News Round-Up

• “Labour’s ‘anti-Muslim hate’ definition will be more stifling than we fear” – Labour’s anti-Muslim hate definition risks becoming even more Orwellian and restrictive than non-crime hate incidents, warns Toby in the Telegraph.
• “Blasphemy law by the back door: the problem with the anti-Muslim hate guidance” – On the Daily T podcast, Tim Stanley and Camilla Tominey cast a critical eye over the Government’s formal definition of anti-Muslim hate.
• “The UK does not need an ‘Islamophobia tsar’” – Creating an “Islamophobia tsar” would give one group special protection and basically open the door to new blasphemy laws, warns Andrew Doyle on his Substack.
• “Am I an extremist?” – The Government’s new social cohesion action plan might as well have been written by Hope Not Hate, says Toby in the Spectator. We need to resist it with everything we’ve got or Britain will soon become the North Korea of the North Sea.
• “Labour will do nothing to prevent the Balkanisation of Britain” – Labour’s social cohesion strategy offers incoherent blather and won’t stop Britain’s deepening divisions, warns David Frost in the Telegraph.
• “Labour’s migrants’ right to remain ‘reform’ looks suspiciously indefinite” – Labour’s shift from Indefinite Leave to Remain to “earned settlement” looks set to create longer, more indefinite waits and perverse incentives, says Bruce Newsome in the Conservative Woman.
• “Starmer finally offers a Mandelson mea culpa after papers show he was warned about Epstein links” – Keir Starmer has finally said sorry for putting Peter Mandelson up for ambassador after warnings about his Epstein connections were released, reports the Mail.
• “Foreign Office staff celebrated Islamic Revolution at Iranian embassy” – Foreign Office staff attended a celebration at the Iranian embassy marking the 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite the Tehran regime having killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in the preceding weeks, says GB News.
• “British tourist, 60, ‘who filmed Iranian missiles’ in Dubai is charged with cybercrime offence” – A 60 year-old Brit holidaying in Dubai has been hit with cybercrime charges for supposedly filming Iranian missiles – facing up to two years even though he deleted the video when asked, reports the Mail.
• “Farage accuses YouGov of ‘suppressing’ Reform in the polls” – Nigel Farage has accused YouGov of keeping Reform UK’s numbers artificially low in their latest polls, according to the Telegraph.
• “Police Federation drops legal challenge in free speech row” – The Police Federation of England and Wales has dropped its legal challenge against a High Court ruling that found that two of its chairmen were unlawfully suspended for comments on race, reports GB News. Another victory for the Free Speech Union.
• “Is the UK still a liberal democracy?” – The UK has been drifting pretty far from proper liberal democracy these days, notes Ramesh Thakur for the Brownstone Institute.
• “‘Blasphemous’ drawings and the myth of tolerance” – Labour guidance advising schools that children’s drawings may be blasphemous highlights how liberal appeasement from within undermines true tolerance, says Patrick West in the Spectator.
• “How to beat Oxbridge’s positive discrimination” – Private-school students have found ways to counter Oxbridge’s admissions bias through networking and targeted applications, reports Lara Brown in the Spectator.
• “African countries plan to force Britain to hand over slavery reparations” – African countries are planning to force Britain to hand over slavery reparations in a Chagos-style legal battle, says GB News.
• “Greece’s crackdown on mosques is aimed at flushing out migrants, Muslim advocates say” – Muslims are accusing Greece of using its mosque crackdown to target and deport migrants under the guise of immigration rules, reports the Religion News Service.
• “Why is the ‘gay press’ so cowardly on Iran?” – The fight for gay equality seems to stop at the borders of Islam, notes Douglas Murray in the Spectator.
• “How the Germans saved the Telegraph” – Axel Springer’s German-led acquisition has rescued the Telegraph from potential UAE ownership and preserved press freedom, writes Fraser Nelson in the Spectator.
• “US target list may have mistaken Iranian elementary school as military site” – A US strike that killed at least 175 people, many of them children, at an Iranian elementary school might have been misidentified by AI-assisted targeting, reports the Washington Post.
• “Everyone’s missing the real story on Epstein” – Author Michael Wolff reckons the real bombshells in the Epstein story have been buried, writes Ed Cumming in the Telegraph.
• “The greatest trick Ralph Baric ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist” – The world’s top coronavirus expert Ralph Baric has gone almost radio-silent since Covid kicked off in 2020. Gee, I wonder why? says Alex Berenson on his Substack.
• “The Lancet lets it lie” – The Lancet has dismissed a retraction request for a flawed paper on child myocarditis risks from Covid infection vs vaccination, ignoring methodological errors that inflate infection risks, claims Dr Clare Craig on the HART Substack.
• “Tribute to Dr Keith Johnson” – HART pays tribute to the late Dr Keith Johnson for his expertise, ethical stance against child Covid vaccination and dedication to critical thinking.
• “Iran war is a wake-up call for Miliband, says Ratcliffe” – Sir Jim Ratcliffe reckons the Iran mess should be a wake-up call for Ed Miliband to stop being so hardline on North Sea drilling, according to GB News.
• “Ed Miliband’s Net Zero obsession is breaking the Labour alliance apart” – Ed Miliband’s Net Zero drive has long strained Labour’s ties with unions and working-class voters, says Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “Study: The strange and persistent psychological distance between us and climate disaster” – A new study looks at why most people still feel strangely detached from all the talk of climate disasters despite years of warnings, reports Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That?
• “Guardian: Net Zero would be less expensive than one Persian Gulf oil crisis” – The Guardian reckons UK Net Zero to 2050 would cost way less than just one big Persian Gulf oil crisis. Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That? has his doubts.
• “No, TIME, the planet isn’t ‘heating faster than ever’” – TIME’s recent claim that the planet has been heating up faster than ever since 2015 doesn’t hold up – satellite data shows temps are actually below the 2015–2016 El Niño high point, rebuts Anthony Watts in ClimateRealism.
• “Right, Financial Times, climate models don’t accurately reflect sea levels” – The FT has pushed a study saying sea level rise is worse than thought, but real-world data shows the models have been blowing hot air, says Linnea Lueken in ClimateRealism.
• “Zack Polanski moans he’s only being ‘ridiculed’ because of his anti-war stance” – Zack Polanski says he is only being “ridiculed” because of his anti-war stance – amid a fresh row over his claim he could enlarge women’s breasts via hypnosis, reports the Mail.
• “Council sign in North West London threatens anyone feeding the birds with five years in jail” – Brent Council has put up signs – in English plus five South Asian languages – warning (incorrectly) that you’ll get five years in prison for feeding birds, says the Mail.
• “Brighton ships its homeless people 20 miles away” – Britain’s “wokest” city has been accused of dumping homeless people in another town 20 miles away, reports the Express.
• “You should be worried about the Government’s official definition of Islamophobia” – In the latest Free Speech Union podcast, Toby and David Rose reveal that all five members of the Working Group behind Labour’s new definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ are linked to Islamist organisations.

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