“You know the easiest way to burn the most calories, right, girls?”
My best friend’s mom, whom we called Mary Therese, leaned against the doorframe and didn’t wait for an answer.
My 9-year-old eyes shot up from the Monopoly game board.
“You can burn up to 1500,” she continued.
“Really?” I inquired, the whole idea going mostly over my head, but nevertheless, I was intrigued.
“You should tell your mother,” Mary Therese nudged.
My mother did what other mothers did ― went to Weight Watchers. And she didn’t talk about sex.
Regina grabbed my hand, her eyes wide with horror.
“Let’s … go swimming.”
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
Mary Therese was born in 1940 and died in 2022. I just found her funeral card tucked in the back of my underwear drawer.
If Regina was embarrassed about her mom, she didn’t need to be. I thought Mary Therese walked on water, even though she sometimes didn’t get out of bed during the day, and one time she went to the hospital because she’d gotten too sad.
That afternoon at the Monopoly board was in 1978. There was an awesome rhythm to our lives then. It was the middle of a summer filled with Marco Polo, bike rides to Circle K, playing Spit, and trying out the newest gadget on the block ― the microwave. Regina and I took turns spending the night at each other’s houses, oblivious to the idea that accidents could happen and that days that were entirely predictable could, in an afternoon, explode into shards.
One Saturday, Regina’s dad left to give a flying lesson in his small plane, and he didn’t come back. They crashed into North Mountain, just down the street from our neighborhood.
How could that be? I wondered. We were just playing. We were just feeding peanut butter to Regina’s dog, Rags.
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
Mary Therese — suddenly a widow at 38 and a little shaky as it was — was left to raise four children under 14 on her own. She decided to move the family to Ohio, and I was devastated as I watched Regina’s bed and dresser and bathing suits and board games being loaded into a moving van.
My childhood was over in an instant. For a year, Regina and I wrote a million letters back and forth.
Then we didn’t. Years passed.
Two decades later, I was living in Uzbekistan, teaching English and fixing my heart, which had been broken by a divorce. My two-year stint there was almost over and my future was cloudier than when I’d arrived. I had nothing to go home to. I’d burned bridges.
One night after dinner, I saw a bright green line flash across my computer screen.
Ker! It’s me, Regina! Where are you? I moved back to Phoenix. Mary Therese is here too. I’m married and I have a baby. I need a friend!
Memories blew in like a monsoon. I saw two little girls rollerskating in matching red, white and blue swimsuits in the Mormon church parking lot. I saw them humming songs underwater, attempting “Name That Tune” until they ran out of breath and had to race to the pool’s surface. I saw them playing softball under bright lights ― me as the catcher and Reg on second, hoping to get somebody out on the steal. I don’t think we ever did.
The heart of 9-year-old me tugged in my chest.
Regina was looking for me.
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
I started to count the days until we’d be reunited.
Three months later, I was sweating on the doorstep of the address Regina had sent me.
Do I ring the bell? Will I recognize her? How old is Mary Therese?
A dog barked. Then another dog. I heard a small child. Fumbling. Female voices. Bee Gees on the TV.
Regina swung open the door.
“Ker!” she exclaimed with a plump little toddler balanced neatly on her hip.
We giggled, looking around, when in sailed Mary Therese, white haired and lovely looking.
“Little Keri Dresser. Now let me get a look at you,” she said.
Wine glasses appeared, and within two minutes, 20 years vanished as we plotted out the next 20 ― which Regina and Mary Therese determined would include a great man for me.
“Time to start burning calories,” Regina winked. We all laughed.
I blushed under their attentive eyes.
Regina insisted on helping me with reentry into American culture. She patiently drove us around and listened to my complaints about there being too many SUVs and too much to choose from on the store shelves. We celebrated her new pregnancy.
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
When my savings ran out, I found a job teaching at a small charter school in the desert. I fell in love with the first and second graders. After just two years there, they made me the principal. I was totally overwhelmed.
I discussed it over wine with Mary Therese and Regina one evening.
“It sounds like you need a good secretary,” Mary Therese said, smiling mischievously. “I’ll do it.”
“Really?” I gulped. Was she up to it? Little charter schools come with their own breed of large problems. Still, I loved Mary Therese, and the thought of her working alongside me was exciting.
When her mom left, Regina sat across from me, face ashen.
“Are you sure about this, Ker?”
I bit my thumbnail. “To be honest, I could use the support.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I wonder if it’s meant to be.”
Ever practical, Regina rolled her eyes.
A month before school started, Mary Therese showed up sporting beautifully done hair and gorgeous pink lipstick. She arrived early, stayed late, whipped the upside-down filing system into shape and color-coded our crumbling trailer. Mary Therese also tackled forms, answered phone calls, learned state mandates, and comforted worried parents. And that was just the first day.
I didn’t realize I’d been handed a pro.
She made me feel like I might just be able to do this job.
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
I called Regina because I couldn’t hold it in. Before I could say a word, she blurted out, “Oh, God, did she not show up?”
“Shit. Was she dressed?”
“Looked like a million.”
“She’s amazing!” I told Regina. “She’s having so much fun. Meeting all the families — and then the president of the board walked in — you know, Carolyn —”
“Carolyn deDragonlady?”
There was silence on the other end.
“Your mother’s a miracle, Reg.”
What does someone say when the person who broke once — who crumbled to dust when you were 9 years old and has spent a lifetime trying to pick up the pieces for you — becomes the strongest one in the room at age 70?
“Phew,” is what Regina said, and then went on to proudly tell me about her mom’s employment at University of Ohio’s medical clinic, one of the leading research and practice institutions during the ’80s. Once Mary Therese had gotten her bearings after Hank’s death, she’d simultaneously served as the clinic’s office manager, director’s secretary, human relations go-to, and staff social worker.
I hung up the phone and lifted my eyes to the water stains and blinking lights in the cracked ceiling above me. All I saw was grace. Mary Therese had given me this huge gift and asked for nothing in return.
Courtesy of Kerith Mickelson
The rest of the year unfolded in amazing ways. Enrollment grew. The kids were loved by the best school secretary/nurse in the world.
A couple of years later, Mary Therese and I both left school administration. She went traveling. I got married to a man she and Regina manifested.
I don’t pretend to know what the afterlife may hold. All I can say is this: If there is any sense in creation, Mary Therese is decluttering heaven while holding hands tightly with Regina’s dad — never having to let go again. And she’s holding the rest of us steady — with love. And perfect hair and pink lipstick.
Kerith Mickelson is a freelance writer and high school English teacher. When she’s not playing darts and cooking with her three kids and husband, she leads yoga and tai chi classes. On weekends, she coordinates skateboard events for foster kids. She writes about memory, motherhood, illness, and faith, sometimes rooted in Catholic ideas, sometimes Buddhist, sometimes drawing on images of everyday beauty in family and the fragility that comes with loving deeply. Her writing is featured in Notre Dame Magazine and Her View From Home. Her work also earned honorable mention in the 2024 Writer’s Digest Writing Contest in the spiritual writing category. Connect with her on her website.
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Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, September 2025 (PA Images / Alamy Live News)
3 min read
Labour is increasingly confident that it could win the Gorton and Denton by-election – and it is relying on Andy Burnham to help hold the seat, despite blocking him as a candidate.
Labour activists and MPs who have been door-knocking in the Greater Manchester constituency ahead of the by-election later this month have reported that they are cautiously optimistic that Labour could hold the seat, which some party sources had briefed would be impossible when it was first vacated.
Gorton and Denton is a typically safe Labour area. The party won the constituency with a majority of over 13,000 at the 2024 general election, making it one of 70 seats that Labour won with an absolute majority. Defeat there would represent a major blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is trying to shore up his position in Downing Street. Both the Greens and Reform UK believe they can win it.
Andrew Gwynne stood down as the seat’s MP last month on health grounds. The former health minister took the decision after he was dismissed from his post and suspended from Labour over leaked offensive messages he sent on a WhatsApp group called “Trigger Me Timbers”.
Burnham announced his intention to seek the Labour candidacy, but he was blocked by the Prime Minister and his allies on the basis that the sitting mayor of Greater Manchester would trigger a costly mayoral by-election if successful in his parliamentary bid.
Although Burnham appeared to dismiss Labour’s chances of winning the by-election, after he was barred from running amid a bitter row, he has become central to the party’s efforts to hold the seat.
Burnham is making regular visits to the campaign trail and is featured prominently on some Labour campaign literature, which also centres the Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia rather than Starmer.
Angela Rayner, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne – another Manchester seat – and former deputy prime minister, is also considered a key asset to the local campaign. She is widely thought to be a potential successor to Starmer, though she gave him her explicit support on Monday.
The Prime Minister has not visited the seat so far, and a well-placed source said he has no plans to do so.
PoliticsHome understands that when canvassers come across a resident who is a Burnham fan on the doorstep, which is described by sources in the area as a frequent occurrence, they can tick a box to indicate that the party should send a letter from the mayor to that constituent.
Multiple people who had door-knocked in the seat said they did not find that the scandal around Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador was being raised by locals, but that residents were proactively bringing up the “Trigger Me Timbers” story and could even name the WhatsApp group.
Labour sources indicated they were increasingly confident of Labour holding the constituency because the party looked like it could be a “strong second” to the Greens and Reform respectively in different wards.
“Our vote in the Muslim community is holding up really well,” reported one Labour MP. “The by-election is anything but written off, and some of it will depend on getting out the vote – where one would assume Labour has an edge.”
“Nobody talked about the selection row, but people did praise Burnham,” they added.
On Monday night, a minister told PoliticsHome that the by-election on 26 February would be the next “trigger point” for the Prime Minister after a call by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar for the Prime Minister to resign failed to trigger a wider move against him.
Labour have suspended a peer and former chief spin doctor to Keir Starmer over his links to a sex offender.
Matthew Doyle, who was made a Lord by the prime minister last month, campaigned for Sean Morton after he was charged with having indecent images of children.
Six months later, Morton, a former Labour councillor, admitted the charges.
The Sunday Times reported that senior No.10 officials were aware of Doyle’s links to Morton before he was nominated by the PM for a life peerage last December.
He was ennobled as Baron Doyle of Great Barford in January.
It is understood that Labour has suspended Doyle – who was No.10 director of communications until March last year – from the party whip in the Lords but not his party membership.
In a statement, Doyle said: “I want to apologise for my past association with Sean Morton.
“His offences were vile and I completely condemn the actions for which he was rightly convicted. My thoughts are with the victims and all those impacted by these crimes.
“At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court. He later changed his plea in court to guilty.
“To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgment for which I apologise unreservedly.
“Those of us who took him at his word were clearly mistaken. I have never sought to dismiss or diminish the seriousness of the offences for which he was rightly convicted. They are clearly abhorrent and I have never questioned his conviction.”
Doyle admitted he maintained contact with Morton after his conviction but insisted it had been “extremely limited and I have not seen or spoken to him in years”.
He added: “Twice I was at events organised by other people, which he attended, and once I saw him to check on his welfare after concerns were raised through others.
“I acted to try to ensure the welfare of a troubled individual whilst fully condemning the crimes for which he has been convicted and being clear that my thoughts are with the victims of his crimes. I am sorry about the mistakes I have made.”
Bloomberg via Bloomberg via Getty Images
Posting on X, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “Keir Starmer handed a peerage to Matthew Doyle despite knowing about his ongoing friendship with a man charged with child sex crimes.
“The prime minister has now suspended the whip, but he must come clean about what he was told before making this appointment. We won’t let this go.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures.”
The row will raise further questions about Starmer’s judgment following his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson the UK’s ambassador to Washington despite knowing about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
A play in three acts:
And you thought ours were spineless.
Poor old Anas, though.
If 24 hours is a long time in politics these days, a week is forever.
And a month hardly even bears thinking about.
As for a year and a half, well, the less said the better.
The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) rail union boss Maryam Eslamdoust has been accused of continuing her war on her own staff, members, and democracy after the union broke its own rules to cut retired union members out of its structures and conference votes.
Eslamdoust is despised by TSSA members and staff, who accuse her of bullying, victimisation of staff and representatives, and of anti-union tactics when they organise against her. Branches have voted overwhelmingly for motions of no confidence in her. Reps in the union’s biggest branch, Network Rail voted unanimously last month for her removal – just the latest in a string of no-confidence votes after repeated anti-union attacks on staff and the GMB union that represents them at work.
Eslamdoust even went repeatedly to the Guardian to attack the GMB – and then de-recognised it as the staff’s workplace union. Eslamdoust demanded the GMB prioritise her feelings over their members’ needs.
The years-long scandal has included attacks on TSSA’s internal democracy. She and her team have twice annulled elections in which members had voted her rivals into the key positions of treasurer and president. And on the same day as the latest unanimous vote against her, TSSA declared her ally as the new, uncontested treasurer after again suspending the candidate who beat her. Eslamdoust and her supporters also wrecked the union’s conference to prevent another no-confidence vote.
Now, they have staged another attack on the voting rights of members – by unilaterally closing all but one of the union’s retired branches.
Eslamdoust has moved all TSSA’s retired members from their existing branches into a single branch for the whole UK. The immediate effect of this imposed decision is to reduce the five delegates that the five previous branches could send to the union’s conference down to a single delegate. It also cuts the number of motions they can bring from ten to just two. It has been done without any conference vote or approval by the union’s various divisional councils and the officers holding roles in the original branches have been summarily removed from their positions.
The move is in breach of the TSSA rulebook and was imposed without warning at a weekend, preventing any opportunity to oppose it before it was a done deal.
Former TSSA assistant general secretary Steve Coe has been expelled from the union for blowing the whistle on the actions of Eslamdoust and her cronies. He posted to his personal social media about the latest assault on democracy that:
I hear that the TSSA Executive Committee has once again decided to ignore the union conference policy, and rig Rule Book and Annual Conference. And apparently discrimination on grounds of age is ok with the leadership!!
A retired member quickly responded to confirm the impact:
My branch has been dissolved deleted destroyed which ever you prefer fact no longer on the website!
Eslamdoust claims she is being criticised by staff and members because she is female.
TSSA has not responded to a Skwawkbox media enquiry since 2024.
Featured image via the Canary
The RMT is demanding a new law to safeguard transport workers in Scotland against a sharp rise in assaults. This comes ahead of a meeting with MSPs in Holyrood.
The union will hold the ‘Action Against Assaults’ event at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 11 February at 1pm.
This event will bring together:
RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey will set out the union’s demand for the creation of a standalone offence of assaulting or abusing a public transport worker at work. This is similar to protections already in place for retail staff and emergency service workers.
The union is calling on all political parties contesting the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2026 to commit in their manifestos to introducing such legislation if elected.
Dempsey said:
No worker should go to their job fearing they will be assaulted, abused or threatened simply for doing their job.
But that is the daily reality for far too many public transport workers.
Seventy per cent of rail workers have faced violence in the past year and nearly half of our ferry members say the threat of violence is harming their mental health. That is a scandal which demands action.
We welcome the engagement from the Scottish Government to date and the meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, but warm words must now become law.
Retail and emergency service workers rightly have specific legal protection and we want the same for public transport workers too.
As we approach the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, every party must commit to creating a standalone offence of assaulting or abusing a public transport worker.
An RMT survey found that 70% of rail workers in Scotland experienced workplace violence in the past year. 80% believed violence had increased over the same period. The survey identified lone working as a major risk factor. Nearly 60 per cent of those who experienced assaults said they were working alone at the time.
The union also highlighted Scottish government research from 2023 which found that women and girls feel significantly safer on public transport when staff are present. This applies at stations, in ticket offices and onboard trains.
Nearly half of RMT passenger ferry members reported that the threat of violence at work has negatively affected their mental health.
In 2022, the Scottish government confirmed it was exploring the creation of a standalone offence.
Since then, a working group involving rail unions has been convened to consider enforcement measures. The cabinet secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP, told parliament that stronger legal protections were under consideration and that the government was taking the matter “extremely seriously”.
Featured image via the Canary
Keir Starmer has slapped down Wes Streeting after the health secretary chose to release his own message exchanges with disgraced peer Peter Mandelson.
Police are currently looking into the former UK ambassador to the US over allegations of misconduct in a public office.
It comes after unearthed emails suggest Mandelson sent convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein confidential government information when he was the business secretary between 2008 and 2010.
A Commons motion is also set to force the release of government documents related to Mandelson’s appointment as the ambassador to the US.
But Streeting chose to preemptively release his personal exchanges with his former ally Mandelson on Monday.
He shared a transcript of messages from August 2024 to October 2025 to address what the minister described as the “smear and innuendo” from the weekend which suggested he had something to hide.
The messages showed the health secretary feared the government had “no growth strategy” and that he would be “toast” at the next general election.
Starmer rejected these concerns from Streeting when asked by the media, insisting chancellor Rachel Reeves is “turning the economy around”.
He added: “Now we have to nurture that. We have to make sure that this is for real, and it’s felt in people’s pockets.”
The prime minister continued: “The issue of text messages and all information that’s being gathered as a result of the humble address last week, that needs to be a managed process, both in government and obviously, there’s a police element to it.”
Asked specifically if he had reprimanded Streeting for releasing his Mandelson messages, the prime minister said: “I’m not going to comment on the health secretary’s disclosure of those messages, that’s for him.”
But he added: “I do think that we all need to ensure that we’re all acting together in this, because all the information needs to be pulled together.”
Scotland Yard encouraged members of the government not to share documents which could be used in their investigation on Tuesday, saying it was “vital due process is followed” and that its probe is not jeopardised.
“An investigation into alleged misconduct in public office is under way and it is vital due process is followed so that our criminal investigation and any potential prosecution is not compromised,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
“As part of our inquiries, we will review material identified and provided to us by the Cabinet Office to assess whether publication is likely to have a detrimental impact on our investigation or any subsequent prosecution.
“We will work alongside the Cabinet Office to review relevant documents over the weeks ahead. The process to decide which documents should ultimately be published remains a matter for government and parliament.
“As we have stated previously, this investigation may be complex but we are focused on a timely and thorough process so that justice is served in this case, or future ones linked to the Epstein files.”
Keir Starmer has said he will never walk away as he vowed to lead Labour into the next general election.
The PM insisted his landslide election victory in 2024 had given him a “mandate … to change this country” and he was determined to do so.
He was speaking just 24 hours after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar broke ranks by demanding Starmer stand down over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal.
The disgraced peer faces a criminal investigation into allegations he leaked sensitive government information to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he was business secretary.
Despite knowing about his links to the billionaire financier, Starmer made Mandelson the UK’s ambassador to Washington, only to sack him just seven months later.
Sarwar said: “The distraction needs to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”
However, his attempted coup backfired and more than 100 Labour MPs – including every member of the cabinet – publicly backed the PM.
In his first public comments since the leadership crisis, Starmer said: “There are some people in recent days who say the Labour government should have a different fight, a fight with itself, instead of a fight for the millions of people who need us to fight for them.
“And I say to them – I will never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country, I will never walk away from the people that I’m charged with fighting for, I will never walk away from the country that I love.”
Asked by broadcasters if he will lead the party into the next election, the prime minister said: “Yes I will. I had a five-year mandate to deliver the change. I intend to get on with what I was elected to do, which is deliver that change.”
His comments will be seen as a direct challenge to those Labour MPs who want his job, including health secretary Wes Streeting and former deputy PM Angela Rayner.
Speaking at an event in Hertfordshire, Starmer said he was determined to improve the lives of ordinary people, as Labour had promised to do.
He said his own brother, Nick, who died in 2024, “spent his adult life wandering from job to job in virtual poverty”.
“This system, this political system, didn’t work for him and there are billions of people in the same boat, children in poverty, young people who don’t get the opportunities they deserve,” he said.
“Millions of people held back because of a system that doesn’t work for them, who are not given the dignity, the respect, the chance that they deserve.
“And I’m fighting for them. I am their prime minister, and this is their Government and I will never give up on that fight.”
Earlier, Skwawkbox reported on Australian police officers’ vicious beating of a restrained and helpless anti-genocide protester. The beating came as police attacked protesters demonstrating peacefully against a visit by war-criminal Israeli president Isaac Herzog.
The attack was not an isolated incident. In yet another assault, police fractured the spine of 69-year-old Jann Alhafny. The Australian government has given police immunity from legal consequences.
Describing the incident, Alhafny said that an officer had pushed her “very violently” to the ground “without warning” as she protested in Sydney – but worse was to come:
I knew straight away I’d hurt my back [but the officer] grabbed one arm and he yanked me up onto my feet, like really severely, and that was excruciating.
Moving someone who has suffered a spinal injury at all, let alone “really severely”, can result in permanent paralysis or even death. Doctors later found that Alhafny had four fractured vertebrae. New South Wales Police denied any knowledge.
But police knew they were able to act with impunity. NSW authorities had designated the area a “major event”, giving police and the state immunity from ‘tortious acts’ that cause injury. It appears that state enforcers made full use of this immunity: the march of around 30,000 was kettled and pepper sprayed as well as being beaten.
Alhafny, whose late husband was Palestinian, said she and her daughter would not be deterred from anti-genocide protests:
We always go to the protest, my daughter and I, and it’s just the right thing to do. Even if my husband wasn’t Palestinian, I’d still be supporting Palestine.
Featured image via the Canary
Has there ever existed a man whose arrogance is so out of proportion to his talents? I am of course talking about Wes Streeting – Britain’s secretary of state for health, cracker of the most terrible committee-written jokes, and the man hilariously gushed over by witless centrists as the saviour of Labour. No shade, but if the answer is ‘Wes Streeting’, you are asking the wrong question. Unless the question is ‘Who’s the biggest tit on the frontbench?’.
Streeting is back in the news, like that C-list celeb who just won’t leave us alone, after self-leaking the WhatsApp chats he had with ultimate wrong’un, Peter Mandelson. Peeved that some in the media have been calling him a mate of Mandy, Streeting wanted to set the record straight. He was merely an acquaintance of Mandelson’s who would occasionally ask that Prince of Darkness for advice on the burning issues of the day and then put kisses all over his messages, okay? Not buddies at all.
Now that Mandelson’s love-in with crooked girl-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has properly blown up, Streeting is doing some serious distancing. He says he dumped his Mandy texts on the web because he’s sick of all the ‘smear and innuendo’ suggesting he has ‘something to hide’. He should have kept them private. Because it turns out he does have something to hide – that he’s a properly haughty politician who’ll happily throw everyone and everything under the bus to save his own lacklustre career.
The thing that really leapt out at me was Streeting’s bitching about Israel. It oozes with imperious conceit. In July 2025, he pressed Mandelson for his thoughts on recognising a Palestinian state. ‘Morally and politically, I think we need to join France’, said Streeting, referencing President Macron’s decision to recognise Palestine. There they are, Wes and Mandy, like a couple of Poundshop Sir Mark Sykes, musing on how to carve up the Holy Land. Someone please tell these donuts the British Empire is kaput. White men in Whitehall no longer get to magic up states in the Middle East.
What Streeting said next is genuinely troubling. Israel is behaving like a ‘rogue state’, he said. Let’s punish it, he suggested. We should ‘let them pay the price as pariahs’. He said we should impose sanctions on the entire dastardly nation, ‘not just a few ministers’. Who the hell does he think he is? Mate, you run the NHS – badly – not the Middle East. The breezy manner with which he proposed that Israel be damned with pariah status speaks to the staggering hubris of these two texting technocrats.
It confirms what the recognition of Palestine was really about – not improving the lot of Palestinians but shaming and isolating Israel. It was nation-building as a weapon, driven by a colonialist instinct to reprimand the uppity Jewish State. It was a back-covering exercise, too. ‘There are no circumstances’, Streeting texted, ‘in which people like me or Shabana [Mahmood] could abstain or vote against [Palestine recognition]’. Britain and France’s recognition of Palestine emboldened Hamas. Hamas gushed that it was one of the ‘fruits’ of their fascistic pogrom of 7 October 2023. And for what? To let a couple of crisis-ridden hacks in the Labour Party save face in the Commons and their own constituencies? Now that’s pariah behaviour, Wes.
Other messages confirm why Streeting was so adamant about a Palestinian state – because he lives in fear of losing his seat to the Muslim vote. He said in one message that he thinks he’ll be ‘toast’ at the next election (don’t threaten us with a good time). That’s partly because Labour has ‘no growth strategy’ and no answer to voters’ question of ‘Why Labour?’, he said. And it’s partly because the sectarian vote is viciously nipping at Labour’s heels.
‘I fear we’re in big trouble’, he said in one message. ‘We just lost our safest ward in Redbridge (51 per cent Muslim, Ilford [South]) to a Gaza independent’, he wrote. And ‘at this rate I don’t think we’ll hold either of the two Ilford seats’. One of those seats, of course, is Streeting’s: he’s MP for Ilford North. This is why he thinks he might be ‘toast’, and this is why he was insistent he could never oppose a Palestinian state – because ‘the Gaza vote’ is coming for him.
The levels of pork-barrel calculation on display here are staggering. ‘Save Gaza’, the left yelps, yet Streeting is more interested in saving his own arse. Screw the State of Israel, I need to protect my little fiefdom of Ilford. Is this cultural appeasement of sectarian voters? It smacks of it to me. That Streeting thought these messages would paint him in a positive light post-Mandelson is mindblowing, for what they really confirm is the willingness of the nominal secularists of Britain’s social-democratic party to play the sectarian game if it will help them keep their grubby mitts in the till of power.
Oh, Wes – you thought you were moving on from the Mandy years but all you’ve done is confirm that Labour is entirely unfit for power. It’s a lost party, bereft of principle, cruel to its allies and craven in the face of sectarianism. Listless, exhausted and boring. I already knew I wanted Labour out – now I really know.
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
A New Hampshire magnate with ties to power players in both parties has appeared in successive batches of the Epstein files, roiling politics in his home state and threatening its two most influential political dynasties.
Documents recently released by the Department of Justice suggest that entrepreneur Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and other devices, kept in contact with Jeffrey Epstein long after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, with emails indicating he visited the disgraced financier’s Caribbean island in 2013. Kamen has not been accused of wrongdoing and did not respond to requests for comment through his companies Monday.
The recently released files indicate a closer relationship between the two than was previously known. The disclosures have prompted Kamen’s organizations to launch investigations into their ties. And the situation has ratcheted up scrutiny of the New Hampshire politicians who have worked with him, received campaign contributions from him or helped his organizations secure tens of millions in federal funds.
That includes members of the Shaheen and Sununu families, the best-known and most powerful clans in the state’s Democratic and Republican parties. Both have scions running for Congress this year: House candidate Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and former Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), the son of a former governor, who is seeking to return to the Senate.
They now face Epstein-fueled attacks from their lower-polling rivals.
“Anywhere Epstein pops up these days, it’ll become a campaign issue,” said Ryan Williams, a GOP strategist who has worked with Sununu and his father. “And there are certainly politicians who have worked with Kamen in New Hampshire, taken his money and associated with him. And those who did will have to answer for it.”
Kamen is a New Hampshire institution and local celebrity — often described as a quirky one — in a state that has few big-name figures but exerts a powerful hold on the presidential nominating process. The pioneering inventor and entrepreneur who developed the first portable insulin pump and a wheelchair that can climb stairs, Kamen is also widely credited for driving the transformation of Manchester’s old mill district into a technological and health care hub. He was lauded as a “hero” for helping secure 91,000 pounds of protective equipment for first responders and health care workers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when such resources were scarce.
Kamen has donated roughly $90,000 to federal candidates and campaign committees on both sides of the aisle over the past four decades, according to federal campaign finance filings. That includes over $7,000 apiece to Sununu, Sen. Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte, the former senator who’s up for reelection as governor this year. Kamen has not made any federal campaign contributions this election cycle, per federal reports.
He’s hosted a raft of high-profile politicians at his businesses and his Bedford home over the years, from Ayotte to then-President George W. Bush. He traveled to Dubai with Sununu’s younger brother, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, in 2019 during a trip in which the two attended the World Government Summit. Chris Sununu, through Airlines for America, the lobbying firm he now leads, did not respond to a request for comment.
Those ties, once promoted in press releases and splashed across social media, have turned into a political liability after successive document drops showed deeper connections between Kamen and Epstein.
Photos released in December show Kamen socializing with Epstein in a tropical location and riding a Segway with Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein associate who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021. Documents released on Jan. 30 showed Kamen made plans to visit Epstein’s Caribbean island in 2013. At the time, assistants sent emails discussing “which flight Dean prefers the girls to be on.” Days later, he wrote to Epstein: “thank you for hosting an incredible visit to [sic] a magical place. It really is almost unbelievable.”
Kamen did not respond to questions from POLITICO about his association with Epstein, including whether he visited Little Saint James. He previously described having “limited interactions” with Epstein in statements to other media outlets and has denied knowledge of his “horrific actions” beyond what he learned from news reports. He told The Boston Globe that Epstein had reached out to him about becoming involved in international development projects but after initial meetings, “it became apparent that his only interest was self-promotion” and “I avoided further meetings.” He did not respond to The Globe’s inquiry about the reference to “the girls.” After the latest tranche of documents was released, he recused himself from board activities of at least four companies he’s involved with as they engage outside law firms to conduct independent investigations into the disclosures.
Williams, the Republican strategist, said “the Epstein episode is the first real blemish that’s marked his reputation in the state, and it’s an extremely hot issue right now.”
EPSTEIN FILES AS A CAMPAIGN CUDGEL
Stefany Shaheen, who is running for New Hampshire’s open House seat and served as chief strategy officer for Kamen’s Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute from September 2018 until last month, is facing intensifying scrutiny over her dealings with Kamen. She has posted photos of her with Kamen on social media over the years, one of the two of them in the cockpit of a plane that was uploaded to LinkedIn seven years ago, and another from a gala for Type 1 Diabetes research last April where she was an honoree. Her campaign said the former was taken during a flight to Washington with others affiliated with ARMI for an American Society Of Mechanical Engineers meeting on June 14, 2018, where Kamen spoke.
She is now facing calls from two of her Democratic primary rivals to publicly condemn Kamen. One of them, Christian Urrutia, has also accused her of potentially helping Kamen craft his statements in response to the files, which she has denied.
“There’s certainly an element of transparency. I think there is a fundamental question of: Do we want our members of Congress and our senators to have these types of relationships?” said Urrutia, who also asked why Sen. Shaheen did not disclose her daughter’s role at ARMI when securing a $1.2 million earmark for the company in 2023. A spokesperson for the senator said that her daughter was paid through non-federal funding sources and that her office was advised by Senate Ethics Committee staff that the request for funding for ARMI did not violate ethics rules.
A Republican running for the seat, state Rep. Brian Cole, has called on the younger Shaheen to drop out: “Until Stefany Shaheen provides full and honest answers about her association with Dean Kamen and ARMI, she should end her campaign,” he said in a statement.
Sununu, who is running to reclaim the Senate seat he lost to Shaheen’s mother in 2008, has faced questions over a possible reference to him in a 2010 email between Epstein and Boris Nikolic, a former Bill Gates adviser. In the email, Epstein emailed Nikolic that “john sununu, has good stories,” but did not provide any additional details. It’s unclear what he meant or whether he was referring to the senator or his father, former governor and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu.
The younger Sununu was a director of operations at Teletrol Systems, one of Kamen’s companies, in the 1990s before he was elected to Congress.
His GOP primary rival, former Sen. Scott Brown, has seized on the email to attack the Sununu family’s “‘insider’ ties” as he attempts to gain traction in a race where the Republican establishment and the president have lined up behind his opponent. Brown said on a local podcast that Sununu “needs to fully explain why” his surname is mentioned in the files. Brown added on X that voters “shouldn’t have to guess who, or which one of their representatives were associated, or what ‘stories’ are being referenced in federal documents.”
The Shaheen and Sununu campaigns have sought to dismiss the criticism from their opponents.
Shaheen said in a statement that she “never advised Dean Kamen on these matters” and that the “extent of my knowledge” about his and Epstein’s relationship is what has been publicly reported. Harrell Kirstein, a spokesperson for her campaign, dismissed the criticism as “desperate political attacks — flat out lies — that ignore basic facts.”
Both Shaheens said they supported outside investigations of Kamen.
Sen. Shaheen said in a statement that Kamen “was right to step back” from his organizations, and that it was appropriate for them “to conduct independent reviews to fully understand his connection to Epstein and take any action merited by the findings of those reviews.”
Stefany Shaheen is the polling leader in the Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s blue-leaning 1st Congressional District, a position operatives in both parties attribute in large part to name recognition. A University of New Hampshire survey from January showed her with 33 percent support, and no other candidate with more than 10 percent, with 39 percent of likely primary voters undecided.
Sununu led Brown by 23 percentage points in the same poll, with 26 percent of likely GOP primary voters undecided. They both trail Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in hypothetical general-election matchups.
Mike Schrimpf, a spokesperson for Sununu’s campaign, said in a statement that “John had no knowledge whatsoever of any relationship between Dean Kamen and Epstein” and believes the latter “was a despicable human being.” Neither Sununu or his father “have ever met or communicated in any way with Boris Nikolic, Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell.”
He went on to attack Shaheen and Pappas — who, along with other members of the all-Democratic congressional delegation, had touted federal funding for ARMI before the Kamen scandal broke — over their connections to the entrepreneur: “Unlike Chris Pappas who celebrated federal funding for Kamen’s ARMI, or Stefany Shaheen who worked for him last week, John never advocated or requested funding for any of Kamen’s ventures,” Schrimpf said.
Gates MacPherson, a spokesperson for Pappas’ campaign, said in a statement that the congressman “believes Dean Kamen’s relationship with Epstein is deeply troubling and must be independently investigated, and all federal contractors and grant awardees should be held to the highest possible standards, including ARMI and FIRST.”
In the governor’s race, Democrats are preparing to attack Ayotte over Kamen’s past contributions to her campaigns and his appearance in an ad for her 2016 Senate reelection campaign. Ayotte has yet to draw a serious opponent in her bid for a second term. Representatives for the governor did not respond to an email to her official and campaign inboxes seeking comment.
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