Cops willing to work with Trump’s violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs are being offered a new insurance scheme to protect them from misconduct charges. The scheme would cost officers $250 a year, but that cost would be reimbursed.

CNN reported on 18 August:

The agency is proposing to subsidize liability insurance for state and local officers who are trained and deputized to enforce federal immigration laws, according to a planning document published Friday.

It is hoped that the coverage would encourage police departments to join up with ICE in its often violent anti-immigrant operations:

ICE’s partnerships with local departments have soared since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year and may get an additional boost with liability insurance by removing a hurdle that has made some local police departments reluctant to join.

The scheme would provide:

up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically funds legal fees, settlements and judgments.

ICE’s accountability problem

Critics have warned this was another way to shield state agents from accountability. Cato Institute director of immigration studies David Bier told CNN:

The concern here is that ICE is going above and beyond to guarantee law enforcement does not have even the slightest risk of liability for violating Americans’ rights while helping ICE arrest people.

The relationship between the enforcement body and regional police forces has deepened in Donald Trump’s second term. ICE has offered:

generous financial incentives to participating local agencies, increasing the number who have partnered with the federal government, as well as the number of arrests.

CNN estimated:

Nearly 1,600 agencies in 32 states now have agreements to participate in ICE’s task force model, in which trained local officers can interrogate, arrest and charge people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to ICE data.

Federal officers (like the FBI) usually enjoy “legal immunities” and “government-funded defense” against lawsuits:

But those protections may not always apply to local officers, which has heightened their concerns over liability and the need for insurance.

The ICE-police planning document can be read here. It seeks:

to reduce the risk by saying local officers performing ICE-authorized functions are “acting under color of federal authority,” which would bar lawsuits against individual officers.

The authorities clearly hope this new scheme will see cops reinforcing ICE operations around the US. In effect, the Trump administration wants to use cops as a force multiplier in its mission to racially purify the United States. In that sense, the move is entirely in keeping with the Trumpian worldview.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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Cristiano Ronaldo has suggested he will retire at the end of the season, signalling the likely conclusion of one of football’s most decorated and scrutinised careers. The 41‑year‑old, who featured at his sixth World Cup this summer, told Vogue that this campaign “is probably my last year of football, and I want to leave a spectacular legacy.” It is the clearest indication yet that the Portugal captain is preparing to draw a line under more than two decades at the top of the sport.

Ronaldo had already confirmed ahead of the 2026 World Cup that the tournament across the USA, Canada and Mexico would be his final involvement on the global stage. Even then, he maintained his long‑held stance that he would decide the timing of his exit, insisting: “I will retire when I want to, not when you want.” But Portugal’s last‑16 defeat to Spain in July, which ended his World Cup career, has sharpened focus on what comes next.

World Cup farewell closes historic chapter

Portugal’s elimination brought down the curtain on Ronaldo’s record‑breaking World Cup journey. He became the first player to score in six editions of the tournament, finishing with 11 goals from 27 appearances. His presence at the 2026 competition was itself unprecedented, extending a run that began in Germany in 2006 and spanned two decades of international football.

The last‑16 exit to Spain was a subdued end to a World Cup career defined by longevity, consistency and relentless ambition. Yet even in the twilight of his playing days, Ronaldo remained central to Portugal’s campaign, carrying the weight of expectation that has followed him since his teenage breakthrough.

Al Nassr form remains prolific

Despite his age, Ronaldo has continued to score heavily for Al Nassr in the Saudi Pro League. His output has kept him within touching distance of the extraordinary milestone of 1,000 career goals—figure that once seemed unthinkable but now sits within reach as he approaches the final stretch of his playing life.

He is contracted to Al Nassr until 2027, but his comments suggest that he does not intend to see out the full length of that deal. Instead, he appears ready to bring his career to a close on his own terms, with one final season to shape the legacy he wants to leave behind.

Unrivalled honours

Ronaldo’s career is defined by an honours list that spans continents, competitions and eras. He has won five Ballons d’Or, five Champions League titles and league championships in England, Spain and Italy. His impact at Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus has left lasting imprints on each club, while his return to United in 2021 added another chapter to a career already overflowing with narrative.

At Real Madrid, he became the club’s all‑time leading scorer, amassing 450 goals in 438 appearances. This statistic is one of the most staggering in modern football. His rivalry with Lionel Messi shaped a generation, pushing both players to unprecedented levels of performance and consistency.

On the international stage, Ronaldo has delivered Portugal’s greatest triumphs. He lifted the European Championship in 2016 and the Nations League in 2019, anchoring a period of sustained competitiveness for a nation that had long hovered on the fringes of major tournament success. His 146 goals for Portugal make him the top scorer in men’s international football history, a record that may stand for decades.

Ronaldo’s legacy and longevity

Ronaldo’s career has been defined not only by trophies and records but by his ability to adapt. From explosive winger to penalty‑box predator, he has repeatedly reshaped his game to extend his dominance. His physical conditioning, professionalism and competitive drive have become reference points for aspiring players worldwide.

The decision to retire at the end of the season would mark the conclusion of a career that has spanned Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, a second spell at United and now Al Nassr. Across each stop, he has remained a global figure whose influence stretches far beyond the pitch.

If this is indeed Ronaldo’s final campaign, it presents a rare moment of clarity in a career often defined by constant movement and reinvention. His goalscoring pursuit in Saudi Arabia, his leadership within Portugal’s evolving squad and his status as one of football’s most recognisable figures will all feed into the narrative of his final months as a professional.

The end of the season could bring a farewell befitting his stature. Possibly also a quieter exit shaped by his desire to control the terms of his departure. Either way, the significance of the moment will not be lost on the football world.

Era-defining figure prepares to step away

Ronaldo’s suggestion that he will retire underscores the inevitability that even the sport’s most enduring icons eventually reach their final chapter. His achievements, statistical, historical, and cultural, will place him among the most influential players the game has ever seen.

From his early days in Lisbon to his peak years in Madrid and his late‑career reinvention in Saudi Arabia, Ronaldo has remained a constant presence in football’s global conversation. His retirement, when it arrives, will mark the end of an era defined by extraordinary consistency, relentless ambition and a career that has rewritten the boundaries of longevity.

Football prepares for life after Ronaldo

As Ronaldo enters what he suggests will be his final season, the sport begins to contemplate a future without one of its defining figures. His departure will reshape Portugal’s national team, alter the landscape of global football and close a chapter that has spanned more than 20 years.

For now, he continues as he always has. Still scoring, still competing, still chasing milestones. But his words make clear that the finish line is approaching. So when it arrives, Cristiano Ronaldo will leave behind a legacy that few players in history can match.

Featured image via the Canary

By Faz Ali

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Cross-party MPs and peers have written a letter, organised by Labour MP Afzal Khan, to IPSO concerning the treatment of Professor Jason Arday. (Alamy)

4 min read35 min

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has asked the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to investigate media coverage of Jason Arday.

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In a letter to IPSO Chief Executive Charlotte Dewar, organised by Labour MP Afzal Khan and seen by PoliticsHome, more than 50 parliamentarians say reporting on the former Cambridge academic before his death “reached far beyond what can reasonably be perceived as conducive to the public interest in relation to his alleged plagiarism”. 

The letter argues it is “not unreasonable to suggest that the colour of Dr Arday’s skin was a contributing factor in garnering the level of media scrutiny he faced”, and that “Arday’s white counterparts at the University of Cambridge alone faced allegations that did not result in the same level of attention or affect.”

“His story went beyond the accusation of plagiarism and became one that critiqued him because he was Black,” the letter reads.

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“Elements of the press repeatedly blamed diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies as the reason he reached the status of professorship, and have hailed the allegations against him as to why promoting diversity leads institutions to failure.

“They framed the story of a single Black professor to discredit Black academia outright, suggesting that calls for diversity are leading institutions to prioritise the identity of an  individual to be more important than their academic record. This is in spite of the fact that only one per cent of UK professors are Black.”

The letter adds that IPSO owes it to Arday’s family and people nationwide who have been “devastated” by his death to say whether it believes the media coverage was “proportional, justified, and motivated by any reason other than the accusations of plagiarism levelled against him”.

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Signatories include Labour MPs Tulip Siddiq, Kerry McCarthy, Paula Barker and Tan Dhesi; Green MPs Sian Berry and Hannah Spencer; Plaid’s Westminster leader Liz Saville-Roberts; and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Professor Jason Arday’s death has devasted millions of us across the country. He was relentlessly attacked for who he was and what he represented. Myself and 52 other Parliamentarians have written to the IPSO urging them to investigate the coverage of Professor Arday in the weeks before his death.

— Afzal Khan MP (@afzalkhanmcr.bsky.social) 2026-08-19T11:54:54.759Z

Khan, the Labour MP for Manchester Rusholme, told PoliticsHome the group decided to send the letter because “a vulnerable Black man is dead after a relentless attack on him as a person, for what he stood for, and for what he represented.”

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“Letting the press off from being held accountable for what they’ve contributed towards is an invite to them to do it again,” he said.

“The press never fail to put clicks and views ahead of their ability to even think about the effects of their words and actions – this is yet another example. Each and every one of them who continued to attack Jason after they knew full well the effect it was having on him should be deeply ashamed.”

Arday, 41, was found dead at an address in south London on Friday following extensive media coverage of his academic and personal life following allegations of plagiarism.

The academic became the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s 800-year history when the University appointed him in 2023.

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He stepped down from his professor role in early August amid allegations of plagiarism, which he denied, with Cambridge later opening an independent investigation into his appointment. 

Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday his PHD in 2015, had previously concluded that the academic had not plagiarised work.

The allegations prompted media coverage of his academic work as well as disputed claims he made about his life and achievements. For example, former schoolmates challenged Arday’s claim in his autobiography Great And Unfortunate Things that he was non-verbal until nearly 12 years old, though other former schoolmates provided accounts that supported it.

In his resignation letter, Arday said what he had experienced went “beyond scholarly disagreement” and that “the relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”

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He added that he had “reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure”. 

Dr Simon Baron-Cohen, Arday’s friend and director of Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre, publicly expressed concern about the behaviour of the media before Arday’s death. Posting on the social media platform X, Baron-Cohen said that Arday was autistic, that his own research found autistic people were at higher risk of suicide, and described “relentless bullying of a vulnerable autistic man” that “raises safeguarding issues”. 

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Arday’s death “was a tragedy, on so many levels”, and called for a “moment of reflection” to reflect on “how things came to this”. 

A vigil was held for Arday in London’s Trafalgar Square on Monday, organised by Stand Up To Racism, with attendees including Arday’s constituency MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy and long-serving Labour MP Diane Abbott.

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A senior FIFA official warned he was prepared to lose his job over Gianni Infantino’s controversial World Cup plan. Weeks later, he has.

He knew the risk

FIFA has ended its working relationship with Chief Operating Officer Kevin Lamour, weeks after he publicly criticised Infantino over plans to sell a stake in the World Cup’s commercial rights to outside investors.

FIFA confirmed that Lamour’s contract ended on 17 August, thanking him for his two years with the organisation but declining to comment further.

Lamour had made clear that he knew his criticism could cost him his job.

Speaking to the Associated Press on 31 July, he said the proposal “should not go ahead” and that football’s leaders needed to “ask the right questions and make the right decisions”.

Then came the bluntest part:

And if that means I lose my job, then so be it.

Within weeks, Lamour was gone.

The straw that broke Infantino

The dispute centred on a proposal to create a FIFA subsidiary valued at around $20bn, which would control the commercial rights to the federation’s major tournaments, including the World Cup.

Under the plan, up to 20% of the subsidiary could have been sold to outside investors.

The proposal triggered opposition both inside and outside FIFA, with critics questioning whether investors from outside football should have a stake in the commercial rights to its biggest tournaments.

Lamour was not the only senior figure to object. Hours before his comments, Carlos Cordero, a chief adviser to Infantino, resigned over the proposal, calling it “a bad deal for football”.

Infantino’s FIFA headache

FIFA subsequently backed away from the plan amid the growing backlash. But the controversy has continued to reverberate inside the organisation.

Lamour’s departure now adds another remarkable twist to a proposal that was supposed to be a major financial move for FIFA.

Lamour joined FIFA as Chief Operating Officer in 2024 after spending years at UEFA, where he had served as Deputy General Secretary.

His exit also raises an obvious question about how much room senior FIFA officials have to challenge Infantino when they disagree with his plans.

Lamour effectively predicted the consequences himself. He said he would accept losing his job if that was the price of speaking out.

Weeks later, FIFA confirmed that his time at the organisation was over.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

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Premier League clubs have already spent £2.14bn this summer, widening the financial gulf with Europe.

Premier League spending through the roof

Premier League clubs have continued their record-breaking spending this summer, splashing around £2.14bn so far and closing in on the record set in 2025.

According to BBC figures, clubs would need to spend roughly another £1bn to match last summer’s total. With more than two weeks still remaining before the transfer window closes, however, another record remains within reach.

The scale of the spending is striking. The league has already surpassed the totals for several entire transfer windows, including £1.98bn in 2024, £1.94bn in 2022, £1.32bn in 2020 and £1.13bn in 2021.

Only the summers of 2023 and 2025 have seen more spending, at around £2.36bn and a record figure respectively.

With clubs still strengthening their squads, the £2.36bn mark could soon be within touching distance.

The money stays in England

The spending boom isn’t limited to players arriving from abroad. Premier League clubs have also been throwing huge sums at each other, with almost £785m spent on domestic transfers so far.

That offers another indication of the league’s financial muscle—clubs have enough money not only to shop abroad but to pay extraordinary fees for players already competing in England.

Morgan Rogers’ move from Aston Villa to Chelsea leads the domestic spending list at £117m, followed by Elliot Anderson’s £116m transfer from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City.

Sandro Tonali’s move from Newcastle United to Tottenham Hotspur cost £100m, while Matheus Fernandes joined Tottenham from West Ham for £85m. Bruno Guimarães’ move from Newcastle to Arsenal completes the top five at £75m.

Europe is struggling to keep up

The figures underline just how wide the financial gap between the Premier League and Europe’s other major leagues has become.

BBC described the difference as “as clear as day”, with Premier League spending now approaching the combined total spent by clubs in the other four major European leagues.

The disparity reflects the enormous commercial and broadcast revenues flowing through English football, giving Premier League clubs the financial muscle to keep spending even as transfer fees continue to soar.

With the window entering its final stages, the question is no longer whether Premier League clubs can spend at extraordinary levels. It’s whether they can break yet another record — and widen the gap with the rest of Europe even further.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

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On Monday 17 August, Reform UK announced a suite of new policies designed to target and punish sick, disabled, and unemployed people. The party’s plan to target unemployed people is based on the idea that there’s a significant number of voters who are just ‘layabouts’. In reality, most of the people who don’t work can’t work, and the rest are facing a particularly tough market – as the latest job vacancies show:

all while every single major party says it’s going to cut benefits for people that “refuse to work” https://t.co/TsAZeBlXwb

— mike ☭ (@__mike91) August 18, 2026

On the attack (and ignoring the job vacancies chaos)

Reform’s Making Welfare Work policy would completely abolish Personal Independence Payments (PIP). As we reported, this is an odd move for Reform to make, given that many Reform voters are PIP claimants. It’s one thing to pretend the system is full of ‘scroungers’ and to promise a crackdown; it’s quite another to directly target every PIP claimant in the country.

I canvassed a disabled voter in Crook recently who told me she was voting Reform because the first time she applied for PIP it was rejected. "I had to fight damn hard for my PIP" she told me, "but foreigners get it for nothing".

I hope people like her become better informed. https://t.co/l5emWDM0QD

— Sam Rushworth MP (@SamJRushworth) August 16, 2026

Predictably, Reform’s policy is likely to result in a massive increase in child poverty. PIP payments help sick and disabled people juggle part-time work with their ongoing health issues. Removing PIP might push some people into full-time work, but it will also force many into full-time unemployment.

The new policy will mandate that anyone who’s on Universal Credit for 12 months will have to complete 20 hours of community work a year. As the Standard reported:

Robert Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesperson, said the long-term unemployed would have to work 20 hours a week scrubbing high streets, carrying out minor repairs and “beautifying neglected places”.

The scheme would be run by local councils and those who do not accept work placements will have their funding cut.

This really betrays two things:

• It’s entirely possible to just create job vacancies – including jobs which benefit the local area.
• For whatever reason, some voters will only get behind such a move if there’s an element of punishment to it.

And all this is especially bad when you factor in the current unavailability of jobs.

THIS IS INSANE

There are now 2.5 unemployed people for every job opening in the UK. https://t.co/dAkoigaAgb pic.twitter.com/tKpis4jAmE

— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) August 18, 2026

Job hunt

As the BBC reported, the number of job vacancies:

has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years as smaller businesses cut back on recruitment, official figures indicate.

Vacancy numbers fell over the May-to-July period to 707,000, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said small firms were citing labour and operating costs as reasons for scaling back hiring.

Energy costs have risen since the Iran war began, and companies have also said that increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have made it more expensive to employ staff.

While it’s essential that the minimum wage rises to meet the cost of living, it can cause issues in a Cost-of-Living Crisis. The problem is that even with wages going up a bit, most people are still feeling the pinch. When that happens, people spend less; when people spend less, businesses attract fewer customers; when businesses attract fewer customers, they employ fewer people.

It’s a vicious circle, in other words. And it’s not one we’re going to get out of by punishing people who are out of work.

Reform says it will save £50bn a year by abolishing PIP. That’s £50bn which was being sent to PIP claimants who were in turn spending it on food, clothes, and essentials. Now ask yourself this: will pulling £50bn out of the economy be good for businesses who are already struggling, or will it be an absolute disaster?

Job seekers vs job vacancies

The BBC article carries the following interview with a job seeker:

Aaron Diangienda told BBC Newsbeat he has been looking for a role for more than a year.

“I’ve been trying my best, just making sure that I am finding the correct stuff to suit me and keeping on going with [the job hunt]”, he says.

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Under Reform, Diangienda would have been put on the scheme to carry out labour for benefits – i.e. he’d be working for less than the minimum wage. Would that really help him find work?

Another job seeker said this:

For Jasmine Walker, it’s been a case of applying for jobs “literally anywhere and everywhere”.

The 24-year-old says she has been looking for marketing jobs since she graduated from university in July, and estimates she has applied for more than 300 roles so far.

“It’s a bit frustrating because you’re researching and practising how to make your CV and applications pristine, and yet you still can’t get anywhere with that,” says Walker.

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Imagine if applying for 100+ jobs wasn’t enough, and suddenly you had to work 20 hours a week just to maintain your benefits – benefits which already failed to ensure any quality of life.

You can be mad about how things are, but you can’t pretend Reform’s plan will fix anything.

Farage wants 300k unemployed scrubbing the streets for free or starve. Call it community service. It’s the workhouse rebranded. Class war from the top. Always.

20 hours unpaid labour a week or lose your benefits. That’s Reform’s big idea. Taxpayers get paid. Claimants get…

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— Spirit Of Attlee (@SpiritOfAttlee) August 17, 2026

Costly

Another thing to note is that Reform’s plan is going to create whole new layers of bureaucracy and enforcement for local councils. Who’s going to pay for all this? Because the policy isn’t going to generate cash as far as we’ve been told. And this is supposed to be part of a plan to save money.

It’s almost like Reform hasn’t thought this one through.

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By Willem Moore

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Reform’s John Bell has resigned as parish councillor for Mabe in Cornwall and quit Farage’s far-right party. Explaining his decision, Bell stated that he “cannot in good conscience” support the recently announced ‘Making Welfare Work’ policy.

Joining resounding criticism of the harmful policy, Bell says that Reform’s changes to welfare and Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will “cost lives of people, especially those who have suicidal ideation”.

This resignation comes in the wake of Jason Arday’s apparent suicide – a death likely caused by the immense, undue pressure and demeaning rhetoric the mainstream media directed at him. That same media has spent years demonising and belittling people who rely on welfare support, particularly those receiving PIP.

As a result, this intervention from Bell underlines the real-world danger of punitive policy changes that risk leaving vulnerable people even more isolated.

Today I have resigned from Reform UK and also I have resigned as a Councillor. I cannot in good conscience support the Making Welfare Work policy. These changes will cost lives of people especially those who have suicidal ideation.

— John Bell (@johngbell0) August 17, 2026

Reform to cut £50bn from support for disabled people

Reform’s latest harmful policy announcement proposes replacing PIP entirely with a new system, ironically called a ‘Health Security Allowance’, while claiming it could save the welfare system a staggering £50bn.

But the reality is rather different. Reform would effectively shift the cost of PIP onto employers, who it says would need to take out insurance to cover the additional costs. It then proposes offsetting that hit through lower national insurance payments.

As our own Willem Moore and others have pointed out, this is unlikely to go down well with either PIP recipients or business owners. And for good reason. PIP helps many disabled people meet the additional costs of living with a disability and, crucially, can help make employment possible for those affected.

Businesses also benefit from disabled people being able to participate in the workforce. Yet Reform’s proposal would saddle employers with additional costs at the same time as many businesses already complain they are being squeezed by government.

If that £50bn bill really is being shifted onto businesses, you might expect a revolt. Especially when so many businesses and wealthy donors have backed Reform. On the face of it, the policy risks alienating both voters and the very business interests the party claims to champion.

DWP PIP claimants are being tricked into voting Reform

Some PIP claimants believed that Reform was only going after 'fraudsters'; now the party has made it clear they're going for everyonehttps://t.co/xAc61sMw7Shttps://t.co/xAc61sMw7S

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) August 17, 2026

But there is a much darker possibility

If employers face far higher costs when hiring disabled workers, what happens when they start factoring those costs into recruitment decisions? The risk is that disabled applicants become even less attractive to employers, whether openly or through discriminatory hiring practices.

That creates a perfect storm: disabled people could lose vital financial support while simultaneously finding it harder to get and keep work.

And that is why the potential consequences of this policy go far beyond a row over welfare spending. Strip away the rhetoric about ‘saving’ £50bn and the long-term impact could be devastating. A policy that removes income, restricts access to work and pushes already vulnerable people further into isolation could, in the worst cases, cost lives.

As the now-former Reform councillor above points out, those already experiencing suicidal thoughts could be among those most at risk. For those with any degree of moral conscience or decency would do as Bell has done and walk away from the party. For those who don’t, well that speaks volumes.

Grossly, one Reform supporter refutes Bell’s assertion that this policy would increase the risk of suicide. Instead, they argue that this saving would mean those who are suicidal would receive greater support from the state.

Although, it is worth pointing out that he clearly hasn’t thought this through as that number would surely only increase due to this harmful policy pushing people out of employment whilst taking away vital support:

Suicidal ideation is something a vast number of people suffer from at some point in their lives. Reform UK's plan to cut benefits for people who abuse the welfare system would actually free up more funds for those who briefly suffer from suicidal tendencies.

John Bell has not… https://t.co/SWdlESuLyE

— Joe Reform UK (@Verbal_Vortex) August 18, 2026

Cut costs to increase costs elsewhere?

Reform voters don’t tend to apply much logic to why they support the ultra-wealthy Farage and his billionaire funded party/business, so it should hardly be a surprise that Reform would introduce a policy which would hurt its own voter base.

As our own Willem Moore reported:

It’s important to understand that some of the people with a negative opinion about benefit claimants are benefit claimants themselves. These people have bought into the lie that there are a handful of deserving claimants (themselves and their friends) and millions of undeserving. This phenomenon is why UK political parties can bash benefit claimants while still winning votes from them.

It really does seem that some Reform supporters desperately want to believe they’re somehow ‘different’ from other benefit claimants. Perhaps attacking the ‘others’ receiving state support gives them a way to distance themselves from people they see as beneath them – even when they’re relying on the very same system.

But if a future Reform government actually implements this policy, the consequences could hit the public finances from both sides.

After all, push disabled people out of work and you shrink the income tax base. At the same time, removing the support that helps people manage independently risks pushing more people towards the NHS and other public services.

That means higher costs for the state, less tax coming in and even more pressure on an NHS already struggling under the weight of privatisation.

The rich, of course, will get richer under Reform

And here’s the real kicker: instead of helping disabled people live independently and contribute to their communities, that money could end up lining the pockets of private providers and shareholders as our NHS is carved up and sold off.

This, we suspect, is exactly what Farage and his super rich backers are counting on. The question for taxpayers, is whether they want to get value for money or whether they want that to be vacuumed up by the richest in society.

Or, as Bell has pointed out, it could lead to a significant number of PIP recipients choosing to take their own lives, due to the duress this policy would inflict.

This is a Dickensian reality which no decent person should accept, let alone vote for.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

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If there’s one thing pretty much everyone agrees with, it’s that British politicians haven’t been doing much long-term planning. A clear example of this is the following from Lib Dems MP Layla Moran:

It is hard to overstate the selfishness and short-sightedness of NIMBYism.

Here’s Lib Dem MP Layla Moran objecting to plans for a mega reservoir in her constituency in 2022.

Her constituency is now officially in drought because we lack enough places to store water. https://t.co/HiMXkIG4Le

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— James Hanson (@jhansonradio) August 18, 2026

NIMBYism = Lib Dems-ism

The acronym ‘NIMBY’ stands for ‘not in my backyard’. It’s a descriptor for people who want things to be built and developed, just so long as they’re not built and developed near them.

In Britain, NIMBYs have incredible power to prevent projects moving ahead during the planning process. On the one hand, having the ability to object to local mega projects is a good thing – especially when it comes to AI data centres. On the other hand, China has built “29,800 miles of high-speed train lines — about 70 per cent of the global total” – in the time it took us to half build HS1.

In the clip above, the Lib Dems Moran says:

Well, the main thing is that the water companies haven’t adequately, in my view, reassured and shown that this is absolutely necessary. You know, to put it into context, this is an enormous reservoir… 25 metres high, made of concrete. That’s three double-decker buses, one on top of the other. It’s pretty much the footprint of Abingdon itself. It’s enormous.

And there’s two things that they haven’t done. The first is proven that their population projections are correct. There are big discrepancies internationally, in what the ONS… say, and what they say they’re going to be. And we think that’s a big problem.

But the second is the environmental impact itself. We fully appreciate that we need to do something with our water supply. Absolutely. The question is, is this monstrous design the right thing? I don’t think they’ve made the case.

After the summer we’ve had, you’re no doubt salivating at the thought of that enormous reservoir. Although climate change has indeed accelerated, we knew that summers like this were coming in 2022 when Moran said the above. The Lib Dems have form too, with Nick Clegg having shot down carbon-free nuclear projects in 2010 because they wouldn’t come online until 2021:

Nick Clegg opposing nuclear energy investment in 2010, when interest rates were at record lows because it would simply take too long to materialise

pic.twitter.com/zxC26skevv https://t.co/iqbGl1EtXH

— camilo (@AscendedYield) June 26, 2025

Short termism

At this point, it really is up to us to punish politicians for this sort of short-term thinking. We need to renationalise key utilities; we need to improve and expand our national infrastructure, and we need to double down on renewables and nuclear. It’s going to take some time to make these things happen, but we’ll be kicking ourselves ten years from now if we don’t.

Featured image via Mark Pack

By Willem Moore

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So-called ‘Israel’s’ i24 News, which spread genocide-boosting fictions about beheaded babies post-7 October 2023, has released footage of a man attacking their ‘journalists’ in Belfast. Since then, dishonest media and politicians have sought to falsely conflate the anti-Zionist attack with antisemitism, offering zero evidence for the presence of the latter.

Yet this should have all been avoided by the British government imposing proper sanctions on the settler-colony, including barring entry for all ‘Israeli’ media outlets.

The attack occurred earlier in August, when an ‘Israeli’ cameraman and reporter were preying on people in Belfast’s cathedral quarter, an area packed with pubs and music venues. i24 News claims:

…i24NEWS reporter Jonathan Roe and photographer Nadav Abs were filming a documentary series examining the rise of antisemitism in Europe.

Their reporter Yonatan Raveh told the Jerusalem Post:

By Robert Freeman

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Nigel Farage is notorious for hardly ever showing up to Parliament. He’s also controversial for the £5m ‘gift’ which he received for unclear reasons. Despite this, he’s now decided Britain has a problematic ‘something for nothing’ culture:

Farage should be forced to prove a full 40 hour working week as MP for Clacton. https://t.co/LEkYV2L7SM

— Sam (@SamCKx) August 18, 2026

Absenteeism from Farage

As we’ve covered, Reform’s plan to make long-term unemployed people do free community service is just performative cruelty. It’s also not going to realise any of the benefits they claim to have in mind.

Farage, of course, is a particularly odd person to be calling out ‘something for nothing culture’. Since he was first elected as an MP in 2024:

• There have been 575 votes.
• Farage bothered to show up for 173.
• This means his attendance rate is 30%.

A 30% attendance rate is like if you only showed up to work 1.5 days a week. Sounds a lot like ‘something for nothing’ Britain to us.

Notoriously, Farage also decided he wouldn’t attend GP surgeries in his Clacton constituency. Farage claimed the Speaker’s Office advised him not to for safety reasons; the Speaker’s Office would later deny telling him such a thing. As Sky News reported in September 2024:

The MP had said he is not holding in-person surgeries in his constituency over fears the public will “flow through the door with knives in their pockets”.

Farage really does have a low opinion of Britons, doesn’t he? Clearly, he thinks we’re all violent layabouts, and yet he’s also notorious for swanning off to the US at every opportunity to hang out with Donald Trump – the world’s most notorious violent layabout. Trump is so lazy, in fact, that there’s a website dedicated to tracking his presidential golf trips. According to that site, Trump is nearly as workshy as Farage:

Donald Trump has golfed 125 days out of 577 days since returning to office (21.7% of the presidency spent golfing).

In terms of violence, Trump’s pointless war on Iran is set to make us all poorer, and that will of course lead to fewer jobs. Maybe Farage should be having a word with his mate instead of insulting the British public?

Pushback

Reform politicians are already facing significant pushback relating to the Making Welfare Work policy, which is set to abolish Personal Independence Payments (PIP):

You can see the exact moment that Reform politician Laila Cunningham realises that she's going to spend the next few years defending a policy that will hurt vulnerable people https://t.co/okm21FuK1L

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) August 17, 2026

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Robert Jenrick and Jeremy Kyle resorted to telling lies to quiet down the critics. As Mukhtar reported:

A Reform supporter called in and said that his family would not vote for Reform because his wife is on PIP. She has been through hell trying to get it, and he isn’t willing to take the risk of her losing it under a Reform government.

Jeremy Kyle then interrupted him and falsely claimed that hundreds of thousands of people are fraudulently claiming PIP.

This is a lie. PIP has one of the lowest fraud rates among benefits, at around 0.2%.

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This is the full clip and obviously Robert Jenrick also lies. https://t.co/iApvlJxgLC pic.twitter.com/PzFKEevRuo

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) August 18, 2026

Reform is also facing pushback from its own councillors:

BREAKING

Reform councillor quits Reform saying that Reform’s new welfare policies will cost lives pic.twitter.com/5Wa9If4iaX

— Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) August 18, 2026

As we’ve reported in the past, many Reform councillors have complained that they lack independence. Apparently, they have to tow the party line, even if it’s bad for the local area. Several councillors have quit over this. And Reform’s Making Welfare Work policy could be another issue that forces Reform councillors to quit or defect.

Downhill

Reform has mostly targeted its wrath on migrants; now, it’s seeking to broaden the attacks to more clearly include sick, disabled, and unemployed people. As we’ve reported, this means Reform is attacking people who may have otherwise considered voting for them. And it’s unclear why they think this is a good idea.

Our current theory is that they haven’t thought it through. No doubt because workshy Farage couldn’t be bothered turning up to the planning sessions.

Featured image via Justin Tallis

By Willem Moore

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