News Round-Up

• “Reform faces second investigation over Farage expenses” – Reform UK is facing the prospect of a second investigation into claims that it overspent on Nigel Farage’s campaign at the last general election, reports the Telegraph.
• “Nigel Farage’s schoolmates call for apology after racism claims” – Former pupils and a teacher from Dulwich College have called on the Reform UK leader to ‘own his past of antisemitic and fascist views’, reports the Times.
• “Pro-Palestine protesters arrested after calling for intifada” – The activists are the first to be detained under a new police crackdown following the Bondi Beach massacre and escalating threats to the Jewish community, says the Telegraph.
• “Met chief: Law prevents police from stopping anti-Semitic protests” – Sir Mark Rowley says he’s concerned activists can ‘stir up race hatred’ in the UK without facing sanctions, according to the Telegraph.
• “Palestine Action-linked hunger striker Qesser Zuhrah taken to hospital” – Protesters including Zarah Sultana had gathered outside HMP Bronzefield to demand the 20 year-old, who is on day 46, receive urgent medical attention, reports the Guardian.
• “Twitter user is jailed for 18 months for two anti-immigration tweets made after Christmas market car attack that were viewed just 33 times” – Luke Yarwood, 36, from Dorset, was jailed after he called for people to go to migrant hotels and “burn them to the ground” after the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg, Germany, last December, says the Mail.
• “Streeting rules out compulsory flu masks ‘for now’ as doctors strike” – Health Secretary Wes Streeting has opened the door to compulsory mask-wearing in the future, according to the Telegraph.
• “‘I’m not hiring untrained 18-year-olds any more – their pay is too high’” – Employers say taking a punt on young workers is too risky and expensive after Labour’s tinkering, reports the Telegraph.
• “Boys aged 11 to be sent on anti-misogyny courses” – Programmes in schools could cover image-based abuse, coercive behaviour, online harassment, stalking and pornography, says the Times.
• “Appointment of Archbishop of Canterbury ‘must be halted’ amid safeguarding concerns” – Dame Sarah Mullally is due to take up the role next year, but a General Synod member says her elevation shouldn’t go ahead, according to the Telegraph.
• “BBC forced to correct claim intifada militants were ‘largely unarmed’” – A former BBC executive has criticised the “deeply offensive” wording of an article on the Corporation’s website that described the intifada against Israel as “largely unarmed”, says Gordon Rayner in the Telegraph.
• “Muslim gangs ‘take control’ of drug-ridden prison” – Prison chief places HMP Swaleside in special measures after six inmates were assaulted or stabbed on their first night in the jail, reports the Telegraph.
• “Migrant partners cost Britain £5.6 billion over their lifetime” – Experts on the Migration Advisory Committee said half of those entering the UK on family visas were unemployed, with few high earners, according to the Times.
• “Migrant invasion spells a wretched Christmas for Crowborough” – Residents of the small East Sussex town are dismayed at the plan to install up to 600 male asylum seekers in a local army camp, writes Daily Sceptic regular Madeleine Gillies in TCW.
• “SuperFlu is Flagellistic (expialidotious)” – The Health Ethics Advocacy and Research Team pours cold water on the “close to hysterical” public health alarmism about the ‘super-flu’: “The sense of déjà vu is striking.”
• “British breakthrough brings nuclear fusion a step closer” – Predicting how plasma behaves in a fusion power plant can take days using powerful supercomputers. A new tool backed by Britain can do it in seconds, says the Times.
• “EU abandons petrol car ban” – Union bows to pressure from Germany and Italy to allow a limited number of polluting vehicles to be sold, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ford pulls plug On F-150 Lightning, rethinks electric pick-up strategy” – After billions in losses, the US motor giant has scrapped its heavily loss-making F-150 Lightning EV and shifted its pick-up strategy toward gas and hybrid power, notes Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Sorry, Al Jazeera – climate change isn’t behind Indonesia’s flooding” – The Qatari state broadcaster blames climate change, but Indonesia’s deadly floods are driven by poor infrastructure, deforestation and land mismanagement, explains Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Children cannot consent to puberty blocker trial, Streeting admits” – Conservative MP tells Health Secretary “it’s on your watch” if trial goes ahead, reports the Telegraph.
• “Hampstead Heath’s trans rules ‘treat women worse than men’” – The campaign group Sex Matters is taking legal action over the failure of the north London bathing ponds to protect the women’s pond, as per this year’s Supreme Court judgement, writes the Telegraph.
• “‘Transphobic’ Christmas card pulled from Sainsbury’s” – “This Christmas, I’m Identifying as a Grinch,” read the card, as a gender-critical campaigner tells the Telegraph the decision to remove the design from shelves is “surreal”.
• “English Heritage admits promoting ‘nonsense’ theory about Christmas” – Charity apologises over widely discredited theory that Roman Empire repurposed a sun god festival to ‘invent’ Christmas, writes the Telegraph.
• “Hard-Right rallies around Miss Finland after ‘slanted-eye’ gesture” – Sarah Dzafce, Miss Universe, has been stripped of her crown after a photo of her pulling the sides of her eyes in a “slanted-eyes” gesture went viral, reports the Telegraph.
• “How the cult of victimhood poisoned the West” – In a new book reviewed by Simon Heffer in the Telegraph, philosopher Pascal Bruckner calls for the rejection of self-pity and imagined guilt.
• “First person charged under new abortion buffer zone law” – Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, 48, has been charged with silently praying within 150 metres of abortion clinics in Birmingham on four occasions, reports the Telegraph.
• “David Lammy’s reforms are a serious threat to free speech” – The world once looked to the UK as a bastion of liberty; now we are fast on the road to becoming a banana republic, argues the Free Speech Union’s Max Thompson in the Telegraph.
• “The anti-Muslim hate definition will be bad for free speech” In the Spectator, David Shipley takes apart the leaked draft text of the Government’s supposedly watered-down definition of ‘Islamophobia’, now re-badged as ‘anti-Muslim hatred’.
• “It’s time to end the cowardly appeasement of radical Islamism” – Jihadists like the evil pair who carried out the Bondi Beach massacre are laughing at the West and its craven leadership, thunders Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Candace Owens and the internet brainrot industry” – We’re just asking questions man… about Egyptian aircraft and lapel microphone assassinations and a secret murder squad of French legionnaires. On Substack, Eugyppius takes a dim view of the conspiracy theories that have sprung up around Charlie Kirk’s death.
• “AI will kill all the lawyers” – In the Spectator, Sean Thomas speaks to a senior English barrister who tells him that because of AI, most legal jobs “won’t exist in ten years. Or less.”
• “Canada couldn’t treat a sick woman. So it offered her assisted suicide” – The chilling case of Jolene Van Alistine exposes just how “compassionate” the Canadian health system truly is, argues Michael Taube in the Telegraph.
• “Nocebo effects during the Covid event” – On Substack, Dr Gary Sidley and Dr Jonathan Engler set out the psychological toxicity of public health directives during the pandemic.
• “Cringing our way through the ‘Dumb Ages’” – It’s hard to pick the prize for the greatest public display of stupidity, says Bill Rice Jr on Substack, as he reviews the lunacies of recent years and finds there’s too many candidates.
• “Refreshing moral clarity from Kemi Badenoch” – Chris Rose praises the Leader of the Opposition for her full-throated condemnation of Islamic extremism in the House of Commons yesterday.

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