News Round-Up

• “Yevgeny Prigozhin was a dead man walking” – Yevgeny Prigozhin’s murder carries important lessons for future would-be challengers. Putin’s word is worth nothing. And if you come at the Tsar, you have to finish the job, writes Owen Matthews in the Spectator.
• “NatWest under pressure to block £11 million payout to Dame Alison Rose” – NatWest is under pressure from the Government to block a payout to former chief Dame Alison Rose worth up to £11.3 million, reports the Telegraph.
• “Nigel Farage blasts ‘sick joke’ £2.4 million payout to ex-NatWest boss” – Former NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose is set to receive a £2.4 million pay package, a month after resigning in disgrace in a row over Nigel Farage’s bank account, reports the Mail.
• “Nurse Lucy Letby – premature baby murders or miscarriage of justice?” – After her conviction for killing seven babies and attempted murder of 10 others, Nurse Lucy Letby is expected to spend the rest of her life in prison. But, as some legal commentators argue, her trial was a farce, writes Niall McCrae in UNN.
• “Cardiologist regrets vaccinating young people at his clinic: ‘That was a mistake on my part’” – There are still honest, responsible scientists empowered with helping us choose what to do with our health. Dr. Anish Koka is one of them, says Rav Arora on Substack.
• “The lunacy of climate change fanatics is driving humanity to extinction” – Plunging fertility rates are the crisis of the century, yet extremists cheer it in their narrow-minded crusade, writes Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
• “Act now to block Khan’s war on cars” – Sadiq Khan has abandoned reality in his rush to force Ulez on Londoners, says the Telegraph in a leading article.
• “Londoners snap up classic cars to dodge Ulez” – Londoners are buying up classic cars in a bid to dodge Sadiq Khan’s Ulez charge, reports the Mail.
• “All the (slightly mad) ways you can beat Sadiq Khan’s Ulez charge” – Those looking to dodge the London Mayor’s £12.50 Ulez fees can get compliant or get creative, says the Telegraph.
• “Ulez loophole exposed over scrappage scheme cars requiring MOT” – The rules of Sadiq Khan’s scrappage scheme mean those cars eligible for a £2,000 grant if scrapped need to have a valid MOT, road tax and insurance, reports the Mail.
• “From Ulez to pylons, ‘consultations’ are being used to quash opposition” – Leaders claim they are listening to the public, but never seem to hear even the most vocal dissent, writes Philip Johnston in the Telegraph.
• “Why are climate activists so angry?” – Frustrations about the environment are a cloak for separate resentments, says Niall Gooch in UnHerd.
• “The Cornish hamlet exposing the flaws in the Net Zero oil boiler ban” – Faced with the cost of going green, rural communities are finding alternative solutions, according to the Telegraph.
• “Ukraine and the death of mainstream journalism” – The truth, as the old cliché goes, was an early casualty in the war in Ukraine. And proper journalism about the conflict has died with it, laments Roger Watson in UNN.
• “When the Left loves billionaires” – Why does only right-wing funding count as ‘dark money’, asks Guy Dampier in the Critic.
• “Northern Etons won’t ‘level up’ the country” – A batch of new free schools have been approved, including three sixth-form colleges that will be funded and mentored by Eton. But they are little more than a sticking plaster on the blistering wound of a comprehensive system that destroys ambition, writes Georgia L. Gilholy in the Spectator.
• “The hollowing out of higher education” – Universities are trashing the very subject knowledge that makes doing a degree worthwhile, argues Joanna Williams in Spiked.
• “Chinese-Americans are increasingly forging their own path” – Around America, Chinese parents, bristling against what they see as left-wing indoctrination, are launching programmes and schools to defend traditional values such as hard work and meritocracy, writes Rong Xiaoqing in City Journal.
• “How Ofcom signed off on Channel Four’s lies” – The regulator was complicit in a misleading Channel Four documentary about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, says David Elstein in the Critic.
• “Louis Theroux accuses the BBC of seeking to ‘avoid difficult subjects’” – Giving a keynote speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Louis Theroux took aim at the BBC as he accused it of seeking to “play it safe” and “avoid the difficult subjects”, reports the Mail.
• “Amazon’s Tucker Carlson-disappearing act” – Not for the first time, an establishment institution is accused of undercounting the sales of a conservative book, writes Bruce Bawer in City Journal.
• “‘It’s monstrous to claim that Lucy Letby’s ‘white privilege’ left her free to kill’” – It takes a particular kind of ghoul to seize on Lucy Letby’s awful crimes to push a deluded race-baiting agenda, inflaming tensions and manufacturing prejudice, says Nana Akua in the Mail.
• “Male nurse told ‘man up’ by female boss wins sex discrimination case” – The only male member of an NHS health visitor team has won a sex discrimination case after his female boss told him to “man up” in front of a room full of women, reports the Mail.
• “Nearly 200 viewers complain to TV watchdog after Lionesses race row” – The Sky News Lionesses race row incident, in which Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones criticised the England women’s football squad for not containing more black players, has deepened with Ofcom mulling an investigation after being hit by 192 complaints, says the Mail.
• “‘Why I write about gender’” – Gender ideology is the issue of our time, with all of us touched by it in one form or another, writes James Esses in the Critic.
• “Emily Bridges doesn’t belong on Vogue’s female power list” – The trans cyclist Emily Bridges’s inclusion on Vogue’s female power list makes a mockery of women’s achievements, argues Victoria Smith in UnHerd.
• “In a world without God, what does suicide mean?” – When society no longer sees the taking of one’s own life as a sin, it is unclear who should be responsible for attempting to prevent such deaths, say Pierre d’Alancaisez and Nina Power in the Critic.
• “Hull pre-school withdraws book showing man in ‘leather fetish gear’” – A nursery has withdrawn a book about a grandad and his memories of attending Pride marches with his partner, according to the BBC.
• “Listen, BDSM is not for four year-olds” – Why are the woke so obsessed with teaching kids about queer sex, asks Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “‘Kids are hugely impressionable. The book is presenting a party and that trans kids are ‘magic’. This is manipulative!’” – Concerned parent Clare Page speaks with Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV about the scandal surrounding a nursery school that was educating children with bondage images found in a children’s Pride book.

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