News Round-Up

• “Starmer’s Chagos deal faces new legal challenge” – Campaigners have launched a judicial review to prevent the Government signing away the Chagos Islands without first consulting Chagossians, reports GB News.
• “Migrant can stay in UK because he does not want to shave” – An asylum seeker has been allowed to remain in the UK because he would have had to shave off his beard if he was deported, says LBC.
• “Tube passenger killed commuter with single punch after he brushed past him” – A violent criminal who killed a Tube passenger for brushing past him on an escalator is likely to serve less than five and a half years behind bars, reports LBC.
• “Men who ‘raped’ Rotherham girl said ‘this is what white girls are for’” – A court has heard that a teenage girl who was raped by three men in Rotherham and abused for three years was told, “this is what white girls are for”, according to the Mail.
• “‘Grooming gang members must face automatic life sentences’” – Robert Jenrick says that child sexual groomers must face automatic life sentences and should be barred from big discounts on their sentences if they plead guilty, reports the Telegraph. 
• “Taskforce launched to tackle root causes of UK riots” – A new year-long commission to fix “deepening polarisation” in British society is to be led by Sir Sajid Javid and ex-Labour MP Jon Cruddas, reports the BBC.
• “Lucy Connolly case ‘undermining criminal justice system’, says Tice” – Richard Tice says the mistreatment of Lucy Connolly by the courts and prisons threatens to undermine trust in criminal justice, according to the Telegraph.
• “Scrap ‘absurd’ non-crime hate incidents, report says” – Critics warn that police are wasting time on online ideological spats and ignoring the formal adoption of hate crime definitions for Christians, Hindus and Sikhs, reports the Times.
• “Britain must wake up to the enemy within – or this country is finished” – Weekly hate marches and open terror-sympathising have become the norm – and many of the worst culprits are British born and bred, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Calls for ‘regime change’ with top Starmer aide facing welfare backlash” – Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s senior aide, is facing mounting backlash from Labour MPs and ministers over the handling of welfare reforms, reports the Times.
• “Starmer’s gamble has failed. Now Reeves will crucify the middle class” – The Prime Minister’s looming surrender on welfare guarantees a kamikaze Budget this autumn, warns Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
• “Rachel Reeves faces legal challenge over ‘family farms tax’” – Farmers have announced bombshell plans to take Rachel Reeves to court over the hated Family Farms Tax, arguing she failed to comply with consultation rules, reports the Express.
• “Private schools dumb down entry requirements after VAT raid exodus” – Private schools across England are reducing their academic entry standards following pupil departures as a result Labour’s 20% VAT charge on school fees, says GB News.
• “Nigel Farage on track for huge election win with 377 Reform MPs” – An MRP poll of 5,000 people by PLMR and Electoral Calculus shows that Reform would win an outright majority of more than 50 seats if a General Election were held tomorrow, reports the Mail.
• “Working-class voters abandoning Labour for Reform” – More than half of 2024 Labour voters who would now back Reform live in working-class households, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Farage is falling ever further into the world of fantasy economics” – Reform UK’s ‘Robin Hood tax’ is little more than another clever gimmick, writes Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
• “‘I won’t take lessons in economics from clueless Labour’” – Not a single member of the Labour cabinet has started a business, or had a consequential job in the private sector – and it shows, says Zia Yusuf in the Telegraph.
• “This electoral weapon could keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street” – Proportional representation was once the only hope for insurgent parties, says Philip Johnston in the Telegraph. It may now be the singular reason that Reform won’t make it.
• “Nigel Farage and George Galloway share a common problem” – Nigel Farage, like George Galloway, is a populist and populism is all you’ll ever get from him, writes Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
• “The 11 MPs still supporting Palestine Action” – Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott are among 11 MPs who have voiced support for Palestine Action despite the organisation set to be proscribed as a terrorist group, reports the Express.
• “Lake District mosque ‘monstrosity’ divides locals” – Protestors have taken to the streets over plans to build a new £2.5 million mosque dubbed a “monstrosity” on the edge of the idyllic Lake District, reports the Mail.
• “Israeli minister tells Jewish people to quit UK as ‘they’re not safe’” – An Israeli minister has warned British Jews to leave the UK unless there is a change of government and blamed Labour for fuelling antisemitism, according to the Mail.
• “Know your enemies and know yourself” – On Substack, Dr David McGrogan argues Britain’s decline isn’t due to strategic failure but a sinister success.
• “Arctic warming will lead to Arctic cooling, recent study suggests” – In NoTricksZone, P. Gosselin reports that Arctic warming may paradoxically slow thanks to a weakening AMOC, which reflects more sunlight, traps heat underwater and boosts cloud cover, cooling the region.
• “The case against Net Zero – an eleventh update” – In Climate Scepticism, Robin Guenier argues that the UK’s legally mandated Net Zero policy is “unachievable, potentially disastrous and ultimately pointless”.
• “Trump scraps Climate.gov, Biden-era shrine to climate alarmism” – In a move to dismantle one of Biden’s chief shrines to the cult of climate alarmism, Donald Trump has shut down Climate.gov, reports Bradley Jaye in Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Multi-state lawsuit to stop wind-stopping executive order inches ahead” – For CFACT, David Wojick reveals that a US federal judge’s shaky ruling keeps the January 20th wind power ban in place.
• “South Africa embraces green hydrogen exports as the solution to their economic woes” – In WUWT?, Eric Worrall slams South Africa’s green hydrogen hype, warning that political fanfare is outpacing demand, economics and common sense.
• “NHS doctors ‘excited’ about more strikes, say BMA leaders” – Doctors have sparked fury by saying they’re “excited” about more strikes, despite already getting the biggest pay rise of any public sector workers and cancelling 1.5 million appointments since 2022, reports the Mail.
• “World’s most deadly viruses to be held at new lab in Surrey” – Cutting-edge laboratories to hold and study the world’s most deadly diseases are to be built in Surrey, says the Mail. 
• “The RFK effect” – On the Malone News Substack, Dr Clayton J. Baker says RFK Jr. has shaken Washington so hard that even his loudest Senate critics are flip-flopping and flailing.
• “France wants to know the true cost of immigration” – In the Spectator, James Tidmarsh reports that Éric Ciotti’s push to calculate the true cost of immigration has rattled the French Left – not because the numbers are false, but because they might be true.
• “German police conduct coordinated nationwide raids for the pseudo-crime of ‘hate posting’ in their ongoing battle against freedom of expression” – On Substack, Eugyppius blasts Germany’s latest nationwide state-backed crackdown on online dissent.
• “Iran will learn the hard way Putin is not an ally to be trusted” – The Islamic Republic is just a pawn in the Kremlin’s great game for respect and recognition, writes Owen Matthews in the Telegraph.
• “Trump unleashes on ‘scum’ who leaked Iran bombing intel” – Donald Trump has unleashed on the “scum” who leaked intelligence suggesting his bunker busting raids on Iran’s nuclear facilities were not as effective as he declared, reports GB News.
• “Zohran Mamdani and the hipster intifada” – In the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill takes aim at Zohran Mamdani, the 33 year-old who is the Democratic candidate to be the mayor of New York.
• “New York’s surging new Leftist tide is a chilling warning to the West” – The rise in support for Zohran Mamdani illustrates how an alliance of immigrants and the young urban precariat is taking on capitalism, says Joel Kotkin in the Telegraph.
• “Californian Deputy Mayor calls on criminal gang to fend off ICE” – A Los Angeles County official is being investigated by the FBI after she posted a social media video calling on gang members to defend their territory from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reports Fox News.
• “Doctors revolt against BMA over ‘its pro-trans ideology’” – Doctors who support the Cass Review into children’s trans services are revolting against the British Medical Association, with insiders claiming that “ideologues” have infiltrated the union, says the Telegraph.
• “BMA in turmoil over ‘abysmal’ handling of Cass Review critique” – The British Medical Association has failed to produce a promised “critique” of the Cass Review amid a bitter internal row over its “abysmal” handling of gender policy, reports the Times.
• “Gay Times loses 80% of advertisers amid US anti-diversity push” – According to its chief executive, Gay Times has lost 80% of its advertisers in the past year due to a “well-funded anti-diversity effort” in the US, says the Times.
• “‘This happens to academics all the time…’” – On TalkTV with Julia Hartley-Brewer, the FSU’s Connie Shaw discusses the state of freedom of speech on university campuses.

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