A petition over Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit cuts for chronically ill and disabled people which began to go viral has now received a response from the government. In short, it is dismissive and callous – with one political party slamming it as ‘disrespectful’. So, you know what to do: sign the petition even more.
DWP benefit cuts: a vital new petition
In March, DWP boss Liz Kendall finally laid out the government’s sweeping catalogue of plans to ‘reform’ disability and health-related income-based benefits. It set this out in its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper.
Broadly, this made for a callous combination of catastrophic cuts that will harm chronically ill and disabled claimants.
The government is now consulting on some of these DWP plans until 30 June. You can respond to this here. Scandalously however, it isn’t consulting on many of its most dangerous proposals. Of course, this is those that will hit chronically ill and disabled people hardest.
So, chronically ill and disabled Leicester West resident Abi Broomfield started a parliamentary petition.
This demands that the Labour Party government stop the cuts it has set out. In particular, Broomfield has honed in on some of the worst, most damaging proposals. Notably, these are largely cuts that will leave chronically ill and disabled people unable to work worse off. Or, it will otherwise deny people benefit entitlements entirely.
‘Support, not hardship and deprivation’
Notably, the petition reads:
We want the Government to halt all planned benefit cuts for disabled people unable to work. Instead of reducing benefits, we want them to rise in line with inflation. We want support, not hardship and deprivation, for those who cannot work.
We feel that disabled people who cannot work should not have their benefits cut. Acquired Disabilities can end careers, and we feel that those who previously contributed to tax deserve support. We also believe that people born Disabled need steady support without cuts.
Broomfield told the Canary what compelled her to set up the DWP-based petition. Firstly, she highlighted that:
Not everyone can work, and this Labour government is penalising Disabled people because of this very fact.
And notably, the government’s plans will directly affect her too:
As it currently stands, I, along with hundreds of thousands of others, will be losing my PIP entitlement. I rely on mine to help pay for some of the additional costs I face due to my disabilities.
Moreover, Broomfield spelled out the brutal reality of these DWP cuts as entirely contrary to Labour’s ‘back-to-work’ claims:
These cuts won’t get Disabled people into work; instead, they will cause serious physical and mental harm, and even deaths within our community. Plus, it’s going to seriously damage an already vulnerable NHS and care sector as Disabled people facing these cuts will inevitably have to rely on them more.
Of course, the impact of Labour’s DWP cuts is horrific. For example, a Freedom of Information request revealed that around 1.3 million chronically ill and disabled people will lose some, if not all, of their DWP PIP entitlement.
However, that hasn’t stopped the government from responding with no regard to the people affected.
A pitiful response
The DWP said on the petition’s webpage:
The Government must urgently tackle the spiralling welfare bill, restore trust and fairness in the system, and protect disabled people. Social security reforms will therefore continue as planned.
This utterly harsh response feels more at home with a Tory government than a Labour one. It went on to say:
Our welfare system is broken, costing almost a third as much as it does to run the NHS in England while leaving people for years on benefits with no offer of support, no hope of a future in work and no opportunity to improve their standard of living. Working-age adults who are in work are three times less likely to be in poverty than those out of work. We need to act to end the inequality that sees disabled people and people with health conditions trapped out of jobs, despite many wanting to work, and ensure our welfare system is there for people who need it, now and long into the future.
Abi has hit back on X:
DWP has responded to the petition. Here are my initial thoughts in a thread.
It's a wall of text which as a Dyslexic is extremely difficult to read. It shows again the little care they have shown to Disabled people throughout this process by not providing an accessible format.
— Chronically Vexed she/they (@ChronicallyVex) April 29, 2025
The DWP: “deeply disrespectful”
A Harmony Party UK spokesperson said of the DWP response to the petition:
The government has published a frankly deeply disrespectful response to the petition “Protect Disabled people who cannot work from planned cuts to benefits”.
Much of it is formed of previously released information (a rundown of what we already knew) – and it leans heavily on false claims, such as the notion that cutting disability benefits will, in some sense, “protect disabled people”. The claim that the benefits system is unduly costly is also a lie. As such we are urging people to keep signing the petition and force a debate with 100,000 signatures.
Having digested that disrespectful and lazy response, we say that it is all the more clear that those within the Commons who are against these cuts deserve to be given the opportunity to rise and speak for us in a debate – at least once.
After all, disabled people deserve that opportunity of a voice at the very least.
This is why it is vital that you share and sign this petition and support us in helping it reach 100,000 signatures.
So, clearly the Labour government has no plans to change course on its cruel DWP cuts. So, you know what to do. You can sign the petition here.
NHS staff across three health trusts in Dorset are facing a major attack on their jobs, pensions, and pay, as nearly 1,300 workers—including porters, housekeeping, catering, and estates staff—are threatened with transfer to a private subsidiary company (SubCo). This move, driven by the University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, is a clear step towards privatisation, set to happen as soon as September.
1,300 NHS staff in Dorset set to have their jobs privatised
As World Socialist Web Site reported, during a recent Zoom meeting held for NHS workers in the area, union leaders failed to present any solid plan to stop the outsourcing and instead urged members to write letters to MPs and hospital boards.
Promises of protests, work-to-rules, or strike action that were floated in earlier discussions have been quietly shelved.
Gareth Drinkwater, Unison Branch Secretary at the University Hospitals Dorset Trust and chair of the meeting, pleaded with workers:
If you are not a member of a union, my desperate appeal is for you to join Unison. We need you to. This will give us the best chance of stopping these changes going ahead.
Yet, this appeal rings hollow when no real campaign is underway, and industrial action is ruled out unless membership hits 100%, a practically unachievable target.
Laurie Hackney, a local Unison organiser, echoed this stance:
A strike is a last resort. If it comes to a strike or protest or mass gathering, we need as close as we can get to 100% because we cannot do it half-cocked. Any kind of collective action requires more members, numbers.
Bowing down to corporations and the government
But this excuse ignores the union’s immense resources. Unison claims over 1.2 million members nationally, with more than half employed in the NHS, and reported an income of over £185 million last year. Yet they claim that holding a strike ballot in Dorset is “expensive,” even though they spend around £80 million annually on bureaucracy and expenses.
This approach exposes a pattern of betrayal: instead of fighting privatisation and cuts in the National Health Service, the union bureaucracy consistently collaborates with management and the government.
Their track record includes accepting pay caps, freezes, and below-inflation increases that have slashed the real earnings of NHS workers over the past 15 years. In 2018, a deal negotiated by Unison helped cut sickness enhancement pay and dismantle incremental pay progression, while falsely promising to boost morale.
The unions were equally complicit during the COVID-19 pandemic’s darkest days. Over 1,500 health workers died—many due to shortages of personal protective equipment—while unions like Unison stood by and enforced government policies that prioritised “herd immunity” over workers’ safety.
Now, with Labour’s health secretary Wes Streeting pushing further NHS privatisation and job cuts, including the expansion of SubCos, unions like Unison remain silent or, worse, willing collaborators.
The NHS sell off continues apace
Last week’s meeting failed to address the Labour Party’s role in accelerating the creation of these private subsidiaries, which began under Tony Blair’s government in 2006 and have only spread under Conservative governments.
By 2019, over 65 NHS Foundation Trusts operated or were planning SubCos, where staff face lower pay, loss of NHS pension rights, reduced unsocial hours pay, and minimal employer pension contributions.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government insists that NHS trusts create these subsidiaries as part of “efficiency savings,” refusing to allocate necessary extra funding. Streeting has criticised what he calls a “begging bowl culture,” pushing staff to accept worsened conditions to help plug funding gaps.
Unison’s response in Dorset—to encourage polite engagement with management consultations and to channel frustration into writing letters—does nothing to protect hard-working NHS staff. This simply legitimises cuts and privatisation disguised as consultation, while failing to empower workers to organise real resistance.
Many NHS workers in Dorset and across the country desperately need more than empty promises and bureaucratic inaction. The call from campaign group NHS FightBack is for workers to boycott management-led briefings, organise independently through rank-and-file committees, and unite nationally to fight privatisation not with letters but with strikes and collective action.
NHS: take action
The message is clear: SubCos are not just administrative changes but a direct assault on jobs, pay, pensions, and working conditions for NHS staff. The failure of union leadership to lead a genuine fight against these attacks leaves workers vulnerable to the ongoing dismantling of the NHS.
NHS workers across Dorset and beyond are encouraged to come together to defend the health service, day in and day out, and speak out against the ongoing privatisation that threatens their livelihoods and the care patients receive.
The time for safe words and timid tactics has passed; it is action and solidarity that can make a difference.
According to a revealing report titled Saving Penalties the system is set up to cut benefits for anyone holding more than £6,000 in savings, with total loss of entitlement if savings rise above £16,000.
DWP Universal Credit: denying over one million families support
Between 2020 and 2022 alone, around two million families who should have qualified for DWP Universal Credit based on their income found their claims slashed or completely wiped out because of these punitive capital thresholds.
Out of those, approximately 830,000 families faced partial cutbacks, while a staggering 1.2 million families were denied any Universal Credit support whatsoever due to their savings.
Benefits are means-tested on both income and capital. But the long-term neglect of the capital rules in Universal Credit means they are now undermining wider Government efforts to encourage low-income families to save.
Broome went on to highlight that valuable schemes aimed at helping poorer families build financial security—such as Help to Save and Lifetime ISAs—are strangely left out of the government’s exemption list. This means people actively trying to do the right thing by putting money aside are instead penalised for prudent saving.
She argued;
Important schemes such as Help to Save and Lifetime ISAs should be exempted from these capital rules so that families doing the right thing by saving into them aren’t penalised for doing so.
Inflation has compounded the problems
The problem is made worse because the DWP has not adjusted the Universal Credit savings thresholds for inflation.
Figures show that while only 35% of UK families had savings over £6,000 between 2006 and 2008, this has jumped to nearly half the population (45%) by 2020-22. If the limits had been properly indexed to inflation, the thresholds would have risen to over £10,000 and £27,000 respectively, sparing many from losing vital benefits due to modest saving efforts.
In its current form, the system creates sharp “cliff edges” where a tiny increase in savings can result in sudden and severe withdrawal of financial support.
For example, a family entitled to £750 a month in DWP Universal Credit based on income alone would see their payments reduced to £576 if they had savings of exactly £16,000. But if their savings rose by just one penny above that figure, their entitlement would vanish completely.
DWP Universal Credit: catastrophic cliff edges
This draconian penalty system contradicts the official aim of DWP Universal Credit, which promised to smooth out such cliff edges and provide a more compassionate safety net for those struggling.
The Saving Penalties report exposes the DWP’s failure to keep benefit rules fair and up to date, effectively forcing low-income families to choose between safeguarding their financial future and receiving essential support to meet day-to-day living costs.
With millions caught in this no-win scenario, it is clear the government must urgently reconsider the capital rules within DWP Universal Credit to prevent punishing vulnerable people for saving what little they can.
All this comes at a time when many families rely on DWP Universal Credit just to get by.
The DWP’s stubborn refusal to adjust outdated savings thresholds and exemption lists risks undermining efforts to boost financial resilience among the most disadvantaged in society, leaving them facing impossible choices and unnecessary hardship.
I was one of these people who thought the British justice system was brilliant, that you could only be found guilty if you’ve committed a crime, and if you’re telling the truth and are innocent then they’ll protect you- how wrong I was!
– Brian Buckle
Brian Buckle: sentenced 33 years for crimes he did not commit
Brian Buckle, 52, from Pembrokeshire, says his life was good. Then one day, out of the blue, he was accused of rape and sexual assault of a child, dating back to the mid 1990s. He spent two years on bail and then, in 2017, a jury at Swansea Crown Court found him guilty of all 16 counts, by a majority of 11 to 1. Buckle was given a 33-year sentence, and told he would serve a minimum of 15. But, he was innocent.
Buckle said:
My life’s really bad now. Getting up in the morning is the worst for me. I dream about prison all the time. I just can’t get it out of my head. But as the day goes on, I get better and better, then I have to start another day. It’s still really hard work. I do struggle with life, and I’m not the same anymore.
Buckle was locked up for more than five years before his name was eventually cleared. He says life behind bars was traumatic, especially in the sex offender’s prison in which he spent most of his sentence. Buckle expressed that:
It turned me into a horrible person. I just hated everybody, and I was so angry. 80% of the time I was in my cell, because I couldn’t deal with people, and didn’t want to speak to them. I just sat there thinking Where’s all this come from? For five and a half years I cried more or less every time I spoke to my wife. I couldn’t see an end to it.
Devastated Buckle’s life financially and emotionally
Luckily for Brian Buckle, his family never doubted his innocence, and devoted all their time, energy, and money into clearing his name. Although there were no legal grounds to challenge the conviction immediately after his trial, the determination and resilience of Elaine, Buckle’s wife of 33 years, changed this.
Elaine found Stephen Vullo KC to represent her husband, and with the help of a private investigator and new forensic evidence, Buckle said that:
the truth kept bubbling to the surface.
By the time of his appeal, in September 2022, there was witness evidence that the real abuser – who had set Buckle up to take the blame for what he had done – was a violent, intimidating man. He was also a sexual offender and paedophile.
Buckle’s conviction was eventually overturned, and a retrial ordered, which took place in May 2023. This time, the jury returned unanimous not guilty verdicts, in less than an hour. Buckle was a free man.
But five and a half years in prison, for a crime he did not commit, has devastated Buckle, financially and emotionally. His well-paid job meant he was ineligible for legal aid, so it was left to his family to find the money to fight his conviction. They spent all their savings and inheritance, took out loans, and Buckle’s father-in-law even sold his house to raise money for the cause, which cost them a total of £500,000.
Since leaving prison, Buckle has also been diagnosed with PTSD, as a direct result of his false accusation and imprisonment and has been unable to work since his release.
Government failing victims of a miscarriage of justice
Brian Buckle said how:
The company where I previously worked has been really good to me and said I could go back there, but my mental health is a problem. There’s no way I could go back to work. I’m all over the place, and I’ve had no support really, since I’ve been out, from the government or anything.
Buckle has sought compensation for his wrongful conviction, but his application has been refused by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).
Until 2014, an individual who was wrongfully convicted, had gone to prison, then had their conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal, and been acquitted on all charges at a retrial, would be paid compensation. But changes to the law now mean victims of a miscarriage of justice must not only be cleared of their charges but also prove their innocence ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ before they can receive a payout. This test is impossible to meet for most people and contradicts the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
In reality, because there’s no oral hearing, and it’s just done on paper and dealt with by someone at the Ministry of Justice, unless you get DNA evidence saying someone else did the crime, they just work on the assumption that you didn’t prove your innocence, even though the jury found you not guilty, or the Court of Appeal quashed your conviction. Watching Brian’s case, I knew the jury would find him not guilty. We didn’t win the trial by a little bit, but by a long, long way. Brian has, in my opinion, more than met the test, in reality, but on a piece of paper sent to the MOJ it’s a different story.
According to Appeal, a charity dedicated to challenging wrongful convictions and promoting a fairer justice system, the MOJ refused 93% – more than 550 – of the compensation applications from wrongfully convicted people, in the eight years between 2016 and 2024.
Vullo said that:
The change, in 2014, was obviously done to save money, although the highest payout in any one year for the old compensation scheme was about £20 million which, for the government, is loose change at the back of a sofa. What the government did not want to happen was for somebody who was clearly guilty, and had got off on a technicality, to then be able to get compensation, and therefore embarrass the government. But I’ve been doing this for 30 years and never seen anyone get off in the Court of Appeal on a technicality.
A petition to demand justice and compensation for Buckle and others
Brian Buckle and Mr Vullo, are asking us to support their petition, demanding justice and compensation for Buckle, which will not only give him a chance to rebuild his life but, once it reaches 100,000 signatures, will also be debated in the House of Commons.
They are also calling for the new law regarding compensation to be reversed back to how it used to be, to not only try and help Buckle, but also others who may find themselves in a similar situation. Vullo, claims the previous compensation scheme was fair and just, and still a matter of discretion. Compensation was not automatic but, although the MOJ could still refuse it, about 86% of people received payment. This law is still used in most of Europe, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Vullo argued therefore argued that:
Yes, there’s going to potentially be the odd person in that group that may be guilty, that has got an appeal quashed and the jury found them not guilty. But our system is set up to protect the innocent. That protection is now gone. To make sure the government doesn’t embarrass itself by giving money to someone who’s guilty, it’s not giving money to anyone.
But if the government is not going to reverse this law, then it must be for the jury to make the decision as to whether someone has proven themselves to be innocent.
Buckle explained that:
When you’re found not guilty, this doesn’t mean the jury finds you innocent, but only that they can’t be sure you’re guilty. As the law stands now, you can’t prove you are innocent. That’s why the challenge we gave the government when we went up to Westminster was to get my jury back and ask them if they found me just not guilty or came to the conclusion that I was innocent. I know my jury found me innocent, because all the evidence proves it wasn’t me, including the complainant saying it wasn’t even me. Otherwise, there’s no way of proving beyond reasonable doubt.
Echoing this, Vullo said that:
Juries need to make this decision, because if there is this impossibly high test, that you have to prove you are innocent beyond reasonable doubt, it is inarguable that the best body to decide whether you are actually innocent has to be the jury. They’ve heard everything to do with the case and seen the demeanour of the people who gave evidence. If they’re going to keep this unfair system, to give it any chance of fairness, you have to make the jury decide, not someone from the MOJ dealing with it on paper. The person that made Brian’s decision hadn’t understood the case and made two or three really serious practical errors in their determination. And yet, there’s no appeal. Their decision is final.
‘Justice must go beyond acquittal’
The Law Commission recently published its consultation on the way criminal appeals are handled in England and Wales, including proposals to make it easier to overturn wrongful convictions. According to its initial findings, the new law regarding compensation is unfair, so the Law Commission has proposed lowering the standard, so although claimants would still need to prove their innocence, the evidence level would be much lower and wouldn’t require it to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
This would be an improvement: an acknowledgement that the situation is unfair. However, according to Vullo, who will be having further discussions with the Law Commission in the coming weeks, it does not yet go far enough.
Last month, Brian Buckle’s local MP, Ben Lake, also gave his support to the campaign. He led a debate in Parliament on ensuring compensation for victims of miscarriages of justice, and described Buckle’s situation as “a moral and legal failure”.
Lake told the Canary that:
It cannot be fair for our justice system to deny support to those who are forced to endure the trauma of wrongful conviction and imprisonment, and who often suffer irreparable harm to their mental health and reputation.
Most people will understandably – and quite reasonably – assume that victims of miscarriages of justice are compensated, particularly if they have spent time in custody before being pardoned or having their convictions quashed. Unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule for victims of miscarriages of justice across England and Wales. That is why the UK Government must act to ensure that those wrongfully convicted are compensated. Justice must go beyond acquittal – the innocent must be compensated so that they can rebuild their lives.
Buckle is now expecting to attend a meeting with the justice minister in the next few weeks.
Brian Buckle should be entitled to compensation for his wrongful conviction and the five years he spent in prison. Help his petition reach 100,000 signatures, so this issue can be debated in parliament, and the law can be changed. Sign here.
Despite recent capitulations to the pro-Israel lobby, the BBC has just broadcast a documentary by TV icon Louis Theroux on the “sociopathic” nature of the illegal settlement movement in occupied Palestine. And he’s already very clearly in the sights of the lobby.
Louis Theroux exposing racism, apartheid, and settler violence
Louis Theroux worked on The Settlers in response to reports that settlers were “accelerating the settlement process while being protected by the Israeli military”.
The documentary shows Rabbi Dov Lior, “one of the most prominent and influential rabbis in Israel” and “one the most dangerous people” in the country, calling Palestinian people “savages” and asserting:
There is no peace and never will be… This land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon, should be cleansed of these ‘camel riders’
The film also gives an insight into daily harassment of Palestinians by Israeli occupiers, Israel’s system of apartheid, and soldiers’ bullying and aggression (in this case of Theroux himself), with a clear instinct to get physical in order to impose their will.
One US settler claimed Palestinians’ connection with their land isn’t real, with no apparent irony. He said Zionists couldn’t allow a “Palestinian state right in the heart of Israel” (referring to the occupied West Bank) because:
to understand the Arab way of thinking, they understand there’s a war. They win the war if they get territory, they lose the war if they lose territory.
“Sociopathic”
Daniella Weiss is chair of the Nachala movement, which has long established illegal outposts in the West Bank. And she spoke to Louis Theroux about “using the magic system, Zionism” to try and colonise Gaza, saying “you establish communities, you bring Jewish families… this is how the state of Israel was established, and this is what we want to do in Gaza”. In a speech we see, she insisted:
We very much encourage and enable the population in Gaza to go to other countries. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza
And regarding the illegality of already-existent Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, she was defiant. When Theroux explained it was a war crime, she answered:
It’s a light felony
She claimed she had been involved in almost every illegal settlement since 1967. And she underplayed settler violence by saying:
Confrontation is not overt terror
She highlighted that “I have a lot of influence” over youngsters and politicians in Israel, more than her critics.
Theroux wanted to know if she considered the suffering of Palestinians as a result of her efforts, asking:
To think of other people, other children, not at all, that seems sociopathic, doesn’t it?
She answered:
No, not at all. This is normal
Theroux summed the settler movement up as “extreme ideology, delivered with a smile”.
Some media outlets have called The Settlers “potent“, “vital“, a “masterpiece“, and Louis Theroux’s “shocking best“. But those on the right have been quiet or combative.
The Telegraph, for example, said “Theroux’s approach is mismatched with the political reality of Israel” (whatever that means). It tried to shrug settler extremism off as a fringe phenomenon that the Israeli state dislikes (which it doesn’t), while suggesting 7 October 2023 justified settlers being heavily armed (despite that being truelong before 7 October). On the other hand, however, it was right to say “it’s a shame that journalists aren’t allowed into Gaza”. It just forgot to mention that this is because Israeli war criminals have been doing their best to hide their genocide by stopping foreign journalists from entering and killing dozens of local journalists.
Theroux also documented “the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement” back in 2011. So he was undoubtedly already on the Zionist radar. But in preparation for his new documentary, one prominent pro-Israel lobbyist preemptively attacked him with a February piece in the Spectatortitled “Why does Louis Theroux keep picking on Israeli settlers?” Because violent, racist colonialists don’t deserve scrutiny for committing war crimes, apparently.
The article’s author was Israeli-state apologist Jonathan Sacerdoti, a former spokesperson for highly controversial Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) who once bragged about “weaponising” antisemitism to banish Jeremy Corbyn from “public life”. You may remember that, back in 2020, Sacerdoti also joined other anti-socialist hacks in rescuing the failing Jewish Chronicle (JC), a right-wing, pro-Israel propaganda outlet with a long track record of dubious ethical behaviour. Their work smearing left-wing critics of Israeli crimes – together with a toxic coalition of other right-wing forces – very much paved the way for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the shamefully widespread apologism for it.
Will the BBC fold again?
Overall, the BBC‘s coverage of the Gaza genocide has been awful, with clear pro-Israel bias. In February, for example, genocide-apologists bullied the public broadcaster into pulling an important documentary about Gaza. Over a thousand UK-based media professionals condemned this “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. They accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.
Louis Theroux’s documentary is a piece of much-needed context. And that has been sorely lacking in the coverage of both the BBC and other outlets. Whatever comes next from the pro-Israel lobby, the BBC must resist the urge to throw its professional reputation even further into the gutter.
Since the new regime in Syria took power, there has been a wave of abductions targeting women and girls, particularly from minoritised communities. This accompanies an “escalation in the rate of civilian assassinations“, linked in many cases to “sectarian affiliation”.
Revenge, chaos, and opportunism contribute to worrying situation for women from minority groups in Syria
Last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) noted that, alongside “the deteriorating security chaos in different areas”:
the phenomena of kidnappings, blackmailing and [forcible] disappearance have reached worrying levels.
The lack of accountability for such actions, it said, have “encouraged criminals and gangs to commit more crimes”. And it explained that:
the fate of 50 Alawite women remains unknown after they disappeared under mysterious circumstances since the beginning of 2025
It added that no group seems to have claimed responsibility for the actions. However, the targeting of the Alawite minority group – from which the Assad dynasty came – suggests an element of collective revenge, although Druze and Christian women have also been targets.
Some reports describe the kidnappings as opportunistic enslavement. Others describe requests for excessive ransom payments. And they blame regime leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani (now calling himself Ahmed al-Sharaa) for creating “a security vacuum by dismissing all government police and security officials and emptying the country’s prisons”. Combining this with severe electricity shortages that leave many neighbourhoods dark at night, women in particular fear leaving home after sunset.
The new regime, meanwhile, has reportedly killed hundreds of Alawites this year in a wave of repression, blocking aid deliveries to the areas in question. Human rights groups believe these events may be war crimes.
Women and their families fear consequences for speaking out
The Daraj media outlet released an investigation about the kidnappings of Alawite women and girls. It noted that some criminals took their victims in broad daylight and in public places. Some who were released described suffering both physical and mental abuse. Others remain missing. And there are several cases of families receiving messages saying they had been forcibly married or taken out of Syria.
Daraj stressed that:
what makes the Alawite women’s and girls’ abductions especially difficult to resolve is that the kidnappers have… [been] telling the families and husbands to stay silent — or face the consequences.
At the same time, it said:
The fear of social stigma or “shame” in a conservative and traditional society — compounded by fear of retribution from the kidnappers — has forced the families of the abducted into a state of double silence.
One survivor of abduction spoke about hearing a foreign accent. Along with reports of foreign phone numbers being used, and of kidnappers taking women out of Syria, there are serious concerns about the potentially organised, transnational nature of the crimes.
The outlet asserted that:
Kidnappings and related stories are still being posted almost daily at the time of this report. Families are sharing images and pleas for information on social media in hopes of locating their daughters. The region’s ongoing security vacuum only fuels these cases
Syrian women who have spoken out about the phenomenon, meanwhile, have reportedly faced hostility or threats, including from government officials and militants.
Getting the West on side by appeasing Israel
Israel’s genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon very much helped to pave the way, alongside Russia’s ongoing quagmire in Ukraine, for Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists to topple the Assad regime late last year. So it would only seem right for the new regime to be friendly towards Israel, especially when that’s usually a key condition for positive relations with the US empire. Indeed, the US appears to be demanding the repression of Palestinians in Syria as a condition for dropping sanctions.
Al-Jawlani (Al-Sharaa) seems to be obliging. He has apparently said he’s willing to normalise relations with Israel. He had been repressing Palestinian groups. And his response to continuing Israeli occupation in the south of Syria has been weak. Just this week, a report noted “a significant increase in Israeli military activity throughout April, highlighting heightened tensions along the border strip with the occupied Golan Heights”. As Hawar Newsexplained:
The movements included field incursions, the setup of temporary checkpoints, search operations within villages, and the confiscation of civilian equipment. These actions were accompanied by continuous overflights of warplanes and drones.
raised concerns about attempts to impose a new reality on the ground or preparations for broader security operations, coinciding with political statements suggesting a long-term presence within Syrian territory.
An agreement regarding Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights could well be the cornerstone of a final deal.
The West is happy to sideline women’s rights in Syria
While the US is playing hardball, the UK has already decided to lift numerous sanctions on Syria. The leaders of establishment institutions the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), meanwhile, seem to be looking forward to having a good relationship with the Syrian regime. The IMF’s managing director, for example, hoped Syrian institutions could soon “plug themselves in the world economy”.
The normalisation of an extremist as the new leader of Syria seems inevitable. But as the process continues, we must continue highlighting the grave concerns for women’s rights in particular as the ultra-conservative regime cements itself in power.
Speaking to the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg, Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer has called out the ‘interim guidance’ published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on trans rights:
This morning @thegreenparty has called for the EHRC’s harsh and ill-considered guidance on single-sex spaces to be withdrawn. As it stands the guidance puts trans people at risk of discrimination and violence and clearly hasn’t been drawn up with trans people’s input. I’ll be… pic.twitter.com/cqGBh0ZV1F
In a decision which has all the hallmarks of TERF Island, the UK Supreme Court has ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer exclusively to characteristics assigned at birth – thanks to a campaign by anti-trans campaigners who have mobilised under anti-feminist left hate campaigns and far-right hate movements.
This judgment, delivered by Lord Hodge, has significant implications for the rights of transgender women across the UK, as well as other members of gender queer communities.
Our article also noted:
The case was brought forward by the anti-trans campaign group For Women Scotland, which has a history of challenging the inclusion of trans women in definitions of “woman” within Scottish legislation . Their legal challenge was supported by author and anti-trans bigot J.K. Rowling, who contributed £70,000 to the cause.
The group predictably argued that the inclusion of trans women with Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs) in the definition of “woman” diluted the meaning of the term and infringed upon the rights of cisgender women.
They sought a legal interpretation that would exclude trans women from this category, regardless of their legal recognition.
This ruling effectively excludes trans women, even those with GRCs, from legal protections and opportunities afforded to cisgender women under the Equality Act.
The decision drew significant criticism:
We believe the UK is now in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention of Human Rights and we plan to ask the High Court for a declaration of incompatibility.
Now, the EHRC has issued an “interim update”, stating:
We know that many people have questions about the judgment and what it means for them. Our updated guidance will provide further clarity. While this work is ongoing, this update is intended to highlight the main consequences of the judgment. Employers and other duty-bearers must follow the law and should take appropriate specialist legal advice where necessary.
Far from clarifying the Supreme Court decision, however, it’s actually leading to more confusion, as QUEER AF note:
The guidance sets out the definition that a trans woman is a biological man, and a trans man is a biological woman. On this basis it sets out:
Trans women “should not be permitted to use” the women’s facilities, and trans men “should not be permitted to use” the men’s on the basis continued access would mean they are not ‘single-sex’
In some circumstances, the law also allows trans women to be prevented from using the men’s facilities, and trans men can be prevented from using the women’s.
Trans people should not be left in a position where there are no facilities to use, even if only facilities for ‘biological’ men and women are provided
Organizations that have public spaces, including workplaces, should provide mixed-sex facilities. Further, stipulating cubicles is not sufficient; but they must be single lockable rooms intended for the use of one person at a time.
We’re really worried that the guidance from the EHRC is has been rushed, clearly. It’s been ill-thought out in my opinion, and it’s really obvious that they have not listened to trans people – possibly not consulted them at all – in the in the preparation of this guidance. And it seems to fly in the face of the strong tradition of tolerance we have in Britain. For example, the EHRC guidance seems to be saying that if a lesbian association or venue wants to include trans women – and and let’s bear in mind that lesbian women, non-trans lesbian women are amongst the most supportive of trans people in the whole of society – the… advice… it seems to say that they won’t be allowed to.
Denyer also said:
The Greens are calling for the guidance to be withdrawn. It’s clearly rushed and ill-thought out, and they haven’t consulted all the people who’d be affected. Okay. We’re saying: withdraw it, think again, consult everyone who’d be affected by this guidance, and then come out with something more thought out.
Denyer has previously called for clarity on the Supreme Court ruling:
“Imagine how unsettling it must be to not know which toilet you’re meant to be going to”
Green Party Co-Leader @carla_denyer says the Supreme Court ruling on gender lacks ‘clarity’ and calls on the Government to ‘urgently clarify’ how it intends to interpret it#Pestonpic.twitter.com/HAuxQgazI1
On 23 April, Adrian Ramsay MP, co-leader of the Green Party, was interviewed on the Today programme on the topic of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of woman and sex under the Equality Act. In this interview, Adrian was asked 5 times whether he believes trans women are women. He failed to give an answer to this question.
As the youth and student wing of the Green Party, we are unequivocally pro trans and agree with the Green Party policy that states “Trans men are men, trans women are women and non-binary identities are real and valid.” We are therefore disappointed to see the co-leader of the party failing to show solidarity with trans people following the fear caused by this ruling. It is vital that as a progressive party we are united in our support of marginalised people and that must include trans people and the entire LGBTIQA+ community. We call on all elected Greens to use their voice to speak up for trans people and engage with the trans community on issues that affect their rights.
We want to reassure trans members of the Young Greens that we remain pro trans and will never back down from calling out transphobia wherever it appears.
Wider criticism of the EHRC trans rights guidance
Many are criticising the EHRC’s intervention:
This update from the EHRC entirely overlooks the protections afforded to trans people under the characteristic of Gender Reassignment in the Equality Act 2010. It is unnecessary, unworkable and ungovernable. The EHRC has a duty to safeguard trans people; it is failing. https://t.co/o8DcuI6JLA
The interim guidance from the EHRC is appalling, reflecting how that body has also been gerrymandered by the Tories. In some circumstances, apparently, trans people can use neither 'male' nor 'female' facilities. So where should they go, please?
The fact that they released this terrible guidance at 8:14 PM on a Friday suggests they were aware of how weak and unworkable it is and hoped it would go unnoticed and unchallenged. https://t.co/o8DcuI6JLA
Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer described the situation as follows:
This EHRC guidance looks intended to make it impossible for trans people to step outside their homes.
It is cruel, unworkable, beyond the SC judgement & confirms what the org's own staff said back in 2022 about it now being used to push an anti-trans, anti-human rights agenda.
Steph Richards of the trans advocacy and human rights group TransLucent made the following legal points:
(1) As part of the process to gain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), a trans person has to sign a Statutory Declaration (SD) witnessed by a solicitor (or similar) that they will live the rest of their life in their new gender.
In other words, trans men will live like men, and trans women will live life as women. SDs are a promise to the Crown, and if someone breaks the promise, it’s a criminal offence by way of the Perjury Act 1911. The punishment is up to two years in prison and/or an unlimited fine. GRC holders are apparently now unable to live like ordinary people. Are they breaking their SD?
(2) To gain a GRC, the applicant must live in their chosen gender for two years. This requirement is often known as “Real Life Experience”. I take that to mean trans men use male facilities and trans women use female facilities. Does the judgment raise the possibility that GRC applicants may not be able to fulfil this obligation and, consequently, no one can apply for a GRC?
(3) The UK has encompassed the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) requirements into the Human Rights Act 1998. I suspect there are three issues here.
(3a) Does the judgment and EHRC advice amount to inhuman or degrading treatment of trans people?
(3b) What about freedom of expression?
(3c) We all have a right to a private life (as outlined in Article 8 of the ECHR). Does the judgment and advice from the EHRC contravene those rights?
Legal arguments abound. The discrimination lawyer Robin Moira White has suggested that the EHRC’s advice (also known as an “interim update”) appears to be a potential breach of Articles 3, 8, and 14 of the ECHR.
We should not be surprised by the EHRC advice. The Tories, (as part of their culture war) packed the EHRC with gender-critical activists.
The Telegraph headlined Falkner saying she is gender-critical. Henderson has strong links with the evangelical right. Reindorf has links to the trans-hostile LGB Alliance, which has used the address of 55 Tufton St.
Yesterday, at the Southampton protest, a historian gave a speech calling the current situation “the cycle of persecution”.
One thing is obvious.
The Labour Government proudly announced its plan to recover the UK’s global reputation as a leader in LGBT human rights.
Just now, that ambition is in tatters.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT THREAD TO HIGHLIGHT LEGAL ISSUES REGARDING FWS vs SG AND THE RELATING ADVICE FROM THE EHRC.
Government ministers have suggested that the judgment has clarified the EA. In my opinion, it asks more questions than it answers.
— Steph Richards: (She/her) – Say NO to hate. (@PompeySteph) April 27, 2025
Confusion and oppression
Buck Angel, pictured below, is one of the rare trans people who have spoken favourably about the UK Supreme Court’s decision. Angel is also a trans man, which would mean he’d likely be using women’s bathrooms and changing rooms in the UK if the EHRC had their way:
Standing naked to the world. Putting myself out there for many years. Always on my terms not yours. Saying things I want to say because I feel the need. Criticism is not hate. I see things. Why should I not say anything? Intentions are what you should look at not your feelings.… pic.twitter.com/AFJwZjAfif
The Supreme Court ruling has made Britain an outlier when it comes to global trans rights, and the EHRC guidance has done nothing besides confuse things even further.
After a heart-wrenching five-year struggle, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is once again facing the Supreme Court over its refusal to provide bereavement support payments to a grieving husband. This ongoing legal battle spotlights the harsh realities faced by disabled people and their loved ones in the welfare system, which appears out of touch and unwilling to show compassion.
The DWP: fighting a grieving husband
Daniel Jwanczuk has been fighting tirelessly for justice after his wife Suzzi, who lived with severe disabilities her entire life, passed away. Suzzi’s disabilities prevented her from ever working, which led the DWP to reject Daniel’s claim for £4,300 in bereavement payments on the grounds that she had not met National Insurance contribution requirements.
The rules effectively penalise disabled people who cannot work, extending hardship to their bereaved families.
Daniel’s fight has already been won twice in court — with victories in the High Court and the Court of Appeal — exposing the injustice embedded in the system. Yet despite these rulings, the DWP has persisted in appealing, dragging Daniel through years of emotional and financial distress, all while refusing to acknowledge the unique challenges faced by disabled people and those who love them.
Daniel himself has been forced to rely on food parcels and seek help wherever possible during this agonising time, a demoralising experience that no grieving person should have to endure. He said:
She was the most kind-hearted, generous woman that I have ever met. I was on food parcels. I was down getting help from anyone that I could, which was extremely demoralising.
Daniel emphasises that his fight against the DWP is not about the money but the principle and sense of justice. He said:
From day one, it was more about the principle and the injustice than about the money. It has made my grief continue, with me feeling like I can’t mentally lay her to rest.
A disgraceful case that the department should not be fighting
His lawyers from the Public Law Project, including Matthew Court, have expressed frustration at the seemingly disproportionate nature of the DWP’s persistence. Court said:
We can speculate but I don’t know the reasons why. It does seem disproportionate, but they’re the only ones that can really answer why they’ve fought this so far.
Daniel’s case holds wider significance for disabled people who have been excluded from basic financial recognition in death simply because they could not meet the work requirements imposed by the DWP. He said:
I want all disabled people who were unable to work due to their severe disabilities to be recognised in death. Suzzi was a wonderful person who contributed much to my life and the lives of others. She and I shouldn’t be treated any differently just because she had medical conditions that meant she was unable to work throughout her life.
This case highlights the cruel reality for many disabled people and their families who are left behind by a welfare system fixated on contribution records rather than fairness or compassion.
The continued refusal of the DWP to concede despite losing twice shows an administration more interested in cutting costs and clinging to outdated rules than offering dignity and support to bereaved families.
The DWP: treating people appallingly in death, as in life
For Daniel, this is more than a legal battle — it is about finding closure and the ability to grieve properly after losing the person he loved most:
It has made my grief continue, with me feeling like I can’t mentally lay her to rest.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear this case, thousands of disabled people and bereaved families will watch closely, hoping that justice will finally be served in a system that all too often fails those who need it most.
In a recent meeting, trade unionists heard that “there will be no global climate justice, no global just transition without the liberation of Palestine”. One example of this was that, “just in the first two months of the genocide in Palestine, the CO2 emissions by Israel were superior to the annual emissions of more than 20 nations in the Global South”.
Delegates at the meeting reaffirmed their solidarity with the Palestinian people, specifically through Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) energy embargo campaigns. But there was one speech in particular that absolutely everyone must listen to very carefully to understand the connection between Palestine and climate destruction.
Linking the energy transition and Palestine freedom in the union movement
Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) has brought unions and allies together since 2012 to advocate for:
democratic control and social ownership of energy, in ways that promote solutions to the climate crisis, address energy poverty, resist the degradation of both land and people, and respond to the attacks on workers’ rights and protections.
a growing commitment among Global South trade unions to fight for an energy transition guided by planning, cooperation and a public goods framework.
In February this year, “120 union leaders and allies from 35 countries gathered in Mexico City for the Second Inter-Regional TUED South meeting”. And they had a session:
to review actionable strategy and reiterate the call on union leaders within the TUED network to stand in solidarity with the struggles of the Palestinian people.
But it was one speaker in particular who excellently summed up the importance of linking the fight for a just energy transition with the liberation of Palestine.
The Gaza genocide is a rehearsal for the Global North’s future treatment of climate refugees
Hamza Hamouchene is the North Africa programme coordinator at the Transnational Institute, “an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic, and sustainable planet”. And he told the delegates at the TUED South meeting that:
It may feel misplaced or even inappropriate to talk about ecological and climate and energy questions in the context of genocide, displacement, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. But I would strongly argue that there are strong intersections between the ‘climate justice’ and the ‘just transition’ struggle with the ‘liberation of Palestine’ struggle. In fact, I would say that there will be no global climate justice, no global just transition without the liberation of Palestine.
He explained that:
Palestine in a way concentrates all the ugliness and the contradiction of the capitalist, imperialist system and it shows its general tendency towards more violence, more militarism, more war, and cruel use of outright violence.
Colombian president Petro said very strong words: ‘genocide and barbaric acts unleashed against the Palestinian people is what awaits those who are fleeing the South because of the climate crisis. What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.’ He is absolutely right. Because the genocide in Palestine is a harbinger of worse things to come if we do not organise and fight back vigorously.
Why have large carbon-consuming countries allowed the systematic murder of thousands of children in Gaza? Because Hitler has already entered their homes and they are getting ready to defend their high levels of carbon consumption and reject the exodus it causes.
We can then see the future: the breakdown of democracy, the end, and the barbarism unleashed against our people, the people who do not emit CO2, the poor people.
Ruling classes have proven their willingness to sacrifice millions of people at the altar of profit and domination
Hamouchene continued by stressing that:
The global ruling classes and the Empire are already willing to sacrifice millions of black and brown bodies, as well as poor white working class, to maintain their profits, the accumulation of capital, and their domination.
They re “willing to fund genocide, to fund displacement”, he asserted. But the situation in Gaza is more than that, he added:
It is not just a genocide. A lot of analysts and researchers have been coming up with all these terms—from urbicide to domicide to epistemicide—but also ecocide. I think the most appropriate way, in my opinion, to describe what is happening is a holocide, which means the utter destruction of the social and ecological fabric of life in Palestine.
The death and destruction in Palestine and in other places around the world, he insisted, also show a deep connection between “the military-industrial complex” and “the ecological and climate crisis”. As he highlighted:
Just in the first two months of the genocide in Palestine, the CO2 emissions by Israel were superior to the annual emissions of more than 20 nations in the Global South…. Half of those emissions are due to the transport and shipping of weaponry by the United States, which shows the deep complicity in genocide and ecocide in that part of the world.
Imperialist control in the Middle East is key to ongoing climate destruction
Perhaps Hamouchene’s most powerful contribution, however, was on the central importance of Israel in securing US dominance in the oil-rich Middle East – a critical driver of climate change. Because he argued:
we cannot dissociate the struggle against US-led imperialism and global fossil capitalism from the struggle for Palestinian liberation
And he explained that:
US hegemony rests on two key pillars in the region and beyond. First, Israel as a Euro-American settler colony, which is an advanced imperialist outpost in the so-called Middle East. Israel is the number one ally of the United States and keeps US hegemony and domination of the region and control of its vast oil resources. The second pillar are the reactionary oil-rich Gulf monarchies.
Therefore, he insisted:
the Palestinian cause is not merely a moral human rights issue, but is fundamentally and essentially a struggle against US-led imperialism and global fossil capitalism. So basically, there will be no climate justice, no just transition without the dismantling of the deeply racist Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel and the overthrow of the reactionary Gulf monarchies.
So what do trade unions and allies need to do for Palestine?
In light of the above analysis, Hamouchene rallied delegates to support the transformation of words into action on Palestine. He said:
Colombia has shown the way when they stopped the export of coal to Israel. We need the same thing from South Africa. We need the same thing from Brazil, who provides around 9 to 10% of crude oil to Israel. We need the same thing from Nigeria, from Gabon, that still provide fossil fuels that are being used to massacre Palestinians—to fuel genocide, displacement, to fuel infrastructure of dispossession, to fuel the murderous F35 bombers and AI infrastructure that kills Palestinians by the day.
And he concluded that:
we need to stand together to push our own countries and our own trade unions to have a serious conversation about Palestine and how do we show concrete and active solidarity.
Backing the words up with action really matters
Brazilian speaker Andressa Oliveira Soares later backed Hamouchene’s call up by describing an energy embargo on Israel as “a matter of sovereignty for the Global South”. In Brazil, she said, pressure is increasing on the state to step in and take action. But at the same time, she pointed out, there are also some countries that maybe don’t sell products directly to Israel but do sell “flags of convenience” that facilitate shipments of resources to Israel.
Meanwhile, she asserted, there are companies that are “experts in stealing water from Palestinians”, which try to sell that expertise to governments in the Global South. Boycotting Chevron over its complicity with Israel’s crimes is another step unions and allies can take, she stressed, as are setting up Apartheid Free Zones, ensuring there is No Harbour For Genocide, and investing ethically.
Asad Rehman from War on Want and Friends of the Earth, meanwhile, argued:
this, I think, is a class war. Because what we’re seeing around the world is a war on the poor. We’re seeing a war on the planet. We’re seeing a war on workers. And we’re seeing a war on people that they see as being disposable—black, brown, and the poor—and the Palestinians are at the forefront.
He added that:
what’s happening on Palestine is also important for us. Because in the Global North, the reaction of the state to our protests has been to demonise us, to criminalise us.
And he said:
We’re seeing now also the same ‘walls and fences’ narrative that Israel has used in terms of the West Bank and Gaza and Palestine now being exported all over the world… the same technologies are being transplanted all around the world. And already Israel is saying, ‘This is battle-tested weaponry. This is battle-tested surveillance’ and already… selling it to some of our despotic regimes.
That’s why “we need a new internationalism”, he stressed, and:
the trade union movement has to be at the forefront of building and rebuilding a global anti-apartheid movement
Water companies in England and Wales are spending around six times more on fixing the sewage system than comparable countries like Denmark, where water is publicly owned and locally operated. The regulator Ofwat passes on costs for privately-owned infrastructure investments onto the public through bill increases.
Water companies have “unbelievably high costs”… apparently..
Campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) found that private water companies upgrading a sewage plant covering Oxford would cost £435m, much higher than the £40m initially quoted. The sewage works would serve up to 267,000 people.
In comparison, building a whole new sewage works in Assens, Denmark cost £29m. This is a country where the cost of living is higher and the cost of sewage equipment is one of the most expensive in the continent. The Assens system serves 100,000 people.
It wasn’t just the epidemic of ridiculous and unbelievably high costs that inspired WASP to investigate water company pricing, it was also the casual approach the entire industry has to adding eye-watering increases that, in the Oxford case, started at an already alarming £40m in 2021 and rocketed through £130m, £337m and now to £435m, without a credible explanation.
Even in the US building sewage plants costs much less at £248m for a new plant serving one million people. This raises the question of whether water companies have a profit-extraction scheme underway through overpricing sewage infrastructure and passing the cost to bill payers.
“Game the system”
Ofwat has said it’s not formally investigating the claims that water companies are ripping off the public through such overcharging. Indeed, Ofwat itself is facing legal action for allowing water companies to pass the costs of their own investment failures onto the public.
The regulator’s hands-off approach to auditing and detail has allowed companies to game the system
Overall, Ofwat has approved £104bn in infrastructure investment from water companies for the next five years. That gives ample space for further rip offs from the water firms, using their own sewage spill mess to profiteer beyond the usual scam of dividends they leech from the water supply.
Indeed, the upgrade of Cambridge sewage treatment works is costing £400m and will serve around 260,000 people. WASP has branded it a “national issue”.
When the US Embassy knocked on my door in late 2024, I was both pleased and more than a little suspicious.
I’d worked with them before, but the organisation where I did that work, Tohatoha, had closed its doors. My new project, Dark Times Academy, was specifically an attempt to pull myself out of the grant cycle, to explore ways of funding the work of counter-disinformation education without dependence on unreliable governments and philanthropic funders more concerned with their own objectives than the work I believed then — and still believe — is crucial to the future of human freedom.
But despite my efforts to turn them away, they kept knocking, and Dark Times Academy certainly needed the money. I’m warning you all now: There is a sense in which everything I have to say about counter-disinformation comes down to conversations about how to fund the work.
There is nothing I would like more than to talk about literally anything other than funding this work. I don’t love money, but I do like eating, having a home, and being able to give my kids cash.
I have also repeatedly found myself in roles where other people look to me for their livelihoods; a responsibility that I carry heavily and with more than a little clumsiness and reluctance.
But if we are to talk about President Donald Trump and disinformation, we have to talk about money. As it is said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And the lack of it is the manifestation of that evil.
Trump and his attack on all of us — on truth, on peace, on human freedom and dignity — is, at its core, an attack that uses money as a weapon. It is an attack rooted in greed and in avarice.
In his world, money is power
But in that greed lies his weakness. In his world, money is power. He and those who serve him and his fascist agenda cannot see beyond the world that money built. Their power comes in the form of control over that world and the people forced to live in it.
Of course, money is just paper. It is digital bits in a database sitting on a server in a data centre relying on electricity and water taken from our earth. The ephemeral nature of their money speaks volumes about their lack of strength and their vulnerability to more powerful forces.
They know this. Trump and all men like him know their weaknesses — and that’s why they use their money to gather power and control. When you have more money than you and your whānau can spend in several generations, you suddenly have a different kind of relationship to money.
It’s one where money itself — and the structures that allow money to be used for control of people and the material world — becomes your biggest vulnerability. If your power and identity are built entirely on the power of money, your commitment to preserving the power of money in the world becomes an all-consuming drive.
Capitalism rests on many “logics” — commodification, individualism, eternal growth, the alienation of labour. Marx and others have tried this ground well already.
In a sense, we are past the time when more analysis is useful to us. Rather, we have reached a point where action is becoming a practical necessity. After all, Trump isn’t going to stop with the media or with counter-disinformation organisations. He is ultimately coming for us all.
What form that action must take is a complicated matter. But, first we must think about money and about how money works, because only through lessening the power of money can we hope to lessen the power of those who wield it as their primary weapon.
Beliefs about poor people
If you have been so unfortunate to be subject to engagement with anti-poverty programmes during the neoliberal era either as a client or a worker, you will know that one of the motivations used for denying direct cash aid to those in need of money is a belief on the part of government and policy experts that poor people will use their money in unwise ways, be it drugs or alcohol, or status purchases like sneakers or manicures.
But over and over again, there’s another concern raised: cash benefits will be spent on others in the community, but outside of those targeted with the cash aid.
You see this less now that ideas like a universal basic income (UBI) and direct cash transfers have taken hold of the policy and donor classes, but it is one of those rightwing concerns that turned out to be empirically accurate.
Poor people are more generous with their money and all of their other resources as well. The stereotype of the stingy Scrooge is one based on a pretty solid mountain of evidence.
The poor turn out to understand far better than the rich how to defeat the power that money gives those who hoard it — and that is community. The logic of money and capital can most effectively be defeated through the creation and strengthening of our community ties.
Donald Trump and those who follow him revel in creating a world of atomised individuals focused on themselves; the kind of world where, rather than relying on each other, people depend on the market and the dollar to meet their material needs — dollars. of course, being the source of control and power for their class.
Our ability to fund our work, feed our families, and keep a roof over our heads has not always been subject to the whims of capitalists and those with money to pay us. Around the world, the grand multicentury project known as colonialism has impoverished us all and created our dependency.
Colonial projects and ‘enclosures’
I cannot speak as a direct victim of the colonial project. Those are not my stories to tell. There are so many of you in this room who can speak to that with far more eloquence and direct experience than I. But the colonial project wasn’t only an overseas project for my ancestors.
Enclosure is one of the core colonial logics. Enclosure takes resources (land in particular) that were held in common and managed collectively using traditional customs and hands them over to private control to be used for private rather than communal benefit. This process, repeated over and over around the globe, created the world we live in today — the world built on money.
As we lose control over our access to what we need to live as the land that holds our communities together, that binds us to one another, is co-opted or stolen from us, we lose our power of self-determination. Self-governance, freedom, liberty — these are what colonisation and enclosure take from us when they steal our livelihoods.
As part of my work, I keep a close eye on the approaches to counter-disinformation that those whose relationship to power is smoother than my own take. Also, in this the year of our Lord 2025, it is mandatory to devote at least some portion of each public talk to AI.
I am also profoundly sorry to have to report that as far as I can tell, the only work on counter-disinformation still getting funding is work that claims to be able to use AI to detect and counter disinformation. It will not surprise you that I am extremely dubious about these claims.
AI has been created through what has been called “data colonialism”, in that it relies on stolen data, just as traditional forms of colonialism rely on stolen land.
Risks and dangers of AI
AI itself — and I am speaking here specifically of generative AI — is being used as a tool of oppression. Other forms of AI have their own risks and dangers, but in this context, generative AI is quite simply a tool of power consolidation, of hollowing out of human skill and care, and of profanity, in the sense of being the opposite of sacred.
Words, art, conversation, companionship — these are fiercely human things. For a machine to mimic these things is to transgress against all of our communities — all the more so when the machine is being wielded by people who speak openly of genocide and white supremacy.
However, just as capitalism can be fought through community, colonialism can and has been fought through our own commitment to living our lives in freedom. It is fought by refusing their demands and denying their power, whether through the traditional tools of street protest and nonviolent resistance, or through simply walking away from the structures of violence and control that they have implemented.
In the current moment, that particularly includes the technological tools that are being used to destroy our communities and create the data being used to enact their oppression. Each of us is free to deny them access to our lives, our hopes, and dreams.
This version of colonisation has a unique weakness, in that the cyber dystopia they have created can be unplugged and turned off. And yet, we can still retain the parts of it that serve us well by building our own technological infrastructure and helping people use that instead of the kind owned and controlled by oligarchs.
By living our lives with the freedom we all possess as human beings, we can deny these systems the symbolic power they rely on to continue.
That said, this has limitations. This process of theft that underlies both traditional colonialism and contemporary data colonialism, rather than that of land or data, destroys our material base of support — ie. places to grow food, the education of our children, control over our intellectual property.
Power consolidated upwards
The outcome is to create ever more dependence on systems outside of our control that serve to consolidate power upwards and create classes of disposable people through the logic of dehumanisation.
Disposable people have been a feature across many human societies. We see it in slaves, in cultures that use banishment and exile, and in places where imprisonment is used to enforce laws.
Right now we see it in the United States being directed at scale towards those from Central and Latin America and around the world. The men being sent to the El Salvadorian gulag, the toddlers sent to immigration court without a lawyer, the federal workers tossed from their jobs — these are disposable people to Trump.
The logic of colonialism relies on the process of dehumanisation; of denying the moral relevance of people’s identity and position within their communities and families. When they take a father from his family, they are dehumanising him and his family. They are denying the moral relevance of his role as a father and of his children and wife.
When they require a child to appear alone before an immigration judge, they are dehumanising her by denying her the right to be recognised as a child with moral claims on the adults around her. When they say they want to transition federal workers from unproductive government jobs to the private sector, they are denying those workers their life’s work and identity as labourers whose work supports the common good.
There was a time when I would point out that we all know where this leads, but we are there now. It has led there, although given the US incarceration rate for Black men, it isn’t unreasonable to argue that in fact for some people, the US has always been there. Fascism is not an aberration, it is a continuation. But the quickening is here. The expansion of dehumanisation and hate have escalated under Trump.
Dehumanisaton always starts with words and language. And Trump is genuinely — and terribly — gifted with language. His speeches are compelling, glittering, and persuasive to his audiences. With his words and gestures, he creates an alternate reality. When Trump says, “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!”, he is using language to dehumanise Haitian immigrants.
An alternate reality for migrants
When he calls immigrants “aliens” he is creating an alternate reality where migrants are no longer human, no longer part of our communities, but rather outside of them, not fully human.
When he tells lies and spews bullshit into our shared information system, those lies are virtually always aimed at creating a permission structure to deny some group of people their full humanity. Outrageous lie after outrageous lie told over and over again crumbles society in ways that we have seen over and over again throughout history.
In Europe, the claims that women were consorting with the devil led to the witch trials and the burning of thousands of women across central and northern Europe. In Myanmar, claims that Rohinga Muslims were commiting rape, led to mass slaughter.
Just as we fight the logics of capitalism with community and colonialism with a fierce commitment to our freedom, the power to resist dehumanisation is also ours. Through empathy and care — which is simply the material manifestation of empathy — we can defeat attempts to dehumanise.
Empathy and care are inherent to all functioning societies — and they are tools we all have available to us. By refusing to be drawn into their hateful premises, by putting morality and compassion first, we can draw attention to the ridiculousness of their ideas and help support those targeted.
Disinformation is the tool used to dehumanise. It always has been. During the COVID-19 pandemic when disinformation as a concept gained popularity over the rather older concept of propaganda, there was a real moment where there was a drive to focus on misinformation, or people who were genuinely wrong about usually public health facts. This is a way to talk about misinformation that elides the truth about it.
There is an empirical reality underlying the tsunami of COVID disinformation and it is that the information was spread intentionally by bad actors with the goal of destroying the social bonds that hold us all together. State actors, including the United States under the first Trump administration, spread lies about COVID intentionally for their own benefit and at the cost of thousands if not millions of lives.
Lies and disinformation at scale
This tactic was not new then. Those seeking political power or to destroy communities for their own financial gain have always used lies and disinformation. But what is different this time, what has created unique risks, is the scale.
Networked disinformation — the power to spread bullshit and lies across the globe within seconds and within a context where traditional media and sources of both moral and factual authority have been systematically weakened over decades of neoliberal attack — has created a situation where disinformation has more power and those who wield it can do so with precision.
But just as we have the means to fight capitalism, colonialism, and dehumanisation, so too do we — you and I — have the tools to fight disinformation: truth, and accurate and timely reporting from trustworthy sources of information shared with the communities impacted in their own language and from their own people.
If words and images are the chosen tools of dehumanisation and disinformation, then we are lucky because they are fighting with swords that we forged and that we know how to wield. You, the media, are the front lines right now. Trump will take all of our money and all of our resources, but our work must continue.
Times like this call for fearlessness and courage. But more than that, they call on us to use all of the tools in our toolboxes — community, self-determination, care, and truth. Fighting disinformation isn’t something we can do in a vacuum. It isn’t something that we can depersonalise and mechanise. It requires us to work together to build a very human movement.
I can’t deny that Trump’s attacks have exhausted me and left me depressed. I’m a librarian by training. I love sharing stories with people, not telling them myself. I love building communities of learning and of sharing, not taking to the streets in protest.
More than anything else, I just want a nice cup of tea and a novel. But we are here in what I’ve seen others call “a coyote moment”. Like Wile E. Coyote, we are over the cliff with our legs spinning in the air.
We can use this time to focus on what really matters and figure out how we will keep going and keep working. We can look at the blue sky above us and revel in what beauty and joy we can.
Building community, exercising our self-determination, caring for each other, and telling the truth fearlessly and as though our very lives depend on it will leave us all the stronger and ready to fight Trump and his tidal wave of disinformation.
Mandy Henk, co-founder of Dark Times Academy, has been teaching and learning on the margins of the academy for her whole career. As an academic librarian, she has worked closely with academics, students, and university administrations for decades. She taught her own courses, led her own research work, and fought for a vision of the liberal arts that supports learning and teaching as the things that actually matter. This article was originally presented as an invited address at the annual general meeting of the Asia Pacific Media Network on 24 April 2025.
When the US Embassy knocked on my door in late 2024, I was both pleased and more than a little suspicious.
I’d worked with them before, but the organisation where I did that work, Tohatoha, had closed its doors. My new project, Dark Times Academy, was specifically an attempt to pull myself out of the grant cycle, to explore ways of funding the work of counter-disinformation education without dependence on unreliable governments and philanthropic funders more concerned with their own objectives than the work I believed then — and still believe — is crucial to the future of human freedom.
But despite my efforts to turn them away, they kept knocking, and Dark Times Academy certainly needed the money. I’m warning you all now: There is a sense in which everything I have to say about counter-disinformation comes down to conversations about how to fund the work.
There is nothing I would like more than to talk about literally anything other than funding this work. I don’t love money, but I do like eating, having a home, and being able to give my kids cash.
I have also repeatedly found myself in roles where other people look to me for their livelihoods; a responsibility that I carry heavily and with more than a little clumsiness and reluctance.
But if we are to talk about President Donald Trump and disinformation, we have to talk about money. As it is said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And the lack of it is the manifestation of that evil.
Trump and his attack on all of us — on truth, on peace, on human freedom and dignity — is, at its core, an attack that uses money as a weapon. It is an attack rooted in greed and in avarice.
In his world, money is power
But in that greed lies his weakness. In his world, money is power. He and those who serve him and his fascist agenda cannot see beyond the world that money built. Their power comes in the form of control over that world and the people forced to live in it.
Of course, money is just paper. It is digital bits in a database sitting on a server in a data centre relying on electricity and water taken from our earth. The ephemeral nature of their money speaks volumes about their lack of strength and their vulnerability to more powerful forces.
They know this. Trump and all men like him know their weaknesses — and that’s why they use their money to gather power and control. When you have more money than you and your whānau can spend in several generations, you suddenly have a different kind of relationship to money.
It’s one where money itself — and the structures that allow money to be used for control of people and the material world — becomes your biggest vulnerability. If your power and identity are built entirely on the power of money, your commitment to preserving the power of money in the world becomes an all-consuming drive.
Capitalism rests on many “logics” — commodification, individualism, eternal growth, the alienation of labour. Marx and others have tried this ground well already.
In a sense, we are past the time when more analysis is useful to us. Rather, we have reached a point where action is becoming a practical necessity. After all, Trump isn’t going to stop with the media or with counter-disinformation organisations. He is ultimately coming for us all.
What form that action must take is a complicated matter. But, first we must think about money and about how money works, because only through lessening the power of money can we hope to lessen the power of those who wield it as their primary weapon.
Beliefs about poor people
If you have been so unfortunate to be subject to engagement with anti-poverty programmes during the neoliberal era either as a client or a worker, you will know that one of the motivations used for denying direct cash aid to those in need of money is a belief on the part of government and policy experts that poor people will use their money in unwise ways, be it drugs or alcohol, or status purchases like sneakers or manicures.
But over and over again, there’s another concern raised: cash benefits will be spent on others in the community, but outside of those targeted with the cash aid.
You see this less now that ideas like a universal basic income (UBI) and direct cash transfers have taken hold of the policy and donor classes, but it is one of those rightwing concerns that turned out to be empirically accurate.
Poor people are more generous with their money and all of their other resources as well. The stereotype of the stingy Scrooge is one based on a pretty solid mountain of evidence.
The poor turn out to understand far better than the rich how to defeat the power that money gives those who hoard it — and that is community. The logic of money and capital can most effectively be defeated through the creation and strengthening of our community ties.
Donald Trump and those who follow him revel in creating a world of atomised individuals focused on themselves; the kind of world where, rather than relying on each other, people depend on the market and the dollar to meet their material needs — dollars. of course, being the source of control and power for their class.
Our ability to fund our work, feed our families, and keep a roof over our heads has not always been subject to the whims of capitalists and those with money to pay us. Around the world, the grand multicentury project known as colonialism has impoverished us all and created our dependency.
Colonial projects and ‘enclosures’
I cannot speak as a direct victim of the colonial project. Those are not my stories to tell. There are so many of you in this room who can speak to that with far more eloquence and direct experience than I. But the colonial project wasn’t only an overseas project for my ancestors.
Enclosure is one of the core colonial logics. Enclosure takes resources (land in particular) that were held in common and managed collectively using traditional customs and hands them over to private control to be used for private rather than communal benefit. This process, repeated over and over around the globe, created the world we live in today — the world built on money.
As we lose control over our access to what we need to live as the land that holds our communities together, that binds us to one another, is co-opted or stolen from us, we lose our power of self-determination. Self-governance, freedom, liberty — these are what colonisation and enclosure take from us when they steal our livelihoods.
As part of my work, I keep a close eye on the approaches to counter-disinformation that those whose relationship to power is smoother than my own take. Also, in this the year of our Lord 2025, it is mandatory to devote at least some portion of each public talk to AI.
I am also profoundly sorry to have to report that as far as I can tell, the only work on counter-disinformation still getting funding is work that claims to be able to use AI to detect and counter disinformation. It will not surprise you that I am extremely dubious about these claims.
AI has been created through what has been called “data colonialism”, in that it relies on stolen data, just as traditional forms of colonialism rely on stolen land.
Risks and dangers of AI
AI itself — and I am speaking here specifically of generative AI — is being used as a tool of oppression. Other forms of AI have their own risks and dangers, but in this context, generative AI is quite simply a tool of power consolidation, of hollowing out of human skill and care, and of profanity, in the sense of being the opposite of sacred.
Words, art, conversation, companionship — these are fiercely human things. For a machine to mimic these things is to transgress against all of our communities — all the more so when the machine is being wielded by people who speak openly of genocide and white supremacy.
However, just as capitalism can be fought through community, colonialism can and has been fought through our own commitment to living our lives in freedom. It is fought by refusing their demands and denying their power, whether through the traditional tools of street protest and nonviolent resistance, or through simply walking away from the structures of violence and control that they have implemented.
In the current moment, that particularly includes the technological tools that are being used to destroy our communities and create the data being used to enact their oppression. Each of us is free to deny them access to our lives, our hopes, and dreams.
This version of colonisation has a unique weakness, in that the cyber dystopia they have created can be unplugged and turned off. And yet, we can still retain the parts of it that serve us well by building our own technological infrastructure and helping people use that instead of the kind owned and controlled by oligarchs.
By living our lives with the freedom we all possess as human beings, we can deny these systems the symbolic power they rely on to continue.
That said, this has limitations. This process of theft that underlies both traditional colonialism and contemporary data colonialism, rather than that of land or data, destroys our material base of support — ie. places to grow food, the education of our children, control over our intellectual property.
Power consolidated upwards
The outcome is to create ever more dependence on systems outside of our control that serve to consolidate power upwards and create classes of disposable people through the logic of dehumanisation.
Disposable people have been a feature across many human societies. We see it in slaves, in cultures that use banishment and exile, and in places where imprisonment is used to enforce laws.
Right now we see it in the United States being directed at scale towards those from Central and Latin America and around the world. The men being sent to the El Salvadorian gulag, the toddlers sent to immigration court without a lawyer, the federal workers tossed from their jobs — these are disposable people to Trump.
The logic of colonialism relies on the process of dehumanisation; of denying the moral relevance of people’s identity and position within their communities and families. When they take a father from his family, they are dehumanising him and his family. They are denying the moral relevance of his role as a father and of his children and wife.
When they require a child to appear alone before an immigration judge, they are dehumanising her by denying her the right to be recognised as a child with moral claims on the adults around her. When they say they want to transition federal workers from unproductive government jobs to the private sector, they are denying those workers their life’s work and identity as labourers whose work supports the common good.
There was a time when I would point out that we all know where this leads, but we are there now. It has led there, although given the US incarceration rate for Black men, it isn’t unreasonable to argue that in fact for some people, the US has always been there. Fascism is not an aberration, it is a continuation. But the quickening is here. The expansion of dehumanisation and hate have escalated under Trump.
Dehumanisaton always starts with words and language. And Trump is genuinely — and terribly — gifted with language. His speeches are compelling, glittering, and persuasive to his audiences. With his words and gestures, he creates an alternate reality. When Trump says, “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!”, he is using language to dehumanise Haitian immigrants.
An alternate reality for migrants
When he calls immigrants “aliens” he is creating an alternate reality where migrants are no longer human, no longer part of our communities, but rather outside of them, not fully human.
When he tells lies and spews bullshit into our shared information system, those lies are virtually always aimed at creating a permission structure to deny some group of people their full humanity. Outrageous lie after outrageous lie told over and over again crumbles society in ways that we have seen over and over again throughout history.
In Europe, the claims that women were consorting with the devil led to the witch trials and the burning of thousands of women across central and northern Europe. In Myanmar, claims that Rohinga Muslims were commiting rape, led to mass slaughter.
Just as we fight the logics of capitalism with community and colonialism with a fierce commitment to our freedom, the power to resist dehumanisation is also ours. Through empathy and care — which is simply the material manifestation of empathy — we can defeat attempts to dehumanise.
Empathy and care are inherent to all functioning societies — and they are tools we all have available to us. By refusing to be drawn into their hateful premises, by putting morality and compassion first, we can draw attention to the ridiculousness of their ideas and help support those targeted.
Disinformation is the tool used to dehumanise. It always has been. During the COVID-19 pandemic when disinformation as a concept gained popularity over the rather older concept of propaganda, there was a real moment where there was a drive to focus on misinformation, or people who were genuinely wrong about usually public health facts. This is a way to talk about misinformation that elides the truth about it.
There is an empirical reality underlying the tsunami of COVID disinformation and it is that the information was spread intentionally by bad actors with the goal of destroying the social bonds that hold us all together. State actors, including the United States under the first Trump administration, spread lies about COVID intentionally for their own benefit and at the cost of thousands if not millions of lives.
Lies and disinformation at scale
This tactic was not new then. Those seeking political power or to destroy communities for their own financial gain have always used lies and disinformation. But what is different this time, what has created unique risks, is the scale.
Networked disinformation — the power to spread bullshit and lies across the globe within seconds and within a context where traditional media and sources of both moral and factual authority have been systematically weakened over decades of neoliberal attack — has created a situation where disinformation has more power and those who wield it can do so with precision.
But just as we have the means to fight capitalism, colonialism, and dehumanisation, so too do we — you and I — have the tools to fight disinformation: truth, and accurate and timely reporting from trustworthy sources of information shared with the communities impacted in their own language and from their own people.
If words and images are the chosen tools of dehumanisation and disinformation, then we are lucky because they are fighting with swords that we forged and that we know how to wield. You, the media, are the front lines right now. Trump will take all of our money and all of our resources, but our work must continue.
Times like this call for fearlessness and courage. But more than that, they call on us to use all of the tools in our toolboxes — community, self-determination, care, and truth. Fighting disinformation isn’t something we can do in a vacuum. It isn’t something that we can depersonalise and mechanise. It requires us to work together to build a very human movement.
I can’t deny that Trump’s attacks have exhausted me and left me depressed. I’m a librarian by training. I love sharing stories with people, not telling them myself. I love building communities of learning and of sharing, not taking to the streets in protest.
More than anything else, I just want a nice cup of tea and a novel. But we are here in what I’ve seen others call “a coyote moment”. Like Wile E. Coyote, we are over the cliff with our legs spinning in the air.
We can use this time to focus on what really matters and figure out how we will keep going and keep working. We can look at the blue sky above us and revel in what beauty and joy we can.
Building community, exercising our self-determination, caring for each other, and telling the truth fearlessly and as though our very lives depend on it will leave us all the stronger and ready to fight Trump and his tidal wave of disinformation.
Mandy Henk, co-founder of Dark Times Academy, has been teaching and learning on the margins of the academy for her whole career. As an academic librarian, she has worked closely with academics, students, and university administrations for decades. She taught her own courses, led her own research work, and fought for a vision of the liberal arts that supports learning and teaching as the things that actually matter. This article was originally presented as an invited address at the annual general meeting of the Asia Pacific Media Network on 24 April 2025.
Speaking directly to people struggling to get by on benefits, the research reveals a welfare system riddled with stigma, inflexible rules, and a relentless approach from the DWP that treats claimants not as humans, but as suspects.
The DWP: cruel, and intentionally so
Amnesty’s extensive investigation, based on interviews with hundreds of DWP benefit claimants, presents a depressing picture of the department’s practices. Claimants described experiences that left them feeling humiliated and targeted.
One claimant told Amnesty researchers:
I would often be asked the same question three times to see if I’d change my answer. The process feels like you are on trial for murder, they act like they are trying to catch you out and that you are begging.
The report highlights how the welfare system not only fails to deliver a decent standard of living but also erodes human dignity by design.
People on benefits are subjected to relentless checks, punitive sanctions, and a bureaucracy that leaves many without the vital support they need. One claimant told how she suffered a panic attack at the Jobcentre but was met with a threat of sanction:
They look down on you when you walk into the Jobcentre. I had a panic attack in the Jobcentre. I couldn’t breathe, and she went ‘you better get upstairs now and see your work coach, or we are going to sanction you’.
Another advisor reported heartbreaking cases, including a disabled man who lost both benefits and his home after missing an assessment because he soiled himself on the way to the centre and had to return home.
Lives are being ruined
Jen Clark, Economic and Social Rights Lead at Amnesty International UK, summed up the situation saying:
Lives are being ruined by a system that is cruel – it erodes dignity by design. We are in a state of severe human rights violations. The social security system is impenetrable, inadequate, and for some completely inaccessible. There can be no tinkering of the system – it has gone too far, and it is too late. There must be full reform. It is broken from start to finish and intentionally sets people up to fail.
These harrowing accounts coincide with personal stories from across the country, showing how the system is failing those who need it most.
John Stainton, 63, dedicated much of his life serving his country as a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, even earning an OBE for his work in Afghanistan. But after being diagnosed with aggressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS), his life took a terrifying turn.
Forced into early retirement in 2022, he found navigating the DWP’s Personal Independence Payments (PIP) claim process “alien” and “disjointed.” Despite the impact MS had on his life, assessors initially gave him a low mobility score and refused him points for the daily reality of his condition.
“It took me about 15 months in total from when I first rang up to when the appeal came out,” John said:
The DWP wrote to me chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, and said they were delighted to tell me they’d decided I deserve PIP. I thought, you haven’t decided, you’ve been told by a judge.
John added that many others with MS live in constant anxiety and discouragement, choosing not to apply or appeal because of the stressful ordeal the system forces on them:
The DWP could treat people with a bit more compassion. The trouble is they start from the wrong process… the start process seems to be that anyone claiming benefits must be a scrounger.
The DWP is like a production line
John sees the thousands of disabled people he meets regularly, either desperate to contribute to society or having done so already.
Phil Davidge, 66, from Leeds, also suffered under the DWP after unexpectedly losing his job in September 2023.
He applied for Universal Credit early to avoid gaps but was unaware the claim would start from that day. When he tried to fix this, the DWP refused, causing him to lose a month’s benefits:
I just didn’t have the money. I actually missed my father passing away because I couldn’t get the money together to come down [to Swansea].
The DWP did not assist him with travel costs despite his desperate situation. Phil described the Jobcentre experience as:
like being on a production line… they asked me the same questions in a robotic fashion as if they were reading off a script or I was talking to an AI programmed robot.
The emotional toll of the system also came across in Carly Newman’s story.
A single mother in London, Carly juggled part-time work with Universal Credit to cover nursery and rent costs. However, during a complicated pay month in 2019, her Universal Credit claim was unexpectedly cancelled without warning after she received outstanding holiday pay:
When I went to pay my rent and the money wasn’t there, I just remember being at the train station on the way to work, crying.
Faced with a cold, inflexible system, Carly was forced to apply again and wait 10 weeks to get any payment. She told the Mirror:
The feeling you’re consistently living with on Universal Credit is one of vulnerability. The inflexibility of the system is like ‘computer says no’ situation. You’re not treated as a human. You just feel really vulnerable all of the time.
Carly also challenged the damaging stereotypes around benefits claimants, saying:
The narrative… that somehow we all just want to be on benefits and not to go work and have this free money. Actually most people on Universal Credit are in work and most people want to be at work earning a secure income. Universal Credit doesn’t feel secure. It feels so vulnerable and insecure and that’s a horrible feeling to have to live with, especially as a single parent. It just feels like it can be ripped away from you at any moment – no one wants to live like that.
A broken system that is only going to get worse
The DWP responded by stating that the welfare system was inherited broken and that reforms are underway; the same reforms that are going to be further cutting DWP support for chronically ill and disabled people, with hundreds of thousands set to be thrown into poverty.
The voices of those forced to endure the system paint a very different picture to the DWP and government’s one.
It is one of cruelty, anxiety, and constant threat.
The DWP’s approach appears to have created an environment where benefit claimants are made to feel less than human, pushing the most vulnerable to the edge.
The experiences of John, Phil, Carly, and countless others highlight a system that desperately needs more than just “tinkering.” It needs compassion, understanding, and a complete overhaul to restore dignity to those it claims to support.
A groundbreaking new study has challenged a long-standing belief in conservation science, revealing that climate change, intensified by increasingly extreme El Niño events, is the true force accelerating the extinction and decline of Brazil’s amphibians. Contrary to decades of assumptions, researchers have found that the aquatic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), once blamed as the main cause, plays only a secondary role in the crisis.
Climate change and El Niño: the extinction of Brazil’s amphibians
The study delivers a striking revelation: while Bd is undeniably harmful, it acts not as the trigger but as an opportunistic invader, targeting amphibian populations already weakened by climate stress, loss of immunity, and reduced genetic diversity.
Rather than causing mass deaths directly, Bd outbreaks tend to emerge years after populations have already declined, revealing the real danger: environmental instability. Intense droughts, rising temperatures, and erratic weather patterns fuelled by El Niño have severely damaged amphibian habitats, stripping species of their ability to adapt and survive.
The research also highlights a surprising twist, Brazilian amphibians, through generations of exposure, have developed herd immunity to Bd. Their vulnerability originates not from the fungus itself, but from a changing environment.
Shifts in temperature and rainfall have disrupted ecosystems and damaged the skin microbiomes that amphibians rely on for defence. As water sources dry up, frogs and other species are forced into smaller, crowded areas, perfect conditions for disease to spread.
This study marks a critical turning point in our understanding of amphibian decline, redirecting attention from disease to the broader and more urgent threat of a destabilised climate.
Loss of Brazil’s amphibians: a blow to global conservation efforts
Célio Fernando Baptista Haddad, biologist in the department of biodiversity and CBioClima centre at São Paulo State University (UNESP), and one of the authors of the study, mentioned that adapting conservation strategies to address human-induced climate change is a multifaceted challenge that requires profound changes in our way of life. He further explained:
We must urgently transition to cleaner energy sources, but this is obstructed by powerful oil and coal lobbies that resist ending the exploitation of polluting resources – resources that are not only heating the planet but also pushing wildlife and ecosystems toward extinction.
Haddad also emphasised that deforestation remains a major concern, driven by a growing global population, now over eight billion, exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity and prompting land clearing for agriculture and livestock.
From 1923 to 2014, scientists documented the extinction or decline of 90 Brazilian frog species, with at least eight possibly extinct. One species was classified as critically endangered, while another was deemed endangered. This trend began in the 1970s and shows no signs of stopping, driven by a combination of factors: loss of biodiversity, agricultural expansion, pesticide use, disruption of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and, most significantly, climate change.
A hotspot of biodiversity hurtling towards collapse
The lead author of the study, Lucas Ferrante, said:
Our research refutes the hypothesis that the decline of Brazilian amphibians was primarily caused by the Bd fungus. Using causal effect equations, we demonstrate that climate change, extreme weather events, and rising temperatures are in fact the main culprits. This is particularly important because the declines began after the Industrial Revolution – the same period during which humans began significantly altering the planet’s climate.
He further stressed that current mitigation targets are no longer sufficient. Brazil plays a significant role in this scenario: when deforestation alone is considered, the country ranks as the fourth-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases.
Moreover, emissions from wildfires – which have increased under the current government – have yet to be fully accounted for. The situation is further worsened by President Lula’s plans to expand oil exploration, including in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Amazon River mouth, as well as in several other sites within the Amazon rainforest.
Brazil is home to the world’s largest number of amphibian species, the majority of which are found nowhere else on Earth. This makes the country a critical hotspot for biodiversity, and the ongoing amphibian crisis is a blow to global conservation efforts.
Zoonotic spillovers
Adding another layer of concern, climate change and extreme weather events, such as the severe droughts and rising temperatures linked to El Niño, are also accelerating the spread of zoonotic diseases, which pose significant risks to both wildlife and human populations.
In the Amazon region, record-breaking temperatures and unusual weather patterns – combined with deforestation driven by road projects like the BR-319 highway and the expansion of cattle farming into conservation areas – are amplifying the risk of disease spillover. As ecosystems are disrupted and human activities encroach deeper into wildlife habitats, the likelihood of disease transmission increases, posing a growing threat to both animals and humans.
Haddad highlighted how deforestation and infrastructure projects not only disrupt ecosystem, but also contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and climate instability:
Human-driven environmental degradation is a key driver of climate change, with deforestation altering critical abiotic factors like temperature, humidity, and light, often making habitats uninhabitable for many species. While the link between deforestation and diseases like chytridiomycosis is complex and context-dependent, one principle holds true: the more intact and undisturbed an ecosystem is, the greater the resilience of its wildlife, including against disease.
Infrastructure such as roads not only accelerates deforestation by enabling easier access for logging and agriculture but also serves as a vector for the spread of infectious agents. In regions like the Amazon, a moratorium on deforestation, highway and dam construction, and extractive industries is urgently needed. Sustainable, economically viable alternatives for local communities are not only possible, but they’re also essential for the survival of both the forest and the planet.
Research indicates that intensified agriculture and the conversion of forests into farmland and cattle pastures increase interactions between humans and pathogens, thereby facilitating the emergence of viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections.
An unmistakable signal of ecological crisis
The rising frequency of these extreme climate events not only strains the survival of amphibians but also compromises the overall health of the Amazon’s delicate ecosystem.
Haddad warns that human disruption of ecosystems not only threatens wildlife but also increases our own vulnerability to future pandemics:
Human-induced environmental degradation increases the exposure of wildlife to infections and parasites, often introducing pathogens into species that have never encountered them before.
While Bd is unlikely to infect humans, diseases affecting birds and mammals, species with physiologies closer to ours, pose a much greater risk. As we’ve seen with COVID-19, environmental disruption can bring humans into contact with novel pathogens capable of adapting to our bodies and causing serious public health crises.
As the situation grows more dire, the study highlights the urgency of addressing climate change and its cascading effects. The decline of amphibians, once considered a silent environmental crisis, is now an unmistakable signal that broader ecological changes are underway.
Haddad underscored that environmental restoration, and systemic change must occur simultaneously, despite the political and economic challenges. He said:
We need immediate local actions like halting deforestation, road and dam construction, and extractive projects, alongside global measures such as transitioning away from fossil fuels and restoring degraded ecosystems.
Forest restoration can help absorb excess carbon, but implementing these solutions in a world driven by economic power and home to over 8 billion people is far more difficult than it sounds.
The extinction of amphibians, especially in a biodiversity-rich country like Brazil, serves as a clear warning of the broader environmental challenges confronting humanity. If we fail to take meaningful action to combat climate change and safeguard ecosystems, the planet’s vulnerable species, particularly those that rely on fragile habitats, will continue to suffer the consequences of our collective neglect.
There was faint hope that efforts to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza would succeed. That hope is now all but gone, offering 2.1 million tormented and starved Palestinians dismal prospects for the days and weeks ahead.
Last Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister once again affirmed he had no intention to end the war. Benjamin Netanyahu wants what he calls “absolute victory” to achieve US President Donald Trump’s so-called vision for Gaza of ethnic cleansing and annexation.
To that end, Israel is weaponising food at a scale not seen before, including immediately after the October 7 attack by Hamas. It has not allowed any wheat, medicine boxes, or other vital aid into the Gaza Strip since 2 March.
This engineered starvation has pushed experts to warn that 1.1 million Palestinians face imminent famine.
Many believe this was Israel’s “maximum pressure” plan all along: massive force, starvation, and land grabs. It’s what the Israeli Minister of Defence, Israel Katz, referred to in March when he gave Palestinians in Gaza an ultimatum — surrender or die.
A month after breaking the ceasefire, Israel has converted nearly 70 percent of the tiny territory into no-go or forced displacement zones, including all of Rafah. It has also created a new so-called security corridor, where the illegal settlement of Morag once stood.
Israel is bombing the Palestinians it is starving while actively pushing them into a tiny strip of dunes along the coast.
Israel only interested in temporary ceasefire
This mentality informed the now failed ceasefire talks. Israel was only interested in a temporary ceasefire deal that would keep its troops in Gaza and see the release of half of the living Israeli captives.
In exchange, Israel reportedly offered to allow critically needed food and aid back into Gaza, which it is obliged to do as an occupying power, irrespective of a ceasefire agreement.
Israel also refused to commit to ending the war, just as it did in the Lebanon ceasefire agreement, while also demanding that Hamas disarm and agree to the exile of its prominent members from Gaza.
Disarming is a near-impossible demand in such a context, but this is not motivated by a preserved arsenal that Hamas wants to hold on to. Materially speaking, the armaments Israel wants Hamas to give up are inconsequential, except in how they relate to the group’s continued control over Gaza and its future role in Palestinian politics.
Symbolically, accepting the demand to lay down arms is a sign of surrender few Palestinians would support in a context devoid of a political horizon, or even the prospect of one.
While Israel has declared Hamas as an enemy that must be “annihilated”, the current right-wing government in Israel doesn’t want to deal with any Palestinian party or entity.
The famous “no Hamas-stan and no Fatah-stan” is not just a slogan in Israeli political thinking — it is the policy.
Golden opportunity for mass ethnic cleansing
This government senses a golden opportunity for the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the annexation of Gaza and the West Bank — and it aims to seize it.
Hamas’s chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya recently said that the movement was done with partial deals. Hamas, he said, was willing to release all Israeli captives in exchange for ending the war and Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza, as well as the release of an agreed-on number of Palestinian prisoners.
But the truth is, Hamas is running out of options.
Netanyahu does not consider releasing the remaining Israeli captives as a central goal. Hamas has no leverage and barely any allies left standing.
Hezbollah is out of the equation, facing geographic and political isolation, demands for disarmament, and the lethal Israeli targeting of its members.
Armed Iraqi groups have signalled their willingness to hand over weapons to the government in Baghdad in order not to be in the crosshairs of Washington or Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, the Houthis in Yemen have sustained heavy losses from hundreds of massive US airstrikes. Despite their defiant tone, they cannot change the current dynamics.
Tehran distanced from Houthis
Finally, Iran is engaged in what it describes as positive dialogue with the Trump administration to avert a confrontation. To that end, Tehran has distanced itself from the Houthis and is welcoming the idea of US investment.
The so-called Arab plan for Gaza’s reconstruction also excludes any role for Hamas. While the mediators are pushing for a political formula that would not decisively erase Hamas from Palestinian politics, some Arab states would prefer such a scenario.
As these agendas and new realities play out, Gaza has been laid to waste. There is no food, no space, no hope. Only despair and growing anger.
This chapter of the genocide shows no sign of letting up, with Israel under no international pressure to cease the bombing and forced starvation of Gaza. Hamas remains defiant but has no significant leverage to wield.
In the absence of any viable Palestinian initiative that can rally international support around a different dialogue altogether about ending the war, intervention can only come from Washington, where the favoured solution is ethnic cleansing.
This is a dead-end road that pushes Palestinians into the abyss of annihilation, whether by death and starvation or political and material erasure through mass displacement.
Nour Odeh is a political analyst, public diplomacy consultant, and an award-winning journalist. She also reports for Al Jazeera. This article was first published by The New Arab and is republished under Creative Commons.
New analysis reveals that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) planned cuts to disability benefits will hit some of the poorest parts of England and Wales hardest, deepening economic hardships in these areas. Predictably, it is London and the South East which will fare better – but even then, the cuts will have dire consequences for chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people.
The DWP: hammering the North and Wales
According to research by the charity Policy in Practice, people living in the North East, North West, and Wales will suffer twice the impact of those in London and the South East. This striking regional disparity threatens to widen the already stark economic divide between the wealthier south and the struggling north.
Policy in Practice’s data highlights that the 10 local authorities most affected by these DWP cuts—including Blaenau Gwent in Wales, Hartlepool, and Blackpool in the north of England—face economic costs roughly five times the national average.
These areas are home to significant numbers of people reliant on DWP disability benefits – particularly women – and a large proportion of their local economies are tied closely to this support.
Deven Ghelani, director of Policy in Practice, warned that these cuts risk “entrenching deprivation” in regions with weaker economies. As Birmingham Live reported, he explained:
These reforms will have an uneven impact on different parts of the country. Some parts of the country will get a double whammy because they have a smaller economy and will lose a larger share of it. One of the reasons they have a smaller economy is that they have more people impacted so the proposals have a serious risk of entrenching existing patterns of deprivation.
He added:
Together this means that deprived areas that have more people on disability benefits who risk losing out also see a greater proportionate impact – impact that hits an already struggling economy.
Counter intuitive
Essentially, the cuts threaten not only individual claimants but the wider economic health of these communities, where every pound matters.
Policy in Practice further commented that these reforms will directly counter initiatives aimed at “levelling up” local economies. Without targeted investment to replace withdrawals from the benefit system, the cuts will leave these regions even further behind.
Yet, despite these serious concerns, the DWP defended its stance. A spokesperson said that, as part of their “Plan for Change”, the government seeks:
a sustainable welfare system that delivers proper support to help sick and disabled people into work, break down barriers, unlock work, boost living standards, and grow the economy.
However, behind this vapid rhetoric, many disabled and non-working people across the north and Wales may soon face sharp reductions in their financial lifelines. The areas worst affected are already grappling with higher unemployment, lower wages, and fewer job opportunities.
Removing vital support from over 1.3 million people risks pushing individuals deeper into poverty at a time when the cost-of-living crisis remains severe.
DWP cuts will make bad situations even worse
The analysis reinforces fears that the government’s welfare reforms are failing to protect vulnerable groups and instead are disproportionately penalising regions long neglected by economic growth.
This “double whammy” of cuts and economic weakness threatens to widen the gap between different parts of the country, leaving disabled people and jobseekers in some of the poorest communities struggling even more.
Policy in Practice’s report starkly exposes the real-world consequences of the DWP’s policies. It shows that disabled people—and the places where they live—are bearing the brunt of a system that seems more focused on reducing welfare spending to appease the rich and powerful than on supporting those who need help the most.
As these reforms loom, communities in the North and Wales face an increasingly uncertain future, with disabled and non-working people confronting the harsh reality of cuts that not only undermine their individual security but threaten the social and economic fabric of entire regions.
On BBC Radio 4, Reform Party Nigel Farage demonstrated how severely unfit he is for leadership by saying that UK decarbonisation “makes zero difference” because it’s all China’s fault.
Nigel Farage: ‘we should do nothing’
He said:
I think we should scrap the net zero targets… they’re going to make zero difference to the world…you better go and talk to the Chinese… we make no difference whatsoever
Farage also claimed we should be “mining our own coal”. The UK’s last coal power station closed in September 2024.
In response, the Green Partybranded the Reform head a “performer, a con artist”. They pointed to DeSmogresearch that shows Farage’s party has accepted £2.3 million from fossil fuel interests, big polluters and climate deniers since 2019.
Reform received £200,000 from First Corporate Consultants, which Terence Mordaunt owns. He is chairman of the notorious and opaquely funded Global Warming Policy Foundation, which denies man made climate change is happening.
Correspondingly, Nigel Farage has previously outright questioned the science behind the climate crisis. On GB News in 2021, he said:
What annoys me… is this complete obsession with carbon dioxide almost to the exclusion of everything else, the alarmism that comes with it, based on dodgy predictions and science.
Yet 97% of publishing scientists agree that man made climate change is happening, primarily because of burning fossil fuels. There has been a steady increase in global temperature since the industrial revolution. 2024 saw record breaking rainfall in countries such as UAE and Brazil and severe hurricanes in the US, with climate change disrupting weather patterns.
Reform aren’t to be trusted
On Radio 4, Nigel Farage claimed we should be “self sufficient” through mining coal. But even if you deny man made climate change, publicly owned renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels and avoids pollution.
A Green New Deal would also provide energy security, controlling inflation and protecting us from volatile global gas markets. Studies show coal is not even competitive with renewables, given how much more affordable they are.
There are many reasons to question Reform. The idea they are an anti-establishment party is laughable. Shadow justice secretary and Tory MP Robert Jenrick has referred to his party and Reform as a “coalition” And in the upcoming local elections, over 60 Reform candidates are former Tory councillors, candidates or activists.
Pro-Israel agitators have reported anti-genocide rap group Kneecap to the police, who are assessing whether footage from a concert last year merits further investigation.
Danny Morris from the Community Security Trust (CST) posted a video which seemed to show a member of Kneecap making a comment he disagreed with. This comes as Kneecap attracts the attention of genocide apologists for highlighting Israel’s war crimes and the USA’s involvement at the recent Coachella festival.
Key aims of the Israel lobbyists at CST reportedly include “opposing anti-Zionist activity” and fighting against boycotts of the apartheid state.
Kneecap: who are Hamas and Hezbollah?
The focus of the Israel lobby and the police now is on a Kneecap member’s apparent reference to Hamas and Hezbollah. So let’s have a quick summary of who these groups are.
Hamas and Hezbollah are Islamist political movements in occupied Palestine and Lebanon respectively. Islamism is “the belief that Islam should guide social and political as well as personal life” and, partly because of Western efforts to undermine left-wing and nationalist forces during the Cold War, the school has over time become “the most powerful ideological force” in the Muslim world.
It’s particularly important to note here, however, that there are different types of Islamism. And Hamas and Hezbollah are definitely not from the same school as Al-Qaeda or Daesh (Isis/Isil), groups that “label other Muslims heretics [or] apostates” and have strong links to Saudi Arabia‘s state ideology of Wahhabism (which is not representative of the world’s Muslim community). Instead, Hamas and Hezbollah are defensive nationalist militants first and foremost, primarily seeking to “protect local constituents” with “a specific set of local political demands that are the focus of their activity and the core concern of their supporters”. This doesn’t mean they are progressive champions. Because they’renot. But international law protects their right to self-defence.
When do we class genocide as terrorism?
Because Hamas and Hezbollah have a specific local focus, they don’t tend to attack countries they are not in direct conflict with. The Israeli occupation forces are their primary opponent. And under international law, Israel does not have the right to self-defence in the territories it occupies. Yet unlike Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has been undertaking a genocide which has killed at least one Palestinian child every hour since October 2023, murdering around 17,492 children in the process, including about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds.
Nonetheless, Israel is a Western ally – an outpost, proxy, and tool for imperialism in the Middle East. So Western governments support, participate in, and cover for its genocidal war crimes. And because Hamas and Hezbollah resist Israeli crimes, Western states call them terrorists. Hamas in particular, however, is currently challenging this designation in UK courts.
Kneecap: their stance
Genocide apologists now believe police should take action due to a member of Kneecap apparently saying “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” last year.
The band’s positions on Israel and Palestine are pretty clear, though. It firmly condemnsdecades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. It insists that it’s actually Israel that is a “terrorist state“, believing resistance against it is justifiable. And it emphasises that:
Resistance is not terrorism
They also seem to have little interest in particular religious ideologies. Instead, they want to unite the world.
there’s three young working-class people here who have built a career for themselves, on the basis of the Irish language, music, culture and identity… They have the bravery and conviction, especially where they’ve come from in a post-conflict society, to stand up for what’s right… despite the fact it may harm their careers, and their income
Martin Lewis, a well-known BBC and ITV personality and financial expert, has sounded a stark “criminal” alert to those affected, urging caution and vigilance against these fraudulent schemes.
Angela Madden, chair of WASPI, spoke out about an “alarming spike” in scam attempts aimed at women penalised by the DWP in recent days.
The DWP hitting WASPI women – and now, scammers are to
Many of these women have faced a bewildering and unfair shift in their state pension age, which has left them exposed not just to financial uncertainty but now also to opportunistic criminals. Madden condemned those behind the scams, describing their behaviour as “nothing short of disgraceful”.
Scammers are reportedly operating sophisticated campaigns, often employing “psychologically-adept tactics” to trick women into handing over sensitive personal information or money. Martin Lewis made clear that these are not harmless nuisances but part of organised criminal gangs exploiting a new trend connected to pension compensation claims.
“Even if they’re not asking for money, they could be trying to take your information as part of a wider fraud,” Lewis warned. He added a crucial piece of advice:
Be incredibly careful, don’t click advertising or other links on social media, unless it is from a validated trusted source.
Lewis also pointed out that he does not endorse any advertisement or allowance of his name to be used for endorsements aside from his official site MoneySavingExpert.com. If information or offers appear elsewhere under his name, he said they are “very likely a scam”.
Google pushing scamming fake news
One unsettling example has come from Derbyshire, where a woman reported being asked to upload copies of her birth certificate and bank details through an online form—only to later realise she was dealing with a scammer.
The scammers attempt to prey on the urgency and distress of women who are still fighting for fair financial redress from the government’s pension reforms.
Angry headlines circulate false claims – which are then pushed by Google News – such as “DWP announces £3,000 compensation for 3.8 million WASPI women” or provide a “Martin Lewis WASPI Calculator” that lures women into giving away personal data. Or, there are headlines from the likes of Birmingham Live which lure people in with false promises:
Google has also been doing the same for other benefit claimants – like this ad for cost of living payments, which is fake news:
WASPI women: do NOT give your bank details out
Fran McSweeney, head of services at the charity Independent Age, also raised alarm over fraudulent emails being sent to affected women requesting bank details and birth documents.
McSweeney observed that such scams often take advantage of current news stories, turning deeply personal struggles into opportunities for criminal profit:
It’s concerning to hear that older women are being asked for their bank details and copies of their birth certificates by potential scammers.
She encouraged women not to rush into sharing information without fully verifying the source and to contact their bank immediately if they suspect they have fallen victim to fraud.
Angela Madden stressed that any official news or announcements about compensation will only ever come from the government and urged women to disregard all other claims from fake groups and websites.
The exploitation of WASPI women by these “opportunists” highlights the broader failings and the lack of clear, accessible support from the DWP and government.
Many of these women already face an uphill battle. The DWP decision to raise the state pension age without adequate support or compensation for those affected has caused distress and significant financial hardship. The recent surge in scams adds an additional layer of threat to a group already pushed to the margins.
This situation reveals the stark reality of how vulnerable women, especially those who are disabled or seeking financial security after years of working and contributing through national insurance, continue to be let down. Instead of receiving the promised justice and compensation, they are now battling fear and confusion sown by predatory criminal networks.
The DWP is to blame for the WASPI chaos
While official compensation has yet to be announced, WASPI’s call for fair treatment and DWP accountability remains untreated. Until clear and transparent action takes place, these vulnerable women must remain on high alert for a slew of fake offers and fraudulent activities that shamelessly prey on their situation.
The government and DWP failures to provide timely and effective help not only generates fertile ground for scammers but deepens the sense of abandonment for thousands of women deserving justice and dignity. As the spike in scams continues, there is a growing imperative for the authorities to issue clear, direct communication, ensuring that those affected are protected from further harm.
Women impacted by the pension changes are urged to seek information only from official government resources and organisations they trust. Protecting personal data and questioning any suspicious approaches is crucial in defending against the “organised criminal gangs” exploiting the lack of support and clarity currently faced by WASPI DWP claimants.
This wave of deceit targeting older women over a genuine, government-related issue sheds light on the wider problems stemming from the treatment of disabled people, benefit claimants, and jobseekers in the UK.
The current DWP failures leave the most vulnerable exposed, reinforcing calls for much-needed reform and genuine support rather than exploitation and neglect.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has raised significant concerns regarding Canada’s assisted dying/suicide laws, specifically the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) scheme, which permits individuals experiencing “intolerable physical or psychological suffering” due to serious and incurable disabilities to seek assisted death.
The UNCRPD has called for the Canadian government to cease what it describes as the euthanisation of patients based on “negative, ableist perceptions” that undervalue the lives of disabled people.
UNCRPD slams Canada’s assisted suicide laws
The committee’s objections centre around the proposal to extend MAID to those whose only underlying medical condition is a mental illness by 2027. They assert that the current legislation perpetuates a harmful narrative that equates disability with suffering, ignoring the systemic issues such as inequality and discrimination that exacerbate the experiences of disabled people.
The UNCRPD’s statement highlights that the notion of “choice” posited by the government creates a misleading dynamic, effectively suggesting that ending one’s life can be a valid option for those facing disability-related challenges, rather than enhancing support systems that could alleviate suffering.
Evidence presented by the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner indicates a troubling increase in the number of disabled people who are coerced into assisted suicide, prompting the UNCRPD to call for a reassessment of how the government addresses “systemic failures” in essential services such as accessible housing, healthcare, and employment support.
Krista Carr, CEO of Inclusion Canada, echoed these concerns during a recent conference, emphasising that the narrative around assisted suicide as a “choice” overlooks the desperation faced by many disabled people in obtaining necessary support.
Carr remarked that assisted suicide is currently being positioned as a preferable option for those trapped in challenging circumstances, where adequate care is unavailable, asserting that it is indeed “not a choice” for those truly in distress.
Implications in the UK
In the UK, the implications of similar legislation are being scrutinised ahead of the progression of Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Suicide Bill, which seeks to allow patients in England and Wales deemed terminally ill with a prognosis of six months or less to seek assisted suicide.
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson has voiced her strong disapproval of this bill, warning that it could lead to the devaluation of disabled lives and create an environment where people feel coerced into viewing death as their “best” option – much like has happened in Canada.
During a session in October 2024, Grey-Thompson articulated her growing concerns as she examined the issue, particularly highlighting the rapid erosion of safeguards in other jurisdictions where similar laws have been enacted.
She recounted troubling comments she has received, such as, “If my life was like yours, I’d end it,” reflecting a societal undercurrent that could place further pressure on disabled people. This raised questions about the perceptions of disability and the future trajectory of support for those who may be struggling with their circumstances.
As the UK’s Assisted Suicide Bill moves towards Report Stage and Third Reading, it will present MPs with additional opportunities to reconsider the implications and moral ramifications of such legislation on the disabled community and the broader societal values it endorses.
With ongoing discussions surrounding assisted suicide and disability rights, the critical voice of those within the chronically ill and disabled community continues to advocate for a system prioritising support and equality over coercing people into death.
Ahead of the local elections on 1 May, new Ipsos research has revealed the low levels of public trust in politicians across the board.
Notably, while local councils engendered substantially more trust than Westminster – it still found over half of respondents don’t trust local authorities to operate in the interests of their residents.
Local elections: polling shows people don’t trust councils to act in their best interests
Commissioned by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), the new research found that nearly 3 in 5 adults (59%) in England feel local councils have the most impact on the quality of life in their area. This compares to Westminster parliament (12%) and the media (8%).
However, while it is true that people trust councils more than central government, the majority (53%) do not trust councils to act in the best interests of people in their local area. This remains at the same level as last year.
Additionally, 59% of respondents would like either more information on how decisions are made locally or have more of a say in those decisions.
Each year, the LGIU carries out this polling. It explores broad public attitudes to local elections, the work of councillors, and the role of local government in England. This year, Ipsos carried out the polling for it in the context of the major changes to UK governance that have occurred in the past year. Most prominently, there was a change in government in Westminster, and the new Labour Party government has since introduced its Devolution White Paper in December 2024.
The majority of respondents to the Ipsos survey (63%) were not following closely or at all the government’s reorganisation plans. There was also no real consensus that unitary authorities are better than the two-tier model that they are slated to replace.
Directly elected mayors were seen as more of a good thing than a bad thing overall. Notably, more people believed they have a positive impact rather than a negative impact with regards to giving an area a voice in Westminster (43% to 16%).
Councils are ‘not exempt from a widespread collapse in trust’
Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, LGIU said:
This new polling tells a really nuanced story about public perceptions of local government. It’s clear that the public recognises the significant role that local government plays in everyday life, with the quality of public services directly attributed to the actions of councils and councillors.
But we also see that people are worried about a decline in local services, that they don’t understand how decisions are made, and that they don’t trust the people making them.
It is a complex picture. Councils are not exempt from a widespread collapse in trust in political institutions, but, crucially, they do receive higher trust ratings than central government. People overwhelmingly believe that local residents should be involved in decisions about their areas, and a majority want to understand more about how decisions are made.
This means that if we are to rebuild trust in our politics, then local government offers us the best platform from which to do so. And local government reorganisation offers us the mechanism.
The next two years will be critical. Given the low levels of understanding among residents of both existing governance arrangements and the proposed changes, there’s a real risk that devolution and reorganisation processes carried out at pace and without sufficient public engagement will exacerbate the current crisis in trust.
But there’s also an opportunity here: engaging communities in the creation of new structures and ensuring that those new strategic authorities and unitaries function in ways that effectively include local people could be instrumental in rebuilding the trust in political institutions we are currently lacking.
Perhaps the real insight from this polling is that, as ever, how you manage the process of change is as important as the outcome itself.”
Keiran Pedley, director of politics, Ipsos UK said:
These findings show the public recognise that local government is important but they do not always know much about how it works. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that there is no real consensus about how it should be run.
The public want local government to give residents a say and deliver local services well. There are signs in the data that directly-elected Mayors are a net positive in that direction – but again no overwhelming consensus – suggesting that, for local government at least, one size does not always fit all.
Of course, the LGIU’s survey results are hardly surprising. When it comes to local elections, turnout often teeters staggeringly low. It has consistently barely scraped or stayed under a third in recent years. These latest LGIU findings just drive home the fact that for many of the most marginalised communities, politicians – whether at Westminster or the local council – simply don’t represent them.
At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Scottish Labour MP Katrina Murray told a story that is harrowingly reflective of the state of the NHS under austerity, in Scotland and in England.
My constituent Billy spent months trying to see a GP to investigate his symptoms. It took four months of telephone appointments before we finally got seen in person and actually got the test that diagnosed stage 4 cancer. A delay in diagnosis which has dramatically changed his prognosis and… as someone who’s become a friend, it hurts me to see the pain he is now living in. Does the prime minister agree with me that primary care is a vital part of the health care system and we need wider access to both in-person appointments and to telephone ones?
Delays in care for patients with cancer are an issue in Scotland, but it’s worse in England. 29% of patients are not receiving treatment within 62 days after an urgent referral. And waiting lists in Scotland stand at over 725,000 cases, the highest since records began.
In England, 74,000 people did not receive NHS cancer treatment within the target of 62 days after an urgent referral in 2024. That’s 38% of patients. This has been growing steadily worse with increasing demand and budget cuts.
There has been a real terms cumulative underspend of £425bn in UK public health spending since 2009/10, according to the British Medical Association (BMA). That can be seen in the increase in cancer patients facing delayed treatment. In 2014, in England, 16% of cancer patients weren’t treated in the timeframe of 62 days.
Starmer’s response?
In response at PMQs, Keir Starmer said:
Well I’m deeply sorry to hear about Billy’s case. And I’m sure the whole house is. And our focus has to be on making sure GPs spend more time caring for patients and that includes the investment of an additional £889 million into general practice in England and putting over 1,500 GPs into surgeries since October.
We did deliver a record settlement for Scotland’s public services to help fix our NHS and ensure people like Billy get the care that they deserve.
The thing is, the funding for England doesn’t make up for the previous austerity that the Conservatives delivered across the NHS.
And in Scotland, the Labour government has far-reachingrestraints on the budget of the Scottish government. Westminster also allocates the largest component of its available money. Instead, Scottish independence advocates want their government to use the Scottish pound to invest.
The Labour Party government launched a request for evidence for its National Cancer Plan in February. But given the NHS was treating substantially more people on time a decade ago, the lack of funding is clearly a key issue. In January, Starmer said “we need an NHS hungry for innovation”. While healthcare improvements are welcome, the NHS has gone backwards on previous achievements largely because of austerity.
Angela Rayner’s recent public defence of the UK government’s controversialDepartment for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit cuts has been met with fury and disbelief by many – as she once again exposed the abandonment of her working-class roots for political careerism.
Angela Rayner: cynical defence of DWP cuts
Speaking at Palace Fields Primary Academy in Runcorn ahead of the crucial Runcorn and Helsby by-elections, Rayner sought to justify the government’s decision to slash DWP spending by approximately £4.8 billion, despite mounting backlash from charities and vulnerable communities that warn these cuts endanger disabled people and struggling families.
As the Liverpool Echo reported, Rayner framed the controversy as a necessary step towards economic growth, with a heavy focus on job creation and youth engagement.
Highlighting the statistic that one in eight young people are not in employment, education, or training, she cast the government’s industrial strategy — centred on housing construction, defence, and skills development — as the solution to social challenges rather than direct DWP welfare support.
While this emphasis on work and training may sound constructive, it glosses over the immediate and harsh impact these DWP benefit cuts will have on those who rely on essential support. Her rhetoric prioritises economic narratives over the real human cost inflicted by the government’s austerity measures.
In a cynical personal anecdote, Rayner referenced her 17-year-old son’s visual impairment to underline her argument against “writing off” people on lifelong DWP benefits. This attempt at empathy, however, rings hollow given the stark reality that the very cuts she defends jeopardise the fragile safety nets disabled individuals depend on.
Political spin
Her insistence that Labour balances protection with opportunity feels increasingly like political spin, especially when the government’s actions suggest a retreat from the DWP welfare commitments historically championed by Labour.
The deputy prime minister’s appeal to Labour’s proud history in building the welfare state and NHS contrasts sharply with the present reality, where DWP benefit reductions threaten to undermine those foundations.
Angela Rayner’s visit to a primary school breakfast club — part of a pilot scheme touted as a way to save families money on childcare — was portrayed as emblematic of the government’s practical response to economic hardship.
Yet, this isolated initiative hardly compensates for large-scale reductions in direct support for the vulnerable. Moreover, schools have already warned that Labour’s funding for it barely covers the cost of the food and staff. Meanwhile, Rayner’s critique of “scaremongering and negativity” over DWP benefit cuts from opposition parties smacks of deflecting legitimate concerns about the social consequences of this policy.
Political observers and constituents might see this as emblematic of Rayner’s broader trajectory: a politician who once grew up in a working-class background but now appears to prioritise her governmental role over the grassroots values that propelled her career.
DWP cuts: defending the indefensible
Her confident assertion that Labour candidate Karen Shore will outlast the “circus of Reform” party in the upcoming by-election hints at an entrenched political establishment tone far removed from the struggles of ordinary citizens.
The very fact that Labour must defend these DWP benefit cuts indicates a government more focused on fiscal pragmatism and political optics than genuine support for those in poverty.
Ultimately, Angela Rayner’s defence of these cuts spotlights a troubling reality. The deputy prime minister seems to have traded in her working-class authenticity to toe the government line, prioritising economic narratives and compliance over compassion and solidarity with vulnerable groups.
This evolution raises serious questions about Labour’s commitment to social justice in practice, as the party embraces policies that risk deepening inequality under the guise of creating “opportunity.”
The by-elections looming on 1 May may well serve as a referendum on whether voters are willing to accept this new direction or demand a return to genuinely supportive and empathetic governance.
Independent MP Shockat Adam has just been on a fact-finding visit to occupied Palestine. And in a press conference on 23 April, he highlighted the Israel-induced worsening humanitarian crisis in the occupied West Bank that has “been neglected” amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Shockat Adam: “hurtling toward a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale akin to Gaza”
Away from Gaza, where “civilians, children, journalists, and aid workers are being slaughtered mercilessly”, Shockat Adam described the daily oppression that Palestinian people suffer via random closures, settler violence, religious intimidation, and systemic dehumanisation. As he explained:
In this visit, I witnessed firsthand the relentless humiliation, the slow suffocation of fundamental rights, and the erosion of hope. What I saw confirmed what many fear—that without urgent intervention, the Occupied Territories are hurtling toward a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale akin to Gaza. And when that moment comes, the consequences will be devastating, indiscriminate, disproportionate, and far-reaching.
The MP urged the international community to act by placing “targeted economic, military, and diplomatic sanctions” on Israel “until international law is respected”, stressing that:
a future where Palestinians are free, equal, and dignified is not a threat to Israel’s security—it is the only path to lasting security for both peoples.
The West Bank is also a prison
Shockat Adam asserted:
Gaza is often called the world’s largest open-air prison. But in the West Bank, too, Palestinians are imprisoned by walls, gates, and checkpoints. I saw entire towns—some with populations over 40,000—gated off without notice. These closures are random and unannounced. There is no appeal.
He added:
These gates, alongside the apartheid walls and endless checkpoints, give Israeli authorities complete control over Palestinian movement.
Some of the prison guards, meanwhile, are illegal Israeli settlers.
We also witnessed the disturbing reality of armed settlers illegally occupying Palestinian land with complete police protection. One day, we encountered settlers allowing their livestock to graze on Palestinian farmland at gunpoint.
As Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has outlined, soldiers and settlers are simply two arms of the same colonial project. And Adam captured the essence of that by saying:
In Hebron, settlers stood outside a Palestinian home and told its owner, with chilling conviction, that they would be taking it, claiming it as a “God-given right.” They then hurled abuse at Arabs and the Prophet Muhammad, while Israeli soldiers stood guard on rooftops nearby.
Jerusalem posturing by settler-colonial thugs
In occupied Jerusalem, Shockat Adam explained:
At the Al Aqsa compound, we witnessed armed Israeli settlers walking freely within the sacred site, accompanied by heavily armed soldiers. Their presence was not one of curiosity or tourism or even worship, but provocation. At Lions’ Gate, one of the key entrances to the compound, settlers were dancing and singing nationalistic songs—songs that spoke of rebuilding the Solomon Temple on the site where Al Aqsa, the third-holiest site in Islam, stands.
He called this:
an assertion of dominance, a deliberate act of intimidation, carried out under the protection of state security forces.
He added that:
I, as a Muslim, was personally denied access to the Wailing Wall, not for any security reason, but simply because of my faith.
And he spoke of the barring of Christian Palestinians “from entering their holy sites during Good Friday observances” too.
Israel’s actions: “a stain on our collective conscience”
In Tel Aviv, meanwhile, Shockat Adam said:
One of the most disturbing conversations I had was with an Arab-Israeli official tasked with teaching empathy for Palestinians in Israeli schools. He told us Israeli children couldn’t comprehend that Palestinian children had dreams like theirs. “But” they said, “Baby Mohammed grows up to be Big Mohammed. And Big Mohammed hates Israelis. So, we must hate Baby Mohammed.”
By calling for Britain and other countries to uphold international law, sanction Israel, and “support the Palestinian right to self-determination”, Adam insisted:
this is not about taking sides between Israelis and Palestinians. This is about standing on the side of humanity. On the side of justice. On the side of peace.
And he argued that:
What is happening is not just a Palestinian tragedy. It is a stain on our collective conscience. If left unaddressed, it will have consequences for the region and the world.
Gary Lineker has done a new interview with the BBC’sAmol Rajan to mark his departure from Match of the Day. This follows tensions regarding his refusal to censor himself politically, especially on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Most mainstream media headlines about the interview, however, seemed to ignore his powerful critique of the BBC over its awful coverage of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Gary Lineker: ‘You can’t be impartial about the mass murder of thousands of children’
Former football star Gary Lineker insisted that one key mistake the BBC makes is that it “tries to appease the people that hate the BBC“. And this is particularly clear when it comes to the Israel lobby. Because genocide apologists hate it when truth comes out, and even highly compromised news outlets like the BBC can’t help telling the truth sometimes.
In February, for example, pro-Israel forces bullied the BBC into pulling an important documentary about Israel’s crimes in Gaza, and Lineker was one of over a thousand UK-based media professionals to condemn the public broadcaster’s “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. This letter accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.
And in his BBC interview this week, Gary Lineker also hit back hard against accusations that he should have kept his mouth shut on the Gaza genocide to protect the BBC‘s ‘impartiality’, stressing that:
the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on
On average, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least one Palestinian child every hour in Gaza since their genocide began in October 2023. In total, they have murdered around 17,492 children. That number includes about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds.
Amol Rajan responded to Lineker by saying the BBC “needs to be impartial about it”. Lineker cut him off, saying:
Why? It needs to be factual.
‘The FULL context needs to be there’
Rajan echoed Israel’s attempt to justify its genocidal crimes in Gaza as a response to the events of 7 October 2023, ignorantly saying “that full context needs to be there”. But Gary Lineker’s comeback was clear. He asserted:
But that’s not the full context, is it? Because the full context starts way before October the 7th, doesn’t it?
That context includes the growth of political Zionism in the late 19th century, British colonialism in Palestine in the early 20th century, the Zionist settler movement and its terror campaigns before Israel’s creation in 1948, the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s decades-long consolidation of control via war and oppression, and Western support for Israel as a Cold War anti-communist power and then as an ongoing outpost, proxy, and tool for imperialism in the Middle East via ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes.
While the BBC keeps platforming Israeli propaganda for ‘impartiality’ purposes, it rarely gives the full context which would show true journalistic professionalism.
Gary Lineker, "What's going on there (Gaza), the mass murder of thousands of children is something we should have an opinion on"
Amol Rajan, "The BBC needs to be impartial about it"
Gary Lineker has done a new interview with the BBC’sAmol Rajan to mark his departure from Match of the Day. This follows tensions regarding his refusal to censor himself politically, especially on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Most mainstream media headlines about the interview, however, seemed to ignore his powerful critique of the BBC over its awful coverage of Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Gary Lineker: ‘You can’t be impartial about the mass murder of thousands of children’
Former football star Gary Lineker insisted that one key mistake the BBC makes is that it “tries to appease the people that hate the BBC“. And this is particularly clear when it comes to the Israel lobby. Because genocide apologists hate it when truth comes out, and even highly compromised news outlets like the BBC can’t help telling the truth sometimes.
In February, for example, pro-Israel forces bullied the BBC into pulling an important documentary about Israel’s crimes in Gaza, and Lineker was one of over a thousand UK-based media professionals to condemn the public broadcaster’s “politically motivated censorship”, which they described as “racist” and “dehumanising”. This letter accused the BBC of “erasing Palestinian suffering” and “suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians”.
And in his BBC interview this week, Gary Lineker also hit back hard against accusations that he should have kept his mouth shut on the Gaza genocide to protect the BBC‘s ‘impartiality’, stressing that:
the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on
On average, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least one Palestinian child every hour in Gaza since their genocide began in October 2023. In total, they have murdered around 17,492 children. That number includes about 825 babies, 895 one-year-olds, 3,266 preschoolers, and 4,032 six-to-10-year-olds.
Amol Rajan responded to Lineker by saying the BBC “needs to be impartial about it”. Lineker cut him off, saying:
Why? It needs to be factual.
‘The FULL context needs to be there’
Rajan echoed Israel’s attempt to justify its genocidal crimes in Gaza as a response to the events of 7 October 2023, ignorantly saying “that full context needs to be there”. But Gary Lineker’s comeback was clear. He asserted:
But that’s not the full context, is it? Because the full context starts way before October the 7th, doesn’t it?
That context includes the growth of political Zionism in the late 19th century, British colonialism in Palestine in the early 20th century, the Zionist settler movement and its terror campaigns before Israel’s creation in 1948, the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s decades-long consolidation of control via war and oppression, and Western support for Israel as a Cold War anti-communist power and then as an ongoing outpost, proxy, and tool for imperialism in the Middle East via ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and war crimes.
While the BBC keeps platforming Israeli propaganda for ‘impartiality’ purposes, it rarely gives the full context which would show true journalistic professionalism.
Gary Lineker, "What's going on there (Gaza), the mass murder of thousands of children is something we should have an opinion on"
Amol Rajan, "The BBC needs to be impartial about it"
Charities such as Save the Children UK and Citizens Advice have warned that child poverty will rise to the highest level since records began unless Labour scrap the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) two child benefit cap. Labour’s response? Shocking.
Labour: impoverishing children is a “matter of fairness”
In a letter to the prime minister, they refer to analysis from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) that shows the DWP two child benefit cap will increase the number of children living in poverty from 4.5 million to 4.8 million.
In response, a Labour source told the Guardian that ministers have ruled out scrapping the cap because it’s
popular with key voters, who see it as a matter of fairness
That’s gross. How is it a matter of “fairness” that children grow up in poverty? That’s a turn of phrase you might expect from the Conservative party, but this is what Labour are doing in power.
And apparently, if something is ‘popular’ it should be followed. Okay then: nationalise key utilities such as water and energy, because they are very popular policies across the electoral base.
And there’s also a key difference here. Public ownership of essentials makes total sense because we all need to use them every day. So it’s more expensive to rent them from private companies, rather than owning them ourselves. Whereas, the DWP two child benefit cap defies all logic when you consider the realities of the UK job market. As of March, there are 781,000 vacancies in the UK. But there are 1.57 million unemployed people. And a further 9.22 million are economically inactive p4 (also unemployed, but not actively looking for a job).
So Labour’s narrative over the DWP two child benefit cap is an alternative reality where there are 10 million more jobs in the country then there actually are. And that’s compounded when you consider that 59% of the 450,000 households impacted by the cap have at least one working parent.
Scrap the DWP two child benefit cap
Without a programme of training and job sharing, there is no alternative to unemployment DWP welfare. The growth at all costs mantra won’t solve it, given the job deficit is around 10 million. And besides, do we need to keep producing and consuming more and more stuff? Surely it’s a question of quality, with positives such as technological advancement and negatives such as tobacco and fast food (guilty pleasures for some, but not industries we want to see booming).
In the letter to Starmer, the charities, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell, write:
Ensuring that fewer children are in poverty at the end of this parliamentary term than at the start will require a direct investment in family incomes via the social security system. As the bare minimum, this must start with scrapping the two-child limit and the benefit cap. The two-child limit pushes more and more children into poverty every day and will act as a brake on any other action taken by government to reduce poverty.
From the 2024 election to October, Labour’s maintenance of the DWP two child benefit cap had already plunged 10,000 children into poverty, previous analysis from CPAG shows.
The charities also urged a long-term focus, given there are already 4.5 million children in poverty:
The strategy will also need to set targets to reduce child poverty over the next 10-20 years, laying the foundations for further policy interventions to tackle child poverty across different parts of government, and helping to maintain focus throughout this parliament and beyond.
The DWP two child benefit cap also has a negative impact on the economy through reducing demand for children’s products like books and toys. Scrapping it is a no-brainer, but the bureaucrats in government are ideologically wedded to a broken status quo.
In a revelation that will surely delight conspiracy theorists everywhere, the long-ridiculed notion of “chemtrails” has been given a new lease of life — and it’s happening right over our heads in the UK.
Yes, those alleged trails in the sky, once dismissed as the wild fantasies of internet forums and late-night radio hosts, have graduated to official, government-sanctioned scientific experiments aimed at geoengineering the climate.
Call it “chemtrail reality,” coming soon to a cloud near you.
Chemtrails: yes, Labour is signing off on them
The Guardianrecently reported that UK scientists, backed by the government itself, are gearing up for outdoor geoengineering experiments to spray particles into the sky. This involves releasing reflective aerosols designed to bounce some of the sun’s energy back into space — essentially, a giant sunscreen for the planet.
But before you think this is some hocus-pocus, remember: these experiments are not secret anymore, which might come as a surprise to those who’ve always claimed the government was hiding these operations.
Spoiler alert: turns out, they were.
UK scientists plan to launch what they call “outdoor geoengineering experiments” to mimic the impact of volcanic eruptions, which are known to cool the Earth temporarily by spewing particles into the stratosphere.
The goal? To assess whether spraying sulphate aerosols — yes, those mysterious chemicals people have been babbling about — could indeed cool down global temperatures and stave off the catastrophic climate crisis.
The project includes unleashing nanoparticles of calcite and sulphate into the upper atmosphere in controlled environments, essentially running controlled trials of “chemtrail” theories.
One of these initiatives is an Oxford University-led project that plans to send a small research balloon aloft, dispersing aerosols at high altitudes. The experiment will carry instruments to measure the particles’ behaviour and gather data on how this geoengineering might influence the climate system.
The Guardian’s infographic helpfully summed it all up:
The researchers insist the trials will be safe, temporary, and transparent. Because if there’s one thing that makes a conspiracy theory palatable, it’s when reputable academics and government bodies openly endorse it.
Geoengineering: a long and colourful history
The supposed “conspiracy” of chemtrails has a long, colourful history.
For years now, sceptics of chemtrails have had to endure the ridicule of their ideas being branded “baseless,” “paranoiac,” or “scientifically implausible.” Yet here we are, with top scientists discussing the very same scenarios.
Even more charming is the claiming that these experiments are part of a broader international effort to explore solar radiation management — a fancy term for spraying stuff into the sky to block sunlight — which has been secretly whispered about in official circles since at least the 1990s.
To add fuel to the spectacle, other countries have been quietly exploring similar experiments. The US “Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment” (SCoPEx), spearheaded by Harvard University, has been testing aerosols in the atmosphere since the early 2020s. Reportedly, its controversial plans to launch a test flight were delayed due to public backlash and concerns about unintended consequences, but the initiative has never gone away.
The UK’s planned tests, announced only recently, seem to push this agenda even further — perhaps partly in response to the increasingly urgent calls to tackle climate change by unconventional means.
There’s an obvious problem insomuch that capitalism’s failed attempts to curb carbon emissions won’t be enough to prevent global warming from passing critical tipping points.
This exploration into geoengineering might be humanity’s last-ditch attempt to take control of its fate. Because the Global North and the corporate capitalists that run it aren’t going to stop burning fossil fuels anytime soon, they think they can just manipulate the weather instead.
Chemtrails: corporate capitalists at it again
So, the backlash has already begun. Environmentalists and ethicists warn that spraying aerosols might alter weather patterns unpredictably and pose ethical dilemmas, especially regarding who controls the thermostat of the planet. Many think that this is an obvious excuse to continue the burning of fossil fuels for longer (and they’d be right).
Others speculate about the military applications of aerosol dispersal. Cue doomsday scenarios of weaponised weather (if the Global North hasn’t weaponised the weather already, that is…)
For the average layperson, though, the real twist is the irony that the very talk once derided as crackpot has now become mainstream science. Does this mean we were right all along? That governments have known the power of “chemtrails” and only now admit to it under the guise of rigorous scientific scrutiny?
Skeptics in the conspiracy community are undoubtedly rubbing their hands with glee.
To be absolutely clear, these ‘public’ geoengineering efforts are strictly experimental and subject to transparency protocols, but the secret is out: geoengineering is no longer science fiction or a fringe fear.
It is an emerging reality with planned tests, balloon launches, and aerosol dispersions happening soon in the skies above the UK and elsewhere. In other words, those persistent “chemtrail” claims were less conspiracy and more prophecy.
So next time you look up at the sky and notice a trail behind a jet plane, don’t dismiss it outright as mere water vapour. That string could very well be the first tangible sign of capitalist’s attempts to engineer the climate, to play god with the atmosphere, and, whether we like it or not, to bring the conspiracy theories of old front and centre into real-world science.
We’re humbled to introduce our Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
قالت منظمة “أطباء بلا حدود” إن قطاع غزة تحوّل إلى “مقبرة جماعية” للفلسطينيين وكل من يحاول مساعدتهم، وسط استمرار العدوان الإسرائيلي البري والجوي والبحري، الذي بات يستهدف كل مظاهر الحياة، ويقضي على كل ما تبقّى من مقومات الصمود.
واستأنفت قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي منذ 18 مارس/آذار الماضي حربها المفتوحة على غزة، بعد تهدئة قصيرة لم تدم طويلًا، انقلب عليها رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو تحت ضغوط داخلية من اليمين المتطرف. وعادت آلة القتل لتضرب بقوة في القطاع المحاصر منذ أكثر من 17 عامًا، وسط حصار شامل، وتهجير قسري، ومنع للمساعدات الإنسانية.
وأكدت منظمة “أطباء بلا حدود” أن الجيش الإسرائيلي يتعمد تدمير حياة المدنيين الفلسطينيين من خلال استهدافهم بشكل مباشر، وحرمانهم من الماء، والغذاء، والرعاية الصحية، مشيرة إلى أن هذه الأفعال ترتقي إلى سياسة ممنهجة لتفريغ غزة من سكانها.
استهداف العاملين في المجال الإنساني
ولم تكتفِ إسرائيل باستهداف المدنيين، بل واصلت خرقها الفاضح للقانون الدولي الإنساني، عبر تجاهل سلامة العاملين في المجالين الطبي والإغاثي. حيث أفادت المنظمة بأن القوات الإسرائيلية شنت هجمات قاتلة طالت طواقمها في غزة، رغم وضوح هويتهم ومواقعهم.
وطالبت المنظمة سلطات الاحتلال بالرفع الفوري للحصار “القاتل واللاإنساني” المفروض على غزة، وبتوفير الحماية للمدنيين والعاملين في المجالين الإنساني والطبي، محذرة من أن الوضع الحالي ينذر بكارثة إنسانية أعمق مما هو عليه.
أرقام تصرخ من تحت الركام
منذ استئناف العدوان في 18 مارس، وحتى منتصف أبريل الجاري، بلغ عدد الشهداء الفلسطينيين نتيجة الهجمات الإسرائيلية 1630 شهيدًا، إضافة إلى 4302 مصاب، معظمهم من النساء والأطفال.
أما منذ بدء الحرب الشاملة في 7 أكتوبر 2023، فقد ارتفعت حصيلة الشهداء في قطاع غزة إلى 51 ألف شهيد، في حين تجاوز عدد المصابين 116,343 جريحًا، في أرقام توثّق حجم المأساة التي يمر بها أكثر من مليوني فلسطيني محاصر داخل القطاع.
المعابر مغلقة .. والمجاعة تطرق الأبواب
رغم النداءات الدولية المتكررة، لا تزال المعابر مغلقة أمام دخول المساعدات، ما أدى إلى تفاقم الأوضاع المعيشية والصحية، في وقت يشهد فيه القطاع دمارًا واسعًا للبنية التحتية، وخروج المستشفيات عن الخدمة، ونقصًا حادًا في الأدوية ومياه الشرب.
ويعيش نحو 1.7 مليون فلسطيني في العراء، بلا مأوى، بعد أن دُمّرت منازلهم، بينما بدأت المجاعة تفتك بالأهالي، لا سيما الأطفال، في ظل انقطاع تام للمساعدات الغذائية والطبية.
دعوات دولية .. واستجابة غائبة
ودعت “أطباء بلا حدود” إلى استعادة وقف إطلاق النار فورًا والحفاظ عليه، وإنهاء سياسة العقاب الجماعي بحق سكان غزة، ووقف استهداف الطواقم الطبية والإغاثية، لكن حتى الآن، لا توجد مؤشرات على تحرك جدي من المجتمع الدولي لوقف النزيف الفلسطيني المستمر.
بين ركام المنازل، وداخل الملاجئ المكتظة، وفي المستشفيات المتهالكة، يموت الغزيون بصمت، تحت وطأة القصف، والجوع، والخذلان. غزة، التي أصبحت جرحًا مفتوحًا في الجسد العربي والإنساني، لا تزال تقاوم الموت بكل ما تبقّى فيها من نبض، وسط سؤال يلاحق الضمير العالمي: إلى متى؟.
Royal Mail: winning over CWU bosses – but not the workers?
As the World Socialist Web Site reported, in a letter titled “USO Update on Pilot Sites,” dated April 15 CWU Deputy General Secretary (postal) Martin Walsh and assistant secretaries Davie Robertson and Tony Bouch attempt to spin pilot trials aimed at dismantling Royal Mail’s Universal Service Obligation (USO) as positive progress.
Yet, behind this polished PR lies a plan that threatens thousands of jobs, brutal workload increases, reduced service standards, and a betrayal of postal workers’ interests.
The letter, addressed to union branches and members, claims the pilot projects—taking place at just six of the proposed 37 sites—are progressing based on four “overarching principles” agreed between Royal Mail and the CWU.
These include meeting “commercial targets,” achieving Ofcom’s newly lowered 90% quality of service for first-class letters, and ensuring workloads are “fair, manageable and achievable.”
On the surface, these sound reasonable, but in reality, the new Operational Delivery Model (ODM) slashes the number of postal routes while pushing call rates up by nearly a third. Delivery workers face shifts stretching over five hours, rotating between “core” and “combined” routes, robbing them of steady duties and predictability.
The CWU’s letter promises “extra Saturdays off” but ignores the fact these are designed to accommodate longer weekday hours—sapping workers’ energy rather than providing genuine respite. Absurdly, it speaks of reducing fatigue and improving morale while supporting longer, more intense work patterns that postal staff have already denounced as unworkable.
Mounting outrage
This letter follows mounting outrage from rank-and-file postal workers over the “USO Reform Pilot Terms of Reference” agreement Walsh signed last December, literally signing away protections to deliver Royal Mail’s corporate agenda and billionaire owner Daniel Kretinsky’s plan to “financially sustain” the service by gutting it.
The CWU’s own fightback efforts have been stifled: in January, postal workers at Cumbernauld in Scotland voiced serious concerns about the pilots during a workplace meeting, only for a motion opposing the changes to be blocked by the local union rep—a clear indication of the union bureaucracy squashing member dissent.
Walsh tried to brush off these criticisms by visiting the Cumbernauld depot and promising further communications “to prove the truth will prevail.” The latest letter though contains no testimonials from workers directly affected by the pilots.
This absence speaks volumes—it exposes how the CWU leadership is out of touch and aligned with management rather than acting as a genuine voice for postal staff.
The letter unabashedly endorses Ofcom’s attack on postal service standards. First-class next-day delivery targets have been quietly slashed from 93% to 90%, and second-class deliveries will now only take place four days a week instead of six. Walsh and Co even argue the current USO imposes “substantial unnecessary costs” on Royal Mail.
This claim dismisses the huge value postal workers deliver every day to communities across Britain, especially those in rural or vulnerable areas who rely on the consistent six-day delivery.
CWU: cold and calculated?
Despite claiming not to have “agreed as yet to full USO reform,” the letter warns that failure to implement the ODM will result in harsher cuts—reducing delivery days to just three or four each week. This backtracking is less a protection and more a threat, indicating the CWU’s collusion in dismantling the service.
The CWU admits the trials’ inevitable job losses will be managed through “not filling vacancies” and “voluntary redundancies.” Tens of thousands of postal workers have already been forced out or left due to the punitive regime imposed on them.
In November, Walsh coldly stated that 1,000 job losses would come directly from USO reform, with another 6,000 “natural wastage” attritions added on top—all as Royal Mail’s workforce had already been cut by 10,000 between 2023 and 2024.
There is a stark contrast between the CWU leadership’s cosy cooperation with management and the reality faced by postal workers struggling under increased workloads, longer hours, and job insecurity. The pilots are mired in problems, with many sites delaying their start dates to May amid clear staff resistance and already visible signs of fatigue and route “not clearing.”
These changes are being pushed through while the government and regulator Ofcom stand by, approving the erosion of a vital public service to appease billionaire shareholders. The public, along with postal workers themselves, express growing disgust at seeing a national treasure handed over to asset-strippers and oligarchs like Kretinsky—who view Royal Mail only as a cash cow to be milked.
Royal Mail workers must organise
In this bitter atmosphere, the only hope for postal workers lies in organising rank-and-file networks independent of the union bureaucracy, which has consistently failed to defend members.
The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) has called for a fighting strategy to oppose these attacks, inviting postal workers nationwide to an online meeting on 27 April at 7pm. The session aims to unite opposition across delivery offices, mail centres, and Parcel Force, empowering workers to stand up for their interests against corporate greed and union collusion.
The CWU leaders’ recent letter reveals their role as enforcers of Royal Mail’s destructive plan, not protectors of working people. Postal workers continue to bear the brunt of longer hours, job losses, and slashed services while management and union officials try to sweep dissent under the carpet.
The future of the British postal service and its workforce hangs in the balance, depending on whether rank-and-file workers can organise and fight back against this assault.
she/they (@ChronicallyVex) April 29, 2025
