Politics
The Best Bright Red Fashion Buys For 2026
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I’ve already waxed lyrical about how bright pops of colour are a particularly hot trend in the fashion world right now.
Cool girl celebs from Zoë Kravitz to Dakota Johnson have been seen sporting bold-coloured accessories that add an eye-catching, not to mention chic, touch to their off-duty outfits.
But the colour I’m seeing the most, and the colour I’ve found myself craving, is big, bold, vibrant red.
It’s the perfect antithesis to the clean-girl beige that’s been everywhere for years, and I can’t get enough.
If you feel the same, do me a favour and have a gander through my spring shopping wish list. If I’m lucky, dear readers, you’ll buy up everything on it before I lose the will to resist…
Following the mixed success of recent offerings Snow White, Lilo & Stitch and the Lion King prequel Mufasa, Moana is the latest animated Disney movie to be getting a live-action remake.
Less than a decade on from the release of the original animated movie, a new live-action version of Moana is hitting cinemas this summer – with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson reprising the role of Maui from the original films for this latest take on the hit franchise.
On Monday evening, Disney shared a first-look trailer of the studio’s new spin on Moana, depicting the former WWE performer in character as Maui for the first time, having lent his voice to the demi-god in the original animated musical.
And while the reaction to the clip has been pretty mixed, one thing people are more or less unanimous on is the absolute jump-scare presented by Johnson’s hairpiece.
Yes, Johnson’s transformation into Maui includes a hefty body suit and a long flowing wig, the latter of which it’s fair to say that people aren’t exactly convinced by…
Director Thomas Kail also opened up to Entertainment Weekly about transforming The Rock into Maui.
We knew that it had to be something that could have real lift to it,” he said of Johnson’s wig. “Because you’re doing this on the water, ‘what does it look like wet?’ is a real conversation when you’re making Moana.
“That one weighs seven pounds more with all the water in it for all those hours a day.”
Johnson added that one of the biggest unexpected challenges “that I had to work through very quickly” were presented by the prosthetics and wigs he wore in the movie.
“That is an additional 40 pounds on you,” he claimed. “There’s a freedom when you perform, whether it’s as an actor or singing. So that was an adjustment on how to actually work my emotions through the 40 pounds of prosthetics and hair and body that I had on me.”
Disney’s live-action Moana arrives in cinemas on 10 July.
The House of Lords voted last week to back MPs’ plans for abortion reform. This reform – an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill – would (partly) decriminalise abortion. It would take abortion out of the English and Welsh criminal law for women in relation to their own pregnancies, and would lead to a pardon for women who have been prosecuted under the existing laws governing abortion.
This is an important moment. Abortion has been criminalised ever since the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 made it a crime to procure or induce a miscarriage. It is true that during the 1950s and 1960s there was growing awareness that women needed access to abortion, which resulted in the Abortion Act 1967. But this did not decriminalise abortion. Rather, it made an exception if certain conditions were met: that a pregnancy is less than 24 weeks gestation, two doctors are willing to sanction it, and it is carried out on specially licensed premises.
Since the 1960s, abortion has become simpler and safer, with medication to end pregnancy now readily available. Medical and public opinion has changed, too. As a result, abortion law has been interpreted more liberally and medical regulations have changed, where possible under existing law.
But despite all this, criminal sanctions, a living legacy of the 19th-century Offences Against the Person Act, still haunt the provision of abortion services today. As it stands, nurses can be trained to carry out minor surgery, but not abortions, because the law prohibits it. A doctor can certify an abortion in his or her surgery, but cannot prescribe the pills to cause one, because GP surgeries aren’t licensed to do so. A midwife might give medication to assist in a miscarriage, but cannot give the same drug to bring about abortion.
The legal absurdities are especially pronounced when it comes to providing abortion pills by post – a practice that became necessary during the Covid lockdowns but has continued afterwards. So a woman’s home is now licensed as a ‘class of place’ where she can take the pills. But she still can’t get them from a GP because a GP surgery isn’t licensed as a class of place for abortion pills to be prescribed.
Given all this, surely it makes sense to support the decriminalisation of abortion? Why not allow abortion to be regulated by the same laws and standards that apply to other medical procedures?
Yet instead of focussing on what the abortion-law reform is actually about, most of the coverage of the Lords vote has obsessively zeroed in on the subject of late abortions – that is, abortions carried out weeks from birth. This is despite the fact that the number of late abortions carried out each year is vanishingly small. What’s more, it’s unlikely to be increased by changes in the law for one very good reason – namely, that women really do not want to have late abortions.
In 2023, the most recent year for which we have complete figures, there were almost 280,000 abortions in England and Wales. Of these, more than 248,000 (89 per cent) were within the first nine weeks of gestation. Less than two per cent were between 20 and 24 weeks. This shows, unsurprisingly, that only a tiny number of women request abortions in the later stages of pregnancy.
To imagine that, without a time limit, women would be aborting babies in the final months is a gruesome fantasy. It assumes that women are perverse creatures without morals or rational judgement. The isolated few cases in which women have been prosecuted for self-abortion late in pregnancy only stick in our minds because they are so exceptional.
The best person to answer the question of whether to have an abortion should be the woman who has to live with the consequences. That’s why this reform is important. The law is now set to be framed in a way that will allow women to make decisions about pregnancy for themselves and accept the consequences that come with that privilege.
I am pro-choice. Always have been. So why do I feel so uncomfortable about last week’s vote in the House of Lords to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales? For me, that vote, and even more strikingly the discussion around it, corroborated a concern I’ve had for some time. Which is that the abortion issue is less and less one of individual autonomy and instead is morphing into yet another manifestation of the voguish misanthropy of our times. One feels compelled to ask whether abortion rights today are underpinned by a love of liberty or a fear of life.
The unelected peers of the second chamber voted in favour of an amendment introduced to the Crime and Policing Bill by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi last year. The amendment decriminalises abortion for women. So any woman who terminates her pregnancy outside of the legal framework – for example, after the 24-week limit – will no longer face prosecution. The bill to which this amendment was added was passed by 379 to 137 votes in the House of Commons last year. Last week, the House of Lords batted back certain peers’ worries about the abortion amendment and gave their imperious nod to the bill.
There are things here that should unsettle even people of a pro-choice persuasion. The first is the manner in which this sweeping tweak to abortion law was pushed through. The amendment is to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which outlaws abortion. The 1967 Abortion Act was itself an amendment to the 1861 Act, with its stipulation that abortion is still an offence but it can be justified in certain circumstances. The new amendment, snuck in through the Crime and Policing Bill, is far more dramatic – it completely removes women from the criminal framework so that there are no circumstances in which a woman will face investigation or reprimand for self-inducing a miscarriage.
For such a substantial amendment to longstanding law to be attached to a general crime bill feels like a slap in the face to the public. You will forgive me for not celebrating the approval of an amendment none of us was ever invited to discuss by peers none of us ever voted for. It brings the pro-choice movement into disrepute when it engages in what will look to many people like an establishment stitch-up. It is not dissimilar to the ‘assisted dying’ issue – another idea Labour MPs are feverishly pursuing despite it not being in their manifesto. Perhaps us plebs are too dim to appreciate the finer moral details of questions of life.
The underhand manner in which the abortion amendment was enacted is mirrored in the intolerance of some of its advocates. Their bristling hostility towards the moral objections of Christians, traditionalists and other everyday Britons has shocked me. To infer ignorance or sexism on the part of these objectors strikes me as profoundly unfair, not to mention undemocratic. These people are not women-haters or fools – they merely disagree with you. They disagree that there should be no consequences for a pregnant woman who intentionally induces a miscarriage outside of the rules, for example very late in her gestation. They are allowed to think this. The sad thing is that there has been no forum in which such mortals have been free to air their objections.
Another concern I have is the ethical contortionism of the amendment. It only decriminalises abortion for pregnant women. Doctors and other medical professionals who assist or perform an abortion outside of the legal framework – most notably, a late abortion – could still be criminally liable. So in essence, society still says an unauthorised late abortion is a morally objectionable thing, but the woman who arranges it will be free from reprimand while the person who carries it out will not. This will feel morally illogical to many people.
Worse, it threatens to enshrine inequality in the law. It threatens to infantilise women. To absolve women of criminal culpability for a self-induced miscarriage, while maintaining criminal culpability for those who aid them, projects a childish status on to pregnant women. They are seen as less criminally responsible for the termination they have expressly sought out than the professionals who assent to that termination. So an abortion that takes place outside of the legal framework is still potentially a crime, but only for certain participants.
This brings us to what I consider to be the key problem with the amendment – does society think it is wrong to intentionally induce a miscarriage very late in pregnancy? Yes or no? Many of us accept that there are circumstances in which an abortion beyond the 24-week limit should be permissible. Unquestionably when the mother’s life is at risk. And arguably in cases of severe fetal abnormality. But I thought we had decided – collectively, democratically – that the termination of a late-gestation healthy fetus that could survive outside of the womb was unethical? Was I wrong?
If we did decide that, it seems entirely reasonable to me that the person who incites or enacts this thing that society has decreed to be wrong should face consequences. I entirely agree that compassion is preferable to incarceration. I don’t want women jailed. But it is ridiculous to deny that the decriminalisation of all self-induced terminations creates a structure of permission for behaviour that society had collectively ruled to be immoral and, until five minutes ago, criminal.
I agree with the pro-choice side when it baulks at the dystopic vision put forward by pro-lifers of women around the country terminating their pregnancies five minutes before birth. Late abortion is an incredibly traumatic thing. It is not a ‘right’ most women want. And yet there is dishonesty on both sides. Alongside the fearmongering about an epidemic of home-done infanticides, there is the other side’s unwillingness to grapple with the size of this moral shift and the unjust perversity of excluding the public from its enactment.
In a sense, the most pressing issue is not that women will abort fetuses that could very easily survive outside of the womb. It’s that they are allowed to. There will be no punishment (for them, anyway). The pro-choice side can dress this up as a mere technical tweak as much as it likes. But to many people – who are not idiots – it feels like a profound moral turn. Is it not the right of a society to say that beyond a certain point – that point being viability – you are not permitted to destroy fetal life? And more importantly, to enforce that moral judgement through law? Otherwise what is law? Decoration?
I am very liberal on a woman’s right to choose. I agree women should have the right to terminate a pregnancy prior to 24 weeks. I support women’s right to access pills-by-post for early terminations. I believe in self-government for everyone, including pregnant women. But I am going to say the thing my side is too often reluctant to say: it is morally wrong to opt to destroy a life that could survive outside of the womb. Because in such a circumstance, you are not only asking society to help you become un-pregnant, you are also asking it to do something it would never normally do: end a viable life. Our abortion framework still says such an act is wrong, and yet it will no longer punish it. So it’s not that wrong. That’s what the political class is saying. And that’s a big deal. For all of us, even those who own no ermine robes.
Here’s my chief concern – the only time the cultural establishment gets excited about ‘freedom’ these days is when it regards the end of life. They cheer ‘the right to die’. They oppose punishment for the ending of viable fetal life. The same elites who don’t trust us to vape or to say ‘Bollocks to the Koran’, who jealously police our thoughts, our speech, our consciences and our social interactions, suddenly morph into John Stuart Mill when it comes to ending or preventing human life. We are well within our rights – our real rights – to ask if this is misanthropy in the drag of autonomy. Is this pro-chocie or is it anti-human? I have my thoughts.
Democrats eyeing White House runs in 2028 are preemptively breaking up with AIPAC.
Sen. Cory Booker, who received donations bundled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as late as December, told POLITICO that he’s sworn off the group’s funds (and other PAC money). California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he never has and “never will” take donations from the group. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) vowed last week that he “wouldn’t take AIPAC money” anymore. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he has “never taken money or solicited support from AIPAC,” while a spokesperson for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said “AIPAC has never contributed to Gov. Beshear and they’re never going to. Ever.”
Their retreat underscores how rapidly AIPAC has become a bogeyman for Democrats seeking to criticize the Israeli government, particularly with the Netanyahu administration’s involvement with President Donald Trump’s operation in Iran. Many former AIPAC-friendly Democrats see the historically bipartisan group as becoming more and more aligned with Netanyahu’s right-wing government in recent years. Its emergence as an early touchstone in the shadow 2028 presidential primary reflects a calculation among leading Democrats that liberal voters’ hard shift away from the longtime U.S. ally will stick.
“This is going to be a huge flashpoint in the primary throughout 2027 and into 2028,” said veteran Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh, who advised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. “The constitution of the party just in the makeup of the voters has changed dramatically. The politics of Israel has changed dramatically.”
Recent AIPAC critics also include some Jewish Democrats who had previously supported the organization or received its backing.
After AIPAC poured $22 million into Illinois primaries last week to mixed results, Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire who does not accept outside funds, accused the group of becoming pro-Trump and said he wants no part of the group he once donated to. A spokesperson for Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) pointed to a podcast in which she said she swore off AIPAC’s support in 2022.
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — a supporter of Israel whose father is Israeli and who previously held dual citizenship with the country, but who has also been a longtime critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — told POLITICO he “need not worry about AIPAC’s support. It will not be forthcoming.”
Democrats cited a variety of reasons for rejecting AIPAC’s cash. Booker said it was part of a broader pledge he made at the start of the year to swear off all PAC money going forward. “I don’t believe we should be accepting any PAC money at all from anybody,” he told POLITICO on Friday.
Gallego likened taking the group’s backing to “endorsing what’s happening right now” in Iran and Gaza while appearing on POLITICO’s “The Conversation.”
And progressives like Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who have been highly critical of the Israeli government and have repeatedly sparred with AIPAC, have accused the group of targeting their campaigns and long rejected its financial aid. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) bluntly told POLITICO: “I don’t take their money, they’re running ads against me.”
Other potential White House aspirants attempted to dodge the question. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), for instance, said he has “individuals who support me” when asked if he would reject AIPAC’s backing. Several more did not respond when reached through spokespeople, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
That so many Democrats declined to comment on the organization suggests that AIPAC still has some influence in Democratic politics. And the big-spending group can still help its preferred candidates to victory even as its name has become mud in Democratic primaries, as evidenced by its wins last week in two of the four Illinois House races where it spent big. But it’s also telling that no potential 2028 candidate openly embraced the group.
AIPAC and its allies hit back, accusing Democrats who are giving the group the cold shoulder of trying to silence pro-Israel voices within the party. They vowed to continue intervening in Democratic primaries to promote their interests. Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said “efforts to push pro-Israel Democrats out of the political process are alarming and fundamentally undemocratic.”
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, acknowledged the “difficult environment” the lobby is navigating after Gaza and with the war in Iran. But, he said, “we aren’t going to be deterred in ensuring that pro-Israel voices are heard in federal elections.”
“We are going to work with mainstream Democrats across the party to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that includes presidential contenders,” Dorton said. “We’re going to remind everybody about the millions of pro-Israel Democratic voters who are part of the political process in federal elections.”
Top Democrats’ rush to rebuff AIPAC comes amid a party-wide grappling over how to handle Israel, after the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza was found to have cost Harris votes in 2024 and as polls show Democratic voters continuing to sour on Israel as it aids the U.S. intervention in Iran. An NBC News poll this month showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey earlier this month showed 62 percent of Democrats felt America is too supportive of Israel.
Democrats eyeing 2028 have been publicly repositioning on Israel for months as Gaza reemerges as a flashpoint in midterm primaries. And their criticisms of Israel and its allies in the U.S. are growing sharper as the war in Iran escalates with no clear off-ramp from Trump.
Newsom earlier this month likened Israel to an “apartheid state” and said the U.S. should reconsider military support for Israel. Pritzker has long been a supporter of Israel and has advocated for a two-state solution, but recently told the New York Times that he’s “challenged” by current geopolitics because the U.S. is supporting Israeli policies “that I don’t think the majority of Americans believe in and I don’t think a majority even of Israelis believe in.”
Shapiro, who’s similarly been a longtime supporter of Israel and a two-state solution, has also criticized Netanyahu and Trump’s enabling of his agenda in recent podcast appearances. But he cautioned that denying Israel’s right to exist could lead to “permanent war.” A spokesperson for Shapiro said the Pennsylvania governor “has been clear that Donald Trump is failing to hold Netanyahu accountable” while also positing that “Israel has a right to exist in security as a Jewish state, and we must find a path to peace in the Middle East that includes a safe homeland for the Palestinian people.”
Leading progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna, have gone further — accusing the Netanyahu administration of perpetuating genocide in Gaza and pushing to stop U.S. arms sales to the country.
But Democrats on both ends of the ideological spectrum have argued there are bigger issues around Israel than AIPAC. Shapiro, on a podcast last year, said putting Democrats on record over AIPAC was a “shortcut” for asking their views on Israel and a two-state solution. “Demanding answers on those questions is more important than ‘hey, what about this lobbying group or that lobbying group,’” he said.
Khanna, in a message to POLITICO on Monday, said, “What matters more is the clarity of calling what happened a genocide and stopping military sales to Israel used to kill civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.”
Still, progressive groups such as MoveOn and Justice Democrats are plotting how to make taking AIPAC money a red line for those vying to be the party’s next standard bearer.
“We’re going to be demanding that anyone who deserves to get the Democratic nomination not only doesn’t take AIPAC support or donations, but actively speaks out against this lobby,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi.
In a sign of the volatile and complex politics surrounding Israel, some Democrats who are shutting the door to AIPAC donations are declining to call on their would-be rivals to do the same.
Pritzker, asked by POLITICO last week whether Democratic presidential candidates should accept AIPAC funding, criticized the flood of special-interest money in campaigns in general but cast taking PAC cash as “a matter of values” for each candidate. Murphy said “everybody will make their own decision about it.”
And Booker went so far as to call the AIPAC pile-on “problematic.”
“There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money, and often for things that I don’t agree with. But somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me,” Booker said. “[AIPAC] is not the problem in America. The problem in America is money in politics.”
Matt Goodwin hasn’t had a great past month. In February 2026, Goodwin was trounced in the Gorton and Denton by-election by the Greens’ Hannah Spencer. Less than four weeks later, he’s now trying to defend ‘his’ awful, Islamophobic new book after parts – perhaps much – of it were found to be derived from AI chatbots.
Not only that, but his editing was so sloppy that he even left tell-tale ChatGPT indicators in links he puts in the book. What’s more, he can’t blame anyone else for the sloppiness – because he’d already boasted about having “no major publisher”, supposedly because “they would have censored me”.
Goodwin exposed
The exposure of Goodwin’s AI-dodge came in a thread from observant writer and X user Andy Twelves. Twelves found a host of false claims that he described as “AI hallucinations”. Below are a few extracts from the thread:
Claim 1: “In one year 1 classroom in Bradford, only four of twenty eight pupils spoke English as their first language. Teachers report spending large amounts of time simply mediating between dozens of languages, making normal teaching almost impossible and slowing down the rate…
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
Some of the errors were schoolboy stuff – if an AI chatbot were a schoolboy. Like a made-up claim about languages spoken in a school – that attributes the claim to a non-existent BBC service:
Claim 2.1: “Teachers often feel they are no longer running a school but a translation service. One inspection report put it bluntly: ‘Many pupils join the school with extremely limited English. This significantly slows the pace of learning.’ This is not multicultural harmony or…
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
Goodwin wouldn’t be Goodwin if he didn’t throw in a bit of gratuitous reference to classics and academics. In this case, gratuitous also means non-existent:
Claim 8: “The academic James Burnham put it bluntly many years ago: ‘Power is exercised through organisations those who control the organisations control the instruments of power’”
Reality: Burnham said things vaguely like this, but I cannot find this quote. I believe this is…
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
And – of course – some trans-bashing, apparently based on equally made-up sources:
Claim 10: “‘The most dangerous experiments’ warned the economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek, ‘are those conducted on entire societies.’”⁰⁰Reality: I cannot verify this quote, or anything similar to it from Hayek or any other philosopher or economist. I believe this is…
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
And some equally ill-founded migrant-bashing:
Claim 13: “‘The essence of a nation’, wrote the academic Walker Connor, ‘is not the territory occupied but the people who occupy it. To replace the people is to replace the nation.’”⁰⁰Reality: I cannot verify this quote, or anything similar to it from Walker Connor or anyone…
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
And, of course, we shouldn’t omit the AI-slop indicators:
(h/t @johnpmerrick) bossman @GoodwinMJ left the ChatGPT in the url in his references hahaha pic.twitter.com/QnL2Cgujfz
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
Even more embarrassing for Goodwin, Twelves said he had only done the first five chapters so far:
.@GoodwinMJ can you please outline the above, this is only in the first 5 chapters of the book – I’ve got the Carabao Cup to go to this afternoon, so await your response before reading on.
— andy twelves (@andytwelves) March 22, 2026
FAFO
In a long X rant about horrid left-wingers, Goodwin wrote that he sees “no issue obtaining datasets via AI so long as they are cross-checked with the original source.” Well, maybe – but it seems they weren’t ‘cross-checked’, were they?
This is not Goodwin’s first brush with, well, making stuff up. He was clinically dismantled by journalist Mehdi Hasan in 2024 for making completely false claims that more than tripled the number of immigrants in London housing and could only lamely respond that he’d need to look it up. Hasan saved him the trouble. The clip is well worth a watch:
Featured image via the Canary
UK Parliament (Alamy)
3 min read
Each evening in the pandemic, millions watched the Downing Street briefings where ministers and scientists took questions, explained data and made the case for difficult decisions.
When the public needed it most, the government was visible and accountable. In return, the public was largely sympathetic and compliant.
We would later discover that key decisions were being made not in Cabinet or formal, minuted, meetings but in private chats that would be deleted in apparent defiance of preservation requests. When the Covid Inquiry pulled at those threads, a picture unravelled of a government that had mastered the performance of transparency while insulating actual decision-making from meaningful scrutiny.
Information – or lack of it – plays a significant role in shaping public trust. People want to know why decisions are being made. Too often we face an iceberg with some information voluntarily offered to the surface with the substance remaining hidden. Indeed, Westminster offers few statutory transparency requirements: the flawed 2014 Lobbying Act has damningly co-existed with some of the most significant lobbying scandals in a generation.
Labour came to power promising to clean up politics. There have been small positive steps, including creating the Ethics and Integrity Commission – albeit on a non-statutory basis – but most campaigners are underwhelmed by the gap between pre-election promises, including a long-overdue overhaul of our weak lobbying laws, and delivery.
So, it was somewhat surprising that the Committee on Standards recently published proposals that, in the words of the parliamentary commissioner for Standards, could serve to “reduce transparency and accountability”.
The committee’s report on the Register of Interests of Members’ Staff proposes to redact parliamentary staff names from the public register, removing around 2,000 individuals, including those seconded from outside organisations or employed by MPs’ families. A 2021 HuffPost analysis found nearly 90 MPs were employing family members at the time.
The committee argues that measures are needed to guarantee individuals’ safety, and nobody disputes this matters, but the register also exists for good reason. The identification of individuals alongside the Members they serve and interests they hold allows civil society, journalists and the public to scrutinise potential conflicts of interest.
Patterns of employment, repeated hospitality and broader networks of influence which have historically shaped political decision making away from public view can be traced. Removing the names removes this thread. There are sometimes concerns, legitimate and misplaced, that corporate interests, lobbying firms and think tanks attempt to exert influence by placing staff within MPs’ offices. These proposals will fan those flames by making identifying such arrangements virtually impossible. Instead, ironically, they may add further contempt towards parliamentarians.
There is also irony that the committee appeared to reach these conclusions based partly on written submissions that are not publicly available, undeclared meetings and no public consultation. A proposal reducing transparency was developed with a notable absence of it.
These proposals would also worsen our reputation internationally. Comparable legislatures all maintain registers that identify individual staff members routinely. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ No Rules Britannia? report demonstrates how the UK already scores poorly in international assessments of lobbying regulation.
The answer is not to remove names from view, but to find a proportionate solution addressing safety without sacrificing accountability. These proposals provide no accountability to those in office and entrench an exploitable gap in our ineffective lobbying framework. We risk going two steps back before making one stride forward.
If Parliament wants to increase public confidence, it must demonstrate the highest ethical standards. It cannot draw the curtain on those with whom it is seeking to build trust.
Alastair McCapra is CEO of the CIPR
Former Hannah Montana star Emily Osment has set the record straight about why she didn’t join her co-stars for the Disney show’s recent anniversary special.
To commemorate 20 years since Miley Cyrus first donned that iconic blonde wig to play Hannah Montana, the Grammy winner recently took part in a special to celebrate the show that launched her to global fame.
As well as surprise guests and musical performances, the Wrecking Ball singer was joined by her former castmates to discuss all things Hannah Montana – but there was one notable absentee.
Emily Osment played Miley Stewart’s BFF Lilly Truscott in all four seasons of Hannah Montana, and its spin-off film, but was not able to attend the reunion because of filming commitments.
Late on Monday night, Emily posted a video of herself on the set of the sitcom Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, explaining that her work on the new show meant she was “not able to be a part” of the Hannah Montana special.
“But I wanted to say hello and thank you to everybody that has stuck by us all these years,” she added. “I’m so grateful that you guys all still love this show, and so proud to be a part of it.”
Emily also wrote in the caption: “Hannah Montana changed my life, it gave me a lifelong respect for this medium of comedy, it taught me discipline, patience, timing and respect working in an adult space so young.
“I’ve met thousands of [Hannah Montana] fans over the years, fans that now have children watching this show and fans that literally work beside me every day, like Montana [Jordan, her Georgie & Mandy co-star]. He’s seen every episode, don’t be fooled.
“I can’t tell you what your sweet messages mean to me and how lucky I feel to have been a part of this once in a generation Goliath of a television show. Thank you for letting me into your living rooms and I hope to still be there many years from now.”
The Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special is now streaming on Disney+.
The UK Government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is set for the biggest transformation in its 21-year history next month, as a major Scottish nuclear site is transferred to its ownership for decommissioning.
It follows a 2021 agreement that the UK’s fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors would join the NDA group’s subsidiary Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), following completion of electricity generation and final defueling by EDF.
Hunterston B in Ayrshire generated almost 300 terawatt hours of electricity from 1976 until 2022, enough to power all of Scotland’s homes for more than 30 years. Now the focus is turning to safely, securely and sustainably reducing hazards and restoring the site for future generations.
NDA Chief Executive Officer David Peattie said: “This is a landmark moment, for the site and the NDA group, and a clear vote of confidence in our skills, capability and expertise as we expand our nationally important decommissioning mission.
“It demonstrates the strength of collaboration, with the NDA group, EDF, Government, Nuclear Liabilities Fund and regulators working together to deliver the transfer successfully, setting out a strong blueprint for the remaining AGR stations.
“Above all, this milestone delivers lasting benefits for our current and future workforce, and the community, securing jobs, supporting the local economy and creating an enduring positive legacy.”
The move sees 246 people secure an ongoing role with NRS as part of a growing decommissioning sector. The NDA group now employs around 19,000 people with roles ranging from safety specialists to project managers, radiological monitors and technical experts.
David Mitchell, Safety Engineer at Hunterston B, will transfer from EDF to NRS: “Having already dedicated 25 years to the site, I always felt that I would stay for deconstruction. Decommissioning is a new experience for me. It has allowed me to pursue a new direction of travel in terms of career path. Learning new processes, working with new people and being able to have the opportunity to have a positive impact on our journey.”
Direct employment will be supported by substantial supply chain investment, with contracts worth millions of pounds expected to be awarded throughout the multi-year decommissioning process. In 2024/25, NRS spent more than £350 million with the supply chain, including more than £11 million at the neighbouring Hunterston A site, which is already being decommissioned by NRS.
Hunterston B is the first of seven AGR sites to be transferred to the government owned decommissioning body over the next decade, with Hinkley Point B in Somerset following in the autumn. Decommissioning will be carried out using funds from the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, a ring-fenced £20.7 billion fund set up in 1996 specifically to pay for the decommissioning of the current nuclear fleet.
For NRS, the transfer represents a growing focus on operations in Scotland. NRS Chief Executive Officer Rob Fletcher said: “Hunterston B joining NRS is the successful culmination of years of preparation from a dedicated team within NRS and EDF, giving regulators and government the confidence to support this move. I’m particularly proud that NRS will now employ more than 2,500 people in Scotland, providing high quality, highly skilled jobs delivering vital work to reduce hazards and restore sites on behalf of the nation. Growing our mission enables us to continue our support for the local community and economy, building on the substantial socio-economic contribution that we already make in the region.”
Hunterston B joins Hunterston A and Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire in being decommissioned by NRS, alongside Scotland’s largest and most complex decommissioning project at Dounreay in Caithness. Torness power station is also expected to transfer to the company once final defueling is completed in the 2030s.
EDF’s Decommissioning Director, Paul Morton, added: “This first-of-a-kind project is a massive undertaking involving not just the transfer of a huge number of documents and permits but also of 246 brilliant people and the knowledge and skills they hold.”
“Transfer is on track to be delivered on schedule. This has only been possible due to the strong relationship developed between EDF and NRS which has given the ONR the confidence to make this change to the site licence and enable continued decommissioning.”
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A new musical based on the film Trainspotting is to premiere on London’s West End in the summer.
This new take on the movie, itself based on Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name, will open at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from Wednesday 15 July.
In addition to new songs penned by Irvine Welsh and techno musician Stephen McGuinness, the theatre show will also incorporate iconic tracks from the original film.
While the original novel and movie centre around a group of drug-addicted young people, Welsh told The Telegraph that the musical “broadens out” themes of addiction to touch on issues relating to the modern world, including social media and the threat of artificial intelligence.
“The problems of addiction are now pharmaceutical drugs or food, the air we breathe, [and] above all, the internet and mobile phones – these things we’re stuck to all the time, where we go through our dopamine hits,” he said.
“So we’re moving into alluding to all that kind of stuff as well, so it’s become a much bigger piece in a lot of ways.”
He added: “The message broadens out to the bigger aspects of the world that we have, we’re just basically set up for addiction and distraction.”
Scottish actor Robbie Scott will make his West End debut in Trainspotting as Renton, the character made famous by Ewan McGregor in the film and its 2017 sequel T2 Trainspotting.
Tickets for Trainspotting The Musical are on sale now from the production’s official website.
In an official press release, Irvine Welsh said: “This musical has a bigger, loudly beating human heart than either the book or the film.
“The various stage adaptations of Trainspotting have become acclaimed and moving theatrical experiences and the soundtrack to the movie is obviously iconic. So it made sense to put the music and words together to create an explosive, provocative and entertaining show.
“People need to think about the world we’re living in, and we offer that inspection, but they also really need to sing their hearts out and laugh their heads off – it’s what being human is all about – and they’ll be well served with this too.”
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