Politics
Epstein files show how Steve Bannon sought to influence Europe
One of child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein’s many roles was as a powerbroker and connector of far-right and fascist individuals globally. Messages now show how former Trump advisor Steve Bannon sought the sex-trafficker and paedophile’s help to support the European far-right.
The Irish Times reported on 5 February:
The messages mostly date from 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European Parliament uniting ultra-right wing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Austria.
Italy’s Matteo Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen, both leaders of far-right and fascist-adjacent political parties, were among those Bannon wanted to see flourish:
Bannon especially set his sights on Matteo Salvini, the Italian deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League party, who at the time was at the height of his political power.
Opposition parties in Italy have called for investigations:
to clarify whether Epstein influenced the rise of the League after Salvini’s name was cited several times in messages exchanged between Bannon and Epstein.
But it wasn’t just Italy…
European far-right empire and Steve Bannon
Much the same process happened in France, left-wing party La France Insoumise has now called:
for a cross-party parliament inquiry after several French figures, including Jack Lang, a former minister for culture, and his daughter appeared in the latest Epstein trove
The vast trove of Epstein file also featured:
exchanges between Epstein and Bannon in which Bannon spoke of his desire to raise money for the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Germany was also effected. Messages to Epstein showed how Steve Bannon sought to promote the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD):
In texts from 2018, Bannon bragged about his influence as an “adviser” to the new right-wing populists and saw the parties’ gains in Europe as a chance to use them to his and Epstein’s benefit.
The files show:
Epstein’s interest in European nationalists.
While a message from March 2019, just before the EU elections, has Bannon saying he is:
focused on raising money for Le Pen and Salvini so they can actually run full slates.
Epstein courted and engaged with figures from both liberal – Peter Mandelson being a case in point – and conservative global elites. But his own politics were those of a far-right Zionist. On many occasions the files show how the billionaire sex predator had an interest in helping some of the most extreme political forces in the world in their bids for power.
Featured image via the Canary
Spectators at an All Elite Wrestling (AEW( Dynamite wrestling match in Las Vegas had a message for Donald Trump. It was certainly not one that he will have enjoyed, particularly from a sport popular with what’s left of his base.
As the wrestlers posed and glared at each other before the start, a chant from the crowd quickly grew to a volume where the message couldn’t be missed – “Fuck ICE”.
The commentators were silenced. The wrestlers’ glares turned to raised eyebrows. But not in disapproval – at least in one corner of the ring. Challenger Brody King is a vocal opponent of Trump’s Gestapo thugs, organises anti-ICE fundraising and community organising and wore an “Abolish ICE” t-shirt before a recent match.
His opponent ‘MJF’ – real name Maxwell Friedman – might be more of a mixed bag. He has described Palestinian resistance as terrorism – but at the same time said that:
I don’t support terrorism, Zionism, genocide [or] genocidal governments, dead innocent Palestinians [and] dead innocent Israelis. I don’t support people — any people — dying because of hate.
However, he then repeated typical Israel lobby talking points, claiming that:
people are calling for the death of Jews over something that’s happening on the other side of the world.
Given ICE’s strong links to Israeli terrorist forces, who knows what he made of the chanting.
You’ll definitely enjoy it though:
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/All Elite Wrestling
Content warning: this article contains discussion of rape and sexual assault
After almost a year’s silence on the matter, author Neil Gaiman released a statement this week to once again deny the allegations of sexual assault against him.
The allegations against Gaiman date back to 2024. They were first reported on the Tortoise Media podcast Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman. The New York Vulture then published a more lengthy – and widely read – article in 2025 entitled:
There Is No Safe Word
How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades.
Beginning with an initial two, eventually nine women would come forward with allegations including rape, other forms of sexual assault, and non-consensual and un-negotiated BDSM practices. Many of the descriptions are graphic in the extreme, and I try not to repeat them here without need.
‘I should have done so much better’
At the time, 14 January 2025, Gaiman put out a statement on his blog denying the accusations. He described re-reading messages from the accusers on the dates of the situations they described as assault – messages which displayed consent.
These messages are now a matter of public record. They do appear to display consent, although the Vulture article framed this as a product of being scared to upset Gaiman.
In his statement, Gaiman also wrote:
And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been.
However, he also stated unambiguously that all of his relationships were consensual, and that:
Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality. I am prepared to take responsibility for any missteps I made. I’m not willing to turn my back on the truth, and I can’t accept being described as someone I am not, and cannot and will not admit to doing things I didn’t do.
However, production companies moved quickly to cancel adaptations of Gaiman’s works across stage and screen. These projects included a musical version of Coraline, a Disney production of The Graveyard Book, and the Netflix adaptation of Dead Boy Detectives.
‘Smear campaign’: Neil Gaiman
Gaiman then remained relatively removed from the public eye for over a year. However, on 2 February 2026, he posted a new statement. Again, he denied all of the allegations against himself:
I’ve learned firsthand how effective a smear campaign can be, so to be clear:
The allegations against me are completely and simply untrue. There are emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict them.
In particular, Gaiman decried the “echo chamber” of journalism reporting on the allegations. He spoke about his conviction that the “truth would, eventually, come out”:
I expected that when the allegations were first made there would be journalism, and that the journalism would take the (mountains of) evidence into account, and was astonished to see how much of the reporting was simply an echo chamber, and how the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored.
Then, he went on to single out one blogger whom he believed exemplified the journalistic rigor he’d expected:
I was a journalist once, and I have enormous respect for journalists, so I’ve been hugely heartened by the meticulous fact and evidence-based investigative writing of one particular journalist, whom some of you recently brought to my attention, who writes under the name of TechnoPathology.
This investigator, Technopathology, produced pages and pages of reporting on Gaiman, under the umbrella title of “Neil Gaiman is Innocent”. Gaiman actually linked to the introductory page of the Substack blog in his statement.
Technopathology and ‘Neil Gaiman is innocent’
For full disclosure, in writing this article I read a lot of Technopathology’s blog, but not all of it. There is an awful lot to get through, and I have other articles to write. The author makes some valid points about the overall timbre of the reporting and its motivations, and some that I found reaching or off-mark. I’ll get to them later.
Technopathology’s introduction to their extensive project contained a complaint that there was “no room for nuance” in the reporting on Gaiman:
Even requiring evidence was deemed to be ‘‘victim blaming’’. No deviation from the party line, (that is to say – utter and complete condemnation) went unpunished.
This type of complaint will be familiar to anyone who observed public reactions to the MeToo movement. Technopathology talks about the importance of the MeToo movement, but couples that with their disbelief in the specific allegations against Gaiman.
In the introduction, the author mentioned something that made me sit up in my seat:
I wasn’t completely unprepared, I am after all a journalist and make all of my paltry income from writing. I have a steady beat with technology trade magazines, and used to pen a lot of political articles for The Canary. But I had no idea what form the investigation should take. It was new territory.
So, a fellow (ex-)Canary writer. One other mention of the Canary on the blog indicated that they were around for the inception of the site, long before my time or that of most of the current employees. After a bit of digging, we’re confident in our guess on who they are, but that’s not terribly important for this article.
Fact and speculation
Some of the points that Technopathology raises in their articles are valid. In particular, they highlight that the allegations against Gaiman were gleefully seized upon and amplified by elements of the far-right, including Nazi-types and transphobes, due to Gaiman’s Jewish heritage and outspoken support for LGBTQ+ causes.
However, other conclusions that they draw are much more of a stretch. This includes speculation that one accuser, Caroline Wallner, could in fact have known another, Scarlet Pavlovich, before they made their allegations, which could potentially cast doubt on the similarities in their accounts of Gaiman’s behavior.
The problem is that Technopathology’s speculation rests on the fact that Wallner is a friend of Michael Stipe, the lead singer of REM:
Interestingly, Michael Stipe is good friends with Tilda Swinton, who Scarlett Pavlovich says personally gave her a scholarship to her school in Scotland. I’m not altogether convinced that there was no prior contact between the accusers, so these degrees of separation are interesting.
This is quite an extraordinary reach, even if it is framed as a speculation.
Consent is consent
However, and most importantly, I feel that Technopathology elides some of the features of the cases that simply shouldn’t be ignored. For example, the blogger highlights one exchange between Pavlovich and Gaiman, and the way the Master podcast framed it. Pavlovich told Gaiman that:
I have told Amanda [Palmer, Gaiman’s then-wife] that even though it began questionably eventually it was undoubtedly consensual and I enjoyed it.
Technopathology then highlighted their problems with the the reporting of the exchange:
Master of course zooms in on ‘’questionably’’ rather than ‘‘undoubtedly consensual’’. Questionable does not mean non-consensual, and it’s not certain what element is questionable. There’s always ways to do better.
I would point out that if the very first sexual encounter between two people features ‘questionable’ consent, then that’s no consent at all. If consent isn’t firmly and unambiguously established beforehand, it can’t be gained retroactively when people are left to decide what happened. That’s not how this is meant to work.
Pavlovich’s relationship with Gaiman began the day she arrived at his house to work informally as a nanny. Gaiman ran her a bath in the middle of the garden. He then later climbed in with her. Technopathology quotes from Pavlovich’s interview on Master regarding the encounter:
“He ended up sort of asking me to put my legs down and I ignored him.”
We should note that he is ‘asking’, she is not compelled to put her legs down, thus revealing her body.
But the next time he asks, she does. There is no force here. This is an action freely taken, at Gaiman’s request.
“He asked me again and sort of gestured, so I put them down.”
Again, the problem with Technopathology’s framing here is that when Gaiman made a sexual advance that Pavlovich didn’t take up, that should have been the end of it. Anything after that point carries an implicit threat, because it doesn’t take a lack of ‘yes’ as an answer in itself.
Neil Gaiman and Technopathology
Technopathology later writes that:
Reluctant consent vs enthusiastic consent is a big topic of discussion, but its a lot to go into here. Suffice to say, in legal terms, even reluctant consent is still consent – and it’s not clear if she was reluctant at the time or if this a later reframing. Certainly the WhatsApp messages affirm an enthusiastic consent, effusively and repeatedly.
Definitions of sexual assault and rape vary from country to country. As such, I’m not particularly concerned with guilt or innocence in the law, and I won’t make pronouncements on it.
However, what I will say with confidence is that anyone who was particularly concerned with consent probably wouldn’t show up naked to a bathtub someone else was in without asking first.
Even if they missed that detail, making requests that the other person doesn’t acquiesce to isn’t a prompt to ask again.
Technopathology, among their many articles on Gaiman’s purported innocence, analyses a lot of situations and exchanges around Gaiman in similar detail. You can go read them if you like.
However, I chose the bathtub scene as an illustrative example. The fact that Gaiman pointed specifically to Technopathology’s Substack as the kind of journalistic integrity he expects is a point that I find damning in itself.
Yes, Technopathology poured at length over the reporting and some of the dubious motivations behind it. They also took it upon themself to scour the accusers’ stories for inconsistencies. However, the blogger’s actual understanding of consent is very, very different to mine, and – I would hope – most everyone else’s, too.
If that’s what Gaiman thinks is proof of his innocence, I’d hate to see his definition of guilt.
Featured image via the Canary
Entries in the comments…
On the red carpet at the premiere of Wuthering Heights – Australian actress Margot Robbie, when asked about her stunning necklace made two glaringly inaccurate statements.
Firstly, Robbie legitimises the ownership of the jewel to Hollywood:
It’s Elizabeth Taylor’s necklace. It is the Taj Mahal diamond that Richard Burton gave it to her… there is something kind of Cathy and Heathcliff about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in my mind.
Then, reaching for an older origin, she called the history of the necklace “amazing,” musing that it belonged to “the woman whose grave is the Taj Mahal” — pointing not toward the powerful Empress Nur Jahan (1577–1645) who actually owned it, but to her more romantically memorialised stepdaughter, Mumtaz Mahal, who is indeed buried there.
The film has been accused of whitewashing Heathcliff — erasing his possible Romani or Black identity from the book to fit a palatable Hollywood romance.
While the BBC is busy rescuing the film’s image by explaining away the backlash as passionate fandom or bold reinterpretation; maybe it’s time to stop watering down these criticisms.
Margot Robbie — whitewashing the Origin Story
Margot Robbie’s reply about the necklace shows just how successful Operation Legacy was.
Declassified British files reveal that Operation Legacy was the systematic, state-ordered destruction of thousands of “dirty” colonial documents in the 1950s and 60s. Lorries carried files to incinerators; crates of secrets were sunk at sea. In the words of a 2013 report, officials were desperate to consign atrocities and their paper trails to history, leaving successors and subjects in the dark.
It is not a stretch to imply that the history of the imperial loot of the diamond was buried with Operation Legacy.
The exact path of how the necklace left colonial India and entered the vaults of Cartier remains unclear, a gap in the record that itself speaks to the opaque channels of colonial extraction.
After being acquitted by Cartier in 1972, the jewel entered the orbit of Elizabeth Taylor through her then husband. It was later sold at auction in 2011 for a record $8.8 million to an anonymous bidder.
Again, Christie’s auction house narrative also conveniently omits the Western acquisition, whilst exoticising the Mughal past.
An academic study of 19th century British press notes that:
Throughout imperial rule, both textual and illustrated newspapers produced reports and cultural representations of India, and more specifically its rulers, that highlighted exoticism and promoted a sense of cultural difference from British readers, subsequently creating an overall image of India that was stereotyped.
Christie’s and Robbie have done the same thing: Romanticising the Mughal past but staying silent about the colonial loot.
Let’s de-exoticise Nur Jahan.
Nur Jahan was politically one of the most important figures of the Mughal Dynasty. Historical and art history research reveals a formidable co-ruler: a skilled hunter depicted loading a musket in androgynous attire. A political strategist who issued coins in her name, and an economic strategist who commanded trade fleets and negotiated with European merchants .
According to a paper:
Maharani Nur Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir, was famed for her political intelligence and military skill and played an unrivalled role in ruling the Mughal Era. The Mughals were ardent supporters of art and culture, as seen by their exquisite buildings and distinctive handwriting
Nur Jahan’s stepson, Shah Jahan, would later become famous for building the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
But what’s less well-known is that the beautiful white-marble tomb he created was actually inspired by an earlier gem in Agra: the mausoleum Nur Jahan commissioned for her own father, Itimad-ud-Daulah. Often called the “Baby Taj,” her design pioneered the intricate marble inlay and graceful proportions that would define the Taj Mahal itself.
Nur Jahan died in 1645 and is buried in Lahore, a city she helped beautify, alongside her husband Jahangir.
Nur Jahan’s legacy is still alive today across both India and Pakistan — in Lahore, where she’s buried, and in Agra where she first set marble and gems into poetry.
That shared history deserves better than the watered-down, exotic story we’ve been handed. It’s time for both countries to reclaim her — not as some romantic side character, but as the powerhouse she truly was a ruler, a hunter, and a builder.
Other Loot
It’s the same story playing out on a larger scale in British establishments.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond — seized by the British East India Company from a 10-year-old Punjabi Maharaja in 1849 — still sits in the Imperial State Crown, glittering in the Tower of London.
The swords and jewels of Tipu Sultan, looted after he was killed defending his fortress of Srirangapatna in 1799, still lie behind glass at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
So, while the Indian government made diplomatic noise in 2023 about getting the loot back, the reality in London hasn’t budged. This highlights the colonial dynamic that is still at play.
What Margot Robbie’s comments reveal is a familiar colonial reflex — one Hollywood knows all too well — of laundering imperial theft through re-angling the narrative.
Until colonial extraction is called THEFT, and not just “amazing history,” empire remains alive and well.
Featured image via the Canary
Your Party has allegedly blocked a member of Zarah Sultana’s Grassroots Left slate from sitting on a committee responsible for making sure upcoming internal elections are conducted in a fair manner. This raises concerns because the person was blocked by a senior member of Jeremy Corbyn’s opposing slate, The Many. It raises questions about just how real democracy is in the new party.
Your Party elections
Your Party is currently gearing up for its upcoming Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections on 26 February.
This marks a crucial step in establishing the new political party’s structures. These elections are integral to enabling branches across the country to formally constitute, allowing them to organise effectively and campaign on local and national issues within their communities. However, recent revelations appear to confirm members’ concerns that socialism and genuine democracy are inconvenient obstacles for those who currently hold the reins – and the party’s resources.
Verified evidence seen by the Canary raises serious concerns that Jeremy Corbyn is allowing ally Karie Murphy to exert undue control over internal democratic processes. Far from uniting socialists as promised, these developments appear to confirm long-held fears that grassroots members are being frozen out unless they belong to ‘Jeremy’s team’.
Socialist? BLOCKED
Originally, members of Your Party made it clear that they wanted an elected oversight committee formed ahead of the CEC election. Supporters argued that this approach would make committee members more representative of the entire membership, bridging divides and differences of opinion.
However, figures on The Many slate allegedly objected, instead pushing for – and implementing – a sortition process that selected five members to carry out crucial oversight. Given the public bickering and clashes driven by strong views on both sides, members generally accepted this compromise as fair in principle.
However, it now appears that principle and process are not the priority for those gearing the party’s democratic processes.
The Canary has been told that Karie Murphy exclude one sortition member from being involved in the Your Party committee, literally blocking her number and ignoring her very existence.
One Your Party member who wished to remain anonymous told the Canary:
This blatant and arrogant power-move by Murphy has now confirmed prior reports received that those with the reins are only happy with members having a say, if you are firmly loyal to their camp alone. Once again, actions by figures within the party suggest a failure to learn from past mistakes, calling into question whether they possess the principles and resolve needed to confront the far right and unite, rather than divide, and empower the communities they claim to represent.
Access denied in Your Party
The Your Party sortition member has requested to remain anonymous. Also worth noting sortition members are usually meant to be anonymous to ensure safeguarding of democratic processes and efficient electoral oversight. Her experience went as follows:
When I was called by Karie Murphy a few weeks ago I actually ignored the call the first time, I’d become accustomed to doing that trying to avoid debt collectors asking for payments I can’t make.
But when I didn’t recognise the number I decided to call back immediately. The woman on the phone explained to me that I had been sortitioned as part of the selection process for a Your Party Election oversight committee. The woman said I would be required to attend regular meetings with MPs supporting Jeremy Corbyn such as Adam Shockat.
I remained quiet during her brief pause which I only assume she expected I’d fill with some line about how I’m ‘a big fan’. I was a big fan, but that’s not true anymore, Corbyn’s no socialist and he’d proven which class he really stands with time and again. Her mention of Adam Shockat the sexist and Jeremy Corbyn only reminded me of what I’d be up against, but I knew I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. I told this woman, who I later learned was actually Karie Murphy, that I was in regular attendance at YP meetings and that this could be great because I could get the input of a wider part of the membership.
Similarly to my holding back at the mention of Corbyn and Shockat, Murphy remained quiet. Nonetheless, I knew she couldn’t backtrack now that I had been offered the position, I thought.
I told her I was wanting to accept the offer and that this was really important to me. Immediately she responded with asking what I did for a living, when I mentioned my job role she said it may be difficult for me to get permission at work. I knew that my job would in no way be related to or jeopardised by a position on an election oversight committee and that any request made to my employer would just be a matter of procedure. This was so important to me that I would have risked my job to be given the opportunity to just mirror the voices of highly experienced and well qualified activists I’ve met since becoming involved within Your Party.
I asked to be sent the information and confirm my interest, the woman told me that she was waiting for someone else to send her the information first but would then be in contact with me the next day to send over the details and officially confirm my interest. I immediately spoke to my Trade union rep after the phone call, he confirmed with me that this would not conflict with my job but I would be required to make a formal request with the key details. The next day I waited but heard nothing back, no emails, no phone calls, no messages.
After two weeks someone told me that the elections oversight committee were set to meet. I had started to question whether the whole thing was still going ahead, I knew the majority of members initially had wanted the committee to be elected.
I was confused, I hadn’t seen any emails but double checked all of my folders to be sure. I double checked my call log and messages but there was nothing that I’d been sent. Confused, as I was meant to have been sortitioned for this committee, I decided to ring the person who rang me two weeks earlier. User busy.
I then messaged the person asking for the details and received no response. Having gotten nowhere, I later asked a friend to try calling the phone number for me and somehow she was able to get through to this Scottish woman who we later realised was Karie Murphy. Karie Murphy who after learning I would lean far too left for the politics of Corbyn and ‘The Many’, blocked my number and banked on the left to be disorganised enough to be able to get away with it. Well we’re not, and we won’t let them get away with it.
This is why Democracy is important, these MPs ultimately want to dampen your impact in order to protect their own interests, shape their own policies and we are getting in the way.
The GL in YP are the only players on the board offering any real solution against rising wealth inequality, unemployment, rise of fascism, cuts to welfare at home. And that’s because they are the only real players capable of delivering on their promises; decentralised power, MPs held accountable, no more going back on manifestos because it’s not them who decide policies, it’s us.
Ultimately people need to understand that this is again another story of class war, a group of MPs trying to hold onto their wealth , and therefore means of power, will ultimately never act in our interests and this time the cost is too high.
We should have expected it with Labour, we can expect it with Greens and we will do everything in our power to oppose it in ‘The Many’ by forming the party as in the vision of YP GL, Democratic, Grassroots and transformational, in short, a party truly shaped by the many, not just a small group of elite MPs claiming to speak for us.
The GL of YP are the only real players in British politics right now capable of stopping the loss of lives the Global South, and then eventually we, will face if we reach the point of no return in terms of the climate crisis. By exiting Britain out of NATO, ending its funding of imperialism and genocide as well as, crucially, ending its role in the exploitation of the Global south, Your Party could start a possible chain reaction that might lead to the spread of socialism in Europe. I don’t think we can ignore that possibility especially given the current level of working class organisation we are seeing.
We know that the climate question can’t be solved while the global capitalist system continues. The overconsumption is choking us.
I think it’s important to keep an eye on the climate because I don’t want my family in the global south to die right now but I also know that there is nowhere to run, I am aware of the eventual cost to life we will face here and worse with the threat of AI, under the current system, the working class risks being nothing more than an inconvenience to have around, and what power would the workers have then in the absence of work. We will be cattle in a slaughterhouse.
No smoke without fire
The Canary contacted Your Party for comment on the issues raised in this article. However, we did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Another Your Party insider close to the project has also spoken to the Canary and confirmed:
It became very personalised. If you didn’t show total loyalty to Jeremy being the sole leader, he and the people around him basically, they won’t work with you.
This raises urgent, unavoidable questions for Jeremy Corbyn and his team. Members say they have had enough of anti-democratic practices and the old tactics of Labour-right. After years of watching establishment parties impose top-down control, they surely did not come together to replicate the very model they set out to challenge. True democracy is the only cure to fascism.
Featured image via the Canary
!function(n){if(!window.cnx){window.cnx={},window.cnx.cmd=[];var t=n.createElement(‘iframe’);t.display=’none’,t.onload=function(){var n=t.contentWindow.document,c=n.createElement(‘script’);c.src=”//cd.connatix.com/connatix.player.js”,c.setAttribute(‘async’,’1′),c.setAttribute(‘type’,’text/javascript’),n.body.appendChild(c)},n.head.appendChild(t)}}(document);(new Image()).src=”https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=19654b65-409c-4b38-90db-80cbdea02cf4″;cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({“playerId”:”19654b65-409c-4b38-90db-80cbdea02cf4″,”mediaId”:”b5c84d48-e0ff-4d76-9931-dc323e407cea”}).render(“69862e94e4b0ddd03033211a”);});
Police have raided two properties belonging to disgraced former Starmer adviser Peter Mandelson as part of their investigation into misconduct in public office and insider trading.
Mandelson resigned from Labour and the House of Lords after details of his leaks of sensitive government and financial information to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein were exposed by the latest Epstein file release.
Keir Starmer is currently hiding behind Epstein’s victims to avoid disclosing records showing what he knew of Mandelson’s misconduct before appointing him as adviser and ambassador to the US. Despite, or because of, the cynical exploitation of Epstein’s child victims, Starmer’s hold on power is rapidly slipping.
Featured image via the Canary
Pep Guardiola’s press conference was not a routine preview of a Manchester City match. Nor was it about tactics, results, or team selection. What happened was something else entirely.
The coach, known for teaching football with philosophical rigour, stepped off the pitch and asked a painful question about an entire profession: why is the press silent? Guardiola, synonymous with modern football and his historic partnership with Lionel Messi at Barcelona, did not shed his role as a coach. Instead, he expanded it.
Guardiola’s press conference a place for reflection
In a moment that felt sincere and unplanned, the press conference turned into a space for reflection when a journalist asked him:
Why do these issues matter so much to you?
Guardiola smiled, then replied with frustration:
I appreciate this question, because in ten years — or even the last two — this is the first time a journalist has asked me that. It’s as if talking about these issues isn’t allowed in your work. I don’t know.
This was not a throwaway comment. It exposed a deep failure in media practice, especially when compared to coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Then, sports press conferences became political platforms overnight. Players and coaches were routinely asked for political positions. No one complained about “politicising sport”. Neutrality vanished — but only in one direction.
Now, Guardiola speaks against that selective silence. He is not defending himself, but protesting the lack of scrutiny around Israel’s war of extermination in Palestine, which has killed more than 70,000 civilians and destroyed the foundations of life. That silence extends beyond Gaza. It reaches Sudan, where war has displaced millions, and a global climate fuelled by racism and hate against migrants.
Guardiola’s criticism was not aimed at one journalist. It was directed at an entire media system hiding behind the idea of “separating sport from politics”.
That principle has been used to ignore crimes and violations — particularly those committed by Israel — while athletes who express solidarity with Palestine face smears, silencing, and symbolic punishment. This has happened to figures such as Anwar Ghazi, Noussair Mazraoui, and Ons Jabeur.
Sports journalism is not light entertainment or a harmless supplement. It is journalism. It carries responsibility, accountability, and a duty to side with humanity against systems of oppression. Yet many outlets choose safety. They rebrand silence as “sportsmanship” and neutrality as morality. The irony is that these institutions fully understand the power of sport. FIFA president Gianni Infantino once called football “global magic”.
That magic becomes dangerous when it escapes the approved script.
Once again, Guardiola left the pitch — not to explain a game plan or an injury — but to offer a lesson:
Never before in human history has information been so visible. What’s happening in Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan. When I see these images, I feel pain. That’s why I will do everything I can to help build a better society.
This was not a political speech. It was a reminder of journalism’s most basic duty: to see, to ask, and to refuse silence.
This time, the journalists found themselves back in training — while the football manager reminded them of their job.
Featured image via Youtube
YouGov polling from February 2026 shows 78% of the UK public support rent controls. But why regulate a scam when you can get rid of it? That’s what the Green Party is proposing.
The Green Party position
The Green Party has rent nailed in their “Abolish Landlords” policy, which was successfully voted on at their conference in 2025. The motion read:
The Private Rental Sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from Renters to the Landlord Class. This motion makes it clear Green Party policy is to seek the effective abolition of Private Landlordism.
The Green Party believes that secure, affordable Housing is a Human Right, and that a core goal for a Green Government and Green MPs is to create a fairer housing market.
The Green Party believes the existence of Private Landlords adds no positive value to the economy or society, that the relationship between Landlord and Tenant is inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative. That the Private Rented Sector exists to transfer wealth from the working classes to Landlords.
The Green Party believes that the Private Sector has fundamentally failed, and is continuing to fail to provide secure and affordable housing fit for working people.
The thing is, the Green Party wants to move towards social housing, which is essentially state landlordism. While it provides money for the government, people already pay council tax. Social rent is like an additional tax on housing.
Instead, home ownership should be provided through affordable monthly payments for the baseline cost of the resources and expertise that it took for the house to be built. ‘Cost price’ housing should be the aim, not just rent controls or social housing.
Housing bubble
Currently, there is a housing bubble propped up by the super rich buying properties as ‘assets’ while supply is starved off through a lack of building. The governing party is doing even worse than the Green Party’s plans through pledging to provide 1.2% of their housebuilding programme as social or ‘affordable’.
Plus, Common Wealth warned in February 2025 that Labour’s housebuilding programme risks being dominated by private equity firms charging eye-watering rents in the Build to Rent sector.
The thinktank pointed out that Build to Rent properties in the UK have increased to 20% of all new builds in recent years.
As the Green Party rightly points out, the relationship between landlords and tenants is “inherently… exploitative”. But we can do better than state landlordism and rent controls.
Featured image via the Canary
It shouldn’t shock anyone that an organisation whose founder and director publicly wrote, “Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity”, is opposed to defining and addressing anti-Muslim hate. What might shock some is that this organisation, Hindu Council UK (HCUK), has the ear of mainstream media outlets like The Telegraph and has the audacity to “warn” the government about how to approach Islamophobia.
Hindutva is migrating across the globe from India
A recent academic investigation called ‘Seeing the Sangh’ has laid out a comprehensive map of the ‘largest far-right network in history’. This refers to the organisational complex that centres on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s dominant group promoting Hindutva ideology, otherwise known as Hindu supremacy or Hindu nationalism.
Hindu supremacy and accompanying anti-Muslim hatred have been exported across the world with devastating effects from cultural soft power to political lobbying to violence. I monitor this closely, and founded Hindus for Human Rights UK (HfHR UK) to help fight Hindutva, caste, and bigotry in the British diaspora.
Not only does Hindutva politics now exist in many countries — notably the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia — it collaborates with other extremist movements in those countries, with Islamophobia forming the common ground between otherwise strange bedfellows. The Hindutva movement was complicit in the UK’s 2024 racist pogroms; its proponents engage positively with the likes of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Geert Wilders; neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Breivik was an admirer of Hindutva.
Hindu Council UK and the bigotry of its leadership
‘Seeing the Sangh’ identifies 2,500 organisations that make up the global RSS network, or Sangh Parivar (RSS family), 26 of which are in the UK. Writer-activist Amrit Wilson explains in Byline Times that the “Hindu right has systematically set up, or taken over, a host of organisations in the UK.” including the Hindu Council UK, founded in 1994 by one Anil Bhanot.
Bhanot has published op-eds in the Guardian, been covered widely in mainstream media, and held unique positions like Hindu Chaplain in the Royal Navy and Hindu Advisor to the Ministry of Defence. Yet, in 2024 Bhanot was stripped of his OBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” with his Islamophobia.
In 2021 Bhanot posted extreme anti-Muslim and Hindu supremacist tweets (now deleted), describing himself as “Hindutva” and asserting that “Islam is a religion of violence.” He went on, “Islam’s dawah is an evil tenet and the sooner it’s legislated against in parliament the better. It turns muslims into Shaitans, as in love Jihad too.” Love jihad is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory. Bhanot summed up: “Hinduism is the father of all religions. Islam is a bad copy. Islam is against humanity” and an “invasion into minds”.
Bhanot brazenly defended his hate speech by saying:
I did not do anything wrong and I have not put the honours system into disrepute. Free speech is a thing of the past now in England. I am quite upset about it.
Grotesquely, his now-stripped OBE was awarded for “community cohesion”. National Secular Society writes:
HCUK has been highly vocal in its opposition to anti-caste discrimination law. In 2017 its then-director of interfaith relations Anil Bhanot claimed that attempts to outlaw caste discrimination via the Equality Act were a “vengeful” act of Dalits (the bottom tier of the Hindu caste system) stemming from animosity towards ‘higher castes’.
To abuse one’s senior position at a public-facing organisation to gaslight and block legislation that would protect Dalits is indefensible.
HCUK “warning” the government against Islamophobia definition
But Hindu Council UK is not dissuaded by the indefensible. Despite their director’s far-right diatribe and unashamed Islamophobia, HCUK thought it appropriate to write a letter to the Communities Secretary about Islamophobia, “warning” against: creating a “chilling effect” on free speech; helping to reintroduce blasphemy laws, and; suppressing criticism of Islam.
Five organisations, including HfHR UK, responded.
The Hindu Council UK’s letter to the government stated that:
Freedom of expression includes the right to offend, to challenge and to criticise ideas, indeed Hinduism encourages intellectual debates that has made it robust.
We therefore question why Hindu Council UK is trying, through the Hindu Manifesto for example, to make it illegal to:
accus[e] those who organise around anti-Hindu hate of being agents or pawns of violent, political agendas.
We believe that this “accusation”, though it may be found offensive by some, belongs well within the realm of freedom of expression, the right to offend, and the right to criticise ideas.
No one should be surprised that HCUK is trying to control the discourse around a form of hate — Islamophobia — that its leadership espouses. But why would The Telegraph amplify this malicious lobbying and uncritically parrot the line that HCUK represents all British Hindus?
Demonopolising British Hindu representation
Just as Hindu Council UK attempts to position itself as the voice of all British Hindus, the Telegraph article in question is titled, “Hindus warn Labour against ‘chilling’ Islamophobia definition”, reducing the diversity of the one million-plus Hindus in this country down to the views of a single, bigoted group. This is an insult to British Hindus of conscience.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by this either given The Telegraph’s tendency, along with other right-wing entities, to produce anti-Muslim narratives. My request to The Telegraph to publish a response to their coverage went unanswered, so HfHR UK and four other organisations co-published our response in FORSEA.
We face an uphill battle as the British Hindu voice has long been captured by supremacist, anti-Muslim bigots, and some mainstream publications are only too ready to amplify them. HCUK is just one part of the UK’s Hindutva lobby, accompanied by Hindu Forum of Britain, National Hindu Students’ Forum, the VHP UK, and many more.
But there is an extensive network of resistance too — our joint response to the HCUK’s “warning” demonstrates the resolve of our five organisations, a small section of the landscape. The monopolistic control over Hindu advocacy that Hindutva groups have enjoyed in this country for years is coming to a close as progressive alternatives like HfHR UK are drawing in British Hindus by the day.
Featured image via the Canary
Playboy model Mayra Dias Gomes in emotional plea after worrying health scare
What Threat Detection Looks Like in a Large Organisation
Vitalik Buterin Increases ETH Selling as Price Falls Below $2K
-
Video4 days agoWhen Money Enters #motivation #mindset #selfimprovement
-
Tech3 days agoWikipedia volunteers spent years cataloging AI tells. Now there’s a plugin to avoid them.
-
Politics5 days agoSky News Presenter Criticises Lord Mandelson As Greedy And Duplicitous
-
Crypto World6 days agoU.S. government enters partial shutdown, here’s how it impacts bitcoin and ether
-
Sports6 days agoSinner battles Australian Open heat to enter last 16, injured Osaka pulls out
-
Crypto World6 days agoBitcoin Drops Below $80K, But New Buyers are Entering the Market
-
Crypto World4 days agoMarket Analysis: GBP/USD Retreats From Highs As EUR/GBP Enters Holding Pattern
-
Sports10 hours ago
New and Huge Defender Enter Vikings’ Mock Draft Orbit
-
NewsBeat6 hours agoSavannah Guthrie’s mother’s blood was found on porch of home, police confirm as search enters sixth day: Live
-
Business1 day agoQuiz enters administration for third time
-
NewsBeat4 days agoUS-brokered Russia-Ukraine talks are resuming this week
-
Sports4 days agoShannon Birchard enters Canadian curling history with sixth Scotties title
-
NewsBeat4 days agoGAME to close all standalone stores in the UK after it enters administration
-
NewsBeat1 day agoStill time to enter Bolton News’ Best Hairdresser 2026 competition
-
Crypto World3 days agoRussia’s Largest Bitcoin Miner BitRiver Enters Bankruptcy Proceedings: Report
-
Crypto World1 day agoHere’s Why Bitcoin Analysts Say BTC Market Has Entered “Full Capitulation”
-
Crypto World1 day agoWhy Bitcoin Analysts Say BTC Has Entered Full Capitulation
-
NewsBeat4 days agoImages of Mamdani with Epstein are AI-generated. Here’s how we know
-
Tech6 days agoVery first Apple check & early Apple-1 motherboard sold for $5 million combined
-
Crypto World1 day agoHeads Up! Bitcoin Enters Capitulation Mode, Trades In a ‘Phase That Rewards Discipline Over Prediction’