News Round-Up

• “Starmer’s week gets worse: No10 accused of Mandelson files ‘cover-up’” – Parliament’s intelligence watchdog has accused Sir Keir Starmer’s Government of concealing failures in the Peter Mandelson scandal, reports the Mail.
• “Starmer readies for leadership battle with £18 billion boost for defence” – Sir Keir Starmer is expected to approve an £18 billion increase in defence spending as he fights for political survival, says the Times.
• “Rivals told to skip leadership contest if Andy Burnham wins by-election” – Cabinet members have called on Wes Streeting and Sir Keir Starmer to stand aside if the Greater Manchester mayor defeats Reform in the Makerfield by-election, according to the Times.
• “Labour’s civil war is bizarre, shambolic and pointless” – Sir Keir Starmer’s record as Prime Minister is one of blaming others when he trips and making excuses when he blunders, notes the Telegraph.
• “Starmer is right to resist this clumsy Labour coup” – The PM’s stubborn defiance of his internal challengers is constitutionally sound, even if his Government richly deserves its troubles, writes Charles Moore the Telegraph.
• “Rayner cleared in tax investigation 24 hours after demanding a decision” – HMRC closed its inquiry into Angela Rayner’s £40,000 tax bill just 24 hours after her lawyers demanded a resolution, reveals the Telegraph.
• “Where is proof the taxman has ‘cleared’ you over £40K bill, Angela?” – Labour’s former Deputy Leader declared that HMRC had absolved her of wrongdoing over the purchase of her Hove home, yet she has produced no documentary evidence of that clearance, says the Mail.
• “Understanding the entity known as Starmer” – Smug, bloodless, lawyerly and sanctimonious – everyone knows what Starmer is, but few understand how a man of such evident limitations came to hold the highest office in the land, writes Will Self in the Telegraph.
• “Geert Wilders: I will press charges against Wes Streeting” – In Breitbart, Geert Wilders says he’ll shortly file a criminal complaint with the Dutch police against Wes Streeting.
• “Trans women are women, new Health Secretary said” – James Murray, Wes Streeting’s replacement as Health Secretary, defended a transgender swimmer competing against female athletes as recently as 2022, undermining his credibility at the very moment he takes office, notes the Telegraph.
• “Stopping the boats shouldn’t require magical thinking” – In the Spectator, Matthew Parris argues that the BBC’s exposure of Kardo Ranya as a people-smuggling mastermind is a journalistic triumph, but anyone who thinks it will “smash the gangs” is deluded – where there is demand, there will always be supply.
• “‘A battle for the nation’s soul’, Starmer’s warning ahead of rallies” – Sir Keir Starmer has warned of a “fight for the soul of this country” referring to today’s two rival protests in central London, reports the Mail.
• “‘Far-right agitators’ banned from entering UK before rally” – The Home Office has blocked 11 individuals from entering the country ahead of Tommy Robinson’s rally today, says the Times.
• “Social media influencer Hasan Piker must be banned from Britain, say Jewish leaders” – The online agitator who likened Zionists to “Nazis” and refused to condemn Hamas poses a direct threat to British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council warns, says the Jewish Chronicle.
• “Met will not divert pro-Palestinian rally away from synagogue” – Jewish worshippers leaving Westminster Synagogue on Saturday will be caught up in the Nakba Day rally after police refused to alter the march route, according to the Times.
• “Man threatened to ‘behead Jews’ in east London” – Police are hunting a man who declared “Jews gonna get beheaded” on Whitechapel Road in Tower Hamlets, reports the Telegraph.
• “Until the CPS can grasp the reality of antizionism, it will keep on failing Jews” – New antisemitism guidance is being billed as a major breakthrough, but the problem was never a lack of manuals for prosecutors – it was the repeated failure since October 7th to prosecute blatant antisemitic offences at all, writes Sir Michael Ellis in the Jewish Chronicle.
• “Musk pledges to crack down on antisemitism on X” – The social network has made a “public commitment” to remove 85% of hateful posts within two days, as Elon Musk signals a tougher line on antisemitic content, notes the Telegraph.
• “Syrian refugee guilty of raping woman, 19, in locked beachside toilet” – Mohammed Abdullah’s victim burst into tears as the verdicts were read out at Bournemouth Crown Court, with the judge telling the defendant that a prison sentence was “inevitable”, reports the Mail.
• “Why do feminists refuse to believe that Hamas raped Jewish women?” – UK charity Sisters Uncut dismissed claims of Hamas sexual violence as “Islamophobic and racist weaponisation”. Yet the evidence of systematic rape on October 7th continues to mount, says the Telegraph.
• “Debunking Kristof’s claims of systematic Israeli sexual violence” – In Quillette, Yuki Zeman argues that Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times essay turns unverified claims into anti-Israel propaganda, collapsing under scrutiny of the evidence.
• “Billionaires are abandoning Britain – this is what it means” – One in six people on the Rich List two years ago no longer appear in 2026, and a third no longer live on the mainland, in a flight of wealth that carries grave consequences for the public finances, according to the Times.
• “Civil servant pensions exceed £150,000 a year” – More than 263 Civil Service retirees are now receiving six-figure payouts, with 23 having crossed the £150,000 threshold, in figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests that prompt fresh calls for reform, reports the Telegraph.
• “Miliband’s North Sea law is hugely economically damaging” – The idea that Britain somehow helps the climate by importing more energy rather than producing it domestically is simply false, and Miliband’s legislation threatens to make energy more expensive and less secure for decades to come, writes Kathryn Porter in the Telegraph.
• “Households saddled with up to eight bins” – Labour councils have imposed “overwhelming” recycling schemes on thousands of households, requiring as many as eight separate bins in a bureaucratic overreach that residents find maddening, notes the Telegraph.
• “In which the Green Party commits an accidental fascism by passing a law with AfD support” – On his Substack, Eugyppius says Germany’s cartel parties have built an elaborate firewall around the AfD, yet the Greens have now voted through legislation with AfD support, exposing the absurdity at the heart of their democratic posturing.
• “Dale Vince: I’d give Starmer cash to fight off leadership rivals” – One of Labour’s biggest donors has pledged to bankroll Sir Keir Starmer in any leadership battle, offering a financial lifeline as the Prime Minister faces mounting pressure from within, says the Telegraph.
• “Block the Greens from power at every level” – No mainstream party should strike a coalition deal with extreme Greens, and every democratic actor has a duty to deny them a foothold at any level of government, says a Telegraph editorial.
• “JCB boss: Stop conning taxpayers over £333 billion welfare bill” – Lord Bamford warns that the Government “can’t get away with” granting benefits of up to £60,000 a year to people who don’t work, and predicts a public revolt if ministers fail to act, reveals the Times.
• “Green councillor ‘Baggy’ Khan drives a gas-guzzling Lamborghini” – Mohammad Baghdadi “Baggy” Khan, newly elected Green councillor for Bolton’s Halliwell ward at just 25, is revealed to be the owner of a Lamborghini, reports the Mail.
• “The return of history: Britain’s democratic deficit and the risk of internal disorder” – On Substack, C.J. Strachan argues that Britain has survived unrest before, but only when its rulers remembered how to listen to the governed.
• “Voter troubles” – In The New Conservative, Jack Watson explores the paralysing dilemma facing voters who find themselves unable in good conscience to support any party on offer.
• “Frankenstein is ‘transphobic’, non-binary director claims” – American filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun declares that Mary Shelley’s classic gothic novel is “transphobic” because it concerns “a constructed body” – a claim that says rather more about the claimant than the 200-year-old text, says the Mail.
• “Song about choking women and bondage makes it to Eurovision final” – Romania’s controversial Eurovision entry has made it through to the final after the lead singer writhed around on all-fours in a skimpy leather outfit, according to the Mail.
• “Nicki Minaj on how Gavin Newsom and Jay-Z turned her into a MAGA fan” – A major turning point in Nicki Minaj’s shift away from the Democrats was California Governor Newsom’s refusal to meet her after her home was “swatted”, says the Mail.
• “MAGA influencer and partner charged over ‘racially aggravated assault’” – Melissa Rein Lively, 40, has been charged with ‘assault by beating’ while her partner Philipp Ostermann faces two racially aggravated public order offences following an incident at Bond Street Underground station, reports the Mail.
• “Taliban recognises child marriage under new rules” – A 31-page Taliban regulation now formally governs child marriage and the dissolution of unions under a wide range of religious and legal conditions, says the Mail.
• “AI isn’t paying off in the way companies think. Layoffs driven by automation are failing to generate returns, study finds” – In Fortune, Jake Angelo reports that a Gartner study found no correlation between workforce reductions driven by AI automation and higher return on investment, despite 80% of companies surveyed having cut headcount.
• “If you do anything today, watch Maeve Halligan at the Cambridge Union” – On X, Thea Sewell posts a clip from her friend Maeve Halligan’s speech at the Cambridge Union standing up for sex-based women’s rights

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