News Round-Up

• “Netanyahu: Labour restricted trade with Israel to protect Starmer’s seat” – Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Labour of restricting trade with Israel for domestic electoral reasons, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ministers ‘ignored official advice’ on Israeli settlements trade ban” – Civil servants warned successive governments that there was no clear way to separate the Israeli, settler and Palestinian economies, advice that Ministers are said to have disregarded when imposing the trade ban, says the Times.
• “Iran greets Ed Miliband’s settlement sanctions as step towards ‘the end of Israel’” – Islamic Republic propaganda outlets have hailed the measures announced by the Foreign Secretary as a milestone moment, with state media mocking the “naïve UK Government” for what Tehran sees as a blow to Israel’s existence, notes the Jewish Chronicle.
• “Hamas praises Ed Miliband over Israeli sanctions” – Senior Hamas political bureau official Basem Naim has welcomed Ed Miliband’s Israeli sanctions, praising Britain’s move in terms that will embarrass the Government, reports Guido Fawkes.
• “The Israeli settlements lie” – In the Spectator, Natasha Hausdorff argues that the near-universal claim that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law is repeated with total confidence but subjected to almost no serious scrutiny.
• “Ed Miliband has chosen to make British Jews less safe” – The Foreign Secretary’s decision to advance a two-state solution while pledging £250 million for Jewish community security represents a damaging contradiction, says a Spectator leading article.
• “Sanctions, policy and moral choices” – In Psephizo, Ian Paul points out the double standards at play in the censure directed at Israel by both state and church.
• “Shame on Ed Miliband, appeaser of Islamists” – The Foreign Secretary stands accused of ignorance, delusion and erasing the memory of Islamist atrocities in his handling of British foreign policy, reports the Telegraph.
• “France wants Britain to take migrants from across EU” – The existing bilateral one-in, one-out deal between France and Britain could be replaced with a far broader EU-wide scheme that would require the UK to accept migrants from across the continent, says the Telegraph.
• “Asylum fraudsters are taking the British public for a ride” – Illegal migrants who defraud the Home Office face no meaningful consequences whatsoever, reveals Rob Bates in Spiked.
• “Mahmood: Police must use powers to arrest balaclava protesters” – Shabana Mahmood has instructed police to deploy their full powers to arrest protesters wearing balaclavas following a wave of anti-migrant demonstrations last weekend, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour picks Somali refugee to fight Starmer seat by-election” – Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali will contest the October 8th by-election to replace Sir Keir Starmer, who quit the Commons after being ousted as Prime Minister by Andy Burnham, reports the Mail.
• “Badenoch: Britain is addicted to welfare” – Kemi Badenoch has declared that Britain has become addicted to welfare and launched an attack on Prime Minister Andy Burnham over his declaration that he will never cut welfare to fund defence, says the Telegraph.
• “Quentin Letts: The BBC’s Emma Barnett was snooty toward Kemi Badenoch” – In the Mail, Quentin Letts notes that the BBC’s star interviewer Emma Barnett adopted a snooty manner toward Kemi Badenoch, raising fresh questions about the corporation’s commitment to impartiality.
• “Burnham rows back on second Scottish independence referendum” – Prime Minister Andy Burnham has retreated from support for a second Scottish independence referendum, saying there is “no consensus” for another vote on Scotland leaving the UK, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Burnham to scrap ban on Catholic PMs advising King about bishops” – A new bill will end an ‘antiquated’ law that prevents non-Church of England Prime Ministers from offering counsel to the King on church appointments, reports the Telegraph.
• “The assisted dying vote is a test of Labour’s values” – In the Spectator, Lois McLatchie Miller argues that Prime Minister Andy Burnham will most likely hope to see the divisive assisted dying legislation voted down once and for all on September 11th.
• “Four stabbed in south London” – Police have made seven arrests after four people were stabbed on Bromley High Street, with reports of individuals carrying machetes prior to the attack, says the Telegraph.
• “Doctor sues trust after ‘bearded trans patient allowed on female ward’” – A doctor is suing Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust after a biological male who identifies as a woman was placed on the female psychiatric ward, reports the Mail.
• “Labour’s woman problem is never-ending” – In the Spectator, Noa Hoffman says that Labour asks women to surrender their safety, dignity and equality whenever trans-inclusive politics proves politically inconvenient.
• “John Lewis losses top £120 million after Labour tax raid” – Sales fell 2% at John Lewis department stores as customers tightened their belts, with the retailer cutting prices to offset lower demand, reports the Telegraph.
• “The triple lock is a sideshow, the real crisis is young people not working” – With working-age inactivity soaring and young people costing taxpayers over £30,000 a year each, the triple lock debate is a distraction from a far deeper crisis, says Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
• “This isn’t a tourist tax – it’s worse than that” – The so-called ‘overnight visitor levy’ is not merely a tax on tourists but on anyone who stays away from home, making it a far broader and more punishing imposition than its name suggests, writes the Telegraph.
• “Labour mayors plot 5% hotels tax raid” – A new levy on overnight stays is expected to leave families paying up to £99 extra for a week-long break, as Labour mayors push ahead with the hotel tax raid, reports the Telegraph.
• “Judge blocks SAS hero from releasing memoir” – Christian Craighead, who planned to publish his memoir One Man In in the US in a deal worth £160,000, has been blocked by a judge following MoD legal action, notes the Telegraph.
• “Inside Britain’s counter-terrorism monitoring of Charlie Kirk’s ‘extreme Right-wing’ supporters” – A leaked counter-terrorism memo reveals that officials tracked Kirk’s British supporters and warned they would “push pro-free speech narratives” – while describing the Left-wing response as “moderate”, writes Steven Edginton on his Substack.
• “UK and US forces foil Moscow plot to unleash secret new weapon” – UK and US forces confronted Russian vessels and thwarted a clandestine operation by Moscow’s GUGI undersea warfare directorate to deploy a secret weapon capable of disabling undersea cables, reports the Mail.
• “White House thinks Iran war could last to end of Trump’s term” – The Vice-President and Secretary of State have privately warned President Trump that the conflict with Tehran could extend beyond January 2029, says the Telegraph.
• “Trump says the war in Iran will end in November. He may well be right” – The US naval blockade looks set to smother the Iranian regime by choking off its oil exports, and Trump’s November deadline may prove more credible than his critics assume, suggests David Blair in the Telegraph.
• “Houthis close in on key strait to threaten deeper oil crisis” – Yemen’s Houthi rebels have seized a key Red Sea port city, tightening their grip on one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes and raising the prospect of a deepening global oil crisis, reveals the Telegraph.
• “‘Common sense’ Democrat praises Trump in coup at midterms” – Republicans would welcome John Fetterman to the party, Laura Loomer says, after the Democrat pledged to “work with” President Trump, reports the Telegraph.
• “The German elites deserve their punishment beating” – AfD voters are not fascists or extremists but citizens using the ballot box to demand a much-needed change of course, writes Sabine Beppler-Spahl in Spiked.
• “The Online Safety Act is wrecking the internet” – Even Nadine Dorries, who introduced the Online Safety Act in 2021 calling it “watertight”, now condemns it as a “dog’s dinner” for limiting free speech, says Maya Thomas in the Spectator.
• “Global coal demand hits record high as Iran war cuts gas supplies” – The conflict with Iran is driving a record surge in global coal consumption as gas supplies are disrupted, according to the Telegraph.
• “The progressives’ war on reliable and affordable electricity” – Progressive energy policies are systematically undermining the reliable and affordable electricity that modern economies depend on, notes Geoffrey Pohanka in ClimateRealism.
• “Labour must go further and faster in the North Sea” – In the Spectator, Michael Simmons argues that Labour’s Net Zero agenda is stifling the North Sea oil and gas industry at a moment when growth is desperately needed.
• “Claim: 1.5°C global warming is not a magic number” – The case that the 1.5°C warming threshold is an arbitrary target rather than a scientifically decisive boundary – and that climate alarm must press on regardless – is examined by Eric Worrall in Watts Up With That?
• “New study: the Antarctic ice sheet gained mass from 2020-2024 due to staggering snow and ice accumulation” – A new study finding that the Antarctic ice sheet gained mass between 2020 and 2024 owing to exceptional snow and ice accumulation is reported by Kenneth Richard in the No Tricks Zone.
• “Air traffic control boss handed £2.2 million in bonuses despite meltdowns” – The boss of Britain’s air traffic control service collected millions in bonuses despite presiding over a series of costly system failures, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Would Sadiq Khan back a rave in a mosque?” – In the Spectator, Douglas Murray skewers the double standards of those such as Sadiq Khan who permit events like silent discos in Canterbury Cathedral while never daring to propose equivalent treatment for a mosque.
• “The Jason Arday review already knows who to blame” – The appointment of Nazir Afzal OBE as chair of Cambridge University’s ‘independent review’ into the Jason Arday affair signals that the press will be scapegoated, writes Toby in the Spectator.
• “Now I’ve left Today, I can finally say what I really think…” – Having stepped down from the Today programme and freed himself from the constraints of BBC impartiality, Amol Rajan finally speaks his mind in the Spectator.
• “Women’s tennis tour risks running out of money” – The WTA Tour is projected to hold only $15 million (£11 million) in cash by next year if its current rate of losses continues, reports the Telegraph.
• “Peter Hitchens: How 9/11 became a pretext for a new age of censorship” – The mass panic that followed 9/11 enabled the erosion of ancient rights – including the right to silence and the rule against double jeopardy – that could never have been abolished otherwise, says Peter Hitchens in the Mail.
• “Rubio just blew my mind!” – Lewis Miles posts on X a clip of the US Secretary of State skewering the far Left: “The man who understood communism the most, just explained it to the least of us.”

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