Reform — The idea that media outlets can be free from bias is obviously ridiculous. All media organisations are biased in some fashion or another; the question is whether they’re honest with you about that, or whether they try to present themselves as impartial.

In the case of Politics UK, the impression given is that this is run-of-the-mill British news site. What you wouldn’t expect, then, is that the site’s founder is now a councillor for Reform UK:

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Reform’s Bailey Nash-Gardner

UK Fact Check reported the above, noting that councillor Bailey Nash-Gardner:

has been active in Conservative politics since at least 2017, previously served as campaign manager and parliamentary assistant to the then Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell between 2023 and 2026.

In a more detailed write-up, they add:

Despite repeatedly presenting Politics UK as politically neutral, critics have pointed to the platform’s coverage and language choices as evidence of apparent bias. In a post published on election day, the account referred to a group of independent candidates as “the Muslim independents,” despite not applying similar religious or ethnic labels to other independent candidates. Critics accused the post of singling out Muslim candidates in a way that risked fuelling division.

This is precisely the sort of subtle bias that sites like Politics UK are suited to spreading. Many people won’t go near outlets like the Mail or the Sun because they recognise they’re openly hostile and divisive. They might feel comfortable with Politics UK, however, and they won’t necessarily pick up that the site is quietly guiding them to see Muslims as ‘others’.

Impartiality

UK Fact Check added:

Nash-Gardner’s election to Havering Council means that one of the country’s most prominent political social media platforms — one that describes itself as offering “impartial coverage” — is now owned by a sitting councillor representing a party that critics say receives favourable coverage on the platform.

And this is what it comes down to, isn’t it? Politics UK describe themselves as follows:

The Home of UK Political News. Follow & turn on notifications for impartial coverage first.

It’s fine to be partial; the Canary certainly is, and in ways that we openly broadcast. What’s not fine is the growing merger between UK politics and UK media. And once again, it’s Reform which is leading the charge on that front – namely by having multiple politicians who work (or have worked) for GB News, including Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, and Matt Goodwin.

This is all especially concerning when you consider GB News’s output:

GB News Scandal: The dossier

Twenty journalists analysed 15 hours of television – none of which complied with Ofcom’s regulations. These are their findingshttps://t.co/ikwfIVrC2P

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) March 18, 2026

The New World today revealed that GB News has become the official propaganda channel for Reform UK, with not a single hour of programming complying with broadcasting law. Ofcom is doing nothing about it.#ReformWatch #GBNews #Ofcom pic.twitter.com/5y4bwtE3hL

— Jack Dart (@JackWDart) March 18, 2026

Consolidation

The Tories have traditionally enjoyed an easier time than Labour in the media. There’s a very simple reason for this, and it’s because many media owners are aligned with the Conservative Party. Now, it seems clear that Reform is seeking to do something similar with new media outlets like GB News and Politics UK.

On the one hand, you can’t really fault the party for pursuing a winning strategy. On the other, we’re obviously going to call it out any time Politics UK forgets its supposed ‘impartiality’.

Featured image via UK Politics

By Willem Moore

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The Iranian Football Federation has confirmed that the Iranian national team will participate in the 2026 World Cup finals, despite political tensions and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, whilst stressing the need for the tournament’s host nations — the United States, Canada and Mexico — to take “Tehran’s concerns” into account.

The Iranian Federation’s stance came after Canadian authorities refused last month to grant Federation President Mehdi Taj a visa to attend the FIFA Congress, on the grounds that he has links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Ottawa has classified as a “terrorist organisation” since 2024.

In a statement published on its official website, the Iranian Football Federation confirmed that the national team would “definitely” participate in the 2026 World Cup, but called on the host nations to take Iran’s concerns into account and ensure respect for the “beliefs, culture and convictions” of the Iranian delegation during the tournament.

The participation of Iran in the World Cup, scheduled to take place between 11 June and 19 July 2026, has been the subject of speculation since the outbreak of war following the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February.

Iran’s conditions for participating in the 2026 World Cup

Iran’s demands included the granting of visas to all national team players and coaching staff without any obstacles or exceptions, as well as ensuring that the delegation is not subjected to any interrogations or exceptional procedures after the visas have been issued.

Iran also demanded that entry be facilitated for Iranian journalists and fans into the host countries, and that the Iranian flag be respected inside stadiums during tournament matches, in addition to ensuring that the national anthem is played in full and without interruption.

The conditions also included providing a high level of security protection for the national team’s delegation at airports, hotels and stadiums, and ensuring the team’s transport between their accommodation and the match venues in an organised and safe manner.

Tehran also emphasised the need to respect the national team’s technical and administrative staff during the tournament, and to limit questions at press conferences to technical matters only, without delving into political issues.

The demands concluded by emphasising that there should be no discrimination against any member of the Iranian delegation, including players who have completed their military service in official capacities, with a strong emphasis on ensuring they are treated normally throughout the tournament.

Iran is expected to base its training camp in Tucson during the tournament, where it will compete in Group G alongside Egypt, Belgium and New Zealand, kicking off its campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on 15 June.

Featured image via LeMonde

By Alaa Shamali

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When you have a baby, everyone and their mom (literally) has an opinion on how you raise them. From screen time to feedings to sleeping habits, new parents hear it all, such as, “Wake them up from their nap, they won’t sleep tonight” – or the opposing, “Don’t wake them up from their nap!”

It’s hard to know what you should do when it comes to caring for a tiny human, and it’s common for new parents to reach out to their parents for support, guidance and for some much-needed grandparent babysitting breaks. And while both parents and grandparents want what’s best for the baby, their views on what exactly is best can really differ.

Parenting guidance and baby safety regulations are continually changing to account for new research and innovation, but it can be hard for grandparents to let go of how they raised their own kids decades ago for many reasons.

“We all, as humans, have some degree of survivorship bias and perhaps some defensiveness related to making specific parenting choices that we now recommend against,” Dr. Krupa Playforth, a paediatrician, founder of The Paediatrician Mom and author of Eyes, Knees, Boundaries, Please!, told HuffPost via email. “I think that all of us are sensitive to the idea of our parenting choices being judged, and there’s an implicit judgment when grandparents are told that the way they did things is now considered unsafe.”

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Even still, some of what was done in 1990 and even 2000 is now not the safest way to care for a baby. Below, doctors and paediatricians correct the incorrect baby health beliefs they hear over and over from now-grandparents:

Babies should not sleep on their stomachs

Years ago, it was thought that putting a baby on their stomach to sleep was healthiest and safest, but research now shows that this kind of sleeping actually raises the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS, said Dr. Beth Oller, a family medicine physician in Kansas.

“That kind of prompted the ‘Back to Sleep campaign,’” said Dr. Michael Glazier, the chief medical officer for Bluebird Kids Health. The Back to Sleep campaign promoted back sleeping as the safest way for babies to sleep.

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“The Back To Sleep campaign, first released in 1994, reduced the risk of SIDS in infants by 50% in just the first few years,” Dr. Lauren Hughes, a paediatrician, owner of Bloom Paediatrics in Kansas, US, and a medical communicator on social media, told HuffPost via email. “All paediatricians recommend infants be put on their back to sleep because it’s safer.”

It’s also common for the grandparent generation to put items in the crib (stuffed animals, bumpers, a pillow) with the baby, “and our recommendations now, on the safety front is, please don’t overcrowd that crib,” said Glazier. “They just need a firm mattress, and that’s it.”

Kids are resilient and learn to sleep on their backs, Glazier noted.

Rice cereal does not need to go in the baby’s bottle

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It’s also common for grandparents to encourage new parents to add rice cereal to the baby’s bottle, according to Oller. This was a common practice when the now-grandparents were raising their own kids decades ago, but is no longer recommended.

Many grandparents think this will help the baby sleep better, but Oller said that isn’t true. “What drives babies in those first especially four to six months to wake up at night is their need for calories,” Oller said.

Babies wake up in the middle of the night because they’re hungry and craving calories, but there are virtually no calories in rice cereal, Oller said. “So it’s not going to keep them sleeping longer.”

“The other thing is, when you’re doing rice cereal, if you’re doing that in a formula, you’re having to use a bottle that has a much bigger hole in the nipple,” Oller explained.

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This will lead to a faster flow and could be a potential choking hazard. “So not only does it not keep them full or help them sleep through the night, but it also can be a negative thing,” said Oller.

Tony Anderson via Getty Images

Babies also don’t need fever-reducing medication before vaccine appointments

Parents used to be told to give babies fever-reducing medication like Tylenol before bringing them in for their vaccine appointments as a way to keep kids from feeling lousy after shots, but that is no longer the recommended guidance, said Dr. Leslie Treece, a paediatrician in Tennessee.

New research emerged that found that giving a baby fever-reducers before vaccines can actually blunt the immune response to the shot, “meaning, [the shots] might not work as well,” Oller explained.

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“It’s not like, if you did [give your baby a fever-reducing medication], we cannot vaccinate or shouldn’t vaccinate your kids today, that’s not it at all,” said Oller. “But it used to just go without saying that if your kiddo was going to a vaccine appointment, you pre-medicated them so that they didn’t have any side effects afterward.”

“It’s not current guidance anymore, and it was when this generation of adults were children, and so grandparents often tell them, ‘Give [babies] Tylenol before their shots,’” Treece said, stressing that it’s best not to.

Toddlers don’t need shoes to learn to walk

“I think the one that always is first and foremost for me that grandparents bring up is the idea that toddlers need shoes to learn how to walk,” Glazier said. “Once upon a time, I think, driven by the shoe industry, primarily, there was this conception that they need a shoe that provides structure to be able to help kids learn to walk. … Kids in all walks of life in all countries across the world learn to walk, regardless of shoes or not.”

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Shoes are an accessory for kids when they’re learning to walk, not a necessity. Glazier said he tends to only recommend certain shoes for certain situations, such as soft-soled shoes or socks when kids are learning to walk, and are outside or at a playground where they could step on a sharp stick or rock.

“But inside at home, barefoot’s great,” Glazier noted.

You can’t ‘spoil’ a baby by holding them ‘too much’

“I think another one you hear is, ‘Don’t pick your baby up all the time. Don’t hold them all the time. You’re going to spoil them,’” Oller said. “There’s no such thing as spoiling a baby with too much love or attention,.”

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Crying is the only way babies can communicate with people, “and they need emotional security. They need the trust,” Oller said. “But I think the thought used to be a baby is going to be ‘more demanding’ if you respond to its needs immediately, and if you pick a baby up — but so, so not true.”

Babies less than 12 months old should not have honey as a cough medicine

It’s common and recommended for parents to give children 1 and older honey as a cough medication, but this isn’t true for younger babies.

“The truth is, honey for older age kids is a good cough medicine, but we don’t recommend honey in the first 12 months of life because there is a fear that honey can have botulism spores in it, and since infant immune systems are still developing, they are more susceptible to that than older kids who are easily able to fight it off,” Glazier explained.

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These spores can grow in a baby’s digestive system and lead to infant botulism, which causes weakness, constipation, choking and, in rare cases, death.

They also should not wear jackets in car seats

The grandparent generation commonly leaves a baby’s coat on when putting them in their car seat, but newer guidance shows that it’s safer to take off a baby’s coat before putting them in their car seat, Treece said.

“Coats compress,” Treece explained. While the car seat straps may seem tight enough over a jacket, if the coat compresses, it leaves room for the baby to move around in the car seat and even slip out from the straps if there is a car crash.

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“It just creates an unsafe experience because they need for those straps to be well-fitted,” Treece added.

It’s a better idea to put a blanket on top of the car seats straps once the baby is buckled in.

If you need help, your paediatrician can help you establish boundaries with grandparents

Grandparents who repeatedly tell you to let your baby sleep with their favourite stuffy or that you’re “spoiling” them by holding them too much aren’t trying to do harm. They also want to raise a happy, healthy child – but sometimes, it’s necessary to set boundaries to ensure your child is safe.

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“Remember that you are the parent, and at the end of the day, your role is to advocate for your kid,” Playforth said. “It’s OK to push back against what the grandparents are saying, and you may have to let go of having their approval.”

Approaching these tough conversations from a compassionate standpoint, and recognising that everyone caring for the baby wants to raise a thriving and healthy child is a more helpful than being combative, she said.

If your parent just won’t listen and insists on putting your baby in their car seat with their winter jacket, for example, lean on the pros and tell them your paediatrician said it’s unsafe.

“Let your paediatrician be the bad guy if you need to,” Playforth said. “We don’t mind. If you’re getting a lot of push back from grandparents around boundaries guidelines ― especially safety-related guidelines ― you can always say, ‘This is what the paediatrician recommended, and we trust them. This is the way we are doing things.’”

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Raising a healthy and happy kid, and a responsible and caring adult isn’t about obsessing over the latest fad on social media or comparing your newborn’s growth compared to your neighbour’s baby, but is instead about all of the emotional and physical health basics that doctors recommend.

“For physical health, it’s the boring unsexy basics: eating a balanced diet, getting adequate sleep, washing your hands, moving your body daily, and staying up-to-date on routine checkups and vaccines,” Hughes said.

“For emotional and mental health, the biggest and best predictor is having a parent who is themselves emotionally and mentally healthy. So, taking care of yourself as a parent is one of the best things you can do for your child,” added Hughes.

And, let your kids be kids, Hughes said. Meaning, let them play, explore and get dirty.

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Hezbollah’s cheap First-Person View (FPV) drones are penetrating Israel’s billion-dollar Iron Dome system.

BIG: Hezbollah FPV drone strikes target Israeli Iron Dome launchers and its crews at the Jal al-Allam site on the border area. pic.twitter.com/VLbTGxLq3a

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 10, 2026

The drones, guided by a physical fibre optic cable, are immune to electronic jamming and pretty much invisible to radar systems, meaning Israel has no effective defence against them.

According to Al Jazeera:

Unlike traditional drones that rely on radio frequencies or satellite signals, these modified aircraft are tethered directly to the operator’s control station by a fibre optic thread. The cable can extend between 10–30km [6.2 to 18.6 miles], allowing the drone to reach distant targets.

Because there is no wireless signal to intercept, the drones are immune to Israel’s sophisticated electronic warfare (EW) jamming systems. Furthermore, the aircraft are constructed from lightweight fibreglass, meaning they emit almost no thermal or radar signature.

This means that Hezbollah can manually steer the drones toward specific targets, such as tanks, aided by high-resolution optical cameras that transmit uncompressed video via the cable.

This video shared recently by Hezbollah shows how relaxed the operator is while choosing the target and monitoring the scene for a second attack pic.twitter.com/DfrdUivFAY

— Ali Rida Sbeity (@AliRida_SB) May 3, 2026

Israel has admitted that there is not much it can do about the FPV drones, except “shoot at them”.

FPV bypassing the Iron Dome

Israel first deployed the Iron Dome in 2011. It is supposedly:

one of the most effective, battle-tested air defence systems in service today.

Except when it comes to Hezbollah’s drones.

CCTV in northern Israel captured a Hezbollah fibre-optic FPV drone flying past a building. Marks the first known use of FPV drones on targets outside IDF-occupied southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/gTIQ92izg8

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 10, 2026

The system is expensive, so it must be heartbreaking for Israel that cheap FPV drones can bypass it.

According to RMZ:

a complete system, including the radar, computer and three to four launchers – each containing up to 20 interceptors – costs around US$100 million to produce.

Israel has 10 such systems in operation, taking the estimated cost to $1bn.

Armed resistance

A United Nations General Assembly resolution states:

The General Assembly,

Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;

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Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation was instrumental in the IOF leaving Lebanon in 2000, after 18 years.

Since then, Israel has continued to illegally occupy both Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights. Here’s what the UN says about it. Recently, Israel has also invaded Lebanon once again.

Of course, Israel and the West have labelled Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist group’ and called for their disarmament, when they’re only defending the land they are native to.

The West only proscribed Hezbollah because of intense pressure from the Israel Lobby.

The entire Jewish supremacist ethnostate literally runs and was founded on terrorism, yet we will never find any of its blood-thirsty components proscribed — not the IOF, not the Mossad, none of the trigger-happy, child-killing, rapist colonisers will be labeled as terrorists.

The IOF booby-trapped pagers, killing 42 and injuring thousands. If that isn’t an act of ‘terrorism’, I don’t know what is. On the contrary, we shield them and enable their crimes by proscribing everyone resisting them as terrorists.

Was it not us who gave Palestinian land to “zionist aspirations”?

Fuck around and find out.

So if Israel is going to keep fucking around, it’s going to keep finding out.

Hezbollah has published footage of multiple FPV strikes on the Iron Dome battery and its crew. https://t.co/wE6ukXbnPx pic.twitter.com/8ZOKmYrFik

— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) May 10, 2026

Hezbollah even managed to transform one drone into a suppository for one IOF soldier.

Hezbollah continues hunting down Israeli troops with its simple FPV drones.

Although the soldiers run away from them, the drones precisely hit them.

Just remembered when they were having fun sniping and hunting terrified, emaciated Gaza’s children. pic.twitter.com/IHnsD3zG6D

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— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) May 9, 2026

At the end of the day, you can’t run from what was promised to you 3,000 years ago. And just maybe, that was a drone up the ass.

Feature image via X

By The Canary

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Right before calling Iran’s response to the White House’s latest peace proposal “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,” President Donald Trump lashed out at his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for settling the tab for a Carter-era arms deal with the nation that fell through decades ago.

Taking to Truth Social on Sunday afternoon, the commander in chief fumed that “Iran has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World” since the fall of American-aligned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.

“DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!” he described Iran’s strategy with the US, while also claiming Tehran will be “laughing no longer” if his administration has the final word.

In his post, the president said Iran “finally hit ‘pay dirt’” with Obama, who negotiated the now-defunct Iran Nuclear Deal alongside China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union in 2015.

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MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images

“He was not only good to them, he was great, actually going to their side, jettisoning Israel, and all other Allies, and giving Iran a major and very powerful new lease on life,” Trump wrote.

The president falsely claimed the Obama administration forked over billions of dollars “in green cash” to Tehran on a “silver platter” back in 2016, referring to a massive transfer of funds which was part settlement for a $400 million arms deal halted by the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s and partially the release of Iranian-owned funds which were frozen due to international sanctions.

President Trump called the amounts so substantial “Iranian Thugs had no idea what to do with it” when it was offloaded from planes in “suitcases and satchels.”

Continuing to rail against Obama, he said Iran had “finally found the greatest SUCKER of them all, in the form of a weak and stupid American President.”

“He was a disaster as our ‘Leader,’ but not as bad as Sleepy Joe Biden!” Trump went on to add.

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In his post, the president accused Iranian leaders of stringing the U.S. along for decades, “keeping us waiting, killing our people with their roadside bombs, destroying protests,” as well as “wiping out 42,000 innocent, unarmed protestors, and laughing at our now GREAT AGAIN Country.”

“They will be laughing no longer!” Trump concluded.

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer will deliver a key speech tomorrow as he fights for his political survival amid growing calls from Labour MPs for his resignation. (Alamy)

3 min read17 min

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to deliver a key speech tomorrow which he is widely expected to use as an attempt to push back against calls for his resignation from a growing number of Labour MPs.

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Starmer, in what is likely to be one of the most important speeches of his political career, is expected to say “people need hope” – and that his government “will face up to the big challenges” and “will make the big arguments”, conceding “incremental change won’t cut it”. 

At the heart of the speech will be Starmer’s bid to reset relations with the European Union, “by putting Britain at the heart of Europe” so that the UK is “stronger on the economy, on trade, on defence”. 

Starmer is also expected to say a closer relationship with the EU will mean “standing shoulder to shoulder with the countries that most share our interests, our values and our enemies”. 

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However, despite Starmer’s hope for a better future on Monday, as well as his expected focus on “Labour values and Labour policies” to reconnect with the public, the speech will inevitably see the Prime Minister talk as much to his own party as to the public as he fights for his own political survival. 

A devastating set of local election results for Labour, which saw the party lose the Senedd in Wales for the first time, as well as around 1,500 seats,  means his speech will be delivered at the start of a challenging week – after a weekend which saw a growing number of Labour MPs express their desire for the Prime Minister to stand down. 

Backbench Labour MP Catherine West on Saturday said she would challenge the Prime Minister on Monday if a cabinet minister did not do so, warning she had 10 MPs that would back her to do so. 

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“My preferred option is for the cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent, and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role,” she told BBC Radio 4.

Labour MP Josh Simons, former boss of Labour Together, former Treasury minister and influential backbench MP also called on the Prime Minister to resign – writing in The Times on Sunday that Starmer “lost the country” and  did not believe “the prime minister can rise to this moment”. 

Meanwhile, former deputy prime minister and Labour deputy leader, Labour MP Angela Rayner stopped short of calling for Starmer to resign on Sunday – but criticised the direction of Labour’s government, warning what Labour had done so far “isn’t working” and that it may be the party’s “last chance” with the public.

Rayner said the party blocking Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham from standing as an MP “was a mistake”, alongside appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and the party’s early attempt in government to cut Winter Fuel Allowance. 

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In his speech on Monday, Starmer is also expected to say the party will need to give a “bigger response than we anticipated in 2024 because these are not ordinary times”, as he attempts to persuade Labour MPs that Labour election losses were not a signal of terminal decline. 

“Strength through fairness. It’s a core Labour argument,” Starmer will say. 

“And you will see those values writ large in the King’s Speech. And you will see hope, urgency and exactly whose side we are on.”

The speech will also come after Starmer announced the appointment of former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a special envoy, as well as senior Labour peer Harriet Harman as an adviser against tackling women and girls in the aftermath of Thursday’s election results.

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The move, like Starmer’s expected speech on Monday, has been widely recieved as an attempt to signal to mutinous Labour MPs the government is taking a change of direction. 

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VININGS, Ga. — Brad Raffensperger is fighting to save his political future as MAGA takes hold of the Georgia GOP.

The secretary of state rose to national prominence by defying President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but he is carefully trying to avoid the anti-Trump lane while he runs for governor.

Instead, he’s running an old-school campaign aimed at an old-school Republican Party: He’s holding low-key events compared with his GOP opponents’ flashier rallies, and he’s focusing on bread-and-butter issues, rather than harping on election security. At one Atlanta-area rotary club gathering in April, Raffensperger was all too happy to tout his business background and his pledge to cap property taxes. Everywhere he goes, he drops the word conservative.

“I have my own lane, and I feel good where we are,” Raffensperger told POLITICO after the event. “It’s the lane about being a Christian conservative businessman who’s built a business from scratch.”

At its core, Raffensperger’s candidacy is a test of whether the party’s non-MAGA guard can hold on in one of the nation’s premiere battleground states. He’s defied expectations before, fending off a Trump-backed candidate in 2022 to keep his current position. But 2026 poses a new challenge, as Georgia’s GOP has increasingly shunned its small government roots in favor of aligning with the populist right.

Raffensperger maintains he has a path to victory. Asked whether Trump’s grip on the party is complicating it, he deflected: “I’m doing just fine. I’m going to be in the run-off.”

But the reality is Raffensperger is still struggling to break through in the governor’s race, polling at a consistent third place behind Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire Rick Jackson ahead of the May 19 primary. Republican strategists and officials in the state were widely skeptical of Raffensperger’s chances of success.

“This is the party of Trump today — like it or not, it is — and I find it very difficult to see someone being able to be anti-Trump in a Republican primary and be successful,” said Casey Cagle, a Republican who served as lieutenant governor from 2007 to 2019. He’s experienced the rise of the MAGA base firsthand and has since tacked further to the right.

“The base has grown far, far greater to the right than what it was in my day,” said Cagle, who is supporting Jones in the governor’s race. “The core of the Republican Party has moved far away from the Chamber of Commerce mindset.”

Before February of this year, Raffensperger seemed poised to draw enough support in the primary to keep Jones under the 50 percent threshold he needed to trigger a run-off election. Then Jackson upended the race with his bombastic spending and MAGA pandering, pushing Raffensperger further down in the polls.

Even if the secretary of state were to make a run-off against either Jones or Jackson, his chances of actually winning the nomination are still slim, said GOP strategist Jeremy Brand, who has worked on Gov. Brian Kemp-aligned committees and is unaffiliated in the governor’s race.

“It’d be incredibly tough,” Brand said. “The edge in a run-off where voters are traditionally more conservative, that are willing to come back out again, I think the odds go to the more conservative candidate.”

2020 election woes

Raffensperger has been battling his own party on various fronts since he first stood up to Trump.

A faction of the Georgia GOP tried to bar him from seeking office again on the Republican ticket. And local party leaders recently broke with precedent to allow the RNC to eschew its neutrality and spend resources on backing Jones in the primary. The MAGA base that failed to oust Raffensperger in 2022 is trying again to end his political career — along with others deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.

Attorney General Chris Carr, like Raffensperger, is also mounting a bid for governor and previously defeated a Trump-backed challenger in 2022. But he’s polling even lower than the secretary of state. And Gabriel Sterling, a former top Raffensperger lieutenant, is locked in a noisy primary in his bid for secretary of state as he faces off against a former Democrat-turned-MAGA acolyte and a GOP state representative who once served as Kemp’s top aide.

The 2020 election has continued to be a key litmus test in Georgia, especially as Trump continues to air his grievances over his loss. Several recounts and extensive litigation have only proven Raffensperger’s case that former President Joe Biden fairly defeated Trump in 2020. But many voters and candidates continue to question the truth of the results in a show of loyalty to the president, further isolating the secretary from the increasingly conservative Republican base.

“I voted for Trump. I wish he’d have won. I think he did win, I’m one of those people,” said Bruce Brooker, 72, outside a Jones campaign event in rural Atkinson County earlier this month.

An April POLITICO Poll found that most respondents who plan to vote for Republicans this midterm are still skeptical: Nearly 40 percent say the 2020 election was stolen, while 25 percent don’t believe it was but have questions about the election’s legitimacy. Just 25 percent say the election wasn’t stolen.

Raffensperger continues to defend his work and the integrity of Georgia’s elections at large — “I’m really proud because we made elections more secure” — and is quick to highlight the changes he and state Republicans made in their 2021 overhaul of how the state conducts elections, which drew ire from Democrats and the MLB alike.

Still, several Georgia Republicans say he’s struggling to play catch-up as the base shifts away from his technocratic approach to politics.

“Brad stands in stark conflict to a party that is at the activist level very much aligned with President Trump, when Raffensperger is anything but,” said one former longtime state GOP official, granted anonymity to speak openly about evolving party dynamics. “His candidacy will be and is a test to determine if that lane still exists in the Georgia Republican Party apparatus.”

Raffensperger’s path forward

On a recent afternoon, Raffensperger, clad in a navy suit and striped red tie, headlined the Vinings-Cumberland Rotary Club’s weekly meeting, shaking hands and chatting with voters before taking his place behind the lectern at the front of the room. The state’s legislative session had ended barely a week earlier.

“What I thought I’d do is tell you where we are right now. We just finished up my last session,” he told the audience, ticking through accomplishments: streamlining professional licensing processes, securing an agreement to have money returned to victims of a local Ponzi scheme, and improving systems to make Georgia elections “free, fair and fast.”

It wasn’t the kind of red meat fodder that Republican politics thrive on in the Trump era, but the type of accolades that resonate with the kind of voters at the meeting, held just over the border from Atlanta’s city limits in suburban Cobb County.

Cobb County is one of several former Republican bastions surrounding metro Atlanta that have flipped blue as the Trump-styled GOP turned off suburban voters. Once the homebase for conservative stalwart former Speaker Newt Gingrich, the county voted overwhelmingly for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 despite her statewide loss to Trump.

It’s still home to plenty of business-focused Republican voters who are not keen on the president — then-Sen. Marco Rubio carried the county over Trump during the 2016 GOP primaries, and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley performed nearly twice as well in the county compared to her statewide returns against the president in 2024. These are the voters Raffensperger is focused on, content to let Jones and Jackson battle it out for the MAGA class.

Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County Republican chair, said the low-key civic group events have “been the hallmark of Brad Raffensperger’s success” and an emblem of the party’s business-focused past. It’s in sharp contrast with the attention-grabbing rallies that have defined Trump’s dominance of Republican politics.

Raffensperger’s quieter approach has previously served him well, when he overcame a 2022 primary challenge from former Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) who ran with the president’s endorsement. This time is different: Then, he held the power of incumbency and benefited from Trump’s influence waning temporarily in the aftermath of Jan. 6 and his 2020 election defeat.

Now, Trump, back in power, has reaffirmed his iron grip on the party and Raffensperger is up against two MAGA candidates pining for the base’s attention. Add to that the fact he’s being massively outspent: His $4 million has been dwarfed by Jackson’s whopping $61 million and Jones’ $26 million in expenditures, according to an AdImpact analysis.

The Jones and Carr campaigns were quick to dismiss claims that the secretary of state had a path to the run-off and an eventual win. A spokesperson for Jackson did not respond to a request for comment.

If Raffensperger were to lose the primary, his loss would become another nail in the coffin for an old-school GOP that continues to resist MAGA. But his insistence that his lane — and version of the Republican Party — still exists is, for his closest allies, a testament to his persistence.

“Brad Raffensperger never really stopped from 2022 on,” said Sterling, the Raffensperger ally who’s running for secretary of state and has also faced MAGA’s ire for refusing to overturn election results. “He could have set up a foundation, gone around the country and just talked about democracy and he would have been applauded. Instead he chose to go into the battle and fight.”

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Keir Starmer, left, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, April 2026 (Paul Ellis/Pool Photo via AP)

4 min read34 min

Former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has backed away from challenging Keir Starmer for the leadership herself – but called for Andy Burnham to be allowed back into the parliamentary party.

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In a lengthy statement released on Sunday afternoon following a poor set of election results for Labour in England, Wales and Scotland, Rayner warned: “What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.”

She added: “We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people. The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism.”

Advising Labour to put “the common interest ahead of factionalism”, the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne called on the leadership “to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake”.

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Rayner has not called directly for a leadership change, nor demanded that Starmer set out a timetable for his departure, as almost 40 Labour MPs have now done.

But her intervention is critical of the Prime Minister and will be interpreted by some as her rowing in behind a Burnham leadership bid.

“We must show we understand the scale of change the moment calls for – that means bringing our best players into Parliament – and embracing the type of agenda that has been successful at a local level, rather than reaching back to an agenda and politics that has failed people,” she said.

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“These are the fights we need to have, and the change in direction we need to see. Policy tweaks will not fix the fundamental challenges facing our country. This government needs, at pace, to put measures in place that make people’s lives tangibly better, while fixing the foundations of a system rigged against them.

“The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs. Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics.

“Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change – now.”

A Labour MP on the ‘soft left’ of the party told PoliticsHome: “She’s right but also wrong. The PM is a busted flush and needs to go. We need change but Keir Starmer cannot deliver it.”

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They added: “I would read it like she is waiting for Burnham to come back.”

An MP on the Labour left said: “If Andy is blocked by the timetable, things will shift. The spanner is Ed Miliband and I’m unclear how that will play out. If Tribune back Ed, she’ll struggle.”

A different ‘soft left’ Labour MP, who backs Burnham, said: “She is keeping her powder dry at the moment. I suspect she will move if Wes does.”

They also described Starmer’s expressed desire in a new Observer interview to continue as PM for 10 years as “a sure sign that it’s over”, adding: “We’ve entered the delusional phase.”

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Although Health Secretary Wes Streeting was reported by the Telegraph today as having told Starmer that he is preparing his case to be the next prime minister, a source close to Streeting told PoliticsHome that this relates to an old report about him making preparations in case Starmer’s premiership fell apart.

While neither Rayner nor Streeting have so far made their move, north London MP and former minister Catherine West has reiterated her willingness to launch a leadership challenge if the Cabinet does not take action on Monday.

She told the BBC on Sunday morning: “I will hear what the Prime Minister’s got to say tomorrow and, then if I’m still dissatisfied, I will put out my email to the Parliamentary Labour Party, asking for names.”

Starmer backers are pinning their hopes on a speech by the Prime Minister on Monday to turn things around. PoliticsHome understands that other outwardly loyal Labour MPs are waiting to see what is said and how it lands before voicing their own views on the future of the leadership.

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On Sunday Josh Simons, a former minister who previously led Starmerite organisation Labour Together, added his name to the list of MPs calling on Starmer to be replaced.

“I do not believe the Prime Minister can rise to this moment. He has lost the country. He should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister,” Simons said.

In the statement, Rayner set out her priorities for government, including immediate action to cut costs for households, more sectoral bargaining, a plan to end freehold for good, enhanced devolution and further planning reforms.

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