News Round-Up

• “Police launch criminal investigation into Reform donations” – The Met Police has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that Reform UK broke donation rules following a row over foreign funding, reports Reuters.
• “The tape didn’t kill Reform. The ports might” – Financial investigations, pressure on his family and a drawn-out Clacton by-election made for a difficult summer for Nigel Farage – but on his Substack, Frank Haviland argues the real threat to Reform may yet lie ahead.
• “Andy Burnham says he won’t cut ‘social security’ to boost defence” – At his second PMQs, Andy Burnham has insisted he will not cut social security to boost defence, reports the Mail.
• “Army ordered to save money by using reservists less” – Ministers stand accused of putting Britain’s security at risk by ordering the Army to cut costs by reducing its use of reservists, says GB News.
• “Our (dis)armed forces” – On his Substack, Dr Roger Watson, a veteran with a daughter still serving, warns that Britain’s Armed Forces are being hollowed out to a dangerous degree.
• “Shoppers face year of food price pain” – Next summer’s average weekly supermarket bill is set to be 50% higher than in 2020, reports the Telegraph.
• “Judges could decide which cases go to jury trial” – Judges could be given the power to decide which cases are deserving of a jury trial under plans being considered by Andy Burnham to water down Sir Keir Starmer’s jury reforms, reveals the Times.
• “Media labels opponents of mass migration ‘far Right’ as the Left seeks to silence, censor and incarcerate them” – Reporters use the label “far Right” three to 14 times more frequently than “far Left” when covering socialist and communist parties, reveals Michael Shellenberger on the Public Substack.
• “The curious case of balaclavas on Britain’s streets” – In the Spectator, Christopher Kennedy-Barnard argues that the masked men who turned out in Dover and Portsmouth to blockade migrant boats represent a troubling new mode of street politics that demands serious attention.
• “Consequences of compassion” – In Crisis Magazine, John Cassara argues that the Church hierarchy’s naïve assumption that mass illegal immigration could coexist with public safety has proved dangerously wrong.
• “Labour and the SNP destroyed schools in Scotland and Wales. Is England next?” – A damning comparison of education policy north and south of the border raises urgent questions about whether England is set to repeat the same catastrophic mistakes, writes Julie Henry in the Telegraph.
• “Student union tells first-years to call Shelter because halls are full” – Prospective students at the University of Bristol have been told to ring a homeless charity’s helpline after the institution ran out of places in its halls of residence, says the Telegraph.
• “Censorious Westminster mandarins are stripping Britons of honours for speaking freely” – On the GB News website, Max Thompson of the Free Speech Union reveals that Britons are being stripped of honours for failing to subscribe to progressive bromides.
• “Britain’s sanctions against Israel will backfire” – In the Spectator, Paul Wood warns that the “comprehensive reset” of British policy towards Israel is destined to backfire.
• “Trump did not push back on Burnham’s Israel sanctions” – Donald Trump made no attempt to dissuade Andy Burnham from imposing sanctions on West Bank settlements, according to the Telegraph.
• “Miliband is a ‘joke’ and a ‘failed figure’, blasts Israeli spokesman” – Ed Miliband has been branded a “failed figure” and a “joke” by an Israeli Government spokesman amid the sanctions row, reports the Mail.
• “In Cardiff, a sinister cabal is plotting nothing less than the end of the United Kingdom” – For the first time, all three devolved regions have separatist governments whose leaders are now coordinating efforts to break up the United Kingdom, says Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph.
• “Even playgrounds are no longer safe in Ceuta after the migrant invasion” – Voters are turning sharply against their government as Spanish television broadcasts disturbing scenes from Ceuta night after night, reports Jim Lawley in the Spectator.
• “Spain unites in protest against a discredited Sanchez” – On the Right Times Substack, John Le Sueur notes that hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets from Zaragoza to Seville over the Ceuta crisis and accusations that the President lied to Parliament.
• “Europe’s largest political science conference, the ECPR, has no conservative papers” – Among 2,000-plus speakers at Europe’s top political science conference, there isn’t a single identifiable conservative or classical liberal voice, notes Federico Tabellini on Eric Kaufmann’s Centre for Heterodox Social Science Substack.
• “Merz snubs Trump after US President backed AfD” – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is stonewalling President Trump after the US leader celebrated the victory of a party the Chancellor claims is promoting “ethnic cleansing”, reports the Washington Examiner.
• “9/11 toxic air pollution was covered up” – NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani has accused officials of covering up the scale of toxic air pollution caused by 9/11, says FOX 5 NY.
• “NYU ranked America’s worst college for free speech” – New York University has received a score of just 44.97 out of 100 in FIRE’s annual campus free speech rankings, placing it last among 261 colleges surveyed, according to UnHerd.
• “Uganda pulls out of Invictus Games over ‘Harry-Meghan nonsense’” – Uganda has pulled out of Prince Harry’s Invictus Games out of respect for the King, reports the Mail.
• “Doctors should not be involved in ending lives, says Archbishop of Canterbury” – The Archbishop of Canterbury has waded into the assisted dying debate, arguing that medical professionals must not be involved in ending patients’ lives, according to Premier Christian News.
• “Assisted dying bill won’t protect the most vulnerable” – The assisted dying bill is not a matter of individual conscience, says Kemi Badenoch in the Telegraph. We have to vote as legislators and consider all possible scenarios.
• “Lister Hospital failures led to death of Richard Branson’s wife” – An inquest has found that Lady Joan Branson, 80, died after suffering a pulmonary embolism following a series of failures at HCA Healthcare’s Lister Hospital, reports the Standard.
• “Developer turns back on housing to chase data centre rush” – Leading property developer Harworth is quitting the housing market to cash in on soaring demand for data centres, says the Telegraph.
• “AI could ‘kill humans’ by end of decade, expert warns as he quits job” – A researcher who has quit Anthropic has warned that big tech firms are in an “out of control” race to build systems capable of wiping out humanity before the end of the decade, reports the Mail.
• “Apple’s £1,999 iPhone Duo is criticised for its ‘ugly’ design” – Apple’s new foldable iPhone, the Duo, is getting a kicking over its looks, according to the Mail.
• “Britain needs cheap energy but Net Zero isn’t delivering” – With Ofgem’s energy price cap set to rise a further 4% in October to £1,723 for a typical dual-fuel household, the case that Net Zero is failing to deliver affordable energy grows ever harder to ignore, says Kathryn Porter in the Telegraph.
• “The ONS, the doubt and the lost benefit” – The ONS and UN keep stacking the scales towards heat deaths while sidelining cold risks, writes John Ridgway at Climate Scepticism. There is just too much clumsy work going on here for it to be perfectly innocent.
• “Claim: solar saved the day when heatwaves forced shutdowns of European nuclear plants” – In Watts Up With That?, Eric Worrall challenges the claim that solar energy rode to the rescue when heatwaves forced European nuclear plants offline.
• “Wrong, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear power isn’t the reliability problem” – In ClimateRealism, Anthony Watts argues that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ claim that nuclear power is unreliable is flatly contradicted by the facts.
• “UK energy schizophrenia (all pain, no gain)” – UK energy planners are falsely blaming geology rather than Net Zero for the decline in North Sea production, says Robert Bradley Jr in Watts Up With That?
• “How undersea geological activity could influence El Niños” – In Climate Change Dispatch, Thomas Richard writes that undersea eruptions, seafloor heat and the Ring of Fire may be an overlooked geological driver of El Niño events.
• “Apocalypse not: decades of failed doomsday predictions refuse to die” – From resource depletion and mass starvation to peak oil and climate catastrophe, dire predictions have repeatedly failed to materialise – yet continue to shape policy, says Wilfred Reilly in Climate Change Dispatch.
• “Father’s VW EV repeatedly accelerated on its own” – A single father has vowed never to buy a Volkswagen EV again after he says it assumed a mind of its own on a busy road, almost killing him and his young children, reports the Mail.
• “Individual and total mercy” – On his Substack, Dr David McGrogan writes on the death of “law’s abstract judgement” and the tension between individual and total mercy.
• “The England I knew is gone” – In First Things, Carl R. Trueman reflects on his annual visit to England and the unsettling sense that the present has become as foreign as the past.
• “Britain was ‘freer and more tolerant’ a decade ago” – Speaking ahead of the release of their new album, the Proclaimers maintain that Britain was a significantly freer and more tolerant society a decade ago, reports the Independent. No, really?
• “Motorist prosecuted for picking up roadkill deer” – A photographer and church magazine editor from Durham says he suffered “extreme stress” after being prosecuted for picking up a dead deer from the roadside, according to the Telegraph.
• “ITV’s The Box has exposed Gary Lineker for who he really is” – We think of Gary Lineker as a live wire, always at the centre of controversy, but The Box reminds us that he is in fact the dullest kind of bog-standard bloke, says Gareth Roberts in the Spectator.
• “Join the fight to restore free speech in Britain” – On X, Big Brother Watch’s Silkie Carlo warns that free speech is under serious threat in the UK and calls for an immediate reset of Britain’s speech laws.

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