Tracy Brabin tours manufacturing facility featured in Coca-Cola Great Britain’s Counter Cultures campaign, which celebrates local vocational careers

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) welcomed West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor, Tracy Brabin, to its Wakefield manufacturing site last week – the facility at the heart of the company’s new Counter Cultures campaign, which celebrates the people and businesses behind Britain’s food and drinks industry, from production lines to local pubs, cafés and independent retailers.

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Brabin toured the site – which is Europe’s largest soft drinks facility by volume – to see how the company is contributing to local employment and skills development.

CCEP supports thousands of independent retailers, hospitality businesses and wholesalers across Yorkshire through a dedicated field sales team. The Wakefield site directly employs 600 people – including 27 apprentices – and has invested £103m in operations at the site since 2019.

It’s also where Mark and Lewis Baker, father and son, work as Reliability Engineer and Utilities & Facilities Apprentice respectively, whose story features prominently in the new Counter Cultures campaign.

The visit comes as new research shows 58% of Gen Z in the UK are considering vocational careers, with over half (52%) considering following in their families’ footsteps. A similar number (47%) are choosing to build careers closer to home – a trend particularly strong in Yorkshire where a third of respondents (33%) said they’ve noticed more young people staying local rather than moving away, with the majority citing positive impacts on local businesses, communities and economies.

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The findings highlight a growing opportunity for companies to invest in place-based skills, creating career pathways that enable young people to build futures in their own communities, strengthening local economies and supporting regional growth.

During the visit, the Mayor also saw how technology is shaping the future of manufacturing, meeting Spot®, a robotic inspection dog developed by Boston Dynamics that has recently been introduced at CCEP’s Wakefield and East Kilbride sites. Spot supports maintenance teams by monitoring almost 600 inspection points across seven production lines, collecting real-time data without interrupting production.

Katharine Duncan, Wakefield Site Director, CCEP, said: “Showing Tracy around our Wakefield site meant she could see the community spirit of our team first-hand. Many colleagues have worked here for years, building friendships and taking pride in what they do. As one of Yorkshire’s long-standing local employers, we’re proud to offer job opportunities with clear progression.”

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Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “It was great to visit Coca-Cola and see how a global brand is creating new opportunities for young people right here in West Yorkshire by giving them the skills they need to build their careers.

“West Yorkshire is home to one of the largest food and drink sectors in the UK and having international businesses investing in our region is testament to what we have to offer and our commitment to growing the local economy. 

“Through our Local Growth Plan, we will continue working with partners to create more jobs, support local businesses and ensure people have the skills they need to succeed, helping to build a stronger, brighter region that works for all.”

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Early on Tuesday 4 August, an autonomous group broke into the offices of DB Schenker in Hillington, Glasgow. Bypassing security in the early hours of the morning, the group covered the building’s foyer and offices with paint and messages saying “Drop Elbit” on the walls.

The group claims it is ‘targeting the supply chain’ of Israeli arms and munitions. DB Schenker is owned entirely by DSV. This is a Danish company that allegedly provides ‘logistics transport services’ to Israeli drone and military technology manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Elbit Systems produces 85% of the Israeli military’s drone fleet, in addition to 80% of the state’s weapons and equipment. Israel has used Elbit weapons throughout the ongoing genocide in Gaza, in the Palestinian West Bank, against Syria and Yemen, and currently against Lebanon and Iran.

Elbit Systems’ drones have also taken part in attacks on international aid flotillas in international waters. Elbit Systems routinely lists its equipment as ‘battle-tested against Palestinians’.

DSV has recently come under intense pressure both within the UK and internationally due to its contract with Elbit Systems. Before the Glasgow action, groups in the UK, US, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland had all damaged DSV premises in the past six months alone.

In April 2026, activists targeted a DSV office at Birmingham Airport, breaking windows and covering building in red paint. In May, a group in Bristol sabotaged a fleet of DSV trucks, slashing tyres and damaging vehicle exteriors. And in July, activists targeted a DSV site in Cork for a third time in the span of several months.

A spokesperson for the Glasgow group stated:

As long as DSV and its subsidiaries maintain their contract with Elbit Systems, property damage and disruption will continue. We will interrupt, delay and destroy the supply chain that provides Israel with its weaponry by any means necessary.

While DSV’s website proudly advertises their track record delivering Christmas gifts on time to children, their warehouses stock parts used to slaughter thousands of kids in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran.

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DSV supplies hundreds of different industries, and does not depend on Elbit Systems to be able to pay their employees. Sinking to this moral low was their choice. Dropping Elbit could be their wisest logistics decision yet.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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On 5 August, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) new transphobic code of practice came into force. However, on that same day, the Good Law Project (GLP) announced that it would support Leigh Day solicitors and two claimants — a “trans person and a trans-inclusive organisation” — in a legal challenge to the code.

As the Canary previously reported, the code doesn’t carry legal weight in itself. Instead, it offers an interpretation of equalities law — specifically, the 2025 Supreme Court ruling that trans people should be treated as their assigned sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.

The EHRC’s interpretation encourages a nationwide bathroom ban against trans people, and their wholesale exclusion from single-sex services aligned with their lived gender. As such, in an opening salvo of their challenge, Leigh Day sent a pre-action letter to the EHRC and the government, setting out their legal argument.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at that argument.

Trans code ‘fundamentally flawed’

In particular, the legal challenge focuses on the code’s advice that service providers should no longer operate on a trans-inclusive basis. That is to say, if the service remains open to both cis and trans women, it must also be open to cis men. Otherwise, the EHRC holds that it is “very likely” to discriminate against (cis) women.

However, Leigh Day and GLP argue that the EHRC is mistaken in the law. As the GLP explained:

an inclusive service provided to women – based on their lived gender – doesn’t directly discriminate based on “sex” (now defined as “biological sex” under the Equality Act) at all. If you exclude cis men from a trans-inclusive women’s service, it’s not because their sex was recorded as “male” at birth. This is, in fact, proven by the admission of trans women, whose sex was also recorded as “male”, but who are allowed to use the service. It is a person’s lived gender – not their “sex” under the Equality Act 2010 – which is the reason for their exclusion.

However, there’s a catch. Trans people only make up a fraction of the UK’s population. As such, most people whose sex is recorded as “male” at birth will be cis men. It follows, then, that excluding cis men from a service is more likely to discriminate against male-assigned individuals.

However, the legal challenge has an answer for this, too:

We think it’s entirely possible, depending on the circumstances, for service providers to justify offering their services on a trans-inclusive basis as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. And this has to be understood in the context that any single-sex service, which is offered on the basis of sex recorded at birth, would similarly have to be justified. The guidance makes no real room for such nuanced assessments, rendering it fundamentally flawed.

High Court ruling on interim trans code

On top of this, the EHRC code completely ignores the High Court’s ruling following the GLP’s challenge of the previous interim code.

The EHRC stated (and still holds) that any toilet that was open to trans women must also be open to cis men, or else it would likely constitute less favourable treatment on the basis of sex. However, the High Court judge argued otherwise:

In a case where the provision of separate lavatories labelled male and female was materially similar in terms of the extent of the provision, location, and so on, I consider there would, in principle, be scope for a strong argument that a rule or practice that permitted trans women to use the “female” lavatory but required other biological men to use the male lavatory would comprise different but not less favourable treatment on grounds of sex.

GLP holds that this ruling is “wholly contrary” to the EHRC’s position that such a toilet provision would be “very likely” to be discriminatory.

Given that the High Court gave its decision back in February, it’s egregious that the EHRC seems to have wholly ignored it when constructing its latest code.

Human rights violations

Along with several other more minor arguments, Leigh Day and the GLP also hold that the EHRC’s code violates human rights law. In particular, the code may violate Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to privacy. The GLP explained that:

The landmark decision in Goodwin v UK – which led to the creation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 – established that this right includes legal gender recognition for trans people. And the decision, despite claims to the contrary, was not just about gender markers on legal documents. It said that placing trans people in an “intermediate zone”, where they were “not quite one gender or the other” was a violation of their human rights. The court considered that “a conflict between social reality and law” places trans people in an “anomalous position”, in which they “may experience feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and anxiety”. In the two decades since, there have been numerous subsequent cases emphasising the importance of effective gender recognition for trans people.

The Supreme Court, in summary of the Goodwin v UK decision, stated that it:

puts it beyond doubt that the way in which the law and officialdom treat people who have undergone gender reassignment is no trivial matter. It has a serious impact upon their need, and their right, to live, not as a member of a “third sex”, but as the person they have become, as fully a man or fully a woman as the case may be.

Needless to say, the EHRC’s effective bathroom ban does not treat a trans man as “fully a man”, or vice versa for trans women. In fact, it does the exact opposite. Likewise, requiring that trans people use a ‘single-sex’ space which doesn’t align with their lived gender effectively outs them as trans, further violating their right to privacy.

‘In dire need of challenge’

If the court agrees, the legal challenge will ask for a “declaration of incompatibility”. Essentially, this would tell the government that it is in violation of its human rights obligations. This, in turn, would require the government to create legislation to fix its breach.

The GLP concluded with a call for solidarity:

For all the reasons outlined above, we believe that this code of practice is in dire need of challenge. But it is a challenge which can only succeed if we fight back together.

The EHRC’s code is a demonstration of the cruelty that the government will gleefully enact on any vulnerable minority, if it gets the chance. If we allow it to stand, it demonstrates clearly that no guarantee of our rights is worth the paper it’s written on.

As such, and as the GLP said, all of us must stand together in opposition to this transphobic code of practice.

Featured image via the Canary

By Grace

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Trump signed two new executive orders on Thursday. These orders were aimed at narrowing birthright citizenship. This came just a month after the Supreme Court struck down his previous attempt.

According to Fox News, “the new directives rely on existing executive and immigration authorities and are intended to narrow eligibility for automatic citizenship in certain cases while cracking down on foreigners who travel to the United States to give birth.”

Trump announced the orders in the Oval Office, with adviser Stephen Miller looking on. Miller called birth tourism “a fraud on the American system” and “a fraud against the American government.”

.@POTUS: “We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright [citizenship]… so we’re making adjustments.”

President Trump is signing two Executive Orders to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship after Trump v. Barbara:

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— The first… pic.twitter.com/NGSNNuzM0h

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 6, 2026

Trump characterized the Supreme Court’s decision as “very unfortunate” and “a bad decision,” and that birthright citizenship has been “made a joke out of.”

The Trump administration have said that the two orders “protect the meaning and value of American citizenship after Trump v. Barbara.” It said:

 The first Executive Order non-exhaustively identifies certain categories of children of aliens who are not entitled to birthright citizenship consistent with historical exceptions to birthright citizenship recognized by the Supreme Court in Barbara.  The second Executive Order delegates presidential authorities to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security and directs them to halt the practice of birth tourism.

Miller is a longtime critic of birthright citizenship. He posted on X in April that:

Trump is throwing toys out of the pram again — another day, another executive order, another round of lawsuits.

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By The Canary

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Grammy-winning music producer William Orbit has died at the age of 69.

On Friday afternoon, a statement was posted on his verified social media pages, which read: “It is with profound sadness that the family and friends of William Orbit announce that William passed away at home on 23 July 2026.

“We are deeply saddened by his passing. He will be greatly missed by us and by so many whose lives he touched through his music, friendship and kindness. We kindly ask that the privacy of William’s family and close friends is respected during this difficult time.”

No cause of death has been provided.

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The British musician – whose legal name was William Wainwright – became an established figure on the electronic music scene in the late 1980s and 90s.

His mainstream breakthrough came when he and Madonna collaborated on her Ray Of Light album, still considered a highlight of her discography almost 30 years on from its original reason.

William co-produced some of Madonna’s biggest hits of the 90s and 2000s, including the UK number ones Frozen and American Pie, as well as Ray Of Light, Nothing Really Matters, Drowned World/Substitute For Love, The Power Of Good-Bye and Beautiful Stranger.

He won three Grammys for his collaborations with the Queen of Pop, in addition to an Album Of The Year nomination for Ray Of Light, and reunited with her in the 2010s on her album MDNA.

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Following the success of the Ray Of Light album, he also produced hit singles for All Saints (Pure Shores and Black Coffee), Pink (Feel Good Time) and Blur (Coffee & TV), in addition to collaborations with Robbie Williams and Britney Spears.

In his lifetime, he also helmed 12 of his own solo studio albums, with his 1999 effort Pieces In The Modern Style peaking at number two in the UK.

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Welsh thinktank the Bevan Foundation, working in partnership with Shelter Cymru, has published a new report on 7 August at the National Eisteddfod. It analyses evidence on the prevalence of second homes and holiday lets using permanent homes across Wales. And it evaluates policy measures to tackle the issue which have been put in place over recent years.

The report follows an announcement by the Welsh government that it will be reviewing the controversial 182-day rule for holiday let businesses in Wales, as well as a commitment in the Plaid Cymru manifesto to review the effectiveness of the range of current measures to tackle the impact of second homes and holiday lets on local housing markets.

In its report, Holidays or homes? The loss of homes for the people of Wales to holiday accommodation, the Bevan Foundation provides new estimates on the scale of the issue. It highlights that between 21,300 and 25,300 dwellings with could provide permanent homes in Wales are currently being used for holidays. To put this into context:

• The higher estimate of 25,300 is equal to the number of households in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough. It accounts for around 2% of the total housing stock across Wales.
• The lower estimate of 21,321 would still be enough to rehouse every household in temporary accommodation at the end of September 2025 (6,426) three times over.

Holiday homes have growing impact on Welsh housing

The Foundation’s analysis shows that while there are clear concentrations of holiday accommodation in areas which have traditionally been hotspots, growing numbers can be seen across Wales, as ‘staycations’ remain popular and tourists explore new areas.

It reveals a 10% increase in holiday lets using permanent homes over the last four years, with an additional 1,345 homes likely to have been lost to households in need of a home.

The report commends the scale of the action undertaken by the previous Welsh government. It introduced several measures working with Plaid Cymru via the Co-operation Agreement. However, the report argues that the overriding policy intention of improving the affordability and availability of homes has not always been clearly stated, nor how interventions will directly achieve it.

Taxation action in particular has had implications for the broad range of accommodation which is used for holidays, rather than focusing on the use and loss of permanent homes. This lack of focus is diluting the opportunity to address the availability and affordability of homes for local people, as well as impacting commercial holiday let businesses using types of accommodation which could not provide permanent homes.

The report argues that given the evidence of the growth of the issue across Wales, second homes and holiday lets are now a national driver of pressure on housing supply. National action is therefore needed, rather than leaving it to local authorities to tackle the problem, and that action should focus on preventing the loss of permanent homes.

Recommendations

The recommendations in the report include:

• A national requirement for planning permission for change of use from a permanent home to holiday accommodation (second home or holiday let) or a change between holiday accommodation types. This would replace the current ‘Article 4’ system whereby local authorities must introduce their own planning restrictions.
• Moving away from the current lettings day threshold system (the 182-day rule) and instead using the planning status or intended purpose of the accommodation to establish the tax system in which they should sit – businesses being charged business rates and homes coming under the Council Tax system.
• Ringfencing the funds raised through Council Tax premiums on holiday accommodation for local housing services and boosting the supply of homes which are genuinely affordable to local people, in particular social homes.
• Incentivising holiday accommodation which does not use permanent homes (such as yurts, barn conversions or shepherd huts) as part of a wider tourism strategy.
• An increase of at least 2 per cent in the higher rate of Land Transaction Tax on the purchase of homes for holiday accommodation.
• A robust and effective registration and licensing scheme for holiday lets to not only improve the management of properties, but to minimise any negative impact on the surrounding community and the availability and affordability of homes locally.

Wendy Dearden, senior policy and research officer at the Bevan Foundation, said:

It cannot be right that thousands of people in Wales are homeless and living in B&Bs or hotels while up to 25,000 homes are being used for holiday accommodation.

In our research, we heard about range of action being taken by local authorities, but we don’t think that this is enough. It’s time for the Welsh Government to take more national action through a cohesive package of taxation, planning and regulation.

Taken together, the measures we recommend would lead to a more consistent approach across Wales, while supporting targeted local action where it is needed. They would support businesses in the tourist industry while minimising the impact on local communities and ensuring that houses are used for their intended purpose – as affordable homes for local communities.

Ruth Power, CEO at Shelter Cymru, said:

Every day we see firsthand the impact of the housing emergency on people and communities across Wales, and nowhere has the long-term failure to address this been more clearly seen than in the growth of temporary accommodation across Wales.

Through our work providing advice and advocacy to people in every part of Wales, we know the impact this is having, with lives stuck on hold, sometimes for years, while people wait for a permanent home.

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Shelter Cymru recognises the important role that tourism plays in the Welsh economy, but we also believe that everything starts with home. At a time where we face a housing emergency, it cannot be right for families to be ‘temporarily’ housed in hotel rooms while ever more of our homes, already in short supply, are given over to holidays.

This is why we are calling on the Welsh Government to take the steps needed to reverse this trend and to build a Wales where everyone can access a safe, secure, suitable and genuinely affordable home.

The report forms part of a series of research reports the Bevan Foundation and Shelter Cymru are producing in partnership. It examines the use of temporary accommodation in Wales and aims to move people into permanent homes by providing more social housing.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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Another Severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) Awareness Week will pass in absolute silence from the government.

The Canary has reported extensively on how ME patients are left to die in hospitals by the NHS. People like Sophia Mirza who died in 2005 after being sectioned under the mental health act without even basic nurse care. 8 August would be Sophia’s 53rd birthday; instead, she died aged 32.

Severe ME Day is held on her birthday, 8 August, to honour her memory, and many others who have since lost their lives to this devastating disease and neglect caused by the NHS.

Or  27-year-old Maeve Boothby O’Neill. The Canary reported on how her inquest, which showed appalling trivialisation of her condition, arrogant medical professionals, and hospital staff’s culture of psychologisation, led to her death in October 2021.

The Canary has also reported on the case of Karen Gorden, who was bed-bound and abandoned by the NHS. As well as Savannah, who was starved in hospital. Both Karen and Savannah are still in hospital being neglected by NHS staff and fighting for their lives.

NHS neglects severe ME patients

ME is a chronic systemic neuroimmune disease which impacts at least 65 million people worldwide – and that is likely a vast underestimate. Similar to, and sometimes overlapping with long Covid, it affects nearly every system in the body and causes a range of symptoms that impact patients’ daily lives. These include influenza-like symptoms, cognitive impairment, multiple forms of pain, and heart, lung, blood pressure, and digestive dysfunctions, among other significantly debilitating symptoms.

Significantly, post-exertional malaise (PEM) is the hallmark feature of ME/CFS, which entails a disproportionate worsening of other symptoms after even minimal physical, social, or mental activities.

Severe ME affects approximately 25% of people living with the disease. In these cases, people living with severe ME/CFS are mostly, if not entirely, permanently bed-bound. What’s more, they are sometimes unable to digest food, communicate, or process information.

Campaigners demand government action

Campaigners at ME Foggy Dog are urgently calling on the government to step up and stop the NHS from neglecting and eventually killing people with ME.

In 2024, ME Foggy Dog launched a campaign calling for a dedicated NHS protocol for people with severe ME. Over 5,220 people with ME, many severely ill, housebound, or bedbound, signed the open letter.

Despite this, nothing meaningful followed from the government. Over 2024 and 2025, successive Secretaries of State responded to campaigners with the same generic messages that the ME/CFS Delivery Plan and updated NICE guidelines would resolve most of the problems raised.

However, as campaigners have noted, the plan still falls massively short of supporting people with ME. On top of this, the NICE guidelines are not mandatory, the NHS training is not compulsory, and neither addresses the realities of severe ME or the dangers patients face every day.

The government must act now

As campaigners say, this issue is now critical and cannot wait while those in charge squabble to keep power. Government intervention is the only way forward.

ME Foggy Dog said in a statement:

Without equitable biomedical research funding, the risk of deterioration into severe ME remains present for most of the community, we just don’t know who is at risk and who is not. The number of people with severe ME will continue to rise unless action is taken.

The campaign group is calling on the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Yvette Cooper, to take this issue seriously, to champion equitable research funding from the Treasury, and to work with the organisation to implement an NHS protocol that protects patients and clinicians alike.

As the campaigners said:

The open letter demonstrated the scale of public concern, the past few years have demonstrated the consequences of political inaction.

Sally Callow, founder of ME Foggy Dog, said:

Severe ME patients are being failed every day. Without Government‑level action, neglect and harm will continue unchecked. We cannot wait any longer for safe care, accurate information, and proper protection. The crisis is escalating, and decisive leadership is now essential.

The government must act now, before more people with ME die due to NHS neglect.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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Donald Trump insists the US has no shortage of weapons. But his latest move to restrict exports for key materials for munitions production — tells a different story.

Trump recently threatened “long-term jail sentences” for anyone leaking information about alleged munition shortages facing the US, accusing them of making “treasonous statements”.

He said:

Long-term jail sentences will be sought!

Yet while Trump dismisses reports of shortages, his administration has moved to restrict exports of tungsten scrap and black mass — two materials critical to weapons production.

Depleted supplies of tungsten

According to Gavin D. J. Harper from the University of Birmingham, modern militaries rely heavily on tungsten, a material used in weapons production. He recently wrote about tungsten shortages during the war on Iran.

Amid the geopolitical turmoil that is unfolding in the Middle East, there is a newfound gargantuan appetite for tungsten, with every bomb, missile and kinetic interceptor further draining stockpiles.

This presents an intractable problem for the defence industry. There has been a 12% increase in the use of military tungsten this year alone – in helicopters, fighter jets and munitions. This is hard to accommodate in a market with no availability.

If the US truly has an “unlimited supply” of missiles, as Trump claims, there should be little reason to restrict exports of recycled tungsten scrap.

Scrap is typically melted down and reused to supplement mined ore. Restricting its export suggests the opposite of abundance: that the military is concerned about maintaining supplies for weapons production.

Years to get back to pre-war levels

According to the Financial Times (FT), the American weapons manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon — are reporting surging sales as the US expands spending to replenish its missile stockpiles and put its defence industrial base on a ‘war footing’.

However, Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Washington-based think tank CSIS, said the figures behind rebuilding US stockpiles is sobering.

Cancian said that, for Patriot missiles, even with expanded production, recovery will probably take about three years to get back to pre-war levels. And then it will take several years after that to reach the levels where war planners actually want to be.

The result is a prolonged period of reduced inventories rather than a quick recovery.

In the same video clip, Tom Karako, director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, describes the situation as:

generational annihilation of our theater missile defense capability. It’s going to take years to get back there.

More warmongering from Trump

So the answer to depleted stocks has been more warmongering by Trump’s allies like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) – an arms industry-favourite think tank.

Bradley Bowman, a senior fellow at FDD, said in an interview that the U.S. needed more spending and more confrontation, and this munition depletion was a “silver lining” showing  Americans that they need to “put our money and our actions where our mouth is.”

Bowman said the US military has been “seriously degraded” by the Iran war, but he did not call for restraint. Instead, he warned that China, Russia and North Korea are “cooperating across all domains of power” and that the US must attack their assistance to Iran.

If Washington sits on its hands and doesn’t attack this assistance that China and Russia are giving Iran,” Bowman said, “it’s going to simply exacerbate the munitions crisis.

He criticized the Pentagon for ordering only 37 THAAD interceptors in fiscal year 2026 and just 12 the year before.

In short, Trump says the U.S. has unlimited missiles while his administration just banned exports of tungsten scrap, a metal without which you cannot make missiles.

His think tank allies say the solution to depleted stockpiles is more war, more spending, and more confrontation with China, Russia, and North Korea all at once.

By The Canary

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If you have questions about why certain members of the Ted Lasso cast haven’t returned for the new season, producer Brendan Hunt has got answers.

After a three-year absence, the Apple TV+ comedy returned to our screens earlier this week, with Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple and Brett Goldstein among those who are back for the new run of episodes, alongside some new additions.

However, there are also some prominent absentees who aren’t back for the new episodes – perhaps most notably Phil Dunster, who played footballer Jamie Tartt in the first three seasons.

Toheeb Jimoh, Kola Bokinni, Cristo Fernández, who played members of Richmond F.C.’s squad, also do not appear in the new episodes – which centre around the titular coach taking over at the helm of the club’s female team.

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Brendan – who co-produces Ted Lasso, as well as co-writing multiple episodes – told Variety that the decision was made to write the Jamie Tartt character out of the show because they knew “Phil was going to be busy”.

He added: “But also, it would have strained credulity a bit further than we wanted to if all the old team were still on Richmond. If this team is doing so well, then the best players would be gone. They’d be bought by bigger clubs.”

Since the success of Ted Lasso, Phil has landed roles in major shows like the thrillers The Devil’s Hour and Surface, as well as the Steve Carell comedy Rooster.

Reviews for Ted Lasso’s fourth season have been a little on the mixed side, with some lamenting that too much attention is paid to the characters who have returned, at the expense of some new additions.

However, critics have singled out Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds for praise.

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Tanya plays Ted’s new right-hand woman, with the likes of Adolescence’s Faye Marsay and Enola Holmes’ Abbie Hern also among those to have joined the award-winning sports comedy in its fourth iteration.

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