News Round-Up

• “Reform UK receives second donation of £36 million, from Christopher Harborne” – Reform UK has announced it has received a second £36 million donation in an unprecedented injection of money into Nigel Farage’s party, reports the Times.
• “£72 million war chest from billionaires will ready Reform for No 10” – A jubilant Nigel Farage has hailed an astonishing double donation totalling £72million as an “investment in democratic renewal” as he pledged to turn accident-prone Reform UK into a party fit for government, says the Mail.
• “Richest British-born billionaire keeps his private life under wraps” – Christopher Harborne, the secretive cryptocurrency tycoon who tops this year’s Sunday Times Rich List and lives in Thailand, is now Reform UK’s most consequential financial backer, notes Elizabeth Ivens in the Mail.
• “My donation to Reform is a philanthropic gift to our country” – Christopher Harborne argues that Britain must regenerate after more than a decade of decline and that his £36 million gift to Reform is intended to help the country afford to fund healthcare, education and public services, according to the Telegraph.
• “This money is for one purpose – to ready Reform for government” – In the Mail, Nigel Farage writes that he is “delighted and humbled” by Christopher Harborne’s extraordinary £36 million donation and insists every penny will be spent preparing Reform UK to win power.
• “Reform better placed for election but it’s not a secured win” – With two donations of £36 million each smashing the previous record for the biggest single donation to a party from an individual, Reform’s electoral prospects have improved but victory is far from guaranteed, writes Sir John Curtice in the Mail.
• “Burnham’s right-hand man in ‘corruption’ row” – Andy Burnham’s right-hand man James Purnell has become embroiled in a ‘corruption’ row over a secretive dinner he hosted for defence companies, reports the Telegraph.
• “How village women are fighting the arrival of male migrants” – The women of one Oxfordshire village pushing back against the arrival of 1,250 male migrants are being dismissed as far-Right agitators – but in the Mail, Robert Hardman says their concerns deserve to be heard.
• “Eritrean illegal immigrant raped woman after being freed from jail” – Radiet Meles, 35, an ex-soldier from Eritrea who was expected to be deported after completing a sentence for a horrific sexual assault in 2019, went on to rape another woman after being released, reveals the Mail.
• “Lord Hermer’s legacy is being rapidly unpicked” – In the Spectator, Yuan Yi Zhu says the new Labour Government has already abandoned the central planks of Lord Hermer’s legal guidance, leaving his legacy in tatters.
• “Police on horseback in step with counter-terror units during Jewish high holidays” – Marine officers, police on horseback and plain-clothes officers are being deployed across North West London as part of the Met’s plans to protect Jewish people over the Jewish New Year, reports the Telegraph.
• “Burnham’s taken us closer to a future where Jews don’t feel safe” – It’s an ironclad law of history that countries which are descending into darkness are those where Jews don’t feel safe, writes Michael Gove in the Mail. This week Burnham took Britain a step closer to that abyss.
• “UK firms face boycotts if they join ban on trading with Israel” – British firms operating in the US face retaliatory boycotts if they comply with Labour’s new ban on trading with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, reports the Mail.
• “How 9/11 is being erased from history” – A quarter-century on, the world’s deadliest terror attack is absent from classrooms and public consciousness, leaving conspiracies to fill the void, warns Dominic Connolly in the Telegraph.
• “Badenoch criticises Trump over call for united Ireland” – Kemi Badenoch has accused Trump of inflaming tensions after he backed a united Ireland, says the Telegraph.
• “Russia says it is ‘impossible’ for Putin to meet with Zelensky at G20” – Ukraine is preparing fresh peace talks with Russia in October – despite the Kremlin insisting it is “impossible” for Putin to meet with Zelensky at the G20 summit, reports the Mail.
• “Ulster Unionists to oppose Alliance ‘conversion therapy’ law over gender identity proposals” – ​The Ulster Unionist Party will vote against proposed legislation on banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’ – warning that it requires a complete rewrite due to its “potentially damaging” consequences, according to the News Letter.
• “Burnham’s love letter to Manchester was written using AI, data suggest” – Data analysis suggests that an emotive personal passage Andy Burnham wrote about the pandemic’s impact on Manchester was AI-generated rather than composed by the Mayor himself, reports the Telegraph.
• “Race targets and hormone therapy for all: the Greens’ plan for the NHS” – In the Spectator, Noa Hoffman says the Green Party’s vision for the NHS – including race targets, universal hormone therapy and plant-based menus – is unlikely to prove an electoral draw.
• “Second Green deputy leader is also a landlord – despite party’s stance” – A second Green Party Deputy Leader has been revealed to be a landlord, despite the party previously claiming she was not, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Net Zero grid upgrades running out of control” – The cost of upgrading Britain’s electricity grid to meet Net Zero targets is spiralling into hundreds of billions with no easy solutions in sight, writes Paul Homewood in Watts Up With That?
• “William to announce electric tuk tuks as finalists for Earthshot prize” – Mahindra, India’s largest maker of electric autorickshaws, is among 15 finalists shortlisted for the Prince of Wales’s Earthshot prize, reports the Mail.
• “Germany enters heating season with historically low gas reserve fill levels” – Germany is heading into the heating season with gas reserve fill levels at historic lows, warns P. Gosselin at NoTricksZone.
• “‘The climate crisis is now a continent-wide economic security emergency’” – The United Nations’ top climate official has declared the climate crisis a “continent-wide economic security emergency”. Eric Worrall reacts in Watts Up With That?
• “Environmental priorities vs ‘climate change’” – Bjorn Lomborg’s landmark 2020 analysis of how climate change and climate policies rank against other pressing environmental and development priorities is well worth revisiting, says Robert Bradley Jr at Master Resource.
• “Bank of England spends £85,000 to justify axing Churchill from banknotes” – The Bank of England splashed more than £85,000 on research to build the case for removing Sir Winston Churchill and other historical figures from its banknotes, reports the Telegraph.
• “Let’s dump the concept of identity politics” – In the Mail, Ross Clark argues that the entire framework of identity politics is a monster tearing society apart.
• “Man in burka let off face mask ban by claiming to identify as a Muslim woman” – After Hampshire Police introduced a ban on face masks and balaclavas at protests in Portsmouth, a man in a burka was reportedly waved through by officers who accepted his claim that he was identifying as a Muslim woman.

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