- “NHS waiting list spikes to another record high of 6.4 million” – NHS data show one in nine people were in the queue for elective operations such as hip and knee replacements and cataracts surgery by March, the Mail reports.
- “Rishi Sunak’s tax raids trigger recession warning” – The economy shrank in March even before taxes were due to climb as experts warn of “real squeeze”, the Telegraph reports.
- “The truth about Britain’s Covid deaths” – Matthew Parris in the Spectator notes how little relationship there is between pandemic deaths and restrictions and how small the death tolls were in the scheme of things.
- “From snowball fights to delivering birthday cards: Britain’s 136,000 lockdown penalty charges” – Time for an amnesty, says Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
- “Forget back to the office, now civil servants want the right to work from abroad” – Jacob Rees-Mogg says “extreme” demand from “lazy” union leaders has “given the game away”, the Telegraph reports.
- “Is Klaus Schwab the greatest threat of our time?” –”Just another typical smooth-talking, smarmy Davos Man,” says Taki in the Speccie, but one with some dangerous ideas.
- “Tesco to open offices in its supermarkets” – The grocer seeks to cash in on the rise of homeworking, according to the Telegraph.
- “‘Lockdown winners’ are the ‘reopening losers’” – The troubles of Peloton and Netflix show we crave the ‘old normal’ life, says Ben Marlow in the Telegraph.
- “Six graphs that show how the NHS is collapsing” – Pressure is mounting across the health service and the latest NHS England monthly statistical release is a window onto a service that seems to be continuously ‘at breaking point’, writes Michael Simmons in the Spectator.
- “‘Bungs’ to Billionaires: Cummings Exposes Johnson’s Cash for Content Scandal” – New testimony from the Prime Minister’s former chief aide shows how the free press has been bought by the Government, according to Adam Bienkov, Sam Bright and Brian Cathcart in the Byline Times.
- “Argonaut 1970s Redux Stockumentary” – Watch: Argonaut asks what were the 1970s really like for investors and what lessons can we learn for investing today?
- “U.S. gun murders reached 25 year high in 2020” – Guns were used in more than three quarters of murders in the U.S. in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the year of the BLM riots, up nearly 35% on 2019 and a 25 year high, Janice Hopkins Tanne writes in the BMJ.
- “Covid Scotland: MSPs urged to block new bill including controversial ‘Henry VIII’ powers” – The Scottish Liberal Democrats have urged other MSPs to oppose the Scottish Government’s ‘power grab’ COVID-19 Recovery Bill, the Scotsman reports.
- “China Declares War on W.H.O., ‘Irresponsible’ Tedros for Opposing Lockdowns” – China condemned WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as uninformed and “irresponsible”, reports Breitbart News.
- “Pilots Injured by Covid Vaccines Speak Out: ‘I Will Probably Never Fly Again’” – In interviews with Michael Nevradakis for the Defender, pilots injured by COVID-19 vaccines said despite a “culture of fear and intimidation” they are compelled to speak out against vaccine mandates that rob pilots of their careers and in some cases their lives.
- “World’s leading scientists deplatformed by bigoted councillors” – Kathy Gyngell on TCW Defending Freedom reports that the venue for the forthcoming Better Way health conference pulled out at the last minute out of ‘concerns for its reputation’, but a replacement venue has been found.
- “How The Federal Government Used Evangelical Leaders To Spread Covid Propaganda To Churches” – Megan Basham in the Daily Wire tells how Francis Collins enlisted leading Evangelicals to promote the Government line on restrictions and vaccines.
- “What the new GCSE in global warming should teach” – Bjorn Lomborg in the Spectator makes some suggestions for what should be in the new course, such as that according to the UN the entire global cost of climate change will be equivalent to less than a 4% hit to GDP by the end of the century.
- “Rishi Sunak’s net zero U-turn” – Just six months ago at the Glasgow climate conference, Chancellor Rishi Sunak was pledging to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero, including making London the world’s first ‘Net Zero Aligned Financial Centre’, but he has changed his tune of late, writes Rupert Darwall in the Spectator.
- “Germany gas supply drops as Ukraine shuts off pipes from Russia” – Olaf Scholz is forced to import extra fuel from Norway and Netherlands, the Telegraph reports.
- “If the oil ban hurts Vlad, why would he turn off the gas?” – Is it Putin we’re harming or ourselves, asks Ciarán McCollum on Scaled.
- “British troops ‘ready to go and fight’ against Russia, says head of commando unit” – Brigadier Nick Cowley, Commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade Combat Team, admitted there is a “very present” threat of the conflict spreading, according to the Telegraph.
- “Russia declares Sweden and Finland ‘targets’ if they join NATO” – Speaking to UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers, First Deputy Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy has said that Sweden and Finland joining the bloc would turn them overnight from neutral into enemy countries and become a “target” for Russia.
- “The culture wars have crept into Oxbridge admissions” – Meritocracy is on life support in the dreaming spires, says David Abulafia in the Speccie.
- “Ultra-woke nursery rhyme book asks parents to ditch traditional ballad” – Animal rights group PETA said the original songs like Baa Baa Black Sheep encourage unfair attitudes towards animals and have been given a “makeover to replace racist, sexist, and insensitive language”, the Mail reports.
- “Calling men bald is sex harassment, judge rules” – A panel of judges bemoaning their own hair loss find in favour of a worker after remarks were made over his physical appearance, reports the Telegraph.
- “Online watchdog says it ‘prizes freedom of expression’ ahead of Musk’s Twitter takeover” – Ofcom chief says the company will focus on illegal content when regulating social media giants, the Telegraph reports. Well, that’s okay then…
- “What’s the truth about Facebook and Twitter’s algorithm riddle?” – Algorithms dictate what we do and don’t see online; on Twitter and Facebook, they determine what posts do well and which ones get buried. Yet how they actually work is shrouded in secrecy, says Laura Dodsworth in the Spectator.
- “I don’t trust the Government to decide what political views are worthy of protection online” – Toby explains his concerns with the Online Safety Bill on the Triggernometry podcast.
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By Will Jones / 13 May 2022 • 00.44
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