News Round-Up

• “Burnham to give mayors power to block Nimby protests” – Andy Burnham is set to unveil proposals granting mayors sweeping new powers to take control of local planning decisions and override Nimby objections, reports the Telegraph.
• “Did Burnham breach MP rules by failing to declare £6,600 Japan party?” – The Prime Minister has allegedly failed to declare that he benefitted from an exclusive VIP party in Japan in June last year during his time as Mayor of Manchester, reveals the Mail.
• “Rachel Reeves ‘set timebomb under Burnham – could blow Nigel Farage into No 10’” – Andy Burnham sacked Rachel Reeves at his first opportunity, but she may have left him a poisonous parting gift that could ultimately hand Nigel Farage the keys to Downing Street, writes Harvey Jones in the Express.
• “Only way we can safeguard democracy is to have police at the polls” – Dark and sinister forces were blatantly at work during the Gorton and Denton by-election campaign, and the only solution is a permanent police presence at polling stations, says Matt Goodwin in the Mail.
• “Lee Anderson slams Labour for ‘importing’ paedophiles and rapists – ‘cheek of it’” – Reform’s Lee Anderson has accused Labour of hypocrisy after Equalities minister Bridget Phillipson claimed his party poses a risk to women, reports the Express.
• “The liberals refuse to admit it but stop and search works” – Stop and search is a valuable tool that saves lives, not a weapon of racism, says Tony Sewell in the Telegraph.
• “Labour accused of making workers poorer by banning last-minute shifts” – The Federation of Small Businesses says forcing firms to provide seven days’ notice of shifts risks chronic staff shortages and leaves low-paid workers with less flexibility and lower earnings, according to the Telegraph.
• “WFH civil servants handed £600,000 to heat their homes” – Civil servants have been paid more than £600,000 to help cover their heating bills while working from home, reveals the Telegraph.
• “The Bank of England is costing the taxpayer billions. It must stop” – With British debt approaching 100% of the economy and inflation still stubbornly elevated, the Bank of England’s ballooning costs to the public purse are no longer defensible, says Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph.
• “Ultra-rich pay up to £40,000 a week on rent to dodge Britain’s property taxes” – London’s ultra-rich are forking out as much as £40,000 a week for rental properties as steep stamp duty bills and fears of more punitive property taxes in the Autumn Budget put many off buying, reports This Is Money.
• “David Lammy gave PM con artist’s phone number” – David Lammy gave the PM the phone number of the con artist pretending to be Donald Trump’s Chief-of-Staff, reveals the Sun.
• “Jolyon Maugham’s white-saviour complex” – Jolyon Maugham’s involvement in the Jason Arday story has been deeply revealing about his motivations, writes Luke Gittos in Spiked.
• “I studied in Jason Arday’s department at Cambridge. Here’s the crap I was taught.” – On his Substack, Max Klinger says he studied in Jason Arday’s department at Cambridge and details what institutional capture looks like in practice.
• “Politics is making academia stupid” – Political pressure on universities is driving a process of intellectual self-lobotomisation across academia, warns Ian Leslie on his Substack.
• “We treated people who disagreed with us as stupid and wrong” – In the Telegraph, Oliver Brown talks to Britain’s equality boss Mary-Ann Stephenson, branded a heretic for her gender-critical views, who vows to defend single-sex spaces and take on what she calls “Orwellian” activists.
• “Labour ‘lobbied EHRC in pursuit of the Muslim vote’” – The Government secretly lobbied the equalities watchdog to adopt its new definition of anti-Muslim hostility despite the body opposing it, says the Times.
• “Gary Lineker shares post linking Zionism to Nazis” – Gary Lineker has reposted a video by anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein, who was recently accused of inviting support for Hamas, according to the Telegraph.
• “It’s no wonder respect for the BBC has plummeted” – Figures showing a sharp drop in public support for the once-revered BBC must be ringing alarm bells, writes David Elstein in the Telegraph.
• “Travellers who held village to £600,000 ransom want caravans on site” – Travellers who held an entire village to ransom for £600,000 in a land grab scam have applied to officially house caravans on the site after their ‘blackmail attempt’ backfired, reveals the Mail.
• “Burnham in diplomatic row with Cuba over cigar ban” – Andy Burnham is embroiled in a diplomatic row with Cuba over Britain’s looming ban on cigars, says the Telegraph.
• “Germany school with 90% migrants is ‘most dangerous in country’” – A German school whose student body is almost entirely made up of migrants has been dubbed the most dangerous in the country, with stark implications for British schools, reports the Mail.
• “Putin’s bid to hit German airport with explosive-laden drone” – A drone packed with Semtex slammed into the wing of a stationary Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4th but failed to detonate, in what is now emerging as a Russian sabotage operation, reveals the Mail.
• “Russia sabotages weapons factories across Europe” – Western intelligence believes Russia has launched a fresh wave of covert attacks on European armaments factories, exploiting plausible deniability to evade direct accountability, says the Telegraph.
• “‘Woke’ is now a dirty word among Democrats” – Despite a wave of hard-Left primary victories making socialism newly respectable, prominent Democrats are now openly distancing themselves from the label “woke”, reports the Telegraph.
• “On the myth of the British cutting off Indian weavers’ thumbs” – On his Substack, Will Solfiac offers a brief examination of the historical claim that the British systematically cut off Indian weavers’ thumbs, arguing it belongs to the realm of myth rather than documented fact.
• “The week in numbers to August 22nd” – On the TTE Substack, Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson round up the week’s key health and medical statistics, noting that waiting lists cannot be reduced simply by making them harder to join.
• “Iranian hackers ‘shut down British power plant’ in cyber attack” – Iranian cyber terrorists forced an unnamed British facility into a complete shutdown for four days in what is described as the first and most effective attack of its kind, says the Mail.
• “Energy companies on high alert after Iranian cyber attack” – GCHQ has placed energy companies on high alert after Iranian hackers successfully shut down a British power plant, reports the Telegraph.
• “How our Net Zero obsession is pushing us closer to nightmare scenario” – In the Mail, Kathryn Porter argues that Britain’s National Grid is now more fragile than at any point since privatisation in 1987, and that the country’s Net Zero obsession is pushing it ever closer to catastrophic collapse.
• “Why super El Niño will wreak havoc on Britain this winter” – Britons are being warned to brace for a cold and stormy winter driven by a super El Niño building in the Pacific Ocean, reports the Mail.
• “Claim: climate driven droughts will triple the price of wheat” – A new claim that climate-driven droughts will triple the price of wheat is given short shrift by Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That?
• “The [climate issue] perception gap is an information problem” – On the Gelbspan Files blog, Russell Cook argues that more information about the climate debate could actually weaken support for climate action, by exposing what he sees as flaws in the ‘climate crisis’ narrative.
• “Gender-fluid police given male and female warrant cards” – Police officers who identify as both men and women are being issued with two separate sets of identity documentation, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Spectacular defeat leaves Prince Harry’s golden lawyer tarnished” – Celebrity barrister David Sherborne’s pursuit of a case that critics said should never have been brought has left his gilded reputation in serious doubt, says Jim Armitage in the Sunday Times.
• “Ground News and the factuality scam” – On his Substack, Dr Robert W. Malone argues that biased media ratings systems are being used to make conservative news outlets appear systematically unreliable.
• “So-called progressive Left-wingers are exploiting this tragedy for their own aims” – On GB News, the Free Speech Union’s Connie Shaw discusses the attack on the press after the death of Jason Arday.

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