News Round-Up

• “Sacking Jenrick has made Badenoch stronger” – Dropping Robert Jenrick has boosted Kemi Badenoch’s authority and standing as Tory leader, argues Stephen Pollard in the Spectator.
• “Advantage Nigel Farage as the Right realigns” – In the Times, Patrick Maguire reckons Nigel Farage got the last laugh in the Jenrick saga.
• “Robert Jenrick and the Tory psychodrama” – It may not have been in Nigel Farage’s best interest to take on another former Tory MP, warns Joseph Dinnage in CapX.
• “What will come of the Conservatives’ RJ-bargy?” – Badenoch claims to have seen off a mutiny, but will it actually win her relevance and respect? wonders Tom Jones in the Critic.
• “Jenrick has proved he’s a morally vacant coward you can’t trust with power… while Kemi’s shown an unflappable core of steel” – Kemi Badenoch’s decision to fire Robert Jenrick from the Shadow Cabinet and remove the whip has been a long time coming, says Sarah Vine in the Mail.
• “Brilliant Badenoch gambit or boon for Farage? Our writers go head-to-head” – In the Telegraph, Camilla Tominey and Tim Stanley clash over whether Kemi Badenoch’s bold move to axe Jenrick hurts her party or hands Nigel Farage a win.
• “The smoking gun that led to Jenrick’s sacking” – The Tory party released extracts of a speech it claimed shows that Robert Jenrick was planning to “stab his Conservative colleagues in the back” moments before Nigel Farage unveiled him at a Reform press conference, reports the Telegraph. Jenrick then made that speech.
• “Jenrick says Farage ‘couldn’t run a five-a-side team’ in leaked audio” – Leaked audio has revealed Robert Jenrick privately sneering at Nigel Farage before his dramatic defection, according to the Telegraph.
• “Forget about Tory-Reform pacts. This is now a fight to the death” – The Tories and Reform are currently at war with no sign of a truce, says David Frost in the Telegraph.
• “Our economy’s moribund, borders are broken, armed forces depleted and the PM’s an ocean-going socialist dud” – The Mail calls for unity to end Labour’s rule.
• “Reform risk becoming the face of Tory failure” – In the Spectator, Ross Clark paints a bleak picture for Nigel Farage and Reform despite their polling lead.
• “Trump official attacks Labour for cancelling local elections” –Sarah B. Rogers, the US State Department’s Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, has slammed Sir Keir Starmer for cancelling local elections, reports the Telegraph.
• “They turned out to demand a vote – and were dismissed as Nazis” – Locals chanting “Let us vote” have been told they’re Nazis after Redditch council pushed back elections until 2027, writes Neil Johnston in the Telegraph.
• “This is how tyranny comes to Britain” – Labour’s election delays are quietly eating away at democracy, warns Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph.
• “Reeves’s £45 billion rail plan based on ‘implausible’ numbers” – Rachel Reeves’s flagship rail scheme has been built on numbers economists say simply do not add up, according to the Telegraph.
• “Tax return chaos as HMRC phone lines go down two weeks before self-assessment deadline” – The taxman’s phone line went down for more than two hours under the strain of self-assessment queries on Thursday, says This is Money.
• “The Government are banoholics” – Banning non-alcoholic drinks for young people is as silly as it is pointless, writes Ben Sixsmith in the Critic.
• “Angela Rayner picks up second job amid tax row” – Angela Rayner has signed with a speaking agency despite criticising MPs for extra earnings, according to the Mail.
• “Romanian burglars began ‘ransacking’ homes hours after crossing Channel” – Two Romanian men have wasted no time after arriving in Britain, launching burglaries within hours of crossing the Channel, reports GB News.
• “TikTok user caught with bomb-making video jailed” – Adam Mahmood has been jailed for four years after sharing bomb-making instructions linked to UK terror attacks, says the Mail.
• “Police commissioner in Israeli fan row offered mosque ‘blank cheque’” – Internal documents show that West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, who has refused to sack Craig Guildford, offered to provide a letter backing Green Lane mosque for public grants, reports the Times.
• “Maccabi crime commissioner linked to anti-Israel activists” – The police boss at the centre of the Maccabi fan row has an advisor who was forced to apologise for antisemitic remarks, says the Telegraph.
• “How the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban unravelled into a policing scandal” – The exaggerations, falsehoods and inaccuracies in the intelligence used by West Midlands Police to justify the decision to ban Maccabi fans have been laid bare, reports Fiona Hamilton in the Times.
• “Ofsted investigates school that banned Jewish MP” – Ofsted has stepped in after claims a school caved in to pressure and cancelled a visit by a Jewish MP, says the Mail.
• “NHS doctor arrested over suspected support for Hamas” – A suspended NHS doctor who praised a female Palestinian suicide bomber and her October 7th terrorist son as “martyrs” has been arrested on suspicion of expressing support for Hamas, reports the Mail.
• “Grok is the Botticelli of our time” – Holding AI creators accountable for the wayward behaviour of chatbots is like prosecuting parents for the crimes of their adult children, argues Toby in the Spectator.
• “Warhammer maker bans staff from using AI” – Games Workshop has drawn a firm line on artificial intelligence, opting to protect human creators over shiny new tech, according to IGN.
• “Why Twitter matters” – Twitter – or X if you must – is essential for bypassing traditional institutions, says Chris Bayliss in the Critic.
• “State could nationalise social media platforms, says TD” – An Irish ‘online safety’ committee has heard that the Irish state could “nationalise” online platforms and use them to promote “whatever we choose”, according to Gript.
• “ECHR to undermine British troops in Ukraine” – The Ministry of Defence has confirmed peacekeepers will be tied to human rights rules, even though the Russians won’t, reports the Telegraph.
• “It’s a mega mistake to allow the new Chinese embassy” – Approving China’s biggest diplomatic mission less than two metres from critical cables in London seems… risky, says Juliet Samuel in the Times. We don’t have to say ‘yes’.
• “Poland warns of ‘disaster’ if NATO nations turn on each other” – Poland’s PM Donald Tusk says his country will not send soldiers to Greenland, making clear that any aggression between NATO allies would shatter the foundations of global security, according to the Mail.
• “Why Trump hasn’t bombed Iran yet” – Donald Trump has been held back on Iran largely because America’s Gulf allies want no part in another war, writes David Blair in the Telegraph.
• “Iran tortures women but Western feminists only reply with ‘context’ and ‘relativism’” – The brutal treatment of women in Iran contrasts with the muted responses from the Western feminist, progressive and Left-liberal ecosystem, notes Konstantinos Bogdanos in Brussels Signal.
• “Courage of Iran’s women puts woke westerners to shame” – Activists who march for Palestine or Black Lives Matter remain silent on the Islamic regime’s deadly repression, says Joanna Williams in the Times.
• “Inside Maduro’s ‘hell on Earth’ jail with ‘white room’ torture chamber where enemies were raped and electrocuted – as Trump discusses security and oil with Venezuela’s ‘terrific’ new leader” – Venezuela’s brutal prison system has been laid bare just as Western leaders edge back towards dealing with Caracas, reports Perkin Amalaraj in the Mail.
• “Australia’s dangerous new hate speech Bill” – On Substack, Andrew Doyle responds to the Australian Government’s predictable crackdown following the Bondi Beach terror attack.
• “NHS boss at Lucy Letby trust awarded £1.4 million damages for unfair dismissal” – A former NHS boss tasked with turning around the scandal-hit Countess of Chester Hospital has been awarded £1.4 million in damages after the Employment Tribunal ruled she was bullied out of her job, reports the Mail.
• “New York City Department of Health denies my request for records that show what it did with ‘probable’ Covid deaths in 2020; I have filed an appeal” – New York City officials are stonewalling requests for records that could shed light on how “probable” Covid deaths were handled in 2020, says Dr Jessica Hockett on Wood House 76.
• “AR7 results show Miliband, NESO and CCC are gaslighting the nation” – Britain has been locked into decades of eye-watering, index-linked energy costs, writes David Turver on Substack.
• “‘Carbon’ capture utilisation and storage – separating fact from fiction” – Carbon capture has been sold as a climate fix despite mounting evidence that it is costly, inefficient and unreliable, says Dr Lars Schernikau on the Unpopular Truth.
• “New study: species extinction rates declining since 1980 – ‘climate change is not an important threat’” – A new paper is bucking climate doom-mongering, suggesting that extinction rates have fallen for decades, writes Kenneth Richard in NoTricksZone.
• “Climate alarmism’s credibility sinks under weight of ecological evidence” – The house of cards built on computer models and manipulated emotions is collapsing under the weight of a stubborn, inconvenient reality, says Vijay Jayaraj on BPR.
• “The Berlin blackout and the fragility of Germany’s energy transition” – The sudden blackout in Berlin has exposed how fragile Germany’s green energy system has become, writes Dr Fritz Vahrenholt on Clintel.
• “Twenty years on, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth thoroughly debunked” – Two decades on, Al Gore’s most famous climate warnings have bombed, says Ian Miller in OutKick.
• “Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Tiffany’s” – On Substack, Dr David McGrogan explores how technology, politics and the fight for survival collide in everyday life.
• “Rory Stewart is reliably wrong about literally everything” – Rory Stewart is a witless twit who is only listened to because he’s a toff who knows how to bluff, says Julie Burchill in Spiked.
• “Strip the concept of ‘hate crime’ from British law!” – In the Lords, Toby backs an amendment to strip ‘hate crime’ from British law, saying it undermines the principle of equality before the law and criminalises thought.

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