The Department for Education (DfE) is attempting to rehabilitate its image by working with reality TV star Gemma Collins for a series of social media posts. The move has been widely criticised by parents of SEND children and disabled campaigners.

Department for Education makes a mockery of SEND crisis

On Tuesday 20 May the Department for Education shared across their social media a video of The Only Way is Essex star Gemma Collins dramatically turning up at their offices.

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In the video the GC demands with her hands on her hips:

Right! What are we doing to help the children?!

She was then met by Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson, who just happened to be popping her head out of her office door to tell her:

Come in let’s have a chat

This has angered many campaigners who either have children struggling in the system or struggled themselves. What’s even more insulting is that the video came just a day after the SEND reform consultation closed. Throughout the SEND consultation process, campaigners have tried to have meaningful conversations with the department, to no avail.

As The Canary previously reported:

As BBC News reported:

In a highly critical report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found a SEND system “in disarray”, “mired in red tape, lacking funding, and failing to produce value for money”.

An estimated 1.7 million school-aged children have special education needs and disabilities in England.

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The Department for Education (DfE) said the government was “making progress” on the issue with a £1bn investment in Send.

Despite a 58% increase in high needs funding over the past decade, the number of children with Education, Health, and Care (EHC) plans has surged by 140%, leading to funding not keeping pace with demand. This disparity has resulted in stagnant outcomes for children, eroding parental confidence in the system.

So to see the department welcome in a C-lister who has no experience of the SEND system is a kick in the teeth to campaigners.

Campaigners angry

One commenter asked:

What expertise or experience does GC have with education or SEND or children in general???

Content creator theminimesandme said

Parents are out here fighting daily battles for support, assessments, EHCPs and suitable education for their children, while also trying to navigate school trauma, burnout and a system that too often leaves families feeling unheard. And the Department for Education’s answer is a celebrity cameo pretending she’s going to “change everything and help everyone”?

This isn’t entertainment for us. This is real life.

Oliver Lee of AskEllie.co.uk, a page that offers SEND support, hit the nail on the head by commenting:

The most worrying part about this video is that somebody, somewhere inside the Department for Education, genuinely thought this was the right tone during the biggest crises in modern education.

Parents are not asking for celebrity skits or social media optics.

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They are asking for:
school places,
mental health support,
EHCP provision,
safe environments,
and systems that stop pushing families to breaking point.

The backlash is not about Gemma Collins. It’s about a growing feeling that the people leading are no longer truly listening to the reality families are living every single day.

To add insult to injury, if the department actually was interested in bringing in a well-known person, there are many disabled influencers and parents of SEND children who have been involved in campaigning. For instance, Izzy Judd, who has a neurodivergent child.

Judd reposted the DfE’s videos, saying:

A campaign should educate, inform, empower or create real change. Right now, many parents are asking, who was this actually for? The SEN crisis is not entertainment content. It’s real life for thousands of families every single day.

GC and DfE not helping

Gemma Collins responded to comments attempting to alleviate the situation, but she didn’t really make it better. She replied:

I see all your comments I’m going to change everything and help everyone please do not worry

Oh, cool, cheers GC, all our fears are gone.

The Department for Education updated followers and this morning unveiled that Collins is helping promote vocational subjects. To do that she and Philipson made two videos talking rubbish about how they did at school.

In the first, insultingly Collins says:

You better make sure hunnies that whatever you’re learning you concentrate because you’re going to be taking it into your future career

Which is another huge insult to disabled kids and their parents who are trying their hardest to stay in school.

This latest publicity stunt by the Department for Education shows just how little the government takes disabled children and parents seriously. Ultimately they care more about their public image than meaningful support for SEND kids.

Featured image via Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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“It’s a f***ing direct result of your leadership!” “You emboldened Zionist propaganda and you’ll keep doing it as long as it lines your pockets!” Those were the words an outraged attendee flung at San Diego mayor Todd Gloria as he stood to dole out supposed sadness. Gloria was speaking after the 18 May 2026 mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego mosque.

Three victims at the mosque were murdered by two local teenagers. Both held white supremacist views. According to a ‘manifesto’ they wrote before the attack, they considered themselves “sons” of Zionist Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant murdered 51 people and wounded 89 in the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. According to local reports, one gunman then shot the other in the head before killing himself nearby in their car.

The victims were security guard Amin Abdullah, 51, murdered as he tried to protect other mosque-goers, teacher Mohamed Nader, 57, and Mansour Kaziha, 78, who was known to friends as Abu Ezz.

San Diego mayor is a vocal apartheid supporter

Gloria is a vocal supporter of Israel, and in March 2026 pushed the unfit ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism through the city’s council as a means of suppressing criticism of the genocidal state. According to the Reverse Canary Mission site, which highlights the Zionist sympathies, funding and collaboration with the Israel lobby of US political figures, Gloria:

actively shields settler-colonialism by welcoming Israeli advocacy lobbies, illuminating public buildings in solidarity with the occupation, and punishing Palestinian solidarity to sustain Israel’s apartheid and genocide across Palestine. …

… In March 2023, Gloria publicly welcomed the AJC. In October 2023, he lit up the San Diego Convention Center in blue to signal solidarity with Israel, publicly declared that San Diego “stood with Israel,” and condemned the Palestinian resistance group Hamas while framing events through a lens that obscures decades of occupation and the well-documented role of Israel’s Hannibal Directive in contributing to casualties.

In December 2024, Gloria attended the Combat Antisemitism Mayors Summit hosted in partnership with the Israeli Consulate, where he engaged in efforts that equate legitimate criticism of Israel’s actions with hate. In June 2025, he announced he would boycott San Diego Pride events in protest of headliner Kehlani’s condemnation of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, prioritizing alignment with Zionist pressures over LGBTQ+ solidarity and Palestinian human rights.

And more. It sounds like the fury of Gloria’s heckling was more than deserved:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that the shooting came against a backdrop of a record levels of Islamophobic hate driven, no doubt, by US support for Israel and Trump’s illegal war on Iran. CAIR described the attack as the:

deadly consequence of years of anti-Muslim hate, demonization and dangerous rhetoric targeting American Muslims and other marginalized communities.

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By Skwawkbox

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Adaptation to an increasingly volatile climate is vital and will save billions compared to the cost of not acting. A new report says the UK needs better cooling as well as protecting against both floods and drought.

The Climate Change Committee has published A Well-Adapted UK. This report sets out a comprehensive package of solutions to address the growing impacts of climate change affecting every aspect of life in the UK.

The country’s independent climate advisors identify better cooling, flood protection and a more secure water supply as the most critical priorities to protect the UK from the three biggest climate risks – heat, flooding and drought.

We are already seeing disruption today and without action these risks will escalate. By 2050, 92% of homes are likely to overheat, peak river flows will be up to 45% higher and water supply shortfalls could exceed five billion litres per day.

The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of acting now. The Committee’s proposals require investment of around £11bn a year, split broadly evenly between public and private funding.

Without adaptation the cost of climate change to public welfare is likely to rise to between 1-5% of UK GDP by 2050 under a 2°C global warming level, equivalent to £60bn-£260bn per year.

Crossbench peer Julia King, chair of the Adaptation Committee, said:

Our lives, our landscapes and our homes are under increasing pressure from the changing climate. But we are not powerless. In an increasingly unstable world, being well adapted to climate change is fundamental to securing our food, energy and economic security.

This report carries a message of hope. The solutions already exist, and proven technologies are available now to help the UK adapt effectively. With the right decisions and actions, we can protect the people and the places we love.

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We can protect patients and residents in overheated hospitals and care homes, children in nurseries and schools, and communities facing repeated flooding. We can support our farmers to maintain our food supplies. We can keep sports pitches usable, high streets open for business, and iconic British music festivals running safely.

The public want to see change and the government now has an opportunity to step up and protect our way of life.

The Adaptation Committee’s eight key areas for government action are:

Protect people from heat. Invest in cooling – including air conditioning, heat pumps and green shading – across key public services. Government should commit to a national maximum temperature for workplaces to protect workers’ safety and incentivise the deployment of cooling.

Manage flood risk. Long‑term investment in measures such as flood defences, effective emergency response, and natural solutions like wetlands are essential. Annual flood risk investment must rise to around £1.6–£2.2bn each year across the UK to prevent risks increasing further. Government should also manage development in flood-prone areas carefully, avoiding new construction where risks are not adequately reduced.

Avoid water shortages. Maintain a strong regulatory focus on drought, scale up sustainable water storage, accelerate leakage reduction and cut demand. All new homes should be water efficient from the outset.

Support nature to adapt. Increase public investment in nature restoration and modernise regulation to support ecosystems to survive and thrive under future climate conditions, not those of the past.

Keep farming viable. Support farmers with the skills, information and training they need to make climate resilient decisions. Actions include crop diversification and on‑farm water storage to reduce drought risk and build resilience.

Understand the risks to food security. Improve the quality, consistency and availability of information on climate risks across the food system. Government should make the Adaptation Reporting Power mandatory and extend it to large food companies, reflecting their role in food security and price stability. They should also consider the potential for large-scale national food stockpiling.

Maintain access to insurance. Ensure the right protections are in place and the costs of extreme weather are shared so insurance remains affordable and available. Urgent clarity is needed on the future of flood reinsurance, including the Flood Re scheme, ahead of its current 2039 end date.

Adapt infrastructure to avoid cascading disruption. Design and maintain transport, energy and telecommunications systems to operate safely under future climate conditions. Government and regulators must take a more structured approach to managing dependencies between infrastructure systems to avoid widespread disruption.

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By The Canary

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Banking giant Standard Chartered (StanChart) has announced plans to cut 7,800 jobs by 2030, citing its growing use of AI. Chief executive Bill Winters called the workers in the mostly back-office roles on the chopping block “lower-value human capital”.

The scheduled cuts amount to some 15% of StanChart’s 52,000 back-office roles.

‘It’s not cost cutting’

StanChart is based in London, but focuses its attentions on the Asia-Pacific and Africa (which is also, coincidentally, where the bank has faced heavy fines for attempted manipulation of the South African Rand-USD exchange rate in 2023).

The majority of roles up for redundancy are located in Bengaluru, Chennai, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw. The bank’s total global workforce amounts to almost 82,000, with the back-office jobs making up nearly two-thirds of that number.

CEO Bill Winters told reporters that:

It’s not cost cutting, it’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in. We don’t have job losses, but we do have job role reductions in favour of the machines, and that will accelerate as we go forward into AI.

Winters added that StanChart was also increasing the automation of its core banking system, and that:

Of course we’re using AI along the way and AI will be a huge facilitator and enabler of that.

The CEO also claimed that the axed workers would be offered a chance to keep their job via a retraining programme. However, there’s very little chance that everyone whose roles were replaced by AI would be able to keep their job.

AI: a threat to workers …

StanChart may be an outlier in actually acknowledging that it’s using AI to replace human roles, but it’s far from alone. Across the banking sector and society more broadly, AI is rapidly becoming a threat to employment – particularly for entry-level workers.

In 2025, investment bank Morgan Stanley published research suggesting that, by 2030, AI could endanger over 200,000 banking jobs across Europe. Even companies that aren’t actively firing workers have slowed hiring to a crawl, as the Guardian reported:

The buy now, pay later company Klarna said in December 2024 that the company had stopped hiring a year earlier, as AI was able to start doing the work of hundreds of staff across the company.

Over in the US, the number of entry-level jobs across all sectors has dropped by a massive 35% in the 18 months before March 2026. According to HR data aggregator Revelio Labs, AI is a major contributor to that fall.

However, the AI replacements for junior roles aren’t performing well in their tasks, either. The World Economic Forum recently stated that:

reports now indicate that the work assumed to be done by AI in early-career roles is simply being pushed upward – leaving middle management and senior talent overextended, burned out and increasingly disengaged as they absorb junior tasks.

… And a threat to the environment

Coupled with the threat to workers, widespread AI adoption is also a dire threat to the already deeply-imperiled climate. As the Canary previously reported, the Yale School of the Environment published research into just how much energy it takes to power AI in comparison to traditional computing. It found that:

A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. run.

That massive fresh-water consumption is down to the fact that AI data centres use cleaned – i.e., potable – water to cool their internal systems:

For example, in The Dalles, Oregon, where Google runs three data centers and plans two more, the city government filed a lawsuit in 2022 to keep Google’s water use a secret from farmers, environmentalists, and Native American tribes who were concerned about its effects on agriculture and on the region’s animals and plants.

In StanChart’s case – and Winter’s callous attitude towards “low-level human capital” – we can see AI’s threat against workers in real time. However, given the massive environmental impacts of the technology, we’re likely only beginning to see the devastating effects that the elites’ AI obsession will have on our societies.

Featured image via Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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Thomas Massie is a libertarian politician in the US Republican Party. As such, he holds all manner of reprehensible views. The one thing which sets him apart from his colleagues, though, is that he’s fought tooth and nail for the release of the Epstein Files. Or it was, anyway, because those people are no longer his colleagues:

There was much speculation that the Epstein files could break Trump's hold over the GOP.

Once again, all that was wrong. One of Trump's leading Epstein files critics, Thomas Massie, just lost his primary fight- after losing Trump's endorsement. https://t.co/AcHjlaJBWj

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 20, 2026

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Republican ousted

In the US, it’s possible to challenge an incumbent congressman for the chance to take their place as the candidate for the next race. This is known as a ‘primary’, and it’s a very normal thing that US Democrats and Republicans do. Despite this:

The institutional stupidity of the British media really hit me when significant numbers of political journalists compared mandatory reselection – which is similar to primaries in the *United States* – to Stalinism.

Boris Johnson was entirely a symptom of these people.

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— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 30, 2024

As a congressman, Massie pushed for the release of files related to the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone knows why this upset president Donald Trump; it’s because he’s in the files. And Trump barely hid the fact that he was using his position to prevent their release:

This is a bombshell revelation:

Massie reveals Trump vetoed a bill to bring water to Colorado because their Rep Lauren Boebert pushed to expose the pedophiles in the Epstein files.

Trump has fought harder to protect child rapists than he has ever fought for the American people. pic.twitter.com/JDYto0G9Vg

— Power to the People ☭ (@ProudSocialist) May 7, 2026

Massie worked closely on the Epstein Transparency Act with Democrat Ro Khanna who said the following after Massie lost the primary challenge:

My good friend @RepThomasMassie lost tonight.

He lost because he had the guts to stand up to the Epstein class and against the war.

He won voters under 45 by 30 points.

Tonight, I say to this voters who feel rejected by Trump. We welcome you. Join our coalition to take on a… pic.twitter.com/tAGJjtct5b

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— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 20, 2026

Massie doesn’t plan to give up on that fight either, with several months left before he has to step down:

Massie: Today is the six-month anniversary of the Epstein Transparency Act. We’ve taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador, a prince, a prime minister, a minister of culture—that was just six months. I’ve got seven months left in Congress. pic.twitter.com/sm1nAOBVO6

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2026

Trump, meanwhile, has responded exactly as you’d expect:

Trump on Thomas Massie a "terrible congressman" and a "dumocrat." pic.twitter.com/sFIwjXHB0w

— Donald J Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) May 19, 2026

AIPAC

As Al Jazeera reported, Massie:

said the election will be a “referendum on foreign policy” and whether pro-Israel lobby groups will be able to “bully” members of Congress.

“You can tell that I’m ahead in the polls, and they’re desperate,” Massie told ABC News on Sunday.

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“That’s why they’re sending the secretary of war to my district tomorrow. That’s why the president’s losing sleep and tweeting about this. That’s why AIPAC has dumped another $3m into my race this weekend.”

Pro-Israel groups actually made this race a record breaker:

Rep. Thomas Massie has been unseated by AIPAC’s Ed Gallrein in what is now the most expensive House primary in U.S. history. #KY04 https://t.co/CI2C8xuVql pic.twitter.com/M0HxFlJhz5

— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) May 19, 2026

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Massie has been an outspoken critic of Israel, and this is what happens to American politicians who oppose the rogue state. And when we say ‘this is what happens’, we mean it literally keeps happening, as Jacobin reported:

The record for most expensive House race in US history has once again been broken.

And the spending was once again fueled by the pro-Israel lobby.

1. Thomas Massie vs Gallrein, $34m
2. Jamaal Bowman vs Latimer, $25m
3. Cori Bush vs Bell, $14m

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That’s the work of a “grassroots” organization, as AIPAC calls itself.

If Russian backers spent $34m funding a US political race, the political and media establishment would recognise this as being somewhat disruptive to a functioning democracy. The same would be true of pretty much any other country except Israel.

The reason it isn’t called out is because Israel has historically served as America’s foothold in the Middle East. And the reason it’s so blatant is that Israel has sought to secure its position with influence operations like the one which took down Massie.

This is how Massie responded to the loss:

Massie: I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent to concede and it took a while to find him in Tel Aviv pic.twitter.com/DmTkDfS17a

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2026

Massie also said:

Why am I hopeful right now? Because if you looked at the cross tab in the polling, and I’m sure if we had exit polling, it would show the same thing. We have the younger demographic.

You are patriots, and you will inherit this country, and you will make it better, and I am hopeful because of that. Thank you. We accidentally, I think, I accidentally, I didn’t mean to do this. It started out as an election, and it turned into a movement.

Normalise normality

While Massie has very different politics to us, we do agree that opposing things like paedophilia, foreign interference, and pointless wars should be bipartisan. It’s telling that Trump and his cultists don’t agree.

Featured image via Getty Images (Jon Cherry) / Getty Images (Kevin Dietsch)

By Willem Moore

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New Home Office figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request show that over the last two years alone, the number of LGBTQI+ people in detention has almost doubled.

Figures revealed by Rainbow Migration show that between 494 and 506 LGBTQI+ people were held in immigration detention in 2025 – an increase of 70% from 2024, and a rise of 288% since 2022.

Numbers are likely to be significantly higher, as the data depends on voluntary disclosures of being LGBTQI+ to immigration centre staff, which many LGBTQI+ people feel too afraid to make.

Detention particularly harmful for LGBTQI+ people

Detention is harmful for everyone, but LGBTQI+ people are particularly at risk of harm when locked up in overcrowded conditions, often alongside others from the countries they’ve fled.

Inside detention, LGBTQI+ people are bullied and discriminated against, and that can have long-term effects on their mental health. Many will go back into the closet to stay safe, but this is not always possible for everyone.

An LGBTQI+ person was recently hospitalised following a violent homophobic attack while in detention. Ayesha Aziz, legal service manager at Rainbow Migration, said:

LGBTQI+ people in detention are in real danger. I recently visited a man in detention who had been assaulted. Staff did not step in to prevent the homophobic attack or protect him, nor did they contact the police about the incident; he ultimately contacted the police himself. He was extremely afraid of violence.

The detention record showed that the man had disclosed mental health conditions, including a history of self-harm. Despite that, he was locked up in prison-like conditions. Following the attack, instead of receiving mental health support, he was held in isolation, and still had to walk past the people who had assaulted him when attending appointments.

The rise in detention numbers is particularly concerning after this government recently refused to include lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the ‘Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention’ (AAR) policy, which identifies groups that are at risk of harm in detention and makes it less likely they will be detained.

The Home Office held a closed consultation on the AAR policy, to which multiple LGBTQI+ and migrant justice organisations contributed evidence highlighting the harms detention causes for LGBTQI+ people.

In publishing its response to the consultation the Home Office did not respond to those concerns, nor give any reasons for why changes would not be made.

Last year, upon his appointment to the Home Office, 33 MPs also wrote to minister Alex Norris asking that his department’s review recognise the greater risk of harm immigration detention poses for all LGBTQI+ people.

Minesh Parekh, policy and public affairs manager at Rainbow Migration, said:

At a time when more LGBTQI+ people are being detained, the government’s review of the AAR policy was an opportunity to extend the same level of protection to LGB people as is already given to trans and intersex people under the policy, and protect people from unnecessary harm.

Sadly, ministers have ignored clear evidence of harm, refused to act to protect LGB people in detention, and are leaving people without the protections they urgently need.

Featured image via Getty Images

By The Canary

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The future of Donald Trump’s colonial Board of ‘Peace’ project looks uncertain after many of the countries that had promised to invest failed to do so.

On May 15, the Board of Peace claimed that the main obstacle to Trump’s plan for Gaza was Hamas’ refusal to disarm and give up control of the strip.

However, several people close to the Board have claimed that funding shortfalls may jeopardise the project.

The United Nations (UN) has estimated that the total cost of rebuilding Gaza will exceed $70bn over several decades.

Trump out of touch

In total, nine countries pledged $7bn to a ‘Gaza Relief’ package at the inaugural meeting. However, only the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco have actually sent funds.

Several countries which initially pledged money are now reluctant to pay due to months of “stalled diplomacy” and no progress on the ground.

One source told the Guardian that:

The Iran war has provided cover for delays to payments.

In total, Trump’s group has only received $23m, alongside a $100m payment to fund a future Palestinian police force. The project has received only 1.75% of the money it was promised. Trump looks a little foolish now.

Another source told the Guardian:

Nobody with money and resources wants to work with the Board of Peace.

Lump on the conflict with Iran, and the people with deep pockets now have an excuse not to pay.

Hilariously, even the billions in US funding that Trump himself pledged have not been paid.

The Guardian reported that:

When the ceasefire deal for Gaza was agreed in October last year, critics and US allies warned it was dangerously vague on the fraught details of reconstruction, governance and security for Gaza. It called for an international force to secure Gaza, paving the way for reconstruction, an aid surge, the demilitarisation of Hamas and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

More than half a year on there is no international force or any actionable plans to create one. Israeli forces still control well over half of Gaza. They limit critical shipments of food and other aid.

Disarming Hamas

One of the sticking points to Trump’s faux ‘peace’ plan is the disarmament of Hamas, which, of course, it does not accept.

Hamas and Israel agreed on a ‘ceasefire’ in October 2025, but Israel has never adhered to it. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) agreed to withdraw behind a designated ‘yellow line’. However, since then, it has pushed the line back several kilometres. A ‘ceasefire’ also means not shooting or bombing people – Israel obviously could not stick to that, either.

Hamas, rightfully, insists on a total cessation of aggression and the lifting of Israel’s blockade.

Of course, this is incredibly two-faced. Israel does not allow Palestinians, Iranians, or Lebanese people to defend themselves. And, if they dare do so, the West labels them as terrorists. Meanwhile, Israel can continue invading, occupying, and murdering without punishment.

Hamas was formed after Israel illegally occupied Palestine. It was founded in Gaza in 1987, shortly after the first Intifada started.

Its goal is to:

liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.

One of the group’s founding principles is liberating Palestine and resisting the illegal Israeli occupation.

According to the United Nations, armed resistance is not illegal. In fact, every person living in occupied territories has that right.

Meanwhile. Israel is actively arming illegal Jewish settlers, and the IOF is still murdering civilians.

A colonial project

The Board of Peace demonstrates how ingrained colonialism is in the minds of white people.

To start with, many of the Board’s members are from nations that are complicit in Israel’s genocides in both Gaza and Lebanon.

The Board has not given Palestinians a voice or a vote, meaning the whole thing could not be more imperialist in nature.

Why would any real peace plan let Netanyahu – a genocidal maniac – have any say in the future of a country that he himself has destroyed?

One board member, Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, claimed that Gaza’s coastline alone could be worth $50bn. This tells us that this whole colonial project is nothing more than a wet dream of capitalist vultures. Rich men get richer while Palestinians suffer.

There is no doubt that Trump, Netanyahu, and their Zionist pals will use the Board of ‘Peace’ to continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, whilst importing even more Zionist settlers onto stolen land.

Featured image via Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

By The Canary

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Morrisons has announced the nationwide installation of male sanitary bins in customer toilets across all its stores. It becomes the first supermarket to meet ‘The Bog Standard’ guidelines. And this follows the chain’s installation of stoma-friendly facilities earlier in 2026.

A hallmark of good practice, ‘The Bog Standard’ is a set of guidelines designed by phs Group and Prostate Cancer UK. They aim to educate organisations on providing essential support for men with incontinence, including many who have undergone life-saving prostate cancer treatment.

Sanitary bins for men make shopping more accessible

Morrisons embarked on the rollout following customer feedback, alongside its broader commitment to continuously improving accessibility and inclusive facilities for all customers.

It follows the retailer’s recent introduction of stoma-friendly toilets across all its supermarkets in March 2026, and new NHS messaging on its own-brand bath and shower products to help more people spot possible cancer symptoms earlier – both supermarket firsts.

In 2025, Morrisons also introduced Sensory Support Boxes in all stores to improve the shopping experience for autistic people, carefully developed in consultation with the National Autistic Society.

One in eight men will get prostate cancer, and your risk doubles to one in four if you’re Black, but it can be curable if found early. As many as 60% of Men who have a radical prostatectomy [surgical removal of the whole prostate and the prostate cancer cells inside it] may experience urinary incontinence. But suitable disposal facilities in public male toilets remain limited.

This lack of sanitary bins for men is causing men to miss out on life’s everyday activities, and phs Group research shows more than a third of men (34%) said that they no longer do their grocery shopping as a result.

By introducing specially designed sanitary bins in all supermarkets, Morrisons now meets ‘The Bog Standard’ guidelines. The initiative builds on the broader ‘Dispose with Dignity’ campaign, also by phs Group in partnership with Prostate Cancer UK. This aims to improve access to sanitary disposal facilities for men living with incontinence.

David Scott, corporate affairs director at Morrisons, said:

We are proud to be the first supermarket to meet The Bog Standard guidelines in every one of our stores. By listening to our customers and working closely with both organisations, we recognise the challenges many men face when living with incontinence.

Providing appropriate facilities across all Morrisons stores is an important step in helping customers feel more confident and supported when out and about, while also improving access to suitable facilities nationwide.

Nick Ridgman, head of support services at Prostate Cancer UK, said:

Many men need sanitary bins so they can dispose of their used pads discreetly and hygienically – but often these bins are nowhere to be found in men’s loos. It’s causing men stress and shame and keeping them from going out, heading to work or even doing the things they love.

Morrisons is making its stores more welcoming and accessible for every employee/customer and hope other companies will follow. We wholeheartedly support the Dispose with Dignity initiative and hope to see the UK government supporting our call to change HSE guidance.

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This is the only way we can ensure men will have access to a male sanitary bin if they’re using toilets in public spaces.

Matthew Brabin, CEO of phs Group, said:

We developed our male incontinence bins at the request of men who have experienced prostate cancer, and we are proud to be the only organisation to develop sanitary bins for men, in consultation with Prostate Cancer UK supporters.

We thank Morrisons for leading the way in its sector by installing bins in every supermarket across the UK, and we hope other household names will follow to support men living with incontinence.

It is unfair that men miss out on everyday activities because a simple sanitary bin is not available in a toilet cubicle. That is what we set out to change, and that is what Morrisons is changing today.

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By The Canary

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As everyone knows, Andy Burnham is angling to replace Keir Starmer as PM. And if recent polling proves accurate, it seems like a third of the public support him:

Westminster Voting Intention [Burnham as Leader]:

LAB: 30% (+8)
RFM: 27% (-2)
CON: 20% (+1)
LDM: 11% (-2)
GRN: 7% (-4)
SNP: 3% (=)

Via @Moreincommon_, 15-19 May.
Changes w/ Standard VI.

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— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) May 20, 2026

The question is whether Burnham will actually change much in office.

The Burnham bounce

The first thing we should note is that the poll is from More in Common. This pollster has had both Labour and Reform performing better than some others:

The following is from YouGov:

The Tories, Greens, and Labour are so close that you can’t even see their numbers above (Labour is on 17%, the Greens are on 15%, and the Tories are on 18%).

Politico’s poll of polls, meanwhile, collates all the polls into one, showing:

In other words, Labour wouldn’t be leading Reform in every poll, even if every pollster recorded the same eight point boost. Still, that boost is nothing to sneeze at, and it demonstrates that the key issue Labour has right now is Keir Starmer (at least as far as the public is concerned).

What it doesn’t demonstrate, however, is that Labour would be back to full strength under Andy Burnham.

How the mighty have fallen

Lest we forget, if Burnham wins 30% of the vote, that would be two percentage points fewer than Jeremy Corbyn achieved in 2019 (and ten points fewer than he achieved in 2017). Don’t get us wrong – Labour’s loss in 2019 was disastrous, but it only produced such a gargantuan majority for the Tories because of our unfair electoral system (what’s known as ‘First Past the Post’ (FPTP)).

As the Electoral Reform Society have highlighted:

Burnham has spoken about replacing FPTP with proportional representation – a system in which the number of MPs more closely resembles how people voted. Unfortunately, he also said such a change should only be made after a general election. In other words, should he become PM, he wouldn’t implement it.

BREAKING | Andy Burnham confirms he will NOT scrap first-past-the-post before #GE2029

Burnham said electoral reform must be "in a manifesto", and revealed he does NOT back proportional representation, instead praising the non-proportional Supplementary Vote (SV)

Via @itvnews pic.twitter.com/wO40XxnR4K

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) May 17, 2026

The question is this: what would Burnham change in office?

Several outlets have reported that Burnham would ‘renationalise’ key industries, but he actually said he’d put them under “stronger public control” (he also hasn’t confirmed he’d do this before the next general election). He’s additionally refused to comment on wealth taxes.

If Burnham replaces Starmer and changes nothing besides the vibes, the poll bounce won’t last. And as much as we’d love to be one month away from a prime minister who renationalises the shit out of everything, we’re not seeing much sign of that happening.

Make him speak

As stated, Burnham is running to become PM. Everyone knows this. So the media needs to be asking him what he has planned, and Burnham needs to answer.

Andy Burnham – you have been warned – there is every reason to think Labour’s polling could drop to the single digits if you carry on failing to deliver.

Featured image via Getty Images (Lewis Storey) / Getty Images (Dan Kitwood)

By Willem Moore

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