Politics
Students and staff hit out at uni arms trade partnerships
Over 1,500 UK students, academics, researchers and university staff have signed an open letter demanding UK universities cut ties to the arms trade. The letter claims the links are fuelling “global instability, injustice, and environmental harm”.
Demilitarise Education (dED), puts the value of arms-linked partnerships at approximately £2.5bn. This figure represents the combined value of partnerships held by universities in arms companies, including investments, research and academic partnerships, over the past eight years.
This data is held on the Universities and Arms Database, which dED developed and hosts.
Demilitarise Education’s arms trade campaign
dED is running a national campaign highlighting the deep and ongoing ties between UK universities and the arms trade.
The campaign has already garnered widespread support. 1,595 academics, researchers, university staff, and students have signed an open letter. It calls for an end to institutional partnerships with arms manufacturers and military-linked organisations.
Through rigorous research, advocacy and collective action, the organisation calls for transparency, ethical funding and an education system with policies committed to peace, social justice and the public good.
Dr Iain Overton, executive director at Action on Armed Violence, said:
UK universities cannot credibly claim to be solely serving the public good while taking billions from the arms trade. These are not neutral partnerships. Defence money shapes research priorities, it legitimises militarisation, and it binds centres of learning into often hidden and distant systems of violence that produce very real civilian harm.
But what this open letter shows is that such institutional consent is not uncontested. Staff and students are no longer willing to accept such complicity as the price of funding. They refuse to allow those who have profited from well-recorded civilian deaths in places like Gaza and Yemen to end up funding our Universities.
Participants not bystanders
The £2,556,647,429 figure exposes higher education institutions as active participants in military supply chains, rather than neutral bystanders. Signatories argue that these relationships implicate universities directly in systems that sustain war, militarisation and global violence. And often there’s no transparency, democratic oversight or meaningful consent from university communities.
This intervention comes amid intensifying global conflicts from the devastating genocide in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to the ongoing civil war in Sudan and rising geopolitical tensions elsewhere.
These conflicts have caused widespread civilian suffering, resulting in numerous crises across the stated locations, with millions displaced, health systems collapsing and education infrastructure destroyed.
dED argues that university arms trade partnerships form part of the same global architecture that enables and sustains such violence.
BAE Systems
One of the most involved arms companies in UK universities is BAE Systems. At the University of Manchester, BAE is partnering on research to accelerate combat air systems, including research projects aimed at improving fighter jets.
BAE Systems’ weapons and technology have been linked to serious violations of international law. In 2019, the company was accused of “aiding and abetting” war crimes in Yemen.
Components manufactured by BAE for F-35 fighter jets have seen use in Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza, resulting in thousands of deaths, including hundreds of children.
By supplying regimes engaged in indiscriminate violence, BAE has contributed directly to war crimes, mass civilian casualties, and extensive environmental destruction. Despite reporting on production emissions and business travel, BAE does not account for the catastrophic environmental damage caused by its weapons, including toxic pollution, infrastructure collapse, and long-term ecological harm.
The dED Universities and Arms Database tracks UK university links to arms companies listed in the SIPRI and Defense News top 100. So far, 90 UK universities have been identified as having direct ties. The database allows users to explore how individual universities contribute to arms company activities.
The open letter marks a clear break with institutional consent, as staff and students publicly challenge the normalisation of defence-funded research, arms-linked partnerships and military recruitment pipelines within higher education.
Arms trade ‘incompatible’ with uni aims
Campaigners argue that universities’ stated commitments to the public good, social responsibility and global justice are fundamentally incompatible with their material involvement in the arms trade. As militarism expands internationally, staff and students increasingly identify universities as a key node within the military-industrial complex.
The letter contends that research collaborations, weapons-linked funding streams and defence-aligned innovation programmes play a material role in enabling arms production and export, including into active conflict zones. They also embed militaristic logics within institutions historically understood as spaces of independent thought and public good.
Aleks Palanac from the University of Leicester says:
UK universities cannot legitimately claim to be places of sanctuary for refugee students whilst continuing to actively contribute to the causes of their forced migration in the first place through their involvement in the global arms trade.
Stop the recruitment drive
The campaign also responds to mounting pressure on universities to function as recruitment and talent pipelines for the defence sector. The UK government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review outlines plans to align higher education with military and defence industries more closely. This includes the creation of a Defence Universities Alliance and targeted investment in STEM disciplines to support military technologies and defence roles.
dED criticises the government’s proposed “whole of society” approach to defence. This includes increased exposure to military careers among school-aged children and initiatives such as paid armed forces “gap years” for under-25s. The organisation says this risks normalising military service as a default life trajectory for young people. And particularly so in the context of widening inequality and shrinking civilian opportunities.
Jinsella Kennaway, the co-founder and executive director of dED, says:
Over 1,500 members of the UK knowledge community have put their names to this open letter. This is no fringe view – it is a clear mandate from within our universities. This is a stand against the use of education to fund, legitimise and supply the war machine.
Universities must honour their duty to serve the public good by choosing partnerships that build the conditions for peace, not profit from conflict. No ethical integrity can be claimed while arms industry partnerships amplify the lethality of war and stakeholder calls for change are met with silence.
The letter calls on universities to realign their policies and practices with the dED Treaty framework. It demands full transparency over defence-linked funding, research and partnerships, alongside formal commitments to exclude arms companies from university collaborations.
It further calls for an end to recruitment ties with the armed forces and arms manufacturers. And it looks for a renewed commitment to research and teaching that prioritises peace-building over warfare.
Campaigners argue that universities must remain spaces of critical inquiry and humanistic values, not extensions of the military-industrial complex.
Featured image via the Canary
In addition to accusing his mother and father of “controlling” and “performative” behaviour his whole life, Brooklyn also spoke about an alleged incident that took place at his wedding to Nicola Peltz Beckham in 2022.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter as part of an interview published on Monday, the four-time Grammy winner insisted he had “nothing to say about what’s happening” within the Beckham family.
“They’re a wonderful, wonderful family,” he continued. “I’ve known them since before the kids were born. I’m godfather to Cruz. I’m really close to the family.”
He added: “I have nothing to say about what happened there. It’s extremely unfortunate how it’s playing out – but [how it’s playing out] is hardly the truth.”
“Fat Tony” previously claimed that Nicola had left the room “crying her eyes out” after Victoria was introduced as the “most beautiful woman in the room”, while Brooklyn himself said that the ensuing dance left him “more uncomfortable or humiliated” than he’d ever felt in his “entire life”.
Neither Sir David nor Victoria Beckham has spoken out about Brooklyn’s Instagram posts about them, and did respond to HuffPost UK’s requests for comment last month.
An ‘emotional’ performance: Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly as Mairead Kenny | Image by: Johan Persson
3 min read
This brave and compelling musical is an evening well spent for any political nerds in search of a little optimism
The battle of Cable Street in 1936 is one of those rare moments in our history that we celebrate. A moment when good defeated evil, a moment when communities came together to reject right-wing extremism, a moment when the Jews joined with Irish dockers, members of the then flourishing Communist Party, trade unionists, socialists and regular concerned folk, to take a joint stand against Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and their tyrannical hatred of Jews. They halted the fascists’ march through the Jewish East End and ensured that, “They shall not pass.”
What happened then resonates so strongly with what is happening now. The scapegoating of Jews during the Great Depression then and the scapegoating of migrants today; the rise of the extreme right then and the rise of the populist right today; the political upheaval then and the volatile politics of today. So this new musical chronicling the Battle of Cable Street is both timely and appropriate. The work of Alex Kanefsky who wrote both the original book and the play, and the composer and lyricist Tim Gilvin brings us an ambitious, brave and compelling show that is creatively complex and excellent – an evening well spent for any political nerd wanting an optimistic night out.
Barney Wilkinson (Ron) gives a convincing performance of how desperation and failure can drive you into extremist arms
The play revolves around three young individuals and their families: a Jewish ex-boxer, Sammy, who changes his name to find a job; an Irish woman, Mairead, who dreams of becoming a poet and works in a Jewish bakery; and a young lad from the North, Ron, who lives with his alcoholic mother and can’t find a job.
There is a fantastic range of catchy music, from rap to songs that reflect Jewish and Irish cultures, to others based on pop music and mirroring Stephen Sondheim and Hamilton; and plenty of strong protest songs, including My Street and No Pasaran!
The energy and passion of the actors is fabulous, with quick changes of costume as they change their roles. Lizzy-Rose Esin Kelly as the Irish Mairead gives a really strong and emotional performance, blasting out some memorable songs, while Isaac Gryn (Sammy) as a rapper shows a masterly display of breath control and clear delivery, and Barney Wilkinson (Ron) gives a convincing performance of how desperation and failure can drive you into extremist arms. They play alongside a talented cast. It will be hard to forget Jez Unwin on stage as the concerned Jewish dad one minute and then immediately emerging as the thuggish local Blackshirts leader.
It is great that the musical is moving to Brits Off-Broadway in America. Perhaps small changes can be made. Cable Street tries to encompass too much with too many characters so that it ends up being two-dimensional with little room for nuance in the stories or the characters. Did we really need the puppetry of the horse; did we have to be distracted by the windows opening just once; and did the scenes with the papers reporting on the happenings really add value?
But that apart, the energy, vibrancy, passion, music and story make this an important new musical show that is gripping, thought provoking, enjoyable and optimistic. A show for our times.
Baroness Hodge of Barking is a Labour peer
Cable Street
Directed by: Adam Lenson
Music and lyrics by: Tim Gilvin
Venue: Marylebone Theatre, London NW1, until 28 February
Britain’s favourite polling guru has predicted that the “crunch point” will come in Summer when MPs move against Starmer. Curtains closing…
Water companies preying on benefits through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) deductions regime are compounding poverty amongst their most vulnerable customers.
Amid soaring bills, rampant pollution, and rank profiteering, privatised water firms are getting away with this at welfare claimants’ expense.
And notably, it’s all within the context of layers of DWP-facilitated debt deductions that are leaving claimants unable to afford the bare necessities.
DWP and water companies entrenching destitution
The DWP enables private companies to chase people who owe them money via the welfare system. In August 2025 for instance, the department facilitated £24m in ‘third party’ deductions. These so-called third parties include landlords, energy companies, and local authorities (for council tax).
Water and sewerage companies can also do this. When an individual is in arrears to their water supplier, the company can apply to the DWP to deduct directly from their welfare payments. And as it stands, despite their appalling performance and rampant pollution, there are no restrictions on this.
Research has shown that the majority of Universal Credit claimants experiencing debt are in arrears with multiple parties. Notably, a report the previous Conservative government suppressed revealed in 2024 that nine in ten claimants with debt have more than one source of it. On average, they have four sources of debt. As many as half owe money to five or more different sources.
This is significant — because water bills are low on the pecking order for deductions. Notably, the DWP operates third party deductions on a priority list. It’s based on what the department determines poses a greater risk to claimants when they’re unable to pay. It puts water bills sixth, behind payments like rent arrears and gas and electricity bills.
Compounding layers of debt
As the Canary previously revealed, across an 18-month period, water companies have preyed on £32.4m in claimants’ Universal Credit. For the most recent twelve months (between September 2024 to August 2025), they’d nabbed £21.7m.
In that same 12-month period, the DWP and government were also making deductions to around three-quarters of households with third party deductions.
DWP data doesn’t provide an indication of how many households have multiple third party deductions. However, it’s safe to say that water company deductions would rarely come in isolation.
In other words, water firms are stripping vital social security from people who are likely among those with multiple oppressive debts.
Pilfering profits from the welfare system
The same suppressed DWP report also identified that more than two-thirds of Universal Credit claimants with debt had gone without food and essential items. Some claimants felt “so helpless” that they had considered suicide.
And water poverty statistics from Citizens Advice in September 2025 chimed with this. It found that companies had forced 42% of households to forego groceries and reduce their energy usage within the last year. Skyrocketing water costs caused more than a third to ration water during this time.
Of course, water firms continuing to ratchet up customer bills is driving all this. The report identified that more than a fifth got into debt with their supplier. Obviously, for welfare claimants, this is when the DWP’s relentless debt chasing mechanism can kick into gear.
So in applying Universal Credit deductions, water companies will only be making all this worse. However, it’s a cycle greedy utility firms are only too happy to maintain. Because at the end of the day, pilfering profits out of a public good is the privatised water industry in a nutshell.
Featured image via author
Margot Robbie is opening up about an infuriating present she was given by a male co-star when she was first starting out as an actor.
The Wuthering Heights actor recently sat down with Complex for a video interview alongside Charli XCX, who has recorded the film’s accompanying soundtrack album.
During the conversation, both stars were asked to name the worst present they’d ever received, to which: “Very, very early in my career, a male actor I worked with gave me a book called Why French Women Don’t Get Fat.
“It was essentially a book telling you to eat less, and I was like, ‘woah, fuck you, dude’.”
As a stunned Charli questioned if the unnamed male actor in question is still performing, Margot responded: “No, that was a very [long time ago]. I have no idea where he would even be now. This was really back in the day.”
“Your career’s over, babe!” the Grammy-winning singer quipped, to which Margot added: “He essentially gave me a book to let me know that I should lose weight. And I was like, ‘wow’.”
Watch Margot Robbie and Charli XCX’s full video interview with Complex for yourself here:
The movie is the third feature-length release from British filmmaker Emerald Fennell, who previously directed Saltburn and the Oscar-winning Promising Young Woman.
On Emerald’s first two films, Margot served as an executive producer, and they also briefly shared the screen in 2023’s Barbie, while Jacob – who is currently in the running for his first Oscar – previously played one of the lead roles in Saltburn.
Wuthering Heights hits UK cinemas on Friday 13 February.
The post How Labour became the fun police appeared first on spiked.
Speaking about the accolade during a recent appearance on TalkSport, Noel quipped: “I haven’t written a song for two years. I’m not sure how I’ve got away with that one but I’ll take it.”
Defending his new award, Noel pointed out that the 2025 Oasis tour led to a resurgence in streams for the band’s old material.
“I think the Brits is all based on record sales, and I’m not sure there was another single songwriter that sold [as much as me in 2025],” Noel continued. “I mean, we sold a million records last year. Didn’t even get off the couch and I’m not sure there’s a songwriter that can match that.”
He added: “You know, if anybody’s got a problem with it, meet me there. We’ll have it out on the red carpet.
“If any of those wet wipes songwriting teams – all 11 of them, want to write a song between the lot of them – want to have it out on the red carpet, I’m there.”
The 2026 Brit Awards are being held in Noel’s hometown of Manchester for the first time, with the ceremony taking place at the Co-Op Live Arena on Saturday 28 February.
However, a community note was added to his post pointing out: “Robert Jenrick was the housing secretary for more than two years in the previous Conservative government.”
Jenrick was in the role from July, 2019, until September, 2021, when he was axed by then prime minister Boris Johnson in a cabinet reshuffle.
Social media users were also quick to pick up on Jenrick’s attempt to whitewash the part he played in the nationwide shortage of houses.
On Sunday night, Gaga was a surprise guest during Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show, delivering a Salsa-fied remix of her hit single Die With A Smile in the middle of his set.
The following morning, the Grammy winner told her Instagram followers that it had been her “honour to be a part of Benito’s halftime show”.
She enthused: “Thank you Benito for inviting me and thank you to the entire cast for welcoming me onto your stage. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“I am so humbled to be a part of this moment,” the Abracadabra star added. “It’s all the more special because it was with you and your beautiful heart and music.”
She later said: “I’m just so happy for him. What he means to people is so incredibly important. He’s a brilliant musician and human being. He’s so incredibly kind and I thought what he said was so incredibly important and inspiring.”
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Of all the holidays, there’s possibly the most pressure involved when it comes to getting your Valentine’s Day gifts just right.
Sure, Christmas is a big holiday, and birthdays are a huge deal too, but Valentine’s is all about being romantic, and about instinctively knowing what your partner enjoys as the most heartfelt, sexy, and/or fun gift – even if they haven’t thought of it themselves.
And getting it wrong? That’s not an option.
This year, instead of playing that dreaded guessing game, why not pick something you know you’ll both enjoy and can share together?
Here’s a list of inspiration for what to shop…
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