News Round-Up

• “Starmer caves in to rebels on benefits” – Sir Keir Starmer has caved in to welfare rebels by agreeing that existing disability claimants can keep their benefits, reports the Express.
• “Majority of Britons think disability benefits are too high” – According to the Telegraph, there is a record low level of support for more spending on welfare for disabled people.
• “Sadiq Khan’s top team costs taxpayers nearly £2.7 million” – On Substack, Charlotte Gill reveals Sadiq Khan’s inner circle now costs taxpayers nearly £2.7 million a year – despite shedding his £132,000-a-year “Night Czar”.
• “Tories vow to rip up the workers’ rights charter” – The Tories are vowing to dismantle Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights Bill if they return to power, reports the Mail. 
• “The loophole fuelling Britain’s illegal migration crisis” – Forget gangs – the surest threat to UK borders is our thriving gig economy, says Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph.
• “Rayner faces legal challenge over ‘secret’ Islamophobia talks” – Angela Rayner faces a legal challenge from the Free Speech Union over “secretive” plans to revive a definition of Islamophobia that will have a “chilling” effect, reports the Telegraph.
• “CofE bishop repents for failure to address grooming gang issue” – Bishop Philip North of Blackburn has publicly repented for his earlier silence on grooming gangs, admitting he feared that raising the issue might harm racial justice efforts and community relations, according to Christian Today.
• “Lucy Connolly has become a martyr to injustice” – If the penal system is being recruited to treat a particular prisoner harshly to cover up the state’s failings then that is unconscionable, says the Telegraph in a leading article.
• “White House slaps down Britain over assisted dying ‘surrender’” – The White House has accused Britain of “state-sponsored suicide” because the Commons voted for the assisted dying Bill, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer is acting like a 19th Century colonialist” – Ignorance and indifference are at the heart of attempts to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, says Tomiwa Owolade in the Telegraph.
• “Sex education in schools: part one” – On Substack, Neil O’Brien reveals how sex education in schools has gone wrong.
• “Sex education in schools: part two” – Neil O’Brien highlights how delays in government guidance have turned sex education into a “wild west” of unregulated activist content.
• “BBC launches US subscription 80% cheaper than licence fee” – The BBC is to start charging Americans a subscription to access its news and live TV, charging 80% less than the licence fee, reports GB News.
• “UK Government fumes at ‘ludicrous’ £125 million ‘bat tunnel’” – The ‘bat mitigation tunnel’ is designed to protect wildlife from Britain’s High Speed Rail 2 project – but it’s enraging ministers as cost projections climb, says Politico.
• “‘Bonkers’ Katie Hopkins gig in Birmingham cancelled amid venue backlash” – She thrives on controversy but was a Birmingham venue right to shut down Katie Hopkins? asks Jane Haynes for Birmingham Live. No, obviously.
• “‘Go elsewhere if you don’t like our politics’” – The founder of the Glastonbury Festival Sir Michael Eavis has hit out at critics following a row over the festival’s plans to host the controversial trio Kneecap, reports the Irish Independent.
• “‘Deadly’ amber heat warning for Glastonbury weekend” – A “deadly” amber heat alert has been issued across parts of the country ahead of Glastonbury weekend, says the Express.
• “Even the Green Blob has had enough of Ed Miliband” – One might imagine the Climate Change Committee would be huge fans of the Energy Secretary, writes Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph – now he has lost their support too.
• “Miliband rejects £25 billion plan to power Britain with Saharan solar farms” – Ed Miliband has turned down a scheme to import solar and wind power from Morocco via 2,500-mile-long subsea cables, according to 4C Offshore.
• “BBC celebrates sales of heat pumps rising from near zero to near zero” – On Not a Lot of People Know That, Paul Homewood blasts the BBC for cheering a heat pump boom that doesn’t exist.
• “The cat’s out of the bag” – The UK Government’s “Modern Industrial Strategy” admits renewables subsidies are wrecking energy costs but plans no real fix before 2027, writes Mark Hodgson on the Climate Scepticism blog.
• “Climate propaganda breakthrough?” – In WUWT?, Eric Worrall slams a new study claiming binary climate data tricks the public into caring – by making slow warming look like sudden catastrophe.
• “Energy investment out of balance… and it could cost us all” – In WUWT?, Lars Schernikau warns that today’s lopsided energy investment – favouring unprofitable wind and solar over reliable coal, gas and nuclear – is undermining energy security, affordability and common sense.
• “USGS finds nearly 30 billion barrels of untapped oil under federal lands” – The US is sitting on billions of untapped oil barrels, reports Irina Slav on the Climate Change Dispatch.
• “New York state says it will build a new nuclear power plant” – In the Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton takes aim at Governor Hochul’s plan to build a single nuclear plant in New York as a belated and laughably inadequate gesture – replacing 20 GW of lost power with 1 GW sometime post-2045.
• “Judge blocks Trump from withholding EV charger funds in state-led lawsuit” – A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in funding for electric vehicle charger infrastructure from 14 states, says the Climate Change Dispatch.
• “23% surge in global bank fossil fuel investments” – On her blog, Jo Nova reports that the banker-blob is bailing on Net Zero, with global lenders shovelling $900 billion into fossil fuels.
• “Trump greenlights massive Gulf oil lease sale spanning 80 million acres” – The Trump administration has announced a Gulf of America oil and gas lease sale that would span roughly 80 million acres, an area larger than the UK, reports the Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Strong evidence of the link between Covid vaccines and heart problems” – In TCW, Dr Roger Watson highlights compelling evidence linking COVID-19 vaccines to a significant rise in cardiac medication use among young people.
• “Who won the 12-day war?” – In the Spectator, Jonathan Sacerdoti argues that while Israel and the US claim a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the real fight now is over who controls the story.
• “Iran’s supreme leader: ‘We dealt a hard slap to America’s face’” – Iran’s humiliated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has come out of hiding to claim victory over Israel during his first address since the “total obliteration” of his nuclear weapons facilities, reports the NY Post.
• “Trump demands end to Netanyahu corruption ‘witch hunt’” – Donald Trump has called for the ongoing criminal trial of Benjamin Netanyahu to be cancelled, says the Times of Israel.
• “New York braces for ‘anti-Zionist’ Leftist mayor” – New York is facing the prospect of electing a staunchly socialist pro-Palestine mayor who wants to control food prices and almost double the minimum wage, reports the Telegraph.
• “Bill Ackman for Mayor of New York” – Zohran Mamdani’s radicalism can’t go unchallenged, says Ayaan Hirsi Ali on her Restoration Substack.
• “Zohran Mamdani, Die Linke and the reconfiguration of the Left” – On Substack, Eugyppius brands Zohran Mamdani and Die Linke as the vanguard of a fiery, youth-driven socialist Left breaking from establishment politics.
• “Zohran Mamdani offers a terrifying glimpse into the future of Left-wing politics” – Wherever you look, a small number of dangerous progressives are trying to gain power over the heads of the silent majority, writes Jake Wallis Simons in the Telegraph.
• “Diversity isn’t ‘our strength’ when millions of foreigners refuse to assimilate” – The US is following Europe’s lead, in allowing migrants and their descendants to bring foreign conflicts to its shores, says Simon Hankinson in the Telegraph.
• “‘Daddy’s home’ Trump video released by White House” – The White House social media team has stepped up its meme game with a new spoof on a viral moment from the NATO Summit in which Secretary General Mark Rutte called Donald Trump “daddy”, reports Fox News.
• “For Women Scotland slam Oxford Diocese’s message to the transgender community” – On Anglican Mainstream, Julian Mann reports that For Women Scotland has condemned Oxford Diocese’s message of support to trans people as “dreadful”, questioning whether Isla Bryson reflects “the image of God”.
• “J.K. Rowling is right: the Guardian should be embarrassed by this pro-trans propaganda” – Only women need a scan for cervical cancer, not “people”, like the activist-appeasing Guardian suggests, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “J.K. Rowling shares critique of Emma Thompson’s view on sex workers” – J.K. Rowling has shared a barbed critique of Emma Thompson’s view on sex workers in a sarcastic online post, reports the Mail.
• “The dangers of toxic femininity” – In the Spectator, Douglas Murray warns that Britain is sleepwalking into moral ruin, lured by the siren song of ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’.
• “The two Young Lords” – In Totnes Pulse, Sophie Young reflects on her brother Toby’s elevation to the House of Lords, contrasting his rebellious Conservative stance with their father Lord Michael Young’s celebrated Labour legacy.
• “‘This will be a disaster for our food security and for Britain’s landscape’” – On X, Tim Farron delivers a stark warning: inheritance tax will drive countless family farms to the wall, handing swathes of land to corporate giants – a hammer blow to Britain’s food security and countryside.

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