News Round-Up

• “Starmer faces down Labour rebels to drive through £6 billion benefits cuts” – Keir Starmer will press ahead with plans for £6 billion of benefit cuts despite a growing Labour backlash, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer braces for ‘absolute horror’ Labour benefits meltdown” – Keir Starmer is bracing for a showdown with Labour MPs on moves to cut the spiralling benefits bill, says the Mail.
• “What are Labour’s planned cuts to welfare benefits?” – In the Times, Chris Smyth breaks down Liz Kendall’s proposed welfare reforms.
• “Britain suffers growth downgrade in blow to Reeves” – Britain’s growth prospects have been downgraded for the next two years in the wake of Rachel Reeves’s tax raid and Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, reports LBC.
• “Labour minister opens door to wealth tax” – Emma Reynolds MP has hinted that Labour might bring in a wealth tax, as backbenchers push for a rethink before major welfare cuts, according to the Telegraph.
• “Should we ‘unite the Right’?” – On Substack, Pimlico Journal weighs up senior Conservatives and Reform UK proposals to ‘unite the Right’ and challenge Labour.
• “Albanian criminal allowed to stay in UK because video calls would be ‘harsh’ on stepson” – An Albanian criminal has avoided deportation after a judge ruled that long-distance Zoom calls would be “too harsh” on his stepson, according to LBC.
• “Conor McGregor launches attack on ‘illegal immigration racket’” – MMA star Conor McGregor has blasted the “illegal immigration racket ravaging” Ireland in a presser at the White House before meeting President Trump, reports the Mail. 
• “Thousands of migrants claim asylum after arriving as skilled workers” – Rocketing numbers of foreign workers are lodging asylum claims in a bid to stay in Britain permanently, says the Mail.
• “More than one million foreigners claiming benefits” – More than £7.5 billion is being spent on Universal Credit as over one million foreign nationals claim benefits, reports GB News.
• “Gen Z risks benefits crisis as four in 10 consider giving up work” – Generation Z are giving up on work, a new study suggests, with almost four in 10 considering leaving their jobs and claiming benefits, according to the Mail.
• “Islamophobia laws are just censorship. Britain’s Muslims already have solid protection” – Another attempt is being made to invent special protections for just one faith group, says Douglas Murray in the Telegraph. We need to oppose it.
• “The ‘two-tier’ sentencing guidelines shatter what little faith we had left in our justice system” – To make way for the supreme god of multiculturalism, the edifice of Judeo-Christian jurisprudence has been overturned, writes Alex Story for GB News.
• “Douglas Murray is right about persecuted Christians” – Douglas Murray’s criticism of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church for failing to speak up for persecuted Christians deserves more attention, says Julian Mann in Christian Today.
• “Councils plan to axe places at top performing academies under new Labour plans” – Education leaders are warning that Town Hall chiefs are planning to slash places at top performing academy schools with new powers handed to them by Labour, according to the Sun.
• “Labour’s education policy adds up to teaching those they don’t like a lesson they won’t forget” – It’s hard not to see the current Government’s education policies as looking after the interests of a few adults, and not many children, says Giles Dilnot in Conservative Home.
• “In defence of Ofsted’s Hamid Patel” – In the Spectator, Katharine Birbalsingh comes out in defence of Sir Hamid Patel as interim Chair of Ofsted.
• “Britain has become a pioneer in Artificial Unintelligence” – Artificial Unintelligence, or Bureaucracy-Induced Stupidity, is what we have come to expect in Britain, laments Theodore Dalrymple in the Spectator. 
• “Dark days of online censorship” – In TCW, Kathy Gyngell sounds the alarm on the Online Safety Act, which she believes will force TCW to crack down on reader comments.
• “BBC wrong to allow journalist to promote own book” – The BBC has upheld a complaint against its news channel after a foreign correspondent was allowed to promote her own book during a broadcast, reports the Telegraph.
• “The cash-strapped councils eyeing up your life savings to cover Net Zero bills” – Cash-strapped councils are asking taxpayers to invest their savings in projects to help them meet their Net Zero targets, says Charlotte Gifford in the Telegraph.
• “‘Net Zero by 2050 is impossible’” – Kemi Badenoch has enraged green Conservatives by declaring the UK’s target to reach Net Zero by 2050 “impossible”, reports Sky News.
• “The risky assumptions underpinning Ed Miliband’s green job promise” – Labour’s promise of a just energy transition for North Sea workers hinges on lofty ambitions, warns Matt Oliver in the Telegraph.
• “Audi to cut 7,500 jobs amid ‘challenging’ switch to EVs” – Audi plans to cut 7,500 jobs as the German car maker scrambles to find money to fund its EV transition, according to Carscoops.
• “Lucy Letby’s lawyers call for end of inquiry amid miscarriage of justice fears” – Lucy Letby’s lawyers are to meet with the Criminal Cases Review Commission to present new evidence they say undermine the nurse’s conviction, reports Sky News.
• “How the BBC continues to mislead” – On the TTE Substack, Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson dismantle yet another BBC attempt to reinforce the Covid narrative.
• “A Covid contrarian speaks out about all she has lost” – On the Unreported Truths Substack, Alex Berenson shares Jennifer Sey’s fury at the Covid lockdown fanatics who ruined her life, cost her a top job at Levi’s and still refuse to admit they were wrong.
• “Is SARS-CoV-2 of Dutch origin?” – On Substack, Jim Haslam plugs his new book COVID-19: Mystery Solved, accusing Dutch virologist Vincent Munster of turning SARS-CoV-2 into a super-spreader at a US lab.
• “The radical European country handing mothers tax breaks for life” – Mothers in Hungary will be exempt from paying income tax for life if they have two children under radical new plans to combat the country’s plummeting fertility rate, reports the Telegraph.
• “How Friedrich Merz betrayed his voters” – Friedrich Merz’s U-turn on Germany’s constitutional debt brake – which he promised to uphold during his campaign – will only accelerate the German economy’s downward spiral, says Henry Donovan in the Spectator.
• “UK accuses Israel of breaking international law in Gaza” – Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that Israel is breaking international law by stopping aid getting in to Gaza, according to Sky News.
• “Will Trump trigger a global meltdown?” – In UnHerd, Wolfgang Münchau warns that Trump’s plan to devalue the dollar while maintaining its dominance could trigger the biggest global financial upheaval since Bretton Woods.
• “Trump administration deports Venezuelans despite court order” – The Trump administration has deported alleged Venezuelan gang members, defying a court order and arguing that the judge lacked the authority to stop them, according to Reuters.
• “Trump ‘voids’ Biden’s pardons after ex-President used autopen” – President Trump has declared his predecessor’s last-minute pardons of the House committee investigating the January 6th riots “void, vacant and of no further force or effect”, reports the Mail.
• “The lost boys” – In the New Conservative, Peter Harris warns of the crisis facing young men while society looks the other way.
• “Do not discriminate against gender-critical women, Lib Dems told” – The Liberal Democrats have been told to stop discriminating against gender-critical women by their chief executive, reports the Telegraph.
• “Our self-censoring woke museums are basically criticising people for living in the past” – Great minds of history are being denounced by museums because of their supposed sins, writes Celia Walden in the Telegraph. This is cultural vandalism.
• “A banter ban? Not in my local” – The Government’s new ‘banter ban’ is yet another nail in the pub’s coffin, argues Niall McCrae in TCW.
• “Lockdown will cause more deaths than the virus” – On a Covid-era episode of Question Time, entrepreneur Luke Johnson predicts the devastating effects of lockdowns.

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