Callum Turner was definitely not up for discussing those James Bond rumours during a press conference at the Berlinale film festival.

Earlier this week, the British actor appeared at Berlinale to promote his new movie Rosebush Pruning, where conversation inevitably turned to Bond.

“There is a little bit of an elephant in the room around you,” one journalist pointed out during a press Q&A. “There are, for some weeks now, some speculation, rumours, reports that you are the next James Bond.

“Could you share a little bit how you deal with this debate right now, this buzz? Can you live and work normally?”

It’s fair to say that Callum seemed largely bemused by the question, responding: “You’re right, it’s very early for that question. I’m not going to comment on it. Thank you.”

Fortunately for Callum, his co-star Tracy Letts stepped in at that moment, responding: “I’m sorry… I’m the next James Bond.”

Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.

One of the reasons my old boss, Boris Johnson, won a higher vote share than any Tory since Margaret Thatcher is the same as one of the reasons Labour has crashed – and the same as one of the reasons Reform has failed to break through the 30 per cent ceiling.

That reason is optimism, or the lack of it.

In the last full quarter of the Sunak government, the economy was growing by a respectable 0.7 per cent. But Starmer’s “everything is terrible” speech in the No10 garden, weeks after the election, set a tone of confidence-sapping gloom from which business sentiment, and his government, haven’t recovered (it was only one of many mistakes, but an early and important one.)

In his defection speech, Reform’s Robert Jenrick made the question of whether “Britain is completely broken” the dividing-line between his new party and the Conservatives. As he put it: “I challenge anyone to argue Britain is not completely broken…. At a recent [Tory] shadow cabinet, a debate broke out. The question was put to the group: is Britain broken? I said it’s broken. Almost all said it’s not broken.”

In my time as a journalist, I reported from almost 50 countries, some of which were indeed “completely broken.” I know what a broken country looks like, and Britain is nowhere near. As Jenrick fairly said, some things in Britain have certainly got worse – but lots haven’t. Food, clothes and consumer goods are better and cheaper. We’re healthier. We live longer. We travel more. We survive illnesses that, even recently, killed thousands of us. We have multiple forms of entertainment on tap, any time we want, instead of having to wait for BBC2 to repeat Fawlty Towers (a caricature, by the way, of the kind of abysmal service business that has almost totally disappeared from modern Britain.)

My fundamental reason for optimism about Britain is that for all the echoes of the 1970s, the country is still in a better, more recoverable place than it was then. Above all, British business is far stronger and more efficient than it was then. It has survived everything the politicians have thrown at it – though its resilience is not, of course, infinite. It could power our recovery, if burdens on it were lifted.

I think we can say that British government and politics have stopped working properly. But even they have scored some recent successes, and even they are not as dysfunctional as those of many other democracies. And the “everything is broken” view carries a risk of nihilism: if crapness is inevitable, why even try?

To run a place, you need to look as if you like it. To get people to accept the difficult choices that are needed to rescue Britain, you must give them hope for something better at the end of it. Reform hasn’t yet managed either of these things. (I wonder if Nigel Farage brought his bonhomous side to the fore, his party would get those extra five to 10 points it needed.) The Tories are better: Kemi Badenoch talks about optimism, rejects the everything-is-broken narrative, but still doesn’t sound very optimistic, still doesn’t have much of a (published) plan to fix anything, and hasn’t yet really dealt to the public’s satisfaction with what the party did wrong in government.

There isn’t an obvious Thatcher figure waiting to rescue the country now, but there wasn’t then, either. Thatcher wasn’t seen as an obvious rescuer for quite a while. What there are, though, are lots of people who know things need to change and lots of little Project 2025s, a reference to the work done in the US to prepare both a conservative manifesto and a manual for how to get it done in government.

Boris was too optimistic, I agree. Just saying that the covid test-and-trace system was going to be “world-beating” didn’t make it so. He didn’t have a plan for that or much else. You need that too. The hope he created ended up being squandered.

But he did manage to make many people feel better about him, and about themselves, creating the juice to get at least some things done, and helping deliver the Tories their best vote share since 1979.

LGBTQIA+ advocacy group The Rainbow Project (TRP) have “unequivocally” condemned Northern Ireland Executive health minister Mike Nesbitt’s decision to further perpetuate the discrimination of trans people. Nesbitt has chosen to suspend the region’s participation in a clinical trial of puberty blockers.

In a statement, TRP said:

This decision runs contrary to the Executive’s stated agreement to participate in this trial, and demonstrates that the apparent need for evidence-gathering and more research are being abandoned in favour of political game-playing and culture wars.

TRP’s Policy Campaigns & Communications Manager Alexa Moore added:

The Executive claimed that its ban on puberty blockers was based on evidence: this decision is very clearly based on politics. This clinical trial was held up by Executive parties across the board as a means by which to gather the evidence for the use of blockers, assess their safety and efficacy, and make a decision on their use on that basis.

Trans communities are bearing the brunt of a political culture that views us as a stick with which to beat political opponents, not as real people with real lives and real healthcare needs. This decision demonstrates that no amount of evidence, no amount of research, no amount of suffering within trans communities will trump the need for politicians to score political points against each other at our expense.

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Puberty blockers are, as the name suggests, are a class of drugs that can delay the onset of puberty. They can be used by transgender youth as a means of ensuring their physical characteristics match their gender identity. Their use for under-18s is currently banned in Britain and the North of Ireland. The clinical trial underway across Britain will ostensibly allow further insight into their efficacy.

Nesbitt driven by hatred against trans people rather than evidence

First minister Michelle O’Neill also characterised Nesbitt’s move as political, saying it is “more about inter-unionist rivalry”, and describing it as “disgraceful”. It should be noted that O’Neill’s party Sinn Féin are little better, however. They backed the 2024 outlawing of puberty blockers. That move resulted in various Pride events banning the party, along with others who voted the same way. Criticism of Nesbitt’s latest move is absent from the well populated news feed on the Sinn Féin website, and from O’Neill’s social media feeds.

Nonetheless, there’s little doubt Nesbitt’s move is politically motivated. The health minister is an MLA for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). The post on the party’s Facebook page announcing the u-turn clearly indicates the political manoeuvring behind the decision to throw trans people under the bus.

The graphic shown twice mentions the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), seemingly contrasting the UUP’s latest assault on trans rights with a supposedly liberal approach of the DUP. The post singles out the latter for their previous work developing gender health services for children, before going on to boast of the UUP’s move to ban sale and supply of puberty blockers. In reality the DUP are not at all friends of the trans community, and regularly use them as playthings for a pathetic culture war.

The political nature of Nesbitt’s move was further revealed by the nonsensical answers he gave in the Assembly chamber on Monday February 16. He repeatedly claimed to be following the science and expert opinion. If that is the case, why cease a trial that would enable proper scientific conclusions?

He also asserted that his move was to ward off the:

…issue developing into another executive row.

It has now become just that, as opposition parties denounced Nesbitt for his u-turn. People Before Profit’s Gerry Carroll described the suspension as:

…a decision motivated by moral panic and transphobic politicking – not the interests of young people.

Lack of proper care causing suicides among transgender youth

The health minister’s rash decision comes in the aftermath of fresh evidence about the harms of denying young transgender people proper healthcare. A freedom of information (FOI) request by the Good Law Project (GLP) found that:

…in 2021-2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years. This spike follows the decision by NHS England to pull down the shutters on gender affirming healthcare for young trans people following detransitioner Keira Bell’s case against the Tavistock.

Tavistock was a centre for providing healthcare catering to trans people. The GLP previously reported on how minutes from Tavistock’s board meetings indicated they withheld information on deaths “due to reputational impact”. It is illegal to refuse a freedom of information request on these grounds. Whistleblowers who wanted to reveal the spike in suicides were threatened with disciplinary action by Tavistock management.

Health secretary Wes Streeting’s response has been a policy of shooting the messenger. He has attacked those reporting on the way his health service fails transgender youth, rather than fixing the problem.

Streeting is no doubt concerned about attacks from the right should he advocate on behalf of trans people. His Stormont counterpart is the same, driven by fear of the DUP and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV). Their cravenness will only spell more hardship for an already maligned and marginalised community.

Featured image via the Canary

The fake video a number of European governments are using to demand the resignation of Palestinian rights champion Francesca Albanese was created by a UN-accredited Israel lobby group.

The Orwellian-named ‘UN Watch’ claims to exist to hold the UN to its charter. In fact, it is an outright Israel lobby group – but one with access to the corridors of the UN in Geneva. It has unequivocal anti-Albanese form – it tried and failed in 2025 to prevent her re-accreditation as UN special rapporteur for occupied Palestine.

Having failed via the open route to oust Albanese, it is now accused – with evidence – of trying to do it by creating a fake video of her. The video supposedly showed Albanese describing Israel as the ‘common enemy of the world’. This would have been accurate, but was not actually what she had said in her speech.

As former UN human rights commissioner Craig Mokhiber observed, the “despicable” UN Watch has decades of form and has no place anywhere near the UN, but is also invited by US politicians to address them. Mokhiber demanded the withdrawal of its UN credentials:

Notorious Israel regime proxy group, “UN Watch”, set up in the 1990s by former Israel lobbyist and US ambassador Morris Abrams to harass and smear UN human rights defenders on behalf of the regime, is reported (below) to be behind the fabricated video used to attack UN Rapporteur… https://t.co/sFVADfatdI

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) February 14, 2026

Notorious Israel regime proxy group, “UN Watch”, set up in the 1990s by former Israel lobbyist and US ambassador Morris Abrams to harass and smear UN human rights defenders on behalf of the regime, is reported (below) to be behind the fabricated video used to attack UN Rapporteur
@FranceskAlbs.

This despicable group has carried out such dirty tricks at the UN on behalf of the regime for decades with absolute impunity. It perfidiously poses variously as a “watch dog” or human rights group, spreads lies, and smears all critics of the Israeli regime as “antisemites.” And still the UN grants it “ECOSOC consultative status” credentials that allow it UN access to harass and smear UN personnel and disrupt UN proceedings. Like the regime itself, the impunity of this harassment cell has been secured through the active support of the US government (missions) in Geneva and New York.

And Israel lobby-corrupted members of Congress periodically allow them to brief US congressional committees where they regularly slander UN personnel and processes. Its UN credentials must be withdrawn and its impunity must end now. Defenders of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide and serial harassers of UN personnel have no place in the corridors of the UN.

And the evidence appears strong that the lobby group is the origin of the fake video. As policy expert Martin Konečný pointed out, the first appearance of the video online appears to have been in a post by UN Watch director and Israel propagandist Hillel Neuer:

Time to ask who is the original source of the manipulated video of @FranceskAlbs that several European governments jumped on to demand her resignation?

It appears to come from pro-Israel propagandist @HillelNeuer, executive director of @UNWatch. (Says also Grok.👇) https://t.co/fOPgeCoeO9 pic.twitter.com/4LpeqeMS0T

— Martin Konečný (@MartinKonecny) February 14, 2026

To their shame, a number of Western governments have continued to target Francesca Albanese as if the video wasn’t fake, despite knowing it was. Their removal is as essential as that of friends-of-genocide group ‘UN Watch’.

Featured image via the Canary

We are at a critical juncture marked by growing global uncertainty. The institutions and mechanisms that once sustained the post war era are being weakened or dismantled, with consequences that are no longer distant or abstract but increasingly felt by our constituents here at home.

But responding to this upheaval means recognising that today’s national security threats are deeply intertwined with climate change and ecosystem breakdown. As the world moves closer to dangerous tipping points, the risks of food insecurity, conflict and resource scarcity grow, further destabilising the international system and feeding directly into the pressures communities are already experiencing.

These pressures are compounded by president Trump’s withdrawal from key climate agreements, with the fracturing of international cooperation now accelerating the destruction of the ecosystems that sustain us all here in the UK.

As the government’s own national security assessment warned, every global critical ecosystem we depend on is now on a path towards collapse. This would mean failing crops, soaring food bills, economic insecurity, and a much higher risk of pandemics. The threat is not limited to countries: the recent IPBES assessment in Manchester found that every business relies on nature’s services and faces existential risk if it does not actively protect and restore ecosystems.

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