News Round-Up

• “Rod Liddle, Today programme editor turned polemical columnist, has died” – A Telegraph obituary looks back at the life and career of Rod Liddle, the journalist who made a career out of poking the bear, mocking political correctness and anyone he thought was talking balls.
• “Rod Liddle obituary: irreverent but brilliant columnist and broadcaster” – The Times pays tribute to Rod Liddle, the fearless broadcaster and provocative columnist who transformed the Today programme and whose wit, chaos and brilliance made him one of Britain’s most distinctive voices.
• “Tributes to Rod Liddle” – Tributes have poured in to the Spectator as dedicated readers and senior figures from across the media and politics have expressed their condolences following the death of Rod Liddle.
• “My friend Rod Liddle was a great British freedom fighter” – Rod Liddle embraced the role of guerrilla journalist with matchless gusto, taking aim at fashionable orthodoxies that lesser writers dared not challenge, says Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “My debt to Rod Liddle” – In the Spectator, Freddy Gray writes that Liddle’s sublime talent was his ability to make readers laugh, a gift that shaped a generation of journalists who grew up devouring his columns.
• “The Rod Liddle I knew loved his readers – and they loved him” – Rod Liddle was joyfully transgressive and there will be nobody else like him, laments Fraser Nelson in the Times.
• “Rod Liddle was one of the finest journalists of his generation” – In the Spectator, Tim Shipman recalls Liddle as irascible, lugubrious and bloody funny – a bogeyman in reputation but an utter delight in person, and one of the finest journalists of his generation.
• “The real message from Ceuta: we need to build Fortress Britain before it’s too late” – If you want to know where Britain’s migration crisis might be heading then stop looking at the Channel and start looking at Ceuta, warns Matt Goodwin on his Substack.
• “Moroccans chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ clash with police in Ceuta” – Tensions are rising in Ceuta where police have clashed with groups of migrants who flooded the Spanish enclave, according to the Mail.
• “Special message from the office of approved opinions regarding the Ceuta incident” – On his Substack, Konstantin Kisin slams the establishment impulse to dismiss what everyone can plainly see unfolding in Ceuta.
• “The Ceuta clownshow” – The chaotic scenes unfolding in Ceuta amount to nothing short of a clownshow, says Eugyppius on his Substack.
• “The Ceuta chaos could make Marine Le Pen president” – The border breach at Ceuta is handing a powerful campaign weapon to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and France’s Marine Le Pen, writes Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator.
• “Farage says Reform would stop small-boats crisis ‘in a fortnight’” – Nigel Farage has unveiled Reform’s ‘Operation Fortress’ plan at a Westminster press conference, promising to deploy the Royal Navy to return Channel migrants to France within two weeks of taking power, says the Mail.
• “Nigel Farage’s plan for navy to return small boat migrants ‘illegal’, says France” – France has warned that Reform’s Operation Fortress would breach international law, according to the Times.
• “Jamaican drug dealer ‘who might join gang’ can appeal deportation” – A Jamaican drug dealer has been spared deportation after a tribunal accepted arguments that he would be unable to avoid joining a gang if returned to his home country, says the Telegraph.
• “Rapists – but not killers – to be blocked from early jail release” – Criminals convicted of rape, grooming offences and child sexual assault will no longer be eligible for early release after plans to tackle prison crowding were watered down, reports the Times. Murderers will, though.
• “Killers will go free if drill lyrics banned as evidence, police warn” – Scotland Yard has warned that gang members are unlikely to be convicted or even prosecuted in murder cases if a campaign to ban submitting music lyrics as evidence succeeds, says the Mail.
• “Kinnock tells Burnham to launch capital gains tax raid” – Lord Kinnock has urged his protégé Andy Burnham to launch a capital gains tax raid in his first Budget, reports the Telegraph.
• “Education Secretary blames Michael Gove for youth worklessness” – The Education Secretary has pointed the finger at Michael Gove’s school reforms as the root cause of Britain’s growing youth worklessness crisis, says the Telegraph.
• “Benefit claimants offered discounts on holidays and sex toys” – Some of Britain’s biggest brands are participating in schemes offering benefit claimants discounts on holidays and sex toys, according to GB News.
• “Tice under investigation over ‘failure to declare interest in’ donations row” – Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice faces a standards inquiry for allegedly failing to declare an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, reports Reuters.
• “Names and contact details of more than 100,000 police officers leaked” – Hackers have reportedly stolen the personal details of more than 100,000 police officers and published them on the dark web, says the Mail.
• “Writer Lynda La Plante breaks down as she is handed driving ban” – Crime writer Lynda La Plante has told a court that a driving ban would effectively end her writing career by preventing her from meeting contacts, reports the Mail.
• “Iran denies Trump’s claim of peace talks” – Tehran has flatly denied Trump’s claims that there are ongoing peace talks between Tehran and Washington, says the Mail.
• “Boyfriend of woman murdered by Hamas shoots himself beside her grave” – The boyfriend of an Israeli woman murdered by Hamas during the October 7th massacre has taken his own life beside his late girlfriend’s grave, according to the Mail.
• “Ukrainian drone kills Russian sunbathers near Putin’s £1 billion palace” – Footage has emerged showing the moment a Ukrainian drone struck sunbathers on a beach close to Vladimir Putin’s £1 billion palace, reports the Mail.
• “The death of the Science journal” – The future of prestigious science journals like Nature and Science magazine is called into question by John Ridgway in Climate Scepticism.
• “$150,000 robot has eerily human-like facial expressions and movements” – A $150,000 Chinese robot with eerily human expressions has fans dreaming of a sci-fi future where robot companions become reality, says the Mail.
• “‘Bankrupt’ Britain should open up North Sea, Trump says” – President Trump has said that Britain is a “bankrupt country” and encouraged Andy Burnham to open up the North Sea to more drilling, reports the Standard.
• “Chancellor faces growing calls to scrap planned fuel tax raid” – Industry chiefs have warned the Chancellor in a private letter that pump prices are rising again and could remain high for months as the Iran war drags on, says the Mail.
• “Shell ditches British solar farms in Net Zero retreat” – Shell is selling its British solar farm business to a French rival as it beats a retreat from Net Zero, reports the Telegraph.
• “Britain’s biggest power plant demands damages over grid delays” – The owner of Britain’s biggest power station Drax says the state-owned grid operator should be forced to pay damages for dragging its feet on upgrading the country’s creaking electricity network, according to the Telegraph.
• “UK farmers issue warning over two popular vegetables after scorching heatwaves” – British farmers are warning of potential shortages of broccoli and cauliflower following a run of scorching heatwaves, says the Express.
• “The Met Office no longer thinks that wind is a form of weather” – On his Substack, Ross Clark argues that the Met Office has quietly stopped treating wind as a form of weather.
• “What should we do about climate change?” – On the Academy of Ideas Substack, Rob Lyons argues that what the climate debate urgently needs is not window-gazing alarmism but a well-informed, nuanced discussion about what is actually to be done.
• “10 historic British villages threatened by Labour’s Net Zero” – From thatched Cambridgeshire cottages to ancient churchyards, ten historic British villages now face an existential threat from Labour’s Net Zero agenda, warns Christopher Winn in the Telegraph.
• “Jason Arday was ‘never a visiting professor here’” – The University of Glasgow has directly contradicted Prof Jason Arday’s claim on his Jesus College biog by stating he was never a visiting professor there, according to the Herald.
• “The systemic EDI obsession at Cambridge University” – On his Substack, Prof Norman Fenton says that Cambridge University’s deep-rooted EDI obsession goes a long way to explaining the institution’s deference towards Jason Arday.
• “Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism appears to lose key ally” – The President of Wolfson College has removed her name from Jolyon Maugham’s defending Jason Arday after he was accused of copying work in his PhD thesis, according to the Mail.
• “In my Cambridge days, Jason Arday’s ‘truths’ wouldn’t have lasted five minutes” – From claims of semi-professional football to raising £5.5 million, the extraordinary backstory of Prof Jason Arday is the gift that keeps on giving, says Celia Walden the Telegraph.
• “Jason Arday is merely a symptom of academia’s moral disease” – Jason Arday has reiterated that he is the victim of a “racially motivated” and “coordinated” effort to unseat him, but the scandal reveals a far deeper institutional rot, argues Annabel Denham in the Telegraph.
• “The curious case of Jason Arday” – When identity politics takes precedence over academic standards, universities cease to fulfil their purpose, writes Andrew Doyle on his Substack.
• “A comedy at Cambridge” – Satirists like Ben Jonson would relish the Cambridge plagiarism scandal, says James Martin Charlton in the Critic.
• “Oxford is shaping Britain’s future. That should worry everyone.” – Oxford University is no longer defending free inquiry but legitimising intimidation and ideological extremism, warns Ayaan Hersi Ali on her Restoring the West Substack.
• “We have lost an absolute legend” – A fiery Question Time clip from the archives featuring the late great Rod Liddle tearing into the hypocrisy of Labour politicians is a reminder of why he was one of Britain’s most fearless and entertaining journalists.

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