News Round-Up

• “No, Shabana Mahmood isn’t far right” – There’s been a lot of blather about home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s announcements being against ‘Labour values’, writes Tom Slater in the Spectator. But he disagrees.
• “Are refugees really worth £266,000 each to the UK economy?” – Refugees could contribute £266,000 each to the UK economy. That’s the claim made by Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union in a new report, says Lara Brown in the Spectator.
• “Terrorist may get payout after prison isolation ‘breached human rights’” – A human rights judge has ruled that Sahayb Abu, jailed for life for his part in an Islamic State plot, suffered PTSD after being segregated and is therefore entitled to compensation, reports the Times.
• “Hundreds of Afghan ‘serious cases’ including criminals let into Britain under relocation scheme” – The primary Afghan relocation scheme was responsible for importing at least 28 violent criminals, according to Guida Fawkes.
• “Almost a third of homes targeted by Reeves’s ‘mansion tax’ will be flats” – The properties expected to be hit by Rachel Reeves’s new mansion tax are concentrated in London, says the Telegraph.
• “Reeves to spend £6 billion more on benefits” – Rachel Reeves will increase spending on benefits by £6 billion in the Budget, despite calls to control the ballooning bill, reports the Telegraph.
• “Kemi Badenoch warns Labour’s welfare addiction will ‘bankrupt Britain’” – In a stark pre-Budget assessment, the Conservative leader says Sir Keir Starmer’s retreats on welfare will trigger higher taxes for workers in next week’s Budget, according to the Mail.
• “Record number of Britons are moving abroad under Labour” – Last year the number of UK citizens going to live abroad was 257,000 – far more than the 77,000 previously estimated by the Office for National Statistics, says the Mail.
• “You may only criticise Reeves if you opposed lockdown” – According to J’Accuse, most of Britain’s economic woes are attributable to the money it spunked up the wall during the lockdown and if you didn’t oppose it at the time you have no right to complain about the cost of living. Happily, we all did.
• “Your Party civil war worsens before inaugural conference” – Zarah Sultana is locked in a dispute with the party’s co-founder Jeremy Corbyn over funds and structure as the Greens make gains on the left, reports the Times.
• “Labour disintegrates on migration as gleeful Greens surge in the polls” – Dozens of backbenchers look set to try to block Shabana Mahmood’s plans, worried that Labour is bleeding votes to the Green, according to the Mail.
• “Labour Left wing prepare to move against Starmer” – The Tribune Group say they have the 80 MPs needed to back a candidate in a leadership contest with the PM, says the Times.
• “The net migration debacle is a blunder too far for the ONS” – The Office for National Statistics published revised net migration figures for 2021 to 2024 which sets out a very different picture, writes Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
• “Let’s stop pretending the immigration crisis is all about boat people. It isn’t” – Almost all of the Government’s woes are linked to record population growth, but the problem has been building for years, says Philip Johnston in the Telegraph.
• “All rulings by immigration judges to be made public” – All rulings by immigration judges are set to be published in a victory for open justice, reports the Telegraph.
• “Civil servants taught to spy on anti-migrant social media posts” – Civil servants are being advised on how to monitor social media posts that are spreading concerns about migrants, according to the Telegraph.
• “Michelle Obama has just taken victimhood culture to bizarre new heights” – Does the former First Lady really think that, if black women can’t swim, it’s white people’s fault? asks Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “BBC apologises for referring to Princess of Wales as Kate Middleton” – The BBC has apologised for repeatedly referring to the Princess of Wales as Kate Middleton on Armistice Day, reports to the Telegraph.
• “What if they really are the enemies of the people?” – On his Substack, David McGrogan wonders if the Mail got it right when it branded the judges in the Miller case “enemies of the people’.
• “China targeting MPs with ‘large financial incentives’, MI5 warns” – MPs and peers have been told that Beijing is “relentless” in trying to gain influence by targeting staff and friends of MPs using financial incentives, says the Times.
• “Spy threat worse ‘after Labour allowed China espionage trial to collapse’” – The threat of spying in Parliament has increased since the collapse of the China spy trial, the Commons Speaker has warned, according to the Telegraph.
• “Labour’s hope that generosity towards China will buy good behaviour is delusional” – Britain must act. Not tomorrow, not cautiously, but decisively. Our security depends on it, writes Iain Duncan Smith in the Telegraph.
• “It is time to face facts on China and block its planned London super embassy” – Sir Keir and his minister should state bluntly that Beijing’s behaviour has crossed a line into hostility, says the Telegraph in a leader.
• “‘Uninvestable’ UK takes 30 years to do a nine-month project, says billionaire” – Britain is increasingly “uninvestable” because straightforward projects can take decades to complete, a billionaire heir of a diamond mining dynasty has said, reports the Telegraph.
• “New £7 billion rail line delayed in row over who opens the doors” – The launch of a new £7bn railway line has been delayed while trade unions argue about who should operate the trains’ doors, says the Telegraph.
• “Congress votes overwhelmingly to release Epstein files” – The Epstein files may soon be published in full after both houses of the US legislature voted to release them, according to the Telegraph.
• “‘Deeply ashamed’ former US treasury secretary Larry Summers quits public life over links to Jeffrey Epstein” – The former top official says he wants to “rebuild trust and repair relationships” after emails released last week showed he kept in touch with Jeffrey Epstein after he admitted soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008, says Sky News.
• “Miliband’s green revolution blown off course by wild winds” – After decades of building and billions of pounds in investment, Britain’s wind power industry faces an unusual challenge: a lack of wind, reports the Telegraph.
• “Hansen got one prediction right – ten years on, the Paris Agreement is dead” – Ten years after its big debut, the Paris Agreement looks like climate theatre as emissions climb and reality catches up with doomsters like James Hansen, writes Robert Bradley in Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Nice try, NY Post – an Ice Age won’t come from a collapsing Gulf Stream” – AMOC collapse won’t trigger an ice age – the North Atlantic current has always fluctuated naturally, according to Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Labour Net Zero levies now main driver of rising energy bills” – Labour’s Net Zero levies will become the main driver of household energy bills next year, overtaking gas prices for the first time, analysts have warned, reports the Telegraph.
• “Farmers face ban on gene-edited crops under Starmer’s EU reset” – British farmers face an effective ban on growing gene-edited crops under Sir Keir Starmer’s EU reset, says the Telegraph.
• “Labour is crushing Britain’s farmers” – For years, British farmers have warned that the nation’s food system is broken – and they’re right, according to James Rebanks in UnHerd.
• “Sharron Davies: ‘I’ve never been anti-trans in my life. I’m just pro-female’” – The Olympic swimmer tells the Telegraph’s Oliver Brown about her new campaign targeting the grassroots sports that still allow biological men to compete in women’s events.
• “Sophie Turner expresses ‘deep concern’ over the assisted dying Bill” – The 29-year-old star, who rose to fame as Sansa Stark in Game Of Thrones, has signed a letter to Peers urging them to “pause” the suicide bill to allow time to improve safeguards, reports the Mail.
• “Revealed: Inside story of ‘sexist’ Sky Sports Halo’s collapse” – The idea had been in the works for several months and Sky Sports considered it so significant to their corporate mission that at least two staff were seconded to it full-time, says the Mail. But it was another case of ‘Go woke, go broke’.
• “Scotland’s sex-selective abortion plan is a dystopian nightmare” – The idea of engineering your children like you’re picking toppings on a pizza makes me queasy, writes Celia Walden in the Telegraph.
• “Trump gunman Thomas Crooks may have identified as non-binary” – The man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump may have identified as non-binary and been radicalised online, according to the Mail.
• “UAE claims Telegraph won’t face ‘poison pill’ debt” – The UAE has claimed a “poison pill” debt that threatened to derail an onward sale of the Telegraph will not apply, reports the Telegraph.
• “Would Sir Keir Starmer be liable for prosecution if the Hillsborough Law was on the statute books” – Yesterday, I asked a DCMS minister in the House of Lords whether, if the Hillsborough Law had been passed, the PM would be be liable for prosecution for ‘misleading the public’ over the appointment of the new chair of the football regulator.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.