Graham Norton has teased what we should expect from his upcoming interview with Madonna.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Graham was due to chat to the Queen of Pop about her new album Confessions II in a one-on-one special.

On Friday, this was confirmed to be the case, with the BBC announcing that the talk show host already recorded the interview at the London nightclub and performance space KOKO.

The venue holds special significance for Madonna as it was the site of her first ever UK show in 1983, and was also where she delivered a special performance in honour of her Confessions On A Dance Floor album back in 2005.

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BBC/So Television/Ricardo Gomes

In an official press release, the BBC said: “The programme sees Graham meet with Madonna for an intimate, in-depth discussion about her incredible life and celebrated career.

“Ahead of the release of her much-anticipated new album Confessions II in July, this rare interview promises to be an unmissable television event.”

“During the interview, Madonna looks back on her early days in New York, reflects on her enduring relationship with the UK, discusses her most recent performance at Coachella, and much more,” the synopsis teased.

“The programme also features special guests, including an appearance from Madonna’s long-time collaborator Stuart Price. Together, they take Graham inside the world of Madonna’s new album, revealing the stories, inspirations, and creative process behind it.”

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Graham enthused: “As a lifelong fan it is always a thrill to interview Madonna, but to meet her on the dance floor where she first performed in London over thirty years ago felt incredibly special.

“She remains a legendary pop icon who is still doing what she does best – getting people up to dance!”

Madonna has been a guest on Graham’s show twice before, first in 2012 while promoting her film and W.E., and later in 2019, ahead of the release of her most recent album Madame X.

While Graham has made no secret of the fact he’s a Madonna fan, he also admitted in 2024 that the Like A Prayer singer “doesn’t make it easy” in an interview setting.

Madonna & Graham will be shown on on Friday 26 June at 10.40pm on BBC One, and will also air on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 4 July, the day after Madonna’s Confessions II album is released.

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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has debunked the right-wing dog whistle suggesting Muslims are claiming benefits for households where a man has multiple wives. Racist British media are beating the same drum to whip-up hatred against Muslims again…

GB News, of course, led the charge, running with the headline “DWP increases benefits paid to husbands with two or more wives.” The rag continued:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has increased the weekly allowance paid to additional spouses in recognised overseas polygamous marriages as part of this year’s benefits uprating.

From April 2026, each additional spouse in an eligible household now receives £125.25 per week, a 4.8 per cent rise from the previous £119.50 rate.

The uplift adds £5.75 a week, or roughly £299 a year, and mirrors wage growth, which is used to calculate annual Pension Credit increases.

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GB News swings at the same racist piñata

While they made it sound like Muslim men are getting special treatment, they’re actually describing increases which anyone on benefits got. The uplift, which happens every April, is just to bring benefits in line with inflation.

So it’s far more likely that your nan, struggling neighbour, and the couple you know who are struggling to make ends meet are getting more money from the taxpayer. As they all should.

GB News was careful not to explicitly blame Muslims, however, they clearly are the target because we don’t have polygamous marriages in the UK. But their target audience are people who think refugees and immigrants come here to live cushy lives and get thousands in benefits. This is despite all the research showing just how much people on Universal Credit struggle to survive.

However, that didn’t stop the Tories’ resident ‘poor people hater’, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately. She continued drumming up hatred. On Instagram Whately said:

Polygamy is illegal here in the UK, but if you’ve married four wives overseas and then moved here you could be claiming up to £78,000 in benefits a year, paid for by the British taxpayer. That is absurd and totally wrong.

She’s correct on one thing, that is ‘absurd and totally wrong’, because it doesn’t happen.

As Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu has pointed out:

In the UK a second, third or fourth wife can’t get a spouse visa if there’s already a legal wife living in the UK. So then how is she going to obtain any welfare benefits as a wife if she can’t get a spouse visa?

The actual number is less than ten.

Mos-Shogbamimu also correctly explained that the tories are vowing to change this if they get into power, but they were already in power for 14 years and didn’t change it. That’s probably because it didn’t happen.

However, as always with right-wing gammons, their argument falls down when they try to prove it.

DWP agrees, the problem doesn’t exist

Tory MP Matt Vickers submitted a series of written questions to the DWP. In them he requested to know more about how many people are claiming benefits in politics. He also wanted to know what the DWP are gonna do about it. The answer is absolutely nothing, because the problem doesn’t exist.

Stephen Timms replied to all of the questions with the same answer:

Polygamous marriages are illegal in the UK. Immigration rules have generally prevented the formation of polygamous households in this country since 1988. Under successive governments access to benefit support for additional spouses is only available where the marriage took place in a country where the practice is legal. The Department does not hold information in respect of Pension Credit.

Timms continued:

However, the most recent published data (August 2025) from the Housing Benefit Single Housing Extract (SHBE) indicates that there are fewer than ten households where claimants are recorded as being in a polygamous marriage formed in another country. In these exceptional cases, there is no financial benefit as more would be paid in benefits if the additional person claimed as a single person. There are no plans to change the existing benefit rules.

Say it louder for those at the back — there are less than 10 claimants who are in a polygamous marriage. This just shows how much the right wing losers are engineering panic about immigration when it’s all absolute lies. The tories know that the quickest way to bring back the gammons from Reform is to be racist.

But like most Tory policies, all they really want to ensure is that the working class attack each other so we don’t look up.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

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The first game of the 2026 World Cup, held in Mexico, was notable for reasons other than Donald Trump’s racist authoritarianism. The vomit-inducing bootlicking and double standards of FIFA boss Gianni Infantino didn’t go unnoticed, and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum’s refusal to attend made headlines.

Sheinbaum reportedly gave her ticket to a young Indigenous woman and watched Mexico’s victory over South Africa at a sports centre “in the company of the people.”

President Sheinbaum TURNED DOWN her World Cup ticket over the ridiculous prices, choosing to gift it away and watch Mexico's victory with the people at a free local screening instead. pic.twitter.com/dGYqGFtQjI

— Samuel (@resisres) June 11, 2026

Political flashpoints

Beyond the drama of Infantino and Sheinbaum, the tournament quickly became a stage for political flashpoints.

This was a break with the tradition of national heads of state attending opening matches. Moreover, it reflected to some extent the low point the world has reached, amid the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza. It also showed Donald Trump’s flagrant flouting of international law.

FIFA, meanwhile, is perhaps as blatantly awful as it ever has been too. Because it hasn’t just hypocritically refused to ban Israel — despite banning other countries for lesser crimes than genocide. In fact, it has also stooped to the sickening level of sycophancy that Trump craves. For example, it shamefully awarded the warmonger a fake peace prize.

Academic Ricardo Domínguez told El Nuevo Herald that Sheinbaum’s actions were consistent with her government’s slogan “primero los pobres”. It argues that the poorest people should always be the top priority. This was especially relevant as few Mexicans could easily afford the “stratospheric costs” of World Cup tickets.

Sheinbaum also shut the schools in Mexico City for the event. Additionally, she encouraged employers to allow their employees to work remotely.

Mexico’s battle against poverty

Sheinbaum and her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador have overseen a shift away from the capitalist extremism of neoliberalism. Boosting pensions, scholarships, healthcare, wages, workers’ rights, and gender equality, the government has helped. Thus, it has helped to take millions of people out of poverty.

A person earning the minimum wage in Mexico would have needed to work 20 days in order to buy the cheapest ticket for the opening match in Mexico City. And for perspective, a person on minimum wage would have only needed to work for half a day to attend a match at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

Mexican teachers, for example, earn on average somewhere between £260 and £650 per month. And many of them have taken advantage of the World Cup events in Mexico to highlight their call for better pay and conditions.

Considering the money the government has invested in World Cup infrastructure, teachers haven’t bought the idea that there’s not enough money to give them proper pay rises. Having protested against low wages and poor working conditions since long before Sheinbaum came to power, they now want her rhetoric to turn into action.

Despite negotiations, Sheinbaum’s government is yet to reach an agreement with the striking teachers.

Sheinbaum has made clear statements of her political focus, like giving away her World Cup ticket and celebrating with ordinary fans. But the struggle to get fairer working conditions from her government absolutely continues.

Featured image via Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images

By The Canary

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Remarkable things have been occurring in the Senedd — as highlighted by independent journalist Will Hayward, 11 Welsh Reform ministers apparently voted to back an amendment criticising their own party.

The original motion under debate was proposed by Dan Thomas, the leader of Reform’s Senedd branch. It called on the Welsh government:

to publish the full costings and timetable for the introduction of their childcare offer within their first 100 days in government.

Plaid Cymru claim that, once implemented, their plan will see every child aged 9 months to 4 years receive 20 hours of fully funded childcare per week, for 48 weeks a year. The party estimates that this will equate to around £30,000 in care costs per child over their first 4 years.

A little amendment…

Now, we should note here that Plaid have stated that their childcare proposal is already fully costed. However, they haven’t shown any inclination to dance to Reform’s tune by publishing it.

Opening the debate, Thomas made a claim that would come back to bite him fairly sharpish:

I know all parties want the best for children and families, and we may have different ideas about how to achieve that, but the substantive motion that we will be voting on is this Government’s full costings and timetable.

I want to reiterate that Reform supports childcare and we support the current childcare offer, which is already baked into the Government’s budget, as introduced by the then Labour Government.

However, Plaid’s Heledd Fychan and Gwyn Williams had another plan. Their amendment proposed that Reform’s entire motion be deleted and replaced with three points:

1. Notes that Reform UK had no commitments on childcare in its Welsh manifesto.

2. Further notes the clear evidence that improving access to childcare would reduce child poverty in Wales, and that access to universal funded childcare would support parents to return to work or to increase their working hours.

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3. Recognises the Welsh Government’s commitment to provide an update on the initial costings and phasing for the expansion of universal childcare before the summer recess, in line with the commitments outlined in the First 100 Days plan.

‘Reform has no plans around childcare’

Hayward had a more succinct description here, calling the situation:

a vote to say that Reform has no plans around childcare.

Unsurprisingly, the amendment to embarrass Reform won in short order. 50 Senedd members voted in favour, compared to 41 against.

What was more surprising, however, was that 11 of those 50 votes in favour came from Reform ministers. Given that the far-right party only has 34 members in the entire Senedd, that’s just shy of a third that voted against their own party. What’s more, without their support, the amendment wouldn’t have passed.

Hayward mused that this begs the question “Why did they do this?”:

You could argue that maybe they’re making a bold statement about what they perceive to be a lack of support from their party to parents in Wales when it comes to childcare. Or it could be that they didn’t really understand how to vote or what they were voting on.

Obviously the Canary’s money is on Reform’s Senedd members being utterly clueless. Just look at the party’s extraordinary incompetence on everything from finance to national security (to finance again) to candidate vetting (and to finance again one more time). Hardly screams ‘safe pair of hands’, does it?

An attack on affordable childcare

However, whilst we always enjoy pointing and laughing at Reform cocking up, it’s worth remembering that this party – when it does get itself together enough to vote – is an active danger to us all. Fortunately, the rest of the Senedd weren’t about to forget that fact.

Plaid’s Sarah Rees reiterated that Reform had “not a single proposal” on childcare. However, she also pointed out that even the party’s tenuously related policies would spell doom for many families:

Reform UK’s proposed tax breaks would do nothing to support parents who’ve already been forced out of the workforce because their childcare bills outweigh their earnings. […]

We’ve also heard Reform representatives, including Dan Thomas, speak to the BBC about improving maternity and paternity rights. Yet this sits in direct contradiction to Reform UK’s own policy of scrapping the Equality Act 2010.

However, it was Plaid’s Keira Marshall – herself a new mother – who really called out Reform’s argument for what it is:

In Cardiff, childcare can cost around £85 a day. That’s what I’ve been quoted. That could be around £1,700 some months. No tax cut will solve that. At that price, it would make more sense for my partner to stop working. And unfortunately for the opposition, that sits directly at odds with the rhetoric we’ve heard from their own candidates about women nurturing and men providing. What we’ve heard today is not really a debate about affordability. It’s a debate about whether Reform believe that childcare should exist in a way that allows both parents to work. And on that question, the public is already hearing their answer loud and clear.

Earlier this week, the Canary reported on the fact that Reform leader Nigel Farage has taken over £80,000 from the US anti-abortion lobby. Likewise, four Reform MPs voted against the decriminalisation of abortion.

Of course, immigrant-bashing is very much front and center in Reform’s policies. But make no mistake — this party is an enemy of women’s rights, and those of anyone they perceive as a woman. Whether it’s fighting to make abortion less accessible or attacking affordable childcare, Reform is a poison for the very ideal of equality itself.

Featured image via Jon Rowley / Getty Images

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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The post How Islamic sectarianism is remaking British politics appeared first on spiked.

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The post Belfast: how asylum turned the UK into a tinderbox appeared first on spiked.

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In a remarkable twist just days after being excluded from the 2026 World Cup, Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan has been appointed to officiate the UEFA Super Cup. The match will be between Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa on 12 August in Salzburg, Austria.

Historic appointment for Artan

Artan will become the first Somali referee to take charge of a European Super Cup match. This appointment marks a major milestone in a career. He has risen rapidly to prominence across African and international football.

His UEFA appointment comes in the wake of the controversy over his absence from the World Cup, where travel restrictions prevented him from reaching the United States, despite being selected for the tournament’s referee list. His exclusion attracted global attention, as he had been set to make history as Somalia’s first World Cup referee.

Under the European spotlight

UEFA confirmed the decision in coordination with the Confederation of African Football (CAF). This move is part of ongoing efforts to give Africa’s top referees opportunities on Europe’s biggest stages.

Artan, 34, has held international accreditation since 2018. He has earned a reputation as one of Africa’s leading referees through numerous high-profile CAF matches. In addition, he has officiated club and international fixtures.

The UEFA Super Cup, featuring Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain and Europa League champions Aston Villa, promises a spotlight on Artan and a chance for the Somali referee to demonstrate his skills on one of football’s most prestigious stages.

Featured image via NurPhoto / Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

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Bolton Imam Hassan Patel has released CCTV footage of a masked arsonist setting fire to his family home in a shocking arson attack. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) are reportedly not treating the incident as a hate crime.

However, local Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi called out the clear Islamophobia at play. Likewise, Green leader Zack Polanski highlighted PM Keir Starmer’s silence on the incident, sharply contrasting the response to recent similar crimes.

A ‘serious and callous’ arson attempt

Reports state that the arson attack took place in broad daylight, on the evening of Wednesday 10 June. The target, a house on Eastgrove Avenue, was home to Patel, his wife, their four children and one nephew.

CCTV footage shows a figure dressed in black, wearing a motorcycle helmet, approaching the family home. The footage clearly captures the arson attack with the arsonist first setting down a rag near the doorway, which they soak with accelerant and set alight. After smashing a window, the arsonist sprayed more accelerant into the house and across the flaming rag.

Patel’s son, Umair Yusuf, first noticed the fire. The family used a hosepipe and water buckets to fight the flames, successfully extinguishing them before the fire service arrived. Greater Manchester Police received reports of the attack at 9:20pm that same evening.

Thankfully, none of the family sustained serious injuries. Imam Patel, who works as the principal for Islamic Education at the Taiyabah Masjid, issued a statement in the wake of the attack. He described his family’s shock:

We as a family are devastated by the serious and callous arson attack that targeted our home. It was daylight at the time. This was clearly a dangerous and deliberate act that put our lives at risk. […]

The family is horrified as to why we were targeted. We are grateful that no one was seriously injured, and we wish to thank the emergency services for their swift response in bringing the incident under control.

A ‘targeted arson attack’

A spokesperson for GMP said:

We understand this incident may cause concern within the community; we are working to find those responsible and bring them to justice.

We believe this was a targeted attack, and there is no risk to the wider public. Officers will be providing reassurance with visits in the community throughout the day.

However, Patel stated his understanding that the police are not currently treating the incident as a hate crime. The debate over whether this act of arson classifies a hate crime. Given that GMP acknowledged a belief that the attack against the Imam’s house was “targeted,” the officers’ line of reasoning has proven difficult to swallow for some.

As such, Bolton Council of Mosques issued a statement stressing that the attack:

deserves a full and thorough investigation and should not be de-scaled as an isolated incident.

We ‘deserve the same respect’

Likewise, Imam Patel added his perception of GMP as downplaying the attack:

given the circumstances and the impact this attack has had on us, we believe it is essential that all possible motives are thoroughly examined and that no line of inquiry is ruled out prematurely, as it seems GMP has done at present.

We feel this is a very serious issue and is not being dealt with in the same manner that other incidents of a similar nature have. We are no different and deserve the same respect. This attack has left our family feeling shocked and unsafe in our own home. No individual or family should have to experience such fear and uncertainty.

On a similar note, Yasmin Qureshi — Labour MP for Bolton South and Walkden — said:

Thankfully, no one was hurt. But I know the fear doesn’t end there. I know there are families this week who feel anxious walking their own streets and taking their children to mosque. To them I want to say clearly: you are not alone, and this whole town stands with you.

Qureshi added that, when an Imam’s home is targeted:

our Muslim neighbours hear the message that’s intended – and so do I. Islamophobia has no place in Bolton. None. Our Muslim community is part of the fabric of this town, and an attack on them is an attack on all of us.

‘Others seem to be met with silence’

Back in March, following an attack that caused £30,000 in damage to Stockport’s Elaf mosque, the Muslim Social Justice Initiative noted that police have repeatedly refused to classify attacks — including arson — on mosques in the Greater Manchester area as racially motivated. Four other attacks targeted the same mosque in the past year.

Beyond the reaction from Greater Manchester Police, it’s also notable that the incident has received relatively little media-political attention. Green leader Zack Polanski highlighted that:

It’s pretty disgraceful that there has been absolutely no mention of this from the Prime Minister.

It’s increasingly clear that some attacks, correctly, warrant disgust, emergency measures and days of media coverage.

Others seem to be met with silence.

When masked arsonists carried out an attack against four ambulances owned by Jewish community service Hatzola back in March, the Met Police declared the attack as an antisemitic hate crime within three hours. Likewise, the incident received widespread media coverage and condemnation from the government.

As Polanski stressed, that disgust towards attacks like Golders Green was well-warranted. However, those same politicians have stayed silent in the face of an arson attack against an Imam’s home.

And, as racist riots have swept the country in recent weeks, it remains clear that the hierarchy of racism remains alive and well in the UK’s political consciousness.

Featured image via X / the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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