News Round-Up

• “Up to 11 dead in Sweden school shooting” – A gunman stormed a school in Sweden, killing 11 people and wounding up to a dozen more in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history, reports Reuters.
• “Football regulator’s financial powers pose ‘threat’ to Premier League” – Experts warn that legislation for an independent football regulator threatens to damage the Premier League’s status as one of the country’s leading global brands, says the Times.
• “If it ain’t broke” – English football is not broken, says Baroness Karen Brady in the Sun. So why is this inept Government trying to fix it?
• “Muslim Labour politician warns against Angela Rayner’s redefining of ‘Islamophobia’” – A senior Muslim Labour politician has warned Angela Rayner against adopting the APPG on British Muslims’ definition of Islamophobia, says the Telegraph.
• “Special protection for Islam will only encourage racists” – Plans to establish a government definition for anti-Muslim discrimination would usher in a blasphemy law by the back door, warns Jawad Iqbal in the Times.
• “On Islamophobia and migration, Labour are asking us to believe the impossible” – Angela Rayner’s new “de facto blasphemy law” is the kind of irresponsible “wokery” that has sadly become a daily feature of this government, says Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “‘Sufficient evidence’ to label Axel Rudakubana a terror threat” – The Home Secretary is considering banning knives with pointed ends before publication of a review into the handling of the Southport killer, reports the Times.
• “Rachel Reeves left with tough choice as fiscal headroom dwindles” – Economists warn that the Chancellor will either have to cut spending or raise taxes, says the Times.
• “Burnham’s night czar eviscerates Reeves” – The Spectator’s Steerpike reacts to Sacha Lord’s savaging of Rachel Reeves, blaming her tax hikes for job losses, pub closures and stalled growth.
• “Mind the gap” – The IFS funding gap analysis is out-of-place, misleading, biased and raises much bigger questions about the “independence” of the author, says Isabel Paterson on her Substack.
• “Britain’s £9 billion Chagos payment to rise under new inflation clause” – The true cost of Keir Starmer’s plan to give away the Chagos Islands could be far higher than previously thought after it was revealed Britain had agreed to link payments to Mauritius with inflation, reports the Express.
• “Keir Starmer has broken the special relationship” – Under Trump, the US is more pro-Brexit than the British Government, writes Nile Gardiner in the Telegraph.
• “Labour willing to work with Reform to oust SNP” – The Scottish Labour leader has said he would work with Reform UK as he tries to oust the SNP at next year’s Holyrood election, according to the Herald.
• “Reform will snatch away Labour’s red wall – and this time, for good” – Reform UK understands what the post-Brexit realignment really means, unlike the now discredited Tories, says Matthew Goodwin in the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s illiberal, two-tier justice system is now impossible to deny” – Trust in the police will continue to sink to record lows when justice is not seen to be done, warns Poppy Coburn in the Telegraph.
• “Starmer voice coach was not key worker, Labour sources admit” – Labour now admits that Keir Starmer’s voice coach met him in person during lockdown despite not being a key worker, according to the Telegraph.
• “The voice coach row reveals how Keir Starmer will come unstuck” – The news that the Prime Minister – the adenoidal android – has employed a voice coach is simply astonishing, says Gareth Roberts in the Spectator.
• “Keir Starmer had a voice coach for five years – but you probably haven’t noticed” – In the Telegraph, Ed Cumming casts a critical eye over Keir Starmer’s five-year vocal transformation.
• “Seven things we learnt from the new book on Keir Starmer” – The Times looks back at some of the most eye-catching revelations so far from a new book on Keir Starmer.
• “Did Starmer break lockdown rules?” – On the latest episode of Dixon/Cox, Nick Dixon and Paul Cox discuss the Starmer voice coach scandal, Angela Rayner’s new ‘Islamophobia’ council and Reform UK topping a major poll for the first time.
• “Asda and the absurdity of ‘work of equal value’” – If we are to have a healthy jobs market, the concept of ‘work of equal value’ needs to be struck out of equal pay legislation, says Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Net Zero threatens the UK’s future.” – Net Zero is the real catastrophe – gutting UK industry, jobs and energy security while politicians virtue-signal, writes Tom Ed on his Substack.
• “Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s USAID closure will hit BBC charity” – The US humanitarian relief agency being shut down by Musk and Trump has been funding the BBC’s Media Action charity to the tune of $3 million of American taxpayers’ money each year, reveals the Mail.
• “Cracks in Lucy Letby case are now gaping holes” – Never before in British legal history has such a highly respected group of medical experts come together to challenge the evidence against a convicted serial killer, writes Sarah Knapton in the Telegraph.
• “NHS ‘refuses’ to publish full Nottingham killer report over patient confidentiality” – The NHS is “refusing” to publish its full report into its failings in the treatment of the paranoid schizophrenic who carried out the Nottingham attacks because of patient confidentiality and data protection issues, reports Nottinghamshire Live.
• “The Covid dossier: a record of military and intelligence coordination of the global Covid event” – On the Dystopian Down Under Substack, Debbie Lerman and Sasha Latypova expose Covid as a global military-intelligence operation, not a public health event.
• “CIA says pandemic likely started from a lab” – On Substack, Paul D Thacker breaks down how the CIA’s recent lab leak assessment dismantles years of denial by virologists and science writers and proves Trump right.
• “Kennedy passes initial senate panel vote” – RFK Jr has cleared his first Senate hurdle for HHS Secretary. Now, with GOP swing votes in play and Big Pharma lurking, the real battle begins, says John Leake on the Courageous Discourse Substack.
• “Bill Gates says he would be diagnosed with autism if he was young today” – The Microsoft co-founder is the latest high-achiever to say he has neurodivergent characteristics, reports Sky News.
• “German political crisis deepens as protests against the CDU continue and suddenly no major party wants to govern with anybody else” – What is happening in Germany right now is crazy, says Eugyppius on Substack.
• “JD Vance hasn’t just defeated Rory Stewart – he’s exposed the hollowness of the globalist elites” – Cosmopolitans such as Rory Stewart have spent years insisting we must sacrifice our self-interest for the global “good”, says Annabel Denham in the Telegraph. They are now on the losing side of an argument they should never have been winning.
• “Rory Stewart is no match for JD Vance” – Rory Stewart is a privileged, self-important establishment figure who should think twice before challenging JD Vance, writes Julie Burchill in the Spectator.
• “Centrist dads like Rory Stewart were a byword for bland. Now they’re toxic” – Politicians and journalists once treated as the ‘grown-ups in the room’ are facing growing criticism for being out of touch, says George Chesterton in the Telegraph.
• “Don’t be fooled: Trump’s trade war victories are not what they seem” – Canada and Mexico have “surrendered” to Trump, but his trade war victories are just old deals in new wrapping, writes James Crisp in the Telegraph.
• “Purge begins as DOGE enters FBI to obtain names of 5,000 agents” – The FBI is being forced by Elon Musk’s DOGE to hand over the names of 5,000 officials who worked on January 6th cases, reports the Mail.
• “‘US will ‘take over’ Gaza’” – Donald Trump has declared that the US will “take over” the Gaza Strip and redevelop the war-torn region, according to AP News.
• “Tommy Robinson: guilty of being white and working class” – In the New Conservative, Neil Liversidge argues that Labour, once the party of the working class, now despises men like Tommy Robinson – not for his past, but for defying their multiculturalist orthodoxy.
• “NHS staff boasted of being ‘anti-white’, Streeting says in attack on diversity agendas” – The Health Secretary says that there are “some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion”, according to the Telegraph.
• “BT dumps diversity targets from bonuses” – BT is to scrap diversity measures in its manager bonus scheme in one of the clearest signs yet that British business is rethinking the role of DEI targets, reports the Telegraph.
• “‘LGBT’ is over – whether the BBC likes it or not” – Sexuality and gender are two completely different things, so credit to Trump for this return to common sense, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Trans girls to be banned from female sports in US schools and universities” – Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to “keep men out of women’s sports”, reports the Times.
• “Why do celebs pose in hospital beds with their surrogate babies?” – Lily Collins, along with other celebs, is facing a backlash for posing in hospital beds with surrogate babies, in a trend critics are likening to The Handmaid’s Tale, says the Mail.
• “Labour wants to get voters back but I’m not sure if this is seen as the big vote winner to do that” – The Spectator’s Katy Balls on GB News discussing Angela Rayner’s plans to set up a 16-person council to advise her on criminalising ‘Islamophobia’.

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