News Round-Up

• “‘A case study in groupthink’: were liberals wrong about the pandemic?” – Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee’s book argues that aggressive Covid policies such as mask mandates were in some cases misguided, reports the Guardian.
• “Globalism. Warmism. We fell for them both” – In the Mail, Peter Hitchens says that China must laugh at us: it runs a mighty industrial revolution on its huge coal stocks and builds two new coal-fired power stations almost weekly, while we blow ours up.
• “Total CfD Subsidies Hit £10 billion” – As the costs of CfDs hit near record highs in FY2024/25, the outlook is for even higher subsidies, according to David Turver in Eigen Values.
• “Virtual reality: The widely-quoted media experts who are not what they seem” – Press Gazette investigates the national media experts who either do not exist, or whose credentials have not been checked.
• “If ministers can’t get to grips with prisons like Frankland they must resign” – It’s clear there has been a catastrophic breakdown of security at HMP Frankland that cannot be be swept under the carpet, reports the Telegraph.
• “Farage is leading Labour’s policy” – Ross Clark of the Spectator claims that Nigel Farage’s call to nationalise British Steel never made much sense for Reform supporters drawn from the right of the Conservative party.
• “Keir Starmer steels himself for the real battle: Labour v Reform” – Industry is just one of the problems on which the Prime Minister must show his mettle if he is to see off Nigel Farage in the local elections, reports the Times.
• “Speaker accused of ‘acting outrageously’ over private school VAT hike” – The Government launched an “opportunistic” bid to rule out key evidence at the end of the recent landmark judicial review into the controversial tax on school fees, reports the Mail.
• “The foreign nationalities most likely to be arrested for sex offences” – Police made 8,500 arrests of foreign nationals for sexual offences including rape in 2024 and the start of 2025, according to the Mail.
• “Revealed: Secret spy dungeon plan for China’s London ‘super-embassy’” – Planning documents for the controversial embassy on the site of the Royal Mint buildings include “two suites of anonymous unlabelled basement rooms and a tunnel”, reports the Mail.
• “Marine wins libel case against police over false claims by ex-partner” – The West Yorkshire force contacted senior officers in the Royal Marines over allegations about Elliot Kebbie before charging or even speaking to him, reports the Times.
• “Labour is destroying London’s nightlife” – In the Spectator, Tom Bower recalls his adolescence back in the early 1960s and laments the destruction of Soho nightlife.
• “Car bursts into flames at Gatwick Airport” – The BBC reports that access to the North Terminal has now been resumed following a car fire. Another electric car self-combusting?
• “Rayner calls in Army to tackle Birmingham bin crisis” – Military personnel will take up office-based roles to help during strike, according to the Telegraph.
• “Let British Steel deliver the final blow to Red Ed” – Both economically and politically, the green agenda is now a millstone around Labour’s neck, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer has ‘lost control of borders’ after record small-boat crossings” – In the Telegraph, Daniel Martin reports that over 650 migrants reached the UK via the Channel on Saturday, taking this year’s total to more than 8,000.
• “Ukraine could be carved up ‘like Germany after World War Two’” – Trump’s envoy, General Keith Kellogg, suggests to the Mail that Western troops could adopt zones of control as part of a ‘reassurance force’, while the Russians could occupy the east of Ukraine.
• “How Sweden’s multi-cultural dream went fatally wrong” – Diamant Salihu tells the Telegraph about the child soldiers, gangs and murders for hire which are blighting the once-peaceful country.
• “Merz’s coalition treaty is an empty, promise-free shell” – The coalition treaty put together by the CDU and SPD parties is decidedly non-committal and unimaginative, writes Katja Hoyer in the Spectator.
• “Trump isn’t bonkers. There’s method in his madness” – Imposing global tariffs in order to level the playing field is an entirely justified intention, says Liam Halligan in the Telegraph.
• “Trump says there will be no tariff exemptions in dramatic move” – the Mail reports that President Donald Trump blasted China in a social media post on Sunday where he said there were no tariff exemptions after electronics were not included in a notice on Friday.
• “Mother banned from playground after complaining about trans identity lessons” – A mother has been told to stay away from her daughter’s school after protesting about lessons on transgender ideology, according to the Telegraph.
• “Court looms for nurses who refused to share changing room with ‘burly bloke’” – NHS nurses branded bigots launch a landmark legal case, reports the Mail.
• “GPs under pressure to give children illegal trans drugs” – according to the Telegraph, family doctors have been reminded that they must refuse requests for puberty blockers.
• “Police force accused of anti-white bias teaches officers about slavery” – West Yorkshire Police has been criticised for spending taxpayers’ money on ‘cultural awareness’ training, says Charles Hymas in the Telegraph.
• “Royal Ballet School chief: plus-sized dancers are the future” – The focus is moving away from the ‘slim’ female fixture of the classical repertoire, says Iain Mackay in the Times.
• “These officers are no better than the Gestapo” – Nick Buckley on X is horrified by footage of police officers telling a man that asking someone to ‘speak English’ is a ‘hate crime’.

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