Louis Tomlinson appears to have severed ties with his former One Direction bandmate Zayn Malik amid reports of a physical altercation between the two of them.

In October last year, it was reported that Louis and Zayn – whose tumultuous relationship is well-documented – were planning on putting their differences aside and filming a new three-part travelogue series for Netflix, which would see them travelling across America together while trying to mend their friendship.

However, over the weekend, The Sun reported that Netflix had “axed” the series after Zayn allegedly punched Louis during a heated row.

The tabloid claimed that the punch came after Zayn made a comment about Louis’ late mum, Johannah Deakin, who died of leukaemia in December 2016.

Louis previously disclosed that it had been among his mum’s dying wishes for him to reconcile with Zayn, with whom he’d been close during their time in One Direction, but fell out when the Pillowtalk singer quit the band at the height of their fame.

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HuffPost UK has contacted reps for Louis, Zayn and Netflix for comment.

While neither party has commented publicly on the reports yet, fans have spotted that Louis has now unfollowed Zayn on Instagram, as have his sisters.

Director Nicola B Marsh also reshared a photo of The Sun’s front page about the alleged altercation on her Instagram story, commenting: “There goes the last year of work.”

An official press release for the documentary claimed that it would have seen Louis and Zayn taking part in a road trip of “reconnection, exploration and a lot of laughter”, with Variety reporting that it would feature “intimate conversations about life, love, loss and fatherhood”.

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Louis and Zayn were bandmates for around five years, being put into a boyband with Harry Styles, Niall Horan and the late Liam Payne after auditioning for the talent show The X Factor as solo performers.

Zayn left 1D in 2015, after which the band remained together as a four-piece for one final album, before going their separate ways the following year.

Before filming got underway on their travel series, Louis and Zayn had last been seen together at the funeral of Liam Payne in 2024.

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Professor Neil Gittoes, Chair of the Board of Trustees
| Royal Osteoporosis Society

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Ministers have committed 63 times to rolling out early diagnosis services for osteoporosis. Nearly two years on, there is still no delivery plan, no milestones and no sign of rollout, while 2,000 people die each year

Two years ago, the Health Secretary promised people with osteoporosis life-saving early diagnosis clinics. He has repeated that promise 63 times – yet nothing has changed. And for every year that ministers delay, another 2,000 people die needlessly.

People with osteoporosis have been overlooked for decades, driven by the mistaken belief that broken bones are a normal part of ageing rather than a treatable medical condition. This cruel disease silently weakens bones until they can break from coughs, sneezes or even a hug. For someone with osteoporosis, a fall from standing height can be enough to break a hip. Half of women over 50 will experience fractures due to the condition, alongside one in five men.

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I meet grandmothers terrified to lift a newborn baby for fear their bones could shatter, and women in early menopause who are told by GPs they have the bones of an 80-year-old.

Yet help exists. Safe, effective treatments costing as little as £1 a week can restore independence and save lives. So why are millions still missing out?

The answer is a brutal postcode lottery. Half of NHS Trusts still lack Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) – specialist clinics that identify patients and get them onto treatment before it’s too late. Without them, the consequences are devastating. A broken hip is often a death sentence – killing over a quarter of patients within a year.  

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During the 2024 general election campaign, this community was given hope for the first time. All three main parties proposed a national rollout of FLS clinics to every area by 2030. Since then, Reform and the Greens have added their support, too.

Wes Streeting went furthest: he promised that a plan for national rollout would be one of his first acts in government. But two years on, no plan has been delivered. And we’ve seen no new clinics at all.

Around 60 NHS Trusts in England still lack Fracture Liaison Services. A national rollout takes time and requires steady progress year by year. Ministers would have needed to deliver FLS to around 24 Trusts by now to stay on track for full rollout by 2030. Instead, delivery stands at zero.

In opposition, Wes Streeting described delays to these clinics as a “betrayal of patients.” With nearly two years now passed, we’ve had more delay under this government than the last.

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And delay costs lives. Around 2,000 people die each year following hip fractures that these clinics prevent. In the time since this promise was made, 4,000 lives have been lost waiting for rollout.

Meanwhile, the NHS has spent £150m treating avoidable fractures since the election – far more than it would have cost to put these preventative clinics in place. This isn’t just a missed opportunity. It’s a failure that is harming patients right now.

We should be making progress. More than 60 countries already are. New Zealand has just rolled out these services to cover 99 per cent of its population, while Japan has quadrupled FLS in three years. In Wales, ministers made FLS a national priority and mandated that, within five years, each service should develop the bandwidth to treat every citizen aged over 50 in their area.

By 2030, therefore, it will be markedly safer to grow old in Wales than in England. There is no excuse for England falling so far behind.

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Ministers point to a very small investment in bone scanners, made to honour a separate (very welcome) election promise. But a scan without treatment saves no one. Without assessment and follow-up through Fracture Liaison Services, patients remain at high risk of another fracture.

Worse still, uncertainty from Whitehall is pushing fracture prevention locally into reverse. Some areas have paused their own plans, expecting a national rollout that has yet to materialise.

Ultimately, the question is about political will. Ministers have made the commitment. They’ve repeated it 63 times. They know it will save lives and money. Why won’t they deliver it? People with osteoporosis have waited long enough. After decades of neglect, they were promised change.

If the promise is broken, it will deepen the sense that their lives simply don’t matter.

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We stand ready to work with the government to achieve the outcome they promised. We won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If a credible plan is published, we’ll get behind it and help ministers get those clinics set up.

But progress starts with a plan.  

During the election, people with osteoporosis were promised change. Two years on, they’re still waiting. So I ask the Health Secretary Wes Streeting directly: will you now publish the plan for the life-saving bone clinics you promised?

 For more information, visit theros.org.uk/StillNoPlan

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On 18 April, in Khirbet Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, up to 100 settlers gathered at an outpost just outside the village. This was a new outpost, only established a few days previously.

Illegal colonists and Israeli occupation forces coordinate to storm the villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and al Mughayyir

Some of the settlers tried to go down the hill from the outpost to attack houses in the village, but residents gathered to protect their properties.

Shortly after this, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided several homes in Abu Falah, assaulting and detaining several residents. The settlers then spread out around several areas of the village, and also went to al Mughayyir, although no attacks were reported.

On the evening of the same day, during one of the daily IOF raids on al Mughayyir, occupation soldiers assaulted two young Palestinian children.

Seven-year-old Abdallah Abu Alia, and eight-year-old Mohammed Abu Alia, were playing in the street near their home with a group of children. When they heard the military vehicle approaching, most of the children ran away, but Abdallah and Mohammed remained where they were.

IOF intimidate and assault seven and eight year old children

The military intimidated, threatened and pushed around the two children, and then told them to stay seated on the ground while they drove away.

Shortly after this incident, 33-year-old Ghaith Abu Naim was attacked in his car. He was in Marj Saya, on the road between Abu Falah and al Mughayyir. He was driving home from work when settlers on a quad bike — supplied by the “Israeli” government — drove alongside his car and started throwing stones. They then attacked him with an iron bar, injuring his shoulder and damaging his car. A relative of Abu Naim told us he used to leave for work at 9 am but, fearing the constant attacks from the settlers and the IOF, he now leaves home two hours earlier each morning.

On the night of 18 April, Turmus Ayya — which is also in northeast Ramallah and adjacent to the villages of Abu Falah and al Mughayyir, was also attacked by settlers. Dozens of these terrorists entered the village, from the direction of the nearby outpost, and set fire to the home of a Palestinian family.

They also torched a vehicle, before being confronted by unarmed residents and forced to leave.

Threatening graffiti left by settlers

Settlers also spray-painted the words “revenge” and “Regards from Abu Falah” in Hebrew, on the wall of a building in the village.

In the past two months, three outposts have been established in the Abu Falah and al Mughayyir area. All are in Area B, on privately owned Palestinian land. One of these outposts was set up on private land in the al Khaleel valley, close to al Mughayyir, when the Abu Najer family was forcibly displaced due to settler violence. Another outpost is in a Palestinian home in Abu Falah, which settlers took by force and established on 8 March. This was the day after three Palestinians were killed in the village, by the IOF and settlers. The third and most recent outpost, mentioned at the beginning of this article, is on a hill at the edge of Abu Falah.

The attacks, from both the illegal Jewish settlers and the IOF are relentless and Palestinians have no one they can turn to for protection. Every day, somewhere in the West Bank, Palestinians have their property destroyed or stolen, or are forcibly displaced, injured or killed.

At the time of writing, on 19 April, settlers stole more than 150 sheep belonging to al Mughayyir resident Anis Mahmoud Abu Alia. Although they were confronted by villagers, the IOF protected the settlers as they left the area. Several hours later, the village was again stormed by the IOF, who beat a child and fired tear gas at residents.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

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Kash Patel — Clearly, people who are suffering from alcoholism and poor mental health should receive support. Part of this help should be ensuring they’re not actively in charge of law enforcement agencies.

And yet:

“On multiple occasions” Kash Patel has reportedly gotten so drunk that the FBI couldn’t wake him, and at least once considered smashing down his front door to make sure he was still alive, according to this new story. https://t.co/SKrbIWYpUX pic.twitter.com/oWVeFs1VHR

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) April 17, 2026

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Kash Patel has now responded to the claims made against him.

You may be unsurprised to discover his response has reassured precisely no one.

Febrile Bottle Inspector

The article from the Atlantic contained revelations like the following:

In Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”

It would later turn out that a simple technical error had locked Patel out. This was something he could have confirmed himself if he hadn’t gone all Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

I’m going to be completely real and admit that I did once react to being locked out of my work computer by freaking out and assuming I’d been fired. This, of course, is why I’m not pursuing a senior administrative position within the FBI. That and all the terrible stuff they do (more on that in a bit).

The Atlantic also reported:

The IT-lockout episode is emblematic of Patel’s tumultuous tenure as director of the FBI: He is erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence, according to the more than two dozen

People are saying that “jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence” should rule him out of an FBI position; clearly those people are unfamiliar with the work this agency does.

The Atlantic added:

Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.

No wonder he’s paranoid if he’s got the beer fear.

Simultaneously, it’s no wonder he needs to drink if he’s anxious all the time.

It’s a vicious circle, and one which won’t  find remedy as long he’s in such a high-pressure position.

Kash Patel — Response and perspective

This is how Patel reacted:

Memo to the fake news – the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop. Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America

Many responded in turn with images of Patel celebrating with the American Winter Olympic hockey team:

Yeah whatever you say bro https://t.co/76kYNXUwlS pic.twitter.com/T0uhbKmlYE

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 18, 2026

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Patel also revealed new information in responding to the claims:

Amazing https://t.co/DSQSzwu7XJ pic.twitter.com/qKBKeWCslI

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 18, 2026

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The question is this: is Patel is really not good enough for the FBI?

The actual FBI

In an article titled “How the FBI Created a Terrorist”, the Intercept wrote about how the FBI targeted a Muslim man with a schizoaffective disorder:

FBI employees talked about how Osmakac didn’t have any money, how he thought the U.S. spy satellites were watching him, and how he had no concept of what weapons cost on the black market.

The source of their amusement was also their primary source of concern. Osmakac was, in the FBI’s own words, “a retarded fool” who didn’t have any capacity to plan and execute an attack on his own. That was a challenge for the FBI.

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The piece additionally reported:

In constructing the sting, FBI agents were in communication with prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, the transcripts show. The prosecutors needed the FBI to show Osmakac giving Amir Jones money for the weapons. Over several conversations, the FBI agents struggled to create a situation that would allow the penniless Osmakac to hand cash to the undercover agent.

“How do we come up with enough money for them to pay for everything?” asks FBI Special Agent Taylor Reed in one recording.

“Right now, we have money issues,” Amir admits in a separate conversation.

Their advantage was that Dabus, the informant, had given Osmakac a job. If they could get Dabus to pay Osmakac, and then make sure Osmakac used his paycheck to make a payment toward the weapons, the agents could satisfy the Justice Department. “Once he gives it to him, it’s his money, whether we orchestrated it or not,” Reed says.

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Reading all that, you could wonder if it’s better for the FBI to be less efficient?

The reason it probably isn’t is that they’ll still do all the same reprehensible shit; they’ll just suffer fewer consequences, because no one in charge cares anymore.

Either way, Patel needs to be given the boot ASAP.

If you think he’s paranoid now, just wait until he finds out about the X-Files.

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia)

By Willem Moore

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Anti-fascist campaigners have condemned Greater Manchester Police’s “despicable” and “extreme” violence against peaceful activists protesting against yesterday’s white supremacist march in Manchester.

In a statement, the Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) group and Resist Britain First slammed physical and chemical attacks on non-violent protesters by police concealing their identities and numbers — who then prevented paramedics and ambulances reaching their victims. The groups also pointed out that the force showed no apparent shortage of resource when it came to restricting and attacking anti-extremist counter-protesters — yet allowed fascist marchers to roam and attack with impunity:

Britain First March and the ‘Resist Britain First’ Counter Demonstration — Manchester City Centre, 18 April 2026

Today, the Northern Police Monitoring Project were present as Resist Britain First mobilised in significant numbers to oppose the racist and fascist group Britain First, as they marched through the centre of the city.

What we witnessed raises yet more serious and urgent concerns about the despicable conduct of Greater Manchester Police, and the many forces deployed alongside them from across the country.

AN EXTRAORDINARY DEPLOYMENT OF RESOURCE

At a time of deep and sustained austerity – when public services are being cut to the bone and communities across Greater Manchester are suffering – GMP showed no shortage of resources today. The scale of the policing was staggering.

POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST ANTIFASCIST PROTESTERS

Officers behaved thuggishly, with consistent and serious aggression and violence -overwhelmingly directed at antifascist counter-protesters, not at the far-right fascist marchers they were facilitating. This included numerous punches, kicks and violent attempts to remove masks, in some cases causing injuries, as well as repeated use of batons and PAVA spray, and the deployment of horses against protesters.

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A number of officers were observed without visible badge numbers, in clear breach of police regulations. This is not an oversight -it is a pattern with a long and troubling history in public order policing. Officers who conceal their identity while using force are officers who believe they are answerable to nobody. Today’s behaviour suggests that belief is well founded.

The use of PAVA spray was particularly alarming. A chemical irritant that was only approved for police use in 2014, PAVA causes intense burning to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract – and poses serious risks to anyone with asthma or other respiratory conditions. It is not a neutral or routine tool.

It was deployed repeatedly, in significant volume, without warning, and without lawful justification. Officers were observed spraying PAVA into the eyes of antifascist demonstrators at close range, and in a number of cases deliberately attempting to remove eyewear from protesters – apparently with the sole intention of maximising the harm caused. This is not policing. This is targeted cruelty.

NO DUTY OF CARE

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As people sustained serious injuries, officers were observed actively blocking medical assistance from assisting injured protesters. GMP appeared to have no regard whatsoever for its duty of care to those in its custody or in its presence – at least not if they are antifascists. This constitutes a serious breach of GMP’s legal obligations, whilst also making, clear that they function not to protect people, but to maintain and abuse control by any means necessary.

We also observed, not for the first time, the police’s disregard and disrespect for the protected role of Legal Observers. This is a serious concern given the important role that Legal Observers play in independently documenting and witnessing police conduct on behalf of those whose rights are at risk.

ENABLING FASCISM

Let us be clear about what today was really about. GMP’s operational priority was to facilitate a racist and fascist organisation marching through the centre of our city, and to suppress and contain any opposition to that march. This was the active enabling of fascism – using public money, public officers, and significant violence against the public. While antifascists were being punched, kicked and PAVA-sprayed, far-right streamers were left free to harass and incite antifascists, and film injured protesters receiving treatment. The contrast could not have been clearer: there should be no doubt about whose side the police are on. Despite this extraordinary effort, the antifascist counter-protest vastly outnumbered Britain First. The people of Manchester made their position clear.

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The statement ended with a message for complicit corporate media – and for Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has defended the police against accusations of misconduct and brutality:

MEDIA FAILURE

We are deeply concerned by the failure of local and national media to report critically on what happened today. Uncritically reproducing GMP press lines while ignoring the documented violence of officers is not journalism – it is the laundering of institutional propaganda. Equally, the failure to accurately report the scale of the antifascist mobilisation – which dwarfed Britain First in numbers – serves to falsely legitimise a movement that was comprehensively rejected by the people of Manchester today. The public deserves better.

A MESSAGE TO ANDY BURNHAM

Andy Burnham, as Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been a consistent and vocal advocate for GMP – championing ever-increasing budgets and defending the force at every turn. We ask him directly: is this what he wants to see? Officers injuring protesters, blocking medical care, and chaperoning an explicitly racist and fascist organisation through his city? He must answer for the institution he funds and champions.

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POLICING AND FASCISM

Today made visible something that many already know: the line between policing and fascism is vanishingly thin. When the police protect fascists from the communities they threaten, we must name that for what it is.

WHO PROTECTS THE FASCISTS?
THE POLICE PROTECT THE FASCISTS.

The Canary’s reporters at the scene captured some appalling scenes of the police’s actions:

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In a separate statement, NPMP condemned the “extreme” police violence and said it is holding an event for victims in the city next Tuesday 21 April 2026:

NPMP Statement on the policing of the RBF counter demonstration on 18th April 2026

Solidarity with all those who came out yesterday, especially those harmed by the police

While we all saw the extreme violence used by the police, we also engaged in and witnessed may acts of community care and rapid solidarity responses. Our gratitude to each and every person who stood their ground, supported others, provided medical support, ran to get more medical supplies, helped people stay hydrated, get to safety and were holding formal medic and legal observer roles

If you were harmed by or witnessed the police violence and want/need to be in community or get some understanding around complaints processes — you are so welcome to join our community solidarity space! This Tuesday, 5.30-7.30, Windrush Centre. More info on our grid.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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On 14 April, we reported that Reform UK were running a candidate who wanted to “salt the earth” upon which the NHS stood. Surprisingly, they are apparently now investigating said candidate:

Reform investigating candidate @TheBembridge over alleged posts he 'hates NHS' and thinks nurses eat too muchhttps://t.co/R34o7HipV6

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

We don’t say ‘surprisingly’ because we agree with his comments; we say it because Reform have turned a blind eye to much worse candidates than this guy.

Reform — Death to the NHS

The candidate in question is James Bembridge — deputy editor at Country Squire magazine. The following comment is the one which has attracted the most controversy:

As it turns out, Bembridge had some other choice comments. In March 2021, he said:

I’m not sure why applause is so readily given to NHS nurses who claim to be driven to using food banks when, looking at them, they are presumably eating them out of business

The “applause” reference is because this comment was made during the pandemic.

That’s right.

While you were celebrating nurses, Bembridge was ridiculing their weight and income.

While nurses were saving lives, he was writing about being whatever the fuck a ‘country squire’ is.

If you’re wondering how his writing reads, by the way, the following is from an obituary he penned in 2022:

At 5 pm on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Isobel Weber died much as she lived: dressed in high fashion, sipping champagne and surrounded by no one.

Turn the clock back two years, and I’m sitting with her in the Kronenhalle restaurant, Zurich, struggling to make sense of what she’s saying. Her lips are moving, but they’ve just had about 5 vials of filler pumped into them.

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What use, I am moved to ask myself, does a wheelchair-bound sexagenarian have for lips like those? I suppose younger women do it to swell out their CVs for the job that men’s wives no longer perform. But Isobel?

So Bembridge was pondering why the deceased had got lip filler when she presumably wasn’t angling to suck his dick.

If this is Bembridge’s job, we can say with absolute certainty that the people of Britain will never gather en masse to applaud him for performing it.

Bembridge was most recently seen campaigning with London mayoral hopeful Laila Cunningham:

Hi @policylaila, see @TheBembridge is there with you.

Any comment on these? pic.twitter.com/DLtnHUbxDc

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

Cunningham hasn’t answered the above.

This isn’t surprising, because she’s famous for not answering questions:

"If the Tories are so bad, why is Reform UK filling themselves full of them?"

Laila Cunningham: I can't answer that. pic.twitter.com/fxdPli1XKY

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) January 10, 2026

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Investigation

My London report that Reform are now looking into Bembridge:

Reform UK has confirmed that it is looking into the allegations. Mr Bembridge has not yet responded to the LDRS request for comment.

They added:

At the June 2024 general elections, Reform UK pledged an extra £17 billion for the NHS. It said that the NHS needs a new funding model and that it must use the private sector to relived pressure on the over-stretched service.

In other words, Reform have pledged to give a £17bn bung to the private sector.

We doubt the Bembridge investigation will result in a suspension. After all, Reform suspended campaign manager Adam Mitula for holocaust denial, and we recently learned he’s still managing campaign business – now as an election agent.

Reform don’t keep attracting candidates like the following by accident:

• Reform activist said ‘Hitler was right’.
• Reform candidate exposed as a horny nincompoop.
• Another Reform candidate has praised Enoch Powell.
• Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
• Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.

Featured image via GB News

By Willem Moore

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It’s hard to know where to start with the Sunday Mail’s lead story today.

Especially if one doesn’t want sent to prison.

So we hope you’ll forgive us if we’re extra-careful.

The article contains things even we’d never read before.

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The Mail has redacted some of the names, but – well, we’re not going to say any more about that. The anonymity order protecting the complainers who made the false allegations about Salmond operates in such a way that a judge can essentially imprison anyone on a whim, with no proper legal process.

(Contempt of court is not technically a criminal offence, so all the legal protections that normally apply to those accused of a crime are thrown in the bin.)

But what leaps out from the document is how much the people in the WhatsApp group loathed the greatest leader in the SNP’s history, to the point where they wanted to see him die in prison for crimes he didn’t commit.

So much so that they were willing to completely make things up.

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Once again, readers, we ask you to bear in mind what we can’t tell you. While some of these messages are shocking in their own right, if we were allowed to reveal who was saying them and what those people went on to become, the idea that there WASN’T a conspiracy against Salmond, led from the very top of the SNP, would be instantly obviously farcical.

The messages published by the Mail – and the paper holds several damning ones that it has chosen, or been advised by its lawyers, NOT to publish – show a group of people who explicitly say that they DON’T think they were victims of any crime, but who nevertheless were willing to act in concert with each other in order to have Salmond imprisoned anyway.

(There must be a shorter way to say that last sentence, you’d think.)

Three of the people whose names AREN’T redacted in the Mail’s piece and which feature prominently are Peter Murrell (then CEO of the SNP), Sue Ruddick (then Chief Operating Officer of the SNP) and Ian McCann (then Compliance Officer of the SNP). Apart from Nicola Sturgeon, they were the party’s three most senior executives at the time.

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It speaks volumes for the total corruption of the Scottish establishment that Nicola Sturgeon feels sufficient impunity to continue to insist, absurdly, that the three top officers of the party she led – one of whom she also shared a home and a camper van with – would for even the briefest moment have countenanced embarking on such a momentous endeavour without, at the very least, her full knowledge and backing.

And yet nor has she spoken a single word in criticism or condemnation of any of them. Not once has she suggested any of them might have “gone rogue” or exceeded their remit, even after Salmond was cleared of every single charge the WhatsApp group managed to concoct.

On the contrary, everyone associated with the conspiracy has been defended and/or rewarded by her, even when found to have acted with the most appalling incompetence and/or malice.

Nor even would revulsion at Salmond’s (imaginary) crimes serve as an explanation for the depth of animus. Because remarkably, this week Wings was contacted by a former SNP activist with this story:

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“The plot against Alex Salmond had been going on since at least 2013. I was a mature student and just prior to graduation I campaigned in the Mark McDonald by-election. I’d responded to a call from Alex stating that we needed campaigners to go to Aberdeen as the seat was crucial to maintaining the majority.

I lived in Broughty Ferry at the time and was part of that branch, and told them I was available to assist in Aberdeen for a few days if needed.

I was told that Shona Robison would pick me up. She arrived in a smallish silver 4×4 and we headed off to Aberdeen. I’d never met her before, or anyone official in the SNP. We talked about a local Labour issue that had involved my university, and we talked about the people that we both knew.

Before we had got to Tealing, she said to me “What do you think about Alex Salmond?”

It was Alex Salmond that drew me in to the SNP – I hung off his every word. Then she turned around to me and said “He’s not very well liked within the party”.

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I was stunned, he’d just brought the SNP to a huge victory, I remember thinking at the time “I’ve never met you before, I could be anybody”. He was First Minister, she was Minister for Sport. I remember thinking the exchange was bizarre.

Then we got to Aberdeen, Sturgeon was there. I only saw her for about 2 mins and I think she went off with Shona to campaign. I remember we arrived at a Spar opposite some tall flats in Mastrick and met up with Shona and maybe about 8-10 other campaigners having lunch. I remember Shona ate a long egg baguette.

I’m a heavy smoker but I’m conscious of the smoke, so I stood a few metres back, they were sat on some benches opposite these flats, and then she does it again to those that were sitting with her – “What do you think of Alex Salmond?”, and then the exact same line repeated that “he’s not very well liked within the party”.

I nearly choked on that cigarette, but what I noticed was that this was obviously a well-rehearsed routine.

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When Alex he talked about conspiracy, this strange encounter always comes to mind, this was 2013, the SNP were on a crest of a wave, I remember thinking that Shona was a block of wood, and did she really think that she was responsible for the SNP’s current success. I’ve always seen her as glaikit and a hanger-on that was in the right position at the right time.”

[PLEASE NOTE: To the limit of Wings’ knowledge, Shona Robison had no involvement in the criminal allegations against Alex Salmond.]

It’s an astonishing story. At the time Alex Salmond had led the SNP to its first ever election victory, then to an unprecedented Holyrood majority, and then to an independence referendum, and yet one of his own ministers – a close ally and longstanding personal friend of Salmond’s deputy, who would succeed him if he fell – was touring the country dripping poison in the ears of groups of activists even as the party tried to defend its fragile Parliamentary majority.

If that was how senior SNP figures (Robison would go on to become Deputy FM after Sturgeon’s resignation, having thrown her “dear friend” under the bus when it was politically expedient) were treating Salmond when he and the SNP were the undisputed masters of all they surveyed in Scotland, it doesn’t take a massive leap to imagine how gleefully they would seize on the opportunity to stick the knife in him a few years later.

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We’re not allowed to tell you all the things that are missing from the Sunday Mail story, readers. But if you’ve got any wits about you at all, it already tells you everything you need to know about how Alex Salmond was utterly betrayed and then driven into the grave not by his political enemies, but by the people around him.

And perhaps even more painfully, so was the cause of Scottish independence.

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