News Round-Up
- “Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped” – Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) should be scrapped by all police forces in England and Wales recommend police chiefs in a report to the Home Secretary to be presented next month, reports GB News.
- “Tories overtake Labour in polls for first time since Johnson” – The Conservatives have edged ahead of Labour for the first time in years in the Telegraph’s poll of polls.
- “Pubs bar Labour MPs in rates protest” – Two more of the Chancellor’s local pubs have barred her from entry as 1,000 others join a campaign to ban Labour MPs in protest against higher business rates, reports theTimes.
- “Brits have become poorer in 2025 as Labour’s tax bonanza reduced household incomes” – New national accounts show disposable incomes falling and growth weaker than expected, according to the Mail.
- “Labour is losing the countryside all over again” – After finally rebuilding trust with rural voters, Labour risks repeating Tony Blair’s hunting ban mistake and throwing it all away, says Tim Bonner in the Times.
- “Train drivers on £80,000 are ‘working class’” – Labour’s classification of social background could allow the children of highly-paid train drivers to access apprenticeships denied to middle-class families, reports the Mail.
- “Graduate jobs halve in just a year after minimum wage rise” – Entry-level recruitment has slumped to its lowest level since lockdowns, following higher wage costs, says the Telegraph.
- “Streeting accused of leadership manoeuvres over EU customs union” – Wes Streeting is accused of positioning himself for a future leadership bid by floating closer ties with the EU, reports the Express.
- “Starmer impersonator booed at Royal Variety Performance” – A chorus of boos rang out at the Royal Albert Hall when Keir Starmer’s voice was introduced during a comedy segment at this year’s Royal Variety Performance, according to GB News.
- “Councils ordered not to adopt four-day week” – Ministers have told councils they risk being labelled “failing” if they cut hours without reducing pay, reports the Telegraph.
- “Teachers take 600,000 days off over mental health” – The SNP has been accused of failing to support teachers after new figures revealed that almost 600,000 teaching days in Scotland have been lost to mental health absences in the last five years, says the Herald.
- “University threatened with legal action after protest at event” – A leading academic who led a recent government review into sex and gender data collection has threatened legal action against the University of Bristol, claiming it failed to protect her freedom of speech, according to the BBC.
- “We need the freedom to criticise faith” – Proposed definitions of “anti-Muslim hostility” risk chilling open debate and legitimate scrutiny of religion, warns Hardeep Singh in the Critic.
- “Don’t jawbone AI companies” – On the Persuasion Substack, Jacob Mchangama suggests how to fight back against government censorship of chatbots.
- “The Left is now defending FGM” – Cultural relativism is being used to excuse practices once universally condemned, warns Dia Chakravarty in the Telegraph.
- “Rotherham grooming gang jailed” – Two men have been sentenced for the rape of a vulnerable teenage girl in a long-running abuse investigation, reports the Mail.
- “How Muslim gangs rule our prisons” – Groups claiming loyalty to Islam exercise massive influence in some of the country’s most secure jails, including Frankland and Belmarsh, warns Rory Tingle in the Mail.
- “America is increasingly worried about free speech in the UK” – Senior US figures, including a Supreme Court justice, have raised concerns that Britain is sliding towards tyranny, writes Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
- “Nick Fuentes ‘can eat shit’” – The US Vice-President has denounced far-Right in-fighting as America’s conservative movement descends into open factional warfare, reports Sohrab Ahmari in UnHerd.
- “Struggle session ironies: Nicholas Christakis’s intellectual grace” – On Substack, Dr Randall Bock reflects on academic coercion and the breakdown of open dialogue in American universities.
- “Carney forced pension funds to back Canada” – Canada’s “pension nationalism” risks spiralling out of control, warns Eric Williams in the Telegraph.
- “Bondi Beach and Australia’s failed multiculturalism” – Despite broad public support for diversity, Australia is grappling with the strains of multiculturalism, writes David Werdiger in the Spectator.
- “Ban children from social media, says Britain’s top paediatrician” – Baroness Cass has backed strict age limits to curb harm from social media, reports the Telegraph.
- “Response to our readers on concealment of Vaxrevia data” – On the Trust the Evidence Substack, Dr Tom Jefferson and Prof Carl Heneghan outline the next legal steps they intend to take over alleged suppression of vaccine safety data.
- “Taxpayer-backed Net Zero project axed after five months” – A £14 million taxpayer-funded scheme to deploy a fleet of hydrogen-fuelled delivery trucks across the South East has collapsed just five months after it was launched, reports the Telegraph.
- “Climate change not proven cause of Arctic warming” – In Climate Realism, Anthony Watts says NPR, CBS and NBC are crying Arctic ‘climate crisis’ on just 19 years of patchy data.
- “The eco-zealots were wrong again” – Assertions of imminent mass extinction are exaggerated and unsupported, says Issues & Insights.
- “Claim: warming could lead to a new ice age” – Historical climate evidence rubbishes claims of catastrophic temperature swings, writes Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That.
- “Wind turbine eagle-kill secrecy may soon end” – A lawsuit seeks to force disclosure of protected bird deaths linked to wind farms, reports David Wojick on CFACT.
- “Starmer sued over civil servant Pride marches” – A Christian charity has launched legal action against Sir Keir Starmer in a bid to stop Civil Service officials taking part in Pride marches, reports GB News.
- “Revealed: how big businesses are rolling back public support for Pride” – A Guardian analysis of 20 major companies in the UK and US shows their promotion of Pride on their social media channels has fallen substantially in the past two years.
- “Britain’s patriotic vibe shift” – A renewed appetite for national identity reflects growing resistance to elite post-national politics, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “The economic purge of the young white male” – In the Spectator, Sean Thomas exposes how the Boomers sacrificed their sons to save themselves.
- “Only a city like Brighton would ‘decolonise’ Santa” – Trust the wokest borough in the land to take Father Christmas and make him a symbol of the West’s “cultural superiority”, says Celia Walden in the Telegraph.
- “Free speech chief lambasts museum for claiming Santa Claus is ‘too white’” – Speaking to GB News, Toby ridicules the Brighton and Hove Museum’s call for “Mother Christmases” as ideological overreach.
- “This is the kind of story you would expect to see in the papers on April 1st!” – On GB News, Toby reacts to Brighton and Hove Museum labelling Santa Claus as “too white”.
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I find this interesting. This implies that there is more to “class” than income. Which seems true to me. But then it becomes very hard to measure and you’re also kind of implying that train drivers and their milieu don’t afford their children the same attention, expectations and opportunities as parents in “white collar” jobs. As so often, looking out for the “vulnerable” or “under privileged” just turns out to be patronising and reveals the “saviours” to be prejudiced and arrogant.
Working class kids should get priority for apprenticeships but grammar schools are wrong. Yeah, makes sense…
The new Christmas song: “I wish it could be April 1st every day-ay-ay”
It still needs some work…
Ther lyrics may need work but I think the sentiment has already been fulfilled.
‘The snowman’ is racist as well, he’s too white!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/07/putin-accept-trump-deal-russia-economy-ukraine-war After nearly four years of war, Russia has exhausted most of the cash reserves and borrowed funds that initially fueled its military spending surge, and the situation is set to deteriorate further. “A banking crisis is possible. … A nonpayments crisis is possible. I don’t want to think about a continuation of the war or an escalation,” Russia’s energy giants, once the crown jewels of its economy, are struggling. Gazprom posted a net loss of $12.9 billion last year after losing its primary European market. The state gas monopoly has burned through most of its cash reserves, which plummeted from $27 billion in early 2022 to just $6 billion to $8 billion today, while accumulating over $20 billion in additional debt. Exporters are receiving slightly more than $40 per barrel when shipping from Baltic and Black Sea ports, as well as from the eastern port of Kozmino, a reduction of 30% within the last three months Additional damage to revenues was inflicted by U.S. sanctions imposed in October against key state oil companies, which sharply narrowed the circle of buyers and forced them to sell raw materials at increasingly larger discounts. Importantly, the price drop is occurring amid a… Read more »
“…the price drop is occurring amid a general weakening of the oil market…”
At least Russia has the will and ability to use its own oil and gas.
Look closer to home, Monro.
I am, of course, determinedly looking close to home. Former Deputy PM of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin has warned about how being on UK soil could be ‘deadly dangerous’. ‘Since 2022, the Kremlin has re-cast the UK as public enemy number one, a shift rooted in long-term strategy and amplified by the Ukraine war, ensuring Britain remains central to Kremlin threat narratives. This stance reflects a deeper structural trend likely to endure beyond the present conflict and Putin’s rule. Russian discourse draws on a long cultural tradition of hostility with Britain, intensified by Russia’s post-imperial resentment. Political elites depict the UK even more than the United States as Russia’s civilisational opponent – ….The siloviki, who form the ideological and institutional core of the Putin regime, sustain this Anglophobia. They circulate conspiracy theories about Britain’s supposed quest to weaken Russia and attribute a ‘British hand’ to most adverse international developments….. Russian policy extends anti-British confrontation across several levels. Officials spread hostile narratives domestically and abroad, dismantle British cultural and educational institutions, and restrict Britain’s diplomatic presence. Security agencies mount hybrid operations through disinformation, espionage, and cyberattacks, while military planning increasingly treats Britain as a legitimate target, lowering the barrier to both nuclear and non-nuclear escalation.’ https://nestcentre.org/war-with-the-anglo-saxons/ Putin… Read more »
I think we should be looking a great deal closer to where all our own personal TAX MONEY went in its £BILLIONS after disappearing into the pockets of your master, Zelensky the Weasel. Are you threatening us with Ukrainian Drone Attacks in your long list of British military targets?
How many mansions does Zelensky now own outside of Ukraine? Quite a few, according to some reports, so where did he get all that money from his previous job as a PORN STAR?
one would have thought Russia and China would have been linked by pipelines decades ago.
In fact they have been:
‘China currently consumes just over 400 billion cubic meters of gas per year. About 60 percent of that is produced domestically, while the remaining 40 percent is imported. About half the imported gas comes via pipelines—mostly from Russia and Turkmenistan’
‘Researchers from CNPC, China’s biggest energy company, forecast the country’s annual demand for gas will rise to 600-670 billion cubic meters by 2040. They also predict that China’s gas production will peak at about 310 billion cubic meters somewhere between 2035 and 2040. In other words, by the second half of the 2030s, China’s gas imports will grow from the current 180 billion cubic meters to between 290 and 390 billion cubic meters.’
China is going to require a great deal more imported gas. But China is also in the driving seat, since Russia has very few other customers:
‘negotiations (re new pipelines) are slow and difficult. While China seeks maximum clarity on its future gas needs, it is also testing how far it can push Russia on price and other conditions. There is no cost to Beijing for dragging its feet over both these issues’
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-talks-pre-war-while-its-forces-quietly-shrink/ ‘China is widely expected to launch its invasion of Taiwan before 2030, with the current “best estimate” being late 2028 or early 2029.’ ‘while a Chinese invasion of Taiwan may seem remote to many in the UK, its global implications would be immense. The loss of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity, with plans reportedly in place to destroy facilities to prevent their capture, would have profound consequences for global technology supply chains, shipping and economic stability, particularly in the face of inevitable sanctions.’ ‘Recent Russian UAV incursions across Eastern Europe, along with more recent “unattributed” incidents in Ireland, France, Belgium and elsewhere, combined with the NATO response under Operation EASTERN SENTRY, make the prospect of prolonged and expanded conflict in Europe increasingly likely.’ ‘….a genuine “pre-war era” should involve substantial MoD funding and the launch of major rearmament and procurement programmes’ What is the current state of Britain’s armed forces? ‘…a fleet of six active frigates……six Type 45 destroyers, currently undergoing upgrades…..the smallest number of surface escorts the Royal Navy has had in over 100 years, and arguably since its formation.’ ‘…the RAF would struggle to deploy more than two dozen fast jets to any additional major conflict.’ ‘….one of… Read more »
Remember this took a serious turn for the worse under Cameron-Clegg and never recovered.
The first big end of Cold War “dividend” was taken under Major as I recall and regularly repeated.
Major was an absolute disaster; those who succeeded him, from all three major parties, no better…
We know all that.
Opportunism at large: https://www.gbnews.com/news/six-immigration-officers-charged-alleged-thefts-migrants Six immigration officers up in court.
“We need the freedom to criticise faith” – Proposed definitions of “anti-Muslim hostility” risk chilling open debate and legitimate scrutiny of religion, warns HARDEEP SINGH in the Critic.” UK Sikh man Hardeep Singh is absolutely right, and that includes… THE FREEDOM TO CRITICISE SIKHISM and its adherents in the West, who have relentlessly used complaints and lawfare to force western legal systems to give Sikhs EXEMPTIONS for everything they want, including carrying lethal weapons, even in schools, while westerners are often DENIED that right, especially in Britain. Guess what shocking new thing I learned today: In case you ever wondered why Sikh women and girls in the West are almost NEVER attacked by Muslim Rape Gangs, or murdered by Fake African Refugees, it’s because NOT ONLY SIKH MEN & BOYS are allowed to carry concealed weapons, but ALSO SIKH WOMEN & GIRLS !!! Here’s a photo of one: Sikh woman sues IRS after losing job over kirpan | SikhNet So just remember that, chaps, the next time a lovely Sikh woman bats her eyelashes at you: she’s carrying a DISEMBOWELLING DAGGER beneath her clothing. What I couldn’t find out is how old a girl needs to be before she can wear… Read more »
“baptize(v.)
“to administer the rite of baptism to,” c. 1300, from Old French batisier “be baptized; baptize; give a name to” (11c.), from Latin baptizare, from Greek baptizein “immerse, dip in water,” also figuratively, “be over one’s head” (in debt, etc.), “to be soaked (in wine);” in Christian use, “baptize.” This is from baptein “to dip, steep, dye, color,” which is perhaps from PIE root *gwabh- (1) “to dip, sink.” CHRISTIAN BAPTISM ORIGINALLY WAS A FULL IMMERSION. ”
Baptize – Etymology, Origin & Meaning
Nothing to do with SPRINKLING … nor drinking sugar & water…