It’s the gift that keeps on giving. If each day you rush to Twitter to see what the Your Party debacle has to offer, you’re in luck because *drum roll* Zarah Sultana may now be blocked from giving a speech at her own founding party conference.
The firebrand Coventry South MP may be prevented from addressing delegates at the first gathering of Your Party, which takes place in Liverpool on November 29-30.
Apparently, a “senior Your Party source” said that Sultana “would need to be on speaking terms with those organising the conference to have any clarity about when, and whether, she would speak”
The source added:
The problem is she isn’t on anything approaching speaking terms.
And another insisted:
We don’t want this to become the Zarah show.
Which is an odd call because the only show this project looks like is one where varying sizes of clown get out of an improbably small car. Moreover, Your Party goons saw fit to use Gabriel Pogrund as the journalist to write the hit piece. Ironic – considering he was one the the Times hacks central to Morgan McSweeney and Labour Together’s plot to bring down Corbyn as Labour leader. If you lie down with dogs, and all that.
For her part Sultana, at least, seems to know what she’s doing. A spokesperson told the Canary:
As a co-founder of Your Party, Zarah will be addressing the founding conference as members expect. She’s fighting for maximum member democracy and is confident the movement will not accept any attempt to exclude or sabotage her, as happened before her appearance on Question Time last week.
Internecine fuckery
Despite enormous optimism early on, Your Party quickly descended into bizarre, internal power-wrangling. And all the while Reform UK have risen in the polls. Controversies have included a punch-up over whether transphobes and landlords should be in the party. Oh, and an argument over membership portals. Then, an ongoing row over the estimated £800,000 pound in donations. And don’t forget the allegations of misogyny being directed at Sultana by notionally left-wing colleagues.
If you want a good cry you can catch up here. Because if we linked every report of a puerile, self-defeating argument in Your Party this article would be the length of the entire Game of Thrones series. Albeit a lot better better written. Though roughly equally blood-spattered.
What we do know is that Zarah Sultana WILL be holding a rally the night before the conference:
I'm hosting the eve of conference Your Party rally in Liverpool next Friday.
Join me, grassroots organisers and labour movement leaders as we organise and build a socialist party rooted in maximum member democracy.
Meanwhile, sources close to her rejected the anonymous claims against her. They told the Canary:
Zarah and Jeremy have spoken in recent days, it’s factually incorrect to say they are not on speaking terms as alleged in the Times. Zarah has been excluded from the entire process leading up to conference, which includes drafting founding documents, organising regional assemblies and organising conference.
They added:
Co-leadership is still her preference, but it’s up to the members to decide if it’s sole, co-leadership or collective and they should be able to vote on that leadership structure. Zarah is a strong advocate of maximum member democracy.
Look in the mirror
We’re aware the Canary has been stoking some controversy in pro-Corbyn circles with our apparent siding with Zarah Sultana. However, the real picture here is that a) Sultana isn’t the one running to the Guardian and Murdoch rags with intentionally-destructive tittle-tattle (when these outlets would happily throw everyone involved under the bus), and b) she is a lone Brown woman in a movement dominated by men and white women at the top with multiple teams working for them.
The Canary’s only duty is always to punch up, not down. And if you think punching up on the side of Sultana is the problem, here – then maybe you’re reading the wrong article. And maybe – just maybe – you’re backing the wrong people, too.
The UN Security Council passed a regime change resolution against Gaza on Monday, effectively issuing a mandate for an invasion force to enter the besieged coastal enclave and install a US-led ruling authority by force.
Passing with 13 votes in favour and none in defiance, the new UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution has given the United States a mandate to create what it calls an “International Stabilisation Force” (ISF) and “Board of Peace” committee to seize power in Gaza.
US President Donald Trump has hailed the resolution as historic, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has stood in opposition to an element of the resolution that mentions “Palestinian Statehood”.
In order to understand what has just occurred, it requires a breakdown of the resolution itself and the broader context surrounding the ceasefire deal.
When these elements are combined, it becomes clear that this resolution is perhaps one of the most shameful to have passed in the history of the United Nations, casting shame on it and undermining the very basis on which it was formed to begin with.
An illegal regime change resolution In September 2025, a United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel to have committed the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
For further context, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the most powerful international legal entity and organ of the UN, ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and thus issued orders for Tel Aviv to end specific violations of international law in Gaza, which were subsequently ignored.
Taking this into consideration, the UN itself cannot claim ignorance of the conditions suffered by the people of Gaza, nor could it credibly posit that the United States is a neutral actor capable of enforcing a balanced resolution of what its own experts have found to be a genocide.
This resolution itself is not a peace plan and robs Palestinians of their autonomy entirely; thus, it is anti-democratic in its nature.
It was also passed due in large part to threats from the United States against both Russia and China, that if they vetoed it, the ceasefire would end and the genocide would resume. Therefore, both Beijing and Moscow abstained from the vote, despite the Russian counterproposal and initial opposition to the resolution.
It also gives a green light to what the US calls a “Board of Peace”, which will work to preside over governing Gaza during the ceasefire period. The head of this board is none other than US President Trump himself, who says he will be joined by other world leaders.
Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who launched the illegal invasion of Iraq, has been floated as a potential “Board of Peace” leader also.
Vowed a ‘Gaza Riviera’
On February 4 of this year, President Trump vowed to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. The American President later sought to impose a plan for a new Gaza, which he even called the “Gaza Riviera”, which was drawn up by Zionist economist Joseph Pelzman.
Part of Pelzman’s recommendations to Trump was that “you have to destroy the whole place, restart from scratch”.
As it became clear that the US alone could not justify an invasion force and simply take over Gaza by force, on behalf of Israel, in order to build “Trump Gaza”, a casino beach land for fellow Jeffrey Epstein-connected billionaires, a new answer was desperately sought.
Then came a range of meetings between Trump administration officials and regional leaderships, aimed at working out a strategy to achieve their desired goals in Gaza.
After the ceasefire was violated in March by the Israelis, leading to the mass murder of around 17,000 more Palestinians, a number of schemes were being hatched and proposals set forth.
The US backed and helped to create the now-defunct so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) programme, which was used to privatise the distribution of aid in the territory amidst a total blockade of all food for three months.
Starving Palestinians, who were rapidly falling into famine, flocked to these GHF sites, where they were fired upon by US private military contractors and Israeli occupation forces, murdering more than 1000 civilians.
The ‘New York Declaration’
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and France were busy putting together what would become the “New York Declaration” proposal for ending the war and bringing Western nations to recognise the State of Palestine at the UN.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, here came Trump’s so-called “peace plan” that was announced at the White House in October. This plan appeared at first to be calling for a total end to the war, a mutual prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in a phased approach.
From the outset, Trump’s “20-point plan” was vague and impractical. Israel immediately violated the ceasefire from the very first day and has murdered nearly 300 Palestinians since then. The first phase of the ceasefire deal was supposed to end quickly, ideally within five days, but the deal has stalled for over a month.
Throughout this time, it has become increasingly clear that the Israelis are not going to respect the “Yellow Line” separation zone and have violated the agreement through operating deeper into Gaza than they had originally agreed to.
The Israeli-occupied zone was supposed to be 53 percent of Gaza; it has turned out to be closer to 58 percent. Aid is also not entering at a sufficient rate, despite US and Israeli denials; this has been confirmed by leading rights groups and humanitarian organisations.
In the background, the US team dealing with the ceasefire deal that is headed by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff has been juggling countless insidious proposals for the future of Gaza.
Even publicly stating that reconstruction will only take place in the Israeli-controlled portion of the territory, also floating the idea that aid points will be set up there in order to force the population out of the territory under de facto Hamas control. This has often been referred to as the “new Gaza plan”.
The disastrous GHF
As this has all been in the works, including discussions about bringing back the disastrous GHF, the Israelis have been working alongside four ISIS-linked collaborator death squads that it controls and who operate behind the Yellow Line in Gaza.
No mechanisms have been put in place to punish the Israelis for their daily violations of the ceasefire, including the continuation of demolition operations against Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure. This appears to be directly in line with Joseph Pelzman’s plan earlier this year to “destroy the whole place”.
The UNSC resolution not only makes Donald Trump the effective leader of the new administrative force that will be imposed upon the Gaza Strip, but also greenlights what it calls its International Stabilisation Force. This ISF is explicitly stated to be a multinational military force that will be tasked with disarming Hamas and all Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
The US claims it will not be directly involved in the fighting with “boots on the ground”; it has already deployed hundreds of soldiers and has been reportedly building a military facility, which they deny is a base, but for all intents and purposes will be one.
Although it may not be American soldiers killing and dying while battling Palestinian resistance groups, they will be in charge of this force.
This is not a “UN peacekeeping force” and is not an equivalent to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon; it is there to carry out the task of completing Israel’s war goal of defeating the Palestinian resistance through force.
In other words, foreign soldiers will be sent from around the world to die for Israel and taxpayers from those nations will be footing the bill.
‘Self-determination’ reservation
The only reason why Israel has reservations about this plan is because it included a statement claiming that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) — that does not control Gaza and is opposed by the majority of the Palestinian people — undergoes reforms that the West and Israel demand, then conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.
A keyword here is “may”, in other words, it is not binding and was simply added in to give corrupted Arab leaderships the excuse to vote yes.
Hamas and every other Palestinian political party, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah that answers to Israel and the US, have opposed this UNSC resolution.
Hamas even called upon Algeria to vote against it; instead, the Algerian leadership praised Donald Trump and voted in favour. Typical of Arab and Muslim-majority regimes that don’t represent the will of their people, they all fell in line and bent over backwards to please Washington.
It won’t likely work As has been the story with every conspiracy hatched against the people of Gaza, this is again destined to fail. Not only will it fail, but it will likely backfire enormously and lead to desperate moves.
To begin with, the invasion force, or ISF, will be a military endeavour that will have to bring together tens of thousands of soldiers who speak different languages and have nothing in common, in order to somehow achieve victory where Israel failed.
It is a logistical nightmare to even think about.
How long would it take to deploy these soldiers? At the very least, it’s going to take months. Then, how long would this process take? Nobody has any clear answers here.
Also, what happens if Israel begins bombing again at any point, for example, if there is a clash that kills Israeli soldiers? What would these nations do if Israeli airstrikes killed their soldiers or put them in harm’s way?
Also, tens of thousands of soldiers may not cut it; if the goal is to destroy all the territory’s military infrastructure, they may need hundreds of thousands. Or if that isn’t an option, will they work alongside the Israeli military?
It is additionally clear that nobody knows where all the tunnels and fighters are; if Israel couldn’t find them, then how can anyone else?
After all, the US, UK, and various others have helped the Israelis with intelligence sharing and reconnaissance for more than two years to get these answers.
How do regimes justify this?
Finally, when Arab, European, or Southeast Asian soldiers return to their nations in body bags, how do their regimes justify this? Will the president or prime minister of these nations have to stand up and tell their people . . . “sorry guys, your sons and daughters are now in coffins because Israel needed a military force capable of doing what they failed to do, so we had to help them complete their genocidal project”.
Also, how many Palestinian civilians are going to be slaughtered by these foreign invaders?
As for the plan to overthrow Hamas rule in Gaza, the people of the territory will not accept foreign invaders as their occupiers any more than they will accept Israelis. They are not going to accept ISIS-linked collaborators as any kind of security force either.
Already, the situation is chaotic inside Gaza, and that is while its own people, who are experienced and understand their conditions, are in control of managing security and some administrative issues; this includes both Hamas and others who are operating independently of it, but inside the territory under its de facto control.
Just as the Israeli military claimed it was going to occupy Gaza City, laying out countless plans to do this, to ethnically cleanse the territory and “crush Hamas”, the US has been coordinating alongside it throughout the entirety of the last two years. Every scheme has collapsed and ended in failure.
It has been nearly a month and a half, yet there are still no clear answers as to how this Trump “peace plan” is supposed to work and it is clear that the Israelis are coming up with new proposals on a daily basis.
There is no permanent mechanism for aid transfers, which the Israelis are blocking. There is no clear vision for governance.
How a US plan envisages Gaza being permanently split into two sections – a green zone and a red zone. Image: Guardian/IDF/X
‘Two Gazas’ plan incoherent
The “two Gazas” plan is not even part of the ceasefire or Trump plan, yet it is being pursued in an incoherent way. The ISF makes no sense and appears as poorly planned as the GHF.
Hamas and the other Palestinian factions will not give up their weapons. There is no real plan for reconstruction. The Israelis are adamant that there will be no Palestinian State and won’t allow any independent Palestinian rule of Gaza, and the list of problems goes on and on.
What it really looks like here is that this entire ceasefire scheme is a stab in the dark attempt to achieve Israel’s goals while also giving its forces a break and redirecting their focus on other fronts, understanding that there is no clear solution to the Gaza question for now.
The United Nations has shown itself over the past two years to be nothing more than a platform for political theatre. It is incapable of punishing, preventing, or even stopping the crime of all crimes.
Now that international law has suffocated to death under the rubble of Gaza, next to the thousands of children who still lie underneath it, the future of this conflict will transform.
This UNSC vote demonstrates that there is no international law, no international community, and that the UN is simply a bunch of fancy offices, which are only allowed to work under the confines of gangster rule.
If the Palestinian resistance groups feel as if their backs are against the wall and an opportunity, such as another Israeli war on Lebanon, presents them the opportunity, then there is a high likelihood that a major military decision will be made.
In the event that this occurs, it will be this UNSC resolution that is in large part responsible.
When the suffering in Gaza finally ends, whether that is because Israel obliterates all of its regional opposition and exterminates countless other civilians in its way, or Israel is militarily shattered, the UN should be disbanded as was the League of Nations. It is a failed project just as that which preceded it.
Something new must take over from it.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specialising in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle and it is republished with permission.
Maddy Haughton-Boakes, senior campaigner at the Changing Markets Foundation, on how the Big Ag lobby is flooding COP30, and how to curb its greenwashing efforts.
As COP30 enters its final days, an unfortunate takeaway is the agribusiness greenwash, which has flooded the summit. Industry influence has been an unfortunate addition to COPs for years, and Belém is no exception. As DeSmog reports today, there are nearly 302 agribusiness lobbyists on the ground. Of these, almost a quarter (72) come from Big Meat and Dairy, almost double the number of climate delegates of Jamaica.
These included delegates from Brazil’s two biggest meat companies JBS (also the world’s largest) and MBRF (formerly Marfrig), food giant Nestlé, and agribusiness giant Bayer, as well as groups, such as the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), Brazil’s most powerful agriculture lobby group, and the US-based Meat Institute and Animal Agriculture Alliance – under scrutiny for their role in the backlash to the planetary health diet.
Dozens more lobbyists attending only as part of the new, unprecedented official COP space, known as the AgriZone, remain unaccounted for. The zone, hosted by Embrapa, Brazil’s state-owned agricultural research agency, and its sponsors include major agri-corporations such as Nestlé, and Bayer (a ‘diamond sponsor’). Bayer, along with Senar, a branch of the CNA, has been linked to platforms that spread climate disinformation.
How the meat industry is influencing the UN climate summit
The AgriZone is a greenwash theatre, built to ‘dazzle negotiators’ and members of the public, while deflecting attention from industrial agriculture’s role in the climate crisis. In the entrance, you are greeted by the JBS-sponsored media centre, Canal Rural Studio. This is the same JBS that is repeatedly linked to deforestation, emissions, environmental violations and human rights abuses.
Nearby, a giant SUV, promoting ‘hybrid’ powered by ethanol, is positioned to showcase the power and influence of the Brazilian biofuel industry. (Side note: the number of bioenergy lobbyists has soared this year).
Inside, corporate-sponsored booths lure visitors with glossy, feel-good videos promoting ‘climate-smart’ farming, tech-driven efficiency narratives, and partnerships with farmers. Set to soothing music, these displays are carefully curated to show pristine fields and peaceful-looking cows.
Climate campaigners protest at COP30’s AgriZone | Courtesy: World Animal Protection
Meanwhile, Embrapa displays dramatic videos showing climate impacts such as droughts and floods for agriculture, while claiming the solution lies in techno-fixes. The sequence crafts a deceptively simple tale: one in which agriculture is the victim, but the solution is simply more innovation, which the Brazilian industry is already working towards.
We cannot escape these messages even in the Blue Zone, the heart of COP’s decision-making. Here, we continue to find agribusiness branding and messaging, some of which is also making its way into the media. JBS is leading ‘food systems’ discussions and claiming that some of its farms ‘remove more carbon than they emit’, and MBRF is touting its supposedly ‘low-carbon’ beef.
There have been at least six screenings of the pro-industry documentary World Without Cows, produced by agribusiness company Alltech. At a panel in the Action on Food Hub, the CEO of Alltech invited everyone to join, claiming he had commissioned the film to “broaden the debate”.
However, our request for tickets was not granted, which wasn’t surprising; screenings have been heavily restricted since the film’s launch, with only industry-friendly audiences allowed to ensure glowing reviews. Only one very determined youth activist managed to get a ticket, and was able to write an honest review of the film.
The common thread is unmistakable: a focus on productivity, innovation and incremental tweaks, alongside a glaring avoidance of the urgent, science-backed reality that we need to reduce meat consumption and production, and shift toward plant-rich diets and more sustainable production methods.
The reality on the ground aligns with our recent investigation, launched in the run-up to COP. The Meat Agenda: Agricultural Exceptionalism and Greenwash in Brazil traces a pattern of corporate capture of the narrative on the road to Belém, from industry-sponsored media content and influencer campaigns. A new DeSmog analysis of this trend shows that 195 influencers, who collectively have hundreds of millions of followers, were engaged by agribusiness in 2025.
Courtesy: Billion Photos/Naeblys/Getty Images | Illustration by Green Queen
Methane action a missed opportunity at COP30
Our report also shows how agricultural methane, responsible for more than three-quarters of Brazil’s methane emissions, is glaringly absent from the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), and how the sector’s grip on politics threatens the implementation of the overall NDC ambition.
But this is not just a Brazilian story. The same pattern is playing out around the world. And the stakes could not be higher. The latest UN Emissions Gap report shows that current NDCs point toward 2.3–2.5°C of warming, while existing policies are closer to 2.8°C, far from the pathway needed to keep the 1.5°C threshold alive. The world is already caught in the grip of climate catastrophe: COP30 opened as the Philippines reeled from back-to-back typhoons. There is no time left for half-measures or false narratives, and high-methane-emitting sectors, including agriculture, have a key role to play.
Methane is a super-pollutant, over 80 times more warming than CO₂ in the short term and ris esponsible for nearly a third of today’s global heating. Globally, agriculture accounts for around 40% of methane emissions, most of which come from farmed animals, especially enteric fermentation (cow burps). The science says that to stay within 1.5°C, livestock methane emissions must fall by at least 25% by 2030.
Cutting these emissions is the emergency brake the world needs to pull to avoid even more catastrophic climate impacts. It has been encouraging to see a growing focus on methane at this COP, but agribusiness remains largely off the hook.
Graphic by Green Queen
Monday’s methane ministerial missed a crucial opportunity to confront the root cause of its most significant driver: animal agriculture. With more than 150 countries signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, the world has committed to a 30% cut by 2030. But we are far from meeting that goal, as the newest UN Methane Status Report shows.
Still, there are reasons to be hopeful. Indigenous groups are refusing to be silenced, and civil society is challenging the Agrizone head-on. For the first time in years, meaningful protest has returned to the streets.
Together with partners, we’ve created vibrant spaces that expose corporate greenwash, highlight the urgency of cutting methane, and expose the industry’s aggressive push for ‘no additional warming’ approaches, a misleading use of the controversial metric, GWP*, being used to justify ‘business as usual’ approaches. (Spoiler: many of the industry lobbyists at COP are there to push for it).
The more greenwash is exposed, the harder it becomes for industry spin to dominate the conversation. In and outside the COP30 venue, across the Blue Zone, the People’s Summit, and civil-society spaces across Belém, farmers, Indigenous communities, scientists, and activists are showing how to build food systems that nourish people and the planet rather than destroy them.
And as these real solutions are discussed, debated, and demanded, the space for corporate obstruction shrinks. As the summit enters its final stretch, negotiators would do well to learn from this leadership.
For a Roman general about to commit to battle, every piece of intelligence was vital. Rather than blindly attack or retreat, he asked the gods. More specifically, he got a professional augur to open a cage with chicken in, throw some bread at it, and watch how the chicken ate it. Then, you see, he would know if the gods favoured him. Today, we use opinion polls.
Just before the Caerphilly by-election, Survation predicted Reform would poll 42%, with Plaid Cymru on 38%. The result? Plaid polled 47%, Reform 36%. From 4% behind, Plaid won by 11%.
True, that was a single constituency telephone poll with a small sample size. But why have people revered divination throughout history?
We didn’t always have opinion polls
The Ancient Greeks preferred the Oracle to chickens. A priestess would sit on a stool over a crack in the ground that belched out natural petrochemical fumes. Then she’d speak the word of the gods.
When I was elected Mayor in May 2019, Theresa May was Prime Minister. Imagine if I’d written a column predicting she’d be gone within weeks, and that bloke from Have I Got News For You would become Prime Minister. And there’d be this killer virus, right, that would stop us all going outside and we’d be paid to stay at home, but there would be no toilet paper or pasta. But the scruffy-haired Latin bloke would get convicted for having a big party in Downing Street, so he would be replaced by that angry cheese speech woman, but she’d be beaten by a lettuce. And get this, a load of Russian tanks would roll into Ukraine, but then get confused and stop, and go back. Then invade again. British summers would top 40 degrees Celsius. Oh, and England will win the European Football Championship – twice.
You would have thought I was huffing the Ancient Greek glue. Especially if I’d said we would solve street homelessness overnight. Which we did, in lockdown. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
There is a reason politics and everything flowing from it is so febrile. No one has addressed the root cause of the 2007-8 financial crash. In the post-war boom profits came from making things. Developing new products, organising productive new methods of manufacturing. Profit depended on increasing the skills and productivity of the workforce. There was at least something of a balance of power between owners and workers, leading to increasing wages and prosperity. Beveridge’s five giant evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness all but disappeared.
Awash with money
Today, profit comes more from owning things and charging rent on them. Remember how most of the building societies were turned into banks? Well, most of those bank shares are now owned by very rich people. Our care homes used to be run by councils. Now most are owned by private equity.
Britain is awash with money. But it is not being usefully deployed. Billionaire wealth has increased tenfold since the 1990’s. That’s after accounting for inflation.
That’s the cause of austerity. That’s why we have unemployed GPs and a shortage of GP appointments. That’s why university leaves you with £53,000 debt just for getting the skills we need to run a modern economy. That’s why your park no longer gets the grass cut. That’s why you see homeless people on the street and 3 million people using food banks. How long before kids have to pay back the loan for their A-Level tuition?
The most recent Find Out Now poll still has Reform in the lead, but puts the Green Party second. They’re on 18%, ahead of the Tories on 16% and Labour on 15%. And that’s before the Starmtroopers decided to start a leadership challenge against themselves.
The turmoil will continue
Who would have predicted Labour would be fourth just sixteen months after winning 411 general election seats? Who would have predicted the Greens would be the opposition? Will Labour now step aside to stop splitting the progressive vote?
Until someone offers a credible cure for Thatcherism, politics will continue in turmoil. Polls will rise and fall, leaders will come and go. At Majority, we’re committed to pluralism and progressive alliances. We need leaders at every level who can work together, who are competent and networked, and who don’t get snagged in petty disputes. People who could run the country in the interests of the people who do the work, and run it well. We run training on community wealth building, on being a candidate, on how to mobilise activists. And you can be a member of the Greens, or Your Party, or anything else progressive, and still join Majority.
Here’s one prediction I will make. There will continue to be scandals and panics. Poverty will remain widespread and climate action will be inadequate. And nothing will be fixed until we get a team of competent, compassionate leaders who act with integrity.
What, precisely, is the government doing with the Renters’ Rights Bill? This was the legislative fix demanded for the “housing crisis”—the one senior Labour members spent the last election shouting about, often using the now-infamous, hollow phrase, “on day one.”
I’ve been watching this with more than just interest. Since January 2024, I have received three Section 21 “no-fault” eviction notices across two separate properties. One landlord filed it to avoid undertaking necessary damp works because they lacked the proper license. The current one—whom I have never even met—along with his agent (hi, Sam!), has dragged his heels on two improvement notices. The agent, at one point, put me in temporary accommodation that featured broken glass in the fridge and discarded needles in the backyard. I’ve now run out of road: court action can begin to evict me under this very Section 21 on the first of January.
Renters rights – not just yet
Wait, I hear the shouting: Aren’t they getting rid of Section 21s? Yes. They are. But not now. That wouldn’t be reasonable, would it? It’s only been seven years since the Tories first promised to ban no-fault evictions. Perhaps the landlords haven’t had enough notice.
He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived…The unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.
Oh, sorry, was that Winston Churchill? Awkward.
We all know landlordism is fundamentally destabilising the country, so why is the current government bending over backward to cater to the landlord lobby? What happened to “on day one”? I suppose they meant day one of May 2026. Kind of. Unless you’re in the social sector.
But at least there’s the National Landlord Database to help people like me when we get booted out to find a good new landlord… Oh, that’s not until the end of 2026, you say? Well, okay. But the Warm Homes Standard, surely? Well, if we’re talking how long it’ll be for all homes in the country to reach those standards? Around about 2028.
Parasites race to the bottom
Sometimes, I honestly don’t know who I despise more: my landlord for being a leaching parasite, or the government for pandering to this entire farce.
There’s a local property management company currently buying up homes at auction in a nearby small community—sometimes for as little as £30k cash. They immediately slap on some magnolia emulsion and rent them out for £600 a month. How is any of this legal? My last house lacked loft insulation; the council’s housing service telephone operator knew my letting agent by name when I reported him. Yet he is still allowed to manage dozens of properties, while local councils choose not to use the legal mechanisms available to repossess dangerous properties.
And even the basics are a struggle: I am still waiting for a date for my Rent Repayment Tribunal to reclaim money spent on a dodgy house that was not legally habitable for most of the time I lived there. How can you rent a house that is unsafe for people to live in and still profit from it? This entire system is fundamentally broken.
It all ties together. No, I am not painting the gate this year; I don’t give a damn. I’m not volunteering at the local library, and I’ve given up my allotment. Why? Because who knows where I’ll be living? If I move five miles in the wrong direction, I lose access to my therapist. I have no stability, so I am not investing time or effort into a place I won’t be in six or eight months from now. When that mentality infects 30% of a street, a village, or a city—when 30% of the population has no stake in the land they inhabit—that is a truly terrifying world.
Trapped
I helped a friend move into their first house yesterday. It’s warm, the roof doesn’t leak—it’s a home—and the mortgage is less than my rent. Make it make sense. Only one in eight renters can afford to buy a property where they live. Everyone else is told they can’t afford to buy, all while we are reliably paying someone else’s mortgage month after month.
Even some of the criticism from landlords is valid: this legislation genuinely doesn’t fix anything. It has spooked smaller landlords into leaving the market, yet too few people who need to buy those properties are able to afford them. This is further compounded by a generation of property owners who refuse to downsize because of the tax implications on an asset that they bought for literal peanuts. That is the legacy of the last few decades of deregulation in the housing sector; tens of thousands of families stuck in a high-supply, low-demand trap, with land banking driving up current property values. People in rented accommodation in the North East and Midlands pay more council tax than homeowners I know in the South East.
Ultimately, even when this watered-down legislation comes into play, if local councils lack the funding to implement these changes, it will all mean nothing. As my Environmental Health Officer wisely told me, the government can pass whatever law it wants, but if councils don’t have the capacity to implement and enforce the new regulations, they might as well not exist.
Shabana Mahmood has gone to even greater lengths to justify her abhorrent asylum reforms. Just yesterday, the Home Office briefed that the government could go ahead with plans to ‘seize’ jewellery and other valuables from asylum seekers.
Don’t worry, as fucking grim as that sounds, they’ve assured us that they won’t ‘seize’ sentimental jewellery. I don’t know about you, but I definitely trust a government that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow to distinguish between valuable jewellery and sentimental.
Rather than considering the moral depravity of her department’s proposal, Shabana Mahmood dug her heels in:
WATCH: Shabana Mahmood rebuts a Lib Dem MP who accuses her of using divisive rhetoric on the new asylum reforms
"Unlike him, I am the one that is regularly called a fucking Paki and told to go back home" pic.twitter.com/AfhBywBhrL
The full context of the quote from pound-shop Priti Patel reads as follows:
I have to say to the honourable gentleman, I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the divisions that the issue of migration and asylum system is creating across this country.
First of all, these “divisions” – a watering down of the terrifying racism permeating our streets – are not happening because migration is an issue. They’re happening because politicians like Shabana Mahmood weaponise the very very few people that seek asylum in this country in an effort to appeal to racist voters.
Racists have been regularly showing up every week in my area to shout abuse at passing Black and Brown people. They’ve physically fought residents on the street who are trying to stop them putting up flags. They’ve told people who call this their home to fuck off back where they came from. Basically, they’ve done everything they can to make sure that all people of colour – regardless of immigration status or anything else – know that they are not safe in this country.
They’re not people who are merely ‘concerned’ about “divisions” from migration. Do you think these people give a fuck about the statistics on how few asylum seekers actually come to this country? Do you think they’ll actually vote for Labour politicians desperately trying to court them? Will they fuck.
‘Divisive’ is not the fucking word
Then came Shabana Mahmood’s attempt at being a Confident Little Deporter:
Unlike him, unfortunately I am the one that is regularly called a fucking Paki and told to go back home. It is I who know through my personal experience, and that of my constituents, just how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country.
She may have been aiming for a punchy soundbite, but it came out sounding like a desperate and deplorable attempt to use her own experiences of racism to justify deporting people desperate for a better life. How many times does someone have to be called a Paki, or be told to go back home, to earn the right to make the lives of Brown people a desperate misery?
Because, let me tell you, I’ve had those slurs hurled at me my entire life, no matter where I live in England. It may be personally sad for Mahmood to be called a Paki – it feels like a rush of dehumanisation come to slap you in the face. It’s a reminder that even if you were born here, your citizenship isn’t the same as that of your white neighbours. It’s a reminder, as if you could ever forget, that you’re not a full person, you’re not ‘from’ here.
And the thing is, Mahmood is taking those feelings and slapping them on top of a Home Office policy which demeans and dehumanises asylum seekers. She’s taking those experiences of racism and using them to fuel media narratives that manufacture consent for deporting people.
So, no, I don’t really give a fuck if she’s being called a Paki. I do give a fuck that she’s weaponising her own identity to prop up a white supremacist system that targets the most vulnerable people in our society.
Who broke the system?
The next set of comments from Shabana Mahmood haven’t garnered as many headlines, but they’re worth a look:
I wish it were possible to say that there isn’t a problem here, that there’s nothing to see, and that it is all in fact extremist right-wing talking points but this system is broken and it is incumbent on all Members of Parliament to acknowledge how badly broken the system is and to make it a moral mission to fix this system so that it stops creating the division that we all see and I do say to him, I do not consider it acceptable or appropriate for people in this place to not acknowledge the real experience of those sitting outside of this House. We are supposed to be in here to reflect that experience in this House and I hope that he will approach the debate that we will no doubt have on all of these measures in that spirit.
Unfortunately for Mahmood, it’s not 2005 and her piss-poor racial analysis isn’t going to fly anymore. She’s specifically refused to connect being called a Paki with anything remotely resembling a system of racist oppression. It would be far more useful to have a conversation about how having brown faces in high places is no substitute for actual change.
What difference does it make if the person spitting abuse at you on the street, or the border officer kicking your door down in a dawn raid, or the racist emboldened by politicians paved the path to their actions via a brown face? Whether it’s Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, or Shabana Mahmood, the end result is the same.
Brown people can work in service of racism and white supremacy as much as anyone white can. I don’t give a fuck if Shabana Mahmood was called a Paki when she’s heading a system that destroys the lives of Black and Brown people who are trying to survive this nationalist racist hellscape we all live in.
Being aware of a highly educated and powerful Brown woman’s experiences of racism shouldn’t inform this ‘debate.’ Liberal white people might be shamed into silence by Shabana Mahmood’s recounting of racism, but I see her actions for what they are: a desperate attempt to justify the cruelty and violence the Home Office are unleashing on asylum seekers.
As you know, there’s a tiny group of Dame Jacinda Ardern haters in New Zealand who are easily triggered by facts and the ongoing success of the former prime minister on the world stage.
The tiny eeny weeny group is made to look bigger online by an automated army of fake profile bots who all say the same five or six things and all leave a space before a comma.
This automation is imported into New Zealand so many of the profiles are in other countries and simply are not real humans.
Naturally this illusion of “flooding the zone” programmatically on social media causes the non-critical minded to assume they are a majority when they have no such real evidence to support that delusion.
Yet here’s some context and food for thought.
None of the haters have run a public hospital, been a director-general of health during a pandemic, been an epidemiologist or even a GP and many struggle to spell their own name properly let alone read anything accurately.
None of them have read all the Health Advice offered to the government during the covid-19 pandemic. They don’t know it at all.
Know a lot more
Yet they typically feel they do know a lot more than any of those people when it comes to a global pandemic unfolding in real time.
None of the haters can recite all 39 recommendations from the first Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19, less than three of them have read the entire first report, none have any memory of National voting for the wage subsidy and business support payments when they accuse the Labour government of destroying the economy.
Most cannot off the top of their heads tell us how the Reserve Bank is independent of government when it raises the OCR and many think Jacinda did this but look you may be challenged to a boxing match if you try to learn them.
The exact macro economic state of our economy in terms of GDP growth, the size of the economy, unemployment and declining inflation forecasts escape their memory when Jacinda resigned, not that they care when they say she destroyed the economy.
They make these claims without facts and figures and they pass on the opinions of others that they listened to and swallowed.
It’s only a tiny group, the rest are bots.
The bots think making horse jokes about Jacinda is amusing, creative and unique and it’s their only joke now for three years — every single day they marvel at their own humour. In ten years they will still be repeating that one insult they call their own.
Bots on Nuremberg
The bots have also been programmed to say things about Nuremberg, being put into jail, bullets, and other violent suggestions which speaks to a kind of mental illness.
The sources of these sorts of sentiments were imported and fanned by groups set up to whip up resentment and few realise how they have been manipulated and captured by this programme.
The pillars of truth to the haters rest on being ignorant about how a democracy necessarily temporarily looks like a dictatorship in a public health emergency in order to save lives.
We agreed these matters as a democracy, it was not Jacinda taking over. We agreed to special adaptations of democracy and freedom to save lives temporarily.
The population of the earth has not all died from covid vaccines yet.
There is always some harm with vaccines, but it is overstated by Jacinda haters and misunderstood by those ranting about Medsafe, that is simply not the actual number of vaccine deaths and harm that has been verified — rather it is what was reported somewhat subject to conjecture.
The tinfoil hats and company threatened Jacinda’s life on the lawn outside Parliament and burnt down a playground and trees and then stamp their feet that she did not face a lynch mob.
No doors kicked in
Nobody’s door was kicked in by police during covid 19.
Nobody was forced to take a jab. No they chose to leave their jobs because they had a choice provided to them. The science was what the Government acted upon, not the need to control anyone.
Mandates were temporary and went on a few weeks too long.
Some people endured the hardship of not being present when their loved ones died and that was very unfortunate but again it was about medical advice.
Then Director-General of Health Sir Ashly Bloomfield said the government acted on about 90 percent of the Public Health advice it was given. Jacinda haters never mention that fact.
Jacinda haters say she ran away, but to be fair she endured 50 times more abuse than any other politician, and her daughter was threatened by randoms in a café, plus Jacinda was mentally exhausted after covid and all the other events that most prime ministers never have to endure, and she thought somebody else could give it more energy.
We were in good hands with Chris Hipkins so there was no abandoning as haters can’t make up their minds if they want her here or gone — but they do know they want to hate.
Lost a few bucks
The tiny group of haters include some people who lost a few bucks, a business, an opportunity and people who wanted to travel when there was a global pandemic happening.
Bad things happen in pandemics and every country experienced increased levels of debt, wage subsidies, job losses, tragic problems with a loss of income, school absenteeism, increased crime, and other effects like inflation and a cost of living crisis.
Haters just blame Jacinda because they don’t get that international context and the second Royal Commission of Inquiry was a political stunt, not about being more prepared for future pandemics but more about feeding the haters.
All the information it needed was provided by Jacinda, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins but right wing media whipped up the show trial despite appearances before a demented mob of haters being thought a necessary theatre for the right wing.
A right wing who signed up to covid lockdowns and emergency laws and then later manipulated short term memories for political gain.
You will never convince a hater not to hate with facts and context and persuasion, even now they are thinking how to rebut these matters rather than being open minded.
Pandemics suck and we did pretty well in the last one but there were consequences for some — for whom I have sympathy, sorry for your loss, I also know people who died . . . I also know people who lost money, I also know people who could not be there at a funeral . . . but I am not a hater.
Valuing wanting to learn
Instead, I value how science wants to learn and know what mistakes were made and to adapt for the next pandemic. I value how we were once a team of five million acting together with great kotahitanga.
I value Jacinda saying let there be a place for kindness in the world, despite the way doing the best for the common good may seem unkind to some at times.
The effects of the pandemic in country by country reports show the same patterns everywhere — lockdowns, inflation, cost of living increases, crime increase, education impacts, groceries cost more, petrol prices are too high, supply chains disrupted.
When a hater simplistically blames Jacinda for “destroying the economy and running away” it is literally an admission of their ignorance.
It’s like putting your hand up and screaming, ‘look at me, I am dumb’.
The vast majority get it and want Jacinda back if she wants to come back and live in peace — but if not . . . that is fine too.
Sad, ignorant minority
A small sad and ignorant minority will never let it go and every day they hate and hate and hate because they are full of hate and that is who they really are, unable to move on and process matters, blamers, simple, under informed and grossly self pitying.
I get the fact your body is your temple and you want medical sovereignty, I also get medical science and immunity.
It’s been nearly three years now, is it time to be a little less hysterical and to actually put away the violent abuse and lame blaming? Will you carry on sulking like a child for another three years?
It’s okay to disagree with me, but before you do, and I know you will, without taking onboard anything I write, just remember what Jacinda said.
In a global pandemic with people’s lives at stake, she would rather be accused of doing too much than doing too little.
Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is republished with permission.
For six years, Alternative Jewish Voices has spoken in an aspirational voice. This is intentional. Research shows, the voice that mobilises new political engagement is a voice of moral clarity which invites others to join the work of making a better world.
We ground our voice in facts, and today’s facts are shattering. We share the outrage that we hear. However, outrage alone does not make change. It has to be channeled forward into principled action.
Hope is resistance. AJV met last week to ask where we find that hope now, while grief and anger feel overwhelming.
With unprecedented Western permission and complicity, Israel’s genocide is ongoing. The IDF has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and decimated the built environment of Gaza.
Bombed half a dozen countries
Along the way, Israel has bombed half a dozen countries which are not at war with it.
The silence of governments like ours imagines this dystopia as a new baseline. They will settle for negotiating the speed of Israel’s new crimes against the survivors of Palestine.
We utterly reject their selective amnesia — but each time we call out our complicit government, we need to call them forward and judge them against something better.
We do that by placing the value of human life at the centre of our understanding. People have laboured for a century and a half to embed a rights-based vision of human dignity and equality.
Rights are not an opinion; rights are the basis of international law and institutions. That today’s governments spit on Palestinians’ rights does not invalidate Palestinians’ rights. It raises the stakes.
Now we must fight for the vision even as we wield it.
Our baseline is a world in which people flourish with their basic needs and dignity ensured. We protest the deficits from that standard. We judge Israel and its powerful accomplices against the standard of an accountable, just peace for all who live between the river and the sea.
Daily erosion of our democracy
Even as our allies have taken the step of recognising Palestine, Luxon, Seymour and Peters cosy up to Donald Trump. We are reeling from their daily erosion of our democracy.
Our government’s position on Palestine and the value it places on our own lives follow from a single agenda. This government is harming far more people than it is benefiting. We find hope in the work that brings together a majority for change.
While Palestine has become the cement of a broad global movement, Zionism is shifting. Israel used its years of Zionist-Jewish permission to consolidate new sources of support. It is no longer dependent upon Jewish social licence.
Christian Zionism, long the majority of Zionism, is now an insider shaping American policy. Israel dedicates new budgets to influencing American Christians.
In Aotearoa, Israel’s deputy foreign minister has met with Christian nationalist Brian Tamaki and Alfred Ngaio. There are five rabbis in this country, while 130 Christian Zionist clergy wrote together of their representatives’ time with Winston Peters before Peters declined to recognise Palestine.
In order to lend effective support to the liberation of Palestine, our protest needs to target the evolving structures and financial flows of Aotearoa’s Zionism.
This does not relieve the Zionist-Jewish community of responsibility. Globally, Zionist-Jewish institutions have eagerly wrapped Israel’s violence in the guise of Jewish identity, in order to place Israel’s genocidal actions beyond challenge.
Peace of the graveyard
Aotearoa’s Zionist-Jewish spokespeople still imagine only the peace of the graveyard, after which there might be a nicer Zionism.
A significant segment of Liberal-Zionist Jews seems to have turned against the war — although not against Zionism. That speaks to some capacity for change despite the institutions.
We welcome every effort to end this genocide. However, as principled anti-Zionists our goal is greater than the cessation of firing. In our own community and in Palestine, we must change the conditions that give rise to genocide. We need to decolonise the Jewishness that taught us to stake our future on the oppression and slaughter of others. There is no nicer Zionism.
To realise a liberatory Jewishness, we need new institutions with genuinely new communal leadership. We work for a future without Jewish supremacy or exceptionalism. Two-thirds of Jewish New Yorkers aged 18-44 just voted for Mayor Mamdani in one such act of qualitative, visionary change.
We will not displace this toxic new Right power by emulating their perpetual outrage. That would only turn us into the thing we oppose.
Outrage alone leaves one numb with grief and alienation. It stokes the identity politics which deny that we can live together. It leads to the despair which hardens the status quo.
We will only displace this power with an aspirational, broadly based vision of something better. We learn from the long, great works of our time: the works of peace, Indigenous rights, the common cause of dignified life in the hardest places.
Tangled roots of colonisation
That quality of holistic movement has coalesced around Palestine. We have never heard so many people acknowledge that the change must reach to the tangled roots of colonisation, racism, capitalism and fascism.
AJV brings to this our Jewish inheritance which recognises that social, ecological and material justice are inextricable. Together we will place life and justice at the centre of the work that needs doing, here and there.
In this dark time, hope is resistance and these are our ways forward.
In outrage and in aroha, we are Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa.
Marilyn Garson writes about Palestinian and Jewish dissent. This article was first published by Sh’ma Koleinu – Alternative Jewish Voices and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.
They say the march toward authoritarian rule begins with one simple act: taking control of the narrative and silencing the independent press. Yesterday, Samoa witnessed a step in that direction.
Prime Minister Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt, elected by the people to serve them, has already moved to weaken one of democracy’s most essential pillars.
With barely seven full days in office, he directed his power at the Samoa Observer, the very institution tasked with holding leaders like him to account.
The Prime Minister accused this newspaper of misleading and inaccurate reporting, of disrespect and of having “no boundaries.” He went further by invoking the name of Sano Malifa, founder and owner of the Samoa Observer, suggesting that the paper had strayed from its mission, a statement he’s made countless times.
So let us clear the air.
Does the Prime Minister remember Sano Malifa’s reporting when, as Deputy Speaker, he gave a second hand car from his dealership to then Speaker of the House, Tolofuaivalelei Falemoe Leiʻataua, without cabinet approval?
It was Sano Malifa who wrote extensively about the matter and helped ensure the vehicle was returned when questions were raised about improper dealings.
Does he remember the concrete wall fence he attempted to build stretching toward Parliament, a plan never sanctioned by cabinet?
Does he remember calling the Samoa Observer before the 2021 general elections seeking permission to erect FAST party tents outside its offices and being refused, because this newspaper does not trade favours for political convenience?
Does he forget that Sano Malifa stood alone to question the one party rule of the HRPP, a party he joined and one his father served in, while most of the country remained silent because they felt they could not speak?
Does he forget that the Sano Malifa he now quotes would never permit any leader to run the country unchecked?
Let this be understood. Sano Malifa’s vision remains fully intact. It demands scrutiny of whoever occupies the Prime Minister’s chair, even if that chair is fake. It demands accountability, regardless of who holds power.
It is intact in the way this newspaper was the only media organisation to question the Prime Minister’s meetings with foreign leaders while he sat on his famous chair, despite the warnings of his own advisers.
It is intact in ensuring the public knew their new leader had been quietly flown out on a private plane for medical treatment, while sick patients in an overcrowded and underfunded hospital struggled without food because of unpaid wages for kitchen staff, even as its minister announced plans for a new hospital.
It is intact in the story of a father whose pleas for justice went unanswered after his son was badly beaten and fell into a coma, until the Samoa Observer published his account and police were finally forced to act.
It is intact in the simple reporting of rubbish piling up near homes, which was cleared by the government the very next morning.
It is intact even when Sano Malifa’s own village and family appeared on the front page during a dispute, because he believed in accountability for all, including himself.
So why would the Prime Minister believe he is entitled to special treatment?
As the elected Prime Minister, whose salary, car and expenses are paid for by the public through their hard earned taxes, he should know that the media’s fundamental role is to keep him honest.
If the Prime Minister is truly concerned about the vision of journalists, he need only look at those closest to him. A JAWS executive, Angie Kronfield, publicly declared she wished the Observer editor’s face had been disfigured during the assault carried out by the Prime Minister’s own security guards.
Better still, her husband, Apulu Lance Pulu, a long-time journalist and owner of Talamua Media, was charged alongside the Prime Minister and later convicted of fraud in a 2020 court case. Yet he now seems to enjoy the Prime Minister’s favour as a preferred media voice. Let that sink in.
So if the Prime Minister wants proof of a failed vision, he need not search far.
Lastly, the Prime Minister’s other claim that an outsider writes for this newspaper is a fiction of his own making.
The Samoa Observer remains under the same ownership, grounded in nearly 50 years of service to the public. And since he has made his wish clear that this newspaper is no longer welcome at his press conferences or those of his ministers, let us state this without hesitation. The same people stand behind this newspaper, and our promise to our readers has never wavered.
The Samoa Observer editorial published on 18 November 2025.
A few years ago, the term ‘Red Wall’ was coined to describe the Labour Party’s former heartlands in the North and the Midlands, but the term in itself is a lie used by the political class to hide the real story. The term describes a sprawling collection of constituencies, from Bishop Auckland to Bolsover, and crucially encompasses my own battered heartlands in Teesside.
For over a century, these were the beating heart of the Labour Party, this ‘Red Wall’ built on the foundations of coal, steel, manufacturing, and the collective working-class solidarity. But following the 2019 collapse, the phrase was bastardised. It became a neat soundbite, distracting from the decades of state-sponsored economic violence that preceded it.
The narrative is a vile lie. That the decent, working-class people of the North suddenly abandoned socialism for flag-shagging, Brexit and a culture war.
The ‘Red Wall’ didn’t turn its back on socialism over ‘wokeness’ at all.
We were betrayed by a political class that didn’t give a single, solitary fuck about us. The nation and those who lead it forgot who built this country, whose blood, sweat, and tears lie in the steel that holds up the UK’s infrastructure. They abandoned the principles of economic struggle long before we did.
We didn’t stop voting for Labour because we lack patriotism… We stopped voting for a party that, for generations, failed to give us any genuine, fighting alternative to the slow decline of our communities. The problem was never a lack of love for our country; it was a lack of socialism. It was a crushing realisation that the party we helped to build to defend us against the elite had become the elite itself. It was going to manage our decline and not reverse it.
Economic annihilation and decades of deliberate neglect across the Red Wall
The true betrayal of the wall started long before 2019. In 2010, the Tories and mainstream media teamed up and successfully rebranded austerity as a necessary evil instead of what it actually was.
A disgustingly apparent, class-driven theft of wealth from the poor North to the rich South. This wasn’t innocent oversight; it was a scorched-earth policy created to weaken the institutional power of the working class permanently. And the stats remain hard evidence of betrayal, proving beyond a doubt that the North East was deliberately punished.
The public sector was the last bastion for many in the North East after deindustrialisation. During the 2010 cuts, London saw a public sector job reduction of around 10%, which in itself is a shocking statistic, but compared to the 19% the North of England lost, it’s nothing. This reduction didn’t just ruin local employment, it gutted the capacity of local government to deal with the avalanche of social issues we suffered through poverty, housing and addiction.
Waging war on our children
They wage war on our children. Since austerity began, the North saw a massive increase of over 200,000 children living in relative poverty, a devastating 22% spike. Today in the North East, it is predicted that 38% of our kids live in poverty, but if you look closer at constituencies such as Middlesbrough, the rate is estimated to be over 52%. That is over fucking half. This is not a political realignment; this is a social crime carried out by policy choices in Westminster.
And what’s worse is the cost in human lives. The chronic underfunding of health and social care has utterly decimated our basic security. Healthy life expectancy in the North East is now the lowest in the UK at a disgusting 59.1 years, which shows precisely what happens when the state pulls the plug on services. When welfare is replaced by hostility, people die younger, and it’s a clear trade-off.
Private profit at the expense of public life.
The human cost of decay, despair, and silence
When a town like Middlesbrough, which had been Labour for decades, switched paths, it wasn’t cultural. It was a silent scream for help from people who have watched their high streets hollow, their neighbours grow sick, and their children fail for years. We have watched politicians we don’t even know, who we have no common ground with, come in with the promise of a new future, only to fuck off. They leave nothing but dust in the place of promises.
In Boro, the town with one of the highest drug death rates in the country, the Diamorphine Assisted Treatment programme, a beautiful socialist solution, was allowed to fold. This initiative was making headway, saving lives and helping the public, but was ripped from the town as the Tories argued over billions for ridiculous vanity projects in the South. Billions of pounds for London, and the establishment couldn’t even stump up a few hundred thousand to save the lives of vulnerable people in one of the country’s most deprived areas.
This is the definition of political neglect.
Council funding has been systematically cut; they are on their knees and forced to choose between adult social care and the safety nets for children. This lack of political empathy is rooted in material decay. We feel disposable, that we are a burden on the nation’s finances, yet so many of us are aware of the billions the rich dodge in taxes.
When people are scared, unrepresented, and their cries are brushed aside, they rarely look to the centre-ground establishment for answers. We fucking rebel. We will look for someone, fucking anyone, who sounds like they care about us and our crumbling lives.
Scapegoating the victim
This ruinous economic trauma creates a massive vacuum. The establishment and its media attack dogs understand this perfectly. They need to distract from the reality that the average weekly wage in the North East is nearly £50 below the national average (£472.30 vs £520.70)
So, enter the ‘Culture Wars’ narrative.
The rise of racist rhetoric and the shift towards right-wing parties in the North is not a cause; it’s a symptom. The term ‘reap what you sow’ is never more evident than it is here. It is the bitter harvest of a political elite that weaponises division to protect itself and its money. The establishment points their jewelled fingers at immigrants, ‘the woke,’ and the ‘lazy lout on benefits,’ because it stops people from asking the questions they truly fear: Where the hell did all the money go, and why did those who lead us let it happen?
By feeding the working class’s anger with a cheap narrative scapegoat instead of economic opportunity, they have managed to turn us on our neighbours rather than those who rule. The true purpose of the ‘Red Wall’ label was to allow Labour to talk about identity rather than economic power. It allowed them to dodge the radical platform needed to fix the North.
How to rebuild the Red Wall from the ashes using socialism and a Green Path
The crisis which haunts the North isn’t one of identity; it is one of investment, ownership and control.
The solution must be profound; it requires a comprehensive outcome that rejects neoliberalism and the consensus held by most major parties.
To genuinely bring the North East and the wider ‘Red Wall’ region back to even a glimmer of its former glory, we need a political project built on two radical principles: Wealth redistribution and deep local empowerment.
Labour’s failure is rooted in being piss-wet cowardly on wealth and ownership. The only way to get the billions we need to fix the North’s shattered infrastructure and social beliefs is to make the rich pay their fucking way.
This is where the radical platforms of both the Green Party and Your Party offer a much-needed path.
Public Ownership and the Wealth Tax
The Greens have already taken the UK by storm, with their membership soaring on the promises they’re making to rebalance the books. The suggestion of an annual wealth tax on individual assets above a high threshold is precisely what we fucked need. This isn’t just a revenue generator, it’s a moral declaration that the ultra-rich are finally going to pay their way.
Public ownership of water, central rail, and energy companies excites me. Immediately, we could stop the extraction of billions in private profit from essential services, using that money to insulate homes, upgrade grids, deliver clean, affordable energy, and create jobs in coastal and post-industrial areas. The North could be and should be a hub for genuine, publicly-owned green manufacturing and offshore wind, making the thousands of jobs the area desperately needs.
The Greens want to abolish the hostility created by the DWP. Polanski has stood against the cruel two-child benefit cap and mandatory sanctions, which keep the people in the North in perpetual poverty. Policies like Universal Basic Income and a guaranteed minimum wage of £15 an hour would not just lift people out of in-work poverty. Still, it will also restore dignity and community stability to the area.
Building wealth in the community and reversing the flow of capital
Time and time again, Westminster and Whitehall have proven they cannot, and will not, fix the North. The key to breathing life back into the ‘Red Wall’ is Community Wealth Building – a modern revival of socialism.
This model has been implemented in places like Preston and focuses not on attracting international capitalism, but on keeping local wealth local. In Teesside, this means things such as anchor institutions in which we will harness the spending power of local hospitals, universities and councils to shift contracts to local, worker-owned co-operatives and small businesses. This breaks the extractive supply chains that bleed local money dry (see Michelle Mone as a prime example).
We must actively establish community land trusts and nurture local co-operatives. Instead of profits from new, green businesses flowing to London shareholders, they should be democratically controlled by the workers and the community that generates them. This helps restore the sense of ownership and collective stake that Thatcherism decimated and Labour never restored.
And lastly, we need to prioritise local public services. Dedicating the new wealth tax revenue directly to local budgets (as the Greens propose an additional £5 billion a year) allows councils to adequately fund public health, social care, youth services and more importantly, re-establish local, non-privatised and high-quality children’s services to address the regional crisis of children in care directly.
The Red Wall is not left behind – we’ve been dragged down
We people of the North East are not ‘left behind’ culturally. We have been dragged down by years of a cowboy Westminster stealing our money and giving it to their pals.
The people of the Red Wall deserve a political force that not only acknowledges our abandonment but also offers a revolutionary plan for economic repair. We need a fusion of socialist principles and the Greens’ vision of sustainable, high-quality jobs.
These are the only bricks that can rebuild the Red Wall.
As we’ve reported, Trump has haemorrhaged support from his base recently, and for more than one reason. In response to all that, MAGA supporters are supposedly burning their red MAGA hats:
Regarding Trump’s support for Israel, there is some variation in how the right are approaching the issue. Some are making a similar point to the left, and saying America shouldn’t be offering unconditional support to a rogue nation which has committed a genocide; others are just straight-up antisemitic.
As an example of the latter, the man burning his hat in the video at the top said:
Alright, so this is a Trump 2020 hat. And if you’re just going to be owned by the Jews, and go against everybody that actually is America First, and cover for pedophiles… then you can fuck off, Trump.
The man’s comments are very much in line with the ‘groyper’ wing of the US right, of which Nick Fuentes is the figurehead:
Pro-Israel Jew Larry Ellison is in the process of buying Tiktok, Paramount, and Warner Bros and he just put Bari Weiss, an Israeli spy, in charge of CBS.
The Jews lost control of the narrative so now they are literally buying more of the media.
While America ceasing its unconditional support for Israel would certainly be a positive development, we can’t pretend there aren’t opportunists like Fuentes looking to capitalise on the situation.
People warned it will happen
The rise of antisemitism on the right is something that people warned would happen if Zionists kept arguing criticism of Israel was itself antisemitic (and by ‘Zionists’, we mean supporters of Israel existing as an expansionist Jewish apartheid state in which non-Jews don’t have rights). People warned it would happen because the situation gave the impression that the genocide and preceding repression of the Palestinians was a Jewish phenomenon rather than an Israeli phenomenon.
Take the comments from the man above; while it’s obviously an antisemitic trope to say ‘Jews own politicians’, Trump has been happy to take money from billionaires like Larry Ellison and Miriam Adelson who are big backers of Israel:
Speaking in Israel, Trump suggests he moved the embassy to Jerusalem as a promise to the Adelsons, who he says have paid more visits to the White House than anyone he can think of.
He then says he asked Miriam if she loves Israel or America more and she refused to answer. Insane pic.twitter.com/jg9VXciRgg
When you have a situation in which Israel is committing a genocide and your leader is surrounded by donors who support it, of course it’s going to be easy to convince people who want simple answers that the ‘Jews are secretly running America’.
The reality is that Jewish people aren’t collectively controlling Trump; it’s a handful of selfish billionaires who think they can influence world events as if the world was a chess board. In fact, some of these Israel-backing donors aren’t even Jewish, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Rightward travel
Reactionary politics are always a response to the current moment. What this means is that politicians, commentators, and influencers constantly need to push things further to rile up the base.
The direction of travel in recent years has been towards a mono culture which is white, straight, and Christian. And as a result, right-wing figures who fall outside this bracket are finding themselves squeezed out:
NO WAY, HELL JUST FROZE OVER: Ben Shapiro just told Matt Walsh and everyone else on the Right, you won’t survive if you refuse to police your own extremists.
He’s pointing to the Young Republicans’ leaked chats (hit by Politico), Hitler jokes, gas‑chamber talk, and slurs.… pic.twitter.com/SZrqOkMXkz
Trump himself promised ‘America First’, and yet clearly he’s running a ‘Billionaires First’ administration. MAGA aren’t ready to accept that the oligarchy is the problem, though, so they’re instead doubling down on blaming minorities and sub-groups.
It’s scary to think the Republicans could descend further after Trump, but at the same time they may obliterate any chance they have of creating an electoral coalition, because they keep freezing out more and more voters:
It all comes down to how you take barristers saying they want to “deter” future legal action against the company.
Thames Water—’Retaliation’
Thames Water has embroiled itself in many, many, many scandals over the years. In its most recent, the company tried to make an MP pay for its legal costs. Liberal Democrat Charlie Maynard was the man representing the British public in court, and he described the company’s move as “retaliation”.
Whether the move was retaliatory or not, it was unsuccessful. If Maynard lost, he would have been on the hook for £1,400-an-hour legal fees. This is steep, right? It’s also a waste of money, because we’re happy to provide Thames Water with the following legal advice for free:
Stop polluting.
Stop paying shareholders dividends while your network goes to shit.
As the Guardian notes, Thames Water has accrued £17bn worth of debt, and it wants “15 years of leniency from environmental fines” to get back on track. This may be a dated reference, but the situation reminds us of the biopic Chopper in which an Australian criminal is given free reign to do unlimited crimes by the authorities. Would you believe that things turned out poorly in that story?
Given their litigiousness, we should state we’re not suggesting said company are ‘criminals’, although they are certified ‘rule breakers’:
Thames Water have been fined £123 million due to their ‘unacceptable’ impact on the environment.
But as long as the profit motive remains, water companies will keep ripping off customers and polluting our water.
It’s worth remembering that the company polluted badly enough to earn a £123m fine even with restrictions in place—so imagine what they’ll do once we take the safety wheels off.
Back to the latest case, the barristers representing Thames Water said Maynard should pay up to “deter” future litigation. Maynard responded:
I find it completely extraordinary. What is the largest water company in the country doing trying to run an MP off the road, and saying they want to deter me and others from taking such actions?
What is the government doing letting a bunch of people run the largest water utility in the country and behave this way?
The company defended what-some-might-call-Mafia-like behaviour as follows:
In light of the application’s lack of merit, the court is invited to infer that Mr Maynard made his application to try and disrupt the implementation of the plan and the subsequent restructuring in pursuit of his and his party’s political aim that Thames Water should be placed in special administration. This kind of conduct should be deterred.
Given how unpopular privatised water is in the UK, it does make sense that utility companies might want to criminalise criticising them:
Thames Water also said:
Mr Maynard was able to make submissions at both the high court and court of appeal without any liability for costs” and that all parties had to pay their own costs.
Excellent, people should be able to hold large/failing companies accountable without needing to bankrupt themselves.
The company added:
we remain focused on putting Thames Water on to a more stable financial foundation as we seek a long-term solution to our financial resilience
Despite this, the Guardian reports that Thames Water is “spending of up to £15m a month on an army of lawyers, bankers, consultants and public relations advisers”. That’s funny, because we’re spending nothing a month screaming ‘NATIONALISE THIS SHIT!‘
Other recent criticisms of Thames Water include the following:
“Thames Water in England borrowed money, but they didn’t use it to build better sewers or water pipes, they used it to pay dividends to themselves.”
Economist Michael Hudson warns that the disaster of Water Privatisation, is a template for disaster.pic.twitter.com/Y8XwL9SXcE
“Single fault at Thames Water works could imperil London’s supply.”
So decrepit has Thames Water’s leaky London infrastructure become that contingency plans have being drawn up involving “Mass evacuations, with the military on standby”, I sh*t you not. https://t.co/z7nm7goJbN
Israeli prison guards punish the prisoners “by breaking their thumbs” said a released detainee as lawyers speak out about torture, abuse, rape, starving and killings in a notorious underground Israeli prison facility where detainees are held without sunlight, brutalised.
And nobody in New Zealand says a word.
Scores of detainees from Gaza have also been held in a notorious Israeli military detention camp known as Sde Teiman, where reports of killings, torture and sexual violence, including rape, have been rife since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
And Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has not said anything about a new law that Israel just voted for that would impose the death penalty for so-called “terrorism” offences based on “racist” motives against Israelis.
That’s a law exclusively aimed at Palestinians while Israeli settlers are exempt.
Go ahead, terrorise the people living there.
Winston Peters is silent on behalf of you and me. He’s representing us on the world stage.
We not only do not condemn this, we don’t even mention it. New Zealand doesn’t care.
They are not us, they are not “we”.
Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is an excerpt from a G News commentary and republished with permission.
I sat in a cafe listening to one man telling another how to get more out of his workers — “his team”, kind of the way people talked about workhorses until some of us read Black Beauty and learned that sentient creatures have feelings, both animals and people.
I hope that people will wake up to the need to unite, to pull together. The best decluttering is decolonising.
Maybe Zohran Mamdani’s win is a sign that will herald a new era, an era when socialists can beat “the money men”. Maybe it’s time when we will all wake up to a different possibility. Maybe other values will be recognised.
Virtues do not come from wealth. Capital, capitalism (the key is in the word) is a system of exploitation. It was designed by merchants to make some rich and keep others poor. That’s the system.
Maybe you were not taught that? Of course you were not taught that. Think about it.
I listened to William Dalrymple being interviewed by Jack Tame last Sunday and I thought Jack — who I used to respect a lot before he failed to tackle genocide with Israel’s representative for genocide here in Aotearoa — I thought he, Jack, looked like a possum in the headlights when Dalrymple said that Donald Trump had a precursor in Benjamin Netanyahu and called genocide a genocide.
I like to think Jack and others like him (because I have been like them too) will learn to learn about the history of all people and not view history as an inevitable story of winners and losers.
Winners are exploiters
The winners are exploiters and if we want to save the planet we need a massive game change.
The legacy of colonisation. Video: TVNZ Q&A
Look at the stats of the land that was taken for expansion and how that expansion was used to justify the extermination of one people to prop another people up. The stats, the real statistics show who was there before, show people lived on the land with the land and the waters.
Capitalism is a system of expansion and exploitation. It flourished for a while on slavery and it flourished for a while on settler colonialism, and it flourished for a while on keeping workers believing the story that they were working for greater glory when their take home pay did not equal the value of their labour.
And there is a difference between guilt and remorse. We can learn from the latter. The former, guilt, stagnates, it leads to defence and offence.
We need to recognise that we don’t need to prop up a dying system that flourishes on making some weak and others stronger.
We need to learn to change — those of us who were wrong can admit it and go forward differently. We can realise that they system was designed to make us fail to see the threads that connect all people. We can wake up now and smell the manure among the roses.
Good shit helps things grow, bad shit is toxic contaminated waste that turns things inwards, makes them gnarly.
Monsters are connected
Unfortunately, those who behave like monsters are connected not just to some of us but all of us.
We need to open our minds and our hearts to a different our value system. We need to decolonise our senses.
If you defend a bad system because right now you are one of the few on a decent pay scale then you are part of the problem. You are the problem. You have been conned. A system is only fair if it is fair for all people.
Learning history gives us a map said Dalrymple (author of The Golden Road which tells the story of how great India was BEFORE it was stolen by Britain — how that country gave the world numbers and so much more) and we need to learn how the map was drawn.
As someone who reads history to write history, I encourage us all to read widely and deeply and to research so that we do not stop thinking and analysing, and so we can tell wrong from right.
Do not be neutral about wrongs as some historians would suggest. It is more than OK to call a wrong a wrong. In fact it is vital. Take a new lens into viewing history, not the one the masters have given you.
We miss seeing the world if we look fail to think about who drew the map, how it was drawn up by men who carved up the world for the Empires intent on creating a golden age by enslaving most of the people to prop up those at the top.
World map’s curling edges
We need to look under the curling edges of the world map drawn up by the exploiter. We need to find find the stories of those who were exploited and who had been part of the creation story of this planet before they were exploited.
Those of us who are descendants of colonisers also — many of us — descend from those who were exploited.
The stories of British workhouses, of the system of exile via banishment, of the theft of women’s rights, of the extreme brutal forms of punishment, the stories of the way the top class pushed down and down on the people of the fields and forests and forced them to serve and serve, these real stories are less well known than the myths.
Myths like the story of King Arthur are better known.
Some myths have been created as a form of propaganda. We need to unpick the stories that were told to keep us stupid, to keep us ignorant.
It is time to stop following the trail of crumbs to Buckingham Palace, or at least to see where the trail really leads — to pedophiles who preyed on others, to predators — not just one but many, to people brilliant at reconstructing themselves — creating some fall guys and some good guys and making some people villains.
That story is a lie that protects and processes dysfunction.
Acting on the truth
Blaming one part of the system prevents us from realising and acting on the truth that the whole system is one of exploitation.
This was always a horror story disguised as a fairy story. One crown could save so many poor. The monarchy is not a family that produced one disfunctional person it is the disfunction.
It promotes the lie that one group of people deserve wealth because they are better than another. What a sick joke.
So let’s back away from societies made by men who want to profit from others and get back to nature.
Let’s look on nature as a sister or mother — a sister or mother you love.
Let’s look at the so called natural disasters like climate change. Look at how they have been created by “noble men” and “noble women” and ignoble ones as well. Disasters that can be averted, prevented.
Who suffers the most in a natural disaster? Not the rich.
How do we heal?
So how do we hope and how do we heal? We see the change. We be the change.
Personally, for my mental and physical health I’ve been sea bathing, dipping in the sea. I join a group of mainly women who all have stories, and who plunge into nature for release and relief, to relieve ourselves from the debris. Uniting in nature.
I’ve learned that every day is different. The sea is always changing. No two waves are the same and they all pull in the same direction.
We are part moon, part wave, part light, part darkness. We are the bounty and the beauty.
I do have hope that we will all unite for common good. Sharing on common ground. The word Common is so much better than Capital.
If you are working for the kind of people that are discussing how to get more out of you for less, then unite.
And if you know people who are being exploited in any way at all unite with them not the exploiter. Be the change.
By helping each other we save each other. And that includes helping our friend and exploited lover: Nature.
Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and nine partner organizations urged the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on November 12, 2025, to issue an opinion on the case of imprisoned Russian journalist Nika Novak.
The Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club recently filed submissions to the working group requesting an opinion finding that Novak’s continued detention by the Russian government is arbitrary and violates international law.
Novak is serving a four-year prison sentence in the Siberian region of Irkutsk after being convicted on November 26, 2024, on charges of “confidential cooperation with a foreign organization” stemming from her independent journalism for RFE/RL. She was detained by Russian authorities in December 2023.
The joint statement highlights Novak’s worsening detention conditions. She has been placed in isolation and solitary confinement several times in recent months and has begun a hunger strike — her third — to protest her circumstances.
The disenfranchised, cast aside people of the US find hope when an AOC, Brandon Johnson, Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders campaigns and wins public office. These campaigns overcame corporate backed opponents, relying on people power not corporate financing, organizing many thousands of our fellow working people to participate. Yet, possessing public office does not change the economic and class structure of this country, where the real ruling power lies. Our country’s system, on the local, state, and national level, is a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
The public offices they won are one cog in an entrenched economic and political structure, and changing this has little relation to winning office. Once elected the AOCs, Brandons, Bernies and Mamdanis can be easily swallowed up by the system run by billionaires. The billionaires have one thousand and one weapons to neutralize any progressive measures and make them compromise. They began as outsiders fighting the system, but step by step, they become its representatives.
Brandon Johnson, a Chicago Teachers Union organizer, political kin to Mamdani, was elected mayor of Chicago in April 2023, so gives a glimpse of Mamdani’s future as mayor. Mamdani made a name for himself by speaking out for Palestine. Mayor Johnson cast the deciding vote to pass the first Gaza ceasefire resolution in a big city. While Brandon’s campaign inspired progressives and the left, and many thousands volunteered, his platform was mild compared to the Great Society programs of LBJ and Nixon. He declared, “everyone in Chicago deserves to have a roof over their head,” and called for increasing the real estate tax on properties over $1 million to provide housing and services to the homeless. But, two and a half years later, taxes on the rich have not been raised. He called for childcare for all, now forgotten. He campaigned on replacing lead service lines to the 400,000 Chicago houses, eliminating a major source of lead poisoning. Chicago replaced 5,100 leadlines in 2024 and aims for another 8,000 this year.
Brandon campaigned on increasing summer youth jobs to 60,000. The number has reached 31,199 in 2025, half, but still a 55% increase since he took office. He campaigned on reopening all 14 mental health centers; two and a half years later, three were reopened.
Johnson campaigned on combating police abuse. Given a boost before he took office in 2023, voters elected community representatives in 22 Chicago Police District Councils, with the power to hold police accountable, said Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. Yet PBS reports slightly more police abuse. Moreover, in 2024 Chicago taxpayers spent at least $107.5 million on police misconduct lawsuits, the highest total in over a decade. In 2025, “Through May alone, the City Council has already approved at least $145.3 million in taxpayer payments to settle lawsuits involving the Chicago Police Department, a record number that dwarfs sums from past years.“ Where is the change?
Johnson’s program committed to free public transit for public school students. Today only the first day of school is free. It committed to reduced or eliminated fares for seniors, those with disabilities, and residents living below the poverty line. Today, there are reduced fares, though Chicago had free fares for the first two groups from 2008-2011 under Mayor Daley; still no reduced fares for the poor. Even if all were free, this is but a minor progressive change.
Brandon became mayor of Chicago, a city $29 billion in debt, in a state $223 in debt. His progressive platform morphed into overseeing cuts to manage the debt. Brandon’s new budget would cut Chicago Public Library funding for new books and materials in half – quite stunning for a Chicago Teachers Union organizer. We elected a progressive to do that?
Brandon Johnson did not betray his program. He, like the others, campaigned on wishes he could not keep, given real decision-making power is not in his hands. In this era of slow US economic decline of their system, the billionaire elite who lord over us reduce progressive agendas to moderating cutbacks to services provided the people. Once in office, these progressive Democrats face a power structure that boxes them, making their campaign commitments pipedreams.
What could Brandon, or AOC, or Bernie do? The rich with their vast wealth, control government, own the print media, TV, radio, social media, own the all-powerful banking system, business and factories, the food industry, real estate and housing market, educational institutions, the courts and legal system, and the police forces. All major institutions of society do their bidding.
The rich can buy members of the New York or Chicago city council, control state legislatures, dictate interest rates on city loans, launch hostile media campaigns, stymie the mayor through the city bureaucracy. They can use control of the police to let crime worsen, manipulate a city union to go on a disruptive strike, inflate or reduce real estate and home prices, cause business and jobs leave the city, block bank loans to the city, cut state and federal funds for city programs, and so on. Their control gives them endless tools.
As Susan Kang writes in Truthout that “analysts have rightly noted that a grassroots movement to reshape state-level politics and take on Wall Street will be necessary to realize Mamdani’s campaign promises.” Mamdani had 104,000 volunteers working on his election campaign. Bernie must have had the names of millions from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Block Club Chicago noted, How Grassroots Organizing Fueled Brandon Johnson’s Victory: ‘It Was 100-Percent People Power’ The people’s desire and commitment to fight for serious social change is real.
The only way to institute the (mildly) progressive programs Brandon or Mamdani ran on is to challenge the control by the rich, to educate, organize, and mobilize people in the streets, massively, repeatedly, to counter every attack by the ruling rich with a mass popular response. The only way to combat corporate control is to build an alternative center of organized power among the people, a popular power beyond the control of the two corporate parties. Otherwise, people like Mamdani will be neutralized, co-opted, swallowed up, reduced to administering the government apparatus for the ruling rich. Like AOC and Bernie do today.
This is the only feasible route to take. The Bernies, AOCs, Brandons and Mamdanis would have to explain to people how the rich control the government and the world we live in, explain to the people that their organizing and mobilizing does not end with the election victory, it is the first baby step. A long journey of trials would lie ahead, where the real organizing, mobilizing, and political education taking on the rich who run this country is essential.
But none of these candidates, now officials, call for building a people’s political force independent of either of the two corporate parties. They discourage it. They push the movement into the Democratic Party, and this party only serves to derail the movement into ineffectual protest channels. Seven million turned out for the Democrats’ No Kings Day, and just three weeks later the Democrats are surrendering to Trump’s social budget cuts.
In effect, the great hope of an AOC, Mamdani or Brandon Johnson ends the day they take office. No longer it is a campaign for the people to take over government. Rather, we watch the people’s hope turn into a government clerk for the rich.
When new progressive leaders build an election campaign and movement independent of the two corporate parties, as Bernie had advocated before his capitulation, then we will witness a profound breakthrough in the system.
On Saturday 8 November, Sheffield played host to Nick Tenconi, UKIP, his cronies, and a sea of far-right YouTube personalities; police facilitated chaoson the streets from several different forces:
There was the unmistakable smell of gammon in Sheffield. A queue of them was already making its way through town when I arrived at the station, and I followed the well-trodden path to the cathedral. The police had a section 14 in place for the day to prevent any risk of violence. It would have been far easier if they hadn’t allowed the march to happen, but hey ho. Here at the Canary, we are all for free speech:
It’s a shame that you can’t say the same for the dozens of YouTubers pretending to be journalists, with “We are the press now” stickers on their recording equipment. Since when did the press hide their beloved leader with umbrellas because you’re “a left-wing reporter”?
Yeah, lad, I am. I’m like, an actual journalist, and I actually get paid to do this… I’m not wasting my Saturday for 20p a view, buddy.
Wilful chaos in Sheffield
The cathedral in Sheffield was full of several thousand left-wing activists, who knew that being a racist cunt isn’t popular. Sorry, Amy, I’m back to swearing, but come on, they kind of are:
The gathering at the cathedral wasn’t a legal assembly – section 14. Wooo. The lefties defied the police, briefly, and after they made it clear who really owns the streets, they acquiesced to the planned route after some deliberation with officers in attendance.
I asked the police if this meant that the UKIP march could now start and come via the cathedral… no comment. Even the sergeant didn’t know; she told me to wait right there while she found out what was going on, then instantly walked to the wrong police van and tried to get in. It’s a perfect metaphor: no one has a clue whatsoever what’s going on. The marches were rerouted multiple times throughout the day.
Flag-clad rabble rousers from UKIP
I headed to Tudor Square, where a small group of one hundred or so flag-clad rabble-rousers were waiting for the huddle of six-foot men that was hiding Nick Tenconi from passersby to join, which it eventually did (umbrellas at the ready):
The group listened to this angry wee man ranting and raving, chanting about deporting people – presumably most of them British citizens. A man in the crowd periodically piped up to shout that “we all know the left have always been the real fascists”… one copper in my eyeline was literally stood there screaming with his eyes. When even the police know you’re full of shit, you know it’s time to put down the megaphone:
Two incredible young women had apparently maneuvered their way into the middle of the crowd and unfurled their signs (“Stop sucking off Nigel Farage”… yes, gurls!), and were instantly chased out by a baying mob of men who came into the street to demand safety for women and children. Gotta love that irony.
Chat shit, get banged
While I was talking to them – clearly shaken by the experience – a man walked past who was part of the crowd: “Those two put my kid in danger – horrible little bastards they are.”
Maybe don’t take your child to a UKIP rally. It’s not hard.
These are the same people who later shouted at another reporter that she was a nonce because she posted pictures of someone’s kids online at a rally. In the words of a wise man (my boss):
Chat shit, get banged. If you take your kid to a far-right rally, you can’t complain when they end up on the internet forever.
I spent a few moments taking the women’s comments:
I don’t know what they want from me… and it’s really scary, you walk past these people every day, and they say things like I hope you get gang – raped… so you know.
Fortunately for me, I don’t. I wish those two young women realised how brave they were for what they just did. They have more balls as individuals than that whole crowd of men. Solidarity to you both. I hope you found somewhere safe to regroup.
Two-tier policing in Sheffield
As the march started, I stood to one side and then followed – the reactions from people on the side of the road ranged from disgust to happy cheering. Mostly disgust, though. One woman was in tears, another on the verge of it.
A scuffle broke out right in front of me – an activist with a Palestine flag on the side of the road was barged into by a lass with a flag of St. George… she barged back – suddenly there’s a melee as the Palestinian flag becomes a tug-of-war. A man in orange steps in and wrestles the instigator to the ground to get the flag back. After the scuffle was over, the Muslim woman with the flag was arrested and led away to the nearby police station by several officers:
I have since been contacted by a witness who says:
Unfortunately [she] had her phone stolen and was very upset that no efforts were made to retrieve it. The two people implicated had England/Israel flags on their backs, and the husband came to attack me. Whilst I was distracted, his wife attacked the woman who was eventually arrested. We hadn’t really exchanged any verbal insults or anything; we were silently walking alongside.
Sometimes you just wish they would stop and look around them and realise what they are doing. It’s almost like, because they aren’t charging protesters on horseback anymore, it’s impartial policing. That’s literally the context in which I realised I was viewing policing – “they aren’t kicking the fuck out of me, so therefore it’s balanced.” Yes, I am sometimes an idiot.
Kettling the left while letting the far-right roam around
I caught up with the tail end of the march going past the area where the left-wing protesters were being cordoned:
Tangent: when does a cordon become a kettle, or is it literally just semantics?
Cops love to kettle the left while letting the far-right do whatever they want
Anyway, I wasn’t allowed through for my own safety – fuck the NUJ, they don’t count. I followed down the road, where there were half a dozen far-right auditors and bloggers just happily walking between the double police cordon set up to contain the vitriol. It’s strange, I asked:
Why do they just get to do what they want?
“They don’t,” replied an officer, “please stay this side of the cordon, sir.” He followed up as I watched yet another YouTube personality just walk straight through. At one point, there was an instigator literally communicating with members of the entourage on the other side of the lines – the police said they were trying to identify who it was – just put them all back behind the lines:
One of them was literally standing there, screaming at a young woman that she’s a nonce. This whole thing is a circus run by clowns.
A joke in Sheffield from the cops
We got pushed back further, YouTubers allowed to follow behind the police:
I went back up to the bridge – maybe I’ll have to content myself with the lefties today – nope, not allowed in. After showing a sergeant my payslip with “Canary Media Limited” on it, I’m in – but then I can’t leave:
Sorry, it’s not safe, we are dealing with this on an individual basis.
I replied:
I’m a journalist, I have a right to come through, and I have a train to catch.
Apparently that wasn’t valid. Let’s get this straight – first it’s too dangerous for a legitimate journalist to enter this area, and then it’s not safe for me to leave… but it’s safe for the police to allow two auditors into the cordoned – off area.
I pointed it out to the two officers on camera duty, but they were more interested in taking the piss out of a bloke on the megaphone, reading from his phone. Clowns. Circus:
Eventually, UKIP were once again paraded past the left. It turns out Mr. Tenconi was escorted from the area by the police with his minions for their own safety, whilst the left were allowed out to make their way home through the streets with far-right hooligans side by side.
Walking through the bus station in Sheffield, I bumped into a few of them. Safety first, eh?
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO of cultivated meat pioneer Aleph Farms, believes alternative proteins are bouncing back as business models mature and regulators take notice.
For several years, complementary proteins have followed a familiar pattern described by the Gartner Hype Cycle, a framework that maps how emerging technologies rise through early excitement, fall into disillusionment, and eventually mature through practical progress.
The sector’s early surge of enthusiasm was followed by a steep correction. Investment slowed, companies consolidated, and critics questioned whether the field could deliver on its promise. What is emerging now is a smaller, stronger cohort building on firmer ground.
Recent developments suggest that complementary proteins, including plant-based, fermentation and other fungi-based, cultivated, and blended products, are beginning to climb what Gartner calls the slope of enlightenment.
Pressure on the old system, momentum in the new
Courtesy: Aleph Farms
Outbreaks of animal disease, climate shocks, water scarcity, and geopolitical volatility are creating mounting pressure on conventional supply chains. Natural-resource scarcity and a shrinking national cattle herd (the US herd fell to 86.7 million head in 2025, the lowest since 1951) are steadily driving meat prices upward.
These risks are opening space for alternative protein production systems and reinforcing the strategic imperative for diversification in global protein production.
Public-sector support is expanding in key markets such as the UK, Switzerland, the UAE, Japan, and South Korea through government-backed strategies and innovation programs, to name a few.
In the UAE, Abu Dhabi launched the AGWA agrifood cluster last year, with the goal of adding $24.5B to GDP and creating 60,000 jobs. Both South Korea and Japan have explicitly integrated alternative proteins into their national food security strategies, signalling growing alignment between innovation and policy.
Consumers shifting behaviours as regulators catch up
Believer Meats is the latest to receive US approval to sell cultivated meat | Courtesy: Believer Meats
GLP-1 medications are accelerating a broader trend toward protein density, healthy indulgence and portion control. Market analyses show that menu items highlighting ‘protein’ or offering smaller portions resonate with both GLP-1 users and mainstream diners.
Governments and regulators around the world are moving from theory into practice. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) have cleared five cultivated meat producers, including three within the past six months, which is a notable acceleration.
At the same time, regulators across the UK, the UAE, Switzerland, and Japan are finalising frameworks for novel proteins, paving the way for initial local market clearances.
In parallel, international efforts to harmonise standards are accelerating, with regulatory agencies collaborating through working groups to develop shared definitions, labelling requirements, and safety protocols.
As realism replaces hype, business models are maturing
Impossible Foods has teased a move into blended meat | Courtesy: Impossible Foods
The focus has shifted from branding and rapid scale to solving real unmet needs, whether at the protein supply or consumer level. Companies that once prioritised growth at any cost are now emphasising operational discipline, profitability, rigorous attention to food safety, and a sharper articulation of consumer value.
The industry is moving toward clearer value propositions and more deliberate product segmentation. Instead of trying to replace all conventional meat, leading companies are identifying where they can create distinctive value and meet specific consumer needs.
Blended products combining plant proteins and ingredients such as mushrooms are gaining traction by offering balance: the familiarity of traditional meat with the nutritional and environmental advantages of plants.
Precision fermentation players are concentrating on high-end applications where functionality, flavour performance, and nutrition justify premium positioning. Some leading cultivated meat producers, including Aleph Farms, are focusing on healthy indulgence products crafted for today’s conscious consumer seeking taste, quality, and alignment with personal values
The sector is entering a phase of greater realism. Market projections and timelines are being revised to reflect lessons learned across the alternative protein landscape.
For plant-based products – whose inflated ambitions triggered the initial hype – early growth forecasts have been tempered as the category matures. The right products are now growing steadily in well-defined categories.
Valuations across the alternative protein ecosystem have also undergone a necessary correction. Average pre-money valuations for Series B and later-stage alternative protein startups fell by 30-40% between 2021 and 2024, according to PitchBook data, as investors prioritised capital efficiency and clearer paths to profitability.
Early signs of a rebound, and the road ahead
Nxtfood raised Europe’s largest plant-based funding round since 2022 | Courtesy: Nxtfood
As a result, and after two years of retrenchment, investment is flowing again to companies with proven technology and solid fundamentals. According to PitchBook, late-stage leaders in alternative proteins and novel ingredients are attracting larger checks as early-stage valuations remain under pressure.
We’ve seen five complementary protein companies with strong growth prospects and value propositions raise significant funding in the last few months, from plant-based to fermentation and fungi-based innovations.
We can prudently say that together, these trends suggest that the sector is regaining its footing and entering a more pragmatic phase of growth.
Since late 2022, many voices in the field have viewed cellular agriculture and other complementary proteins as stalled in the trough of disillusionment, the low point that follows the initial hype.
That perspective captured the mood of the moment. But the data emerging over the past year, and especially in recent months, across public support, regulatory progress, refinement of product strategies and business models, and consumer trends, suggest that the inflexion point may already be underway. The recent industry consolidation trend and investments rebound could indicate signs of maturation.
The path from disillusionment to maturity will not be automatic. It will require discipline, focus, continued technical progress, thoughtful regulation, and new models of collaboration between the public and private sectors. But the foundations are stronger today than they were two years ago.
The next phase of growth will be defined not by hype cycles but by prudent execution, relevance, and credibility. Companies delivering real value will ultimately carry the sector to the plateau of productivity, where complementary proteins become a lasting part of a secure and sustainable global food system.
Bit of a favour to ask you today: if you’ve time, read this and get back to me. The long and short of it is, I’m hoping you’ll put in a call to Craig Guildford at West Midlands Police for us. I’ll give you a bit of background and try not to go off on a tangent because there is so much going on with this story that it’s fried my head in the last couple of weeks.
So – Maccabi Tel Aviv against Aston Villa. You know the basics. WMP banned the away fans. We gave Keir a script to go public and accuse them of making the wrong decision, while dropping antisemitism into the sentence in a suggestive and loaded way. All good Labour Together stuff. The problem is that it isn’t really working out the way we’d planned. In the old days, all we had to do was mention antisemitism, and every careerist would run for cover. Now we have these independent MPs with Corbyn; it only takes one of them to push back, and it makes our life harder. The problem is that the MP for the area around Villa Park is one of them (Ayoub Khan). The thing with Khan is that he’s clever and he’s not afraid of us. He basically pushed Lisa Nandy into misleading parliament twice in one statement, just after the ban was announced. This is what the stupid bitch said at the despatch box:
This isn’t a decision to ban football hooligans; this is a decision to ban all away fans from a game which a safety advisory group has not done for nearly 25 years in this country, and it was a decision taken not on the grounds that he suggests, which was the risks posed by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. It was a decision taken in no small part because of the risk posed to them because they support an Israeli team and because they are Jewish.
On the banning away fans thing, we’re getting roasted on Reddit by actual Villa fans saying that a ban like that isn’t unusual, which TBH is true. Celtic and Rangers banned away fans for a couple of years between 2023 and 2025, and worse than that, Legia Warsaw fans were banned from Villa Park of all places in Nov 2023. I don’t know if you’ve seen that clip of a Legia fan throwing a jar of mayonnaise at Villa fans and then falling on his face (off the record, hilarious). The mayonnaise mishap, they called it on Villa forums. It went kind-of viral. I’d like to tell you that Nandy is some use in deciding what to do here, but no. I kid you not, she wanted to go back to parliament to say that the Legia Warsaw decision wasn’t relevant because Jews don’t like mayonnaise. Apparently, it’s traditional to put mustard on all those deli sandwiches. I mean, Jesus wept.
The ban lie isn’t that bad for us, though, because she was careful with her words and had remembered what Blair has been coaching us on since the election. Keir is on the phone with Blair nearly as often as I am with Mandy and they have it drummed into us how to mislead people and get away with it. What you do is very carefully tell a narrow technical version of the truth, while at the same time leaving a great big fucking lie as the main impression. So, she said ‘all away fans’ banned from a game ‘by a safety advisory group’ for ‘nearly 25 years’. So that means if a club banned all except a few, or the police banned them all without consulting the safety advisory group, or UEFA did it, or some other obscure difference, there are enough ways to wriggle out of it. If all else fails, we can say that two years is nearly 25 years because there are only 23 years between them!
We have a bigger problem with the last sentence about the reason for the ban, and that’s where I need your help. There is this guy in WMP called Chief Superintendent Tom Joyce who gave an interview to Sky News, and I’ll try to quote from it as exactly as I can because this is important:
I’m aware there’s a lot of commentary around the threat to the fans being the reason for the decision. To be clear that was not the primary driver…
He goes on a bit, but the gist of it is that they had a good chat with the Dutch police and gathered that Maccabi fans are violent bastards who shouldn’t come anywhere near Birmingham. I mean, that’s true, of course, but it’s not the point. The Sky News guy was well enough coached in the usual Sky way and did his best to push our narrative about antisemitism, but this Tom guy just batted him away like a pro. We’re thinking that it might be better to come from one Chief Constable to another, so if you could call Craig and work out what to do about Tom, we’d owe you one.
Maybe Craig could put out a statement that antisemitism has no place in safety advisory groups and that Tom Joyce had misspoken by recycling an ancient medieval antisemitic trope that Israeli football fans are not all nice people. Or we could get Tom himself to apologise and ‘clarify’ his statement. Nandy said the decision was in ‘no small part’ because they were Jewish, but he’s saying it wasn’t part of it at all. What we’ve been bouncing around the office is that if we can’t get away with ‘in large part’, we could maybe get Tom to make a statement to say that it was ‘in medium part’ because the Maccabi fans are vicious violent thugs who sing songs about raping Arabs, and another medium part but not as big a medium part that some of the local people in Birmingham that they would have attacked might have attacked them back. I think that could work because we could make it all so complicated that most people wouldn’t really understand what the hell he’s saying, and then we could spin it as a retraction.
If Tom won’t play ball with this then I hate to say it and don’t quote me, but you might have to ‘suggest’ an educational trip to Auschwitz to go with the apology for the trope, and if that doesn’t work it might have to be, ‘nice career you have there, Tom; shame if anything was to happen to it’. Just saying.
You’re probably wondering where Shabana Mahmood has been since the Home Secretary would normally be all over a police and public safety thing like this. We decided to keep her out of it and put Nandy up instead. Shabana’s constituency is in Birmingham, and most of her constituents hate her and want her out anyway, so we figure there is no point in adding to it. Plus, I was one of the people pushing for her to get the Home Secretary job, so it would be a bit embarrassing for me if she only lasted five minutes in it. She’s valuable to us because she is apparently a Muslim, but she’d basically hand her granny to the Israelis to be tortured if she thought it would help her career. There is this seductive mixture of ambition, greed, and cruelty about her that I’ve always found sexy. Anyway, the plan is to keep a wall around her while putting Nandy out front, but if possible, keeping both in their jobs till this thing blows over.
Anything you can do to help will be appreciated. It might even make the peerage more likely. I’m joking, of course – that process is totally separate and independent. (Wink!)
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is vile. The line we are fed about the bastard formerly known as Prince Andrew is that he is a bad apple. But that photo, the one with his arm around Virginia Giuffre, was broadly part of his government job – where he influenced elites through sex and good times to buy British weapons.
This is a systematic problem, but no one wants to talk about it. Understandably, because no one wants to talk about the rape of minors, but this is how the arms trade does business. We do the survivors of sexual assault a disservice if we ignore the system that uses our entitled, out-of-touch, vile elite to sell weapons to entitled, out-of-touch, vile elites around the world.
Andrew – the Godfather (but not quite)
The thing to understand first is that Andrew is the Fredo of the Royal Family. He’s not going to be king. He can’t ride a horse that well. He’s a womaniser. Just like in the Godfather films, the Royals had to find something useful that their useless brother could do. Given the Royals’ traditional roles and Andrew’s time in the Navy, there was one obvious answer: sell weapons to despots around the world.
Despots have two problems: One, they need weapons (to shore up their grip on power) and two, legitimacy (being a despot lessens one’s legitimacy significantly). Britain has the most high-profile and respected royal family in the world. If you buy weapons from us, our royals will hang out with you and make you look more legitimate.
Andrew was the UK’s “Special Representative for International Trade and Investment”. Special as in “let’s make sure everyone has a special time.” “International Trade and Investment” as in selling weapons. As Fredo did, Andrew made himself useful to the family business.
Andrew showed up at defence shindigs around the world for decades. Andrew’s job was to make sure those despotic Princes and their like had a good time. We don’t know much because the government won’t release the files, but all the evidence is that he did it reallyreally well. As Buckingham Palace said, “He brings immeasurable value in smoothing the path (my emphasis) for British companies…because of who he is.”
The arms trade, the military, and the whole Defence sector see themselves as having to protect the rest of us by making tough, real-world choices. Having to be corrupt so that the rest of us can live our peaceful lives. And you can see their logic throughout Andrew’s career. He facilitated corruption – at least we sold British weapons. Some children got r*aped in the process – turningablind eyetothedeathsofforeignchildrenis afundamentalplankonwhichBritisharmsaresold. The arms trade wouldn’t bat an eye.
We are told Andrew is a bad apple. Just like when a police officer kills someone. Or when yet another politician is corrupt. We are told not to look at the barrel—just remove that one bad apple. We are never told that the system is the problem. The UK establishment is completely unrepentant about the system that empowered, paid for, and gave Andrew a specially created job so that he could act as he did. They only cry crocodile tears now that Andrew has been caught, decades after the fact.
There is no intention on the part of our establishment to change how they do business. If the government genuinely wanted to show contrition for its part in Andrew’s vile deeds, it could release the files on the matter.
Andrew, a disgusting human being
They won’t for three reasons: Firstly, it would embarrass all those despots who also took part in those vile deeds, and we wouldn’t be able to sell them weapons anymore. Secondly, it would show that Andrew has done many terrible things for far longer than we currently know about. Thirdly, it would show that they know about all of this, all along.
Spoilers, but it doesn’t end well for Fredo in The Godfather Part II. Just as Fredo was removed from the family, so is Andrew. Being angry with Andrew is as pointless as expecting the Godfather to become a legitimate businessman. Let’s focus our anger on the institutions that have fucked up more children than Andrew ever will: the arms trade, British government support for it, and the Royal Family.
Writing about Nigel Farage is a frequent quagmire for me.
On one hand, Farage wants publicity, good or bad. He will eat marsupial testicles and record a personalised birthday greeting for you for cash. He would happily turn up at the opening of a fucking envelope if it meant a few more column inches to spout his xenophobic rhetoric.
Farage thrives on attention.
On the other hand, the relentless over-platforming of this reactionary relic by the BBC and the frothing right-wing press leads to a toxic drip-feed of disinformation that poisons the well of public discourse.
And this must be challenged.
The BBC: obsessed with facilitating Nigel Farage
The BBC is a bloated behemoth of “public service” broadcasting, funded by your license fees like a reluctant sugar daddy to the establishment.
Once said to be the gold standard of impartiality, the BBC has treated Farage like everyone’s favourite pint-sinking hero, shoving him onto every screen from Question Time to The One Show with the reverence of a visiting dignitary.
Back in 2019, while Labour and the Lib Dems scrapped for scraps, Farage’s Brexit Party — literally a one-trick pony with zero seats — got more airtime than actual governing parties.
Farage’s grinning mug was disproportionately plastered across BBC News’ Election coverage, despite his utter irrelevance to parliamentary arithmetic. This isn’t impartiality and balance, it’s an infatuation and a willingness to peddle poison as populism to the masses.
The BBC’s Farage obsession normalises his dog-whistle drivel as if it’s some sort of quirky pub banter rather than the kindling for societal arson, and whilst I hold Keir Starmer entirely responsible for the rise of Reform UK, the establishment media are responsible for the rise of Nigel Farage.
GBeebies and the Daily Mail
Then there’s the right-wing media circus. GBeebies News (Farage TV), the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, and a snarling pack of Murdoch minions deify Farage as their messiah of manufactured outrage.
Once you get past the fact these rancid outlets aren’t actually newsrooms but megaphones for the 1%, churning out dishonest headlines that make Mein Kampf look like a balanced op-ed, the rest just seems to fall into place.
I’ve only ever caught GB News a couple of times, and I have to say, any media outlet that allows Eamonn Holmes a prime time slot to peddle his conspiracy theories and rant on about the woke bogeyman while ignoring the food bank queues snaking around austerity-ravaged estates really shouldn’t be considered to be a credible source of news.
From ‘national treasure’ to the deluded cunt on some extremist satellite news channel. Nice work, Eamonn. You will be flogging fluffy moon boots on QVC, soon enough.
The Daily Mail also has an unhealthy Farage fixation. They peddle a barrage of headlines framing him as the saviour from the liberal elites which is irony so thick you could cut it with a knife.
This amplification isn’t accidental but a structural stitch-up that is intended to drown out the voices from the margins.
A ratings and revenue winner for the corporate media
Trade unionists fighting zero-hour contract hell, migrants that are building our economy, or the committed climate activists who are warning of the catastrophic inferno we’re sleepwalking into, the establishment media wants to silence you so they can provide a feedback loop of Farage’s fascism-lite.
Farage gets the mic because he brings chaos and a ratings rocket for ad breaks and clicks, while the left’s vision for solidarity and systemic change gets the cold shoulder.
These spineless establishment sycophants are propping up a gammon-faced gambler whose “populism” is just fash-talk for dismantling workers’ rights and flogging the NHS to hedge funds.
The over-platforming of Farage really isn’t free speech. The corporate media elite are shifting the Overton window so far right that even the most drab of centrist policies sound like a Bolshevik fever dream.
Thank fucking God we have the Canary. We are the perfect example of how the media should platform the supposed powerless, rather than the pint-pullers. If you’re not informing a democracy, you’re undermining one.
We must unite against Farage
This past week saw Farage pitching Reform UK’s “pro-business” manifesto in the City of London, dialing back his many wild, uncosted promises to try and sound vaguely responsible, but in reality, Farage is simply rebranding fascism-lite for the stock exchange.
While the £90 billion tax bonfire might’ve been placed on the back burner, Farage still thinks that under-25 year old workers should be exploited even more than what they are already. These Thatcherite Tories love a bit of naked class war, particularly when it is dressed up as populism.
Farage’s speech, which was delivered, rather tellingly, to a room full of bankers and billionaires, was billed as Reform UK’s grand economic vision for Farage’s Britain.
What it actually revealed was a retreat into the same old Thatcherite playbook of viciously slashing public services, gutting workers’ rights, and praying the markets sprinkle some magic fairy dust on the wreckage.
Farage’s speech wasn’t visionary, it was a clear warning shot. Reform isn’t here to disrupt the status quo, it’s here to restore it with extra nationalism thrown in for not-so-good measure.
The first significant cracks in Reform UK’s armour are beginning to appear. Now the left must find its voice as one to guide voters towards the real systemic reform that we so desperately need.
I am in my mid-thirties, from a Northern town ripped apart by drugs – and in my lifetime I have lost four friends to them. Trust me, I know the actual cost of the current law, not through the statistics the government throws out; I know it through the bigger, personal reality of it all. I know it through the stomach cramps and the sweats, through feeling the cold of the concrete as I slept under another doorway, a bag of white powder tucked to my chest.
My ketamine addiction was never fun. It was a desperate attempt to self-medicate a trauma I couldn’t even think about, let alone confess to anyone else. For two years, I lived in a walking dream-state, alternating between friends’ sofas and the cold, unyielding streets of Leeds.
One of the lucky ones
I worked full-time, paid my taxes, but because the state saw my addiction as a crime, I couldn’t escape the spiral. The fear of being arrested, the all-consuming shame, was a force that kept me silent. The social system that should have seen me and reached out to offer me hope —the one I paid into —pushed me further into the shadows. Stigma haunted me.
I was in my very early twenties, young and meant to be full of life. But the actual machinations of our drug system take the most vulnerable, and through criminalisation, ensure their silence until they’re beyond saving.
I’m one of the lucky ones. My health deteriorated, the NHS were forced to pay attention, but if it wasn’t for some very good friends, I know I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I count my lucky stars every day I am where I am, but there are four names eternally etched into my mind, the names of four people who never should have died, who the system should have and could have saved.
Addiction is a fucking disease. Can we please treat it that way?
The reason the UK is failing so many people so badly is its stubborn refusal to accept a scientific truth. That addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease, not the failure of a person. So many major global organisations officially classify addiction as a disease; it’s not semantics, it’s a fucking fact. Prolonged substance abuse alters the structure and the function of the brain, specifically the circuits which give us rewards, motivation, memory, and self-control.
Jesus, do I remember the high so well. And even to this day, I miss it so fucking badly. That first hit of ketamine, as soon as I woke up and rolled over, there was nothing like it. Narcotics hijack your body’s reward system, it floods the brain’s reward centre with dopamine, telling it that ‘this is vital for your survival… You need this.’ But over time, these receptors become broken, meaning you’re no longer using the drug for pleasure, but to feel normal.
What self-control?
And self-control? What self-control? Chronic use ruins your prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for judgment and impulse control. This is why the hallmark of addiction is the loss of power, and it really is all-consuming. From the moment your eyes open until the moment you have that drug in your system, it’s all your brain will think about. For me, it was that, and the compulsion to self-medicate the pain of a trauma I didn’t even know I carried.
Addiction is a relapsing condition. It is a chronic disease influenced by genetics, environment, and mental health. You don’t imprison people who are ill, yet the UK legal system continues to treat possession of drugs as a crime. And the treatment? A criminal record and a spiral into shame and further use.
But Zack Polanski’s push for legalisation and a public health model is so very, very overdue. It’s the adoption of an evidence-based medicine over moral judgment, and we fucking need it.
Our national shame is in the number of deaths from drugs
Polanski is absolutely right. The ‘war on drugs has absolutely failed.’
All we have to do is look at the heartbreaking stats to see it. But we don’t. In typical British fashion, we ignore those begging for help. In the most recent reporting period, there were around 5,448 deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales. That’s the highest number since records began in 1993. And it has doubled since 2012.
The saddest indictment of our system can be seen when you compare the UK to Portugal. In 2001, Portugal made the rational switch to decriminalising drugs and shocked the world with what happened next.
Whilst our death rates have surged to record highs, Portugal’s overdose deaths have remained dramatically low. Some estimates even suggest their drug mortality rate is up to 28 times lower than our own. The stark reality is that the fear-driven policies the UK clings to are actively killing our own, whilst the compassion-driven model we fear so badly is actively saving them.
The economic black hole. Why are we paying out billions to harm people?
It’s been fucking wild since Polanski announced his stance on our drug system. To those who argue his proposal is too soft or costly, we need to present the cold, hard economic truth.
The UK’s approach has failed. It is not fiscally responsible and is a massive annual drain on the public purse, costing an estimated £20 billion. This is the price tag for keeping up the shame, silence, and stigma.
But where does this unimaginable sum go?
Policing and prosecution costs are wild. We arrest those suffering, drag them through the courts for minuscule amounts to the tune of approximately £1.4 billion per year.
The ‘revolving door’ of prison, where we lock up the sick, with one in three prison places going to someone with addiction, is another massive drain. Billions upon billions are spent on maintenance, yet inadequate treatment means reoffending rates remain high as hell.
Social exclusion from criminalisation of drugs
And the crisis of social exclusion. The law ensures that people leave the system with a criminal record, which immediately blocks the path to recovery. Nearly 21% of people starting drug treatment don’t have a roof over their head. This is a devastating figure which shows the current system leaves people homeless, rather than curing it.
Polanski’s new proposal makes fucking sense. The evidence is clear. For every £1 spent on drug treatment, we can save society up to £4 by reducing demand on other services such as health, prisons, and emergency services.
This isn’t charity, it’s a common-sense fiscal policy. The Portuguese model has proven that shifting funds from prisons to health care saves money and lives. By legalising and regulating, as Polanski suggests, not only would the UK save billions, but it would also gain tax revenue from a legally controlled market. This can be used to directly fund and fight the integrated trauma and mental health support that people like me desperately need.
Heal the UK with hope
My own recovery, my second chance so many didn’t get, came not from the state but from friends who possessed the compassion that the state massively lacks. Time and time again, I tripped and fell, I fucked up and used over and over. But they got it. They understood that underneath the perpetual cycle of use and abuse was a scared and hurting girl, worried and running from something.
My friends understood that my addiction was a symptom of pain, not who I was.
And this is the essence of the policy that Zack Polanski champions: formalising compassion.
This switch to a public health model is a statement to every single suffering addict, to every homeless person self-medicating their trauma in a cold doorway, and to every family who has watched their loved ones fall and fade.
It is a statement which says, ‘We see you. We see your illness. We will not abandon you.’
This policy shift is not proposing a drug-free-for-all; we are proposing control – control over a system which is currently chaotic, violent, and fuels a fatal black market. It is proposing treatment over trauma, to finally end the senseless waste of life and money that has defined the last fifty years in the UK.
We need to stop being the shameful example of the ‘war on drugs’ failure. Come on, guys, drugs have won, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We must heed this national call for reform, listen to the voices of those who managed to get out of the cycle of addiction, and embrace a model that won’t just save our country billions, but more importantly, the lives of so many of our people.
A Gaza resident tells his story of the struggle to survive in Israel’s Gaza genocide today, “ceasefire” or not.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Qasem Waleed El-Farra
On October 19, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of people in a blatant violation of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which had come into effect just over a week earlier.
And a day after world leaders had gathered in Egypt to discuss implementation, I went back to my neighborhood in eastern Khan Younis on October 14 to gather anything that could protect me and my family against the approaching winter — clothes, sheets, wood, books even, for those cold nights where there will be little else to do but read.
I had not long been searching through the rubble of my home — which has been completely destroyed — when I heard shooting and saw people running.
I had been in enough of such situations to know not to ask questions. I left everything I had pulled from under the rubble and fled back toward downtown Khan Younis.
While we were — yet again — fleeing our area, I learned that an Israeli quadcopter had attacked a group of civilians in the area. One of them, I was told, was shot right in the heart.
I’ve faced death many times throughout the genocide. But this time was different. This was just one day after Trump, backed by a number of world leaders, announced a plan to bring peace to Gaza and the Middle East.
That day, Israel had also announced that Zikim beach, which is located in the Gaza Strip envelope, to enable the Israeli settlers there to “breathe again.”
When I arrived in my tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, I pondered just one question: Is this the ceasefire they want to bring us? Or do they just want to announce a cessation of violence, but have no interest in enforcing it?
Targeting global solidarity As a person in Gaza who has been living through a genocide for two years and five major Israeli attacks on Gaza before that, the term “ceasefire” is selective and always shadowed with deadly threats.
As far as I have experienced, the word simply means that Israel is able to do whatever it wants. We aren’t.
More broadly, for Israel, ”peace” in Palestine equals a Palestine with no Palestinians, as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government ministers have made very clear.
Over the years, Palestinians have learned the hard way that when the colonial plans and their various institutional manifestations — from the Peel Commission in 1936 to Trump’s “Board of Peace” — are formed, allegedly to bring peace, the oppressed people’s rights are lost.
The reason is that behind the proposal, there is always a gun pointed at us.
Or, like how Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, put it: “Ceasefire according to Israel = ‘you cease, I fire.’”
Again: Ceasefire according to Israel=“you cease, I fire.” Calling it “peace” is both an insult and a distraction.
All eyes on Palestine: Israel must face justice, sanctions, divestment, boycott UNTIL occupation, apartheid and genocide are over and every crime is accounted for. https://t.co/K73I2177Ms
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 14, 2025
When I read through the Trump-Netanyahu 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, all I could think of is that we have gone back a century in time: It is another colonial promise of peace that includes everyone but Palestinians, the land’s native population.
Of course, in Gaza, we all want this ceasefire to hold, to save what remains of our home. Still, it does not take a genius to see that the ceasefire plan is nothing but a grotesque charade directed by Trump and Netanyahu — a desperate move to save Israel from being internationally isolated, especially after the unprecedented pro-Palestine demonstrations across the globe.
Thus, the plan deprives Gaza of the increasing momentum of world support, while also resulting in the continued loss of people and land in Gaza. It is either Netanyahu’s rock or Trump’s hard place.
On-off genocide The ceasefire plan depends fundamentally on a phased Israeli withdrawal “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation that will be agreed upon between the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], ISF [International Stabilisation Force], the guarantors, and the United States.”
In more precise terms, there is no specified timeline.
This means that with Israeli troops withdrawal to the yellow line on the plan’s map, it is still in control of 58 percent of Gaza, and while some people might be able to return to their areas of residence, I cannot.
The plan has allowed Israel to do what it does best — stall, manipulate and deceive. By October 28, according to Gaza’s authorities, Israel had breached the ceasefire 125 times.
The killings continue, aid is still being hindered and the Rafah crossing remains closed, denying people travel to receive urgent medical treatment.
A significant reason for the continued killing in Gaza is that the Israeli withdrawal lines are tricky and ambiguous, even unknown to locals, especially those who live in the eastern part of Gaza.
On October 17, for instance, Israel killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family: seven children, three women and the father, as they returned to check on their house in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.
In my neighborhood, Sheikh Nasser, in eastern Khan Younis, neighbors marked a destroyed house with a big red sheet to warn others not to cross further.
We have witnessed two prior ceasefire agreements in the past two years of genocide. Both times I hoped they would bring an end to our misery. Many of us in Gaza remain very sceptical about this ceasefire, and we can’t afford to let hope in our hearts again.
Israel loves to fish in muddy water, or, like we in Gaza like to put it, ala nakshah, meaning that Israel is merely awaiting any slight excuse to resume the killing.
Netanyahu has repeatedly made it obvious that it’s either his political future or our future. For as long as he is in power, Israel will keep coming for us in an on-off genocide in order to make our misery constant.
This is the “peace” we are offered after two years of suffering the crime of crimes.
Qasem Waleed El-Farra is a physicist based in Gaza. His article was first published by The Electronic Intifada on 6 November 2025.
Unable to stop Zohran Mamdani’s momentum after he won New York’s mayoral Democratic primary last June––fueled by a message of populist policies and social justice, and unperturbed by nonstop bad faith attacks by pro-Israel bullies––centrist and liberal media has adopted a different, more subtle tone in their effort to “moderate” the Mayor-elect: using the trappings of pragmatism and technocracy to whittle down the redistributive policies and class-driven language that defined his campaign. Rather than govern as he campaigned, as a crusading outsider socialist standing for tenants, Gaza, and workers, they insist it’s time for Mamdani to Grow Up, put on his big boy pants, purge his circle of Democratic Socialists, and hire Serious People motivated by Serious Solutions.
This makes sense. After all, traditional media attacks on Mamdani fell universally flat for months on end. Nothing seemed to stick, in part due to the fact that Mamdani seems to genuinely be a choir boy whose greatest transgressions are saying objectively true, but critical, statements about Israel and referring to his parent’s cousin at his “Auntie”––two things, it turns out, 90% of the world does. So a new tactic has emerged, one of attempted co-option, supposedly good faith advice, phone calls from powerful and famous Democratic luminaries, backroom meetings with “business leaders,” and the parallel implied threats of pushback if he doesn’t go along with The Way Things Are. This piece isn’t meant to be a commentary on whether this approach has been, or will be, successful (the jury is very much out on that). But it is worth documenting the way this particular mode of ideological disciplining works, and how it manifests in our media.
Those engaging in this process of moderation would not, of course, put it in these sinister terms. They would say they were simply seeking to guide a young, naive political novice through the myriad headwinds of “the second hardest job in America.” And in some cases this may be true. But for an elite media apparatus that, itself, can create these headwinds whenever it wishes, this posture serves as both warning and threat. It’s the process of establishing acceptable ideological boundaries––the crossing of which, everyone understands, will result in negative coverage and editorial scolding.
Now, the obligatory “to be sure” paragraph: I am not saying that there aren’t genuine limitations to what mayors can accomplish and real technocratic hurdles. Mayors cannot deficit spend; they require party and state support to achieve much of anything; the police manage their security and thus loom tremendous, undemocratic power over them. New York City has over 300,000 employees, all with discrete and oftentimes conflicting interests. But these complexities are very often used as cover for the nontechnocratic, ideological work of pushing politicians into taking more capital-friendly positions and priorities. This article will be a discussion of that process: of the bad faith nuance-trolling and how the narrowing of the horizon of the possible, before the ink even dries on the ballots, is less about good-faith concerns over limitations and logistics and very much about trying to turn Mamdani into Pete Buttigieg 2.0.
Complexities are very often used as cover for the nontechnocratic, ideological work of pushing politicians into taking more capital-friendly positions and priorities.
First and most prominently was the New York Times’ post-election editorial. The Times editorial board, which infamously published a cowardly anti-endorsement of Mamdani before the June Democratic primary (after saying they would not run endorsements anymore less than a year earlier), now takes on the tone of a principal calling Mamdani into their office for a stern talking-to. They’re not mad, they’re not going to attack him, they’re just disappointed and Deeply Concerned.
The Times board sets the tone early, leading off with the patronizing and false premise that Mamdani ran a “social-media-driven campaign.” The Mamdani campaign, it’s worth noting, knocked on an unprecedented 3 million doors, 1 million more than the 2 million actual votes cast, fueled by a DSA volunteer core that the Times later, of course, recommends Mamdani throw under the bus. This is followed by framing their advice as Mamdani lowering his progressive expectations. “For Mr. Mamdani to be effective, he will need to grapple with the recent history of big-city civic leaders promising bold, progressive change. They have mostly delivered disappointment, including in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore., as well as in New York City itself under Bill de Blasio,” they begin. It doesn’t matter that several of the relevant mayors listed are not progressive in any meaningful sense and all of them, save perhaps Johnson in Chicago, have adopted every Tough on Crime policy the Times goes on to recommend. It’s a vibe, not an intellectually honest assessment on the limits of left-wing politics. Those cities are left-coded, and that’s all that matters.
From there, the Times lists six ways Mamdani “can improve life in New York by marrying his admirable ambition to pragmatism and compromise.” The Times advises he abandon his pledge for free buses, saying this plan “would leave the system without the revenue it needs to pay for speed improvements,” and that “free buses could also reduce the sense of security for riders, turning buses into homeless shelters.” Somewhat bizarrely, they ignore Mamdani’s other major campaign pledge, freezing rent for rent stabilized units, then praise his willingness to incentivize more private development by undoing supposedly burdensome fire regulations. The editorial then runs down a list of campaign promises he must abandon or “compromise” on: free childcare (“He is unlikely to achieve this goal in full, given its costs and the lack of an obvious revenue source.”) and alternatives to policing (which they insist should only be done “when feasible,” whatever that means). And they push Mamdani to make nice with Big Business (both Mamdani and business leaders “should recognize that they have a common interest in the city’s well-being and in preserving its status as a hub of business and finance”). The Times then finishes with the obligatory ideological tsk tsk-ing over DSA, anti-police politics and, of course, Israel:
But the reasons that many New Yorkers are skeptical of him also deserve to be taken seriously. He had almost no management experience before his campaign, and extreme rhetoric was his normal mode of communication until recently. He called the New York Police Department “a major threat to public safety.” He initially refused to condemn Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel. To this day, he proudly identifies with the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform supports open borders, voting access for noncitizens and a weaker U.S. military.
He can win at least some of his skeptics over by getting results as mayor. He should start by building a leadership team light on democratic socialists and heavy on officials with records of accomplishment and proven management skills.
In short: aim for small wins that do not offend capital, make peace with Big Business, purge your ranks of anyone with progressive or socialist ideological commitments, be nice to the police and its powerful union, and continue to engage in conspicuous gestures of moderation on Israel like “condemning Hamas” (with no parallel demand he, or anyone, “condemn” the entity that has killed 20,000 children and committed genocide). Put another way: shed everything that made your campaign interesting and exciting and instead just be a slightly more liberal version of Eric Adams.
Put another way: shed everything that made your campaign interesting and exciting and instead just be a slightly more liberal version of Eric Adams.
The Washington Posteditorial board would scold Mamdani along similar lines, albeit more openly ideological––a result of their Bezos-driven, overt turn to the right. After lamenting Mamdani’s radical politics and what they say about The State of Things, the Post writes that “the best outcome would be for Mamdani to take a cautiously incremental approach and try pilot programs for his most radical ideas instead of immediately imposing them on the entire city. It seems that there are enough voters to put him in power — but if New Yorkers begin to flee in droves, it could force him to moderate.” This is a popular line from oligarchs and their media organs but you don’t usually see it spelled out like this––an explicit threat of a capital strike in a paper owned by the world’s second-richest person. But this is certainly what’s going on: moderate or New York’s wealthy will use their tremendous leverage to make governing more that much more difficult.
This isn’t to say slimy and racist attacks from other liberal quarters are not still ongoing. ADL chief and MSNBC mainstay Jonathan Greenblatt announced a “Mamdani monitor” Wednesday that’s basically a Canary Mission for just the Mamdani administration (and no other mayor, congressperson, or elected, much less the current White House, which is drowning in antisemites). This “monitor,” which will surveil and attempt to dig up dirt on any Mamdani hires, has been widely condemned by everyone from former Human Rights Watch Director Ken Roth to Patrick Gaspard of the Center for American Progress as selective and racially motivated. It’s yet another disciplinary mechanism designed to keep Mamdani in line, albeit more stick than carrot.
ADL chief and MSNBC mainstay Jonathan Greenblatt announced a “Mamdani monitor” Wednesday that’s basically a Canary Mission for just the Mamdani administration (and no other mayor, congressperson, or elected, much less the current White House, which is drowning in antisemites).
Politico, a reliable conduit of elite opinion, painted a picture of a “divided” city and a “narrow victory” that would force Mamdani to moderate his policies and message. Reporter Joe Anuta leans heavily into editorializing, writing that Mamdani’s “victory over moderate Democrat Andrew Cuomo was fueled by record turnout and deep enthusiasm among progressives. But it also exposed raw divides over religion, ideology and identity that will define his first days in office.” It’s unclear what elections don’t expose similar divisions but one is meant to takeaway the vague impression that it’s incumbent upon Mamdani to win over the people who loathe him, regardless of how valid or invalid their reasons––a requirement, of course, never imposed on moderate politicians when they win elected office. What follows is a series of vague threats from the extremely wealthy and their lobbyists, unsubstantiated claims of antisemitism, and rambling sour grapes.
“As he faces the dual challenge of reassuring his critics and proving that his movement can run the nation’s largest city. The degree of antipathy toward his fledgling administration complicates that dual pursuit. In practical terms, repairing relations with blocs of the city wary of his leadership will require the devotion of significant political capital — energy that could otherwise go toward delivering on his main policy planks.” Translation: moderate on taxing the rich and Israel or we’ll make governing that much more difficult. CNN’s Van Jones, who works with a mentor program funded by pro-Israel donors and used “dead Gaza baby” as punchline on Bill Maher three weeks ago, expressed a simular attitude towards Mamdani after his victory speech Tuesday night, which he apparently believed contained too much DSA red meat:
CNN's Van Jones was not a fan of Zohran Mamdani's angry, far-left, rage-filled victory speech:
"I think he missed an opportunity. I think the Mamdani that we saw in the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present… pic.twitter.com/aM2AlcgM1U
“Is he going to be more of a class warrior even in office? I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent,” a Very Concerned Jones laments. “I think his tone was sharp. I think he was using the microphone in a way that he was almost yelling. And that’s not the Mamdani that we’ve seen on Tiktok and the great interviews and stuff like that.”
The message here is fairly consistent across high-status pundits, lobbyists-populated articles, and editorials: you won. We can’t stop you from winning (unfortunately humans still get to cast one vote each). But think very carefully about your rhetoric, the targets of your criticism, and what your priorities are. Here are the boundary lines. If you cross them, things will be made more difficult—by the rich, by pro-Israel pressure groups, by other Democrats, by us in the media. Play ball, and you can coast with modest, incremental improvements. Govern as the class warrior, govern as someone who leans into meaningfully redistributive policies, support for Palestine, and genuinely universalist policies like free transportation and childcare, and we will help fuel the very headwinds that we are now ostensibly warning you about.
WATCH: Shabana Mahmood rebuts a Lib Dem MP who accuses her of using divisive rhetoric on the new asylum reforms 
Christ the King vs “Judeo-Christian” 
Free Speech vs Cancel Culture 
Far-right 
Again: Ceasefire according to Israel=“you cease, I fire.” Calling it “peace” is both an insult and a distraction.