A criminal barrister has demolished Justice Secretary David Lammy on social media for his terrible ability to understand the law and its impacts on ordinary people.

This intervention came after Lammy posted a propaganda clip from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which compares the incomparable. Apparently, the MoJ believe that having a jury of peers decide a defendant’s guilt when sentences are less than three years is akin to demanding to see an NHS consultant after scraping a knee.

This has been condemned by criminal barristers on X, highlighting just how out of touch our political elite are. Some have said that Lammy’s insistence on curbing our right to a fair trial and attempts to minimise its impact should see the Justice Secretary resign.

The Secret Barrister certainly didn’t mince his words:

Joanna is politer than I am going to be.

For the Justice Secretary – a former barrister – to suggest that being wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned for three years is just like “scraping your knee”, should be a resignation matter.@DavidLammy owes the public an apology. https://t.co/pN7Rq59TjO

— The Secret Barrister 🦋 (@BarristerSecret) March 8, 2026

Lammy needs to listen: the right to a fair trial includes right to a trial by jury

Once again, the UK government is shown to be woefully inept with cabinet ministers unable to even exercise their supposed specialised knowledge. Lammy, a qualified barrister and first black Briton to study at Harvard, seems incapable, or unwilling, to be honest about the likely impact of his penny-pinching policy to remove jury trials in some criminal cases. This will be applied to ‘either-way’ offences which would see a sentence lesser than three years.

Our own Alex/Rose Cocker wrote in December about the open letter signed by over 100 lawyers slamming the decision to withdraw jury trials through Lammy’s Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD). We wrote:

The letter listed many compelling reasons that the CCBD would be unworkable. It would require significant recruitment of magistrates – a judge and two lay magistrates for most offences. However, the magistracy has been in decline, and there’s serious doubt over whether enough could actually be recruited at all. As such, magistrates and support staff would likely be drawn from the pool staffing Crown Court and magistrates’ courts.

Diverting judges from sitting Crown Court jury trials would not reduce the backlog. Likewise, if there’s money to pay new judges, it should be going to the Crown Court as it currently exists. Similarly, the CCBD need deliberation rooms, office space, waiting rooms, cells and docks. If there’s money for these new facilities, it should go towards reducing the backlog of the existing Crown Court.

However, this new video which compares someone scraping a knee and insisting on a consultant’s attention to our right under the ECHR to a trial by jury is tasteless and out of touch. It also shows that Lammy has refused to heed the warnings from other legal professionals. This freedom exists to protect citizens against state overreach, ensuring that citizens are judged with the oversight of a jury of their peers maintaining transparency and accountability.

Lammy is a qualified lawyer, so he should know better.

Apples and oranges

The offending video from the Ministry of Justice can be seen here:

It’s time to set the facts straight 👇 . pic.twitter.com/sQ27gzps41

— Ministry of Justice (@MoJGovUK) March 8, 2026

Another criminal barrister has also politely highlighted the obvious – a scraped knee is not the same as ending up in prison for up to three years:

Your local friendly criminal barrister here! 👋

I need you to know that anything up to a three year prison sentence imposed without a jury trial is really not the same thing as scraping your knee without seeing a consultant. pic.twitter.com/zwIvUhFfLu

— Joanna Hardy-Susskind (@Joanna__Hardy) March 8, 2026

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Joanna Hardy-Susskind elaborated:

A three year prison sentence will destroy your life, ruin your job, almost certainly wreck your mental health, it will impact your relationships, your children, your parents, your prospects of work, having a home, your good name – and you can’t stick a plaster on any of that.

Adding:

They use an example of stealing a bottle of whisky deliberately, you see. Because it sounds lightweight & silly. But either way offences with sentences less than 3 years will include some sexual assaults, some ABHs, some s20 GBHs & some frauds.

It’s not about whisky.

Or knees.

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Hardy-Susskind finished by pointing out the obvious:

I’m not sure which bit is worse. The comparison to hospital, to triage or the gutting of the presumption of innocence.

The trial is there to determine *if* someone has stolen. But the hospital, hopefully, isn’t staring at a bloody knee & asking *if* it’s hurt.

The Secret Barrister further reminded just why we have the right to a trial by jury, and just who it will hurt when taken away:

Every time you read one of these disingenuous – no, strike that – outrageously dishonest propaganda pieces from @DavidLammy and @sarahsackman, remember that the freedoms they wish to curtail are designed to protect people wrongly accused of criminal offences.

And the barrister reminds ‘it could be you’ next:

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Every time they distract you with absurd and misleading claims about abolishing juries being necessary to get “offenders” and protect “victims”, what they are trying to hide is that innocent people end up in criminal courts.

It could be you.

It is your rights they are attacking

Finishing:

David and Sarah want to give *you* – the wrongly accused – a lower quality of justice whenever you face up to *three years of your life* in prison.

And they don’t even have the decency to make their case on the evidence.

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Just bluster, distraction and, I’m afraid to say, lies.

This account on X possibly highlights just where Lammy’s Freudian slip comes in where he refers to those affected as ‘offenders’. So much for innocent until proven guilty:

What nonsense.

First, they are defendants, not offenders, as they are innocent until proven guilty (a schoolboy error for the Justice Minister)

Second, a defendant electing a Crown Court trial is a legal right, and cannot be dismissed as “choosing to delay”.

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The REAL facts are… https://t.co/8GLqUgTg0w

— Daniel ShenSmith (BlackBeltBarrister) (@dshensmith) March 8, 2026

Even Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken up against curbing this necessary civil protection:

Labour’s Justice Minister has already given the game away.

This is not an emergency measure. Labour would do it anyway.

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Trial by jury is a cornerstone of British justice. It should not be hollowed out by Ministers who think our ancient liberties are an inconvenience. https://t.co/vJPVweYAUO pic.twitter.com/oJNruEbcyn

— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) March 8, 2026

Labour MP Karl Turner confronted Lammy on how life-destroying these sentences can be and highlights those who always seem to evade justice:

If you nicked a bottle of whiskey, Dave. Being convicted for that when you have a good defence would ruin your life. Why doesn’t it ruin the lives of others accused and wrongly convicted of dishonesty. SUB-POSTMASTERS? 🤷🏼‍♂️ https://t.co/iisygtJMrT

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 8, 2026

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Shame on David Lammy

Once again, those in power expect the British public to accept a decline in our quality of life, food, opportunity, and healthcare while our costs continue to rise. Now David Lammy wants to save money by stripping protections from those at the bottom of the ladder. After all, ordinary people do not have access to expensive lawyers and can often be pressured into extremely difficult situations.

All the while this government refuses to look to the wealthiest to cough up fair taxes against their obscene riches. Let alone the fact that it is well known that inequality increases the likelihood of both violent and property crime, so ordinary people will be punished for conditions beyond their control.

Introducing these changes at a time when cases of sexual assault are increasing is also deeply concerning. As the barristers highlighted, the proposal would apply to any case where the potential sentence is less than three years. If prisons become overcrowded, could judges face pressure to impose non-custodial sentences instead? Without the oversight provided by juries, that risk for women and girls becomes far more likely.

We need jury trials: the accused need to be judged by their peers not the elite. We cannot allow the risk for politics, prejudice, and discrimination to gain more ground in our legal system.

Featured image via the Canary

On International Women’s Day 2026, a group of aggressive far-right men openly harassed MP Hannah Spencer in Manchester. The situation was so concerning that she had to take refuge in a police car.

The new Green MP for Gorton and Denton had been speaking at an anti-fascist event in the city. But a far-right group went from shouting during speeches to actually following her through Piccadilly Gardens.

The far-right agitators were aggressively pushing Spencer on trans questions in particular. And members of the group were clearly itching for a fight. Because there were a number of scuffles around Spencer as police escorted her away from the scene.

Full solidarity with Hannah Spencer, this is absolutely disgraceful behaviour.
This is a direct attack on our democracy, Hannah is an elected MP that has the right to walk free in the city she represents without these extremists behaving like thugs https://t.co/qEdCYKd7ba

— Mothin Ali (@MothinAli) March 8, 2026

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The police, meanwhile, seemed mostly to take a hands-off approach. This is despite local authorities apparently knowing exactly who some of the agitators were. As one attendee said:

The cops let the known far right roam in and out of the crowd. They let them back in again after they harassed an MP.

I was there. The cops let the known far right roam in and out of the crowd. They let them back in again after they harassed an MP. The anti-fascists dealt with it.

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

Even after the far right went for Hannah Spencer, the cops let them BACK into the dispersing group to cause more trouble. GMP has a LOT of questions to answer. Why do they enable the far right over and over?

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

Everyone.. and cops… knows the names of those threatening Hannah Spencer. Thing is, GMP doesn’t care

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

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Solidarity with Hannah Spencer & all who had to deal with fascist thugs today in Manchester.
No surprise that it is fans of ‘Tommy Robinson’ who attacked @unisontheunion members…on #InternationalWomensDay2026!@AntiRacismDay @Searchlight_mag pic.twitter.com/b0BN5cHFRs

— Unite Against Fascism (@uaf) March 8, 2026

The YouTube fascists, she said, had been “harassing all afternoon“. Nonetheless, police preferred to have a laugh with them and:

let the far right to the front

Oh they let the far right to the front. They told a steward off for blocking them. Steve James, the short arse with the sign, was at the front. All the camera freaks were harassing all afternoon. GMP like them…

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

The scumbags were calling Hannah Spencer a terrorist when she was speaking, and much, much more. We ignored them.

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

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Judging by the footage, @gmpolice @GMPCityCentre were utterly useless.

Let a group of men chase Hannah through Piccaddilly gardens, throwing punches at the people around her.

These people are known to the police, yet still allowed to do it?

— Aaron. (@Stuff_by_Aaron) March 9, 2026

Far-right voices have tried to gaslight people into thinking Spencer’s team was somehow responsible for scuffles. But if you watch the footage, you can see exactly the type of aggression Spencer and her entourage were facing.

They all do it. Go and antagonise like their hero Tommy, wait for a reaction and then film themselves as a victim. Set of useless dossers who can only grift. The way they use victims of grooming gangs to excuse the fact they soread hate on all Muslims. They don’t care

— Victoria (@Vmartine1905) March 9, 2026

The fascists weren’t there for women. “They were there for intimidation.”

As journalist Femi Oluwole said:

these men were wearing signs that said that they don’t want men in female spaces. Yet they are violently and aggressively pushing their way into a female MP’s personal space. No trans woman has ever made Hannah Spencer feel as unsafe as those men just did, which just shows that they weren’t there because they actually believe in their cause. They were there for intimidation.

No woman should have to face such disgusting far right thuggery like Hannah Spencer did yesterday!
Her face speaks volumes.

Love & solidarity to her.
We have to ensure the extreme right are pushed back.
Be on @UKTogetherAll march, March 28th.@AntiRacismDay@Searchlight_mag pic.twitter.com/y1HjfueAUQ

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— Unite Against Fascism (@uaf) March 9, 2026

Many people felt the same, highlighting the hypocrisy of the agitators:

Wow, it was men with placards claiming to protect women’s spaces who were harassing her and pushing others.

— Bonnie Evans-Hills (@EvansHills) March 9, 2026

The ones harrassing Hannah Spencer kick, punch, harass ALL of the time. Always go for women. They are vile creatures.

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

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Green MP Hannah Spencer is forced into a police car after anti-trans protesters fight in front of her in Manchester.
I feel SICK watching this. Hannah must have been petrified.
No MP (esp a woman) should ever EVER be in danger like this because of their views. pic.twitter.com/fUiZpa1X9r

— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) March 8, 2026

As Sue V insisted, the agitators have a record. And police need to take their threat to democracy and public safety seriously:

Worth noting that the camera far right harassing Hannah Spencer were in Gorton and Denton on election day harassing and intimidating people. Over and over. They need a banning order.

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 9, 2026

As long as authorities fail to deal with them, though, it’s on all the rest of us to protect each other as best we can:

Yes. Same ones attacking Hannah Spencer. Same ones who kicked someone in the face on the 21st. GMP do NOTHING. So its down to us, now. https://t.co/KfKlywSgvO

— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026

Featured image via the Canary

In collaboration with Women Against the Far Right, author Blair James has organised a protest event in response to multiple recent events. These include:

Supported by numerous women-focused and feminist groups, the coalition will lead a rally in St Peter’s Square, outside Manchester Central Library. It will take place on Thursday 19 March, starting at 6:30pm.

The rally will feature speeches and readings from organisers, public figures, and artists. Speakers include Harriet Williamson, commissioning editor and reporter from Novara Media and Steph Pike from Stop the War. Stalls from local feminist and women-focused groups are welcome in the rally area.

To mark the beginning of the march, organisers will lead one minute’s silence for victims, followed by a collective “primal scream” in which all attendees will be asked to scream simultaneously to symbolise the reclaiming of women’s voices.

The march will then begin from the rally space and head to:

• Rise Up, Women, the Emmeline Pankhurst statue.
• Over to the Manchester City Centre Police Public Enquiry Counter on Mount Street.
• Around to Manchester Town Hall on Albert Square.
• Down to Manchester Crown Court.
• Through The Avenue in Spinningfields.
• Onto Deansgate.
• Through Jackson’s Row and Bootle Street.
• Over to the Peterloo Massacre Monument on Windmill Street.
• And finally back across to St Peter’s Square.

The route will pass these places to signify our demand for accountability and change. Organisers will then gather marchers back to the rally area and give closing remarks.

Bringing women together

The goal of the event is to bring women together to express their abhorrence of the misogynistic corruption going on today and to create action which is peaceful yet unique, meaningful, and effective.

The event is intersectional and inclusive of all women, non-binary persons, and children. The purpose of the scream is to give a voice to women and survivors and to break the silence which upholds enabling systems, demanding accountability; safeguarding; transparency; and ending abuses against women and children.

The march is held in the evening purposefully to demand women’s safety akin to Reclaim the Night style work.

Speaking about the urge to create the event, James said:

The problem is that men are never really going to be interested or motivated to change systems that support them. Women need to step forward.

Dr Jilly Kay is senior lecturer in Communication and Media at Loughborough University. She specialises in feminist media and is co-convenor of the cross-institutional Media and Gender research group. She called the protest “an important event.”

Adele Dolan from Intersectional Uprising said:

An incredibly powerful event! We look forward to marching alongside you all in solidarity!

Bioengineer, author, and researcher, Ojochide Obidi, called the event a “beautiful initiative.”

Ash Sarkar from Novara Media also said that this is “an important event.”

Steph Barney, CEO of Girls on the Go said that the event is:

incredible and so important – such a meaningful event for the community. We will definitely be sending our team to attend in person and show our support on the 19th. It’s an incredibly powerful initiative and we’re glad to be a part of it.

James, Women Against the Far Right, and all collaborators invite all women from near and far to join the rally and march. More speakers and supporters will be announced in the run up to the event.

Featured image via

3 min read42 min

Protecting What Matters, a document outlining Labour’s new cohesion strategy, was officially unveiled by the government this evening after its contents were leaked to The Spectator on Friday.

The paper identifies Islamism and Islamists as the “predominant” threat to civil society and outlines a plan to crackdown on extremism. Powers will be granted to allow government to close extremist charities and suspend members with hate crime convictions, as well as strengthen monitoring of extremism in higher education.

An extra £5 million will be given to the Common Ground Resilience fund, which will tackle divisions in communities and finance interfaith programmes and youth projects to reduce isolation and strengthen social ties.

Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary, said: “We will not allow hatred to destroy the lives and life chances of those who are targeted. 

“Right now, Muslim communities are facing shifting levels of abuse. Anti-Muslim hate crimes are at record levels, and they now make up almost half of all religious hate crimes, way out of proportion to the size of our Muslim population.”

Reed added that people have grown up in a country which by global standards is “remarkably cohesive”.

He said: “Cohesion underpins our economic strength, our democratic freedom and our national security. It is a fundamental part of the Britain we love. We have made our choice in place of division, we choose unity, and we know the people of Britain have made the same choice.”

Last week it was reported a special representative on anti-Muslim hostility would also be central to the government’s plans. The plan will include measures to tackle religious hatred and racial discrimination and clamp down on extremism in charities and universities.

A definition of anti-Muslim hatred – in conjunction with the report – was also published this evening after months of anticipation. PoliticsHome was the first news outlet to reveal the full draft definition.

The non-statuary definition focuses on anti-Muslim hostility as “violence, vandalism, harassment, or intimidation, whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated” towards Muslims. The government backed away from including a clause which would identity Muslims as a race or perceived to be a race.

Reaction from across the political spectrum has been mixed.

Lord Young of Acton, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, told PoliticsHome he was concerned the plan will be used to “enforce radical progressive dogma”.

He said: “First, I worry that free speech will be curtailed in the name of promoting social cohesion – that it’s a synonym for social control. Second, I worry that measures designed to counter extremism will be applied to the Right but not to the Left, which is what’s happened with Prevent.

“The risk is that this plan will be used to enforce radical progressive dogma.”

Lord Walney, Co-chair of APPG on Defending Democracy, told PoliticsHome he believed it was good news the government was acting on his recommendations to beef up powers to “tackle extremists who run bogus charities”. However, he said genuine change will require political leadership and not “just a glossy document.

“In particular, ministers must monitor closely whether the new definition of anti-Muslim hatred has a further chilling effect on people’s ability to speak up on the problem of Islamist extremism in Britain.”

Meanwhile Wajid Akhter, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, told PoliticsHome: “Social cohesion cannot be built on suspicion or securitisation, it must be built on trust, equal citizenship and democratic freedoms.

“At a time when anti-Muslim hate crime is rising, and online disinformation is fuelling division, cohesion requires leadership that builds trust rather than deepens suspicion.

“Building a more cohesive society is something we all want to see. We welcome steps by the government that brings communities together rather than divide them further.”

Iran’s branch of the Red Crescent have sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into war crimes committed by the US and Israel. Providing an exhaustive list of the civilian infrastructure and damage to emergency response vehicles, they highlight how civilians are being targeted rather than combatants.

This comes whilst the US and Israel are waging an illegal war of aggression on Iran, which was unprovoked and initiated whilst all parties were at the negotiating table. However, given the criminal warrants already issued for Israel’s genocidal leaders for their longstanding crimes against Palestinians, it is hard to imagine Western leaders will suddenly sit up and listen. After all, this simply marks another act of complicit aggression in Western government’s expanding list of failures.

BREAKING

The Iranian Red Crescent urges the International Criminal Court to investigate US and Israeli war crimes against Iran’s civilians:

6,668 civilian structures
5,535 homes
14 hospitals
65 schools
The list goes on..

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Trump and Israel are bombing civilians, not combatants. pic.twitter.com/8UNNzuk7IP

— sarah (@sahouraxo) March 8, 2026

Iran Red Crescent: ‘to the honorable prosecutor’

The letter from the Iranian Red Crescent reads as follows:

Dear Prosecutor,

I write on behalf of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, in the discharge of its humanitarian mandate and in reliance upon the binding principles and rules of International Humanitarian Law, to formally submit our protest and request for criminal examination concerning a series of military attacks carried out against civilian objects within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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According to field reports from relief workers, operational documentation, and data recorded by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a wide range of residential areas, medical facilities, schools, humanitarian facilities, vital urban infrastructure, and public places were directly or indiscriminately targeted during the recent military attacks.

Based on consolidated recorded data:

• 6,668 civilian structures have been damaged
• 5,535 residential units have been destroyed or damaged
• 1,041 commercial units have been damaged
• 14 medical centers have been affected
• 65 schools have been damaged
• 11 facilities affiliated with the Iranian Red Crescent Society have been targeted
• 3 emergency response vehicles have been damaged
• 7 Iranian Red Crescent relief workers have been killed or injured

Widespread reports describe US-Israeli attacks against Iran that have caused mass-casualty incidents and killed innocent civilians. Most disturbingly, on the first day of this illegal war, bombs struck a school twice, killing 165 schoolchildren and their teachers. The attack has understandably triggered deep grief across Iran, bringing people closer together in the face of what many see as an existential threat from the West.

Western hypocrisy

For those in the West, we have learned since Iraq and since October 7th 2023 that if leaders want to ignore flagrant law breaking, they will. After all, legality isn’t a concern for the powerful, instead their priority is what they can gain from law breaking. We wrote recently about the silence seen after the strike on the school:

If it emerges that the United States deliberately struck a girls’ school, killing scores of defenceless children, will it admit responsibility? Israel’s continued refusal to acknowledge its crimes against Palestinians raises concerned that Washington may display the same level of indifference towards Iranian lives.

At the time of the school girls’ funeral, a time of inextricable grief and mourning for their families, China-based US journalist, Jason Smith, questioned the deafening silence from Western media, saying:

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“This should be on the front page of every Western newspaper. Ask yourself: Why isn’t it?”

Given the spinelessness and collaboration in genocide of the UK media and political (and Epstein) class, it’s no surprise at all — but no less appalling for that.”

One week into the US-Israel war on Iran, more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, with children accounting for 30% of the dead.

US–Israeli strikes hit civilian sites, including at least 20 schools and 10 hospitals, according to UNICEF. Al Jazeera’s Fintan Monaghan reports. pic.twitter.com/JncreuhIVS

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 8, 2026

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It comes as no surprise that our leaders seem unable to locate their moral compass or basic humanity. Especially when we remember we are wholly complicit in the war on Iran despite the semantics and maneuvering of the UK government. After all, facilitating bombers makes you just as guilty as sending bombers yourself. Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has been a staunch critic of our involvement in the genocide on Gaza and now the war on Iran, writing on X:

American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying off to bomb Iran, yet Keir Starmer gaslights the nation by claiming the UK isn’t at war.

These aircraft are dropping 2,000lb bombs on schools, hospitals and homes in Iran, where the death toll has already surpassed… pic.twitter.com/btrDZXp0Fd

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 7, 2026

American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying off to bomb Iran, yet Keir Starmer gaslights the nation by claiming the UK isn’t at war.

These aircraft are dropping 2,000lb bombs on schools, hospitals and homes in Iran, where the death toll has already surpassed 1,300.

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If this illegal war is being launched from our bases, then the UK is directly involved.

70% of the public oppose these attacks.

The Prime Minister needs to grow a spine: stop the bombers landing and kick US troops out of UK bases.

Replying to the letter from the Red Crescent, NHS Doctor Dan Goyal gave his damning indictment of the West in how it conducts its ‘wars’ on X:

There’s a cowardice and arrogance at the heart of all these offences. The rules of war are too inconvenient- easier just to bomb targets that cause the most pain. The rules don’t apply to them anyway. It’s a position we cannot and must not accept.

Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and girls in its genocidal war on Gaza.

On International Women’s Day, we look at the number of women and girls Israel killed in Gaza in 2025.#Infograph pic.twitter.com/aCbyls8J2d

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 8, 2026

Another account on X spoke to the existential threat faced by Iran and what we have learned by watching the genocide unfold in Gaza:

A repeat of the Zionist Israeli actions, with the help of Zionist USA and others, against the people of Iran.

It is clear that the American and Israeli governments are in breach of International and humanitarian law and that their actions in Iran are unlawful.

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The attacks on Iran, because they fail under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, prohibiting the use of force against another state except in two circumstances.

A country is permitted to act in self-defence after an armed attack.

Military action is permitted when authorised by the UN.

Neither apply in this case.

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The Zionist American actions in Iran copy and mirror the Zionist Israeli actions in Gaza and the OPT.
Any action following the illegal war on Iran is by its very nature illegal also.
The genocide is likely to have already started and the Zionist Israeli and USA humanitarian crises created by these illegal and unlawful actions are rightly to be condemned by all right thinking people.

‘Epstein Coalition’ of war criminals

Law and morality should be fixed: killing children is wrong, no matter where they come from or how powerless they are. However, Trump’s ties to Epstein indicate there has been precious little morality under consideration by either of these arrogant brutes in their lifetimes.

But more and more ordinary people wake up to this reality every day, applying more pressure against the powerful.

That pressure must grow until the tide turns in favour of humanity, as opposed to the greedy egos of the powerful.

The US/Israeli Epstein Coalition should be condemned as War Criminals by all who respect International Law. Failure to do so makes one complicit in their War Crimes… https://t.co/t7cgyP6IU6

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) March 8, 2026

Featured image via the Canary

A Daily Mail article that reported the then-head of the Special Intelligence Service (MI6/SIS), along with his wife and disgraced former royal Andrew, dining with serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein – after Epstein was convicted of paedophilia – has disappeared from the Mail’s website. And from all archiving services.

The Mail reported in 2015 that:

In February 2011, the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, and his wife, Shelley, attended a dinner party at Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse in New York, an event also attended by Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell. ​ This meeting was first revealed by The Mail on Sunday in 2015, sparking controversy due to the security risks of the intelligence chief associating with a known sex offender.

Why did the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers attend a dinner with Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew at Epstein’s New York townhouse, after Epstein had been convicted of child sex abuse?

Why did Sawers go on to broker a deal between Palantir and UK govt, in 2019?

We need answers pic.twitter.com/vf9zcSP20k

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— Jon Harding (@_i0n) February 19, 2026

Screenshot saved here in case the original X post is deleted.

Epstein meeting article seems to disappear

However, the url for that article – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2894345/Head-MI6-dined-paedophile-billionaire-Jeffrey-Epstein-s-townhouse-Prince-Andrew-massage-girl-friend.html – now routes to an anodyne article about billionaire Elon Musk’s electric vehicles. The change appears to have been a rewrite of the page and a re-routing of the original link to the ‘new’, bland one:

Jon Harding, who noted the original 2015 post while it was still active, pointed out yesterday that the post is now gone and asked – presumably rhetorically – “Why would MI6 want to scrub this”.

Head of MI6 dined at paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s townhouse with Prince Andrew and his ‘massage girl’ friend

Author: Simon Walters

Date: January 3, 2015

Original URL (Likely Broken): https://t.co/r5LoCRjU5l

Why would MI6 want to scrub this

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— Jon Harding (@_i0n) March 7, 2026

(Screenshot here).

While the post was still live, Harding pointed out that AI platforms, including X’s ‘Grok’, both confirmed the Sawers-Epstein reports one day – but the next, were acting as if they’d never heard of it:

Grok only wants to talk about this, todayhttps://t.co/zkeiXcfvRU pic.twitter.com/NZJFr1Wi6W

— Jon Harding (@_i0n) February 21, 2026

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Web searches and searches of archive.org and archive.li similarly now reveal zero relevant results, except for pointers back to Harding’s threads – with the archiving sites merely offering an option to save the now-scrubbed replacement:

John Sawers later brokered a deal between the UK government and notorious US spy firm Palantir, a company whose founders appear around 4,500 times in the Epstein files released so far – reportedly only around two percent of the total.

Sawers also appears in the latest files released, with a redacted sender emailing Epstein with a link to a Telegraph article mentioning Sawer meeting with Ehud Barak, a close associate of Epstein whom now-deceased victim Virginia Giuffre accused of raping her – apparently brutally.

Sawers is now an adviser at arms industry-funded, security services-aligned think-tank Chatham House and a visiting professor at the Israel-aligned King’s College London.

Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli spy as well as serial rapist and trafficker or children and young women, and almost certainly even worse. He was convicted of paedophilia in 2008, three years before the reported dinner with Sawer and his wife.

Read Jon Harding’s threads here and here, as long as they remain online.

Skwawkbox writer Steve Walker is not, never has been, and never will be suicidal and does not use drugs.

Featured image via the Canary

Film critics are quitting the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) in droves after the association censored a pro-Palestine acceptance speech by indigenous actor and filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers. Tailfeathers returned her TFCA award in protest at the censorship and more than a third of TFCA members have already resigned in solidarity. TFCA president Johanna Schneller has stepped down.

Tailfeathers had been unable to attend the 2 March awards ceremony in person to accept her Best Supporting Performance in a Canadian Film ward. She had sent in a pre-recorded video speech but wrote to TFCA after the ceremony to point out that it had edited the footage, without her knowledge or approval, to remove references to Palestine. The section edited out said:

my heart continues to be with the people of Palestine who are experiencing this ongoing genocide, and thank you to anyone in this industry who’s been brave enough to say anything.

Toronto Film Critics Association censorship

Among the TFCA members who have left it in protest are Toronto Film Festival programmer Norm Wilner and critics Nathalie Atkinson, Sarah-Tai Black, Kathleen Newman-Bremang, Bill Chambers, Alicia Fletcher, Barry Hertz, Peter Knegt, Saffron Maeve, Angelo Murreda, Adam Nayman, Andrew Parker, Jose Teodoro, Winnie Wang, and Radheyan Simonpillai.

In an email to TFCA members, Simonpillai rejected the organisation’s excuse that time constraints forced the edit, and wrote that he was leaving because the only tampered speech was the only one by an indigenous artist in the whole ceremony:

Unfortunately, I can’t in good faith participate in an organization that kicked off the awards ceremony with a land acknowledgement, and then proceeded to minimize the sole acceptance speech delivered by an Indigenous artist.

Timing has never been an issue in the past, and certainly wasn’t when it comes to the speeches, presentations and video montages at the ceremony in question. If it were an issue, it should have been communicated clearly with the artist, whose speech seemed to be the only one that was visibly edited.

The future of the TFCA is now in doubt after decades of prominence in Canada’s film industry.

The outrage is not the first in the 2026 arts world. Author Arundhati Roy boycotted the Berlinale in February 2026 over “jaw-dropping” comments demanding silence from filmmakers over Gaza. A month earlier, the Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled completely because almost all of its writers pulled out over its committee’s decision to ban a Palestinian-Australian writer, supposedly because of the Bondi beach attack that had nothing to do with Palestine or Palestinians. Most of the festival’s board members resigned in disgrace. In 2025, protests by performers and staff forced Britain’s Royal Opera to cancel a planned 2026 production run of Tosca by the Israeli National Opera.

Featured image via the Canary

Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali has slammed establishment politicians for their role in amplifying “blatant racism” and helping it turn into:

a torrent of Islamophobic abuse and death threats that have left me and my family fearing for our lives.

Mothin Ali: ‘escalation of blatant racism by those in power’

Writing in the National, Ali said:

In a Britain where the politics of fear and division are gaining ground – and where parties like Reform UK thrive on narratives about who does and does not belong – some politicians have discovered that scapegoating minorities is easier than solving real problems.

And after he attended a Stop The War Coalition protest amid the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli assault on Iran, he faced that himself as:

parliament and the media have spread false claims that I was “protesting in support of the ayatollah”.

But he stressed that:

Speaking out against conflict – especially in the wake of the strike on an Iranian school that killed more than 175 schoolgirls and teachers – should never be treated as suspicious. In a healthy democracy, it is exactly what engaged citizenship demands.

That doesn’t seem to be the belief of establishment politicians, however. Because:

After Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke used parliamentary privilege to make false claims about me, those allegations were amplified by political figures, including the Prime Minister, and echoed across parts of the right-wing media and social media.

He called this:

faux outrage and blatant racism. And in this case, escalation by those in power.

He then suggested a link between politicians’ actions and the death threats he has received since then, saying:

In that kind of climate, it is hardly surprising that political disagreement spills beyond debate and into intimidation.

The “integrity of British democracy” is at stake

Just as it is wrong (and antisemitic) to suggest all Jewish people support the actions of Israel, it is equally wrong (and Islamophobic) to push the view that all Muslim people support the actions of Iran or any other Muslim state. And Ali highlighted that there is no justification for such an assertion.

As he explained:

A recent Opinium poll commissioned by the Concordia Forum found that 85% of British Muslims believe democracy is the best form of government – significantly higher than the general population (71%).

Seven in 10 say they are completely or mostly loyal to Britain, compared with only half of the wider public. And 94% believe everyone should be treated equally under the law, regardless of faith.

Although establishment voices try to push people into black and white positions, Ali insisted that opposing war does not automatically mean you “sympathise with the regime on the other side”. And he added:

we must reject the politics of loyalty tests and rediscover something more difficult but far healthier: the ability to hold two moral truths at once.

You can oppose authoritarian regimes and still grieve for innocent lives lost in war. You can criticise foreign governments without being accused of betraying your own country. And you can listen to Muslim voices in Britain not as suspects, but as fellow citizens participating in the same democratic conversation.

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The “integrity of British democracy”, he stressed, depends on our ability to have robust debate and disagree peacefully. But he also emphasised that:

disagreement must not slide into dehumanisation.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot