News Round-Up

• “Record number of migrants granted asylum” – The number of asylum seekers being granted refugee status has hit the highest level since records began nearly 40 years ago, reports LBC.
• “Child rapist is spared jail due to the prison overcrowding crisis” – A convicted child rapist has escaped jail because of the overcrowding crisis in Britain’s prisons, with a judge admitting that time behind bars would have been “virtually inevitable” otherwise, reports the Mail.
• “Yvette Cooper’s ridiculous war on ‘extremism’” – The political class is desperate to expand the definition of ‘extremism’, while downplaying where the biggest threat lies, says Tom Slater in Spiked.
• “David Davis vows to scrap U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty in memory of Mike Lynch” – According to the Telegraph, David Davis has vowed to campaign against the extradition treaty with the U.S. in the wake of Mike Lynch’s death.
• “GCSE results 2024: grades show growing North-South divide in England” – This year’s GCSE results showed a slight fall in top grades and a growing North-South divide in England, says the Times.
• “Private education extends GCSE lead over state schools” – Private schools have widened their lead over state schools in this year’s GCSE results, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour under pressure from TUC to repeal Thatcher’s anti-union laws” – A key union backer will put Keir Starmer under pressure to repeal all Margaret Thatcher’s anti-strike laws at next month’s Trades Union Congress, says the Telegraph.
• “Labour ‘could bring back EU free movement for the under-30s’” – Labour is considering restarting EU freedom of movement for under-30s as it seeks to “reset” the U.K.’s relationship with Brussels, reports the Mail.
• “Labour membership sinks to lowest level in 10 years under Starmer” – The Labour Party lost 37,000 members last year, bringing its total membership at the end of 2023 to 370,450, its lowest level in a decade, says the Telegraph.
• “‘I just cancelled my TV licence’” – On Substack, Ian Price reveals how the BBC’s description of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as “moderate and pragmatic” was the final straw that made him cancel his TV licence.
• “Jermaine Jenas maintains there are ‘two sides to every story’” – Jermaine Jenas has insisted there are ‘two sides to every story’ during an awkward TalkSport interview after he was sacked from the BBC for inappropriate behaviour, reports the Mail.
• “Taxpayers fund Chinese opera as foreign aid handed to overseas regions richer than parts of U.K.” – British foreign aid has bankrolled Chinese opera, cycle lanes in Mexico and road schemes in Malaysia, says the Express.
• “The new ‘National Wealth Fund’ is catnip for useful idiots” – The U.K.’s new National Wealth Fund is underwhelming in size and doomed to be wasteful and ineffective, according to the Pimlico Journal on Substack.
• “The fame-hungry Lib Dems are a national embarrassment” – The Lib Dems have squandered their electoral success to instead pursue gimmicky stunts, says William Atkinson in the Telegraph.
• “Nicola Sturgeon wanted to ‘save’ Scotland. Instead she’s turned it into a drug-addled disaster” – There can be no passing of blame onto Westminster for Holyrood’s utter failure to reduce drug deaths, writes Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “SNP membership falls by half following Sturgeon arrest and police investigation” – The SNP’s membership has continued to plummet as newly released figures show the party has lost 10,000 activists over the last year, reports STV News.
• “Ed Miliband’s oil tax ‘puts thousands of British jobs at risk’” – Industry leaders have warned that Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves’s proposed tax on oil and gas could jeopardise thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs, according to Share Talk.
• “Net Zero is sinking to new lows” – Labour’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030 is both impossible and dangerous, warns Craig Mackinlay in the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s ‘self-destructive’ Net Zero policies sparked riots, says Trump” – Donald Trump has blamed Britain’s “self-destructive” Net Zero policies for causing the summer riots, reports the Express.
• “Creation of more 20mph zones and LTNs backed by Transport Secretary” – The Transport Secretary has backed the creation of more 20mph speed limit zones and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), says the Telegraph.
• “Two men attacked Ulez camera with gardening shears” – Two men caused nearly £3,000 worth of damage to an Ulez camera in Walthamstow when they attacked it with gardening shears, according to the Telegraph.
• “Irrational fear of climate crisis and the new green colonialism” – On the Freedom Research podcast, Hannes Sarv speaks with Dr. Matthew Wielicki, who argues that, based on observable data, our climate cannot be said to be in crisis.
• “Farrow & Ball told to make names like ‘Dead Salmon’ ‘vegan-friendly’” – Animal activists are demanding that Farrow & Ball change the names of paints like “Dead Salmon” and “Smoked Trout” to more “vegan-friendly” alternatives, reports the Mail.
• “Starbucks new boss under fire for 1,000-mile commute” – Starbucks’s incoming Chief Executive Brian Niccol is under fire over the company’s offer for him to commute around 1,000 miles (1,600km) by private jet, says the BBC.
• “On the Tunisian migrants terrorising Regensburg and the asylum advocates who insist they are merely ‘people’ who ‘have a right to a better life’” – Germany is welcoming people from well-developed North African countries who have no more claim to asylum than someone from the First World and who merely hope to get state benefits until they’re shipped back home, says Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Taxman pockets record £3 billion from NHS backlog” – HMRC is pocketing billions of pounds from tax on health insurance as NHS delays force thousands of patients to go private, according to the Telegraph.
• “The obese are crippling the NHS. It’s time to make them pay” – If you want to live on a diet consisting exclusively of cream horns and KFC, go ahead, but when you inevitably need treatment for the health problems your diet has caused, you should pay for it yourself, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “British healthcare is ‘bottom of the pack’ compared with other wealthy nations” – British healthcare is “languishing” compared with other wealthy nations, and is “bottom of the pack” on multiple fronts, a report has shown, says the Telegraph.
• “Scientists silencing science: the true harm in dismissing the lab-leak hypothesis” – Ignoring the lab-leak hypothesis undermines science and public health, writes James Lyons-Weiler on his Popular Rationalism Substack.
• “Australian Government blocks Covid inquiry ‘with teeth’” – The Australian Government has voted down a bill to establish a Covid Commission of Inquiry, writes Rebekah Barnett on her Substack.
• “FDA approves updated Pfizer, Moderna Covid vaccines as virus surges” – The FDA has approved updated Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, putting the new shots on track to reach most Americans in the coming days amid a summer surge of the virus, reports CNBC.
• “Books are being banned across Britain. We are not as tolerant as we pretend” – School librarians in the U.K. are being told to remove books from their shelves. Have we learned nothing from the 1980s? asks Ben Lawrence in the Telegraph.
• “Traveller pupils referred to as ‘mobile children’ under new guidance” – Gypsy and Roma traveller pupils are to be referred to as “mobile children” under new Government guidance, says the Mail.
• “Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub forces council to cut speed limit” – Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub is set to be so popular that the council is cutting speed limits and exploring other traffic-calming measures, according to the Telegraph.
• “Jack Daniel’s latest brand to scrap DEI after pressure from customers” – Jack Daniel’s has become the latest all-American brand to scrap its diversity efforts in the face of angry conservative customers and a potential damaging boycott, reports the NY Post.
• “How cultural Marxists exploit black people” – On the Courageous Discourse Substack, John Leake urges viewers to watch the documentary film Uncle Tom II, which argues that black people can only succeed by rejecting victimhood and embracing self-reliance.
• “Black student numbers fall by two-thirds at MIT after end of affirmative action” – The number of black students accepted to an elite U.S. university plummeted by two-thirds after a Supreme Court ruling banned affirmative action, reports Reuters.
• “In its ruling on Murthy vs Missouri, the U.S. Supreme Court harmed free speech” – On his Illusion of Consensus Substack, Prof. Jay Bhattacharya argues that the recent Supreme Court ruling in Murthy vs Missouri effectively renders the First Amendment a dead letter in the social media age.
• “RFK Jr. is planning to drop out of the 2024 Presidential race and endorse Trump” – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. intends to end his independent Presidential campaign and endorse former President Donald Trump, according to NBC News.
• “Rep. Waltz suggests Crooks didn’t act alone in assassination attempt” – According to one of the members of Congress investigating the shooting, Thomas Matthew Crooks may not have been acting alone when he attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, reports the Mail.
• “Taliban morality police dismiss over 280 men without beards from security forces” – The Taliban’s morality ministry dismissed more than 280 members of the security force for failure to grow a beard, according to Reuters.
• “‘How far-Left are we admitting to being here?’” – A spoof phone conversation on X between Kamala Harris and her VP pick, Governor Tim Walz, has them war-gaming their campaign strategy for the upcoming Presidential election. Very funny.

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