Shahzad Akbar, an aide in Imran Khan’s government, has told Declassified UK that he has been the target of a sustained campaign of “transnational repression” since fleeing to Britain following the US-backed 2022 regime change in Pakistan.

The former Pakistani cabinet minister, barrister, and close ally of the currently incarcerated Imran Khan, told Declassified’s Mark Curtis that he was brutally assaulted on his doorstep last Christmas Eve. This followed his protests against Khan’s imprisonment outside the Pakistani High Commission in the week leading up to the attack.

Please watch this @declassifieduk interview with @ShazadAkbar who was horrendously attacked at his home in England — for his criticism of Pakistan. https://t.co/BEMFSYIEkk

— Mark Curtis (@markcurtis30) April 16, 2026

Akbar told Curtis:

Imran Khan’s illegal incarceration is not because of any cases or corruption charges. It is because of the personal vendetta of the current army chief, Asim Munir, who Imran Khan fired as the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] chief when he was prime minister.

Despite being a political exile living in the UK, Akbar says he has been attacked and intimidated, raising urgent questions about Britain’s duty to protect dissidents.

Akbar said that the UK takes threats seriously when they come from Russia or Iran, “but they must do everything to protect people from Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, because we have rights too”.

Pakistan recently mediated talks between the US and Iran because of its ties to both. However, Khan’s incarceration has cast a shadow over it.

Imran Khan’s incarceration brings up uncomfortable questions for Pakistan’s role as a colonial lapdog for the US and Israelhttps://t.co/cVR8QAdPQa

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 13, 2026

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The Washington Post said that despite Pakistan not recognising Israel, its ties with the US “through deals in crypto, minerals and counterterrorism”, have helped Pakistan’s role as a mediator. 

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed power that doesn’t recognize Israel, is hosting talks to end the Iran war despite not always getting along with President Trump.

The country improved ties with the U.S. through deals in crypto, minerals and counterterrorism. https://t.co/KQPjiNH2nN

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 21, 2026

But as the US and Britain embrace Pakistan as a strategic partner, they are complicit in the very repression Akbar fled from.

Featured image via Associated Press of Pakistan

By The Canary

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As reported by Stats for Lefties, support for the two main parties – Labour and the Tories – has tanked:

Ahead of local elections, how have polls shifted since the last time these seats were contested (in 2022)?

Ref +24.2
Grn +10.7
Lib +1.7
Con -15.5
Lab -21.6

Since last time these seats were up, support for the two big parties has fallen by over **37pts** pic.twitter.com/bYcWyHBSoO

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) April 20, 2026

At this point, we should probably stop calling them the ‘two main parties’.

While they hold the most seats right now, that almost certainly won’t be the case come the next general election.

Fading fortunes of Labour and the Tories

Unfortunately, it looks like Reform UK are set to capitalise on the downfall of Labour and the Tories. In addition to the above, Reform have once again opened up a significant lead with the pollster YouGov:

POLL | Reform lead by 10pts

Ref: 27% (+3)
Grn: 17% (-1)
Con: 17% (-2)
Lab: 16% (-1)
Lib: 14% (+1)

— Seats —
Ref: 337
Lib: 89
Grn: 82
SNP: 47
Con: 40
Lab: 23
Plaid: 10

Poll: @YouGov, 19-20 Apr 2026 (+/- vs 13 Apr) pic.twitter.com/3Q8lGtwMA9

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— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) April 21, 2026

If an election happened today, the above result would see Reform UK securing a majority government. We dread to think what that would look like (although it probably wouldn’t be any different to a Reform-Tory coalition).

Reform’s polling bounce has come despite the constant controversies of the past few weeks, including:

• Reform activist said ‘Hitler was right’.
• Reform candidate wants to ‘tear down’ the NHS.
• Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
• Reform UK accused of ‘nil vetting’ as another racist candidate exposed.
• Farage heckled at Reform’s Jimmy Saville-aping London launch.

The ‘glass half full’ analysis is that voters see Reform as the logical protest vote.

With Labour PM Keir Starmer embroiled in many controversies of his own, the UK public have much to protest:

You don’t need a vetting process to tell you that you shouldn’t appoint the best friend of a convicted paedophile who continued the friendship after the conviction. Starmer knew, he should go. https://t.co/ISHehVDvnY

— Mark Roberts (@Roberts_Mark_) April 21, 2026

The other note of optimism is that Reform have struggled to turn their national polling into local success. Most notably this happened in the Caerphilly by-election, and also in Gorton & Denton:

Sore loser Farage can't accept that Reform's man in Gorton & Denton was a dud, so he's resorted to accusing the Green Party of cheating.https://t.co/N0t4YG65X2

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) February 27, 2026

The problem for Reform is that the party is incredibly polarising. Their supporters love them, but their detractors will go out of their way to ensure they don’t get in.

This has kept Reform out in by-elections; we’ll see if the same proves true in the locals.

Problems regardless

Should Reform perform as expected, this still may not benefit them in the long run. The party runs several councils now, and the consequence of that is people have got to see how Reform govern.

Horror stories we’ve covered include:

• Reform councillor reposts that Labour MP ‘should be shot’.
• Reform councillor dramatically quits over council tax betrayal.
• What a surprise – Reform councillor attends just one meeting and sends two emails in six months.
• Reform councillor fined £40,000 for hiring ‘illegal’ workers.
• Reform councillor would like to see wage cuts to fund his pay rise.

Reform may have considerably more councillors after the local elections. This will mean they have considerably more scandals, and that the public gets a much better idea of the threat they represent.

Let’s hope that reality doesn’t manifest, and that Reform underperform this May.

If you want to see that happen, be sure to get out there and vote.

Featured image via Stats for Lefties

By Willem Moore

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PARC Against DARC has been campaigning since 2024 against the US military’s proposed DARC radar array in Pembrokeshire. Now it’s spoken out on Eluned Morgan’s surprise announcement which called for the UK government to ‘pause’ the DARC project while Donald Trump remains US president.

The campaigners say that while they welcome any opposition to DARC from the first minister, her calls lack any real substance when viewed under scrutiny as she is only calling for a pause and has not come out in outright opposition to the project. They add that there’s nothing to stop her doing another U-turn if she wins re-election.

Reports suggest there were over 500 opposing emails in response to the MOD’s recent public consultation on DARC and many to Morgan and MP Henry Tufnell. Campaigners believe this may have contributed to what they describe as Morgan’s ‘election jitters’ over the issue, adding:

It’s clearly in the minds of voters for the upcoming Senedd elections and may well also be a key issue being reported back to Morgan from the doorsteps too.

The campaign has also been quick to criticise Tufnell’s rebuke of Morgan’s remarks where he cited ‘Pembrokeshire DARC jobs’ as a key pro-DARC factor, saying:

It’s absolutely unbelievable how out of touch Henry Tufnell is on the whole DARC debate. You can tell that ‘somehow’, he hasn’t even got the memo from the MOD that they stopped trying to use jobs to try and sell their disastrous radar as soon as their Environmental Impact Assessment forced them to officially admit that the number of jobs for locals would be a meagre 20 at a maximum!

And that’s with the rest of the tiny operational staff being made up entirely of US personnel. Given that the EIA also shows that a necessary condition of DARC being built is that the entire existing staff would have to evacuate the Brawdy base, what we’re actually talking about with this proposal is a net loss of about 300 to 500 Pembrokeshire jobs, and that’s before we even get to the knock-on job losses from the huge damage to tourism.

Henry Tufnell has done what all of the very few DARC advocates left in the county always do: they just lie and lie and lie. Both he and Eluned Morgan recently trotted out this MOD lie that the statutory consultation just passed was publicised to all residents in the area, yet if they had paid attention to even a single email we know they were sent by local residents, they’d realise that not a single one of the leaflets the MOD distributed to the community ever even mentioned the consultation, and that the whole thing was a huge scandal.

For them to miss something so glaringly big just confirms that they continue to be utterly clueless as to how contemptuous the MOD’s handling of the local community actually has been. Either they don’t know, they don’t care, or they just can’t possibly believe how bad and out of control this project actually has been.

Party lines on DARC

Prior to Morgan’s unexpected announcement, campaigners had been critical of what they described as:

an abject silence and lack of any meaningful comment from local Labour officials on DARC.

This announcement, they say, is a clear sign that there are deep ruptures within the Labour Party over DARC. They believe Morgan may have seen the ‘writing on the wall’ for Starmer with predictions of an electoral bloodbath for Labour on 7 May.

So, effectively, Morgan has nothing left to lose with the prospect of her losing her seat and Starmer losing the leadership after the elections. The PARC campaign says, however, that it does wish to acknowledge what it describes as “Morgan’s bravery in standing up to Trump,” who has a reputation for bullying people, and especially for attacking women, who criticise him.

Both Plaid Cymru and the Wales Green Party have publicly opposed DARC from the beginning. And with polls showing Plaid as the largest party in Wales after 7 May, a likely Plaid / Green coalition could well be able to stop DARC in its tracks by a means of ‘calling in’ the planning application to the Senedd once in power.

A Plaid Cymru spokesperson said:

This is nothing but a last-ditch attempt by Eluned Morgan to cling on to her seat. Since becoming first minister, she has chosen to stay quiet on defence and international affairs, only now speaking up after polls show her losing her seat.

Plaid Cymru has consistently called on the UK government to focus on rebuilding European ties in response to Trump’s increasingly dangerous positions.

We have consistently opposed DARC alongside local communities, passing a motion at our annual conference in October 2024 and tabling a parliamentary motion in Westminster in March 2025.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski referred to Morgan’s comments as “Absolutely right”. He also said:

Standing up the USA must mean more than words. Let’s get serious about national security by working closely with our EU neighbours & rapidly decoupling from a rogue US president.

With public divisions now seeping out from inside the Labour Party itself and DARC becoming an ever more hotly debated election issue, the campaign believes that now is the time to put DARC to bed once and for all. Campaigners say that they have repeatedly ‘blown up’ every single justification the MOD has tried to make for it.

Campaigners point out:

The fact that in the recent war on Iran, the IRGC destroyed all of the $billions worth of US military radars in Gulf countries within hours of hostilities beginning proves that radar sites like DARC would make Pembrokeshire a ‘first priority military target’ in any conflict, which is completely unacceptable and should not be supported by our ‘parachuted in’ Labour MP.

They add:

Comments from Downing Street and Henry Tufnell yesterday which sought to minimise local impacts are simply laughable too and are an insult to the intelligence of Pembrokeshire and its people.

The MOD’s Environmental Impact Assessment does nothing but outright and openly confirm that DARC would have significantly adverse effects on literally every environmental level assessed, particularly in its visual impact on the National Park skyline.

The MOD’s had to admit that the visual impact is adverse in 100% of the 33 assessed viewpoints, and substantially adverse in at least 21% of them.

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Having to admit all of this, all the MOD can then try to do is make out that DARC, which we’ve now extensively proven to be for targeting enemy assets in space and is considered a huge escalation by China and Russia who are now having to basically enter an arms race because of Trump’s increasingly unstable global aggression, is some kind of civilian system for space management.

Yet anyone who knows a single thing about that subject would see that claiming to have solved one of the most legally and diplomatically difficult endeavours of building an actual international space traffic management regime with just one radar site in West Wales is just simply yet another one of the most easily discredited and brazen lies the MOD have told so far.

As the issue gains national attention following Morgan’s remarks, campaigners conclude:

DARC must be stopped, it’s as simple as that, and to achieve that we urge people to vote for the anti-DARC parties on 7 May.

Featured image via PARC Against DARC

By The Canary

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On 19 April, scandal-ridden Reform MP Richard Tice posted on social media about his visit to Erdington, and how he feels a change in the political waters. The only problem? His ‘supporters’ appear to have been generated by AI.

Richard Tice and his slop

The far-right MP for Boston and Skegness claimed that:

My team and I knocked on thousands of doors in all weathers, speaking to anyone who would listen, putting everything we had into that campaign. In the end, we received just 293 votes, and it was a tough result to take.

My heart bleeds, it truly does. However, all that had apparently changed for Tice’s latest visit:

Yesterday, I returned to Erdington and everything had changed. The support, the recognition and the mood was something I had never quite seen before.

However, there’s something not quite about those supporters:

Back in February 2022, @drdavidbull and I spent weeks in Erdington leading a newly rebranded Reform UK. My team and I knocked on thousands of doors in all weathers, speaking to anyone who would listen, putting everything we had into that campaign. In the end, we received just 293… pic.twitter.com/aWBAv6hxAE

— Richard Tice MP (@TiceRichard) April 19, 2026

‘Get Shysmnds Out’

As the context note helpfully points out, the image appears to be an AI fake. All the classic hallmarks are there – the seven-fingered hands, the smeared faces, the text on the signs appearing to read “Get Shysmnds Out”. Some of the more egregious errors are circled here in red:

The Guardian consulted a digital intelligence expert regarding the image. They stated that AI was almost certainly involved:

The faces (especially the mouths) of the figures all have a ‘smear’ to them. The woman in the denim jacket has extra long fingers on her left hand and what appear to be six fingers on her right. The man in the white jacket (fourth from the left) doesn’t appear to be gripping his sign at all.

However, the plot thickens. As reported in Lincolnshire World, Tice is denying that the image was generated by AI:

Reform says the image is a real picture of activities, and was ‘touched up’ to make it brighter and easier to view.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has been sent what appears to be the original image, which doesn’t have the apparent AI mistakes.

Unfortunately, the image Reform sent to the Local Democracy Reporting Service appears to have been taken on an early-2000s camera phone. Of course, this makes it understandable that Tice would want to spruce it up a bit. Handily, it also makes it difficult to debunk as the original.

However, we would note that the alleged-original still features a sign appearing to levitate in front of one individual’s hands:

But who knows, maybe an enterprising Reform supporter made some little handles for their sign?

This being the case, it’s hard to reach a definitive conclusion on the image. It could be AI-generated, and the dim version is yet another manipulation, or it could be that Richard Tice was simply lazy and failed to notice the mis-spelling of ‘Starmer’.

‘Even their campaigners are fake’

What we do know, however, is that Reform have form for using AI-generated slop to do their lying for them.

For example, Reform’s Darren Grimes – the deputy leader of Durham County Council – used an AI image of a group of South Asian men boarding a bus for a blog post trying to drum up opposition to refugees in the area. He argued that:

The image was obviously for illustrative purposes.

Likewise, Reform’s unsuccessful Gorton and Denton candidate, Matt Goodwin, landed himself in hot water by using AI to ‘write’ a book. The volume was filled with dodgy stats, fake quotes, and AI hallucinations. However, Goodwin tried to claim that the errors were down to his own incompetence.

On the subject of Tice’s post, Green leader Zack Polanski said:

There’s nothing real about the Reform party. Their supposed policies for working people are fake, they spin stories that are fake and now we know even their campaigners are fake.

Alongside AI-generated propaganda and AI-generated facts, Richard Tice’s allegedly AI-generated supporters would fit right in.

Featured image via screengrab

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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UK universities, including Oxford, Imperial College London and King’s College, have hired a private intelligence firm to spy on pro-Palestinian students and academics.

The operation was carried out over several years by Horus Security Consultancy on behalf of 12 elite academic institutions. Horus shareholders include an ex-SAS colonel who helped found the hard-right, pro-Israel Henry Jackson Society.

The joint Liberty Investigates and Al Jazeera report claims the task netted the firm “at least £440,000  ($594,000)” since 2022. The surveillance operation reportedly involved using AI technology to monitor online activity.

After sending freedom of information requests to 150 universities, the team uncovered:

evidence that Horus Security Consultancy Limited trawled through student social media feeds and conducted secret counter-terror threat assessments on behalf of some of Britain’s most elite institutions.

The bizarre spy mission targeted students and academics exercising their right to campaign against Israeli brutality and genocide — and it did so even before the 7 October 2023 attack.

Universities target campus activism

The investigation found:

Among those monitored were a Palestinian academic invited to give a guest lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University and a pro-Gaza PhD student at the London School of Economics, according to internal documents.

Adding:

In October 2024, the University of Bristol provided the firm with a list of student protest groups it wished to receive alerts about, an internal university email suggests. It included pro-Palestinian and animal rights activists.

Ultimately, some of the most best universities in the UK “paid the firm to monitor campus protest activity”.

The report also named:

• University of Oxford
• Imperial College London
• University College London (UCL)
• King’s College London (KCL)
• University of Sheffield
• University of Leicester
• University of Nottingham
• Cardiff Metropolitan University

AI-integrated private spy service

Horus provides a special spy service called “Insight”. Insight provides “open-source intelligence reports” to customers using an unidentified tool to “harvest a vast range of sources on the internet”.

Liberty Investigates and Al Jazeera noted:

According to its website, [Horus] has been integrating AI into its operations since 2022.

Horus Security’s CEO and founder is Jonathon Whiteley. Whiteley is a former UK Intelligence Corps colonel. His bio says he worked for the British Army, where he served in Iraq, the Balkans and Cyprus.

He was seconded at various times to all three UK national intelligence agencies and was Mentioned in Despatches for his work in Northern Ireland.

The UK’s three main intelligence agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Security Service (MI5) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). They respectively deal with external security, internal security and electronic and signals intelligence.

Whiteley left the army in 2006 before running a “successful project” for Oxford University and founding Horus.

Ex-SAS Henry Jackson-linked shareholder

The Horus website names former SAS colonel Tim Collins as a shareholder. Collins is a founding signatory of the hard-right ‘thinktank’ the Henry Jackson Society (HJS).

HJS invests much of its time in:

intellectual agitation on behalf of elite Anglo-American financial, security and fossil fuel interests.

Experts have said that the spying programme had gruesome implications. Gina Romero, the UN special rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, told Al Jazeera:

The use of AI to harvest and analyse student data under the guise of open source intelligence raises profound legal concerns.

The head of the lecturer’s union, Jo Grady, told Al Jazeera it was “shameful” that institutions had “wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds spying on their own students”.

Lizzie Hobbs was a PHD student at the London School of Economics (LSE) when she was targeted by Horus.

She said:

We knew surveillance was happening by the university, but it is shocking to see how systematised it is.

Horus also targeted Palestinian-American lecturer, Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, in June 2023, before the Israeli genocide began. She had been invited to speak at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in memory of British student Tom Hurndall, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in Gaza in 2003.

Documents, including emails between Horus and university staff and a copy of the assessment Horus provided, were uncovered by journalists.

Together, these show that on April 6, 2023, MMU asked Horus to conduct a secret counter-terror “threat assessment” on the 70-year-old Palestine studies scholar.

Horus and Collins did not respond to request for comment. Some of the universities did respond, often citing ‘security’ and ‘safety’ as a rationale for commissioning acts of espionage against students and scholars.

It is evident that private and state geopolitical and security interests have merged into a brazenly authoritarian apparatus. This all-encompassing security blob, with AI surveillance at its very core, threatens our essential liberties. The fact that it comes on the same day as genocide-linked AI firm Palantir announced their openly fascistic manifesto only makes the revelations more chilling.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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On 17 April, we learned that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting for the ambassador to the US position. Keir Starmer would blame the senior civil servant Olly Robbins for this, sacking him as a consequence.

Now, the sacked Foreign Office chief has hit back:

NEW: Olly Robbins says there was an "atmosphere of pressure" from No 10 to push through Peter Mandelson's appointment without vetting

"[The due diligence document] resulted in a dismissive approach to Developed Vetting from No 10" pic.twitter.com/RLdGOl4UXq

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— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) April 21, 2026

Starmer and his fall guy

Robbins’ letter is addressed to Emily Thornberry MP, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

In it, he notes he is seeking “advice” on his dismissal. He also attempts to clarify a situation that he describes as being “mired in confusion”, noting:

1. In November 2024, the then Cabinet Secretary recommended that security clearance be obtained before announcing a political appointee for Washington. It was not. After the announcement, I believe the Cabinet Office (CO) raised whether Developed Vetting (DV) was actually necessary. I understand the FCDO insisted that DV was a requirement before Mandelson took up his post in Washington.

2. I took over as PUS on 20 January 2025. Developed Vetting (DV) for Mandelson was underway, but already:

  a. Due diligence (which assesses reputational suitability and checks if a candidate is fit to serve) had been completed by the Cabinet Office

  b. Approval of the appointment had been given by HM The King

  c. Mandelson’s appointment had been announced

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  d. Agrément had been given from our US partners

  e. Mandelson had access to the FCDO building and basic IT access

  f. Mandelson was being granted access to highly classified briefing on a case-by-case basis

Clearly, the point Robbins is making is that No 10 seemed determined to put Mandelson in the position regardless. Indeed, Mandelson was already operating as the ambassador to the US before the vetting was completed.

“Atmosphere of pressure”

Robbins continued:

3. Cumulatively, 2a to 2f resulted in a dismissive approach to DV from Number 10 Downing Street (No 10) for the remainder of the process. Nonetheless, despite this atmosphere of pressure, the department completed DV to the normal high standard.

4. DV is a clearance process designed to assess a candidate’s national security risk. It relies on the applicant and contacted third parties being entirely candid. To be effective, this requires a highly confidential environment, which applicants trust to protect their personal information. DV achieves this by minimising access to this information. Without trust, DV is less effective and national security is weakened.

5. UKSV did not ‘fail’ Mandelson and FCDO did not ‘overrule’ their decision. Like several other departments eg MOD, FCDO is the DV decision-maker, not UKSV. It is FCDO that makes the risk judgement and then does or does not grant clearance. This is particularly important at the FCDO, as an area of focus for the DV process is a candidate’s foreign relationships. FCDO has thousands of staff with DV and the security team has extensive experience to call upon when making these judgements.

6. Within FCDO, the Estates Security and Network Directorate (ESND) liaise with UKSV to discuss the risks they have identified and whether the FCDO is confident these can be managed. I have not seen any UKSV documentation and would not normally expect to.

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The idea that Mandelson didn’t ‘fail’ his vetting is at odds with the narrative we’ve all come to understand since 17 April.

As Robbins explains, however, there’s a reason for this confusion.

Pass/Fail

According to point 7 in Robbins’ document, while Mandelson may not have ‘failed’ his vetting, it seems equally clear he didn’t really ‘pass’ either:

7. On 29 January 2025, I met with Director ESND and we discussed the DV for Mandelson. It was an oral briefing and no documents were presented to me. I was briefed that:

  a. UKSV considered Mandelson a ‘borderline’ case, leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied;

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  b. ESND assessed that the risks identified as of highest concern by UKSV could be managed and mitigated eg via management actions and the need to obtain STRAP clearance from the intelligence agencies;

  c. The risks did not relate to Jeffrey Epstein; and

  d. UKSV acknowledged that FCDO may wish to grant clearance, with appropriate risk management.

DV clearance is a risk judgement. This is especially true the more senior a candidate is and the longer their career. Managing these risks as part of the clearance process is not unusual. I therefore agreed that the ESND approach was appropriate and ESND granted clearance. When the Prime Minister informed the House that the proper process had been followed in respect of NSV, he was correct.

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Even before the vetting, people were saying Mandelson was too big a risk. We now know Ed Miliband was one of them.

In other words, the vetting scandal is a distraction from the real issue – that Starmer saw fit to hire the twice-disgraced Epstein associate in the first place.

“Deeply worrying”

Robbins provided further details on what he did and did not have access to:

8. As I and the Foreign Secretary wrote to this Committee on 16 September 2025 and as outlined to the House of Commons by Minister Doughty on the same day, “Ministers… are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome.” These statements were agreed with CO and No 10. This position reflected long-standing practice and guidance, and correctly constrained our ability to share information beyond the vetting process then or later.

9. In September, after Mandelson’s withdrawal, I considered the possibility of taking the unusual step of asking to see the UKSV documentation. My team consulted the Cabinet Office and were told that I required a national security justification. Subsequent discussions between FCDO and CO reflected different views on this matter, but I decided to adhere to normal practice and did not pursue this further.

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We understand not everyone should have access to all the information that materialises in the vetting process. The problem is it seems like no one with the power to make decisions seems to have gained any understanding of what the vetting said about Mandelson.

This is not a functional system.

Whistle blowing around Starmer and his government

Robbins closes out by expressing his concerns over how the story came to be publicly known:

10. Finally, it is deeply worrying that within days of CO officials briefing No 10 on the issues they perceived with Mandelson’s vetting the story had leaked to The Guardian.

In executing my national security responsibilities as PUS, I have drawn on many years in national security roles and applied guidance and commonly understood practice. My guiding principle has been to defend the integrity of a system designed to protect UK national security.

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I thank the Committee in advance for its consideration of this note, for its invitation today and for its vital work scrutinising the department I have been enormously proud to lead.

Robbins may be worried, but we’re not.

Clearly, the public needed to know what an absolute shambles the government’s vetting process is.

And if a creature like Peter Mandelson can slip through, the process may as well not exist in the first place.

Featured image via Pexels (via Canva)

By Willem Moore

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) have announced they will continue dealing with Venezuela, following the kidnapping of President Nicholas Maduro and the first lady Cilia Flores in January this year.

The United States stopped recognising Maduro as Venezuela’s “legitimate” president in January 2019 and spent years trying to pressure him out of office. The Biden administration held direct talks with Maduro in 2022, and when Maduro resumed negotiations with the opposition, Washington issued a licence allowing Chevron to resume some oil operations in Venezuela.

IMF called the announcement an ‘important step’

Both said that dealings with Venezuela were paused in 2019. The IMF said that this was “due to government recognition issues”. Neither have a problem with the illegal capture of a head of state of course, as long as the US is doing it.

As the hegemon bully, during the Covid pandemic the US blocked Iran, Afghanistan, and Venezuela from receiving emergency loans from the IMF. Now that the US’ claws are deep in Venezuela again — with the US seizing Venezuela’s oil sales, then easing sanctions of Venezuela’s central bank — the IMF and World Bank are back to bless it.

A 2022 US Congress report said that the Maduro government had “shown no interest in working with the IMF on a financial assistance package”.

Maduro was following in Chávez’s footsteps who condemned US-controlled multilateral institutions’ roles in promoting debt and underdevelopment in Global South countries.

Venezuelanalysis wrote:

Under Chávez’s predecessors, Venezuela implemented draconian IMF-conditioned structural adjustment policies that saw over half of Venezuelans living in poverty by 1998.

Board of Peace aka ‘Board of Genocide’

Practices by the IMF and WBG have been condemned widely by the Global South. The recent involvement of the WBG in Trump’s Board of Peace is another example of it being part of the predatory western financial system.

Recently, WBG’s president, Ajay Banga, was told the Board of Peace which he sits on is a “sham” and it was more aptly the “Board of Genocide”.

Pro-Palestinian protester calls out World Bank President Ajay Banga on Gaza peace plan: “You are shaking hands with the devils of genocide, you need to resign…shame on you.” pic.twitter.com/slEouV4MOi

— CSPAN (@cspan) April 7, 2026

Oxfam reported that in 2024, 90% of African countries with IMF and WBG loads had cut spending on essential services to repay debt.

We’re taxing bread… but not wealth ? Make it make sense ! In 2024, 94% of African countries with #IMF and #WorldBank loans cut spending on essential services to repay debt. It’s time to start taxing wealth, not survival. @Oxfam @oxfamkenya #Taxtherich pic.twitter.com/TfVzEVENij

— Oxfam in Africa (@OxfaminAfrica) April 20, 2026

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Several empirical studies have shown that IMF loans have increased poverty. The IMF requires countries to implement fiscal austerity as a condition for receiving loans which results in increased poverty.

A study led by Jason Hickel argues that IMF loans are a tool of US-led hegemony. They impose economic conditions when progressive governments “restricted their access to the cheap labour, resources and captive markets”.

This coercion is backed by military coups when necessary. The US toppled Mossadegh in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, and Nkrumah in Ghana, the study names.

Venezuela has suffered both tactics. First came years of sanctions to strangle the government. Then the US illegally captured President Maduro. Now the IMF and World Bank have returned to certify the US takeover.

Featured image via Pixabay/ jeanmanzano

By Nandita Lal

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Coventry South Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has been ejected from the Commons chamber for her – entirely correct – assertion that Keir Starmer is a “bare-faced liar”.

Zarah Sultana booted out by Speaker

Zarah Sultana was referring to Starmer’s evident lies to MPs about his appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the UK (and Starmer’s senior adviser) despite knowing Mandelson had been found unfit for the role.

She made clear as she left Parliament exactly why she had said what she (rightly) said:

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A post shared by Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultanamp)

Which lie?

But Sultana could just as easily have been talking about Starmer’s leadership election promises, every one of them a lie; his broken general election promises and made-up ‘£20bn black hole’; his lies about the Chagos Islands; his claim that putting bus fares up by 50% was a reduction; his lies about Jeremy Corbyn; his denial that he had said Israel has the right to commit crimes against humanity (just after he said it); his lies about energy bills – and and and.

In fact, you can tell he’s lying at a glance if his lips are moving.

Zarah Sultana’s refusal to slink out in the face of cowardly and Zionist Hoyle’s apoplexy was perfectly correct. Shame on the craven MPs who sided with the bare-faced liar to vote for her removal. Enough of weasel words and ‘parliamentary convention’ that makes calling a bare-faced liar a bare-faced liar a suspension offence.

’50p Lee’ Anderson also accused Starmer of lying. Unlike Sultana, he left without being made to and has little place talking about lying when he’s in Reform UK. But it just goes to show what a horror Starmer is that he gave the awful Anderson look good by comparison.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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The digital revolution was sold to us as a tool for liberation. Instead, it’s becoming the ultimate weapon for boss-class surveillance and the extraction of ‘data capital’.

​The relationship between capital and labour has undergone a fundamental shift since Karl Marx put pen to paper for Das Kapital. Marx famously analysed how the ruling class extracts ‘surplus value‘ through wage labour, leaving workers alienated from the very things they produce. ​In 2026, the battlefield has shifted.

Capitalism no longer just wants your physical strength or your time; it wants your data. Artificial Intelligence (AI), powered by the vast datasets we generate every second, has become the engine of modern production. But AI isn’t just about automating tasks; it is commodifying our very lives to create a new, invisible regime of exploitation.

​From the factory floor to the digital stream

​Marx’s analysis was rooted in the soot and grime of the factory system. There, mechanisation was used to squeeze every drop of value out of the worker, subordinating human beings to the relentless rhythm of the machine. By the 20th century, Taylor’s ‘scientific management‘ and Ford’s assembly lines had turned human movement into a metric, stripping away worker autonomy in the name of efficiency.

​Fast forward to the digital age, and we aren’t just looking at an upgrade; we’re looking at a total transformation. Industrial machines turned labour into mechanical motion, but AI turns labour into data streams.

​Data is the new raw material, harvested through the sensors, apps, and platforms that now permeate our daily lives. This extraction doesn’t end when you clock off. It follows you into your social interactions, your shopping habits, and your rest. The line between work and life has been erased. Every click and swipe feeds the predictive models that shape our world, all while the logic of profit remains hidden behind a “neutral” digital interface.

The rise of ‘Algorithmic Taylorism’

​In the industrial era, exploitation was easy to spot: long hours, dangerous conditions, and broken bodies. Today, it hides behind the “fetishism of technology.” We are told these systems are “efficient” or “helpful” (which they are), but they are also designed to naturalise surveillance, not merely to improve efficiencies and quality of life.

​This is ‘Algorithmic Taylorism.’ In Amazon warehouses and across the gig economy, workers are tracked by devices that set impossible targets and monitor productivity in real-time. Falling short doesn’t just mean a stern word from a foreman; it triggers automated disciplinary actions. Apps like Uber and Deliveroo use opaque algorithms to assign jobs and set prices, leaving workers with zero control and total insecurity.

​Even white-collar workers aren’t safe. AI is already gutting routine tasks in accounting and law. While the bosses talk about “upskilling,” the reality for many is increased precarity and the loss of professional dignity.

Can AI work for the people?

​It is vital to remember that AI itself isn’t the enemy; the capitalist structures controlling it are. If governed by the people, these tools could be transformative. As with everything, the problem is not inherently in the technology itself but rather in the misuse of these advances by the 1% to further serve their own interests. The material conditions documented throughout the history of capitalism bear witness to this fact.

Predictive maintenance could stop workplace accidents before they happen. Automated scheduling could, in theory, support a genuine work-life balance. Real-time analytics could even be used by workers to expose wage gaps and algorithmic bias.

​However, without the redistribution of these productivity gains, “efficiency” is just a polite word for “speed-up.” If the benefits of AI aren’t shared through higher wages and shorter hours, it will only serve to deepen the inequalities Marx warned us about over a century ago.

​Time for a digital class struggle

​Traditional trade unionism, focused solely on pay and hours, is no longer enough. The unions of the 21st century must become digital insurgents. We need to fight for:

• Data Rights: Workers must own the data they generate
• Algorithmic Transparency: An end to “black box” management; workers have a right to know how they are being evaluated
• Democratic Deployment: Workers must have a veto over how technology is introduced into their workplaces

While the EU’s AI Act offers a starting point, enforcement remains a joke in many parts of the global south. Transnational solidarity is the only way to confront a digital capitalism that knows no borders.

AI will not liberate the working class on its own. Without a radical shift in power and a demand for data justice, it will simply become the most sophisticated tool for control ever devised. The struggle for the means of production has become a struggle for the means of prediction. We must win it.

Featured image via the Canary

By Thanasi Hassoulas

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The Iranian government in Tehran has said that it has intelligence indicating that the US and Israel are preparing a surprise attack as they go through the motions of a ‘temporary ceasefire’ that they have never honoured and supposedly aim to negotiate a permanent truce.

Tehran: US-Israeli attack imminent?

Tehran’s announcement came as US forces attacked, disabled and boarded a civilian Iranian ship in international waters – and flew Trump’s golfing buddies back to Pakistan for supposed further ‘peace talks’. The Iranian government has said that it has “no plans” to engage in any talks as it cannot trust the US or Israel.

Israel has a long track record of murdering or trying to murder peace negotiators. The Pakistani military thwarted a reported Israeli plan to shoot down the Iranian delegation to the previous talks in Pakistan.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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