News Round-Up

• “Asian man who posed as far-Right hooligan to stir up racial hatred against Muslims is jailed” – An Asian man who posed as a far-Right hooligan on Telegram to lure the English Defence League into an ambush has been jailed for more than two years, reports the Mail. 
• “Prisoner freed early by Starmer back in jail 48 hours later” – A former actor freed from jail early under Keir Starmer’s prisoner release scheme is back behind bars after assaulting his ex-partner, according to LBC.
• “Starmer is running out of options to stop the boats” – Labour’s interest in Italy suggests it isn’t as confident in the strategy of smashing the gangs as it might have claimed, notes Guy Dampier in the Telegraph.
• “The Netherlands demand opt-out of EU migration rules” – The Netherlands has become the first EU country to demand an opt-out of mandatory EU migration rules to try to reduce the number of refugees coming in, reports the Mail.
• “Quarter of pupils with three Ds at A-level get first-class degrees” – According to the Telegraph, the Office for Students has found that almost half of top degrees cannot be justified.
• “Labour ‘risking security of nation’ with private school tax raid” – Rachel Reeves is under pressure to raise the private school allowance for military families by 20%, effectively exempting them from the tax raid, reports the Telegraph. 
• “Starmer’s spiteful war on private schools has betrayed military families” – There are few benefits to Army life and the Labour Government has just removed another, says Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in the Telegraph.
• “Reeves’s £10 billion windfall raises pressure to drop winter fuel cut” – Rachel Reeves has been given a £10 billion budget boost by the Bank of England, increasing pressure on her not to cut the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, according to the Times.
• “Starmer initially failed to declare money towards clothing from Lord Alli” – Keir Starmer initially failed to disclose that he received £16,200 of free clothing from Labour donor Lord Waheed All, reports the FT.
• “PM says it would ‘cost the taxpayer a fortune’ if he didn’t accept free Arsenal tickets” – Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to justify accepting free box tickets at Arsenal are making a difficult situation even more embarrassing, reports Sky News.
• “Keir Starmer’s glaring hypocrisy is why Two-Tier Keir is now a household name” – We can see Free Gear Keir or Two Tier Keir for exactly what he is – the same kind of crooked politician who puts himself before the rest of the country, says Matt Goodwin on his Substack.
• “Socialism means never having to say you’re sorry” – In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer liked to preach about Tory avarice. Meanwhile, he takes every freebie going, writes David Frost in the Telegraph.
• “Head of Civil Service expected to resign amid tensions with Sue Gray” – Britain’s most senior civil servant is expected to formally resign next month amid tensions with Sue Gray, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Hope Not Hate embeds itself into Labour Government” – Two of the six trustees of Hope Not Hate have now made their way into Parliament as Labour MPs. And it doesn’t stop there, says Guido Fawkes.
• “Labour councillor caught ‘covered in lipstick’ in illegal sex den promoted” – A Labour councillor who was caught in a police raid of an illegal brothel has been promoted to the leader of his local authority, reports GB News.
• “The gap between those in corporate and public sector jobs and those who are self employed or work in SMEs is growing ever wider” – Despite claims to be champions of growth, the Government is creating working cultures that are anything but and appear to be doing so at the behest of an increasingly privileged nomenklatura, says C.J. Strachan on his Substack.
• “‘I went from middle class to working class after McDonald’s job’” – Kemi Badenoch claims that serving burgers and cleaning toilets alongside single parents at McDonald’s taught her “humility”, according to Sky News.
• “Nigel Farage surrenders ‘all my shares’ in Reform U.K. as he gives up ownership ahead of party conference” – Reform members can now remove Farage, or any other party leader, in a no-confidence vote, reports GB News.
• “The Huw Edwards case exposes the sickening priorities of our justice system” – Why are pedophiles treated more leniently than those responsible for ‘grossly offensive’ speech? asks Fraser Myers in Spiked.
• “The tyranny of lawyers” – The big lie is that our courts are above the fray and never beholden to the ephemeral influence of politics, says Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
• “U.K. interest rates held at 5%” – The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5% after voting by 8-1 for no change to monetary policy, reports the BBC.
• “High street giant warns of store closures after losing £30 million legal battle” – Next says it could be forced to close stores after losing a landmark legal battle over equal pay, according to the Sun.
• “‘Now we’re afraid of phones and laptops’: Beirut on edge after attacks” – After pagers and walkie-talkies exploded across Lebanon, people in the capital are wary and expect Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel, says Edmund Bower in the Times.
• “Lebanon warns Israeli invasion will be ‘doomsday’” – Lebanon’s ambassador to the U.K. says the Middle East is on a “perilous path” and an escalation of the conflict could lead to the radicalisation of a new generation in Europe, reports the Times.
• “Israeli jets disrupt Hezbollah leader’s speech” – Israeli jets triggered huge sonic booms during a speech by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to LBC.
• “It’s time to let Ukraine join Nato” – We must abandon the idea that the Ukrainians will do a deal. They have fought too long, says Boris Johnson in the Spectator.
• “Why the rapid death of North Sea risks leaving taxpayers on the hook for billions” – Reeves’s looming tax raid on oil and gas threatens an eye-watering bill for British households, writes Jonathan Leake in the Telegraph.
• “Why Ed Miliband risks a smart meter shock” – If Labour intends to follow through on its Net Zero commitments, homeowners will not only have to be sold on the benefits of smart meters – they will need more confidence that the devices actually work, says James Titcomb in the Telegraph.
• “Ed Miliband’s Net Zero agenda will leave Britain in the dark” – If Labour continues to drive us down the path to Net Zero, none of us should be surprised to see more power cuts, more often, warns James Woudhuysen in Spiked.
• “SNP scrap ban on woodburning stoves after rural backlash” – The Scottish Government have scrapped plans to outlaw the use of wood and peat-burning sources of heating after concerns were raised by rural residents who rely on them during power cuts, reports the Scottish Express.
• “Abolish the NHS to save lives, institute demands” – In a new report, the IEA calls for the NHS to be replaced with a system of social insurance, given that countries with such models achieve far better outcomes.
• “3.9 million on sickness benefits as Covid continues to take toll” – According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, one in 10 adults of working age are on sickness benefits amid a surge in claims for mental health conditions, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ministers have learnt nothing from lockdown” – Teachers should be more present in schools, not less. So why are politicians promoting the opposite? asks Isabel Oakeshott in the Telegraph.
• “Covid emerged from animals at Wuhan ‘wet market’ insist scientists” – Scientists believe they’ve uncovered the true origin of the Covid pandemic – and have rejected the theory that it leaked from a laboratory, reports the Mail.
• “COVID-19 vaccine counting window issues confirmed in Government reports, and they won’t/can’t share the data” – New South Wales’s Covid vaccine data is being slammed for mixing up the jabbed and unjabbed, sparking suspicions of a government cover-up, writes Dr. Raphael Lataster on his Substack.
• “A stunning new paper suggests Covid jabs sharply raise the risk of death or heart failure after heart attacks” – A new Spanish study finds that Covid vaccines might double the risk of death or heart failure after a heart attack, says Alex Berenson on his Substack.
• “Collider bias and the problem with vaccine case-control studies” – On the WATN? Substack, Profs Norman Fenton and Martin Neil highlight how ‘collider bias’ can skew vaccine study results, revealing misleading efficacy claims in recent COVID-19 data reanalyses.
• “Brains of conservative voters have larger ‘fear centre’” – MRI scans show that the amygdala – the organ involved in processing negative stimuli such as threats – is smaller in those who see themselves as progressive, according to Health Imaging.
• “Conservatism and human nature” – Conservatives accept mankind’s flaws and value order and discipline, avoiding idealistic visions of a perfect society, writes Bo Winegard on the Aporia Substack.
• “The New Yorker doesn’t care about facts when they’re making shit up about Trump” – The Donald destroyed journalists’ ability to think clearly, but do they even care? wonders Paul D. Thacker on his Substack.
• “Biden-Harris border official claims cover-up as he was allegedly ordered to hide release of migrants” – The former Border Patrol official responsible for securing nearly 1,000 miles of America’s frontier claims the Biden-Harris administration intentionally covered up the ongoing migrant crisis, according to the NY Post.
• “The Amish: a control group for ‘technofeudalism’” – Because the Amish have rejected modern life, they have effectively become a control group for the ills of Big Tech, Big Education and corporatised medicine, says Tracy Thurman for the Brownstone Institute.
• “Free speech under global attack” – A Freedom Research video compilation of global attacks on free speech shows a concerted effort in different countries to push Western civilisation closer to authoritarianism.
• “Man who prayed for his unborn son near abortion goes on trial” – An Afghanistan veteran who “hid behind a tree” near an abortion clinic to silently pray for his unborn child has gone on trial accused of breaching a prohibition on protesting in the “buffer zone” surrounding abortion clinics, says the Mail.
• “Female pianists favoured over men under major competition’s rules” – The jury of the Leeds International Piano Competition has been instructed, in the case of a tie between a male and female contestant, to “consider advancing her first”, reports the Telegraph.
• “Charity head ‘won’t quit’ over hindering of rape victims’ access to female counsellors” – The head of a charity that oversees Scotland’s rape crisis centres has refused to quit after a report found that victims were “damaged” by a policy that obstructed their access to biologically female counsellors, says the Telegraph.
• “Scotland became the laboratory for trans extremism – and it’s not just the SNP’s fault” – North of the border, Holyrood is not alone in capitulating to gender extremism, notes Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “How Britain ‘hugely overstated’ its trans population” – For the first time ever, Britain’s most trusted source of statistics stands accused of publishing false census data, says Sanchez Manning in the Telegraph.
• “The trouble with Trafalgar Square’s transgender tribute” – How and why did trans people become the focus of Londoners’ attention on the fourth plinth? asks Debbie Hayton in the Spectator.
• “The latest fourth plinth excrescence proves Britain has become a self-loathing country” – The long march of gender ideology through the institutions has now arrived at the door of Trafalgar Square, says Lara Brown in the Telegraph.
• “Can a Dachshund be ‘genderfluid’?” – Let’s hope that with the case of the transgender Dachshund we have reached peak gender lunacy, writes Lauren Smith in Spiked.
• “Schoolboy ‘allowed to identify as a wolf’” – A schoolboy is understood to have been allowed by his school to “identify” as a wolf after suffering from “species dysphoria”, according to GB News.
• “Ricky Gervais has become an anti-woke champion – but is it just his latest act?” – Ricky Gervais has charged into the culture wars – and gained a new Right-wing audience, says Liam Kelly in the Telegraph.
• ““Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest”” – Pressure to ban X is growing in both America and Europe, warns Hannes Sarv on the Freedom Research Substack.
• “A singer in the UK is going viral for taking to the streets to sing the things he isn’t allowed to say on Facebook!” – Matt Wallace flags up a protest singer in Leicester Square on X.

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