Politics
12 July carnival of hate and destruction ends with calls for change
Another 12 July commemoration has now passed in the north of Ireland, leaving behind a trail of bile, death, pollution and charred remains of homes.
The yearly knuckle-dragging is a sectarian festival marking the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, in which Protestant king, William III, defeated Catholic king, James II.
The hate-fest lasted longer than usual, with bonfire groups lighting some pyres on 9 July, and parades not taking place until 13 July due to 12 July falling on a Sunday this year. The first major disgrace was the Moygashel Bonfire Association’s torching of a replica mosque.
Deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Diana Armstrong, claimed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) scaled back its presence prior to the hate crime, in response to her requesting they do so. The PSNI has contradicted this.
Nonetheless, the pattern across the Six Counties is one of near-ubiquitous criminality across the long 12th weekend, almost entirely allowed to proceed by police. That includes incitement to violence through loyalists displaying threatening messages at bonfire sites, to property destruction, including homes burnt to the ground.
The X account, Kulture Watch, conveyed plenty of evidence for that.
12 July bonfires blaze message of sectarian and Islamophobic hate
A bonfire in South Belfast featured both sectarian and anti-migrant hate. The pyre’s creators placed a sign with ‘KAT’ written on it, which is an acronym for “Kill all Taigs”, a slur referring to Catholics.
Others were saying, “Stop illegals” and “Stop the boats”. An Irish tricolour flag was placed for burning at the top of the pile of pallets.
Elsewhere in Belfast, bonfire builders burned effigies of republican rap group Kneecap, alongside a Palestine flag. Islamophobia was a common theme, with another bonfire featuring a placard reading, “F*ck Islam”.
In a sign of the absurd leeway authorities grant to the toxic festival, a massive fire featuring a tricolour collapsed as firefighters hosed down nearby properties. At an enormous cost, the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS), attended.
The service logged 303 emergency calls between 6pm on 11 July and 2am on 12 July.
This resulted in firefighters attending 151 operational incidents. 54 of these were bonfire-related.
The NIFRS reported how:
In an isolated incident, firefighters withdrew from a bonfire in the Cookstown area as a result of a hostile crowd.
Such events sometimes occur when firefighters try to intervene early to stop a dangerous blaze, but attendees block the bonfire being extinguished. It’s not uncommon for the heat to melt windows.
Councils, again, effectively subsidise the destructive pyres by paying for boards that people can use to prevent their houses suffering this fate. What they can’t prevent are the inevitable worst case scenarios, like the homes completely destroyed by embers spiralling off the vast blazes.
The Belfast Telegraph reported:
A row of terraced homes caught fire near the bonfire in the Knockleigh Walk area of Greenisland.
David Haighton recounted how in the incident he “lost everything”. He’d lived in his home for more than 50 years.
Tragically, a man also died while helping to construct a bonfire in East Belfast. Warren Lyttle, a father-of-one, fell from the structure in Braniel housing estate. John Steele died in similar circumstances in Larne in 2022.
Time to move beyond toxic ‘culture’ of destruction
Bonfires are a health hazard in other ways, with organisers burning toxic material, harming air quality and contributing needlessly to climate breakdown. Another form of pollution are the piles of rubbish revellers leave in the streets, which sometimes look like an attempt rival the size of bonfires themselves. Taxpayers, again, have to foot the bill for cleaning this up.
All this mess is left by people apparently expressing pride and fondness for their community by littering it, burning it and disgracing it with a torrent of hate. There are increasing calls to “move beyond bonfire sectarianism”, in the words of People Before Profit MLA, Gerry Carroll.
Carroll has called for:
…a movement of working class people, drawn from every background, ready to stand together and challenge sectarianism head on.
Working class Protestants are failed by being perennially dragged into sectarian and racial hate. Such sentiments are a convenient misdirection away from justified hatred for the policies of the British ruling class that impoverish them, alongside working class Catholics, Muslims and migrants.
The grand secretary of the Orange Order, Mervyn Gibson, had some pleasant words about reaching out to those outside unionism. But that means little while his organisation does the minimum to clamp down on mass displays of hate by its own adherents.
He also conjured up a fictitious notion of embracing “true Britishness”, apparently symbolised by “Civil and Religious Liberty for all”. Britain has never represented such a thing, and today the Union Jack unquestionably stands for diminishing freedom and increasing impoverishment.
At some point maybe bonfire revellers and sash-wearing marchers will realise the folly of identifying in a bigoted, exclusivist way with a sinking ship that harbours largely disdain for them. They might then appreciate that the 12th is an act of mass self-harm — from the smouldering homes to the corpses at the foot of stacked pallets, to the toxic bonfire embers that poison the body and entrench a ‘culture’ that poisons the soul.
Featured image via Jason Cairnduff/ Reuters
Ann Widdecombe was killed in a “targeted attack”, counter-terror police have confirmed.
The Reform UK spokeswoman and former Tory minister was found dead at her home in Devon last Thursday.
The head of counter terrorism policing, assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor, said officers are still “working to understand the planning and preparation and the motivation that sits behind the attack”.
Speaking from New Scotland Yard, Taylor said there is a “limit” to the details he can provide given it is a live murder investigation, “but it is clear this was a targeted attack”.
He said the attack has not, at this stage, been “declared a terrorist incident” and police have more time to interview the 28-year-old white British man arrested on suspicion of murder last Saturday.
The suspect was re-arrested on Monday on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
Taylor said detectives have secured a warrant of further detention and can now hold the suspect for up to seven days under the Terrorism Act.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
FIFA and Adidas have announced the launch of a new official match ball for the final four matches of the 2026 World Cup. This marks the first time the tournament has seen a change in the official match ball before the competition draws to a close.
After the ‘Trionda’ ball has been in use from the start of the tournament through to the end of the quarter-finals, the new version – named the ‘Trionda Final’ – will feature in the semi-finals between France and Spain, and England and Argentina, as well as the third-place play-off and the final.
This change is part of an effort to give the decisive stages a distinctive visual identity that reflects the significance of the title race, whilst retaining all the technical characteristics of the original ball.
World Cup design inspired by journey to glory
The new ball features a distinctive look combining gold and black with white, in a design that Adidas says embodies “the journey towards achieving the ultimate prize in the world of football”.
The company explained that the gold colour symbolises the World Cup, whilst the black background gives the ball a more luxurious and distinctive look; meanwhile, the red and pink accents add a vibrant touch that reflects the speed and rhythm of the decisive matches.
The design also features graphics inspired by the four cities hosting the final matches – Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, and New York – alongside the names of all the cities that have hosted tournament matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico, printed on the surface of the ball, serving as a visual record of the tournament’s journey.
Advanced technology with unchanged performance
Despite the complete overhaul of its visual identity, Adidas has confirmed that the ‘Trionda Final’ retains all the technical specifications of its predecessor, both in terms of its four-panel construction and its aerodynamic properties and feel, ensuring the same performance on the pitch.
The ball also continues to utilise an AI-powered internal sensor capable of tracking its movement at a rate of up to 500 times per second, providing real-time data that helps Video Assistant Referees (VAR) make more accurate and rapid decisions, as well as generating advanced statistics on the speed of shots, the power of goals and the ball’s trajectory during matches.
Technology that resolved one of the most controversial incidents
The importance of this technology was highlighted during the England v Norway quarter-final, after doubts were raised about the ball touching camera cables before England’s first goal was scored – an incident that would have led to the goal being disallowed under the laws of the game.
However, FIFA relied on data from the sensor embedded within the ball, which showed no record of contact with an external object, to confirm the validity of the goal.
Featured image via the Canary
By Alaa Shamali
Ariana Grande appears to be using one of her signature hits to comment on rumours about her personal life.
Performing on the first night of her Eternal Sunshine tour’s New York leg, the chart-topping star appeared to allude to the speculation when she switched up a lyric in her hit Thank U, Next.
When she reached the part of the song where she would usually sing, “wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh”, she replaced the line with: “Wrote some songs about Ricky, we always find our way back.”
This marks the most recent Thank U, Next lyric switch after Ariana previously swapped the Ricky-related line with “I know he’s got my back” earlier in the run.
In a press release, Ariana teased that her new music is “full of life” and was inspired by “growing” in light of “cold and hard and challenging” life experiences.
Andy Burnham has been slammed after Labour blocked a vote which could have forced him to face the Commons on his first day as prime minister.
The Makerfield MP is set to be crowned as the Labour leader on Friday having run unchallenged to be Keir Starmer’s replacement.
However, an MP cannot become party leader and prime minister on the same day – meaning Burnham will get the keys to No.10 on Monday, July 20.
MPs were already scheduled to start their six-week summer recess on Thursday, July 16, so the Commons will not be sitting on the new PM’s first day.
There is no constitutional rule calling for a prime minister to appear before MPs immediately after being appointed by the monarch.
The Conservatives wanted to use their pre-arranged opposition day debate on Wednesday to table a motion saying the Commons should delay recess so Burnham can address MPs next Monday as the new prime minister.
But the leader of the Commons, Labour’s Alan Campbell, announced on Tuesday there had been a change in parliamentary business.
Instead, MPs would have a general debate on the ongoing situation in Iran.
The Tories’ shadow leader of the Commons Jesse Norman said the public would conclude Burnham was “running scared of public scrutiny before he can even take office”.
“The government has a majority of more than 150 and it could not trust its MPs to vote the right way on that motion [delaying the recess], and it could not bear the idea of a new prime minister facing any scrutiny before September,” Norman said.
“A prime minister, let me remind us all, who has been chosen by a coronation not a contest, with no known platform, almost no known policies, and no idea of his priorities or indeed his cabinet team.”
Campbell dismissed Norman’s claim, insisting it was important for MPs to have a chance to debate what was happening in Iran.
He claimed he was unaware of the motion the Tories were going to table on Wednesday, insisting he was “telling the absolute truth” at the despatch box.
The Commons leader also accused the Tories of playing games, saying: “People listening to this… will do so with a degree of incredulity that [the Conservative party] was preferring to go down a route of playing some weird political game while the Middle East is on the brink of conflagration.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X: In an unprecedented move, Labour have scrapped the Conservative vote to force Andy Burnham to come to Parliament to answer questions when he becomes PM on Monday.
“Labour are running scared because they know the honeymoon will be over the minute he has to tell us his plans.”
Burnham has already faced significant backlash for dodging scrutiny on his hurried journey to No.10.
Since winning the Makerfield by-election last month, he has avoided making any statements in the House of Commons and has not held any press conferences.
There is plenty of mystery around what he plans to do as prime minister, especially since he did not have to have any debates with leadership rivals also vying for Starmer’s role.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
If there were any doubt that the Tory wets are the most deluded, self-important tribe in British politics, then Gavin Barwell’s reaction to being ousted from the party has all but confirmed it.
Barwell – former Tory MP, peer and chief of staff in Theresa May’s Downing Street – was excommunicated this week for his ‘repeated public attacks’ on Badenoch and her political strategy. Most notably, he has been highly critical of her insistence that Conservative parliamentary candidates renounce both Net Zero and Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He claimed this would bring the party into dangerous, populist territory – turning the Tories into a ‘Reform tribute act’. In a post on LinkedIn (where else?) following his defenestration, he doubled down on his criticism, warning that ‘millions’ of voters will be put off by this approach.
To which the only rational response is to ask: are these millions of pro-ECHR, pro-Net Zero Tory wets in the room with you right now, Gavin? Is there really a viable electoral coalition just yearning for a restoration of the Cameroon Tory Party? Do the masses actually believe that our out-of-touch political leaders are all a bit too ‘populist’ and overly deferential to the electorate’s demands?
Incredibly, Prosper UK, a kind of emotional-support / pressure group for Tory wets, claims that its polling has identified as many as seven million voters who could be persuaded to return to the Conservative fold, should the party adopt a more ‘pragmatic’ programme. But the problems with this claim are legion.
For one thing, just about everyone on Earth considers themselves ‘moderate’, ‘pragmatic’ and ‘rational’, regardless of where they actually appear on the political spectrum. Few voters would tick a box that says they want the next government to be ‘extremist’, ‘reactionary’ or ‘reckless’, so it is no wonder that polling appears to be so favourable for a mythical party of the ‘sensible centre’. This applies even to voters of a political disposition that could turn a Tory wet white.
Then there is the small matter of the actual policies Barwell and his ilk seem willing to die on a hill for. In 2026, supporting membership of the ECHR and the headlong rush to Net Zero are hardly signs of a healthy pragmatism. By the time the Tories had left office in 2024, it was already clear just how disastrous these policies were turning out to be.
After all, the European Convention is one of the main barriers to solving the small-boats crisis and the illegal migration crime wave. It is why so many foreign criminals are able to avoid deportation – often on the most spurious grounds imaginable. The ECHR’s ‘right to a family life’ and ‘right to avoid torture’ may sound perfectly rational on paper, but in practice, these provisions have essentially created a right for rapists, murderers and gangsters to remain in the UK indefinitely, often at the taxpayers’ expense. Is that really a ‘moderate’, ‘sensible’ position for a party aspiring to return to government to hold?
As for Net Zero, it is now impossible to deny the damage that’s been done by the uniparty’s green extremism. The headlong rush to decarbonise the energy grid has lumbered the UK with some of the highest energy prices in the developed world. This has squeezed consumers and made it impossible for British manufacturing to compete. If the Tories want to recover their (admittedly always dubious) reputation for sound economic management, then they can hardly keep banging the drum for the deindustrialisation of Britain.
Time will tell if Kemi’s strategy will bear fruit or whether her party is truly beyond saving. But her commitment to righting the wrongs of the last Conservative government will stand her in a far better stead than the prescription put forward by Gavin Barwell and the like. When all the polling suggests that Reform UK is eating the Tories’ lunch, turning the party into a more business-friendly Lib Dems or the political wing of Times Radio is hardly going to stem the bleeding.
Flushing out the wets is the least the Tories will need to do if they want to have any hope of regaining the public’s trust.
Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.
New polling has come out for the Greater Manchester mayor race, and it’s showing some significant movements:
A new poll has just dropped for Greater Manchester.
Labour – Sign up to our actions days to help get Geraldine Coggins elected Mayor of Greater Manchester. pic.twitter.com/DolJ8JKpxo
— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) July 13, 2026
25%
Greens – 
15%
Reform – fighting a bin in Clacton 
Does this show that the Greens are on a path to victory?
Greater Manchester mayor race
Admittedly, Zack Polanski is being a bit cheeky by not showing the overall polling, which looks like this:
Result after 2nd votes:
Poll: FindOutNow, 7 – 13 July — Stats for Lefties
POLL | Greater Manchester Mayor:
Lab: 38% ( -25 )
Grn: 22% ( +15 )
Ref: 19% ( +12 )
Res: 9% ( +9 )
Con: 8% ( -2 )
Lib: 3% ( -1 )
Lab: 64% Grn: 36%
—
( +/- vs 2024 Mayoral election ) pic.twitter.com/CyGaevSzUL
(@LeftieStats) July 13, 2026
Clearly, the Labour Party has a significant lead. What the pluses and minuses show is the difference between polling today and the results in the last mayoral election. This highlights that Labour has lost 25 whole percentage points (a quarter of all possible voters).
What the Greens are hoping is that this decrease is just the beginning, and that the party will continue to lose ground over the coming weeks – much like how the Tories shed voters in the 2017 general election.
Here’s what Polanski said in the video above:
I’m in Camden right now, Holborn and St Pancras, but I’m actually thinking about Greater Manchester, because a new poll just dropped.
The Labour Party down 25 [percentage points]; the Green Party up 15 [percentage points], and Reform totally out of it, because they’ve all run off to Clacton to fight a bin.
As we know, Reform has seemingly abandoned the Greater Manchester race, having summoned its minions to defend Farage in his pointless Clacton by-election:
To be fair to Reform, pulling out of Manchester was the smart choice. They would have lost anyway. Now they have a tactical excuse. “We were fighting the bin” isn’t the best. But it’s something. https://t.co/015RIm3nPx
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) July 13, 2026
Polanski ended:
Look, what this poll shows is the Green Party and Geraldine Coggins can be the next mayor of Greater Manchester. So if you support the Green Party, sign up to an Action Day, get involved, and let’s make sure we win this election.
This is how the Greens’ national polling looks right now by the way:
Support for the Greens with YouGov is now back up to where it was just before the May elections (15%), after briefly plunging to 13% following Starmer's resignation.
With everyone fully aware that Burnham is set to become Prime Minister, voters seem unenthused thus far.
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) July 14, 2026
Disappointment with Burnham could be the Green Party’s secret weapon. It could also explain why Burnham is keeping a pretty low profile right now. As the former Greater Manchester mayor, you’d think he’d be all over this race – encouraging Mancunians to embrace his successor. Instead, he’s slithering around doing stuff like this:
Andy Burnham, Britain's next prime minister, voted in favour of home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s authoritarian immigration bill last night.
He did so even after more than 80 Labour backbenchers wrote to warn him that the party is “losing progressive voters” due to Mahmood’s… pic.twitter.com/CPmDoFfvBd
— Novara Media (@novaramedia) July 14, 2026
The above elicited the following response from the Greens’ mayoral candidate Geraldine Coggins:
She said Craig should "stand up for what is right", celebrate immigration and "treat some of the most vulnerable people in our communities with dignity and humanity."
"We are so much better than this in Manchester," she added — Kate Nicholson (@nicholson_kate1) July 14, 2026
Voter migration
Burnham is shaping up to be Starmer 2.0. This is bad news for Labour, because Starmer drove away voters in droves:
Top five reasons for abandoning Labour, among those who’ve switched to the Greens
Labour has been too right-wing: 44%
Cost of living not improved: 29%
Not delivered on promises: 25%
Labour’s stance on Gaza: 23%
Lack any sense of direction: 22%https://t.co/CaMjALwCHs pic.twitter.com/fNeWK7nSBK— YouGov (@YouGov) July 13, 2026
No doubt many of the voters who left Labour live in Greater Manchester; the question is how many more will abandon the party before the votes are in?
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
Politics
George Trefgarne: Our Tory women versus the blokes, lads, and chaps should have one positive outcome
George Trefgarne is chief executive of Boscobel & Partners, a consultancy and was previously economics editor of The Telegraph.
There is an interesting piece in the Financial Times about Jane Fraser, the British CEO of Citi, the vast American banking group assembled by Chuck Prince prior to the financial crisis. Citi has for years been a shambling, error-prone behemoth and she is turning it around – chiefly through a process of simplification – with considerable success. The shares are up 61% in the last year.
There are several notable things about Jane Fraser, aside from her success. The first is her education, an excellent all-girls school in Sydney called Ascham School. (One of the many sad side-effects of Labour’s war on private schools here has been the closure or switch to co-ed of many outstanding equivalent establishments). This was followed by a degree in economics at Girton College, Cambridge and an MBA at Harvard.
She is married with two sons to another banker, Alberto Piedra, who moved to a portfolio career so he could focus on the family, allowing her career to progress. Her own success is, in part, a family success story.
Then there is the fact she is evidently promoted on merit. She is no woke, culture warrior as you occasionally find in British boardrooms or the Civil Service. She is just a hard-working woman doing a good job. She has also had the good sense to stay on the right side of Donald Trump.
Sometimes, it takes a woman to lead an organisation. In particular, it is often only a woman who can turn around an organisation where the men have made a total mess. Such was the case in Britain in 1979, with the rise of Margaret Thatcher. It is happening in Italy now, where Giorgia Meloni is doing a pretty good job as Prime Minister. And, one hopes, at my alma mater BP, where Meg O’Neil is cracking on with turning around that benighted company.
I note that at the Telegraph Group the new owners Axel Springer have appointed Carolin Hulshoff Pol to turn around that business too. Good luck to her.
This leads me to British politics.
If you can tear yourself away from the speculation around Andy Burnham, imminently to be installed as Prime Minister, his rise is unfortunately yet another triumph for the sweaty blokes who run the Labour Party. Despite that, I wish him luck as we should any new Prime Minister.
But it is worth noting that whatever the circumstances, Labour seems incapable of transparently electing a female leader, or one from a minority. It then seems to compensate for this embarrassment by leaning toward feminism and minority politics and promoting people like Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson.
You know the type. Possibly beneficiaries of positive discrimination. Not very nice. A tendency to nervous bullying, including of other women. Clever but not wise.
I don’t think the situation is much better at Reform or even the Liberal Democrats or the Greens. Indeed, the feel around Reform very much reminds me of the sort of City pub I used to dread when I started work in the 1990s. Noisy, smelly, lots of booze. Spivvy chat about betting and stock prices. And an enthusiasm for sporting freebies at Royal Ascot or 400-bird pheasant shoots in Kent.
But take a look at the Conservative Party.
It is very striking that it is run not just by one, but three women who are able, decent and full of common sense. Most critically, they are rapidly developing into increasingly substantial politicians
There is Kemi Badenoch herself. She is a graduate not of an elite academy, but the school of hard knocks. As Nigeria descended into chaos, she attended nine schools, including a brutal state boarding school and finally Phoenix College in South London. She took degrees in computing engineering at Sussex University and in law at Birkbeck College. She never had a silver spoon in her mouth.
Her husband, Hamish, is also an interesting person. Of a more traditional British background, he is nonetheless the person who frequently takes principal charge of looking after their three children. Like Citi, the leadership of the Conservative Party is a quietly family enterprise.
Then there is Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary. She was, in my opinion, a rather poor actual energy secretary under Rishi Sunak but it is astonishing how she has turned it around. Pregnant with her second child, she has abandoned the terrible net zero policy and regularly gets the better of Ed Miliband at the Dispatch Box. It is presumably a testament to her efforts that Kemi Badenoch has said anyone who supports Net Zero will be ineligible to stand as a Conservative MP.
She has also obtained information from whistleblowers about the dangerous instability in the grid. She has written LINK to the wonderfully named Mr Finton Slye, chief executive of the National Energy Systems Operator demanding an investigation. If there are power cuts, after this month’s 13 per cent rise in energy bills, expect uproar.
In the shadow education role Laura Trott has also done a phenomenal job, standing up for children and standards against assaults by Bridget Phillipson.
The troika of Tory women are, in some ways, quite similar.
Family-oriented, nice, grounded, positive, professional and hard-working. They don’t “have it all”. They make things work.
One might argue that, earlier in their careers, positive discrimination could have helped a bit. We must not forget that dislodging the glass ceiling has taken some real effort by previous generations of women. But those times have passed. Thankfully, only a few organisations in the country are still entirely male dominated. It is very odd that so many political parties in Westminster are among them.
So take your seats for the Tory women versus the blokes, lads and chaps of the other parties. The Conservatives are recovering, and my guess is they will be ahead in the polls by the Autumn.
Richard Coyle as Atticus Finch and Aaron Shosanya as Tom Robinson | Photo by: Johan Persson
4 min read
Aaron Sorkin’s empathetic stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s timeless story is an obvious must-see for all admirers of the work of these two great American writers
A staple of GCSE English literature since the exams were first introduced nearly 40 years ago, both the book and the seminal 1962 film starring Gregory Peck have been seared into a generation of 15-year-old brains, including mine.
Central to the book’s plot is the wrongful accusation of rape made against Black cotton picker Tom Robinson and his subsequent trial. An intertwining sub-plot involves the reclusive Boo Radley who moves next door to the main characters, the Finch family.
To Kill a Mockingbird’s stark representation of racial injustice in the Deep South and the American legal system led me to read and watch many other cultural classics on the same theme, including Mississippi Burning, The Color Purple and In the Heat of the Night.
A few years later, the American TV phenomenon The West Wing explored many of the same themes as To Kill a Mockingbird. From race – such as the wrongful arrest of the president’s Latino Supreme Court nominee, Judge Roberto Mendoza – to my personal favourite episode, ‘Two Cathedrals’, where President Bartlet faces a challenging moral choice of whether to run again, much like lawyer Atticus Finch when deciding on whether to take Tom Robinson’s case.
A scripted version of To Kill a Mockingbird written by The West Wing’s creator Aaron Sorkin is an obvious must-see for all admirers of these two great American works of fiction. The play has undoubtedly been ‘Sorkinised’ but more in the way the characters are portrayed than the dialogue. There is also a sense of the Shakespearean levity of Hamlet or The Tempest in some of the interplay between the child characters Jem Finch (Gabriel Scott) and his friend Dill (Dylan Malyn), which is reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Sorkin’s modern political subtext reflects the book’s timeless nature
The first difference between the book and this play is that all three children – Jem, his sister Scout (Anna Munden), and Dill – take a role in the narration, reaching out to the audience through the ‘fourth wall’, giving the story a new viewpoint compared to Scout’s singular perspective in the book.
Photo by: Johan Persson
Sorkin injects some of his own Jewishness into the tale, albeit in a more subtle way than The West Wing. Accuser Bob Ewell (Oscar Pearce) is transformed into not just a racist Klan member but also an antisemite. Ewell’s statement to Atticus Finch that “I detect something a little Hebraic in you” is reminiscent of the pilot scene of The West Wing where conservative lobbyist Mary Marsh accuses Josh Lyman of having a “New York sense of humour”.
The story arc will be familiar to everyone who has read the book or watched the film. In the first half of the play, prior to the start of the trial, there is considerable levity – but once the trial starts, that is almost completely subsumed by the tense atmosphere and the burning sense of injustice that flows from the treatment of Robinson (Aaron Shosanya).
Sorkin’s modern political subtext reflects the book’s timeless nature, with the Klan characters using the language of the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ as justification for their actions, and the townspeople perceiving the Finch family as “race traitors”.
The portrayals are superb. All three actors playing the children excel, and the performances of some of the minor characters like Link Deas (Simon Hepworth) and Judge Taylor (Stephen Boxer) show incredible pathos. The character of the Finchs’ housekeeper Calpurnia (Andrea Davy) exposes some of Atticus’ own flaws, which are barely explored in either the book or the film. Richard Coyle’s performance as Atticus must be a career high (and bears no resemblance to the first time I experienced his acting in the BBC sitcom Coupling!)
Sorkin’s To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t a faithful retelling, but it still holds fast to all the story’s central tenets – and leaves the theatregoer with all the same feelings of empathy for Robinson and his family, anger at Bob Ewell, pity for his daughter Mayella Ewell and pride in the moral fortitude of the Finchs.
A must-see.
Alex Sobel is Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley
To Kill a Mockingbird
Adapted by/playwright: Aaron Sorkin
Director: Bartlett Sher
Venue: Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC2 – until 12 September
Despite what the corporate media and MP’s are always spreading, a new study has shown that it’s actually harder to get disability benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) if you have ADHD.
For months now the rags have pushed the narrative that too many people with ADHD are cheating the system and claiming Personal Independence Payments (PIP).
The latest was from The Times:
More than 100,000 get benefits for ADHD with no need to seek work
As the Canary reported at the time, this was days before the DWP released the Timms Review into PIP. This was a clear attempt to by the DWP to control the narrative before the report revealed that PIP was “not fit for purpose”.
Despite the report being sympathetic to how inhumane a system PIP is, the press are still churning out slop about how it’s too easy to claim. This is helped by MPs who spread this utter waffle.
The likes of GB News had a field day when Labour MP Sojan Joseph told the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on mental health that he was chairing that people with ‘mild’ ADHD shouldn’t get benefits.
Joseph said:
You can’t just say all ADHDs or all autism can’t work or should be on benefits. [The system] should distinguish between the severity of the illness.
He continued:
Once you start claiming benefits, it’s hard to get people out of that benefit system.
Putting aside that this is a gross oversimplification, it also isn’t accurate.
PIP is harder for people with ADHD to keep
Benefits and Work researched the varying outcomes of change of circumstances for the 50 most common conditions that people get PIP for within the DWP’s own data.
Of the over 10,000 claimants a month requesting a change of circumstances review in the last year to April 2026 5.5% failed the assessment and 3.2% had their award decreased. Meanwhile 38.6% had their award increased and 49.6% saw their benefits stay the same.
On the whole, changes of circumstance didn’t make that much difference, but for some conditions it was much harder to keep a hold of PIP when they requested a change of circumstances review.
Autism and ADHD in particular had worse outcomes.
16.3% of people with ADHD failed the assessment while 5.5% saw their PIP decreased. 28.7% had their money increased and 44.9% saw no change.
Meanwhile 17% of autistic people failed the assessment and 9.8% had their money decreased. This also meant that 26.8% of awards increased and 42.5% stayed the same.
It’s not just ADHD and autism, the study found that on the whole claimants with neurodivergent and mental health conditions were more likely to fail reassessment or lose money.
This goes hand in hand with them also trying to prove neurodivergent and mental health conditions are overdiagnosed. Though this was another case where they’ve had to be hot on the press propaganda because their own report is saying different to their foregone conclusion.
DWP demonising vulnerable people even further
It’s clear from the amount of hate levelled at people with ADHD that the DWP wants to make it harder for them to claim PIP. But despite what the press and the government wants us all to think, it’s already hard enough for those with ADHD to get support.
Making it harder to neurodivergent people to claim PIP won’t make the system “fairer”, but it will put a lot of vulnerable people in danger.
Featured image via the Canary
Reform UK has beaten Labour to a manifesto launch in the Greater Manchester mayoral election race. Both parties are, of course, going through by-election-related leadership dramas.
The latter saw former Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, unseat its historically unpopular leader, Keir Starmer, in Makerfield. Reform now faces the not insignificant prospect of its leader being challenged by Count Binface. And Nigel Farage’s popularity is tanking too, thanks to his repeated corruption.
With all this going on, Reform reportedly sent internal WhatsApp messages to party activists telling them to get themselves down to Clacton and abandon Manchester’s mayoralty. (Reform denied this in Manchester Mill.) All because Reform is worried it can’t take on a character almost as unserious as Farage.
But it hasn’t stopped Reform putting out a mishmash of ideas for Manchester, many seemingly borrowed. (The Canary hasn’t been able to confirm whether its manifesto is properly costed either.)
Given all their competitors’ furore, the Green Party must be laughing. The Greens are celebrating their ability to out-match Labour by beating them to a proper manifesto.
Green Party mayoral candidate, Geraldine Coggins, said:
Labour need to get serious…You can’t hope to run a 3 billion budget based on a cartoon bus.
Greens slam ‘unserious’ Labour in Manchester mayoral election
Reform: Is this Manchester’s great Reformation?
Reform’s candidate, landlord Sian Astley, is in fact promising to “go to war” with vape shops and “dodgy” barbers. Meanwhile, Reform promises to:
Cut waste, slash spending on little-used cycle lanes, reverse the increase in the Mayor’s tax and end spending on DEI projects such as equality panels and funding for greener future programmes.
This is despite every elected Reform-controlled council promising to do similar, failing to find the phantom woke DEI “waste”, and instead raising taxes. Anyone who cycles around Manchester — an activity that’s not party political — knows that the idea that bike lanes are somehow overfunded is nonsense.
Reform pledges to “shut down every migrant hotel” with no mention of where asylum seekers are intended to go after.
However, councillor Astley, previously pledged to build immigrant prisons in non-Reform-voting areas. This viciously punitive — not to mention likely illegal plan — is part of Reform’s national policy. Astley doubled down on it, but the general public hated those plans when announced.
Astley also pledges to create the “toughest police force in Britain” if elected. This is despite the fact that Greater Manchester Police was recently found to have used “disproportionate and unnecessary force” against anti-fascist demonstrators in April. The question, then, is: tough on who, exactly?
Not fascists, presumably. Just drugs, knives and shoplifters, according to the manifesto.
Is Reform just pinching policies?
This rhetoric is perhaps standard Tory-esque stuff. “Tough on crime”, yada yada yada. Maybe a little bit more of a fascist flavour when the time comes, we’ll see…
Reform is in lockstep with the Tories and both parties’ fossil fuel donors, railing against “Net Zero measures” and pledging to scrap all of them in Greater Manchester Combined Authority. You couldn’t publish this at a worse time as Manchester and much of the lower North West is covered in smoke from a raging wildfire burning near Oldham.
But Reform has also pinched policy ideas from its further right, with a pledge to launch an inquiry into “grooming gangs”. The party has alleged to pursue every perpetrator and “publicly expose the officials who enabled them”. This language is a clear imitation of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party, which is likely eating into Reform’s vote again as we saw in Makerfield.
Lowe calls Farage a “coward” for not launching an inquiry, which Lowe did himself. He claims it found 250,000 cases of child rape — a figure seemingly plucked from thin air, in a biased document clearly targeted against Muslims.
The inquiry was truly hateful and dangerous and led to stabbings against five people in Edinburgh mere days after its launch. Right-wingers are farming racist mass psychosis.
This is standard fare for Reform now, who time and again has been caught with racist councillors, hateful spads and vicious MPs. From racist dog whistles to overt hate, we know its direction of travel.
Reform UK sees its sixth councillor suspended over racist rhetoric
Vague unaccountability and watered-down policy
There’s also a commitment to “proportional” funding for regeneration across the boroughs and plans to build on all brownfield sites. Not bad ideas, in theory. The latter is certainly something that many could get behind, including greens.
But surely Astley, whose business is property sales, will be a boon for the unaccountable development interests that have dominated this city under Burnham.
Reform seems to have some consciousness about Burnham’s shocking legacy. That legacy was fully overseen and enabled by Labour candidate, Bev Craig, as city council Leader.
Reform has promised:
For luxury developer contracts in the region, Reform UK say they will publish every loan agreement, decision record and contract above £1million held by TfGM and the GMCA, commission an independent audit of the Housing Investment Loan Fund and Renaker loans, impose a conflict of interest regime, enforce terms of existing deals and refer evidence of wrongdoing by developers, officials or contractors to relevant authorities.
The question is whether it’s purely political vengeance, or whether the party will hold itself accountable too. Reform offers very vague plans for housing, without even bothering so much as to put a target on building homes. Instead it only promises “affordable homes where they need to go”.
The thing about not having targets, like the Greens’ 20,000 homes plan, is that you don’t have to be accountable. That seems to be Reform’s underlying plan. Accountability and apology is not its game.
Lastly, in a policy blatantly pinched from the Greens, only measurably shitter, Reform pledge free bus travel… for 16-18s only. Hardly as ambitious or crucial as the Green pledge of free for under-22s.
It’s just more evidence that Reform grifters are short on ideas and lack real substance.
Featured image via Manchester Gazette
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