News Round-Up

• “Streeting told Mandelson Labour has no growth strategy in private texts” – Wes Streeting told Lord Mandelson that Labour had “no growth strategy” in a pointed criticism of Sir Keir Starmer, according to the Telegraph.
• “Starmer lives to fight another day after cabinet rally” – Sir Keir Starmer insists he will not “walk away” after surviving an attempt to force him from office, reports the Times.
• “When will Starmer quit? The PM’s four options” – In the Telegraph, Daniel Martin explores how Starmer’s own exit from No 10 could play out, as the Mandelson crisis claims two of his aides.
• “Will the Mandelson affair make loyalty a crime?” – The Mandelson row has raised awkward questions about trust and politics, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Britain beware: a populist Left-wing Labour Party could be shockingly popular” – The country is poised to learn what a real socialist government looks like, warns James Kirkup in the Telegraph.
• “What could a Starmer government possibly achieve now?” – Labour looks spent and stuck after months of internal turmoil, says Isabel Hardman in the Spectator.
• “Starmer hasn’t practised what he preached on ethics reform” – Ethics reform has amounted to little more than a relabelling exercise, argues John Bowers in the Telegraph.
• “Investors slash exposure to Britain as leadership battle looms” – Big investors have quietly pulled back from the UK as political nerves grow, reports the Telegraph.
• “Gilt yields soar again as No 10 turmoil rocks the markets… sparking fears of a Liz Truss-style financial crisis” – Political chaos has unsettled the pound and gilt markets, according to This is Money.
• “Farage puts Reform on a ‘General Election war footing’ and opens process of choosing candidates to become MPs amid chaos in Starmer’s No 10” – Reform UK has kicked off candidate selection with an early election firmly in mind, reports the Mail.
• “Cancelling council elections means taxation without representation” – Scrapping local elections flouts a very old constitutional rule, warns Elliot Keck in the Spectator.
• “Jimmy Lai jailed for 20 years in Hong Kong” – The British pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai has been handed a crushing sentence under Hong Kong’s security law, reports ABC News.
• “Not standing up for Jimmy Lai has weakened Britain” – Britain has looked timid by failing to defend one of its own against Beijing, argues Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
• “Britain cannot leave Jimmy Lai to die in jail” – Not enough has been done to press for Jimmy Lai’s release, says Benedict Rogers in the Spectator.
• “MI5 warns universities over threat from China” – University bosses have been told by ministers to report threats of foreign interference directly to the Government and security services, reports the BBC.
• “Knifeman ‘tried to cut off soldier’s head’” – A knifeman who stabbed a soldier outside his home and “tried to cut his head off” had researched the murder of Lee Rigby, reveals the Sun.
• “Islamist hate has gone unchallenged for too long” – In the Times, Paul Goodman warns that Islamist extremism has been allowed to fester in Britain without serious challenge from those in power.
• “Education sector failing to recognise antisemitism when ‘cloaked in activism’, says former Ofsted chief” – A former Ofsted chief has warned about a “worrying lack of recognition of antisemitism in the education sector” days after the watchdog cleared a school that blocked a visit from a Jewish, pro-Israel MP, says the Jewish Chronicle.
• “Donald Trump claims Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was a ‘slap in the face’ to America: ‘The dancing is disgusting’” – Donald Trump has unloaded on the Super Bowl halftime show in typically blunt fashion, reports the Mail.
• “On the open-borders insanity of the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show” – The politics of the Super Bowl halftime show were anything but subtle, writes Alex Berenson on his Substack.
• “Musk wants city on the Moon within 10 years” – Elon Musk has set his sights on a permanent lunar city within a decade, reports the NY Post. Muskville?
• “Japan is exiting its age of delusion” – Japan has finally shaken off years of economic complacency after a decisive election result, says Edward Howell in the Telegraph.
• “The truth about statins and memory and dementia” – A major new study has cast doubt on the claim that statins might cause memory problems or other cognitive issues, reveals David Cox in the Telegraph.
• “Miliband’s Net Zero revolution is a hacker’s dream” – Experts have warned that the rush to Net Zero has left the grid exposed to cyber attacks, reports the Telegraph.
• “Net Zero backlog puts Labour’s clean energy target at risk, warns Ofgem” – Wind and solar farms seeking to connect to Britain’s electricity grid are facing “widespread delays” in a major blow to Ed Miliband’s Net Zero targets, says the Telegraph.
• “My heat pump cost me a bloody fortune” – In the Times, Martina Lees follows Guy Martin’s costly heat-pump experiment.
• “Bald eagle’s grisly death at Obama-funded wind project site triggers federal fine” – Wind power may be branded as “clean”, but that label rings hollow when turbines are shredding apex raptors that anchor entire ecosystems, writes Leslie Eastman in Legal Insurrection.
• “False, New York Times, climate change doesn’t cause both extreme heat and extreme cold” – In ClimateRealism, Anthony Watts pushes back against the idea that climate change is driving both hotter hots and colder colds at the same time.
• “Federal reference manual on scientific evidence, climate science chapter – withdrawn!” – A US judicial climate chapter has been pulled after fierce criticism, reports Francis Menton on the Manhattan Contrarian.
• “Why Gen Z is troubled by Jesus” – Christianity has sat uneasily with a generation raised on relativism, says Patrick West in the Spectator.
• “Workers who placed bets on who could sleep with saleswoman try to make her pay £7,500 costs after she loses sex harassment claim” – A saleswoman whose colleagues placed bets on who would sleep with her first has been asked to pay the firm’s legal costs after losing a sexual harassment claim, reports the Mail.
• “I married and had kids in my 20s. That makes me a counter-cultural radical ” – In the Telegraph, Robert Byrne reacts to a startling new report revealing male pensioners are now more likely to wed than Gen Z men.
• “This is why Section 9 matters” – In the Lords, Toby asks a Government Minister when the Government is going to activate s9 of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which would force English universities to disclose their financial dependence on foreign states, particularly China. This is particularly urgent in light of Jimmy Lai’s 20-year-prison sentence and the head of MI6’s warning about the growing Chinese influence in British universities.

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