News Round-Up

• “Reeves triggers ‘havoc’ in the stock market as investors pull record £10 billion” – Rachel Reeves’s prolonged Budget run-up has sparked a record rush out of the markets, with British investors pulling more than £10 billion from global stocks in just six months, reports GB News.
• “Labour is now the party of welfare, not work” – We are living through a historic transfer – fiscal and human – from work to welfare, warns Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
• “Starmer lied over Chagos, manifesto pledge in tatters as Labour pushes ahead with sovereignty handover” – Keir Starmer is being accused of breaking his word after pledging to defend Britain’s Overseas Territories, only to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, says the Conservative Post.
• “Labour ‘denying democracy’ by cancelling local elections, says Reform” – Reform has accused Labour of “denying democracy” after postponing four mayoral elections, reports Sky News.
• “The Tories will get no mercy from Reform after their past treachery” – After Nigel Farage lent his support in 2019, the Tories turned their back on Brexiteers, writes Isabel Oakeshott in theTelegraph. Now the shoe is on the other foot.
• “Hotel cancels Reform UK Christmas party” – A Reform UK Christmas event in Croydon has been cancelled after a campaign by the far-Left group Stand Up to Racism prompted a local hotel to axe the event, says GB News.
• “Furious Nigel Farage threatens to boycott the BBC as he accuses the corporation of ‘astonishing double standards’ in racism row” – Nigel Farage has turned the tables on the BBC in a furious row about racism, reports the Mail.
• “Does Paloma Faith know what ‘far-Right’ means?” – In the Spectator, Tom Slater takes aim at Paloma Faith and other celebs who’ve branded Reform UK “far-Right”, calling it a middle-class hysteria that insults real fascism.
• “Sorry, celebs, the ‘far right’ slur doesn’t work anymore” – The days are long gone when rich activists could write off working-class voters as ‘fascists’, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “Where was my invitation to Your Party?” – It isn’t often in political life that people actually announce that they are mad, writes Douglas Murray in the Spectator. But at the Your Party conference this weekend they did.
• “An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman” – In the Spectator, John Power digs into how Harry Shukman legally snagged a British passport under a fake name for Hope Not Hate.
• “BBC Director-General Tim Davie orders all staff to complete training course on antisemitism – after 200 Jewish staff accused corporation of ignoring their calls for racism probe” – Outgoing BBC Director-General Tim Davie has ordered all staff to complete a training course on antisemitism, according to the Mail.
• “Live facial recognition cameras planned for every town centre” – Police could be given access to Britain’s passport database to catch criminals under an expansion of facial recognition technology that could be deployed in every city, town and village, reports the Mail.
• “The sinister rise of facial-recognition Britain” – This expansion of live facial recognition surveillance in Britain could be the end of privacy as we know it, warns Silkie Carlo in the Spectator.
• “Peer suspended from House of Lords was allegedly paid $1 million in ‘corrupt’ deal” – A peer suspended by the House of Lords for breaking lobbying rules is now facing claims that he received at least £760,000 from an allegedly corrupt deal, reports the Guardian.
• “Word salad of job titles masks the truth: we no longer know our value” – The shift to a service economy is leaving people struggling to explain how they spend their day, writes Harry Wallop in the Times.
• “Revealed: the junior chess champion whose British under 14 title was ‘stolen by Rachel Reeves’” – The Mail reveals the junior chess champion whose British title appears to have been ‘stolen’ by Rachel Reeves. 
• “Authors retract Nature paper projecting high costs of climate change” – The authors of a much-hyped study claiming climate change will cost $38 trillion a year by 2049 have pulled their paper after critics tore into its data and methods, according to Retraction Watch.
• “Huge retraction, the usual playbook and a reason for optimism” – Nature’s retraction of a fatally flawed climate paper exposed the usual spin – but also hinted that climate science may be nudging back toward honesty, says Roger Pielke Jr on his Substack.
• “British energy grid overhaul to pile £100 on to household bills” – A record £90 billion is to be loaded on to energy bills to help pay for grid upgrades linked to Ed Miliband’s Net Zero blitz, reports Birmingham Live.
• “I don’t want my grandchildren to say I failed on climate” – King Charles reckons the younger generation will have a “ghastly legacy of horror to deal with” unless the world starts to act with serious intent to combat climate change, according to ITV News.
• “The great climate climbdown is finally here” – To paraphrase Monty Python, the climate parrot may still be nailed to its perch – at the recent COP summit, at Harvard, on CNN – but elsewhere it’s dead, says Matt Ridley in the Spectator.
• “Foreign billionaires pour €1.88 billion into US climate extremism” – A new report shows that five European foundations have pumped nearly $2 billion into US groups backing extreme climate campaigns, according to the Freedom Research Substack.
• “British pupils taught that Taiwan is part of China” – British pupils are being told that Taiwan is part of China as part of a government-funded scheme, reports GB News.
• “There are only 3,000 Jews in Ireland. I saw first-hand how hatred risks driving them out” – In the Telegraph, Alan Shatter warns Ireland’s tiny Jewish community feels increasingly unwelcome amid a wave of anti-Israel sentiment.
• “Nations pull out of Eurovision after Israel allowed to compete” – Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after public broadcasters refused to ban Israel, reports ITV News.
• “France bolsters Christmas market security over ‘very high’ terror threat” – France will tighten security around Christmas markets after its interior minister warned of a “very high” terror threat, says the Express.
• “The entire state of Rheinland-Pfalz is toying with a strategy to outright ban AfD candidates from elected office, in this, the best and most democratic Germany of all time” – A German state is trying to stop AfD candidates running for office by making them sign a loyalty pledge – basically treating the AfD like terrorists, writes Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Record number of Britons hospitalised with flu as NHS warns UK is set for ‘worst year ever’” – Surveillance programmes suggest flu hospital admissions in England are more than double last year over the same time period and ten times higher than 2023, according to the Mail.
• “EU launches ‘pre-pandemic’ plan to stop bird flu jumping to humans” – European countries have been advised to boost hospital capacity, encourage mask-wearing and quarantine sick people under a new plan to prevent a bird flu pandemic, reports the Telegraph. Haven’t we been here before?
• “Overdiagnosis and ADHD” – Wes Streeting’s review into ADHD diagnoses aims to tackle concerns about overdiagnosis, but on the TTE Substack Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson warn that confusing overdiagnosis with misdiagnosis risks causing more harm than good.
• “I was expelled from the Girl Guides for saying they were wrong to admit boys identifying as girls” – In the Telegraph, Katie Alcock says she’s glad Girl-guiding has banned boys, having been kicked out for opposing trans inclusion – but the way she was treated still leaves a bitter taste.
• “A good week for girls and women” – Women should never have been excluded from the Guides or the Women’s Institute to make space for men, says Josephine Bartosch in the Critic.
• “Marriage declared void after husband ‘not informed’ of wife’s gender change plans” – A judge in Ireland has annulled a marriage after hearing that a husband did not know his wife intended to change gender and become a man, reports the Irish Independent.
• “Female police officer, 29, who drunkenly groped two colleagues and tried to kiss inspector at boozy leaving do is found guilty of gross misconduct” – PC Pamela Pritchard, 29, has been found guilty of gross misconduct after drunkenly groping two colleagues and attempting to kiss an inspector at a North Wales rugby club, says the Mail.
• “Cringeworthy Prince Harry sparks boos on Late Show with Stephen Colbert as he mocks ‘King’ Trump and makes some very awkward jokes” – Prince Harry made a surprise, toe-curling appearance on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, where he mocked Trump by claiming America had “elected a king”, reports the Mail.
• “We are your best defence” – The number of cases the Free Speech Union has fought since it was founded in February 2020 is now over 5,000. If you’re worried you might get into trouble at work, at university or in your day-to-day life, join the Free Speech Union.

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