News Round-Up

• “Britain is being humiliated abroad – and taxpayers are paying for it” – We have a Prime Minister more interested in photo ops and newspaper headlines than the safety of our nation, writes Kemi Badenoch in the Telegraph.
• “Six million workers face top income tax rate under Rayner” – Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has urged Rachel Reeves to extend frozen tax thresholds beyond 2028, which would force one in six workers to pay the highest rate of income tax, according to the Telegraph.
• “Starmer has taken lying to a deplorable level” – In the Mail, Andrew Neil says that in 55 years of covering politics, he has never accused any UK government of routinely telling untruths, but when it comes to lying and gaslighting, Starmer & Co are in a league of their own.
• “Farage outflanks Starmer on benefits” – Nigel Farage will this week outflank Sir Keir Starmer by committing to scrapping the two-child benefit cap and fully reinstating the winter fuel payment, reports the Telegraph.
• “Britain is heading for utter ruin, and neither the parties nor the voters are prepared to stop it” – From Labour to the Tories and Reform, no one is making a convincing case for shrinking the size of the state, says Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph.
• “Can Thatcherism Rise Again?” – The Conservative Party has been trounced by the Left and the populist Right, but new leader Kemi Badenoch urges a return to first principles, says Tunku Varadarajan in the Wall Street Journal.
• “The end of Rachel Reeves” – In the Mail, Dan Hodges predicts the Chancellor’s demise, saying furious Labour insiders tell him there’s “blood in the water” as she prepares to hike taxes again.
• “France accused of double standards over seized British fishing boat” – France has been accused of double standards after seizing a British fishing boat in the English Channel despite repeatedly ushering illegal migrant dinghies into British waters, says the Telegraph.
• “France shows up the UK’s utter spinelessness” – Britain is right to be angry at the treatment of our trawlerman, but at least our neighbours over the English Channel protect their borders, says Simon Heffer in the Telegraph.
• “We used to catch hundreds of cod a day. Last year it was just ONE” – One fishing family tells the Mail about EU monster trawlers that have decimated Britain’s fishing waters as Keir Starmer surrenders them to foreign fleets.
• “Chagos outrage! Extraordinary pledge that could help our enemies is buried in smallprint of £30 billion surrender deal” – The Mail reports that MPs and ex-military chiefs lined up to warn that the “grotesque” and “dangerous” clause requiring Britain to tell Mauritius about any military attacks launched from the Chagos Islands risks aiding Britain’s enemies.
• “Britain is enjoying another Brexit dividend” – Has there ever been a day when Brexit seemed such a good idea than this week when Donald Trump threatened to whack the EU with 50% tariffs, asks Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “James Martin rages at lawless London as yob smashes his car window” – The eponymous host of ITV’s James Martin’s Saturday Morning took to Instagram to hit out at crime rates in the capital after he and several friends were all targeted in the space of a week, reports the Mail.
• “Denmark has chosen to be robust on migration and preserve its culture” – In the Telegraph, Daniel Johnson lauds Denmark, where a Left-wing Government maintains the strictest border controls on the continent.
• “A warning to Britain: Brought to its knees by a crackpot, Net Zero-obsessed socialist government, dystopian Spain offers a chilling vision of our possible future” – The Mail reports on the disastrous green socialist government ruining Spain.
• “Families told to eat less meat under SNP eco plans” – The Scottish Government’s climate advisers have demanded a 30% drop in meat consumption and a 36% cut in sheep and cattle numbers to hit the 2045 target, reports the Mail.
• “Chris Packham: Chain yourself to trees or block a bulldozer to save green belt” – Environmental campaigner Chris Packham has urged people to chain themselves to trees and sit in front of bulldozers if the Government’s green belt planning reforms go through, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ulez protesters cleared of harassing Sadiq Khan” – A group of anti-Ulez protesters found guilty of harassing Sir Sadiq Khan have had their convictions quashed after the Crown Prosecution Service received “new information” which undermined evidence in its case, reports the Telegraph.
• “Hamas fighters ‘not paid for three months’ because of Israeli aid block” – Hamas has not paid its fighters for three months due to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid preventing the group seizing and selling supplies, says the Telegraph.
• “Why did the Met arrest a Jewish man for mocking Hezbollah?” – It’s the 21st century and Jews are being arrested for making fun of fascists, says Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Jews can no longer trust the police” – Instead of targeting those who support terrorism, law enforcement is targeting those who oppose it, says Stephen Pollard in the Telegraph.
• “Are there forces with an interest in keeping Lucy Letby in jail?” – Why is there such resistance to the campaign to reopen the case of Lucy Letby, the nurse who has been sentenced to death, in slow motion, for crimes which may not even have happened, asks Peter Hitchens in the Mail.
• “It’s an affront to justice – how innocent people are spending decades extra in prison because the body tasked with re-examining their cases is run by… Britain’s grotesquely useless quango boss on £130,000 a year” – The Mail‘s Guy Adams lays out in enraging detail the lamentable state of the Criminal Cases Review Commission under its “incompetent” CEO Karen Kneller.
• “Lucy Connolly appeal judge cut sentence of paedophile Labour peer” – One of the judges who refused Lucy Connolly’s appeal, Lord Justice Holroyde, previously reduced the sentence of a former Labour peer convicted of child sex offences, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why Doctor Who is facing the axe” – In the Telegraph, Liam Kelly looks at what went wrong for the hit show that got too woke even for BBC audiences.
• “Guardian journalists in revolt over ‘miserable’ website redesign” – Guardian journalists are in “open revolt” against Editor Katharine Viner over a website redesign which they claim means their work is not being read, though Viner disagrees, according to the Telegraph.
• “Twitter is down: Thousands report problems as platform goes offline” – X went down for millions of users around the world on Saturday, reports the Mail.
• “Trump sends free-speech team to interview UK activists” – Donald Trump sent US state department diplomats to meet British pro-life activists over concerns their freedom of speech has been threatened, the Telegraph reports.
• “Why did the Oxford Union rescind my invitation to speak in a debate?” – On Substack, Paul Embery says the ‘last bastion of free speech’ seemed ultra-keen to have him along – until something changed.
• “Welsh Labour drops word ‘us’ for being exclusionary” – Welsh Labour has dropped the word “us” from the national culture policy because it could be “exclusionary”.
• “Oxford University ‘demands candidates back diversity policies’” – Oxford University has been accused of failing to protect free speech by requiring all job applicants to support diversity measures, with several institutions warned they could be breaching their legal obligation to free speech, reports the Telegraph.

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