News Round-Up

• “Trump sends military to open Strait of Hormuz by force” – The United States has deployed a marine unit to help reopen the crucial shipping lane after Iran effectively shut it amid escalating hostilities in the Gulf, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump appeals for UK to send ships to Strait of Hormuz to help unlock it… after Britain finally managed to deploy HMS Dragon on Tuesday” – Donald Trump has urged Britain to deploy naval vessels to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian actions disrupted the vital oil route, reports the Mail.
• “Trump says countries who need oil should secure Strait of Hormuz and claims Iran has been ‘beaten’ as Iran renews attacks across gulf” – Donald Trump has urged oil-dependent countries to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz while insisting Iran has been decisively weakened despite continued attacks across the gulf, reports the Mail.
• “Starmer could send thousands of drones to the Middle East” – Britain has considered deploying thousands of interceptor drones to the Middle East to protect allies as war with Iran escalates, says the Telegraph.
• “War on Iran was not ‘unprovoked’” – Critics of the conflict have mischaracterised recent hostilities with Iran by ignoring the long chain of provocations that preceded them, says Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Trump threatens to destroy the ‘crown jewel’ of Iran’s energy industry” – Donald Trump has warned Tehran that US forces could destroy its vital Kharg Island oil hub after claiming recent raids wiped out “every military target” there, reports the Telegraph.
• “Israel’s fight to continue the war” – Israel has intensified its campaign against Iran and insists the conflict must continue until Tehran’s missile threat is eliminated for a generation, notes the Telegraph.
• “Lebanon should recognise Israel in return for peace, says Macron” – Emmanuel Macron has proposed a peace plan requiring Lebanon to recognise Israel in exchange for an end to hostilities and regional stabilisation, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer’s dereliction of duty: As photo emerges of Andrew, Epstein and Peter Mandelson, PM admits he never personally questioned the Labour peer over links to paedophile before making him US ambassador” – Downing Street has admitted Sir Keir Starmer never personally questioned Peter Mandelson about his links to Jeffrey Epstein before appointing him US ambassador, reveals the Mail.
• “Mandelson’s US ambassador role was signed off by disgraced friend who was forced out of Labour over his own links to a paedophile” – Government files have shown the Mandelson appointment was approved by a disgraced ally forced from Labour over similar associations, reports the Mail.
• “Reeves: I choose Von der Leyen over Trump” – Rachel Reeves has openly signalled a preference for closer alignment with the European Commission than with Washington while criticising Brexit, reports the Telegraph.
• “BBC ‘acting as judge and jury’ after rejecting over 99.9% of complaints” – The BBC has rejected more than 99.9% of complaints under a system critics say allows it to act as both judge and defendant, reports the Telegraph.
• “How the Left’s love-in with Islam will change Britain” – Labour and Green efforts to court Muslim voters have reflected demographic changes that could reshape British politics, says Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph.
• “Organiser of London’s Al-Quds ‘hate rally’ shouts ‘death to the IDF’” – A fundraiser for the group leading the Al-Quds Day rally in London, Raza Kazim, shouted “death to the IDF” and “Khamenei makes us proud” at a protest last weekend, reports the Mail.
• “Do the British really need to ‘integrate better’ with immigrants?” – Ministers have promoted the idea that integration is a “two-way street” requiring adaptation by the native population as well as newcomers, but Michael Deacon in the Telegraph is unconvinced.
• “£40,000 bribes won’t solve the asylum crisis. They’ll make it far, far worse” – Government proposals offering large payments to encourage asylum seekers to leave Britain risk worsening the migration crisis by creating perverse new incentives, argues Matt Goodwin in TCW.
• “Sudanese national who abducted five-year-old girl while she played in Birmingham street before sexually assaulting her at his locked home is jailed” – A man has been jailed after abducting and sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl before neighbours forced entry to rescue her, reports the Mail.
• “Academic stripped of title after criticising critical race theory is reinstated” – A university has reversed its decision to strip Emeritus Professor David Harris of his title after his criticism of critical race theory sparked controversy, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why are Islamists praising Nick Griffin?” – Unusual alliances have emerged around the Israel-Palestine conflict with some Islamist commentators praising the former BNP leader, writes Inaya Folarin Iman in UnHerd.
• “Why the Resolution?” – The Brownstone Institute‘s Jeffrey Tucker explains why a new resolution is needed to hold pandemic decision-makers accountable and prevent the same policies being imposed again.
• “Six years after ‘15 days to slow the spread’ data continue to prove Covid policies were a historic failure” – New analysis has reinforced the claim that lockdowns and mask mandates had little measurable effect on Covid mortality, reports Ian Miller on his Unmasked Substack page.
• “Hard-left activists launch mass shoplifting spree as they steal from supermarkets across the UK to ‘give to the needy’” – Activists have organised coordinated shoplifting raids on supermarkets while claiming they are redistributing food to the poor, reveals the Mail.
• “Catch me on The Liz Truss Show: George Soros, NGOs and the Blob: How Britain Was Captured” – On Substack, Charlotte Gill discusses how NGOs, activist networks and figures such as George Soros have shaped modern British institutions in a wide-ranging interview on Liz Truss’s programme.
• “British culture under attack — by its curators” – Britain’s cultural institutions have increasingly portrayed English heritage with suspicion while promoting ideological reinterpretations of the nation’s history, says Joanna Williams in City Journal.
• “There’s a psychological reason behind growing Left-wing extremism” – Psychological dynamics that reward grievance and victimhood have helped drive increasingly radical political attitudes on the Left, says Jonathan Alpert in the Telegraph.
• “Bayswater Support Group” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson feature the Bayswater Support Group on their Substack page, promoting it as a starting point for those seeking evidence and discussion about gender medicine controversies.
• “Labour’s lawfare has broken British army morale” – Years of legal action against veterans have undermined morale in Britain’s armed forces and shocked allied militaries observing the treatment of soldiers, says Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator.
• “Scottish devolution has failed” – Scotland’s devolved political settlement has entrenched stagnation and narrowed debate about the country’s constitutional future, says Azeem Ibrahim in the Spectator.
• “The spiked summit: a one-day conference in London” – Spiked has announced a one-day London conference featuring panels and speakers debating free speech, politics and culture.
• “Starmer agreed ditching jury trials led to wrongful convictions” – Sir Keir Starmer found that scrapping jury trials led to wrongful convictions in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, the Telegraph reveals.
• “‘Keir Starmer has no views’: the inside story of an absent PM“ – Silent in meetings, dithering over decisions — revelations from a book on the Labour Government show how the Prime Minister let others steer his No 10 into disaster, says the Times.
• “Ed Miliband’s wind farms could cripple UK ‘Iron Dome’ anti-missile systems and leave Britain a ‘sitting duck’, defence experts warn” – Britain is a “sitting duck” in the face of drone attacks because Ed Miliband’s wind farms interfere with radar-based defensive domes, senior defence sources have said, according to the Mail.
• “Antarctic sea ice back to normal” – Antarctic sea ice levels have returned to typical ranges after recent fluctuations widely cited as evidence of accelerating climate change, notes Paul Homewood in Not a Lot of People Know That.
• “Why Ed Miliband – not Iran – is to blame for the UK’s energy crisis” – Britain’s vulnerability to Middle East turmoil has been created largely by domestic Net Zero policies that curtailed reliable energy production at home, David Turver tells Spiked.
• “Ed Miliband’s hands are all over the decline of Denby pottery” – Britain’s soaring industrial energy costs have pushed traditional manufacturers such as Denby pottery toward decline as Net Zero policies squeeze heavy industry, says Andrew Orlowski in the Telegraph.
• “The climate scaremongers: Ed’s mad objection to North Sea gas” – Opposition to new North Sea gas production has intensified despite warnings that Britain’s energy security is being undermined by climate policies, says Paul Homewood in TCW.
• “No, Time, the Planet Isn’t ‘Heating Faster Than Ever’” – Satellite data analyses have challenged claims that global warming has dramatically accelerated since 2015, says Anthony Watts in Watts Up With That.
• “UN Urges Member States to Support the ICJ Ruling on Climate Change Obligations” – The United Nations has urged governments to support an International Court of Justice opinion on climate obligations after the ruling drew little attention on its own, reports Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That.
• “Jimmy Carr’s new bit on Islam” – On X, Basil the Great spotlights Jimmy Carr’s hilarious new material on Islam. Or rather, his explanation of why he doesn’t have time to squeeze it in…

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