News Round-Up

• “£7 billion secret airlift as 18,500 Afghans are brought to Britain” – After 23 months of being gagged, the Mail finally reveals the scheme to bring in thousands of Afghans, and how Parliament has been deliberately kept in the dark.
• “The multi-billion pound plan to bring thousands of Afghans to UK signed off in secret – as Chancellor faces huge pressure over taxes” – The Government has approved £7 billion of taxpayers’ money to resettle 25,000 Afghans to the UK, reports LBC.
• “Planes full of Afghans have been landing at airports in secret scheme” – The Mail is the only media organisation to have discovered and witnessed how every fortnight or so plain white charter planes have been landing at Stansted packed with Afghans.
• “How £7 billion Afghan migrant scheme was sparked by soldier’s email blunder” – In the Mail, Sam Greenhill and David Williams expose how a British soldier’s email blunder leaked a secret database endangering 100,000 Afghans, sparking a £7 billion covert operation to relocate thousands.
• “How British state used celebrity gag order to hide its huge blunder” – The super-injunction on the Afghan data leak was designed to be in place for four months, writes Larisa Brown in the Times. Instead, there was secrecy on an extraordinary scale.
• “Taliban: we had the ‘kill list’ all along – and are hunting them down” – The Taliban claims the leaked list of Afghans who helped Britain has been in its possession since 2022, and it has been hunting down those named ever since, reports the Telegraph.
• “Fears over riots after secret asylum scheme made public” – Ministers warn that there could be riots after the lifting of a super-injunction which kept quiet a mass immigration scheme, according to the Mail.
• “‘Am I going bonkers?’ The judge who tried to stop Afghan cover-up” – In the Telegraph, Gordon Rayner reports how Mr Justice Chamberlain challenged a secret £7 billion Afghan asylum cover-up, exposing a government super-injunction that gagged the media and stifled democracy for nearly two years.
• “Watchdog: most aid now spent on migrant hotels” – The Spectator’s Steerpike reports that Britain’s gutted aid budget is now mostly propping up pricey migrant hotels.
• “More than one million foreigners claim Universal Credit every month” – The number of foreign nationals claiming Universal Credit in Britain has risen to nearly 1.3 million, reports the Sun.
• “UK a ‘powder keg’ of social tensions a year on from summer riots” – New research finds that a third of people rarely meet anyone from a different background, says the Guardian.
• “Rachel Reeves’s ‘Big Bang’ is doomed” – There is no point in promising a ‘Big Bang’ for the City while also driving out the nom-doms, writes Matthew Lynn in the Spectator.
• “‘I’m a successful entrepreneur. If Labour brings in a wealth tax, I’m out’” – In the Telegraph, Daniel Priestley warns that Labour’s proposed wealth tax would punish ambition, cripple the UK’s startup scene and drive entrepreneurs like him abroad.
• “Ever-higher taxes ‘bad for growth’, OBR warns Reeves” – Richard Hughes, head of the budget watchdog, says that Britain’s limited fiscal headroom and growing debt burden leave Reeves with tough choices, according to the Times.
• “The BBC Gaza documentary report is a cover-up” – In the Spectator, Jonathan Sacerdoti savages the BBC’s review of its Gaza documentary as a shameless institutional whitewash.
• “Ofcom chairman defends ‘Orwellian’ measures after Trump attacks” – Ofcom’s chairman has hit back at claims of an “Orwellian” online crackdown after Trump’s White House accused the agency of stifling free speech, reports the Telegraph.
• “Free speech under threat as Britons believe they can no longer speak their mind” – Free speech is under threat because Britons feel they cannot speak out for fear of offending others over race, religion and immigration, says the Telegraph.
• “Sleepless in Westminster: Lords burn the midnight oil” – Jack Blackburn reports in the Times that the House of Lords is working late into the night to revise legislation, raising concerns about the welfare of elderly peers.
• “Lucy Letby: how the charges were selected” – The Jolly Contrarian argues that the Crown built its case against Lucy Letby much like the New Zealand police did against Peter Ellis, leaving out key exonerating evidence.
• “Former senior coroner’s officer says Lucy Letby has suffered miscarriage of justice” – A senior coroner’s officer who first reviewed the deaths of babies at the Countess of Chester hospital for Cheshire police in 2017 now believes Lucy Letby has suffered a miscarriage of justice, reports the Guardian.
• “Miliband: build solar panels on churches” – Ed Miliband has suggested that a scheme to install solar panels on the roofs of hundreds of schools and hospitals could be expanded to include religious buildings, says the Norwich Guardian.
• “Send in the clowns” – In Climate Scepticism, Mark Hodgson slams Ed Miliband’s “State of Climate” debate as a pompous parade of alarmism, arguing Labour’s Net Zero crusade is unravelling fast – and could cost them the next election.
• “Palm House at Kew Gardens to shut for four years in Net Zero push” – The gas boilers in Kew Gardens’ Victorian-era hothouse will be replaced with heat pumps and all 16,000 glass panes upgraded to improve energy efficiency, reports Danny Buckland in the Times.
• “‘Oil/gas professionals are not energy transition experts’… really?” – Journalist Markham Hislop thinks oil and gas professionals are unqualified to discuss the energy transition… because climate change, says David Middleton in WUWT?
• “Shuttered nuclear plant on verge of revival as America’s grid buckles” – The Michigan Palisades nuclear power plant is reportedly reopening in October as America’s grid strains under skyrocketing power demand, reports Daily Caller.
• “No, Space.com, cutoff of satellite sea-ice data won’t make any difference” – On ClimateRealism, Anthony Watts says Space.com is scaremongering – the loss of sea-ice data doesn’t matter, and sea ice isn’t a reliable climate signal anyway.
• “The fusion race heats up” – In RealClearEnergy, Duggan Flanakin warns that the nuclear fusion race is intensifying, with China surging ahead as the West scrambles to catch up.
• “Schoolmarmocracy” – On Substack, Eugyppius shares thoughts on the hall monitors and discourse police who make progressive Western politics such an unbearable, lobotomised shitshow.
• “Trump rules out long-range missiles for Ukraine” – President Trump says that Ukraine should not target Moscow with military attacks and that the US is not looking to give long-range missiles to Kyiv, according to the Hill.
• “Labour clearing way for gender identity lessons in schools, say Tories” – New sex education guidance has watered down Tory proposals to ban lessons on gender identity, reports the Telegraph.
• “Parents must know what schools are teaching about sex” – New government guidelines should give families welcome transparency about the content of sex education lessons, says Jason Elsom in the Times.
• “Row over trans swimmers at Hampstead Heath may go to High Court” – A row over biologically male trans women using a female-only swimming spot on Hampstead Heath looks set to reach the High Court, after campaign group Sex Matters launched a £50,000 judicial review, reports the Standard.
• “Women’s sports ‘must ban trans players or face legal action’” – Sharron Davies has accused sporting bodies of “choosing men’s feelings over women’s reality”, says the Telegraph.
• “The Durham Miners’ Gala has become a woke farce” – The sight of feminists being abused by trans activists confirms that the Left has abandoned women’s rights, writes Jo Bartosch on Spiked.
• “BBC stars handed bumper pay rises for podcasts” – Laura Kuenssberg and Nick Robinson pocketed some of the BBC’s biggest pay rises last year thanks to podcasting and other BBC sidelines, reports the Telegraph. 
• “Lamine Yamal under fire after hiring dwarfs for 18th birthday party” – A Spanish disability group has threatened legal action after people with dwarfism were hired as entertainers for Barcelona footballer Lamine Yamal’s 18th birthday, says Sky News.
• “‘The pubs are on their knees!’” – In the House of Lords, Toby warns that Clause 20 of the Employment Rights Bill risks turning our pubs into places where banter will be banned.

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