News Round-Up

• “The AfD’s surge is a humiliation for Germany’s political establishment” – Exit polls show the AfD has outperformed predictions with 44.5% of the vote – more than twice as many votes as expected – in a stunning result that delivers a crushing blow to Germany’s mainstream parties, reports the Telegraph.
• “Sachsen-Anhalt results post: exit polls have AfD just short of absolute Landtag majority” – Exit poll data from ZDF shows the AfD falling narrowly short of an outright majority in the Sachsen-Anhalt Landtag, according to Eugyppius on his Substack.
• “AfD’s breakthrough moment leaves divided Germany in crisis” – With Unity Day approaching next month, the AfD’s triumph in Saxony-Anhalt has laid bare the deep fractures running through German society, says James Crisp in the Telegraph.
• “Friedrich Merz’s immigration plan to head off the AfD” – Bans on dual citizenship and tougher language requirements form part of the German Chancellor’s efforts to fight back against the AfD, reports the Telegraph.
• “Hard Right spectre looms over the EU” – More than half of the EU’s 27 member states, from Italy to Finland, are now ruled or influenced by Right-wing parties, notes Sue Reid in the Mail.
• “Hundreds protest small boat migrant arrivals in Portsmouth” – Hundreds of protesters have descended on Portsmouth to demonstrate against the arrival of a group of asylum seekers, says GB News.
• “‘One in 100 asylum claims are real’, says whistleblower” – A whistleblower has alleged that only 1% of asylum claims are genuine, exposing what they describe as widespread fraud and dysfunction in the system, according to the Times.
• “Anger over plans to quadruple migrants in homes at protest hotspot” – The Home Office has been accused of “pouring fuel on the fire” by looking to quadruple the number of asylum seekers placed in houses in Norfolk that saw widespread disorder over the issue last month, reports the Mail.
• “Migrants in mega-dinghy attempt longest Channel crossing on record” – A mega-dinghy carrying 140 migrants has launched from Normandy in what is believed to be the longest attempted Channel crossing ever recorded, says the Telegraph.
• “The French mother who said ‘non’ to migrants” – A Frenchwoman has described how migrants have made her terrified of staying in her home on the front line of the small-boat crisis, releasing CCTV of crowds swarming past in life jackets to catch dinghies bound for Britain, according to the Mail.
• “Iraqi man, 33, charged with rape of boy, 14, and stalking a woman” – Sadiq Farhad Azad, 33, of no fixed address, is to appear at Portsmouth Crown Court facing charges of raping a 14 year-old boy and stalking a woman, reports the Mail.
• “Will the ‘bond vigilantes’ claim their second British PM? Inside Andy Burnham’s high-stakes battle” – With sky-high yields already threatening his first Budget, Andy Burnham is facing the same bond market forces that destroyed Liz Truss’s premiership, notes Maggie Pagano in This is Money.
• “Burnham vs the bond market” – On the CapX Substack, Marc Sidwell argues that Andy Burnham’s looming Budget showdown with the bond market is the defining early test of his premiership.
• “Labour must stop taxing stores to oblivion if it wants to save the high street” – The Government’s business rates regime is driving a wrecking ball through town centres, warns Hamish Mcrae in This is Money.
• “Burnham brings back Lord Freebie in bid to galvanise Labour finances” – Lord Alli, Sir Keir Starmer’s biggest personal backer and the man at the centre of the gifts scandal, is set to return to revive Labour’s business connections and shore up the party’s ailing finances, reveals the Mail.
• “Andy Burnham to give civil service head Antonia Romeo more power” – Andy Burnham is planning to tighten his grip on Whitehall by granting Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo legal powers to direct and overrule officials, says the Times.
• “Only spending cuts can rescue Britain’s economy” – Fiscal consolidation must be prioritised if the UK is to rebuild its economic credibility, writes Liam Halligan in the Telegraph.
• “Only Reform can save Britain and we have the plan to do it” – Andy Burnham has changed nothing for the better, says Nigel Farage in the Telegraph. We need something more radical to give the country a chance.
• “Nigel Farage suggests he was misled by aide over donation scandal” – Nigel Farage has suggested he was misled by one of his closest political aides as he tries to distance himself from the scandal over illegal foreign donations engulfing his party, reports the Times.
• “All schools ‘will have to sing the national anthem’ under Reform UK” – Suella Braverman has told Reform’s Birmingham conference that all schools will have to sing the national anthem and fly the Union flag under a Reform UK government, says the Mail.
• “It’s not Farage who is failing the Right, it’s everyone else” – On the Right Times Substack, Kathy Gyngell argues that while the press chases Reform ‘corruption’, the real rot – in welfare, borrowing, justice and national identity – goes entirely unaddressed.
• “Police need to help to preserve our freedoms – not shut them down” – The public is entitled to the kind of police force it wants, and that means one committed to policing by consent rather than the suppression of lawful freedoms, says the Mail in a leading article.
• “Civil servants bungle numbers on Heathrow’s third runway” – The economic benefits of a third runway at Heathrow were underestimated by several billion pounds as a result of bungled calculations by civil servants, according to the Telegraph.
• “Ed Miliband isn’t a ‘Jew hater’, but he is trying to appease people who are” – Despite being the son of Holocaust survivors, Ed Miliband has been putting out videos hinting at the supposed evils of Israel in a calculated attempt to appease antisemitic sentiment, writes Nicole Lampert in the Telegraph.
• “US ambassador accuses Ed Miliband of having ‘lost it’ over Gaza” – Mike Huckabee, the American envoy to Israel, has accused the UK Government of engaging in “Jew hate” over its stance on Gaza, directing his remarks squarely at Ed Miliband, says the Mail.
• “Burnham’s backing of the Chagos deal is a major unforced error” – There is no legal, moral or political case for surrendering the Chagos Islands and paying Mauritius for the privilege, argues David Paton in Spiked.
• “Farage ‘would crush Argentina if it tried to take the Falklands’” – Robert Jenrick claims Nigel Farage would take decisive military action to defend the Falklands as tensions escalate following Argentinian President Javier Milei’s renewed territorial claims, according to the Mail.
• “Beloved American burger chain goes all in on MAGA as sales are soaring” – One American burger chain is leaning hard into MAGA branding – and its sales are surging as a result, says Adriana Tardugno in the Mail.
• “‘Dr Death’ speaks in London to promote his ‘suicide collar’” – Despite calls to ban Dr Philip Nitschke from entering Britain, he addressed a London event on Saturday to promote his assisted-dying device – the Kairos ‘suicide collar’, which leads to death by applying pressure to the carotid artery, according to the Mail.
• “I believe in science” – On her Substack, Rebekah Barnett challenges the reflexive deference to scientific authority, arguing that science is a tool, not a god.
• “Nadine Dorries’ fury at ‘deepfake’ pornographic clips of her” – Police have made an arrest after graphic AI-generated images of former Tory Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries were published online, reveals the Mail.
• “Influencers have overrun the US Open and started a war over ‘etiquette’” – A group of social media influencers have come under fire for disrupting a Naomi Osaka match at the 2026 US Open, says the Telegraph.
• “Gen Z abandon TikTok in favour of pen and paper” – Screen-addicted young people are reportedly stepping back from social media and rediscovering the pleasures of analogue writing, according to the Telegraph.
• “Greens pile pressure on NHS over use of tech giant” – Zack Polanski’s Green activists are using their growing influence in local authorities to put pressure on the NHS to stop the use of Palantir software – despite evidence it has cut waiting lists and fast-tracked cancer diagnoses, reports the Mail.
• “Britain braces for crippling food crisis as ‘Godzilla’ El Niño stirs” – As weather threatens the world’s harvests, the prospect of a devastating food crisis looms, warns Hans van Leeuwen in the Telegraph.
• “The Great Barrier Reef refuses to die on schedule” – In the Los Angeles Times, Bjorn Lomborg argues that it takes considerable nerve for climate scientists to spend decades forecasting the reef’s death and then claim credit for its historic resilience.
• “Manual for judges saying ‘how science works’ is very wrong on climate science” – At CFACT, David Wojick argues that a US judicial guidance manual gets the science wrong and risks steering judges towards ideological narratives rather than the facts on climate science.
• “Sorry, Fortune, climate change is hardly the prime influence on sardine fisheries” – Chinese overfishing and natural cycles are the real culprits behind falling sardine catches and rising prices – not climate change, writes Linnea Lueken at ClimateRealism.
• “What to do about Net Zero” – On his Substack, David Turver sets out what should be done about Net Zero, drawing on a speech he delivered to the Reform fringe.
• “The great lie of ‘multi-faith’ prayer rooms” – In the Spectator, Jonathan Sacerdoti reveals how so-called multi-faith prayer rooms tell a very different story from the inclusive promise on the door.
• “The Church of England has abandoned its mission in the UK” – While a new report paints a bleak picture for Britain’s vicars, the Church’s remote, arrogant hierarchy is focusing on slavery reparations, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “British Museum to hold talks with slavery campaigners to return artefacts” – The British Museum is set to enter discussions with slavery reparations campaigners over returning tribal artefacts to the Caribbean, reveals the Telegraph.
• “US museum uses benches that National Gallery ditched over safety fears” – The National Gallery sold off its wood and leather benches after deeming them a fire risk, only for an American museum to snap them up, reports the Telegraph.
• “Free speech is alive, but only technically” – On GB News, Legal and Policy Officer for Big Brother Watch Maya Thomas warns that vague speech laws are creating a chilling effect across the UK, with over 62,000 people arrested for communications offences in the last five years.

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