In a new interview with Politics JOE, Green Party’s Hannah Spencer has spoken out against the drinking culture among British MPs:

"You can smell the alcohol when people are in between votes."

Green MP Hannah Spencer tells us what Westminster is REALLY like.

The full interview is live on YouTube, and as a podcast here: https://t.co/s4mKAc0xku pic.twitter.com/RcikszDxwQ

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— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) April 26, 2026

As Spencer notes, the way things are in Westminster is not “how the world works”.

Green Party vs Booze Britain

Hannah Spencer is the Green Party MP who won the Gorton & Denton by-election. As we reported at the time, Spencer didn’t just win; she massively exceeded the most favourable predictions:

Gorton and Denton by-election result:

GRN: 40.7% (+27.5)
REF: 28.7% (+14.7)
LAB: 25.4% (-25.3)
CON: 1.9% (-6.0)
LDEM: 1.8% (-2.1)

Green GAIN from Labour.

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) February 27, 2026

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This is what Spencer said in her victory speech:

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician. I’m a plumber. And two weeks ago, during all this, I also qualified as a plasterer. Because even in chaos, even under pressure, I get things done.

I am no different to every single person here in this constituency. I work hard. That is what we do.

For most people outside the Westminster bubble, ‘working hard’ means ‘working sober’. This is obviously why Spencer finds the vibes in Parliament so hard to gel with.

In the interview with Politics JOE, Spencer said:

I’m really uneasy about – and I noticed this the other day – when you can smell the alcohol, when people are in between votes and everyone’s going in to vote. Some people have been drinking in between.

There’s a room where I walk past and I’ve doubled my back and looked in because people are just sat having a drink.

But again, that’s a job. I can’t imagine if a cleaner did that or someone working in a bank had a few drinks and then went back to work a bit smelling of alcohol – that wouldn’t happen.

Funnily enough, I’m well placed to comment on this. Many years ago, I worked as a cleaner at the Stretford Jobcentre. One day, a lady who I worked with turned up shitfaced. Several of the Jobcentre staff noticed, and told our boss to send her home. So basically, exactly what you’d expect to happen happened.

While I’ve never been a banker, I have worked in multiple offices, including a stint at a defence contractor when I was much younger and didn’t know any better. While people weren’t just walking around pissed, it was definitely the case that you could have a boozy lunch every so often without turning any heads (with all of it charged to your American Express card, no questions asked).

So yeah, Spencer is half right.

It’s definitely the case that most jobs are sober by demand, but the closer you get to the heart of capital, the more leeway you get to disobey the rules.

Dangers

Spencer also said:

And I think there’s been so many cases recently of questionable and dangerous behaviour… allegedly from MPs, with staff, because this culture… of a really unprofessional and worrying setting where people can just drink alcohol… while they’re in work; it’s like life doesn’t work like that.

And when I say that that is what I find very out of touch about that place, it’s things like that that I mean, because I just think the vast majority of us that have come from backgrounds of like normal jobs – like that’s not how the world works, so why does it work in somewhere where arguably the most important decisions are getting made.

Labour List spokesperson Stella Tsantekidou took offence to what Spencer said, complaining:

Yeah no, sorry, MPs are often cooped up in Parliament for 15 hours a day, they will have a drink with journalists or colleagues and will still be discussing politics -their job, as Hannah says.

Tesco workers are “cooped up” — you wouldn’t be okay with them getting on the lash, would you? Although I suppose they’re actually doing important work; they’re not just running some silly, little country.

Tsantekidou also said:

I don’t like the blanket demonisation of MPs and Hannah should know better after she had already been accused of not taking the job seriously because she took part in that dancing event in Portcullis house.

Spencer didn’t demonise all MPs; she demonised the ones who were drinking. Unless of course every MP besides her is drinking, in which case this is a bigger problem than we realised.

Tsantekidou added:

I hate people getting too drunk in Westminster too and am sad I see so many people seemingly with alcoholic addiction or otherwise, but just like all other professions socialise so do we in politics and it is an absolute necessity that you do.

People are responsible for their own actions, of course, but they’re less in control of themselves once they start drinking – i.e. having a bar at work is a recipe for trouble. Also, note that Tsantekidou is using ‘socialising’ as a synonym for ‘drinking’. This is increasingly not how people think, with people of all ages now drinking less to one degree or another.

Tsantekidou additionally said:

Politics is based on human relationships, not on some machine button being pushed. What should MPs do take journalists to sit and chat for hours in an empty room?

If the thought of chatting with colleagues drives you to drink, you might actually have a problem. Saying that, we do appreciate some of the ‘colleagues’ in this instance may be Jess Phillips or Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Professionalism

Tsantekidou finished:

Of anything there should be MORE socialising in politics so that people can understand each other better.

If she’s using ‘socialising’ to mean ‘drinking’ again, then no — we don’t need more politicians getting pissed with journalists. Clearly, we need both professions to start acting like professionals and to literally just do the jobs they’re paid to do.

Featured image via UK House of Commons

By Willem Moore

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Millennials and Generation Z are often dubbed the “therapy generations,” known for prioritising mental health and seeking counselling when they need it.

Where does that leave Gen X? Is the demographic known for its independent streak and “whatever” attitude similarly blasé about getting a therapist?

Many Gen Xers – those born between about 1965 and 1980 – came of age in a time when seeking help wasn’t as normalised. For some, a “shadow of a stigma” still lingers, said Tracy Douglas, a therapist in Wisconsin who specialises in supporting Gen X clients.

Mental health wasn’t exactly a dinner table topic in the ’70s and ’80s, she said. Apart from a Woody Allen film – or the kind of urbane circles those movies depicted – it wasn’t really talked about at all.

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“Therapy wasn’t seen as a proactive tool for healing and growth so much as it was an absolute last resort to turn to,” Douglas, who was born in 1970 herself, told HuffPost. “Because of that, many Gen Xers can still have a sense that they should be able to muscle through troubles on their own.”

For some Gen Xers, off-putting experiences with quirky ’70s- and ’80s-era therapists – or ones who felt overly performative – have made them hesitant to go back.

“I had one client tell me about a family session from his teens where a therapist forced the entire family to hold hands, look each other in the eye, and recite ‘I love you’ to each family member,” Douglas said. “It was so forced, awkward and profoundly disconnected from their actual family dynamic that they never went back.”

Comstock via Getty Images

Still, more members of the latchkey generation are starting to try therapy. In 2018, about 26% of Gen Xers said they’d sought therapy at some point, according to the American Psychological Association – and that number has only climbed since the Covid-19 pandemic kicked off a full-blown therapy boom, fuelled in part by the rise of telehealth.

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“Once they’re actually in the room, Gen Xers are often some of the most committed clients I work with,” said Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a marriage and family therapist in San Diego, California.

Her Gen X clients are adaptable and genuinely want to understand what’s happening in their lives and what makes them tick.

“They respond really well when the work makes sense to them,” she told HuffPost. “When I can help a Gen X client see that the way they’ve been coping was a completely logical response to what they lived through, something shifts.”

What exactly are they discussing on therapists’ couches? Below, Marsh, Douglas and other therapists share the top issues they hear from Gen Xers.

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They have chronic stress with no blueprint for asking for help.

Raised to be self-reliant, many Gen Xers take a DIY approach to their personal problems. Marsh said a lot of her Gen X clients grew up in homes with divorced or two working parents, where emotional attunement was often lacking. The lesson they absorbed, she said, was simple: You get through things by handling them yourself.

“In attachment terms, we’d call this a dismissing style – self-reliant, uncomfortable with dependence, skilled at managing their own distress without letting anyone in,” she said. “When midlife hits and everything gets heavy, they don’t reach out, they just keep going.”

When they do seek help with a mental health professional, it’s often a massive relief, though it can feel foreign or scary at first.

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“Therapy is often the first time a Gen X client has genuinely been invited to slow down and feel what’s been building for decades,” she said.

They’re questioning long-term marriages and relationships.

Douglas said there’s a “massive un-mooring” happening in Gen X partnerships today, especially among long-term straight couples. After decades of carrying the lion’s share of the mental and emotional load for their families, many Gen X women are looking at their marriages and realising they might actually prefer being alone, she said.

“They are choosing peace and ease by casting off the responsibilities of mental and emotional labour that has long been taken for granted,” she said. “Meanwhile, I see men are hitting a wall where being stoic and staying at a remove doesn’t work anymore.”

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“Husbands are realising that to survive and thrive in this stage of life with their partners, they need to understand their and their partners’ emotional lives so they can connect on deep, meaningful levels,” Douglas said.

After decades of just getting by, many of these partners are either finding the courage to leave or finally speaking up about their emotions and needs in hopes of carving out the lives they actually want.

MoMo Productions via Getty Images

They’re burnt out.

Gen X has collective strength and grit, but without self-care and community care, burnout sets in, said Jessika Fruchter, a marriage and family therapist in Oakland, California. When clients show up in her office, “they’re often exhausted from white-knuckling through it all.”

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“At this point in midlife, many of them are both caregivers to kids and to ageing parents,” she said. “They also have careers, relationships and a long list of other responsibilities.”

Many in Gen X were latchkey kids, and Fruchter said it’s not uncommon to hear boasts like, “I basically raised myself.”

“Over time, though, that hyper-independence becomes a liability,” she said. “Much of the work here is about learning to ask for help and prioritise caring for ourselves, as we do others.”

They’re waiting for their adult children to grow up.

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Many Gen Xers struggle with moving out of the parenting stage of their lives, said Kurt Smith, a therapist in Roseville, California, who specialises in counselling men. It’s not uncommon for adult children in their 30s and 40s to be living back at home.

“This can occur for understandable reasons, but some adult children never leave when they come back or even have a plan or desire to do so,” Smith said. “Their Gen X parents end up struggling to distinguish between whether they’re loving or enabling them. This is a problem that much fewer of their parents had.”

Gen X women are going through menopause.

When it comes to being transparent about perimenopause or menopause, Gen X women are pattern breakers, Fruchter said.

“Earlier generations rarely spoke out about how challenging this developmental stage actually is, and what a toll it can take on mental health,” she said. “Between hormonal shifts, identity shifts and difficult physical symptoms, Gen X women seek out a space for support. ”

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They’re anxious over money.

Gen X is currently being flattened by an unprecedented “sandwich squeeze,” having to deal with the financial and emotional burden of supporting their aging parents and children who haven’t yet taken flight, financially speaking.

“A lot of Gen Xers find themselves worried about how to fund the launch of young adult children, who are facing a world way more expensive than the one they entered, while also realising that many of their aging parents didn’t have a Plan B for their long-term care,” Douglas said.

She said it’s a “financial and emotional pincer move” that’s left many Gen Xers feeling anxious about how they’re going to make ends meet, plus depressed from feeling like they just aren’t measuring up or doing enough.

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They have unprocessed early childhood wounds showing up in midlife.

As a collective, many Gen Xers grew up amid high divorce rates, latchkey childhoods, and a culture that prized toughness over tenderness, Marsh said. Decades later, her clients in this age group are often grappling with the long-term effects of early attachment wounds, especially emotional unavailability or loss that was never named or fully processed.

“Those things don’t just disappear; they’re stuffed down and resurface later in relationships, in parenting, in how someone responds when their partner gets upset or criticizes them,” she said.

“A lot of my Gen X clients are genuinely surprised to realize that what they’re dealing with in their 40s or 50s has roots in something that happened in childhood,” she added.

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That’s where trauma-informed work like EMDR therapy can be game-changing, Marsh said. EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, therapy is a mental health treatment technique that involves moving your eyes a specific way while you process traumatic memories.

“When we do that, many clients find that they’re healing things they didn’t even know they were still carrying,” she said.

What Marsh most wants people to understand about Gen X in therapy is that beneath all that self-sufficiency is a generation that was never really given permission to need.

“For people who’ve spent their whole lives keeping it together with very little support, it’s pretty profound to feel safe enough to be known by another person,” she said.

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Reform UK has been forced to expel three local election candidates. This time, it’s done so after investigators revealed that the three men were once part of the British National Party:

EXCLUSIVE: A joint investigation by HOPE not hate and @DailyMirror has found that three Reform UK candidates were once affiliated with the fascist British National Party (BNP).https://t.co/8DiI7ktpHx

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) April 25, 2026

It’s good to see that the party has taken action — or that it’s done so in this case, at least. Because as we’ve reported, there are plenty of candidates with BNP-identical views that Reform has not expelled.

Reform and the BNP

Hope not Hate and the Mirror are responsible for this latest exposé. As Hope not Hate reported:

While now a shadow of its former self, the BNP was once Britain’s largest and most successful far-right party. Formed in 1982, the party was most successful under the leadership of Nick Griffin, but went into sharp decline following the 2010 general election. While it limps on, it is standing no candidates at the forthcoming elections.

The BNP’s membership peaked at 14,500 and since its collapse, activists and members have gravitated towards a range of radical and far right parties. Unsurprisingly, some have washed up in Reform UK, including as candidates.

The men Hope not Hate exposed are David Prior, George Parnell, and John Black:

George Martin Parnell is standing in Hampshire (Fleet Town) and Hart (Fleet Central).

Tells voters he "manages risk in critical environments."

One of his now-dissolved companies was registered at the same address listed next to his name on the leaked BNP list. pic.twitter.com/Rh5SYLm6mU

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) April 25, 2026

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John Black is running in Little Harwood & Whitebirk (Blackburn with Darwen) and also appears on the leaked BNP list.

In an election statement posted by the local Reform branch Black wrote that Great Britain is “on the verge of collapse.” pic.twitter.com/UUL8zBtwJP

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) April 25, 2026

Hope not Hate added:

Farage says ex-BNP activists “aren’t welcome” presumably because the BNP is seen as toxic and racist.

Farage has long walked a tightrope between far-right views and centre-right electability. This is now causing problems for him, because many of the far-right individuals who were drawn to Reform are abandoning the party for Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.

It’s also causing problems for the ethnic minority Reform candidates who take Farage at his word when he says he’s not a racist:

NEW: Nigel Farage says X is now becoming “a very unpleasant place” due to a rise racist accounts and content

Reform leader says that many of his ethnic minority candidates are experiencing huge levels of abuse

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— Noa Hoffman (@hoffman_noa) April 20, 2026

Farage himself will tell you he doesn’t want BNP types in his party, but as we’ve reported, he’s clearly comfortable with far-right candidates as long as they can tow the line:

• Another Reform candidate praises Oswald Moseley — A rite of party initiation?
• Reform have put a suspended racist in charge of campaign finances.
• Reform candidate wants to ‘tear down’ the NHS.
• Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
• Reform UK accused of ‘nil vetting’ as another racist candidate exposed.
• Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.

BNP membership is seen as a red line for Farage, but we’re not confident that will always be the case. There is no real difference between an ex-BNP member and an ex-Tory who called for minority groups to be shot — no difference beyond the optics Farage currently considers important, anyway.

Should Reform become the party of government, we’ve no doubt PM Farage will stop pretending to care about many of these things.

The British far right

Britain First leader Paul Golding is another ex-BNP guy. As we recently reported, Golding wants the UK to descend into chaos for the benefit of his political platform:

Far right extremist Paul Golding exposed in a secret recording:

"I want this country to become a shithole. I want this country to descend into a fucking nightmare"

They don't care about the country. They thrive off discord. pic.twitter.com/N0Sb9yvq33

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— smile2jannah (@smile2jannah) April 12, 2026

Tommy Robinson is also an ex-BNP member. As we’ve reported, Reform candidate James Bembridge defended Robinson:

Heres a video of Reform UK’s candidate in Soho, Westminster, James Bembridge (@TheBembridge) glibly defending Tommy Robinson against racism allegations.

He was a member of the BNP and EDL, and in the video Bembridge states he’s looked everywhere and not found any racism by him… pic.twitter.com/qE4Q59CMB1

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) April 13, 2026

Make no mistake — despite their public disagreements, these people are all part of the same movement. And if you vote Reform UK, you might as well be voting for the BNP.

This is why the ex-BNP guys were drawn to it in the first place.

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Flickr)

By Willem Moore

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Tzachi Braverman, a confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu and the wanted war criminal’s designated new ambassador to the UK, faces a sexual offences case in Israel. His alleged victim has notified Israeli police, supported by evidence and witness accounts. Braverman denies any wrongdoing and has claimed he was being blackmailed, though what he claims the blackmail was about if the allegations are untrue is unclear.

According to Haaretz, the accusations are “horrifying”:

The woman didn’t file a formal complaint and asked investigators not to open an investigation or use the information just yet for fear of retribution, according to police sources.

“She’s afraid,” a person who knows her told Haaretz, adding, “Her descriptions are horrifying, and they are apparently backed up by evidence and things that people heard about the incident shortly after it happened.”

A police official said that officers met with the woman at her home on the same day Braverman was being questioned over possible obstruction of justice in the BibiLeaks case. However, they couldn’t convince her to change her mind.

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In March 2026, the Green party demanded that the UK government block Braverman’s appointment. Despite his protestations of blackmail, Braverman has not filed a complaint with Israeli police.

The allegations are the latest in a long list of cases of Israeli sex offence and paedophilia scandals, including at the highest levels of government.

Israeli scandals

In April 2025 Shoshana Strook, the daughter of Israel’s far-right settlements minister fled to police and asked them to protect her, accusing both her parents and one of her brothers of raping her as a child, over a period of years, and filming the rapes.

Also in 2025, Israeli cyber-spy boss Tom Alexandrovich was allowed to escape to Israel after meetings with US federal agencies. He had been caught in a paedophile sting. The Netanyahu regime is currently ignoring well over 2,000 extradition requests for alleged and convicted paedophiles.

UK too

The issue also crosses into Labour party pro-Israel ranks in the UK. Former Hackney councillor Thomas Dewey received 150 hours of ‘community service’ for possession of sadistic child rape images. Sam Gould, a former aide to Starmer’s health secretary Wes Streeting, received a suspended sentence for flashing a child.

Former councillor Liron Velleman also escaped jail, despite committing sex offences with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Another former councillor, Conor McGrath, received only a suspended sentence even though he was convicted of possessing the most appalling categories of child-rape images.

Others are awaiting trial. Starmeroid MP Dan Norris has been arrested — twice — for sex offences involving rape and child-sex offences, including abduction. And some Zionist alleged paedophiles seem to escape altogether. Ivor Caplin is no longer even on bail after being caught — on camera — turning up to meet what he thought was a child for sex.

Israeli psychotherapist and trauma expert Dr. Anat Gur, head of the Bar-Ilan University trauma therapy program, has said that she believes organised child rape in Israel is widespread:

Organized child rape is one of the most horrific things I’ve encountered. It’s likely much more widespread than we think. It’s happening in places we least expect.

Israel is a sick society.

Featured image via MiddleEastEye

By Skwawkbox

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The rattled media’s campaign of attacks on Green party candidates has continued this week with a smear against a Cornwall council candidate who refused to shake hands with a far-right opponent.

Abigail Hubbucks lost the local election by just over a hundred votes to Reform UK’s Lyndon Harrison. After the results were announced, she told Harrison she wouldn’t be shaking hands with him. This was immediately spun up by the press and the far right as ‘woke leftie is a bad loser’. This spin was, of course, quickly pounced on by her far-right opponent, who called it “divisive and unprofessional”.

Yeah, right. Reform’s whole reason for existing is to incite division and hate. Harrison himself has posted a ‘call-sign’ acronym used by white-supremacist ‘QAnon’ supporters:

Lyndon Harrison is Reform UK’s candidate in Newquay.

Harrison posted on his Facebook: “My kind of people! WWG1WGA”, the call sign of far-right conspiracy theory movement QAnon that were instrumental in the US Capitol attack in January 2021.

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How many of their conspiracy theories… pic.twitter.com/AZEl9ndXps

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) April 21, 2026

As a source close to Hubbucks said:

Not shaking hands with a fascist is just correct for someone with Abigail’s politics.

Green Party surge

In fact, the real story of the night was how close the Greens came to taking the seat, which was held by Reform until its incumbent died, triggering the by-election. When Kevin Towill won the seat for Reform in 2025, he received considerably more votes that Harrison did in the by-election to replace him. Not just in absolute numbers despite a considerably higher turnout in 2026, but in percentage terms too. The Green Party didn’t even feature in the results.

Harrison won only 30% of the vote compared to Towill’s 38% in 2025 — despite riding on the wave of sentiment generated by Towill’s untimely death from a brain tumour. From zero just a year ago, the Greens’ Hubbucks won 25%. This was yet another example of the Green surge — at Reform’s expense as well as Labour’s — that has rattled Farage and co.

The other big story of the night was another utter failure by Keir Starmer’s ‘Labour’. His hollowed-out shell of a party managed just six percent, despite all four of Labour’s Cornwall MPs campaigning intensively. It gets clearer by the day that the Greens are currently the only prospect for stopping the march of the fascists — and are increasingly showing how it’s done.

Featured image via CornwallGreenParty

By Skwawkbox

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On 25 April, a gunman at the White House fired a gun as Donald Trump hosted the annual Correspondents’ Dinner. This is now the third time a gunman has fired at the US President (or seemingly planned to do so).

By this point, Trump is so used to assassination attempts that he immediately began spouting propaganda. While some thought Trump would use the event to drum up support for his failing war on Iran, he chose to prioritise talking about the White House ballroom:

Beyond parody https://t.co/BbYLEWRqJ4

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 26, 2026

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For those out of the loop, construction on Trump’s glitzy ballroom was recently paused following a court order, and could be put on hold again.

Ballroom blitz

According to the White House Correspondents’ Association, the annual Correspondents’ Dinner is:

our main source of revenue to finance all of our work, including support of the journalists working to cover the president, events and programs to educate the public about the value of the First Amendment and a free press, and scholarships to help the next generation of journalists.

Former president Barack Obama notoriously roasted then-businessman Trump at the 2011 Correspondents’ Dinner:

This moment is widely viewed as the key motivator behind Trump running for president and undoing Obama’s various policies.

Regarding the latest Correspondents’ Dinner, the BBC report that shots were heard at 20:35 ET (00:35 UK time). A C-SPAN video showed the moment when gunshots led to the president’s evacuation:

The shooting happened outside the function room itself, with the would-be attacker rushing through a security checkpoint. Another angle showed the evacuation from the viewpoint of those being evacuated:

New video shows Secret Service evacuating JD Vance following the shooting pic.twitter.com/WaNiuprQvW

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) April 26, 2026

Trump was posting about the shooting on Truth Social within an hour. He would later post the following:

Trump posts photos and security footage of the alleged shooter pic.twitter.com/Fe7tJbAwar

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 26, 2026

Less than two hours later, Trump would hold a press conference alongside FBI chief Kash Patel. It was at this press conference that he said the following:

And we looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight, and I will say, you know, it’s not a particularly secure building. And I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House.

It’s actually a larger room, and it’s much more secure. It’s got — it’s drone-proof. It’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom.

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That’s why Secret Service — that’s why the military are demanding it. They’ve wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons.

But today is a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before.

To be clear, Trump wants a big, fancy ballroom, because he likes big, fancy things, because he’s a big, fancy boy.

While we’re sure it will be very secure, there is no need for it to exist beyond Trump’s own personal desire to envelope himself in obscene levels of luxury.

It didn’t take long for Trump’s minions to to start repeating his message:

i’ll be honest it’s so fucking funny to take this angle after another shooting attempt its just so shameless pic.twitter.com/h1yYKPqjII

— onion person (@CantEverDie) April 26, 2026

Some have suggested this means the event was staged, although this level of coordinated propaganda is fairly streamlined at this point:

This tells us flat out that this was staged. https://t.co/l3TsnYzm7D

— MAGA Cult Slayer (@MAGACult2) April 26, 2026

At the same time, you really can’t put anything past these people:

It's almost as if none of them are taking this seriously either. pic.twitter.com/Xd1zPhqWoz

— Art Candee (@ArtCandee) April 26, 2026

Trump — ‘Shots fired’

Another strange moment was when Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the following pre-shooting:

Strange wording! https://t.co/VFBzR5aHDB

— Secular Talk (KyleKulinskiShow@bsky.social) (@KyleKulinski) April 26, 2026

If Trump’s team did pre-plan the event, we’ll no doubt find out when it’s revealed an anonymous person bet a shooting would happen on the prediction markets:

The insider trading suspicions looming over Trump's presidency https://t.co/iIdiB9lAgl

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 20, 2026

Featured image via C-SPAN

By Willem Moore

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DALLAS — Friendship-West Baptist Church is a stronghold for Black politics, where candidates pass through cycle after cycle to win over its 13,000 congregants. It’s the church Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) calls home; her pastor, the Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, is now running to succeed her in Congress. Even Beto O’Rourke visited last week to encourage people to register to vote.

But several congregants can’t help but notice a continued absence this year: James Talarico.

The Democratic Senate nominee has a long road ahead if he wants to flip the Texas seat blue — one that requires winning over the state’s nearly 3 million Black voters, who largely broke for Crockett in the March primary and many of whom remain skeptical of his candidacy.

“Come and make the ask. Come and try to earn the vote,” said Alan Williams, a Crockett voter and Friendship-West congregant. “I think he thinks our vote is just a default and he doesn’t have to earn it.”

In the month-and-a-half since he won the nomination, Talarico has begun criss-crossing Texas, including visiting some Black churches, holding meetings with faith leaders and elected officials, and block-walking in majority-Black cities. But frustration from worshippers at Friendship-West — who have yet to hear from him directly — and interviews with Black power brokers across the state reveal the pressure Talarico faces to move faster to heal open wounds from a contentious primary and convince voters to turn out.

David Malcolm McGruder, the church’s executive pastor, said Talarico has to do more to sell his vision to voters — and convince them he’ll follow through: “We have people who show up in our churches during the election season, but who don’t show up for us at the level of policy beyond November.”

Talarico, in an interview, acknowledged that he would “love” to visit Friendship-West soon. “My top priority is bringing our coalition back together, and that is specifically reaching out to Black Texans,” he said. “There’s no way to win Texas without winning the trust and the support of Black voters. Period. Full stop.”

It’s clear that Talarico has his work cut out for him. He wasn’t Black voters’ preferred candidate. Some are exhausted by a messy primary that thrust questions over race and electability into the center of the contest. And while Black voters are overwhelmingly committed Democrats, he needs to keep enthusiasm high to ensure they turn out, especially as concerns over voter suppression grow. (A last-minute rule change in Dallas County, Crockett’s home base, caused thousands of people to be turned away from the polls or have their ballots invalidated on primary Election Day.)

Democrats have long faced accusations that they take Black voters for granted. Several Texas strategists are worried that’ll happen again in the lead up to November — and that the party will blame Black voters if Talarico loses.

“Black voters have been let down over time,” said Antjuan Seawright, a longtime Democratic strategist who has advised the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “What some may not understand is that our vote, more so than any other constituency in the history of this country, has always been a demonstration of our trust, but our trust has either been taken for granted or has always been on the chopping block by a number of people.”

Talarico is already getting on-the-ground support from Democratic groups like O’Rourke’s Powered By People and a host of Black state lawmakers.

“We don’t have time to remain in our feelings,” added Crystal Chism, president of the Dallas County chapter of Texas Coalition of Black Democrats. “We need to make the main thing the main thing, and that’s getting Talarico elected.”

But there’s a notable ally missing: Even though Crockett quickly conceded the race and endorsed Talarico in March, she has yet to hit the campaign trail or put much effort publicly into rallying the base behind him. Crockett, through a spokesperson, declined an interview request for this story.

Talarico said he and Crockett have “exchanged a few messages” since the primary and he “would love nothing more” than to have her on the campaign trail.

“He’s got his work cut out for him,” noted Russell Maryland, the former No. 1 NFL draft pick who won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and voted for Crockett in the primary. “He’s gonna have to work to win over Jasmine’s supporters. … Talarico will really need to put his fingers in the ground, so to speak in football terms, and kick up some dust.”

The seminarian is still trying to overcome some of the criticism leveled against him in the lead up to the primary.

In February, a PAC that supported Talarico ran a TV ad with the tagline, “If she wins, we lose.” Crockett claimed the ad darkened her skin and said it was bigoted. “It’s not even undertones right now,” she said. “It’s straight-up racist.” (Talarico, in an interview, emphasized that the PAC was not affiliated with his campaign and that he disagreed with its message. He added that he believes Crockett is electable statewide in Texas, as he has said before.)

Then a social media influencer claimed Talarico told her in a private conversation that former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who dropped out of the Senate race right before Crockett joined, was a “mediocre Black man.” Talarico has said that was a mischaracterization of his comments, and that he was describing Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre.

Allred, who is now in a competitive run-off to represent Texas’ 33rd district, said in an interview that he backs Talarico. “Of course I support him,” he said. “I support Democrats. I’ve been supporting Democrats here for my whole life.”

But Talarico’s challenge, Allred added, isn’t convincing Black voters to support him over the Republican nominee — it’s convincing them to turn out.

“He needs to show comfort in Black spaces and Black communities,” Allred said. “I’m sure he can do that, but there’s just no substitute for it. Particularly given how some of the ads that ran, there may be some element of having to show contrition, even if he wasn’t responsible for all those.”

Talarico has visited Black churches almost every weekend since the primary, and he dropped by Prairie View A&M University, an HBCU, on Wednesday, where he acknowledged he has “got to earn the trust and the respect and the support of every single one of the congresswoman’s supporters.” He blocked-walk in majority-Black DeSoto, Texas and held a roundtable with Black community leaders in Austin recently. And last month, he convened African American clerics at Saint Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas for a discussion about policy.

“The Democratic Party has taken Black voters for granted and assumed that they’re just part of the base, assumed they’ll just show up and vote for you,” Talarico said in an interview. “And I think we’ve seen the disastrous results of that kind of disrespect toward Black voters.”

To his benefit, Talarico has an army of Texas Democrats anxious to flip the state for the first time in decades. Last Sunday, O’Rourke — whose three-point loss in 2018 to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz was Texas Democrats’ high-water mark this century — mingled with congregants at Friendship-West, while his organization’s yellow-vested volunteers encouraged them to check their voter registration.

“I love James Talarico,” O’Rourke said. “I’m excited for him. I’ve talked to him and said, ‘You can send me anywhere that the campaign can’t get to. I will raise money for you. I’ll go try to get your volunteers fired up. I’ll speak as a surrogate. You let me know.’”

State Sen. Royce West of Dallas, who voted for Crockett and has since endorsed Talarico, is also optimistic, if more measured: “He’s warming up. He has support within the African American community. Is it where it needs to be? No. Is he making strides? Yes.”

On the Republican side, longtime Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton are locked in a lengthy and expensive run-off that could play to Democrats’ advantage. Talarico’s internal polling shows him competitiveagainst either candidate, but some observers think he has a stronger path against Paxton given his myriad controversies. Talarico boasts a cash advantage with almost $10 million cash on hand after the first quarter of the year, compared with Cornyn’s more than $8 million and Paxton’s $2.6 million.

“There’s work to be done,” said Cliff Walker, a Texas Democratic strategist and principal at Seeker Strategies. “But I don’t stay up at night worried that we’re not going to be able to reassemble this coalition in time for November.”

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Critics recently accused Keir Starmer of misleading Parliament not once but twice. Starmer’s allies, meanwhile, mostly kept quiet, suggesting they too believed he’d messed up.

This all looks terrible for Starmer. And as if things weren’t bad enough, Ministry of Defence officials have also suggested Starmer broke the Ministerial Code:

There is no public record of the Palantir briefing attended by Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson in February 2025 despite the Ministerial Code requiring Starmer to publish details of meetings with external organisations

No 10 says the event was not a meeting and did not require…

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— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) April 25, 2026

Here we go again

As you can see in the image above, the thrice-disgraced Peter Mandelson also attended the meeting:

BREAKING: Starmer’s failure to disclose secret Palantir meeting arranged by Mandelson broke Ministerial Code of Conduct (via @Telegraph) #TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/DX8r6Nxp4O pic.twitter.com/pf7DJv6QcS

— Joe Rich (@joerichlaw) April 25, 2026

As Tory councillor Rich says, we’ve known about this dodgy Palantir deal for sometime. What Rich fails to note is that this tendency to afford Palantir secret meetings began with his own party, as the Canary reported on 3 March:

In 2019 at Downing Street Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Peter Thiel – Palantir’s billionaire co-founder and chairman, met for an hour. There were no notes from this meeting. Palantir being awarded Covid contracts followed.

We added:

Starmer has continued this pattern of secret meetings. A February 2025 Washington meeting between  Starmer, Peter Mandelson, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp has no notes and preceded the £240 million December 2025 contract between the Ministry of Defence and Palantir.

Palantir, named after the all-seeing orb from the Lord of the Rings, wants to see everything. But when it comes to its own meetings, it seems they prefer the lights off.

Oh, and let’s not forget all this:

Also central to this picture is Mandelson, whose lobbying firm Global Counsel worked for Palantir. It was Mandelson who introduced Starmer to Palantir CEO Alex Karp at that February 2025 Washington meeting, the one with no notes that preceded the £241 million MOD contract.

Mandelson’s own extensive contacts with Epstein are now the subject of a police investigation. Global Counsel no longer exists.

Total UK government contracts now exceed £670 million – spanning the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, police forces, the Cabinet Office, and even the navy’s nuclear-powered submarines. The NHS contract alone is worth £330 million over seven years, giving one US company access to the health data of 67 million Britons.

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Green Party leader Zack Polanski, meanwhile, said the following on 18 April:

'He was not allowed unsupervised access to former clients’

Is that why Keir Starmer had to accompany Mandelson to their secret meeting with Palantir? https://t.co/okv96wnhDk

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) April 18, 2026

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Now, it seems the mainstream media has caught up.

Finally noticing

In the piece published on Sunday 26 April, the Telegraph wrote:

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of breaking the ministerial code by failing to declare a meeting with a client of Lord Mandelson’s lobbying firm.

The Telegraph also reported:

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Palantir visit was “not a formal meeting”, in response to parliamentary questions from the Conservatives about why the meeting was not declared.

…

However, in response to a separate parliamentary question, Luke Pollard, the defence minister, acknowledged that it was a meeting, saying: “The Office of the UK Defence Attaché holds no record of the meeting as no formal record of the meeting was produced.”

Hypocritically, the Tories are also calling out Starmer’s sleaze. Alex Burghart (shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) said:

A presentation by a defence contractor, attended with British military personnel, took place and was not declared. Calling it ‘not a meeting’ does not make it disappear.

Gee, we wonder where Labour got the idea to meet Palantir in secret from?

Burghart also said:

Keir Starmer has broken the ministerial code. The public deserves to know who arranged this meeting, what was discussed, and what Global Counsel’s client stood to gain.

This is what people mean when they say Britain is a one-state party. Half of the party is in opposition, opposing the bad stuff, while the other half is in power, doing the bad stuff.

Now the public has wised up to this con-job, they’ve started looking elsewhere for political representation:

POLL | Reform lead by 4pts

Ref: 25% (-1)
Grn: 21% (+1)
Con: 16% (-1)
Lab: 15% (-1)
Lib: 11% (-1)

– Seats –
Ref: 317
Grn: 129
Lib: 77
SNP: 47
Con: 35
Plaid: 10
Lab: 9

Poll: @FindOutNowUK, 22-23 Apr (+/- vs 15 Apr) pic.twitter.com/kkU4NcnYO5

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) April 23, 2026

Starmer — Mr Transparency

This situation is especially bad for Starmer because of past comments like the following:

We need a transparency revolution. There should be no power without accountability, and true accountability requires transparency.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 4, 2020

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When it suited him, Starmer talked about transparency. When it didn’t suit him, he turned the tape recorders off and asked aids not to take minutes.

Featured image via Cory Doctorow (Flickr)

By Willem Moore

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Labour risks losing “a generation of young voters” to the Greens and Reform, according to one of its own MPs.

Luke Charters told HuffPost UK that Labour has always been the “party young people backed when it mattered”.

But he warned: “If we don’t show we’re serious about delivering, we risk losing a generation to populists peddling false hope.”

His remarks come less than two weeks before voters head to the polls for local elections in England, and elections in the Welsh Senedd and Holyrood.

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Polls suggest Labour are on course to potentially lose up to 2,000 English councillors, be defeated in Wales for the first time and see the SNP triumph in Scotland once again.

YouGov’s latest polls show the Greens are the most popular party among 18-24 year-olds on 36%, while Labour behind on 24% and Reform UK sit at 7%.

All three parties are much closer when it comes to 25-49-year-olds, though Greens still have a lead on 25%, Reform on 23% and Labour at 20%.

It’s a real reversal of the trends seen in 2024, when Labour was the most popular party for voters under-30s – 41% of 18-24-year-olds and 45% of 25-29-year-olds voted for the party.

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Charters said: “Young people got a raw deal under the Tories, and some of the alternatives are no better.

“The Greens are offering gimmicks like DJ sets while Reform wants to cut young workers’ wages. You couldn’t make it up.”

He added: “Labour is delivering real change. Wage boosts, the Renters’ Rights Act, a better deal with Europe. But there is more to do on key issues like student loans and getting young people onto the housing ladder.”

The Renters’ Rights Act will ban no-fault evictions and ends fixed-term tenancy contracts from May 1, legislation is likely to appeal to the largest share of private renters – 25-34-year-olds.

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Labour has also increased the National Living Wage for those aged 21 and over, and the National Minimum Wage for 18 to 20-year-olds.

Labour legalised voting for 16 and 17-year-olds, too.

Charters is not the only MP who thinks the government needs to focus on the younger demographic.

One Labour backbencher suggested the government should move its focus away from policies like the pension triple lock, having already put off the elderly generation by scrapping universal winter fuel payments.

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Instead, they said the government should look towards what it can offer young people once again.

“That’s where the focus should be. No more of this leadership debate,” the MP said.

A government insider also told HuffPost UK admitted they intend on engaging young people “a lot” in the coming months – though not at the expense of other groups.

OLI SCARFF via AFP via Getty Images

An EU official also told HuffPost UK that helping young people will likely be one of the core means for the bloc will try to re-establish ties after Brexit.

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The UK joined the Erasmus + scheme last week, allowing people from the EU and the UK to work or study in one another’s countries for a limited time period.

Minister for EU relations Nick Thomas-Symonds told HuffPost UK that “we think 100,000 most likely young people” will be joining that programme overall.

Considering 83% of 16 to 24-year-olds would vote to rejoin the EU, according to a February ITV News poll, it means closer ties with the bloc could be a vote-winner for Labour among young people.

But, as a Labour source warned, winning back the young vote would a “tough sell” in the coming months, considering the Green Party – which wants to rejoin the EU – has capitalised on the disillusioned demographic.

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Last week, the progressives declared a Green “Youthquake” as more than 50,000 Brits under 29 became party members.

As Savanta’s political research director Chris Hopkins told HuffPost UK, how young people vote “does have the potential to be important for political parties going forward, but none more so than for Labour.”

Hopkins added that the younger voter has been a “relatively fertile electoral ground for Labour” in the past, and now the government risks losing them altogether.

The polling expert warned: “Their general malaise, and the perception that they are responsible for the country’s issues, may mean that even young people desert them.”

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