News Round-Up

• “Sadiq Khan is knighted as Keir Starmer hands out ‘reward for failure’: London Mayor becomes Sir Sadiq in the New Year’s Honours – despite launching hated Ulez charge and overseeing a dramatic hike in council tax” – The Mayor of London, a former Labour MP, received the gong in the first batch of appointments made since Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, despite London going seriously downhill on his watch, says the Mail.
• “Network Rail boss knighted despite catalogue of delays and safety failures” – Sir Keir Starmer has knighted Andrew Haines, the boss of Network Rail, the troubled train infrastructure operator, despite a catalogue of delays and safety failures, reports the Telegraph.
• “Gongs for Khan and Thornberry are an insult to White Van Man” – They both are part of Labour’s new identity as the party of the sneering class, says Ella Whelan in the Telegraph.
• “Crashing the economy was just the start, Labour has lots more in store for us” – We’re already heading into recession and Labour has barely started to implement its crazy plans, says Robert Jenrick in the Telegraph.
• “When will Keir Starmer ‘smash the gangs’?” – As small boat arrivals return to the highs of 2022, Starmer has told the British public the third ‘big lie’ in a row from a sitting PM, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator. “Before his pledge to smash the gangs, Rishi Sunak pledged to ‘stop the boats’. And didn’t. Before that, Boris Johnson told people who used dinghies to gatecrash Britain ‘we will send you back’. And didn’t.”
• “Labour urged to drop ‘Western-centric’ science in school curriculum” – Prestigious scientific royal societies are urging the Government to make science less “Western” in an overhaul of the school curriculum, reports the Telegraph.
• “Starmer backs Phillipson’s claim that middle-class parents support private school VAT raid” – Prime Minister Keir Starmer has backed Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s laughable claim that middle-class parents support the Government’s private school VAT raid, according to the Telegraph.
• “Schools minister’s naked class envy will wreck Britain” – Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will soon be to English schools what Chancellor Rachel Reeves already is to the British economy: a wrecking ball, says Andrew Neil in the Mail.
• “Keir Starmer, conservative Prime Minister?” – In the Spectator, former Tory MP Nick Boles advances the bizarre proposition that Keir Starmer “resembles a conservative Prime Minister”. Though if he means a “Conservative” Prime Minister he might be onto something.
• “Kemi Badenoch’s attacks on Farage are backfiring spectacularly” – Kemi needs to discover a much better strategy for handling Nige and turn her fire on Starmer, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
• “Kemi Badenoch lacks a strategy to see off Nigel Farage” – Badenoch would do well to realise that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, says Peter Franklin in UnHerd.
• “Pro-Trump German press baron ‘encouraged Musk to back AfD’” – Mathias Döpfner, Chief Executive and part-owner of Die Welt’s publisher Axel Springer, encouraged Elon Musk to openly back the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, according to leaked messages, the Telegraph reports.
• “Elon Musk is the real leader of the opposition” – No wonder the left hates X so much, says Ross Clark in the Spectator. Elon Musk is using it to carve himself a role as Britain’s unofficial opposition.
• “Why Trump wants to buy Greenland” – America, China and Russia are all vying for control over the Arctic, says James Woudhuysen in Spiked.
• “Why both sides are right in the H-1B visas row” – The tech bros and the MAGA populists could chart a new way forward, argues Joel Kotkin in Spiked.
• “Trump imposes social media ban on Cabinet picks after MAGA civil war” – Donald Trump has ordered his Cabinet nominees not to post on social media without approval after a MAGA ‘civil war’ erupted this week over the issue of visas for skilled migrants, the Mail reports.
• “How Europe crashed its car industry” – Short-sighted Net Zero policy gave China the upper hand, says Helen Thompson in UnHerd.
• “Mental health sick days surge in public sector” – NHS staff and prison and council workers are three times more likely to take mental health sick days than those in the private sector, analysis by the Telegraph finds.
• “Home Office tried to stop prosecution of prolific foreign shoplifter” – The Home Office tried to halt the private prosecution of a prolific shoplifter – an illegal Romanian immigrant whom police had failed to arrest for seven separate store thefts, the Telegraph reveals.
• “I did not expect to be asked for ‘the Jewish figure’ of dead children in Gaza” – Reflecting on a disturbing 2024, Jake Wallis Simons notes in the Telegraph that while Israel is assumed to be biased Hamas casualty figures are reported as if they were just facts.
• “Richard Dawkins quits atheism foundation for backing transgender ‘religion’” – Professor Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and atheist, stepped down from the board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an atheist foundation, on Saturday after it censored an article supporting the belief that gender is biological, the Telegraph reports.
• “Democracy is rotting in Europe” – In the Spectator, Gavin Mortimer highlights the anti-democratic new European ‘lawfare’ that, as in Romania, is making sure unwelcome election results are overturned on paper-thin grounds.
• “Fraser Nelson turns a blind eye to broken Britain” – In TCW, Laura Perrins takes Fraser Nelson to task for his valedictory Telegraph column, where he came out singing the praises of the glorious successes of diverse melting-pot Britain.
• “Christmas Quiz. What links: Christmas, Jesus, Kuhn and EBM?” – Jake Matthews has a festive message in the guise of a quiz on his MediCurious Substack.
• “Nobody’s friend – Justin Welby’s cancellation” – Justin Welby could find himself entirely cancelled if other organisations follow the Children’s Society’s lead after the charity rejected his donation, says Julian Mann in Anglican Ink.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.