News Round-Up

• “Starmer is ready to resign, say allies” – Cabinet Ministers and MPs – many of them previously staunch loyalists – are urging the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his departure, reports the Telegraph.
• “How Starmer’s ‘wobbly ring-round’ dashed his survival hopes” – When Sir Keir Starmer needed Cabinet support most, it was not forthcoming – and the story of how his bid to shore up his position collapsed is laid bare by the Telegraph.
• “Row over successor to Rachel Reeves as Keir Starmer prepares for exit” – Allies of the Prime Minister say he has concluded his position is untenable and is now considering a timetable for departure, with a fierce internal row already erupting over who should succeed Rachel Reeves as Chancellor, says the Times.
• “Labour MPs beg Burnham not to make Miliband the next Chancellor” – Andy Burnham has been warned that appointing Ed Miliband as Chancellor would leave his premiership “over before it’s begun”, according to the Mail.
• “Burnham vows to nationalise utilities if he takes Keir’s place” – Andy Burnham has reeled off a list of Corbyn-style policies – including nationalising utilities – that critics warn would drive taxation and spending even higher, reports the Mail.
• “Andy Burnham insists he will stick to fiscal rules” – The new MP for Makerfield says he remains “completely committed” to the fiscal rules despite his own advisors calling for them to be loosened, notes the Telegraph.
• “Andy Burnham is going to be yet another terrible Prime Minister” – In the Spectator, Ian Leslie argues that Britain is about to add a fifth failed Prime Minister to an already embarrassingly long post-2016 line-up, and that Burnham offers nothing to reverse the trend.
• “Andy Burnham is just Keir Starmer in jeans” – Those expecting hope and change from Andy Burnham are deluding themselves, writes Tim Black in Spiked.
• “Is this proof raid on Russian ship was staged to boost Starmer?” – Sources claim Sir Keir personally authorised last weekend’s Royal Marines raid on the Russian vessel Smyrtos primarily to generate a “PR boost” for his embattled administration, reveals the Mail.
• “Starmer to force social media giants to prioritise BBC and other public service content” – Sir Keir Starmer is drawing up plans to legally compel social networks and video platforms to give greater prominence to BBC content, says the Telegraph.
• “Yes we lost in Makerfield, but Reform is bigger than one by-election” – Reform’s Makerfield defeat should not obscure the party’s broader electoral momentum, says Nigel Farage in the Telegraph.
• “Why Restore was humiliated in Makerfield” – Rupert Lowe’s Restore party polled below the BNP’s 2010 vote share in Makerfield, finishing on just 6.8% despite flooding the constituency with aggressive canvassers, writes Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Kemi rules out Reform deal after Makerfield split helps Burnham” – Kemi Badenoch declares that Conservatives and Reform are “not the same” and that voters are “not ours to trade like football cards”, says the Mail.
• “Reform dress up as Thatcherites but behave like Corbynites” – The Makerfield and Aberdeen results have killed off any prospect of a Conservative-Reform pact, argues Kemi Badenoch in the Mail.
• “Masculine Reform ‘has a woman problem’” – Reform UK’s own board member Gawain Towler warns in a Substack post that the party’s masculine branding risks alienating female voters, reports the Telegraph.
• “Tories seek to halt puberty blocker trial” – Kemi Badenoch will force a Commons vote in an attempt to stop what she calls “an experimental trial involving vulnerable” children, notes the Telegraph.
• “Counter-terror police probe ‘anti-Muslim rampage’ as man arrested” – Counter-terror officers have launched an investigation after a 36 year-old man was arrested over an alleged anti-Muslim attack in Edinburgh that left five people injured, reports the Mail.
• “Iran warns it is closing Strait of Hormuz and threatens ships” – Iran has announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz just hours after signing a ceasefire deal with the United States, reports the Mail.
• “Did the Iran war work?” – Contrary to the prevailing narrative that the US-Iran memorandum of understanding represents a foreign policy failure for Donald Trump, in the Spectator, Vahid Beheshti says the case for judging it a success is stronger than critics admit.
• “Trump insists Israel would have been ‘eviscerated’ without US support” – Donald Trump has claimed he needs to keep Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a little bit sane” while insisting Israel would have been destroyed without American backing, reports the Mail.
• “Key Trump allies and Musk on leaked list for secretive Peter Thiel retreat” – Figures including Jared Kushner, Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have been named in a leaked directory of participants at Peter Thiel’s secretive Dialog retreat that was exposed online, says the Guardian.
• “How to end the Brexit shitshow: a blitzkrieg can oust the deep state” – In UnHerd, Dominic Cummings argues that a bold, rapid political offensive is the only way to end the Brexit “shitshow” and dislodge the deep state.
• “EU membership is ‘worst business idea’ Iceland could have” – Icelanders have been warned that joining the EU would be a “huge step away from democracy” and the “worst business idea” the country could pursue, notes the Telegraph.
• “China ‘should be banned from buying private schools near critical infrastructure’” – Security experts and politicians are calling for China to be banned from acquiring British private schools located near critical national infrastructure, says the Telegraph.
• “Assisted suicide is back and my misgivings have never been stronger” – Labour MP Lauren Edwards’s new Private Member’s Bill on assisted dying is reviving all the deepest concerns about where such legislation could lead, writes Kathleen Stock in the Telegraph.
• “Covid inquiry ‘buried evidence’ of lockdown critic surveillance” – The Covid Inquiry stands accused of concealing evidence that the state surveilled critics of lockdown measures during the height of the pandemic, reveals the Telegraph.
• “The story the media – and the Government – don’t want you to hear” – Senator Ron Johnson details the findings of his Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report, ‘Unmasked: How Biden Health Officials Purposely Turned a Blind Eye Toward COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Signals’, which exposes a major government scandal that legacy media refuse to cover.
• “Biden administration buried intel whistleblower complaint accusing Fauci of lying to Congress” – On his Substack, Paul D. Thacker claims the Biden administration suppressed an intelligence whistleblower complaint accusing Anthony Fauci of lying to Congress, with Xavier Becerra – now the Democratic Party’s nominee for Governor of California – allegedly shielding Fauci from criminal investigation.
• “Why does the NHS keep harassing the elderly to have Covid jabs?” – In the Conservative Woman, Liz Hodgkinson questions why the NHS continues to pressure elderly people into receiving Covid jabs.
• “The autism wild west – rising numbers, escalating costs and a system out of control” – Soaring diagnosis rates, runaway costs and a system with no coherent response paint a troubling picture of autism provision in Britain, writes Jane Wills in the Conservative Woman.
• “Preston Davey council ‘did not act’ on 37 referrals linked to another child” – Oldham council’s child services staff ignored 37 school referrals about a 10 year-old boy who had been known to the local authority, reports the Telegraph.
• “Does Ed Miliband want to ban your tumble dryer?” – Regulations that would make the tumble dryers most Britons own impossible to purchase amount to a ban in all but name, writes John O’Neill in the Spectator.
• “Dale Vince: Miliband’s Net Zero projects are a gift to Reform” – Labour donor and green tycoon Dale Vince says the Energy Secretary has squandered billions that could have plugged holes in the defence budget, reports the Telegraph.
• “Heatwave to hit 35°C as amber warning issued for seven days of 30-plus heat” – The Met Office has placed amber warnings across most of southern England, London, Wales and parts of the South West as forecasters predict seven consecutive days of temperatures above 30°C, reports the Mail.
• “Kew Gardens is just another worthless junk site” – New photographs of the weather station at Kew Gardens confirm it is heavily compromised by its surroundings, rendering its temperature data unreliable, says Paul Homewood on Not a Lot of People Know That.
• “New study: Chile’s relative sea level was 3.2 metres higher than today during the mid-Holocene” – A new study finding that Chile’s sea level stood 3.2 metres above present levels during the mid-Holocene period challenges assumptions about long-term sea level stability, says Kenneth Richard on No Tricks Zone.
• “Golden eagles need new law to protect them from wind turbines” – Wind turbines are killing golden eagles at an ever-increasing rate, and a 2025 study estimating the mounting mortality toll makes the case for urgent new legal protections, writes David Wojick in CFACT.
• “We found the limit of free speech at the Oxford Union” – Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator recounts the descending of palpable dread when one panel member at the Oxford Union debate on Islam announced he was going to display a Charlie Hebdo cartoon – thus proving that fear of Islam is stifling free speech.
• “Why are Lush and Amnesty celebrating ‘top surgery’?” – Disgracefully, Lush and Amnesty International are actively celebrating double mastectomies performed on healthy girls and women, says Janet Murray in Spiked.
• “Can we please stop saying ‘her penis’?” – The phrase may be trans-inclusive, but its use in court proceedings exposes just how absurd gender ideology has become, says Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “The BBC’s kids’ shows are worse than what’s on YouTube” – In the Spectator, Joanna Williams argues that injecting politics into children’s television programmes betrays the trust of parents who expect the BBC to be a safe, reliable broadcaster.
• “The grave and increasingly obvious limitations of populist politics” – On his Substack, Eugyppius worries that populist political movements are running headlong into deep and unavoidable structural constraints that no amount of electoral energy can overcome.
• “Support for monarchy at its lowest level in 30 years” – Support for the Royal Family has fallen to its lowest point in three decades, with only one in three young people now in favour of keeping the monarchy, reports the Telegraph.
• “Why has the English flag become so toxic?” – In UnHerd, Niall Gooch says the St George’s Cross has undergone a remarkable cultural transformation, shifting from a rarely-seen symbol into one freighted with political suspicion and unease.
• “The Cambridge Five: England’s Übermenschen – Stalin’s apostles destroyed the old Establishment” – In UnHerd, John Banville examines the work of the Cambridge Five, who he says represented a privileged elite whose treachery dismantled the foundations of the old British Establishment from within.
• “Jeremy Clarkson cancer diagnosis remission” – Jeremy Clarkson has said his cancer is in remission, reports the Sun.
• “Narinder Kaur – who has repeatedly claimed that people are spreading false narratives about the levels of crime in London – has had her phone stolen in London” – Basil the Great on X highlights a particularly welcome piece of karma.

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