News Round-Up

• “Burnham warned council tax raid risks hitting the pound” – Investment managers are warning that Andy Burnham could spark a run on the pound if he presses ahead with a council tax raid on the South, reports the Telegraph.
• “Six ‘bankrupt’ councils spend £207 million hiring consultants” – Six bankrupt councils have spent £207 million on external consultants in the last five years, reveals the Telegraph.
• “The £24 billion tax raid terrifying the City” – With taxes already stretched to breaking point, banks are one of the few places left where Chancellor John Healey can raise serious money without provoking a public backlash, notes Szu Ping Chan in the Telegraph.
• “French police stand and watch as baby and toddlers board dinghy to UK” – French police did nothing more than watch as a baby and toddlers were carried aboard a dinghy to England, writes Neil Sears in the Mail.
• “Thetford locals vow not to stop migrant clashes” – With windows smashed, protesters cuffed and a female police officer “seriously bitten” as tensions boil over, the tinderbox town of Thetford has become a flashpoint in the row over Britain’s migrant crisis, according to the Sun.
• “Labour’s early prisoner release plan ‘could be hit by strikes’” – Labour’s plan to release thousands of killers, thugs and paedophiles looks set to be thrown into chaos as probation officers are expected to vote in favour of industrial action, reports the Mail.
• “Treasury ‘contributed’ to employee’s suicide after anonymous complaint” – A coroner has ruled that the Treasury “materially contributed” to the death of an “exemplary” personal assistant who took her own life after disciplinary proceedings were launched over an anonymous complaint, according to the Mail.
• “Farage left ‘horrified by very serious policing error’” – Counter-terrorism police have reopened the inquiry into the firebomb attack on Nigel Farage’s home after admitting a key line of inquiry was “not identified and pursued… at the time”, reports the Mail.
• “Restore refuses to sack co-founder accused of antisemitism” – Rupert Lowe says Restore Britain will not remove its co-founder Charlie Downes over antisemitism allegations to secure a deal with Reform UK, according to the Telegraph.
• “Students told Cambridge to ‘decolonise’ before Jason Arday was hired” – A Cambridge student association in the faculty that hired Jason Arday urged the university to “decolonise” and hire more diverse staff two years before Arday’s job was advertised, reports the Times.
• “I was Jason Arday’s student. He was late to class and spouted nonsense” – A former student of embattled academic Jason Arday says she learnt nothing of substance in his classes and was accused of white privilege when she dared to challenge him, according to the Times.
• “The Arday debacle is a great opportunity for the Left” – An external inquiry into Cambridge’s handling of the Jason Arday affair would expose the university’s errant decision-makers – and progressives would welcome it since its findings would be a pretext to force universities to do more to promote DEI, says Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
• “Left-wing lawyer behind Jason Arday open letter defends support” – Good Law Project founder Jolyon Maugham is standing by his decision to host an open letter on his website dismissing plagiarism allegations against Jason Arday as a “racist” “smear”, reports the Telegraph.
• “Jason Arday affair shows how academia is captured by identity” – In the Times, Nigel Biggar argues that the Arday case is a damning symptom of a far deeper rot in British universities.
• “DEI is so much worse than you think” – On his Substack, Nick Dixon argues that the true scale of DEI’s grip on British institutions – illustrated by the Jason Arday case – is far greater than most people yet realise.
• “Jason Arday and academia’s self-seeking pursuit of virtue” – In City Journal, John H. McWhorter argues that the Arday scandal reveals how white academics on both sides of the Atlantic have convinced themselves that suspending intellectual judgement when it comes to black scholars makes them virtuous.
• “The real education crisis is the suffering of the white working class” – Department for Education figures reveal a stark and widening attainment gap that leaves white working-class pupils among the most overlooked in the system, warns Tony Sewell in the Telegraph.
• “Britain abandoned hunt for £5 billion shipwreck to avoid inflaming tensions with Spain” – Britain shelved plans to recover treasure worth up to £5.5 billion from a suspected Royal Navy wreck in case it provoked a diplomatic row with Spain, reports the Telegraph.
• “Sturgeon should stop ‘teasing’ that she’s a lesbian, says former SNP colleague” – A former SNP MSP says Nicola Sturgeon should come out openly about her sexuality rather than continuing to “tease” that she might be a lesbian, says the Telegraph.
• “Beach where bathers must speak German sparks far-Right row” – A German lake operator’s decision to bar swimmers who can’t speak German – on safety grounds – has ignited a fierce far-Right controversy, reports the Telegraph.
• “Huge 7.4-magnitude earthquake hits Colombia, with multiple deaths” – A devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake has struck Colombia, burying victims beneath collapsed buildings across the country, says the Mail.
• “Why Mexican cartels are murdering social media stars” – Mexican cartels are increasingly targeting and executing influencers as online celebrities become entangled in brutal gang wars, according to the Mail.
• “Ex-Neighbours actor loses appeal over Nazi salute” – A judge has thrown out an appeal by former soap star Damien Richardson after ruling that he had performed a Nazi salute at a ticketed event, reports the Mail.
• “Fauci privately warned of miscarriage risk linked to Covid vaccine while publicly claiming no issues” – Newly released texts reveal that Dr Anthony Fauci privately acknowledged the COVID-19 vaccine could “theoretically” be linked to miscarriages even as he publicly insisted there were no such concerns, says the New York Post.
• “Fake numbers: closing USAID cost 14 million lives, vaccines saved 2 million” – The media loves false and misleading statistics when they fit the liberal narrative, writes Dr Vinay Prasad on his Substack.
• “The build-up to the winter crisis: Brick 9” – On the TTE Substack, Dr Tom Jefferson and Prof Carl Heneghan continue their detailed account of the factors behind the winter crisis in the ninth instalment of their ongoing diary series.
• “Cost of turning off wind farms exceeds £1 billion so far this year” – The UK has already surpassed £1 billion in constraint payments to switch off wind farms this year alone, putting the country on course for a new annual record, says the Times.
• “Octopus Energy: don’t use electricity during solar eclipse” – Octopus Energy is urging customers to avoid running washing machines, dishwashers and other plug-in devices between 6pm and 8pm on Wednesday as the solar eclipse reduces generating capacity, reports the Telegraph.
• “One Nation Toryism has degenerated from Disraeli to Net Zero” – The One Nation Conservative tradition that Benjamin Disraeli founded has been reduced to a centrist ideology he would never have recognised, says Lee David Evans in the Telegraph.
• “Why has it been so hot this summer?” – On his Not a Lot of People Know That blog, Paul Homewood examines claims of record heatwaves and argues that Central England Temperature data tells a far more measured story than the Met Office’s dodgy weather stations suggest.
• “Wild salmon under threat from soaring river temperatures” – Heatwaves are turning Britain’s waterways into a “kill zone” for cold-water fish, with wild salmon facing an existential threat as river temperatures soar, according to the Telegraph.
• “Europe’s worst drought and heatwave ever” – Climate change alarmism is diverting resources away from where they are truly needed and driving politicians toward bad decisions rather than rational responses to extreme weather, argues Mike Jonas in Watts Up With That?
• “Terrifying study reveals what will happen if Earth’s glaciers melt” – Scientists have apparently calculated the volume of water locked in the world’s glaciers and the catastrophic consequences for sea levels if it were all released into the oceans, according to the Mail.
• “20 mph speed limits play havoc with the mind” – More than two million people took speed awareness courses in Britain last year – and very few of them were boy racers, notes Libby Purves in the Times.
• “‘Rip-off’ parking charges are driving tourists away from seaside towns” – Parking at some British seaside destinations now costs between £20 and £30 for six hours, reports the Mail.
• “Civil servants fight plan to scrap trans ‘reassignment leave’” – Whitehall officials are lobbying to preserve a policy that grants employees undergoing gender reassignment 13 weeks of paid leave, says the Times.
• “Little Red Riding Hood given woke trigger warning” – Under-fire Cambridge University put a woke trigger warning on Little Red Riding Hood and other fairy tales, according to the Sun.
• “Banksy artworks have cost taxpayers nearly £150,000” – Taxpayers have footed a £150,000 bill to cover the clean-up and security costs of three Banksy artworks, says the Mail.
• “Harry and Meghan’s Cookie Queens film beaten by cat videos” – Embarrassingly for the Sussexes’ Hollywood ambitions, their newest release has failed to beat a compilation film of the world’s best cat videos at the US box office, notes Alex Farber in the Times.
• “‘Most media organisations in this room called me a liar’” – In a dramatic update, Nigel Farage says counter-terrorism police bungled their investigation into an arson attack at his home – an investigation that has now been linked to the murder of Ann Widdecombe.

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