News Round-Up

• “Starmer would lose majority if Jenrick were Tory leader, poll shows” – A survey by Electoral Calculus suggests Robert Jenrick could wipe out Labour’s majority by taking 57 seats off Labour, more than the 30 his rival Kemi Badenoch would gain, the Telegraph reports.
• “Clear and honest, Kemi Badenoch is best placed to lead the Tory revival” – She has the spirit and attention to detail that a leader of the opposition needs and can restore the party’s reputation for competence, argues ex-Tory Chairman Patrick McLoughlin in the Telegraph.
• “Only Jenrick has the conviction to pull us out of ECHR, say Right-wing Tories” – The grassroots Popular Conservatives faction has backed Jenrick because of his “determination” to leave the ECHR, according to the Telegraph.
• “Plans for Tory leadership debate on BBC collapse” – Plans for a BBC debate between Tory leadership rivals Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick appear to have collapsed, the Telegraph reports, after the party refused to sanction the event – though Jenrick is still indicating he’d be willing to go ahead with an unauthorised debate, as occurred in 2022, but Kemi is saying no.
• “Farage is going for Labour. Now Reform and the Tories should become the best of frenemies.” – The next Conservative leader should ape Nigel Farage’s new tactic by not getting fixated about him and simply pounding this awful Labour Government every single day instead, argues Patrick O’Flynn on Substack.
• “Reeves’s Budget to be biggest tax raiser in history” – Rachel Reeves is poised to launch the biggest Budget tax raid in history, the Telegraph reports.
• “Reeves’s web of lies can no longer conceal her dystopian plan for Britain” – The game is up, says Allister Heath in the Telegraph. Labour’s tax increases – justified by a confected fiscal crisis – could be the largest on record, shattering its manifesto pledges.
• “Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service” – Labour has appointed more than 200 “cronies” to the Civil Service without competition since the General Election, the Telegraph reveals.
• “Science Secretary broke ministerial code by hiring donor firm employee, say Tories” – Top frontbencher Peter Kyle has been accused of breaking the ministerial code over the hiring of a businesswoman whose firm donated £67,000 to Labour, reports the Telegraph.
• “What happened to ‘Mr Rules’? Keir Starmer won’t refer himself to his own standards adviser to check whether he broke rules as row over Taylor Swift’s VIP police escort deepens… as yet another minister discloses free gig tickets” – Downing Street said the Prime Minister would not be asking Sir Laurie Magnus, his Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, to look into the matter, reports the Mail.
• “Peter Kyle is sixth Cabinet Minister to admit taking Swift tickets” – The Technology Secretary declared a gift of two tickets worth £584, reports the Times.
• “Drug dealers, fraudsters and burglars among 1,000 inmates to be freed next week” – Drug dealers, fraudsters and burglars will be among more than 1,000 prisoners jailed for over five years who will be freed early to ease jail overcrowding next week, the Telegraph reports.
• “Baroness Finlay: ‘Labour’s assisted dying bill is dangerous – it could have unintended consequences’” – The Lords’ only resident palliative care expert warns Labour’s bill risks a “slippery slope” to coercion by relatives and “doctor shopping”, the Telegraph reports.
• “If we legalise assisted dying, we’ll bitterly regret it” – Campaigners may be acting with the best of intentions, but legalising assisted suicide breaks every ethical code we have, says the Telegraph‘s Michael Deacon, with other countries clearly showing where it quickly leads.
• “Where the Archbishop has called it right” – In a leading article, the Telegraph agrees with Justin Welby that jurisdictions that have legalised assisted dying have often found themselves on a “dangerous slippery slope”.
• “Russia retakes half of lost Kursk territory in blow to Zelensky” – Russia has recaptured half of the territory it lost to Ukraine in Kursk, a region central to Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan to defeat Vladimir Putin, the Telegraph reports.
• “Israel labels Macron a ‘disgrace to the French nation’” – Emmanuel Macron is a “disgrace to the French nation”, Israel’s Defence Minister said on Wednesday after Paris banned Israeli firms from exhibiting at a weapons show, the Telegraph reports.
• “Influential MP reveals astonishing insights on Covid Govt.” – Senior Tory Graham Brady sits down with Lucy Johnston of Collateral Global to discuss his book Kingmaker and the terrible legacy of pandemic-era measures, many of which he opposed at the time.
• “Thank you for your trust and support!” – Alex Berenson gives an update on his U.S. free speech and Government censorship case, Berenson v Biden.
• “Britain’s lax immigration policy is making it an outlier” – In the blink of an eye, Britain has gone from being the whipping boy of liberal media and pro-migration NGOs alike, to the only major European country supporting a status quo that renders borders largely illusory, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
• “Sadiq Khan seizes hundreds of non-Ulez-compliant cars from drivers – and sells them off” – Transport for London says more than 1,400 vehicles were seized by bailiffs in 12 months for non-payment of ultra-low emission zone fees, the Telegraph reports.
• “Fires, Pollution and Slavery: EVs’ Ugly Truth” – The romanticisation of EVs is one more fabrication of a green delusion that presents more threats than benefits to public health and safety, says Vijay Jayaraj in WUWT.
• “I’m buying a generator. Who would want to invest in blackout Britain?” – The threat of power cuts loom over the Christmas holidays. Blame Mad Ed Miliband and his destructive Net Zero obsession, says the Telegraph‘s Allison Pearson.
• “Just Rule Everything” – The crime is humanity; the punishment is soup, says Dr. David McGrogan on his News From Uncibal Substack.
• “Not saying hello to a colleague could break law, says judge” – A tribunal has ruled in favour of an unfair dismissal case in part because a boss’s lack of greeting was “likely” to have “undermined the confidence” of the employee, reports the Telegraph.
• “Hair-Trigger Warning” – Trigger warnings for “expressions of Christian faith” in Chaucer? This week’s prize for the stupidest university in Britain goes to Nottingham University, says Dr. Roger Watson in the New Conservative.
• “Elon Musk and woke capital are locked in a battle for the future of America” – This election has exposed the sharp divisions between the U.S.’s new feudal elites, says Joel Kotkin in the Telegraph.
• “Samuel Paty was killed on October 16th, 2020” – The MyBodyThisPaperThisFire Substack marks the fourth anniversary of the gruesome killing of Samuel Paty, the teacher who was stabbed and beheaded by an Islamist militant near the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, outside of Paris.
• “Woke Is Here To Stay” – The fallout over Tony Dokoupil’s interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates shows that woke ideas have permeated the institutions, says Sam Kahn in Persuasion.
• “Samaritans suspends volunteer who criticised trans activists” – Samaritans volunteer Robert Laverick was suspended after he publicly called on the charity to sever its ties with a radical trans activist group, the Telegraph reports.
• “Army veteran convicted over silent prayer for aborted son outside clinic” – Army veteran Adam Smith-Connor has been convicted and fined £9,000 after praying silently outside an abortion clinic for his own unborn son, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why British Black Africans are so patriotic” – A new report by Policy Exchange has found that Britons of Black African origin are one of the most patriotic and socially integrated ethnic-minority groups in the modern U.K., with Christian faith being central to that dynamic, says Rakib Ehsan in UnHerd.
• “Labour is in denial about knife crime” – The party ignores the causes of urban warfare, says David Matthews in UnHerd.
• “Judge judged for ‘ill-judged’ jokes” – A judge has been reprimanded for sharing jokes, anecdotes and moral lessons with a court employee. Sadly, the ruling didn’t provide any examples, says Jamie Hamilton in Roll on Friday.
• “Importance of cosmic rays and clouds in recent warming” – Watch Stephen Andrews on the Tom Nelson Podcast talking about the overlooked science that counters the alarmist climate narrative.

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