News Round-Up

• “Starmer forces MoD to cut £10.7 billion” – Military chiefs will be forced to find £10.7 billion in savings as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s new Defence Investment Plan, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer offers EU students cut-price tuition fees in Brexit reset talks” – A major concession under discussion in Brexit reset negotiations would save European undergraduates up to £28,000 while costing the UK’s higher education sector an estimated £500 million a year, writes the Telegraph.
• “How Burnham used £16k of taxpayers’ cash to help buy himself a flat” – Man of the people Andy Burnham claimed more than £16,000 on Parliamentary expenses to help buy and renovate a London flat when he was first a Labour MP, reveals Martin Beckford in the Mail.
• “Burnham dismisses astonishing claim he’ll be ‘first female Labour PM’” – In the Mail, Greg Heffer reports that Andy Burnham has denied being behind the extraordinary claim that he would be the party’s “first female Prime Minister”.
• “Burnham’s wishful thinking: hitting home owners with higher taxes won’t boost housebuilding” – Andy Burnham’s proposal to hit home owners with higher taxes is unlikely to deliver the housebuilding boost he envisions, writes Alex Brummer in the Mail.
• “Burnham has no plan to fix Britain. We need an election now” – Andy Burnham is set to become Prime Minister via the backdoor with little indication of what he plans to do with the country, says Nigel Farage in the Telegraph. He should fight a General Election.
• “Farage was paid £270,000 for 12 hours of work promoting gold bullion” – Nigel Farage has declared a £270,000 payment from Direct Bullion in his latest register of financial interests, revealing he earned the sum for just 12 hours of promotional work for the gold company, according to ITV News.
• “Asylum seekers told they’ll have to pay back £10,000 in support costs” – Asylum seekers could face monthly deductions from their pay cheques to repay up to £10,000 in accommodation and support costs once they find work, according to the Mail.
• “Don’t be fooled by Shabana Mahmood’s smoke and mirrors on migration” – With her new measures accelerating the numbers of unwanted refugees, the Home Secretary has as good as declared war on the British people, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Britain didn’t fail to build homes. It was squeezed from every direction, on purpose” – On Substack, the Rationals argue Westminster has squeezed builders with taxes, buried them in delays and then blamed them for the housing crisis.
• “‘Mr Carpetright’ transformed British education. Now, his legacy is under threat from Labour” – The Harris Academy chain, whose turnaround of a struggling South London comprehensive became a national blueprint, faces an existential threat as Labour strips away the freedoms that made it flourish, warns Leaf Arbuthnot in the Telegraph.
• “White working-class students excluded from Oxbridge diversity scholarships” – A Telegraph analysis reveals that white working-class students are being excluded from almost all Oxbridge diversity scholarships.
• “I’m a white working-class male with straight As. In Britain, I’m a second-class citizen” – In the Telegraph, a 20 year-old white working-class student describes the barriers he faces in education and employment because of his race.
• “I helped black boys succeed against the odds. Now white boys need the same help” – White working-class children get among the worst educational outcomes, but the establishment refuses to consider them disadvantaged, writes Tony Sewell in the Telegraph.
• “Treasury ditched numeracy test to increase diversity hires” – The Treasury ditched maths tests for candidates after officials came to the conclusion they had an adverse effect on candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds, reports GB News.
• “Axel Springer completes Telegraph takeover” – The Telegraph has announced it is now under the ownership of European multinational media company Axel Springer following the completion of a £575 million takeover.
• “Spain triggers largest migrant amnesty in European history” – Spain’s migrant crisis looks set to worsen as the country enacts the biggest amnesty in European history, according to Sky News Australia.
• “Spain’s historic migrant amnesty faces high court challenge” – More than 1.3 million migrants living in Spain without permission applied for amnesty before a Tuesday deadline, but the country’s Supreme Court signalled it might strike down the law, says Courthouse News Service.
• “Iranian clerics call for Trump’s assassination” – Iran’s Assembly of Experts has declared the killing of President Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister a “religious duty”, according to the Nightly.
• “Supreme Court slaps down Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship” – The Mail reports that the Supreme Court has delivered a major blow to President Trump’s administration by rejecting his bid to end birthright citizenship.
• “Humiliation for Bill Gates as donor pauses huge gift over Epstein ties” – Warren Buffet has announced he will pause his annual pledge to the Gates Foundation pending the results of an internal review into Bill Gates’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, says the Mail.
• “Bank of England considers AI ‘kill switch’ to stop market meltdown” – The Bank of England is weighing up the introduction of an AI “kill switch” designed to prevent trading bots from triggering a catastrophic meltdown in financial markets, according to Reuters.
• “BP’s Deputy Chief exits in latest shock resignation” – The Deputy Chief Executive of BP has quit her job in yet another shock resignation at the troubled oil company, reports the Telegraph.
• “Net Zero power station to be built on Loch Ness” – A giant Net Zero hydropower station is set to be constructed on Loch Ness under Ed Miliband’s plans to shore up Britain’s energy supply, writes Paul Homewood in Not a Lot of People Know That.
• “Vatican newspaper taints ‘encounter of faith and reason’ with climate falsehood” – UNICEF and the Vatican warn of a climate crisis threatening children, but the data tells a different story: disasters are declining, not escalating, says Frits Byron Soepyan in American Greatness.
• “In France, the Government tries to prevent the people from getting air conditioning” – In the Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton writes that European governments operate as self-perpetuating political classes working explicitly against their own citizens’ interests, with France’s moves to block air conditioning for the Sans Culotte a glaring example.
• “Wrong, Newsweek, Europe’s heat deaths are a policy failure, not a climate failure” – Europe’s deadly heat wave fatalities are the result of political choices, not climate change, argues Anthony Watts in ClimateRealism, challenging Newsweek‘s claim that rising greenhouse gas emissions are to blame.
• “Wrong, Bloomberg, climate change has boosted food production and lowered prices, not the opposite” – In ClimateRealism, H. Sterling Burnett argues that climate change has in fact been a net benefit for food production, reducing hunger and lowering costs.
• “Climate activists ‘exaggerating’, liberal journalist says, denouncing ‘shrill eco-catastrophism’” – A liberal journalist who previously wrote a book urging people to fight climate change by eating less meat now says activists are “exaggerating”, according to Ira Stoll in the Washington Free Beacon.
• “Why CofE bishops won’t oppose the Conversion Practices Bill” – In Christian Today, Julian Mann writes that orthodox Christians opposed to the Labour Government’s Conversion Practices Bill should expect no support from the 26 Church of England bishops in the House of Lords.
• “BBC should focus more on ethnic diversity, says Archbishop of York” – The Archbishop of York has urged the BBC to make ethnic and religious diversity a greater priority when attempting to reflect British communities in its broadcasting, says GB News.
• “The dangerous influence of ‘woke’ post-modernism in science” – Many social scientists now believe a published paper should be judged not on its scientific merit but on how many identity boxes its authors tick, warns Giovanni Molteni Tagliabue in the Science Literacy Project.
• “Suspected Ebola patient who ‘shut Scots hospital’ tests negative” – Part of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow was sealed off after a patient presented at the Acute Receiving Unit at around 6am on Tuesday morning, before testing negative for the virus, reports John Paul Breslin in the Mail.
• “Fifa urged to drop ban on England flag honouring WWI soldiers” – Fifa is being urged to reverse a ruling that an England supporter must censor a St George’s flag featuring a silhouette honouring First World War soldiers, reports the Times.
• “Should white people really stop having children?” – In the Telegraph, Michael Deacon takes aim at a German feminist arguing that Westerners have a “moral duty” to remain childless.
• “Plus-size UN Special Rapporteur for health leaves role” – South African doctor Tlaleng Mofokeng, who served as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health – even though she was grossly overweight – faced scrutiny over a string of controversial remarks before her departure, according to the Mail.
• “Man fined £1,000 for leaving cardboard box next to bin” – A homeowner has been fined £1,000 for leaving a cardboard box next to an overflowing recycling bin outside a supermarket, according to the Sun.
• “Kemi seems to be taking the limelight for the right” – On GB News, Jacob Rees-Mogg says Reform UK has peaked, opening up a path for Kemi Badenoch to bring the Conservative Party back to its former glory.

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