- “Switzerland’s Nemo triumphs at controversy-hit Eurovision” – The non-binary singer scored 365 points with the juries and 226 from the public for a total of 591. Israel’s Eden Golan failed to win over the juries, scoring just 52 points from the professional judges, but she scored a massive 323 from the public – including 12 (top points) from U.K. viewers.
- “This Eurovision protest with Greta Thunberg is an ugly new low for the anti-Israel Left” – Why is a young female Israeli pop singer being treated as if she’s somehow to blame for what’s happening in Gaza, asks Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “Biden’s sudden betrayal of Israel is a terrible miscalculation” – Washington fails to see that even if Netanyahu fell from power, his successors still want to destroy the terrorists, says Douglas Murray in the Telegraph.
- “BBC Arabic repeatedly uses commentator jailed for role in murder of Israeli” – A Palestinian jailed for his part in murdering an Israeli man is used as a regular contributor by the BBC’s Arabic channel without his conviction being disclosed, the Telegraph reports.
- “How universities raised a generation of activists” – In the Spectator, Yascha Mounk says it was only a matter of time before America’s student protests spread to the U.K.
- “Why is Russia’s economy booming despite sanctions?” – Russians are spending more on restaurants, white goods, and even property – despite Western sanctions, they have never had it so good, says Alexander Kolyandr in the Spectator.
- “Dominic Cummings isn’t Britain’s saviour. He’s the reason we’re in this mess” – Let’s not forget that Boris Johnson’s former advisor-turned-nemesis championed draconian lockdown measures, says Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
- “Congress’s Unscientific Spillover” – Virologist Alex Washburne’s take on the Congress lab leak grillings in Brownstone.
- “Some good news at last” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson with the welcome news that the WHO Pandemic Treaty agreement has been ‘delayed’.
- “The Greens have lost their ‘nice’ tag for good” – The party that “once offered wholesome ideas and a safe protest vote is becoming home to the hard Left ejected by Labour”, says Janice Turner in the Times. I’m not sure how wholesome Green Party policy has ever been – it’s always seemed like a radical Left outfit to me.
- “Saboteurs opposed to ‘automobile capitalism’ fail to storm German Tesla factory, claim credit for stopping production on a scheduled holiday when nobody was at work in the first place” – Eugyppius’s essential take on the Tesla anti-capitalism protests.
- “Is U.K. Rainfall Becoming More Extreme? Not at Oxford” – Paul Homewood defies anybody to find a pattern or trend towards rainfall becoming more intense in Oxford on WUWT.
- “NOAA’s Latest Temperature Climate Data Establishes There is No Climate Emergency” – NOAA’s temperature data as addressed in detail in this essay do not support and clearly refute climate alarmist hype that we are experiencing a ‘climate emergency’, says Larry Hamlin in WUWT.
- “Civil Service diversity jobs will be scrapped” – A radical overhaul will forbid civil service managers from hiring any new staff dedicated to boosting equality and inclusion, reports the Telegraph.
- “Wasteful Whitehall diversity and inclusion spending will end” – Read Esther McVey’s Telegraph article announcing the measures.
- “The West’s multi-racial societies cannot survive woke doctrines being promoted on campuses” – Intolerant and illiberal, the identity politics that has taken root in our universities will ultimately have to be stamped out, says Dan Hannan in the Telegraph.
- “Has the SNP really turned its back on identity politics?” – The Spectator‘s Iain Macwhirter isn’t convinced.
- “Private school entrants drop as Labour’s VAT plan blamed” – New figures reveal a significant fall in enrollment numbers at independents, as strained parents reconsider their options, the Telegraph reports.
- “Welsh Labour using satellites to spy on homeowners and hike tax” – The Welsh Government is using satellites to spy on homeowners with big gardens as it seeks to overhaul council tax, according to the Telegraph.
- “This is what racism looks like in 2024. And to think people worry about ‘microaggressions’, what a joke” – Jake Wallis Simons on X castigates those booing Israel’s entry in the Eurovision crowd.
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“Disinformation is one of the gravest threats weighing on our democracies,” he says.
This is absolsutely true, but it is the Governments who are using it to push narrative and silence opposition. Ergo, the Governments are the gravest threats to our democracies.
I must say, I’ve had doubts about how far Musk will go in his ‘free speech’ campaign. I dont think it reasonable for him to withdraw from the EU, so I expect he will sail somewhere close to the line, without actually crossing it.
Withdrawing from the EU might get people’s attention, though most likely people would blame Musk not the EU.
Musk can’t take on the EU by himself.
If the population were ready to see him as a champion and rally behind him to fight for free speech, then obviously he could.
But we’ve seen how spineless the population is. Many of them have offered up their children as guinea pigs for untested jabs to appease a menacing state bureaucracy, so…
I think it would do more harm than good for him to take that step, yes.
There’s little support for freedom of speech, at least in the UK and Europe, among people I speak to. People will tell you they like the idea, but when you start quoting types of speech (“hate”, “misinformation”) and ask if they should be allowed they will tell you “no of course not”.
It would also probably be suicidal.
I don’t see Twitter’s withdrawal from the EU’s code of practice an empty gesture. It is a signal. Now, one can debate what the signal is.
It might just be to try to look good. Or it might be a signal of measured defiance which says – ok, you might be forcing me to comply by turning a code into law, but I will t least, with my gesture, show you I don’t agree with it or like it.
I don’t know how committed Musk really is to free speech. I doubt few do. But if one assumes he is, how he plays his cards is anything but simple. It would be fiendishly complicated to try to runTwitter as a free speech platform in today’s regulatory environment, if that was what one wanted to do, without being destroyed by the heavy hand of ever more oppressive and authoritarian states.
My guess is that he’s trying to do his best, but I am ready to be disappointed and discover I’ve been naive.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – Musk doesn’t give a flying duck about Free Speech.
Surely Twitter need to replace the display of offending content with a message saying banned in the EU. If people are really interested they can use a VPN to avoid this. If enough people are annoyed then there will be push back.
The EU appears not to want Twitter being what it is but wants something else instead.
The EU should build its own ‘service’ as it wants it to be – I’m sure they could make it just as popular eventually.
I hope Elon has the power and the balls to withdraw Twitter from the EU territory.