits new heights” – New York vs. Trump is a joke – 34 felonies for what comes down to misclassifying spending in a payment ledger – but the elite media is keeping a straight face, writes Alex Berenson on Substack.
• “Trump’s persecution has put the rule of law itself on trial” – The State of New York’s reputation for legal excellence is imperilled by the civil case against former President Trump, writes Richard Porter in the Telegraph.
• “‘Dad, it’s just ISIS’” – An SNL sketch from the archive predicts an all-too-real future.

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