News Round-Up

• “NHS fails to make use of private hospitals to clear Covid backlog” – Independent providers could help treat 400,000 extra patients a year, but one in four have been shut out of helping to clear waiting lists, the Telegraph reports.
• “The World Health Organisation has lost all credibility” – Any lingering hope that the WHO might be an organisation fit to be trusted with global heath concerns has pretty well evaporated with the election, by acclamation, of China as one of the 12 members of its executive board on Friday, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “AstraZeneca vaccine may increase risk of serious neurological condition” – Scientists believe the jab’s Trojan horse delivery system could be causing a rise in Guillain-Barré syndrome cases, the Telegraph reports.
• “Why is there no compensation for those who reacted to Covid jab?” – Jamie Scott, an IT engineer from Warwickshire, suffered a brain haemorrhage the day after his first AstraZeneca jab in April last year and has been left with permanent brain damage, but compensation has yet to come, reports the Mail.
• “I totally backed the lockdown (and quite enjoyed it). But was I just a mug?” – Rod Liddle writes in the Times that he had been entirely in support of the first lockdown, but much as with trepanning or the use of mercury as a laxative, he now thinks the cure was far, far more deadly than the disease.
• “Heavily Vaccinated Taiwan Experiences Record COVID-19 Infections, Hospitalisations and Deaths” – While Taiwan is 80.3% fully vaccinated, with one of the highest boost rates worldwide at about 65%, an unprecedented number of SARS-CoV-2 infections surge alongside record fatalities, reports TrialSite News.
• “I’m facing prison once again for my role in protesting Australia’s draconian lockdown” – LifeSite News carries an update from Monica Smit, who was arrested in Australia on August 31st 2021 on two charges of “incitement”, spent 22 days in solitary confinement having rejected a bail condition that directed her to remove from social media any of her organisation’s material that would incite opposition to Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, and now faces the possibility of years in jail for refusing to give the state access to her social media accounts.
• “The media misses the central point about Partygate” – It’s not the rule-breaking that was the problem, it was the rule-making, says Time For Recovery.
• “The Week in Review – W.H.O. Let the Tyrants Out?” – In the latest Bournbrook podcast, Michael Curzon, S.D. Wickett and Luke Perry discuss the WHO treaty, the Davos convention and the last remnants of Partygate.
• “After Summer, Europe to Target the Unvaccinated” – Robert Kogon at Brownstone writes that the European Commission’s April 27th documents invoke a new rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the autumn, specifically targeting the hitherto unvaccinated and also children, accompanied by the extension of the EU Digital Covid Certificate.
• “First monkeypox case is identified in Ireland as U.K. total rises to 106” – The infection was reported in the east of Ireland on Friday evening, bringing the UK total to 106 while NHS 111 continues to be swamped with calls, reports the Mail.
• “The anti-growth lobby sees humanity as a threat to survival” – There is an ideological movement, strong among the greens, that regards prosperity as bad and progress as an end-of-the-world threat, writes Janet Daley in the Telegraph.
• “A Global ESG System Is Almost Here. We Should Be Worried” – Members of a WEF panel stated that what elites are doing is steering investment away from companies that do not align with their vision for the world, and severing relationships with companies that do not get on board, warns Jack McPherrin in Watts Up With That?
• “Bristol Mayor who declared ‘climate emergency’ flies 9,000 miles” –  The Mail reports that the first city mayor in Britain to declare a “climate emergency” has come under fire for flying nine hours to Canada to tell other local leaders how to cut emissions.
• “The British didn’t plunder antiquities, like the Elgin Marbles. They rescued them” – In the 19th century, Westerners saved such treasures from destruction; modern Greece has no logical claim to them, contends Zareer Masani in the Telegraph.
• “Cambridge don claims woke critics have labelled him a ‘white supremacist’ for teaching classics – as he warns of ‘threats’ to his academic discipline” – Cambridge don Dr. David Butterfield says he has been branded a “white supremacist” for studying and teaching classics and warns of the “political danger” to his academic discipline, in the Mail.
• “Give us a smile? Not unless you want to cause offence” – Employment laws and more woke attitudes have increased sensitivity around behaviour in the office, experts have said, the Telegraph reports.
• “New hate strategy ‘could criminalise comics like Ricky Gervais’” – The Mail reports that free-speech campaigners fear the new drive could see comedians criminalised for telling jokes, particularly about the rise of transgender ideology.
• “Top universities pledge to ‘decolonise’ courses to win ‘woke’ charity’s awards” – MPs hit out at institutions such as the University of Warwick rewriting curricula to curry favour with Advance HE, the Telegraph reports.
• “From Worms to woke” – The resemblance between woke and the Reformation goes beyond means to content, writes David Starkey in the Critic.
• “Amber Heard and the crisis of feminism” – Brendan O’Neill in Spiked on why the woke set believes some women and tells others to shut the hell up.

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