News Round-Up

• “Fresh humiliation for Starmer as Labour falls into third place after new year relaunch flounders” – Keir Starmer’s hopes of a 2026 fightback have suffered a fresh blow as a second poll in as many days has put Labour in third place, reports the Independent.
• “There’s a reason the pub feels like home. It’s the best of Britain” – Destructive taxation and penal laws are ripping the heart out of the community and the soul out of the nation, warns Christopher Howse in the Telegraph.
• “My blueprint to save Britain’s pubs” – Kemi Badenoch has pledged to abolish business rates for thousands of pubs, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour doesn’t understand that pubs hold this country together” – Your boozer’s future is more important than the silly things Labour is wasting your money on, says Kemi Babenoch in the Telegraph.
• “The proof we don’t need Labour’s anti-pub drink-driving law” – Decades of falling road accidents undercuts the case for tougher drink-driving limits, argues Tony Diver in the Telegraph.
• “Migrants can ‘cheat’ Labour’s online English language tests” – Ministers warn that migrants will be able to cheat their way through English language tests under £800 million plans by Labour to make the tests entirely online, according to the Telegraph.
• “Migrants share video tutorial on how to smuggle themselves into Britain” – Migrants have been sharing TikTok videos that openly explain how to sneak into lorries heading for Britain, reports GB News.
• “Turkish man supplied thousands of small boats to people smugglers” – Investigators have traced thousands of small boats used by smugglers back to a single Turkish supplier, says LBC.
• “NHS doctor posted antisemitic conspiracy theories claiming Jews were behind 9/11, medical tribunal hears ” – Consultant anaesthetist Dr Najmiah Ahmad is alleged to have used her X account to repost two “seriously offensive” comments that were motivated by racial or religious hostility, reports the Mail. 
• “Primary school teachers go on strike after pupils kick and bite staff and bring knives into the classroom” – Teachers have walked out after repeated violent incidents involving pupils and weapons, says the Mail.
• “Twenty-two Labour councils set to delay local elections” – Labour-run councils are intending to delay elections in areas where Reform is tipped to do well, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Can Laila Cunningham win London for Reform?” – After the success of the ‘Women for Reform’ initiative last summer, Farage hopes that a similar playbook will make inroads in a city where his party have previously struggled, writes James Heale in the Spectator.
• “Fury at Reform council’s plan to rip out city’s historic cast-iron lampposts and put in ‘grotesque’ modern alternatives” – Canterbury residents are furious over plans by the Reform UK council to rip up the city’s “beautiful” Victorian lampposts and replace them with “ugly” modern ones, reports the Mail.
• “I would vote against boots on ground in Ukraine” – Nigel Farage says he would vote against deploying British troops to Ukraine to underpin a peace deal, according to the Mail.
• “‘Weak’ Britain should have celebrated Maduro’s capture” – US officials have taken aim at Britain for failing to cheer Maduro’s arrest loudly enough, reports GB News.
• “Impotent, useless Britain is the weakest it has been for 500 years” – There is a simple reason why Trump ignores us on Greenland and Maduro, says Allister Heath in the Telegraph. We no longer matter.
• “Does Greenland really belong to Denmark?” – Denmark’s claim to Greenland has started to look shakier the more closely you examine the history, writes Páll Vilhjálmsson in the Spectator.
• “Why the US should annex Greenland” – America taking Greenland is a slow strategic shift rather than a dramatic land grab, says Roger Kimball in the Spectator.
• “‘Evil’ Macron snubbed from Brigitte Bardot’s funeral” – Emmanuel Macron found himself pointedly left off the guest list at Brigitte Bardot’s funeral, reports the European Conservative.
• “Is Viktor Orban about to lose power?” – It would be too early to write off Hungary’s Prime Minister, says Daniel Thorpe in the Spectator.
• “Here’s why the Iranian regime seems invincible ” – On the Persuasion Substack, an anonymous Iranian explains why Iran’s regime keeps hanging on despite all the pressure. Turns out, it’s extremely difficult to overthrow.
• “Three examples of the ‘theft industrial complex’ in 2025” – Vast US government waste and fraud is systemic, not accidental, says Larry Behrens in RealClearEnergy.
• “Democrats are finally paying the price for Minnesota’s Somali fraud scandal” – Tim Walz was an appalling running mate for Kamala Harris, says David Christopher Kaufman in the Telegraph. Now his career has ended in an even deeper failure.
• “Horror as ‘suburban mom’, 37, is shot dead by ICE border enforcers after driving through raid” – A fatal ICE shooting has sparked a bitter political row between Washington and local officials, reports the Mail.
• “Net Zero zealots look more foolish than ever in snowy Britain” – Snowy weather has once again made confident Net Zero predictions look painfully premature, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “The Independent refuses to smell the roses regarding winter flowers and climate change” – Winter flowers have been waved around as proof of a climate crisis, while the urban heat island effect on local temperatures has been ignored, writes Linnea Lueken in ClimateRealism.
• “Modelling error in estimating how clouds affect climate is 8700% larger than alleged CO₂ forcing” – Huge uncertainties in cloud modelling have dwarfed the supposed impact of CO₂, reports Kenneth Richard on NoTricksZone.
• “Should LCOE finally be retired from energy policy?” – The idea that renewables are cheap and self-sustaining has collided with stubborn economic reality, says Robert Bradley Jr. on Master Resource.
• “‘Carbon’ capture utilisation and storage, separating fact from fiction” – Even if the world could effectively capture and permanently remove one billion tonnes of CO₂ annually, the impact on temperature would be barely measurable, writes Dr Lars Schernikau on Clintel.
• “Stonewall’s collapse can’t come soon enough” – Stonewall’s once-dominant grip on policy and debate has finally started to loosen, cheers Joanna Williams in the Spectator.
• “Don’t scapegoat women” – Wokism is an idea-driven ideology that predates the Great Feminisation by more than a century, says Nathan Cofnas on Substack.
• “Bearded trans woman appears in court in skirt accused of £100,000 blackmail plot to firebomb legal firm” – A trans woman has appeared in court accused of a £100,000 blackmail plot to firebomb a legal firm, according to the Mail.
• “NYC mayoral aide Cea Weaver who says whites owning houses is racist bursts into tears when asked about her mother’s $1.4m Craftsman home” – A woke aide to New York City’s new socialist mayor burst out crying when confronted over her assertion that it is racist for white people to own homes – despite her own mother owning a $1.4m Craftsman house, reports the Mail.
• “They did the bidding of a racist mob of Jew-haters. The ideology of multiculturalism is now untenable” – On TalkTV, author Brendan O’Neill calls the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans “one of the worst police scandals in decades”.

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