News Round-Up

• “Farage ‘unhappy’ with Reform’s Sarah Pochin over advert comments” – Nigel Farage says he is “unhappy” at comments about Black and Asian people made by his party’s sole Liverpool City Region MP, but that he understood “the basic point” she was making, according to the Liverpool Echo.
• “Labour’s attack on Sarah Pochin reeks of desperation” – Labour’s hysterical pile-on over Sarah Pochin’s clumsy comments says more about its own desperation than hers, says our own Laurie Wastell in the Spectator.
• “Reform promises deep cuts to Civil Service” – A Reform government would save £100 million a year by closing expensive government buildings and moving civil servants back to Whitehall, reports the Telegraph.
• “Mansion tax fears turning housing market into ‘stagnant swamp’” – Speculation over Rachel Reeves’ mooted “mansion tax” has plunged London’s property market into chaos, says the Express.
• “Covid Inquiry becomes most expensive in British legal history” – The Covid Inquiry has become the most expensive in British legal history – costing more than £192 million in three years, reports the Mail.
• “The ‘anti-racism’ march are the real extremists” – A black-clad mob shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “Zionist scum” made UKIP’s grumblers look tame, says Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Met and CPS accused of string of antisemitism failings” – Police and prosecutors have been accused of repeatedly allowing antisemitic hate speech to go unpunished, reports the Telegraph.
• “Aston Villa ‘has been tarnished’ by the ban on Israeli fans” – Home supporters have condemned the decision to shut out Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from next week’s “high-risk” Europa League game, writes David Wilkes in the Telegraph.
• “The treatment of British Jews proves the lie at the heart of multiculturalism” – Multiculturalism cloaks itself in platitudes about tolerance while downplaying attitudes inimical to a free society, says Stephen Daisley in the Telegraph.
• “Asylum seekers to be housed in military sites instead of hotels” – Small boat migrants will be housed in two army barracks in Scotland and the south of England from next month, reports the Gazette & Herald.
• “Large-scale migrant centres now cost taxpayer less than asylum hotels” – Asylum accommodation centres on ex-military bases are now cheaper than migrant hotels, vindicating the Tory Government’s decision to set them up, according to the Mail.
• “Labour is as much to blame for the migrant hotel scandal as the Tories” – Labour and the Tories both have their fingers deep in the pie of the asylum hotel scandal, says Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Asylum seekers who chased migrant hotel staff with knives are jailed” – Two asylum seekers have been jailed after they chased migrant hotel staff with knives because they didn’t like they food they were served, reports the Mail.
• “Labour playing ‘pantomime politics’ with jails” – Prison governors have accused Labour of “pantomime politics” over the mistaken release of a migrant sex offender, says the Telegraph.
• “Father of Southport attacker warned teacher he may become violent” – The father of the Southport attacker warned a teacher who attempted to visit him at home that the teenager may become violent if forced to see him, according to ITV News.
• “How the state tried to ‘safeguard’ Axel Rudakubana” – The Southport inquiry reveals a catastrophic failure of the UK’s safeguarding system, writes Ian Acheson in the Spectator.
• “Has there been a cover-up of London grooming gangs?” – Sadiq Khan’s evasions on London’s grooming gangs mean his “diversity is strength” mantra could implode, says John Power in the Spectator.
• “Islamo-socialist alliances don’t last, just ask the Iranians” – Left-wing elites in Britain today are too weak to confront the forces that seek to overthrow their own values, warns Potkin Azarmehr in the Telegraph.
• “Dozens dead ‘because of Afghan data breach’” – Dozens of people have died as a result of the Ministry of Defence’s Afghanistan data leak fiasco, reports the Telegraph.
• “China spy case: what we learnt from the DPP and Cabinet Secretary” – Prosecutors say the Chinese spy case came to a “crashing halt” because the Government wouldn’t admit Beijing posed an active national security threat, according to the Times.
• “Think Before You Post | How the UK fell to a sinister new form of censorship” – On YouTube, Spiked has released a new documentary taking a chilling look at Britain’s speech police.
• “Wimbledon shrugs off Lib Dem MP’s conflict of interest claims in expansion row” – Wimbledon has shrugged off claims of a potential conflict of interest in the ongoing row over its controversial £200 million expansion, reports the Telegraph.
• “Drivers in London hit by almost ten million fines over past year” – London drivers were slapped with nearly ten million fines last year – fuelling claims that councils and TfL are turning penalties into a “money-making exercise”, says the Times.
• “But seriously – the farce is strong in Deadpan David” – In the Spectator, Tim Stanley opines on “Calamity Lammy’s” latest gaffe.
• “Moment US events company boss is mugged for his watch” – The Mail has video of the moment a US events company boss was ambushed in Mayfair by thugs who snatched his watch from his wrist.
• “Jobs fear as Petrofac files for administration” – About 2,000 Petrofac employees working in the North Sea face uncertainty over their future after the struggling oil services group filed for administration, reports the Sun.
• “Net Zero’s mould referral scandal” – Labour’s ECO4 scheme, meant to shield vulnerable Brits from cold homes, is instead leaving them breathing in mould, says the Rational Forum on Substack.
• “Leading journal accused of abandoning science over ‘social justice agenda’” – Nature, which produces several leading science journals, is facing criticism over its position on equality, diversity and inclusion from leading scientists, reports the Telegraph.
• “Recent global warming mostly due to natural factors, new study finds” – On NoTricksZone, P. Gosselin highlights research showing recent warming is mostly natural, with CO₂ responsible for just a third.
• “Real public health threats vs climate hysteria” – The real threats are disease and poverty, not a bit of extra warmth, says Gregory Wrightstone in the Washington Examiner.
• “Catherine Connolly’s victory was no landslide” – Catherine Connolly may be hailing a “landslide”, but most voters stayed home or spoiled their ballots, writes Melanie McDonagh in the Spectator.
• “German Chancellor Friedrich Merz finds his coalition government hanging by a thread after renewed attempts to distance his party from Alternative für Deutschland” – Germany’s weakest and most hapless Chancellor can find no way out of the corner into which he has painted himself, says Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Dividing Gaza in two presents a fresh test for Israel” – In the Spectator, Jonathan Sacerdoti argues that Gaza’s war hasn’t ended but morphed into a political experiment – a “new Berlin” split between Hamas and Israel.
• “Milei has given Britain a serious economic lesson” – The Argentinian President’s victory is proof that cutting public spending does not put off voters, says the Telegraph in a leading article.
• “How austerity proved to be a winning ticket for Milei” – The Argentine President’s economic polices may have secured him his election victory, writes Hans van Leeuwen in the Telegraph.
• “Pandemic associated arthritis” – Arthritis and COVID‑19 trigger similar inflammation, and on the Focal Points Substack, Dr Peter McCullough identifies spike protein as the culprit.
• “‘Woke’ policies are fuelling Whitehall chaos, says Lord Case” – The ex-head of the civil service warns that woke staff networks and an “obsession” with officials’ feelings are fuelling the chaos at the Home Office.
• “Employment Appeal Tribunal to hear case of Christian social worker discriminated against by NHS” – The Christian Legal Centre announces that Christian social worker Felix Ngole will appear before the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London this week to challenge a ruling that he was lawfully denied employment due to his Christian beliefs on marriage and sexuality.
• “Cambridge students launch single-sex Society for Women” – On Gender Blog, Nick Wallis flags three Cambridge students launching the Cambridge University Society of Women to carve out a single-sex space for discussing sex-based issues and challenging prevailing gender ideology.
• “Riot Women sums up everything wrong with the BBC” – In the Spectator, David James slams the BBC’s Riot Women as a man-hating, virtue-signalling mess.
• “Avanti should get rid of its Pride train” – The more a company chooses to focus on its social values, the more sceptical you should be of its performance, says James Graham in the Spectator.
• “The rise of ridiculous doctorates” – In the Spectator, Arabella Byrne slams the absurdity of modern PhDs, and thanks her stars the taxpayer didn’t fund her own four-year flirtation with academic nonsense.
• “Jimmy Carr backs Graham Linehan after trans tweet arrest” – Jimmy Carr has praised ‘cancelled’ writer and comedian Graham Linehan at a gig in Minnesota, reports the Mail.
• “Elon Musk says AI research into ancient Rome will ‘rewrite history’” – The world’s richest man is financing a new age of archaeological projects that seek to use AI to fill in knowledge gaps, says the Times.
• “It is absolutely indefensible” – In the House of Lords, Toby seeks assurances from Home Office Minister Lord Hanson that no one will be barred from a job over an uninvestigated “non-crime”.

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