News Round-Up

• “Reform overtakes Tories in poll for first time” – Reform has overtaken the Tories in the polls for the first time, reports the Mail.
• “Keir Starmer announces £8.6 billion worth of tax rises” – Labour has unveiled plans to hike taxes by £8.6 billion through raids on private schools, overseas property investors and non-doms, says the Telegraph.
• “‘Totally unserious’ Labour manifesto only contains costings for a single year” – Labour is under fire for setting out just one year’s worth of costs for its policies – despite Keir Starmer repeatedly insisting all his plans would be “fully costed”, reports the Telegraph.
• “How Labour is planning to push Britain’s tax burden to a record high” – Starmer’s manifesto is being branded a “tax trap” with only rises and no cuts, according to the Telegraph.
• “Labour’s VAT raid on private schools poses ‘existential threat’, says Gordonstoun head” – The head of Gordonstoun warns that Labour’s VAT raid on private schools poses “an existential threat” for many in the sector, reports the Telegraph.
• “Slippery Starmer” – Spiked’s Tom Slater gives a potted history of Starmer’s flip-flopping, U-turns and flagrant dishonesty.
• “The people will rise up against Labour’s bonkers Left-wing agenda” – Just as the EU moves Right, we are about to elect a new government committed to the worst of Leftist excess, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Labour has sown the seeds of its own destruction” – Keir Starmer can’t possibly hope to control his MPs with this ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ manifesto, says Henry Hill in the Telegraph.
• “Reform get my vote, and it won’t be wasted” – A vote for Reform, even in the most hopeless of seats, makes a more telling point than abstention or spoiling one’s ballot, says Gillian Dymond in TCW.
• “Oxford University exams cancelled after pro-Palestinian protests” – Oxford University has been forced to cancel exams after pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a building on campus, according to the Oxford Mail.
• “The Covid scam finally exposed” – It’s been a long time coming, but finally, inexorably, like a Wuhan lab leak, the truth about COVID-19 appears to be seeping out, writes Frank Haviland in the New Conservative.
• “The case of the disappearing article” – The Telegraph published a good exposé of the murky world of pharmaceutical payments to TV doctors. But why was the article taken down? asks the Naked Emperor on Substack.
• “What we talk about when we talk about immigration” – On Substack, Dr. David McGrogan argues that immigration remains a key issue because it reflects a deeper change in how societies are governed.
• “Why drug decriminalisation failed” – On the Public Substack, Charles Fain Lehman explains how to get drug policing right.
• “Massive fraud revealed in fake Chinese climate projects subsidised by the German fossil fuel industry in service of meeting arbitrary and deeply stupid emissions quotas” – Of 75 Chinese projects related to “upstream emissions reductions” schemes funded indirectly by German consumers, 62 have been revealed as clearly fraudulent, and only one is above suspicion, writes Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Scores of actresses turn down roles in play critical of J.K. Rowling’s gender views” – A play that criticises J.K. Rowling’s views on gender is struggling to cast women with 90 actresses so far rejecting parts, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour’s ‘trans conversion therapy’ ban is a danger to gay kids” – Parents and therapists who refuse to ‘affirm’ a child’s gender could soon be criminalised, warns Kate Barker in Spiked.
• “The football world’s war on free speech” – Football authorities are attempting to insist on what political values players and supporters should hold, writes Freddie Attenborough in the Critic.
• “Lia Thomas’s transgender case thrown out after U.S. swimmer ruled ineligible” – U.S. transgender swimmer Lia Thomas can’t compete in the Olympics after she lost her legal battle to have the rules barring her participation overturned, reports Sky News.
• “Aristotle and Socrates are sidelined by woke academics” – ‘Woke’ academics have sidelined philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates as part of a ‘decolonisation’ drive to get rid of “dead white men”, says the Mail.
• “Fear of this silly woke rule has left us walking on eggshells” – Over-sensitive souls have us worrying about causing offence over ‘cultural appropriation’ when there is none to be had, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “The strange rehabilitation of Johann Hari” – Why are our cultural elites fawning over a journalist so dogged by plagiarism and fabrication scandals? asks Tim Black in Spiked.
• “On Derek Chauvin, George Floyd and reasonable doubt” – In the Free Press, Coleman Hughes fires back at Radley Balko’s objections to his column on George Floyd and Derek Chauvin’s trial.
• “Whole counsel of God” – In a lecture for the Christian Institute, Revd. Dr. William Philip urges Christians to actively oppose wokery in society.
• “‘Why on earth should anybody believe the fifth [Tory] manifesto that promises cuts to net migration?’” – In the latest General Election debate, Penny Mordaunt tries to persuade the audience that the Tories’ pledge to bring down migration should be taken seriously – and provokes gales of laughter.

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