News Round-Up

• “Nigel Farage paves way for Reform/Tory ‘mega party’ with Boris” – Nigel Farage is prepared to work with Boris Johnson to defeat Labour “in the national interest”, sources close to the Reform UK leader have told the Mail on Sunday.
• “Why Nigel Farage will never form a pact with Boris Johnson” – The Reform Party leader would have to be off his rocker to bring the creator of the vast “Boriswave” of migrants in from the cold, says Patrick O’Flynn on his Substack.
• “Chagos deal will cost Britain £52 billion, Farage claims” – Nigel Farage says that Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal will cost the British taxpayer £52 billion over 99 years, according to the Express.
• “The Falklands War heralded the end of British decline – the Chagos betrayal shows it’s back” – The self-hatred of our legal elites goes a long way to explaining why Starmer is embarking on the worst deal of the century, says Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph.
• “Here’s what we know so far about the ‘random’ Stoneybatter attack” – A non-Irish national in his late 20s has been arrested after three men were injured in a knife attack in North Dublin, reports Gript.
• “Taxpayers face ‘astronomical’ £200 billion bill for mass migration” – The Centre for Policy Studies warns that, without changes to residency rules, taxpayers could face a £200 billion bill for mass migration, according to the Mail.
• “Immigration is out of control: this 10-year plan could fix it” – There’s a growing consensus that Britain has become over reliant on migrants, says David Goodhart in the Telegraph. Keir Starmer could rally Labour voters behind a cross-party push for reform.
• “Denmark’s ‘zero refugee’ policy drives down asylum admissions to record low” – Denmark’s strict immigration policies resulted in the granting of just 860 asylum requests last year, the lowest number with the exception of 2020, when COVID-19 lockdowns halted new arrivals, reports the Local Denmark.
• “Albanian criminal’s deportation halted over son’s distaste for chicken nuggets” – An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Why immigration and free speech are incompatible” – After Islamists murdered a man in Sweden last week, the authorities have responded by criminalising the offence that offended Muslims in the first place, laments Dan Hannan in the Washington Examiner.
• “Islamophobia and the politicisation of Islam” – In the New Conservative, Kim Rye slams Labour’s fixation on Islamophobia while ignoring the rise of political Islam.
• “‘I gave Met Police name and address of the man who burgled me. They did nothing’” – The Met have refused to investigate a burglary even after the victim handed them the thief’s name and address – found on a bail form left behind after the raid, according to the Telegraph.
• “Blaming the cutlery” – In the New Conservative, Frank Haviland slams the absurdity of blaming knives for London’s crime wave.
• “Lord Hermer ‘advised Caribbean nations on slavery reparations’” – Britain’s Attorney General previously helped Caribbean nations prepare legal demands for reparations from the UK, reports GB News.
• “Second Labour MP in sacked minister’s WhatsApp group named” – A second Labour MP has been named as being part of a WhatsApp group with the sacked minister who joked about a constituent being “mown down” by a truck, says the Standard.
• “Prosecute ex-Labour minister for sexist and racist WhatsApps, says ex-chief inspector” – An ex-Met chief inspector says the force must investigate Andrew Gwynne over offensive comments to avoid accusations of “two-tier policing”, according to the Telegraph.
• “Cash-strapped schools plan to lay off teachers in blow to Labour’s promise” – Schools across England are being forced to make teachers and teaching assistants redundant to avoid going into deficit in a serious blow to the Government’s plans to improve education, reports the Guardian.
• “Oversubscribed state schools have no room for private pupils” – State schools have no spare places in some year groups across dozens of councils, prompting fears they would struggle to cope with increased demand as a result of Labour’s tax raid on private schools, says the Times.
• “Britain’s strictest headteacher victim of Government ‘hit job’” – Katharine Birbalsingh says she’s the target of a Government “hit job” after a Labour source accused her of lying about a row with Bridget Phillipson over plans to strip academies of their freedoms, according to the Telegraph.
• “A great state pension betrayal is now inevitable” – Britain is on course to become a much tougher place to be old, says Michael Mosbacher in the Telegraph.
• “UK willing to renegotiate online harm laws to avoid Trump tariffs” – The Government is willing to rework its Online Safety Act to avoid tariffs from Trump’s administration, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour in turmoil as Angela Rayner refuses to deny ‘Starmer jibe’” – A warts ’n’ all book claims the Deputy PM said Sir Keir Starmer couldn’t run a bath – and she hasn’t denied it, according to the Express.
• “Labour is doomed under Keir Starmer” – Cold, aloof, po-faced and priggish, the PM has set about alienating vast swathes of the electorate at breakneck pace, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
• “‘We’ve been stopped from voting because Reform would have got in’” – Local elections have been cancelled in nine areas of the UK, and residents of one Essex borough feel powerless to voice their discontent, writes Abigail Buchanan in the Telegraph.
• “Middle-classholes 1 – Harriet Harman” – Harriet Harman, the ultimate ‘middle-classhole’, never quite led Labour but shaped Britain forever with the Equality Act 2010, says Gareth Roberts in the first part of his Substack series on ghastly middle-class people.
• “BBC sends out millions of letters warning households of £1,000 fine amid TV licence crackdown” – The BBC has sent millions of letters warning households of potential £1,000 fines for not having a TV licence, reports GB News.
• “Scrapping the licence fee will force the BBC to excel” – Taxpayers are questioning the value of pumping money into a broadcaster that does not reflect their values, says John Hayes in the Telegraph.
• “The £40 billion nuclear project at risk of becoming another British white elephant” – The shadow of Hinkley Point C hangs over another much-needed power station, writes Matt Oliver in the Telegraph.
• “‘I was a green energy zealot – until I had a nightmare heat pump installed’” – More Britons are falling victim to “nightmare” heat pump conversions driven by ludicrous targets, says Tom Haynes in the Telegraph.
• “Labour shelves plans to make gender change easier” – In a step to counter Reform UK’s surge in the polls, Labour has mothballed plans to make it easier to legally change gender, reports the Mail.
• “Wes Streeting orders NHS staff to ‘get back to basics’ as he blasts wokery” – The Health Secretary has torn into the decision to “erase” the word woman from NHS documents, according to the Sun.
• “The NHS ‘double whammy’ undermining a £108 billion British industry” – NHS cost-cutting and heavy pharma levies are crippling the UK’s £108 billion life sciences sector, says Hannah Boland in the Telegraph.
• “The real truth about the Letby case: politics and corporate liability” – In the New Conservative, Brian Patrick Bolger explains how the Lucy Letby case is less about her guilt and more about NHS bureaucracy and corporate liability.
• “You are the enemy” – On the TTE Substack, Dr Tom Jefferson exposes the MHRA’s secretive, authoritarian vaccine oversight, where the public is treated as an enemy.
• “BBC refers to Palestinian prisoners in Israel as ‘hostages’” – The BBC has been forced to make an on-air correction after referring to Palestinian convicts as “hostages”, reports the Telegraph.
• “‘Saudi Arabia has ‘a lot of room’ to build a new Palestinian state’” – Benjamin Netanyahu has triggered outrage among Arab leaders after suggesting that a new Palestinian state could be established in Saudi Arabia, according to the Jerusalem Post.
• “Who really wants ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Middle East?” – If you marched on demos saying “Crush Israel”, then you can hardly complain about Trump’s mad vision for Gaza, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “Europe’s anti-Elon Musk space challenger is doomed to fail” – In the Telegraph, Matthew Lynn slams Europe’s space bid as a bloated, state-backed fiasco doomed to flop.
• “Jeff Bezos wins MoD contract amid concern over Musk satellite dominance” – Jeff Bezos has won what is thought to be his first military contract in Britain as Amazon seeks to forge closer ties with defence organisations, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump sure knows how to show up the ‘international community’” – By sanctioning the ICC, the President’s only crime was making a laughing stock of an existing joke, says Zoe Strimpel in the Telegraph.
• “Accenture ditches diversity and inclusion goals” – Forbes has compiled a list of all the companies rolling back DEI in the wake of Trump’s return to the White House.
• “‘Donald Trump is the best thing that could happen to the world’” – In the Telegraph, former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone talks to Oliver Brown about fatherhood in his nineties, Trump, Starmer and why he is selling his £500 million car collection.
• “In defence of Gino D’Acampo” – Hypocritical, woke ITV should not be able to play judge, jury and executioner with public figures, including their own stars, with zero evidence, says Dan Wootton on his Outspoken Substack.
• “London and the Murph” – On Substack, Paul Sutton reflects on a lifetime in London, with his Hamilton ‘Murph’ on his wrist, ticking proof that at least some things endure.
• “Risk of football pitch-sized asteroid hitting Earth doubles in a week” – The risk of a 90-metre asteroid striking Earth has nearly doubled to 2.3%, but there are no plans yet to build a spacecraft to deflect the rock, says the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s silent rape explosion” – A new documentary from the New Culture Forum reveals why rapes in the UK have quadrupled in the last 15 years – and why other European countries have seen the same. We all know why. Here’s the proof.

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