News Round-Up
- “FCA urged to investigate Peter Mandelson over potential insider trading” – Lib Dems have urged the Financial Conduct Authority to investigate whether Mandelson’s alleged Epstein disclosures enabled insider trading, says Kalyeena Makortoff in the Guardian.
- “Brown: Starmer in serious position over Mandelson scandal” – Gordon Brown has said he regrets appointing Mandelson to his government in the 2000s and feels repulsed by the Epstein revelations as Starmer’s position weakens, notes the Telegraph.
- “The memo that shows Morgan McSweeney was warned about Mandelson” – Morgan McSweeney was sent a memo from Lord Glasman warning him about Mandelson’s ties to Epstein on the eve of the peer’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US, according to the Telegraph.
- “Lammy: I warned Starmer about Mandelson” – David Lammy has claimed he cautioned Starmer against appointing Mandelson as allies turn on each other, reports the Telegraph.
- “Starmer’s agonising choice: Resign or find a scapegoat” – Those close to the Prime Minister say he is agonising over his own future, see-sawing between anger and self-reproach, according to the Telegraph.
- “With Morgan McSweeney on the brink, no wonder Starmer’s losing sleep” – Starmer is running out of road as McSweeney’s future hangs by a thread and MPs circle, says Caroline Wheeler in the Times.
- “Peter Mandelson got five-figure payoff for sacking as ambassador” – Despite his Epstein disgrace, the Labour veteran secured an exit payment equivalent to three months’ salary, reports the Times.
- “The Dark Lord’s magic was irresistible to a desperate political class” – Failing governments made a deal with the devil when they sought to harness the powers that Mandelson appeared to possess during the Blair years, says Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
- “How Mandelson and a bunch of revolutionaries created the sordid world in which we live” – In the Mail, Peter Hitchens says Mandelson helped build today’s sordid political culture.
- “How Trump’s Epstein files release set off a thermonuclear bomb that’s all but blown apart British politics” – The Epstein files were supposed to bring down Trump, but it’s looking increasingly like it’s the UK Government that is set to implode, says Harry Cole in the Sun.
- “‘Former British Prime Minister had threesome with Ghislaine Maxwell’” – A former British Prime Minister was involved in threesome with Ghislaine Maxwell, royal historian Andrew Lownie has claimed in a podcast for the Mail.
- “Kemi Badenoch: ‘Starmer knew Mandelson was still friends with Epstein. He chose not to care’” – The Telegraph reports that Kemi Badenoch has accused Starmer of being aware of Mandelson’s links with Epstein.
- “This might have been the week when Farage won the next election” – The Telegraph‘s James Frayne reckons Nigel Farage is set to be the main beneficiary of Starmer’s unpopularity.
- “Regime Change 2026-29: results from a market research project” – On Substack, Dominic Cummings presents results from market research that show voters drastically underestimate immigration and distrust institutions.
- “NHS hires foreign GPs to work from the beach” – The NHS is allowing GPs to ‘work from the beach’ and treat patients virtually from abroad, reports the Telegraph.
- “How ADHD became a multimillion-pound industry for private equity” – Private equity firms are making vast profits from investing in ADHD clinics which provide assessment and treatment for tens of thousands of NHS patients, reports the Times.
- “Home Office ‘tried to silence adviser who raised concerns about Islamism’” – A former adviser has accused the Home Office of trying to silence him after he raised alarms about Islamism, reports the Telegraph.
- “White victims of grooming gangs ‘betrayed’ by prosecutors” – Prosecutors have been accused of betraying grooming-gang victims by refusing to treat attacks on white working-class girls as hate crimes, reveals the Telegraph.
- “Letby police ignored other baby deaths on unit” – Police investigating the baby unit where Lucy Letby worked brushed off deaths and potentially suspicious events that occurred after she had stopped working there, leaked emails have revealed, reports the Telegraph.
- “Palestine Action six face retrial over defence firm raid” – The CPS has sought a retrial for the six Palestine Action activists acquitted over a raid on an Israeli defence firm, says the Mail.
- “Palestine Action and the limits of jury justice” – Once there is a perception that even if the people taking part in protest vandalism are arrested, local juries will refuse to convict them, there is a risk it becomes difficult to suppress open threats to peace and public order, argues Andrew Tettenborn in the Spectator.
- “How police secrecy over the De Monfort University stabbing fuelled wild speculation that led to an entire city being plunged into fear of a marauding knife maniac for 18 hours” – Police secrecy fuelled citywide panic in Leicester after a stabbing last week as rumours raced ahead of facts, says the Mail.
- “Sudanese migrant drank beer then pulled woman, 18, in front of train that killed them both on Hamburg rail line” – A Sudanese migrant randomly dragged an 18 year-old in front of a Hamburg train after drinking on the platform, reports the Mail.
- “This tiny French community took on a wind farm giant. Now it is being bankrupted” – A French village has mounted an Asterix-style resistance to a German wind developer as locals refuse to yield, says the Telegraph.
- “‘Clueless’ civil servants sent to farms to learn how they work” – Defra staff have been sent to farms for crash courses in agriculture as Ministers admit policy is being written from ignorance, notes the Telegraph.
- “How first-class degrees became meaningless” – Universities have been accused of rampant grade inflation as more students collect firsts and standards slide, reveals the Telegraph.
- “After Anywheres vs Somewheres, meet the ‘Elsewheres’” – UK politics is shifting towards ‘Elsewheres’ as faith-and-foreign causes start to trump local and domestic concerns, says Chaille Larcombe in Spiked.
- “Why is the SNP still fighting for a trans killer to be in a female jail?” – The women who won the Supreme Court sex ruling are taking on the Scotland Government to ensure no biological men are in women’s prisons, notes the Times.
- “Moderna tries to whitewash their biodistribution” – On Substack, Kevin McKernan accuses Moderna of whitewashing biodistribution evidence for mRNA vaccines.
- “CDC Study Finds Covid Shots Increase the Risk of a Leading Cause of Maternal and Foetal Death by 24%” – A CDC study shows Covid shots raise pregnancy hypertension risk by 24%, according to Nicolas Hulscher in Focal Points.
- “Meta’s nuclear bet is an endorsement of Trump’s energy vision” – Big Tech is embracing nuclear power and Trump’s ‘energy dominance’ agenda as AI demand exposes the limits of renewables, say Anthony Watts and H. Sterling Burnett in WUWT.
- “Thousands of feminist climate activists are gathering in Melbourne” – Thousands of women are converging on Melbourne to demand ‘feminist climate justice’ and climate finance, notes Eric Worrall in WUWT.
- “Climate scientist who predicted end of ‘heavy frost and snow’ now refuses media inquiries” – The recent cold snap in Germany led one doom-peddling climate scientist to go strangely silent, says P Gosselin in the NoTricksZone.
- “The Bermuda Snail’s Tale” – The Guardian has been caught smuggling “global heating” into a Bermuda snail story, according to Jit in Climate Scepticism.
- “It was always a scam” – Watch on X climate scientist Anika Sweetland explain how she went from climate advocate to climate sceptic.
If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“‘Clueless’ civil servants sent to farms to learn how they work”
But, it’s not just DEFRA, is it? The entire Civil Service is riddled with people making policy on things they know nothing about…
Don’t worry they have campaigners from NGOs to advise them
You mean like work!
The current concentration of atmospheric CO2 at ~420 ppmv, (parts per million by volume), is very low in comparison with the atmospheric CO2 levels of past eons when plants evolved. At those times with CO2 at ~5000 ppmv+ there was no runaway Global warming some 300 million years ago. Before our current benign Holocene Interglacial period (~12,000 years ago), atmospheric CO2 was only ~180 ppmv: this level is only 20% higher than 150ppmv, at which level plants could no longer survive. That low level of CO2 was a close run thing for all life on Earth. The warming effectiveness of added CO2 in the atmosphere is known to diminish logarithmically with increasing concentration: this fact is fully acknowledged in IPCC reports: IPCC AR5 WG1 (2014) – IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch5 (2021). At its current low CO2 concentration at 420ppmv its Global warming effectiveness is already ~72%+ saturated. The potential for increased Global warming from any added atmospheric CO2 is already close to exhaustion, whether natural, from it’s out-gasing from marginally warmer Oceans and volcanoes etc. or from Man-made additions. From its current concentration atmospheric with CO2 at ~420 ppmv even a doubling to 840 ppmv, (Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, ECS), would cause little additional… Read more »
Interesting post, thank you. But ‘Climate Change’ has nothing to do with the climate, and never did.
All ‘relevant’ climate related graphs focus only on the last 200 years. There is absolutely no interest in what happened before, that’s just misinformation.
And enhanced levels are always good for growth. Ask anyone who is familiar with gas fired greenhouse heating equipment. If you have to burn methane to heat the greenhouse, why not grab another growth enhancement, rather than chucking it all out? As long as there is not too much monoxide for the workers, you can get two for one when burning “natural gas”.
https://spectator.com/article/our-armed-forces-are-hollow-and-our-enemies-know-it/
‘I can absolutely assure the Committee that we can provide a trained divisional headquarters and certified and assured brigades—16 Brigade, 7th Light Mech Brigade Combat Team, and an armoured brigade—but there will be capability gaps in our ability to get there and our ability to sustain it for time.’ General Sir Patrick Sanders Nov 2023
Translation: Britain can field one mechanised brigade of 5,000 men on extended operations
What does this imply? Britain’s entire army would be massacred within a fortnight of operations against Russia in Central Europe…..and could not be replaced…
And yet what happens if a member of the establishment breaks the code of ‘omerta’ in a totalitarian socialist state?
‘General Sir Patrick Sanders made his opposition to the reduction in numbers of personnel known semi-publicly in 2023, and shortly afterwards was eased out as chief of the general staff after only two years, an unusually short tenure.’
“Peter Mandelson got five-figure payoff for sacking as ambassador”
Wouldn’t you love to see the elite employment contract that says “Should you be discovered to have committed criminal acts, treason, or brought the government and the British State into disrepute, you will be entitled to three months pay in lieu of notice. Pension rights are not affected by this.”
Compare and contrast, say, a teacher dismissed for suggesting critical thinking on gender.
If there was a payout, it wasn’t a sacking.
“Palestine Action and the limits of jury justice”
Damaging public property is a criminal offence.
Attacking a police officer is a criminal offence.
Bo#@cks to all the “well they did it for the right reasons” defence, STICK TO THE LAW not implied virtue!
Shouldn’t any jurors who defy clear, irrefutable evidence and vote “Not Guilty” for political or religious reasons be charged with Contempt of Court?
You make a good point!
I wonder if the DEFRA training will include mucking out by hand or helping with deliveries in the cold dark winter mornings.
Civil servants work 9 to 5, not forgetting to stop for tea breaks and lunch.
…not forgetting the pre-break break and the post-break recovery period.
“‘Former British Prime Minister had threesome with Ghislaine Maxwell’” says historian Lownie in the DM”
Care needs to be taken in discussing Prime Ministers, as some DM commenters have pointed out:
—“Giuffre says in her book that she had a violent encounter with a “well-known former prime minister” and that “all he wanted was violence”. This has been changed to “minister” in the UK version. Either way, the public should know.”
—“She didn’t say he was British. It was thought to be the ex Israeli PM.”
—“The violent monster Virginia mentioned was Israeli PM Ehud Barak.”
“Sudanese migrant drank beer then pulled woman, 18, in front of train that killed them both on Hamburg rail line”
These suicides and murders are easily preventable, as shown years ago by a new system of strong, high transparent barriers with sliding doors along the whole length of the underground rail platform (or above ground). They were also too smooth to climb. Nobody could get into the tunnel, or jump in front of a train, or shove anyone else, or jump onto the line at all, because the platform sliding doors kept closed until the train was fully stopped and ready to disembark passengers. Anyone trying to interfere with the platform doors set off an alarm.
This also protected the drivers, staff and emergency services from the horrific trauma of dealing with it all. I don’t understand why these very high transparent plastic barriers weren’t universally adopted.
The other way is to stop imporeting people who do not know how to live among us and stop encouraging the use of cannabis which causes schizophrenia.
You are spot on!
The video of Lee Anderson with Anika Sweetland appears to be available only on Bitchute, which is blocked in the UK due to the online safety act.
Do tell us why we would want to see it.