News Round-Up

• “Andy Burnham ‘apologises’ for PMQs comments about Ann Widdecombe’s murder” – The Prime Minister faced accusations of a “breach of the presumption of innocence” over his remarks at the despatch box, reports the Independent.
• “Burnham vowed to fight for Manchester City over cheating charges” – Andy Burnham pledged to ensure Manchester City received “fair” treatment in its Premier League battle over cheating charges, says the Telegraph.
• “NHS finally bans trans women from female spaces” – New guidance issued 18 months after the Supreme Court ruling requires hospitals to segregate wards and lavatories by biological sex, according to the Telegraph.
• “‘I will not be intimidated’, says human rights lawyer after masked Gaza mob storms his lecture screaming ‘war criminal’” – In the Jewish Chronicle, Daniel Ben-David reveals that keffiyeh-clad activists burst into a talk by hostage family representative Adam Wagner KC at City-St George University, with the lawyer vowing defiance in response.
• “John Healey considers raising bank taxes to boost government coffers” – Lenders have warned they could quit Britain if the Chancellor hikes levies to plug a billion-pound fiscal hole ahead of the Budget, reports the Times.
• “Nandy considers ‘Netflix tax’ to fund BBC” – Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is considering plans to extend the £180-a-year TV Licence fee to anyone watching streaming platforms in a move that would fundamentally reshape how the BBC is funded, says the Telegraph.
• “Lisa Nandy ‘minded to intervene’ in Sky’s £1.6 billion deal for ITV” – The Culture Secretary has signalled she may block Sky’s £1.6 billion takeover of ITV, citing concerns over news media consolidation and the future of on-demand programming, according to the Times.
• “UAE bid for Telegraph threatened press freedom, Ofcom found” – Ofcom concluded that the proposed RedBird IMI takeover of the Telegraph was contrary to the public interest on press freedom grounds, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ministers have lost control of the Civil Service. They must take it back” – Britain needs to return to the fundamental principles of its constitution so that politicians can reassert control over an unaccountable Civil Service, writes David Frost in the Telegraph.
• “Leaving the ECHR is only half the battle” – Repealing the Human Rights Act and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would be a historic step, but the harder work of what to replace those legal frameworks with still lies ahead, writes Tom Cross KC in the Spectator.
• “Quentin Letts: Lucy Powell’s speech was 20 minutes of banality” – Education Secretary Lucy Powell delivered a speech on the importance of clear communication that was as clear as public-lavatory glass, writes Quentin Letts in the Mail.
• “Zelensky resumes attacks on Russia after ‘Trump betrayal’” – President Volodymyr Zelensky has resumed strikes on Vladimir Putin’s oil refineries after expressing fury over Donald Trump’s withdrawal of US intelligence and throttling of Ukraine’s Starlink access, says the Mail.
• “Letters reveal Hamas leader’s son, 10, dreamed of shooting Jews” – Letters and drawings by Ibrahim Sinwar, aged 10, the son of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, depict tanks and rifles and express a desire to kill Israelis with a Kalashnikov, according to the Telegraph.
• “Trump scraps livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter” – Donald Trump has announced that the firing squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan will no longer be broadcast live, reports the Telegraph.
• “The Houthis are Europe’s problem” – European leaders are displaying a dangerous weakness by refusing to confront the Houthi threat to their countries’ interests – a weakness their enemies will eagerly exploit, says the Telegraph.
• “The ayatollahs have been humbled by the power of capitalism” – The past two weeks have seen the largest number of attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz since the Israel-US-Iran war began on February 28th, yet it’s economic forces that are proving the regime’s real undoing, notes the Telegraph.
• “Azerbaijan’s hijab ban has infuriated Turkey” – Azerbaijan’s decision to ban the hijab has strained relations with Turkey even as Ankara struggles to contain its anger over longstanding Azeri-Israeli ties, writes Daniel Thorpe in the Spectator.
• “Green Party sued by Jewish members over Zionism policy” – Jewish members of the Green Party are expected to bring claims against it over its policy of designating Zionism as racism, reports the Telegraph.
• “Labour has finally turned on the Greens – why did it take so long?” – With the Greens unable to solve the climate crisis and Labour silent on immigration and the cost of living, the two parties’ uneasy alliance was always doomed to collapse, says the Telegraph.
• “Severe drought declared in England for first time” – Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex have all been placed in severe drought status due to worryingly low reservoir levels, according to the Times.
• “Grid operator spends £50 million in a single day to keep the lights on” – Neso’s record-breaking balancing costs risk piling higher bills onto consumers as the grid struggles to cope, reports the Telegraph.
• “Sadiq Khan is already plotting to leave London burning” – UCL modelling cited in Sadiq Khan’s London plan found that air conditioning across every building would warm the city by around 0.15°C on the hottest days – yet his administration’s restrictions risk leaving Londoners to swelter, says the Telegraph.
• “Did an algorithm tell Hollywood execs to spend $180 million on Digger?” – The question of whether an AI algorithm drove the decision to spend $180 million on a film that made just $35 million at the global box office is explored by the Telegraph.
• “David Lloyd gyms in equality row over ‘ban on men’” – David Lloyd Clubs has sparked an equality row after starting to exclude men from parts of its gyms to accommodate women who feel uncomfortable in shared spaces, reports the Telegraph.
• “Writer apologises after finding no evidence J.K. Rowling is transphobic” – Writer E.J. Rosetta says she spent three months combing through J.K. Rowling’s archive and was unable to find a single piece of evidence to support the claim that the author is transphobic, according to the Mail.
• “Sally Rooney’s books pulled from shelves over Palestine action” – Sally Rooney’s books have been withdrawn from sale by her publisher in Britain after she said she’d give any money she earned from them to Palestine Action, a group that’s been proscribed under the Terrorist Act, notes the Telegraph.
• “The cautionary tale of celebrity Leftist Charlotte Church” – The collapse of Charlotte Church’s woke wellness retreat is an entirely predictable cautionary tale about celebrity Left-wing business ventures, writes Sean Thomas in the Telegraph.
• “If Amol Rajan wants to be the next Tucker Carlson, he needs people to actually watch him” – The former Today host is dreaming big with his new YouTube venture, but that ambition counts for little when only 42 people are viewing live, write Ed Cumming in the Telegraph.
• “Look me up on Wikipedia and see how biased it is” – In my Spectator column, I’ve written about Sandi Toksvig’s misguided plan to build a rival to Wikipedia – to be called Mappa Mundi and produced in collaboration with Cambridge University.
• “Marco Pierre White: ‘Labour doesn’t understand business’” – The original rock-star chef speaks candidly about Andy Burnham, the mounting pressure on Britain’s hospitality industry, and his new venture into bacon and sausage sales, reports the Telegraph.
• “I’m cringing so much it hurts” – Dan Hannan reacts to Ed Miliband’s latest foray into social media.

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