Keir Starmer has now — 19 February — appointed Antonia Romeo, formerly a senior diplomat in New York, as the next leader of the UK civil service. She’s the first woman ever to hold the position of Cabinet Secretary.

However, the rumours of the appointment also brought numerous previous allegations of bullying against Romeo back into the spotlight.

Somewhat predictably, this has led to warring factions among the upper echelons of the UK’s professional political gossipmongers. Either Antonia Romeo is a forceful and gifted leader attacked by rampant misogynists, or else a serial bully at the center of a Home Office coverup.

Without further ado, let’s go wallow in the mud, shall we?

‘Doing the due diligence’

The furor kicked off last week, with ex-head of diplomatic service Simon McDonald’s appearance on Channel 4 News. McDonald stated that:

Due diligence is vitally important, the Prime Minister has recent bitter experience of doing the due diligence too late. It would be an unnecessary tragedy to repeat that mistake… if [Romeo] is the one, in my view, the due diligence has some way still to go.

Fighting words, given that the other recent example of Starmer’s failed diligence is Epstein’s mate/Labour peer Peter Mandelson.

However, the government has claimed repeatedly that the investigation into the single complaint against Romeo has already been closed. Matthew Rycroft, ex-UK representative to the UN, and Rupert McNeil, former head of human resources, both made this ‘single complaint’ claim.

The three allegations in the complaint, which relate to bullying and the misuse of expenses, apparently had “no case to answer”.

Several ex-officials who worked alongside Romeo called the Cabinet Office’s ‘single complaint’ story “disingenuous”. Rather, sources told the BBC that several individuals lodged complaints against the former diplomat during her stint in New York.

Cue the political muck-raking/ Home Office coverup, depending on your vantage point.

Antonia Romeo — ’25-year record’

The new Cabinet Secretary certainly doesn’t lack for admirers. Even the colleagues who voiced complaints also acknowledged her as “smart, dynamic and really talented” and an “extremely intelligent, innovative thinker”. Starmer himself gave a glowing review:

outstanding public servant, with a 25‑year record of delivering for the British people […]

Since becoming prime minister, I’ve been impressed by her professionalism and determination to get things done.

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Robert Buckland, a former colleague at the Department for Justice, said of Romeo:

I think she is an extremely impressive person. She’s not a conventional backroom figure; she’s not scared of publicly projecting herself, but that shouldn’t be a block on her becoming first female cabinet secretary.

She confounds some of the old nostrums of the civil service. Seen not heard, be aware of the hierarchy. As a politician, I didn’t have time for that. Running a department during Covid, I needed flat structures and quick decisions.

Addressing the allegations against Romeo directly, Dave Penman — FDA (civil servant’s union) general secretary — told the House magazine that:

[Romeo is] an ambitious woman who doesn’t mind a bit of publicity. A lot of underlying rumours around her are an example of sexist, misogynistic culture. Lord McDonald’s talk around vetting is nonsense. She’s been vetted within an inch of her life already; she can see documents that cabinet ministers don’t have access to.

‘The allegations were dismissed’

However, it should be noted that those allegations were serious enough that the government flew Tim Hitchens — ex-ambassador to Japan — to New York to investigate. Hitchens looked into accusations of:

bullying behaviour, financial probity, and putting her private objectives above those of the wider Consulate-General or government.

However, the BBC revealed that the reported “no case to answer” statement referred to the accusations of expense irregularities. On the contrary, there was indeed a case to answer for Romeo regarding her bullying behaviour.

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office stated that:

Antonia Romeo is an outstanding leader with 25 years of public service. She has been appointed to three different Permanent Secretary roles and has led hundreds of thousands of public servants to deliver for governments of all stripes.

As we have repeatedly said, one formal complaint was raised nine years ago which was thoroughly investigated. The allegations were dismissed on the basis that there was no case to answer.

It is entirely inappropriate to resurface dismissed HR proceedings almost a decade later.

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Antonia Romeo — ‘Very demanding, very disrespectful, very threatening’

In a survey covering a year including 3 months of Antonia Romeo’s tenure in New York, 47% of staff reported bullying in the workplace. Comparable surveys would normally report bullying levels below 10%.

In documents seen by the BBC, plaintiffs described Romeo as being “unreasonable”, “degrading”, and “demeaning” towards staff.

The majority of the complaints came from other women, with one individual branding Romeo:

very demanding, very disrespectful, very threatening.

And also adding that:

I’m used to big egos but this was something else. The minute she heard the word ‘no’ she’d say I’ll go to your boss. But it was worse than that. She would go to your boss’s boss and your boss’s boss’s boss.

Another source stated:

If you don’t say ‘yes’ to her she’s not only going to screw your career, but she’ll screw all of those around you.

Yet another accuser charged Romeo with being overly self-promoting:

She’s a diplomat, not a D-list celebrity. My 15-year-old, social-media-obsessed, brother is less shameless in his self-promotion.

Likewise, one member of staff stated that Romeo had them:

frame articles in Vogue and the New Yorker about her and place them in the Residence guest bathroom directly in the line of sight at all angles so that regardless of, um, how you use the bathroom, you have to stare at a photo of her in a magazine spread staring back at you.

‘Selective excerpts’

Regarding the renewed attention to the complaint documents, a Whitehall spokesperson stated that:

The fact that selective excerpts are now being resurfaced, almost a decade on, to substantiate vexatious anonymous briefings from disgruntled individuals is frankly unconscionable.

So, there’s your whistle-stop tour of praise and criticism of the new leader of the UK civil service. Of course, even if she does turn out to be a bully of the highest order, she’d probably fit right in with the pack of tax-dodgers, expenses-fiddlers, genocide-defenders, and bigots that make up the current UK government. Watch this space.

Featured image via the Canary

In Washington, the first session of what has been dubbed the ‘Peace Council’ was held at the Trump Peace Institute. The event was dominated by US President Donald Trump, who positioned himself as the architect of Gaza’s next phase.

The layout of the podium, the tone of the opening remarks, and the messaging all signalled an attempt to shape a new political and security framework for the post-war period.

Gaza — Declaring the end of the war and tying reconstruction to security

Trump opened by declaring the end of the war in Gaza. He set firm conditions for the next phase, foremost among them the surrender of Hamas’s weapons. He warned of severe consequences if the movement failed to comply. Trump then linked any political or economic progress in Gaza to Hamas’s commitment to the new security arrangements. According to Trump, the international community is “waiting for Hamas” as the main obstacle to implementation.

At the same time, he acknowledged the group’s role in certain humanitarian efforts, including the recovery of hostages’ bodies. However, he stressed that Gaza’s future requires governance reform and the creation of a stable civil administration.

He ruled out deploying US troops to Gaza and said Washington sees no need for direct military intervention.

Trump also announced the allocation of $10 billion to support the Peace Council and reconstruction efforts as part of a wider international funding package.

‘The only option’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the initiative as the only viable path to prevent a return to war. He stated there is “no alternative plan for Gaza.” Rubio argued that traditional international institutions had failed to contain the conflict. He expressed hope that the new approach could serve as a model for managing other global crises.

These statements suggest Washington aims to frame Gaza as a test case for a new conflict management model led by the United States, with regional and international backing.

Arab commitments: Gaza funding and engagement

Several Arab countries announced financial, political and logistical commitments:

• Qatar: Reaffirmed mediation efforts and pledged $1 billion.
• United Arab Emirates: Committed $1.2 billion and linked its support to the broader regional vision under the Abraham Accords.
• Morocco: Offered to send security and police forces, establish a field hospital, and support coexistence programmes.
• Egypt: Reiterated support for Palestinian self-determination, rejected West Bank annexation, and called for a new phase of coexistence.
• Saudi Arabia: Pledged $1 billion to ease Palestinian suffering.
• Kuwait: Announced $1 billion in contributions over the coming years.

International stabilisation force and transitional arrangements

Council Executive Director Nikolay Mladenov said the plan centres on disarmament in Gaza and the creation of a transitional security force. Around 2,000 people have reportedly applied to join a temporary police force, and recruitment has begun in coordination with Palestinian and Israeli authorities.

The commander of the international stabilisation force announced that Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania have pledged troops. Jordan and Egypt will train Palestinian police officers.

Indonesia’s president confirmed a commitment to send more than 8,000 personnel.

Multilateral funding efforts

Beyond the US pledge of $10 billion, nine Council members committed an additional $7 billion for emergency relief. The UN Office for Humanitarian Assistance will seek to raise $2 billion.

FIFA is contributing $75 million for sports projects in Gaza. Additional funding is expected from China and Russia. The session outlined a transition phase tied closely to security conditions. Reconstruction funding is explicitly linked to disarmament and governance reform.

With Washington setting the political and security parameters, the Peace Council marks the beginning of a multilateral but US-led effort to reshape Gaza’s future.

Featured image via France24

Billionaire-funded Reform UK is fracturing, with much of its original support having broken away to establish another party, Restore.

Since the split, the two parties have been at war with one another. This signals, yet again — to quote the famous words of Martin Luther — that hate begets hate.

You just called Restore Britain ‘neo-nazi’.

It’s that sort of rhetoric that got Charlie Kirk shot in the neck – you should be ashamed of yourself.

We will not tolerate it. Our legal team is now involved.

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— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) February 18, 2026

Wealthy at war with each other

We wrote recently about the emergence of Restore and the backing it’s received from far-right billionaire Elon Musk. In the words of our own Willem Moore:

One of the biggest criticisms of Reform is that it’s just a rebrand of the Tory Party. Now, ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has created his own spinoff party, and it’s shaping up to be…a rebrand of a rebrand.

Adding that:

Lowe himself has said, he’s open to attracting talent from the Tories, Reform, Advance — basically any reactionary party you can think of. Furthermore, Rupert Lowe seems intent on expanding his political circle.

Lowe’s flip-flopping makes it apparent the man wasn’t getting the adulation he so desperately wanted from his Reform pals.

This just goes to further reveal the priorities of these politically ambitious and privileged men — i.e. the size of their…bank accounts.

Moore wrote:

The timeline of Lowe leaving Reform is messy. The TLDR is:

• Lowe began criticising Farage (seemingly in coordination with Elon Musk).
• Farage suggested Lowe wouldn’t be anywhere near office without Nigel’s cult of personality (a.k.a. Reform).
• Reform suspended Lowe and reported him to the police for ‘verbal threats’ and “serious bullying” of female staffers.
• Lowe described the accusations as “vexatious”.
• Several months of back and forth ensued.

With someone like Lowe, it’s better to have them on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in. Now, Farage is going to learn why that saying exists.

The infighting is proving that Moore was bang on the money:

Far-right Reform UK (led by far-right multimillionaire Nigel Farage) calls far-right Restore Britain (led by far-right multimillionaire Rupert Lowe, who left far-right Reform) ‘neo-nazi’. Far-right billionaire Elon Musk defends far-right Restore, calling far-right Reform ‘Nazis’. pic.twitter.com/qDqwtfJjPY

— GET A GRIP (@docrussjackson) February 18, 2026

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A message to Restore Britain members…

Be ready. They are going to come for us. The establishment. Reform. The other parties. The entire rotten lot.

It’s already started.

We are not in this to make friends. We are in this to fundamentally change how our country is governed.…

— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) February 18, 2026

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Lowe’s post reads in full:

A message to Restore Britain members…

Be ready. They are going to come for us. The establishment. Reform. The other parties. The entire rotten lot.

It’s already started.

We are not in this to make friends. We are in this to fundamentally change how our country is governed.

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We are in this to Restore Britain.

That will mean pissing people off, and we already are.

Good.

That means we’re making progress.

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There will be insults, there will be unpleasant names.

Ride it out, stay the course. Eyes on the prize.

I will promise you two things – we are going to stay true to our beliefs, and we are going to be honest.

Who knows where that will end up taking us.

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They’ve skipped the ignoring and laughing part, going straight to fighting.

We all know what comes next.

First they came for the fascists… https://t.co/9UEJOAgYCx

— ali (@ali__samson) February 18, 2026

Far right parties tearing chunks out of each other https://t.co/MqhwwRB2zq pic.twitter.com/JVQ2PcIkbt

— Dobby Club (@DobbyClub06) February 18, 2026

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Musk has long defended Lowe, of course, stirring the pot of British domestic politics — having abandoned his support for Nigel Farage whose party he has called UK “Nazis.”

🚨 NEW: Elon Musk has accused Reform UK of being “Nazis” and wanting “race extinction” pic.twitter.com/fQuh0FoIdZ

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 18, 2026

Lowe’s latest post shows he’s already anticipating being labelled a ‘Nazi’:

They will call Restore Britain nazis, they will label us as racist, they will threaten us.

It will not stop us. I promise you that.

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It is now time for the British people to show some courage, some determination, some bravery, some balls.

Don’t just sit back anymore, watching… pic.twitter.com/5TM1BMyLml

— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) February 19, 2026

The potential violence these nefarious politicians are inciting amongst British men is deeply concerning, as this X post clearly shows:

#RestoreBritain

There will be a huge army behind Rupert. People want change and we’ve been let down far too often #MSM and pathetic weak parties will try everything I’m sure but for true believers, it won’t deter them I’m sure https://t.co/dPhCLkn38l

— Nico Santana (@mikey_nic0428) February 18, 2026

Two sides of the same rotten coin

It’s obviously preferable to watch these deplorable parties attack each other instead of minoritised communities.

After all, each side is clearly determined to be the last parasite standing but what they have in common is the threat they pose to our domestic politics.

As former CPS Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal scribbled on X, self-obsessed billionaires, he says, rarely act in the public interest.

Reform, Restore, or what ever party hatches next, will undoubtedly fuel deeper unrest and division across British society.

Insanity that Reform, Restore, Advance & the other bank accounts look across the Atlantic, see the burning of the constitution & rule of law, bigotry & corruption & the rise of tax avoiding billionaires at the expense of the poorest in society and say – “we’ll have some of that?”

— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) February 19, 2026

Featured image via the Canary

A newly-leaked Labour Together report shows that the Starmeroid sabotage group continued to monitor the Canary for years after trying to destroy it. And, Skwawkbox was monitored too – although the geniuses at the shady group failed to spell it correctly. One thing is very clear: Labour Together have been running scared of journalists reporting on their connections and movements.

Evidently, any attention on what they got up to in pursuit of their aims – and how they funded it – clearly made Morgan McSweeney and company fearful of discovery. This is flagged in the preamble of the leaked report, which says that:

recent articles and blog posts…have contained more information than ever before, raising questions and concerns about the sources of the information.

Labour Together’s dossier

The Morgan McSweeney faction‘s frank terror of left media, especially the Canary, was well and truly exposed in Paul Holden’s excellent book The Fraud. That fear triggered McSweeney and his partner in crime Imran Ahmed to try to “destroy” the Canary.

The faction’s fear of left media clearly didn’t stop when the propaganda groups they set up managed to topple Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader by sabotaging the 2019 general election – and came close to forcing the Canary to close.

McSweeney resigned in early February 2026 as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff after years – as Holden exposed – of running covert campaigns against the left and its media. The immediate cause of his resignation was McSweeney’s closeness to disgraced string-puller Peter Mandelson. It was a doomed attempt to protect McSweeney’s boss Keir Starmer – but the scandals have just kept on oozing out ever since.

This week, Rupert Murdoch’s Times ‘broke‘ the news that McSweeney’s outfit Labour Together paid tens of thousands to private investigators to spy on two Times hacks. It wasn’t breaking; it wasn’t even news. The Canary and others had already reported on it – and had reported six months earlier on Labour Together’s spying on a number of left-wing journalists, as well as on author Paul Holden and former Mandela minister Andrew Feinstein.

Something bothering you, lads?

The newly-leaked report shows just how much Labour Together was discomfited by what the Canary and others were digging up. The memo begins with some anxiety over who is watching their every move:

For both left- and right-wing influencers, Labour Together and CCDH sit at the centre of a nexus of conspiracy theories that involve government attempts to suppress free speech, increasing state censorship, the sabotaging of left- and right-wing leaders, and pro-Israel advocacy, among many other accusations.

Conspiracy theories? What is it about the Canary and other independent journalists that so bothers Labour Together? Perhaps that we’re not in the pockets of billionaires or politicians, and actually report the truth as we find it?

The memo also confirms that the McSweeney group continued to monitor the Canary – with particular attention to how it exposed Imran Ahmed’s sock-puppet groups. This was going on long before Holden’s book was published, though Holden features too:

The report was prepared for Labour Together in December 2023, marked “Strictly Private and Confidential”. Oh well. After introducing the Canary as one of the main outlets paying attention to Labour Together’s actions from the start of Starmer’s diseased tenure as Labour leader, and to Labour Together’s links with the Israel lobby, it then turns to the exposure of McSweeney and Ahmed’s shamelessly named fake-news campaigns [emphases added]:

December 2020: The far-left website The Canary published an article which focused on the Stop Funding Fake News campaign following its successful campaign urging corporations to stop advertising on The Canary website.

The article focused on the connection between SFFN and Morgan McSweeny [sic]. McSweeney was identified as one of the directors, alongside Imran Ahmed, and as Keir Starmer MP’s Chief of Staff at the time. The article noted celebrity Rachel Riley’s support for both SFFN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

The article accused CCDH of being linked to a “number of figures on the Labour right” and suggested that McSweeney and Ahmed had been operating both campaigns for longer than the organisations were “willing to admit”.

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Labour Together is briefly mentioned as an organisation that shares its address with CCDH and is accused of being a grouping of Blue Labour and Labour Right figures – including Lisa Nandy at the time.

Who is Imran Ahmed?

Like McSweeney, Imran Ahmed is one of the most shadowy figures on the Labour right. Initially a staffer for right-wing Labour horror Angela Eagle and desperate to protect Eagle from deselection by angry party members, Ahmed was at the centre of fake claims that left-wingers threw a brick through Eagle’s office window. The whole thing was made up. The window was not Eagle’s. There was never any evidence the left had anything to do with it. There was never even a brick. But following a pattern that was soon to become characteristic of Labour Together’s operations, the corporate and state press were more than happy to amplify the false claims fed to them.

Ahmed then went on to co-found the Orwellian smear factory ‘Stop Funding Fake News’ (SFFN) to target the Canary. When that was no longer needed, SFFN morphed into the equally misnamed ‘Centre for Countering Digital Hate’ (CCDH). Ahmed moved to the US and touted CCDH’s services to the anonymous wealthy and powerful to attack their opponents using similar tactics to those used against the Canary. He also specifically courted Israel and its donors, eager to target Palestine and the anti-genocide movement. Author Paul Thacker has accused Ahmed of working with or for UK intelligence services.

Given Ahmed’s links to nefarious groups and his closeness to McSweeney, it’s clear – and no surprise – that any scrutiny was unwelcome.

Shit out of luck

The Canary features numerous times in the memo, each time as a thorn in the McSweeney-Ahmed axis’s side. In each case, the information exposed by our journalists about Labour Together’s activities and personnel has subsequently been proven to be true, particularly by Holden’s book, which was serialised by the Canary in the autumn of 2025.

When Jeremy Corbyn was still leader of the Labour party and the left media were central to his prospects of success, Morgan McSweeney told his fellow saboteurs, “kill the Canary before the Canary kills us“. They came close, but they are now disgraced relics while the Canary is thriving more than ever. And, for good measure, so is Sk(w)awkbox.

Featured image via the Canary

In his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, former prince Andrew notoriously claimed that Virginia Giuffre’s allegations against him couldn’t be true because he’s unable to sweat.

He’s likely to have discovered a few sweat glands since his arrest this morning.

All too typically for the British establishment, the arrest was not for sexually abusing trafficked and potentially under-age girls. Instead it was for ‘misconduct in public office’, after an Epstein files release revealed Mountbatten-Windsor was allegedly bunging sensitive secret information to the serial child-rapist while a UK trade envoy.

That fact is a disgusting betrayal of Epstein’s and Andrew’s victims. It’s also a detail that is likely to have ‘prince of darkness’ and former Starmer adviser Peter Mandelson joining Windsor in a sweat bath. The same release of Epstein files also revealed ‘Mandy’ repeatedly doing the same thing: sending sensitive, confidential and highly lucrative government information to Epstein. This information would have enabled Epstein and his mates to make a fortune in ‘insider trading’.

The British establishment deciding to throw ‘Randy Andy’ under the bus for that instead of his alleged crimes against trafficked girls should have ‘Mandy’ in a lather too.

For more on the the Epstein Files and the betrayal of victims, please read the Canary’s article on way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

Former PM Gordon Brown has said that he dobbed former prince Andrew into “several UK police forces”.

Brown wrote a five-page letter to various forces, including the Met, Sussex and Thames Valley, which he says contained “new and additional” information from the Epstein files. The ex-royal was arrested this morning on suspicion of ‘misconduct in public office’ — which carries a potential life sentence but does nothing for Andrew’s and Epstein’s victims.

Brown doesn’t seem to have been asked quite why he had information from the Epstein files not previously available to police. Keir Starmer has helpfully added ‘What the king said’, insisting like Chuck that the “law must take its course”.

The whole establishment now seems to be getting in on the Andrew act as some kind of ritual hand-washing of its own metastatic part in Epstein’s decades of child-rape, trafficking and spying for Israel. Which isn’t how they’re describing it, of course — especially the Israel bit.

For more on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary’s article on the way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the ScottishGreens