News Round-Up

• “Iran is on the brink of collapse” – The regime that has terrorised its people for nearly five decades is being destroyed, and the moment of reckoning it has long deserved is finally at hand, says the Telegraph.
• “Iran’s attack on Qatar gas citadel blows up Britain’s energy security” – Iran’s missile strike on the Ras Laffan gas hub in Qatar has triggered fears of sharp energy price hikes in Britain and placed the country’s energy security in jeopardy, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump rages against Israel’s Netanyahu for striking Iran’s oil fields” – President Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop attacking Iran’s oil fields after strikes sent fuel prices skyrocketing and threatened to widen the conflict, says the Mail.
• “Pete Hegseth explodes at ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ as he claims Iran war is an overwhelming success” – Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has insisted the Iran campaign is a triumph just hours after Trump publicly rebuked Israel for striking a gas field and drawing fierce Iranian retaliation, notes the Mail.
• “Charlie Kirk told me to prevent Iran war before he died, says ex-Trump ally” – A former Trump counter-terror official has revealed that one of the last things Charlie Kirk said to him was stop the United States from entering a war with Iran, claims the Telegraph.
• “Iran: competing war narratives and the Euro spat” – The battle over how the Iran conflict is being framed has produced a torrent of contradictory narratives, and European leaders have waded into the row with their own awkward interventions, says eugyppius on his Substack.
• “No 10 twice rejected ethics chief’s offer to vet Mandelson” – Downing Street twice turned down its Ethics Adviser’s offer to scrutinise Lord Mandelson, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Andrew police inquiry ‘may expand into corruption offences’” – Officers investigating the Duke of York are considering whether to extend their inquiry into corruption charges, as the high legal bar for misconduct risks stalling the case arising from emails in the Epstein files, reports the Times.
• “Unite boss warns Labour will be ‘decimated’ at May’s elections and Keir Starmer will be booted out of No10 – as Sharon Graham signals her union could sever all ties with party” – Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has warned that Labour faces an “angry” voter backlash in May and that her union may cut all financial ties with the party, claims the Mail.
• “Labour abandons crackdown on family voting” – The Government has quietly dropped plans to tackle family voting, with the Tories accusing the Prime Minister of going soft on electoral fraud to court Muslim votes, notes the Telegraph.
• “Starmer is now Angela Rayner’s puppet” – With Starmer’s authority ebbing away and no clear successor in sight, Rayner has emerged as the dominant force shaping Government policy, not Miliband, says the Telegraph.
• “‘We’ll wake up on May 8th and realise that the Conservative Party’s gone’: inside Reform’s plan to devour the Tories” – Reform UK has built a formidable political machine from almost nothing in under two years, and its strategists are confident the May elections will deliver a mortal blow to the Conservative Party, writes Tim Shipman in the Spectator.
• “Badenoch: decriminalising late abortions is wrong” – Kemi Badenoch has said that decriminalising abortion up to birth is “too much” after (s0me) peers voted in favour of changing the law, says the Telegraph.
• “Killing babies is fine now?” – The Lords’ vote to allow abortion up to the day of birth has shocked many who believed such a measure was unthinkable, writes Neil O’Brien on his Substack.
• “Lords vote down Labour plan to control workplace pensions” – Peers have voted by 217 to 113 to strip a contentious measure from the Pension Schemes Bill that would have handed the Government greater control over workplace pensions, notes the Telegraph.
• “I’m a GP who knowingly signs healthy people off work” – A practising doctor has revealed that more than 70% of GPs admit they have never turned down a request for a fit note, says the Telegraph.
• “Retired judge savages David Lammy’s plans to axe jury trials and says they will put the judiciary ‘in the firing line’ and won’t save any money” – Former Woolwich Crown Court judge Christopher Kinch KC has delivered a withering assessment of the Lord Chancellor’s proposal to abolish jury trials, warning it will neither cut costs nor improve justice, reports the Mail.
• “The politics of inversion” – Human rights groups claiming that keeping men out of women’s sport is an attack on women’s rights is a textbook example of how rhetorical inversion has become a weapon of choice in the culture wars, writes Andrew Doyle on his Substack.
• “Denmark flew blood bags and explosives into Greenland after Trump threatened to take island ‘the hard way’ – and troops prepared to blow up runways” – Denmark reportedly flew blood supplies and explosives to Greenland as it braced for a full-scale confrontation with the United States, says the Mail.
• “Trump stuns Japanese PM with Pearl Harbor comment direct to her face” – President Trump has shocked observers by invoking Pearl Harbor in a direct exchange with the Japanese prime minister during their Oval Office meeting, notes the Mail.
• “Officials to investigate if meningitis outbreak bacteria has mutated” – Health authorities have launched an investigation into whether the bacteria behind the meningitis outbreak at the University of Kent has mutated, after a case in London, reports the Times.
• “Is omitting data from a COVID-19 study conclusion a lie?” – A large peer-reviewed OpenSAFELY study on Covid vaccination in children has drawn scrutiny for burying key findings in its own tables, says Robert W. Malone at Malone News.
• “Keir Starmer has surrendered to Ed Miliband – and we are all paying the price” – Starmer’s capitulation to his Energy Secretary has locked the country into ruinous Net Zero commitments that Labour MPs fear will ultimately bring Ed Miliband to the top of the party, says the Spectator.
• “Greens want softer laws for terror suspects” – Zack Polanski’s party has been accused of a “staggering lack of judgment” after calling for a reduction in police powers to detain terrorism suspects, says the Telegraph.
• “Zack Polanski says Greens would ditch GDP targets and focus on wellbeing instead” – The Green Party leader has used his first major economic speech to argue that growth should be replaced by public services and inequality as the Government’s core objectives, reports the Guardian.
• “Paul Ehrlich was catastrophically wrong” – The death of the co-author of The Population Bomb has prompted a reckoning with apocalyptic environmentalism, argues Simon Evans in Spiked.
• “Labour to allow 30 million wind turbines at schools and hospitals” – The Government has scrapped key planning restrictions to allow 30-metre wind turbines to be installed on the grounds of schools, hospitals and farms as part of its Net Zero drive, notes the Telegraph.
• “Dale Vince to pay damages to Tory peer after dropping libel claim” – Millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince has apologised to Lord Bailey of Paddington and agreed to pay “substantial” damages after dropping a libel action over social media posts, reports the Times.
• “One in one out migrants return to Britain in lorries” – Migrants deported under the Government’s removal scheme have been returning to Britain hidden in lorries within days of being sent back, exposing a gaping hole in border enforcement, says the Telegraph.
• “Criminal migrant is allowed to stay in Britain after fighting deportation by arguing his son disliked foreign chicken nuggets” – Convicted fraudster Klevis Disha, who entered Britain illegally, has won the right to remain by citing his son’s fast food preferences, says the Mail.
• “Migrant jailed for harassment can stay because he forgets to take his medication” – A paranoid schizophrenic migrant jailed for harassment has been allowed to remain in Britain on the grounds that he would fail to take his medication if deported, reports the Telegraph.
• “A ‘taxi service’ for migrants? The truth about the RNLI” – A gripping memoir from an RNLI volunteer has laid bare the peril, moral strain and political controversy that now define Channel rescue missions off the coast of Kent, says the Telegraph.
• “These days Kemi’s so frisky her gaze dances with mischief – when she said the word ‘boob’ I tore a hole in my notebook!” – Kemi Badenoch has been showing a newly energised and mischievous form on the campaign trail, relishing the chance to mock her rivals and display a side of her personality rarely seen before, says Quentin Letts in the Mail.
• “The Midlands valley that may hold the secret to a national Tory revival” – Kemi Badenoch has been told by grassroots campaigners that pavement-level activism matters far more than grand visions in the battle to stave off Reform, writes Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph.
• “The truth about the manosphere ‘influencers’” – Louis Theroux has vastly overestimated the grip that manosphere content creators have over young men, and the panic surrounding them reveals more about the commentariat than about teenage boys, argues Andrew Doyle in Spiked.
• “Sweden breach shows the security risks of national digital ID systems” – A data breach exposing the source code of Sweden’s BankID system has demonstrated the catastrophic vulnerabilities that centralised digital identity infrastructure carries for entire nations, says Reclaim the Net.
• “Brazil launches mandatory age verification law for online platforms” – Brazil has introduced a national age verification system for online platforms under child protection legislation that critics say embeds sweeping surveillance infrastructure in its footnotes, notes Reclaim the Net.
• “Britain’s business registry left director data wide open – yet the Government is still building a national digital ID” – The Companies House system that leaked directors’ home addresses through a basic navigation flaw is the same one the Government intends to store biometric data in, reveals Reclaim the Net.
• “More terrible grants from Comic Relief” – Comic Relief has continued to fund a string of questionable causes, prompting renewed calls for the public to think carefully before donating on Red Nose Day, says Charlotte Gill on her Substack.
• “Starmer would be a better man if he shot pheasants” – Labour’s plans to explore licensing game-bird shooting and restrict land used for it have confirmed once again that the Government is instinctively hostile to the rural way of life, says the Telegraph.
• “The Observer offers voluntary redundancy to all staff” – The Observer has warned journalists that job cuts could become compulsory after the loss-making title offered voluntary redundancy to all staff, reports the Telegraph.
• “Farage: ban Muslim street prayers” – Nigel Farage has condemned the mass Muslim prayer ritual in Trafalgar Square as an attempt to “overtake, intimidate and dominate” public space and is calling for such events to be banned, says the Telegraph.
• “Islamic domination of the public sphere is unacceptable” – The deliberate occupation of public spaces is a cornerstone tactic of radical Islamism, and Britain’s failure to confront it is a symptom of a deeper cultural cowardice, writes Nick Timothy in the Telegraph.
• “Feeling uncomfortable about Muslim prayer in Trafalgar Square isn’t racist” – Conservative MP Nick Timothy’s criticism of Muslim practice of ritual mass public praying has reignited the debate about the boundaries of religious expression in shared civic space, writes Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator.
• “Nick Timothy is right: Islam is getting more assertive” – Feeling unsettled by mass displays of religiosity in shared public spaces is not Islamophobic but a legitimate response to a growing and undeniable trend, argues Hugo Timms in Spiked.
• “A hate definition that may do more to divide Britain than protect its Muslims” – Labour’s new definition of anti-Muslim hostility risks becoming a weapon in the culture wars rather than a shield for vulnerable communities, argues Fiyaz Mughal in the Jewish Chronicle.
• “The Islamists are winning” – Five years after a teacher was hounded into hiding, Britain’s authorities continue to appease Islamist extremists at every turn, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “Atheists could be silenced under new protections for Muslims” – The Free Speech Union has warned that Labour’s new definition of anti-Muslim hostility could be used to silence prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, says the Telegraph.
• “The official definition of Islamophobia – now repackaged as ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ – will be used to suppress legitimate criticism of Islam and its practices” – I launch the FSU’s legal challenge against the Government over its definition of anti-Muslim hostility

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