News Round-Up

• “Sutton man, 61, who chanted ‘Who the f*** is Allah’ is jailed for 18 months” – A 61 year-old man who made threatening gestures at police and chanted “Who the f*** is Allah” during disorder in Whitehall has been jailed for 18 months, according to Your Local Guardian.
• “Man described by judge as the ‘least involved’ in riot jailed for a year” – A former soldier described by a judge as the “least involved” person he had dealt with over the riots has been jailed for 12 months, reports the Telegraph.
• “13 year-old becomes youngest girl to be convicted over riots” – A 13 year-old girl has pleaded guilty to violent disorder following a protest at a hotel housing asylum seekers in Aldershot, says the BBC.
• “Jailed for a Facebook post” – Isn’t it about time we had a sensible discussion about incitement to violence? asks Andrew Doyle on his Substack.
• “Keir Starmer is going on a terrifying crusade against free speech” – 55 year-old Cheshire woman is the victim of a witch hunt – and it’s all because the Prime Minister is desperate to shut down uncomfortable debate, says Isabel Oakeshott in the Telegraph.
• “Is justice turning into vengeance against some of the rioters?” – “Am I getting soft in my middle age, or are some of the sentences being handed down to the rioters a tad stiff?” asks Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Labour responds to riots by going after free speech” – More evidence has emerged that the recent rioting across Britain is being used as a pretext for further limiting freedom of speech, writes Michael Curzon in the European Conservative.
• “Free speech in Britain: readying the ratchet (again)” – Whatever else is happening, another front in the fight over online content has clearly now opened up, says Andrew Stuttaford in National Review.
• “Yvette Cooper has just confirmed that two tier policing is here to stay” – People don’t want officers chatting to ‘community leaders’. They want bobbies on the beat keeping our streets safe, writes Rory Geoghegan in the Telegraph.
• “A commonwealth of communities” – ‘Two-tier’ societies are inevitable, says Ed West on his Substack.
• “Keir Starmer should not dismiss riots as ‘far-Right thuggery’” – By wanting to be seen as adopting a ruthless law-and-order approach to the disorder, Starmer runs the risk of trivialising the summer riots, writes Rakib Ehsan in UnHerd.
• “Don’t blame football for the riots” – Hooligans didn’t cause Britain’s summer of violence, says Jonathan Wilson in UnHerd.
• “The tyranny of twee” – Ghastly Kumbaya-ism infests our times, writes Gareth Roberts in the Spectator.
• “A very British revolution” – For the first time in its history, Britain is in grip of state terror, says Pimlico Journal on Substack.
• “This sceptred isle” – On his Armas Substack, Joshua Treviño reflects on the riots in England and puts them into the context of a progressive regime that appears to have the history, heritage and native people of Britain.
• “Britain’s leaders have blinded themselves to the growing Islamist threat” – MPs are right to condemn the far-Right. They need to find a similar clarity of approach to other threats, says Tom Harris in the Telegraph, like Islamism.
• “Romanian migrant who falsely claimed he was chased in riots is jailed” – A migrant who broadcast a TikTok video falsely claiming he was being chased during the riots has been jailed for three months, reports the Mail.
• “White police officers lost out on job after order to pick Asian candidate” – Three white police officers have won a discrimination case after an employment judge ruled that they were passed over for promotion because of their race, says the Telegraph.
• “Meet Britain’s asylum hotel tycoon” – Even if you’ve never stayed at a Britannia hotel, as a British taxpayer, you’ve helped line the pockets of Alex Langsam, the so-called “Asylum King”, who has profited from Home Office contracts to house asylum seekers, writes Robert Watts in UnHerd.
• “Watch out, Sue Gray’s about – but how powerful is she really?” – She became famous as the Partygate investigator. Now, Sue Gray is Keir Starmer’s gatekeeper. Is she as tough as some say, wonders Damian Whitworth in the Times.
• “Labour kicks out non-execs given Whitehall jobs by the Tories” – Labour has begun sacking independent Whitehall directors amid claims that ministers are “purging” the Government of advisers who were appointed under the Tories, reports the Times. File under things the Conservatives are too wet to do.
• “How the worklessness crisis has made Britain dangerously dependent on foreign labour” – Starmer’s goal of driving up GDP is in jeopardy, as 9.5 million people are economically inactive, says Tim Wallace in the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s failing universities need a basic lesson in economics” – Like any other broken business model, higher education requires reinvention – not bailouts, writes Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
• “Scottish Catholic boarding school closes citing Labour VAT plan” – Scotland’s only Catholic boarding school has closed with immediate effect, citing proposed changes to the VAT exemption for private schools as a factor, reports STV News.
• “Lessons about ‘fake news’ are indoctrination masquerading as education” – Labour is exploiting the unrest to bring politics into the classroom, says Joanna Williams in Spiked.
• “In defence of beauty” – In an article for the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, Robert Jenrick reacts to Labour’s troubling deletion of multiple references to “beauty” in the National Planning Policy Framework.
• “Elon Musk issues foul-mouthed retort to EU in clash over Donald Trump” – Elon Musk issued a foul-mouthed retort to Thierry Britton after he threatened action against his X social media site, reports the Mail.
• “Thierry Breton’s smug authoritarianism” – What is civilised about unaccountable, supranational bodies determining what can and cannot be said? asks Jacob Reynolds in the European Conservative.
• “It’s not all fake news on Twitter that Musk’s critics would ban. It’s fake news they don’t like” – It is not really ‘misinformation’ as such that bothers X’s progressive critics. It’s the fact that they are no longer quite as hegemonic on that platform as they once were, says Kristian Niemietz in the Telegraph.
• “If Jess Phillips hates Elon Musk’s Twitter/X so much, shouldn’t she just quit it?” – Politicians may dislike criticism on social media, but as a class they remain addicted to it, remarks Tom Slater in the Telegraph.
• “Duke of Sussex’s Chief of Staff quits after three months” – Prince Harry’s Chief of Staff Josh Kettler has left his position after just three months, with both sides agreeing “it wasn’t the right fit”, according to Tatler.
• “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘revolving door’ of employees” – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have now lost at least 18 staff since they married in 2018, with nine or more having left since they moved to California, reports the Mail.
• “British judge upholds sentences against Hong Kong activists” – Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, the British law lord who sits on Hong Kong’s highest court, has been condemned by human rights groups after he upheld the verdicts and prison sentences against some of the city’s leading pro-democracy activists, says the Times.
• “NHS has ‘blood on its hands’ over failings in treatment of Nottingham killer” – Services that cared for Nottingham knife attacker Valdo Calocane before he stabbed three people to death have been accused of having “blood on their hands”, reports Sky News.
• “AstraZeneca becomes Britain’s first £200 billion company” – AstraZeneca has become the first U.K. firm to be valued at £200 billion as its push into developing a pipeline of cancer drugs pays off, says This is Money.
• “European Vaccination Card will be piloted in five countries” – A European Vaccination Card, set to be piloted in Latvia, Greece, Belgium, Germany and Portugal from September, aims to “empower individuals” by consolidating all their vaccination data in one location, according to Vaccines Today.
• “Deranged regime virologoid Christian Drosten explains that lockdowns were necessary in Germany because Germans lack education, social cohesion and respect for Government recommendations” – On Substack, Eugyppius lights into German virologist Christian Drosten.
• “Galleri promises to detect multiple cancers – but new evidence casts doubt on this much hyped blood test” – A widely trialled blood test in England is facing growing scrutiny as evidence mounts against its use as an early cancer screening tool, write Margaret McCartney and Deborah Cohen in the BMJ.
• “TfL fare crackdown cost 20 times more than it saved” – A crackdown on London Tube and bus fare dodgers cost around 20 times more than it clawed back over the past year, reports the BBC.
• “Chris Packham is winning the war for the British countryside” – If green activists have their way, it won’t only be this season that grouse will be missing from menus, says Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph.
• “China just built the biggest ever offshore oil platform. There is no green energy ‘transition’” – New technology is unlocking new oil and gas fields – and the world is buying, just not the West, writes David Blackmon in the Telegraph.
• “Minister vows to save Italy’s Vespas from ‘eco-craziness’ of EU” – Matteo Salvini’s nationalist League Party wants to protect the Vespa, a symbol of Italian culture and postwar freedom, from future environmental restrictions, says James Imam in the Times.
• “Gender clinic now accepting only children backed by experts can still treat 1,000 self-referrals” – A Scottish child gender clinic dubbed the “tartan Tavistock” will still treat more than 1,000 children and young people who believe they are trans, despite not accepting self-referrals, reports the Telegraph.
• “‘Doctors refused to let me admit my transition was a mistake. Now I want to reverse it’” – As the NHS commits to help people reverse gender-altering surgery, the Telegraph talks to one patient who says it can’t happen soon enough.
• “Justin Welby ‘plainly wrong’ over blacklisting of gender-critical chaplain” – A leading lawyer working for the church has ruled that the Archbishop of Canterbury was “plainly wrong” to dismiss concerns about the blacklisting of a gender-critical chaplain, according to Head Topics.
• “Just Stop Oil – Cressida’s brother opens up!” – A parody video on X reveals the enormous strain eco-activist Cressida Gethin’s incarceration has placed on her brother’s wedding plans.

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