News Round-Up

• “Majority of Britons receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes” – According to the ONS, over half of U.K. households received more in state benefits than they paid in taxes last year, reports the Telegraph.
• “How Britain’s water supply spiralled into chaos – and why hiking prices could be the only solution” – Water privatisation in the 1980s made sense, but the mess that followed has left consumers paying the price, writes Jonathan Ford in the Telegraph.
• “Ofwat has failed to defend consumers” – The water regulator has allowed a privatisation that should have worked well to become a fiasco, says the Telegraph in a leading article.
• “Fixing Britains sewers will be fantastically expensive” – If we want a reliable water supply, we are going to have to pay for it, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Labour’s U-turn on libel reform is a threat to free speech” – Labour have changed their tune on reforming our overzealous libel laws, notes James Rose in CapX.
• “Starmer is on the brink of erasing Brexit – but Kemi can still rescue it” – Labour has a huge majority and can ram through any EU deal it likes. But the Tories can still make life difficult, says David Frost in the Telegraph.
• “‘No regrets about decisions I’ve made’” – Keir Starmer says he has no regrets about the decisions he has made in the past six months and would do nothing differently, according to the Telegraph.
• “Only decisive leadership will transform Whitehall – this isn’t it” – Labour’s manifesto promised radical reform, but reality has fallen far short, says Eliot Wilson in CapX.
• “Liaison committee grilling turns PM into Starmer-flavoured stock” – In the Telegraph, Madeline Grant reports on Keir Starmer’s cringeworthy grilling by the Liaison Committee, where even his own MPs took turns poking holes in his “plan for change”.
• “Mandelson to be named U.S. ambassador ” – In appointing Peter Mandelson as the new U.S. ambassador, Starmer has chosen a political veteran rich in experience, but also burdened by a fair amount of baggage, says James Heale in the Spectator.
• “When will they see the light (or lack of it)?” – In TCW, Ivor Williams blasts the Government’s blind faith in wind power, showing with brutal graphs how Britain’s energy future teeters on the brink of disaster.
• “U.K.’s online censorship law drives small websites to shut down” – In Reclaim The Net, Didi Rankovic reveals how the U.K.’s Online Safety Act is crushing small sites like Microcosm with draconian liability laws.
• “What tech company would do business in Britain?” – The pernicious effects of the Online Safety Act are now being felt, says Fred de Fossard in CapX.
• “MPs to debate Lucy Letby case as lawyers seek fresh appeal” – The Lucy Letby case will be debated in Parliament in January, the Telegraph has learned, after the former nurse’s lawyers said they would seek a fresh appeal.
• “Letters from America – part three” – On Substack, Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan warn against further surrender of sovereignty to global health bureaucrats.
• “Yale researchers have found Covid spike protein in the blood of people never infected with Covid – years after they got mRNA jabs” – On Substack, Alex Berenson unpacks Yale University’s discovery of persistent Covid spike protein in vaccinated individuals.
• “German ‘diversity’ Christmas market banned for selling Hamas gifts” – An evangelical church congregation in Germany could face criminal charges for holding an “anti-colonial” Christmas market that sold banned Hamas symbols, reports the Telegraph.
• “Biden was never President: the full truth must come out” – In the Mail, Maureen Callahan blows the lid off the idea that Joe Biden was ever in charge, revealing that a hidden cabal has been running the presidency all along, while the world watched.
• “The U.K. will miss Andrew Doyle and Graham Linehan” – Andrew Doyle and Graham Linehan’s departure for the U.S. is a damning indictment of the state of artistic freedom in Britain, says Simon Evans in Spiked.
• “BBC refuses to play anti-Starmer Christmas song, as it hits No.1 in downloads chart” – A parody song taking aim at Keir Starmer for stripping millions of pensioners of their winter fuel payments has topped download charts, but those behind it are blasting radio stations for refusing to play it, reports the Mail.
• “J.K. Rowling and the tweet that changed the trans debate” – In Spiked, Lauren Smith marks five years since the Harry Potter author first took on the scourge of gender ideology.
• “Sports inequity” – The goal of modern academic life is to make us believe six impossible things before breakfast, or at least to make us behave as if we did, writes Theodore Dalrymple in the Critic.
• “Eamonn Holmes’s GB News co-host Isabel Webster and star Mark Dolan axed” – GB News has sacked a top presenter for being “too woke”, shaken up the schedule by axing another star and slashed Jacob Rees-Mogg’s shifts, reveals the Mail.

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