News Round-Up

• “Labour’s favourite think-tank backs £6 billion tax raid on pensioners and landlords to fill ‘huge hole’ in public finances” – Resolution Foundation has backed a £6 billion tax raid on pensioners and landlords to help fill a “huge hole” in the public finances, according to This is Money.
• “Labour forced to ditch ‘bats*** crazy’ wealth tax plan” – John Healey has ditched Budget plans for a ‘wealth tax’ on investments after officials warned it would backfire, says the Mail.
• “Labour’s contempt for democracy” – On his Substack, Jake Wallis Simons argues that using taxpayers’ money to stop Reform is only the latest entry on a very long list of Labour’s contempt for democracy.
• “Five times Burnham’s claims failed to stand up under scrutiny” – The PM is making a habit of rowing back on pledges and comments, notes Pieter Snepvangers in the Telegraph.
• “Farage offer to give Chagos to Trump is humiliating” – Kemi Badenoch has slammed Nigel Farage over his “humiliating” comments about offering Trump the Chagos Islands in return for his silence over the Falklands, reports the Telegraph.
• “Annoying evil idiot f*cks” – On his Substack, Dr David McGrogan sets out a framework for thinking clearly about the Reform-Conservative split.
• “Suspend asylum and save Britain before it’s too late” – Nigel Farage’s pledge to scrap Britain’s asylum system for five years and deport 90,000 pending claimants deserves serious support, argues Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Migrants taking four in five new jobs” – Taxpayers are being left to absorb the growing cost of domestic worklessness as politicians continue to import labour to fill the vast majority of new roles, reports the Telegraph.
• “Palestine Action activists ‘smashed Land Rover blocking their break-in’” – Palestine Action supporters smashed a Land Rover as they broke into a factory linked to an Israel-associated defence company, according to the Telegraph.
• “The plot against Caroline Lucas shows the old Green Party is finished” – The campaign against Caroline Lucas exposes how far the Green Party has drifted from its founding environmental principles into antisemitic extremism, writes Danny Cohen in the Telegraph.
• “Lib Dems urged to ditch power-sharing deals with Greens” – A former anti-extremism tsar has called on the Lib Dems to end their council power-sharing arrangements with the Green Party, warning that principles matter more than retaining control, says the Telegraph.
• “Left’s obsession with Zionism has history” – In the Times, Danny Finkelstein argues that the Green conference’s vote against Zionism is rooted in a long Communist tradition of refusing to tolerate Israel as a homeland for Soviet Jews.
• “A very Lib Dem coup” – Sir Ed Davey is facing a showdown with his own MPs as he tries to head off a possible coup, writes Steerpike in the Spectator.
• “Lib Dems seek court order to evict former member with incurable cancer from her home” – The Lib Dems are attempting to evict a 71 year-old founding member who’s suffering from incurable cancer to pay its legal bill in a dispute against her, reports the Independent.
• “Burnham’s devotion to EU may plunge us into darkness” – In the Mail, Stephen Glover says Andy Burnham’s ardent pro-EU posturing marks him out not as Labour’s saviour but as a “prize dud” who will make Sir Keir Starmer look like a giant by comparison.
• “MI5 chief warns against claims Russia swayed Brexit vote” – The head of MI5 has disputed Burnham’s claim that Russia swayed the outcome of the Brexit referendum, reports Sky News.
• “The Palestinians have played the West for fools, and here’s the proof” – The West’s feeble response to the cancellation of democratic elections across the Palestinian territories tells us everything we need to know, says Nicole Lampert in the Telegraph.
• “Cornell bans frat parties amid gang-rape investigation” – Cornell University has temporarily suspended all fraternity parties following allegations of a drug-fuelled gang rape on campus, reports the BBC.
• “Data reveals how traditional British surnames are dying out” – New analysis shows that surnames such as Smith, Jones and Williams, which dominated birth records in 1996, are steadily disappearing from England and Wales, reveals the Mail.
• “153 nations adopt UN pandemic declaration to push fast-tracked vaccines within 100 days and crack down on ‘vaccine hesitancy’” – On the Focal Points Substack, Nicolas Hulscher warns that a sweeping UN pandemic declaration, adopted by 153 nations, raises alarming concerns that scientific censorship, lockdowns and experimental vaccine mandates could return.
• “A funny thing’s happening now that (almost) nobody gets mRNA jabs anymore” – On his Substack, Alex Berenson notes that deaths are down now that older people are skipping their annual mRNA jabs.
• “Village GP surgeries will be shut under Labour’s NHS reforms” – Rural communities face losing their local GP surgeries under Labour’s NHS reforms, reports the Telegraph.
• “The ‘be kind’ mantra can’t hide the dark side of surrogacy” – Activists pushing to normalise surrogacy as a reproductive choice are demanding that women be rebranded as ‘gestational carriers’, writes Nicole Lampert in the Telegraph.
• “Miliband signs off on Falklands drilling despite Argentina row” – Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has approved oil drilling in the Falkland Islands despite a diplomatic row with Argentina, with production potentially beginning as early as next year, reports the Telegraph.
• “The chutzpah of Ed Miliband” – In the Spectator, Stephen Pollard writes that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is a man conspicuously unbothered by self-doubt or shame.
• “Eight million properties at risk of flooding by mid-century” – The Environment Agency’s claim that eight million homes in England will face flooding risk by mid-century due to climate change is challenged by Paul Homewood in Not a Lot of People Know That.
• “Blocking Jackdaw and Rosebank ‘would cost Britain £11 billion’” – Blocking the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields would cost Britain thousands of jobs and nearly £11 billion in tax revenues, according to LBC.
• “Britain must pick a side in the electric car battle between East and West” – With what remains of the UK car industry hanging in the balance, Britain can no longer afford to sit on the fence in the global electric vehicle battle between East and West, warns Ben Marlow in the Telegraph.
• “The Conversation admits fuel load is responsible for severe fires, not climate” – In Climate Realism, Linnea Lueken notes that the Conversation has conceded that poor forest management – not climate change – is behind severe Australian wildfires.
• “Believe it or not: NASA study finds the Arctic melt season stopped lengthening in 2010” – A NASA study finds the Arctic melt season hasn’t lengthened since 2010, raising questions about the role of human-caused warming vs natural variability, writes Charles Rotter in Watts Up With That?
• “Greta Thunberg joins Paris student protests” – Greta Thunberg has joined demonstrations sweeping Paris, condemning what she calls an “extremely violent” police response to the student unrest, reports Reuters.
• “Greta Thunberg is a protest addict” – In the Spectator, Gareth Roberts asks whether there is a Left-wing protest Thunberg won’t join.
• “Priest leads challenge to Church of England slavery reparations” – A priest and churchwarden are mounting a legal challenge to the Church of England’s plan to divert funds towards “atoning” for its historic links to the slave trade, says the Times.
• “Civil Servant ‘had five jobs and wore make-up to look ill’” – Kashim Chowdhury, 55, is accused of holding multiple overlapping public sector roles while working remotely, reports Sky News.
• “Sandi Toksvig’s war on Wikipedia” – In the Spectator, Gareth Roberts examines Sandi Toksvig’s eccentric campaign against Wikipedia.
• “BBC making JK Rowling documentary without her input” – The BBC is pressing ahead with a documentary series about the influence and legacy of J.K. Rowling despite receiving no cooperation from the author herself, reports the Mail.
• “Our Islands’ Story by Nigel Biggar and Robert Tombs: teaching children to be proud of British history” – Nigel Biggar and Robert Tombs’s new book, Our Islands’ Story, offers a robust and convincing rebuke to the relentlessly negative narratives about Britain’s past that now dominate classrooms, says Angus Colwell in the Telegraph.
• “Charlotte Church forced to close her healing retreat” – Charlotte Church, who recently branded Ed Sheeran a greedy capitalist, has been forced to put her Welsh wellness retreat into “hibernation” just three years after opening it, reveals the Mail.
• “Conservative peers challenge Government over UK having highest industrial electricity prices in the OECD” – In the Lords, Lord Blencathra questions why the UK – responsible for less than 1% of global emissions – continues to pursue Net Zero policies that keep its industrial electricity prices the highest in the OECD and destroy British jobs.

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