News Round-Up

• “‘Just f—ing approve’ Mandelson, No 10 told Foreign Office” – Sir Olly Robbins has accused Downing Street of putting the Foreign Office under “constant pressure” to push through Lord Mandelson’s appointment, reports LBC.
• “Olly Robbins has just destroyed Starmer’s premiership” – Olly Robbins has just wrecked Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership with a smoking bazooka, says Dan Hodges in the Mail.
• “An unflashy Olly Robbins mauls Keir Starmer” – Olly Robbins has delivered a devastating critique that has left Sir Keir Starmer looking utterly incompetent, writes Madeline Grant in the Spectator.
• “The unexploded bomb hidden in Olly Robbins’s evidence” – An unexploded bomb lies hidden in Olly Robbins’s evidence that could detonate under Sir Keir’s account of the Mandelson affair, says Nick Gutteridge in the Telegraph.
• “Starmer secretly pushed for second disgraced peer to get diplomatic job” – Sir Olly Robbins has revealed that Sir Keir Starmer lobbied the Foreign Office to find an ambassadorship for his disgraced former spin doctor, reports the GB News.
• “Starmer’s downfall will expose who really runs the country” – A century after the General Strike, trade union affiliates will for the first time have a direct say over the PM’s successor, writes Philip Johnston in the Telegraph.
• “Judges at risk of attack if jury trials scrapped, warns ex-Justice Secretary” – Judges are more likely to be physically attacked by criminals or their families because of David Lammy’s plans to scale back jury trials, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour’s ‘reckless reach to gamble your pension savings’ rejected again amid state overreach fears” – Labour has lost its bid to seize control of workers’ pensions after the plan was blocked for a second time by the House of Lords, says GB News.
• “White liberals who want to put me in a box can f— off” – Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told white liberals who try to put her in a box to “f— right off”, reports the Sun.
• “Poll shows Reform UK reclaiming 10-point lead” – Reform UK has clawed back a 10-point lead in the latest YouGov poll, boosting Nigel Farage ahead of the local elections, says the Mail.
• “Reform candidate supports mass deportation of Muslims” – A Reform candidate has called for the mass deportation of Muslims, prompting calls for Nigel Farage to remove her from the party, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why Reform won’t fix immigration” – Reform UK’s immigration policy is superficial and unlikely to truly fix the problem, writes Pete North in his Northern Variant Substack.
• “Why is the RAF suspending cadets for criticising Islam?” – The refusal to confront Islamic extremism is putting Britain’s national security at risk, warns Hugo Timms in Spiked.
• “Five on trial for child sexual exploitation gang in Denbighshire” – Mustafa Iqbal, 43, Ziaullah Badshah, 25 and Mohamed Usman Arshad, 36, face charges of rape with victims aged between 14 and 16 years old, reports the BBC.
• “Counter-terror police arrest seven over plot to attack Jewish target” – Counter-terror police have arrested seven people suspected of plotting an arson attack on a Jewish target, according to the BBC.
• “Britain should not wait for tragedy to protect its Jews” – Britain still has time to change course and protect British Jews, says Arsen Ostrovsky in the Spectator.
• “London’s Jews are under attack” – Weakness will only invite further outrages and, sooner or later, British lives are going to be lost, warns Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.
• “Meet the Green candidate who thinks Zionists killed 20 million Christians” – In the Spectator, Andrew Gilligan profiles Feda Shahin, a Green Party council candidate who claims that Zionists killed 20 million Christians.
• “Beware the bankrupt hellscape of Polanski Land” – Zack Polanski’s vision of expelling Right-wingers from society reveals a bankrupt and dystopian hellscape, writes Brendan O’Neill in the Telegraph.
• “This attack on ‘boomers’ exposes the rank hypocrisy of the millennial Left” – According to the Guardian, families are being “torn apart” by the “extreme” Right-wing views of today’s pensioners. Seriously? asks Michael Deacon the Telegraph.
• “Ofsted has lost interest in educating children” – DfE and Ofsted are making Sir Keir Starmer’s “tepid bath of managed decline” a reality, writes Amanda Spielman in the Spectator.
• “A step forward for academic freedom” – It is time to fight the culture of censoriousness in higher education, writes Freddie Attenborough in the Critic.
• “Fines are the only way to uphold university free speech” – Campus administrators have been too deferential to students and lobby groups, argues Samuel Rubinstein in UnHerd, who welcomes Bridget Phillipson’s plans to introduce a complaints scheme that will enable the Office for Students to fine universities who fail to discharge their free speech duties upwards of half a million pounds.
• “Keir Starmer ‘could impose internet bans on adults’ warns peer in major censorship alert” – Baroness Fox warns that Britain risks heading down a “dangerous path” towards state control of the online public square, according to GB News.
• “The absurdity of this week’s tube strike” – The RMT union has made no pretence of caring about the wider public good, says James Hanson the Spectator.
• “What striking Tube drivers don’t want you to know about their pay” – Striking Tube drivers have generous pensions that are rarely mentioned when they complain about pay, notes Maya Wilson Autzen in the Telegraph.
• “SAS resignations threaten US alliance, warns ex-military chief” – A former special forces chief has warned that mass resignations from the SAS risk threatening Britain’s alliance with the United States, reports the Telegraph.
• “Timmy the Whale cannot stop beaching himself off the German coast and in this he has become a powerful metaphor for the politics of the Federal Republic” – By repeatedly beaching itself, a confused humpback whale named Timmy has become a powerful metaphor for German politics, says Eugyppius on Substack.
• “Miliband to wipe out energy debt of poorest households in Iran bailout” – Ed Miliband is considering using taxpayers’ money to wipe out energy debts for the poorest households as part of an Iran-related bailout, reports the Telegraph.
• “An energy bill bailout would be a terrible idea” – The Labour Party has become a misnomer, says Ross Clark in the Spectator. It is now the benefits party.
• “Reeves vows to unlock ‘tens of millions’ of barrels of North Sea oil” – Rachel Reeves has vowed to unlock “tens of millions” of barrels of oil and gas in the North Sea, just as Ed Miliband condemns fossil fuel exploration as an attack on the climate, reports the Telegraph.
• “Trump turns to coal to fuel AI boom” – As data centres spread, US consumption of fossil fuel has risen by 38 million tonnes a year, according to the Telegraph.
• “Ice hockey player flouts transgender ban but result of match allowed to stand” – England Ice Hockey refused to stop a trans player flouting a ban on biological males playing in the female game, reports the Telegraph.
• “Pilots reprimanded for drawing penis shapes in the sky” – Finnish air force cadet pilots have been told off for drawing penis shapes in the sky with their flight patterns, says the Daily Star.
• “Mr Starmer, your time starts now…” – Watch Keir Starmer get the Spitting Image treatment.

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