News Round-Up

• “Israel launches fresh wave of strikes on Iran” – Donald Trump announced on Truth Social last night that American planes had dropped a “full payload of bombs” on key sites including Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, reports the Mail.
• “Pakistan nominates Trump for Nobel Peace prize” – The Pakistani Government says the US president is influencing global stability and showing “pivotal leadership”, as it nominates Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, says the Telegraph.
• “Iran is a direct threat to Britain – Israel’s fight is ours too” – Those who condemn Israel for defending itself, or vacillate like our weak Labour Government, only embolden our enemies, writes Kemi Badenoch in the Telegraph.
• “Guarded by a unit no one knew existed, Khamenei lives in fear” – Iran’s supreme ruler has entrusted his survival to a previously unknown group of vetted bodyguards, according to the Telegraph.
• “Iran unveils its latest propaganda tool on social media: Lego” – Iranian propaganda videos show Trump and Netanyahu supping with the Devil before missiles rain down on Tel Aviv – all in Lego, reports the Telegraph. Needless to say, they’re not a patch on the fake Tehran season 4 trailer.
• “Protesters march through London supporting Iran’s supreme leader” – Among thousands of demonstrators waving Palestinian and Iranian flags in London yesterday, some protestors carried signs expressing their support for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says the Telegraph.
• “Whitehall hunts for mole who leaked Hermer’s Iran advice” – According to a leak, the Attorney General is concerned that the UK might breach international law if it joins Israel in striking Iran directly – and now the mole hunt is on, according to the Telegraph.
• “Hermer is wrong: international law permits Britain to strike against Iran” – According to the peerless Natasha Hausdorff in the Telegraph, Lord Hermer’s understanding of what international law does and doesn’t permit is deeply flawed.
• “Cost of damage by Palestine Action could hit £55 million” – Hundreds of attacks by Palestinian Action have cost the defence industry tens of millions of pounds, reports the Times.
• “A woman head of MI6 – my open letter to Nigel Farage” – Evangelical Christian Julian Mann has written a piece for the Conservative Woman urging Nigel Farage to investigate the appointment of a woman to head MI6.
• “RAF Brize Norton chief’s views on patriotism revealed” – The attack by Palestinian Action on RAF Brize Norton is hugely embarrassing, particularly as the woman in charge has criticised the masculine culture of Britain’s armed forces, according to Steerpike in the Spectator.
• “Starmer branded ‘hypocrite’ for condemning UK airbase raid” – The Prime Minister described the raid on RAF Brize Norto by Palestine Action as “disgraceful” and an “act of vandalism”, even though he has defended similar protestors as a barrister, says the Mail.
• “Keir Starmer follows Kemi Badenoch in wanting Kneecap Glastonbury ban” – Following similar calls from Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday it was “not appropriate” for Kneecap to play at Glasto, reports the Mail.
• “Now ban the IRGC, Labour MPs tell Starmer” – Labour MPs have told their leader to follow up the ban on Palestinian Action with a ban on the IRGC, according to the Telegraph.
• “Shocking moment police officer tells Christians to stop preaching” – A short clip shows a female cop telling a Christian evangelists his preaching is too loud and he must stop, according to the Mail.
• “Tories will remember this assisted dying vote” – “I judge a man by one thing, which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?” So said Isaac Foot, the Liberal MP and father of Michael. For some Tories, Friday’s assisted dying debate will carry a similar weight in judgements of character, writes James Beale in the Spectator.
• “Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill?” – This bill was dragged over the finish line by a very small margin – just 23 votes – and now faces a struggle to get through the Lords, reports the Spectator.
• “Assisted dying bill: could a Lords logjam run down the clock?” – The Commons vote to allow the terminally ill to choose their own time to die was close enough that peers could still prevent it reaching the statute books, says the Sunday Times.
• “Wes Streeting: NHS can’t afford assisted dying and MPs got it wrong” – The Health Secretary says the cost of letting terminally ill people end their lives could divert resources from elsewhere in the NHS in what may prove to be a pivotal argument against the assisted dying bill in the Lords, according to the Sunday Times.
• “How Simone Biles turned trans activist – and trashed her reputation” – The greatest gymnast of all time has come out as a trans activist, says Oliver Brown in the Telegraph. And destroyed her reputation at a stroke.
• “Reform on course to win next election” – More than a third of voters back Nigel Farage’s party while Tories could get fewer than 10 seats, according to a new poll, according to a new poll for the Telegraph.
• “The Nigel Farage backers chasing Maga millions and a Jenrick pact” – A pro-Reform think tank has been set up to attract donors and push for a deal with sympathetic Tories, reports the Sunday Times.
• “Workers Bill ‘is a wrecking ball for the UK economy’, Tories warn” – Conservatives have sent an open letter to company bosses this weekend urging them to speak out against the Deputy Prime Minister’s radical plans – or be “sleepwalked into disaster”, reports the Mail.
• “Rachel Reeves’s plan is unravelling. She could be gone before the next Budget” – There will be no way back for the Chancellor when the next crisis hits, according to the Telegraph.
• “The grooming gang scandal isn’t just about race, it’s also about class” – The abuse of poor white girls was ignored not just because they were white, but also because they were working class, writes Janet Daley in the Telegraph.
• “The grooming gangs scandal shows the importance of free speech” – It is partly because people were branded “racist” for raising the alarm about the grooming gangs that so few people did, writes Frederick Attenborough in the Critic.
• “The missing link in the grooming gangs report: cousin marriage” – Many abusers are linked not just by blood but by loyalty to their clan reinforced by cousin marriage, writes Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times.
• “The school where none of the pupils speak English as first language” – Kobi Nazrul primary school in London’s East End is unique in that it’s the only school in the country with no pupils who speak English as a first language, according to the Mail.
• “Immigration is the biggest burden on NHS, say Labour voters” – Poll also shows one in five Britons who backed Sir Keir Starmer in 2024 would now consider voting for Reform, reports the Telegraph.
• “What kind of country is this, where a lollipop man can’t high-five the kids?” – Boring, buzz-kill Britain appears to have found its newest victim: school crossing patrollers, writes Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
• “Independent bookshops: reports of their death are greatly exaggerated” – Joanne May, writing for the Battle of Ideas Substack, explains why the opening of her conservative-focused bookshop – Oldspeak Bookshop in Long Melford, Suffolk – matters, even in our digital age.
• “Eurocrats shut down Labour’s hopes of ECHR reform” – The head of the Council of Europe says he will not “support any effort that would weaken” the human rights convention, reports the Telegraph.
• “Stephen Fry says JK Rowling’s been ‘radicalised’. I’ve got just one question for him” – Could he kindly inform us which of her beliefs are extreme? asks Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Stephen Fry could do with a lesson in ‘radicalisation’” – Might I interrupt this lengthy damnatio memoriae to point out that Stephen Fry is supposed to be Rowling’s friend, writes Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
• “Belarus frees imprisoned opposition leader after US intervention” – Alexander Lukashenko has freed 14 people in an attempt to build better relations with the West, says the Telegraph.
• “No more woke: German parents file lawsuit to take down LGBT flags in school” – A lawsuit being brought by the parents of a German schoolchild could alter how schools across Germany approach the ideology that is being forced upon children by radical activists, according to the European Conservative.
• “National Theatre ‘discriminates’ against private school pupils with ‘two-tier’ pricing” – Britain’s flagship theatre is under fire for charging private schools 20% more for group bookings than state schools, says the Telegraph.
• “My four-year inquisition for writing the truth on COVID-19 vaccine data” – Niall McCrae was reported to the Nursing and Midwifery Council by a ‘factchecker’ in March 2021 for an article he had written, reporting on the increased risk of getting Covid in the first 10 days after vaccination (as published in a report from Public Health England). In Hart, he explains how he fought back.
• “How desperate are the media and ‘experts’ to get people back in masks? Covid panic is back” – This summer we’re witnessing a return of Covidiocy, writes Ian Miller in OutKick.
• “Has Bulgaria gamed its inflation numbers to qualify for the euro?” – An 82.8% plunge in state-set hospital fees helped Sofia make the grade to join the single currency, writes Izabella Kaminska in Politico.
• “Texas gas power boom” – On Not a Lot of People Know That, Paul Homewood describes how the Greenies are throwing their toys out of the pram because Texas is planning to build dozens of new gas power stations.
• “Soaring energy bills are wrecking industry – and could finish Labour too” – The steelworks, chemical plants and paper mills that criss-cross our country are the lifeblood of so many communities across the UK, providing good jobs and supporting local economies, writes Matthew Elliott in the Sun. But soaring energy prices are putting them out of business.
• “Australia’s Net Zero grid to face strict government price controls” – Eric Worrall on Whats’s Up With That? says that bringing the rest of Australia into line with Victoria threatens to spread Victoria’s grid management disaster to the entire East Coast of Australia.
• “Heatwaves ‘will trigger Net Zero meltdown’” – Electric cars and heat pumps are among the ‘green’ technologies at risk of breaking down or exploding in Britain’s current heatwave, reports the Telegraph.
• “The weather is nice so we have to freak out about heatwaves now” – We always have to be freaking out about something, says Eugyppius on his Substack. The freaking out can never, ever stop. So now it’s summer and the sun is out, we have to freak out about heatwaves.
• “The ‘climate crisis’ in a nutshell” – On the Triggernometry podcast, Matt Ridley explains why the ‘climate crisis’ is completely overblown in just two-and-a-half minutes.

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