News Round-Up

• “Burnham’s best hope of success is a snap election” – A new Labour leader who calls an early national vote risks repeating Gordon – “Bottler” – Brown’s infamous error – but the case for going to the country quickly is compelling, says James Frayne in the Telegraph.
• “On eve of becoming PM, Burnham gets blunt message from voters” – As Andy Burnham prepares to enter Downing Street, pledging to drag Britain back to the pre-Thatcher era with “distinctively Labour” policies, voters make their scepticism clear in a new Mail poll.
• “Andy Burnham will pay a high price for his Chagos betrayal” – The PM-in-waiting’s decision to press ahead with the doomed surrender of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius represents a serious acid test he is already in danger of failing, warns Ross Kempsell in the Telegraph.
• “Anger as ‘Luddite’ Burnham prepares to gut AI department” – Andy Burnham’s plan to gut the Government department leading Britain’s AI strategy has prompted a fierce backlash from the tech industry, reports the Telegraph.
• “Police looking into claims Labour banned fox hunting after donation” – Scotland Yard is assessing claims that Labour banned fox hunting in return for a £1 million donation from an animal rights group, says the Telegraph.
• “Nigel Farage will face a record 33 rivals at Clacton by-election” – Despite the main Westminster parties boycotting the Clacton by-election and dismissing it as a stunt, Farage will contend with far more than comic candidate Count Binface, reports the Mail.
• “Lammy to fight to ‘cover up’ crimes of foreign offenders” – David Lammy is taking legal action to block the disclosure of foreign nationals’ crime rates in England and Wales, provoking claims of a “cover-up”, says the Telegraph.
• “Civil servants to blame for Boriswave, says Johnson” – Boris Johnson claims that Remainer civil servants were responsible for the “Boriswave” influx of migrants that defined his tenure as Prime Minister, according to GB News.
• “Asylum seeker who raped ‘vulnerable’ man in Leicester park jailed” – An asylum seeker who raped a vulnerable man who was “in need of assistance” in a park has been jailed. reports the BBC.
• “Britain’s streets can’t become a dumping ground for the unresolved trauma of migrants” – Foreign nationals face pressures that drive up the risk of psychosis, writes Ian Acheson in the Telegraph. It takes only one dangerous person to threaten social cohesion.
• “Village to hold vote on leaving UK over asylum seeker housing plans” – Residents of Piddington have voted in favour of holding a referendum on leaving the UK after the Home Office announced plans to house up to 1,250 male asylum seekers in the Oxfordshire village, says LBC.
• “Muslim Scouts told children to ‘paint for Gaza’” – The Muslim Scout Fellowship – a branch of the Scout Association – encouraged children to “paint for Gaza” and shared artwork carrying the antisemitic phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” reports GB News.
• “Icelandic billionaire quits Britain for Italy” – An Icelandic billionaire investor has relocated to Italy, warning that the number of wealthy entrepreneurs leaving the UK “is an exodus”, says the Mail.
• “London has become a ‘tarnished jewel’” – In the Mail, Robert Hardman argues that while claims London has “fallen” are overblown, the charge that it is steadily failing under a decade of Sadiq Khan’s leadership is harder to dismiss.
• “Germans contemplate working Sundays to save their economy” – Chancellor Friedrich Merz is weighing the abolition of Germany’s cherished “Sonntagsruhe” Sunday rest tradition as part of a push to revive the country’s struggling economy, says Hans van Leeuwen in the Telegraph.
• “Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami” – Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami in connection with a UK police investigation into alleged sexual offences, reports the NY Post, and are now facing extradition to the UK.
• “Mamdani plotting to arrest Netanyahu at New York UN summit” – New York’s socialist mayor is actively exploring legal options to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in the city for a UN summit, says the NY Post.
• “Module 4 report from a children’s perspective” – On its Substack, HART argues that the Covid vaccine rollout for children was unethical and reckless, as set out in a new report examining the programme from a children’s perspective.
• “British taxpayers lose millions on rival to Musk’s Starlink” – Eutelsat OneWeb has slumped in value and cost British citizens £340 million, after several large government investments in the company, as it struggles to compete against Musk’s Starlink, says the Telegraph.
• “NESO suffers credibility outage” – On his Substack, David Turver writes that whistleblowers and a series of low-frequency and low-inertia incidents have dealt seven damaging strikes against NESO’s credibility.
• “Donald Trump dubs the UK a ‘poverty-stricken disaster’” – Donald Trump branded the UK a “poverty-stricken disaster” when responding to reports that the new Labour leader could sign off on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, according to the Mail.
• “‘The people of Aberdeen are dancing in the streets’: Trump praises Burnham’s North Sea drilling plans” – Trump claims that the people of Aberdeen will be “dancing in the streets” over plans to boost North Sea oil drilling, says LBC.
• “Labour to deny Trump by sticking to ban on new oil licences” – Andy Burnham is expected to confine North Sea exploration to existing sites, defying Trump’s claim that he will open up the region “all the way”, according to the Times.
• “Heat pump households face winter warmth rationing” – Households that have switched to heat pumps could have their heating rationed this winter as the drive to Net Zero fuels growing fears of blackouts, reports the Telegraph.
• “Rolling blackouts hit New York” – The lights are starting to go out in New York. In the Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton argues the state’s ban on new fossil fuel power stations is having exactly the consequences critics warned about.
• “Parmesan cheese is not endangered by climate change, Reuters” – Reuters has been claiming that climate change threatens the parmesan cheese industry, but the underlying data tell a very different story, says Linnea Lueken in ClimateRealism.
• “Catholics are(n’t) Christians” – On his Substack, C.J. Strachan argues that the southern evangelical habit of denying that Catholics are Christians now looks more like a distraction than a defence.
• “Anti-trans views classed as misinformation in Government report” – Conservatives are urging Andy Burnham to reject a Government report that classes opposition to trans ideology as misinformation, reports the Telegraph.
• “Fixing the gender identity row starts with owning up to mistakes” – Gender ideology has held sway for more than a decade and, like asbestos, removing it will take time, says Alex Massie in the Sunday Times.
• “The school punished for being too strict” – An unprecedented rebuke against an outstanding academy has divided parents over its ‘no-excuses’ ethos, reports Louise Eccles in the Sunday Times.
• “BBC uses highest-paid celebrities to demand licence fee” – The BBC is deploying its highest-paid stars – including Radio 1 breakfast host Greg James, who earns £445,000 a year, and Radio 2’s Vernon Kay on £409,999 – to lobby for the continuation of the licence fee, according to GB News.
• “What has the BBC ever done for us? Very little, it seems” – The BBC claims to be vital to Britain’s creative economy, but its impact is far less impressive than it suggests, says David Elstein in the Telegraph.
• “The World Cup campaign that left England blaming Tuchel” – Where did it all go wrong for England? In the Telegraph, Jason Burt examines the tactical confusion, selection mistakes and strategic failures that have left Thomas Tuchel in the spotlight.
• “White House announces $12 million in grants for free speech organisations across Europe” – On GB News, Toby reacts to the White House’s announcement of $12 million in grants for free speech organisations across Europe, including reports that the FSU is set to receive $5 million.

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