Politics
Dracula Reviews: Cynthia Erivo’s New Play Divides Critics
Following her acclaimed performances as Elphaba in the movie musical Wicked and its sequel, Cynthia Erivo is currently starring in a new West End production of Dracula.
Remarkably, the Oscar nominee plays all 23 characters in the ambitious play, thanks to a combination of pre-recorded screen work and Cynthia’s in-person stage acting.
In the run-up to the official opening, much was made in the press of the fact some audience members were unimpressed with the supposed use of an autocue during preview performances, though in newly-released reviews, there’s no indication that this has taken away from her conviction or credibility in the 23 roles the British star inhabits.
Unfortunately, critics seem more lukewarm on the show itself, with many reviews indicating that the production team may have bitten off more than they could chew with the project.
Here’s a selection of what critics have said about the new adaptation of Dracula…
“During early previews at the Noël Coward, word of mouth suggested that the Wicked star – who plays all 23 characters, some live, some pre-recorded – was struggling to negotiate the dense tangle of dialogue and cues. Some audience members were said to be unhappy at seeing teleprompters on stage. Those problems seem to have been ironed out.
“At the press preview I saw, Erivo fumbled a few lines but otherwise gave a commanding display in a Kip Williams production that is part theatre, part cinema.”
“Erivo’s excellence is the least surprising element of the evening. She is magnetic, meticulous, and emotionally lucid throughout, finding flashes of humour and menace even while juggling an almost unmanageable technical load […] At the same time, the feat has inevitable limits.
“There are moments that could be deeply resonant in the hands of an actor of Erivo’s ability, that instead seemed rushed or surface-level.”
“At previews, Erivo was reportedly reliant on an auto-cue; there’s still one on hand but she seems word-perfect now. My only cavil is that her rendition can incline to flatness.
“Still, she’s climbing a mountain, really, and deserves cheering on. It’s feats of stamina like this that keep British theatre un-dead.”
“Cynthia Erivo gives an extraordinary, shape shifting performance […] The Wicked star juggles costumes and accents, interacting with onscreen versions of herself in a hectic 120-minute canter through the Gothic tale. Her performance triumphantly walks a knife edge between virtuosity and absurdity.”
“Truly this is a mind–bogglingly complex show, which goes beyond the kitchen sink in its attempts to create an audio-visual hallucination.
“Yet what’s missing is old-fashioned suspense. We all know, roughly speaking, what’s coming. But I still find myself tipping my pointy hat to Erivo.”
“Erivo is tiny and the screen is massive, and the pre-recorded stuff is so dominant – as many as four gigantic versions of her on-screen versions of her – that it overshadows the technically impressive work happening on stage.”
″[Cynthia Erivo] deserves praise for tackling such a relentless and challenging part, which requires her to constantly switch between personas, interact with pre-recorded versions of herself, and hit all her marks for the camera operators […] but in a production that demands so much of its performer, you can’t shake the feeling it’s about to run away from her.
“She wades through the dense script, which would have benefited from another round with the dramaturg, rushing out vast passages and occasionally stumbling over her words. Perhaps some of these issues will be ironed out over the course of the run, but for now there is too much jeopardy that she won’t get there.”
“It’s slick, soulless and all about appearances. There’s no jeopardy or really any true drama. On the night I attended, the audience loved it, but what are we applauding? Erivo deserves it, but she also deserves far better – a Dracula with a bit of red meat rather than this bloodless, soul-sapping affair.”
“It’s testament to Erivo’s skill that her performance still packed a punch throughout. However, by the law of averages a five-star performance and one-star production must equal three.
“Sadly like Dracula himself, this production sits stranded in the middle, not dead, not alive, but somewhere in between.”
“Despite the speed, the atmosphere stays sedate, with none of the fever required, and no peril whatsoever. And characters seem so simplistic that they verge on the comical […] Erivo’s feat of narration also seems to distract her from the actual acting, too neutral in her physical and facial expressions.”
Dracula plays at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End until Saturday 30 May.
Politics
‘No taxation without representation’ must be non-negotiable
Around this time last week, I was standing in the pouring rain in West Sussex, handing out leaflets to defend something that should never have needed defending: the right of local residents to vote. The TaxPayers’ Alliance had been out across the county campaigning against the Labour government’s plan to cancel elections in 30 local authorities across England. Leading the charge were the Telegraph, which launched its Campaign for Democracy last month, and Reform UK, which had brought a legal challenge that was due to be heard in court on Thursday – and which the government was expected to lose.
But taxpayers should never have had to rely on opposition parties, newspapers and campaign groups to defend the most basic principles of democracy. Holding regular elections should be the bare minimum we expect of the people in charge.
Now, Keir Starmer has performed his latest u-turn and those local elections are back on. But let’s not dress this up as a government listening to the people. The government tried to trample over local democracy, faced the wrath of the British people and backed down.
The official justification for the cancelled elections was always nonsense. Labour’s upcoming local-government reorganisation apparently made elections too expensive, complicated and, in the words of communities secretary Steve Reed, ‘pointless’. But functioning democracies don’t suspend elections because they are inconvenient or expensive. By that logic, any government could put off elections indefinitely.
The more plausible explanation is that Labour looked at the polls, saw the wipeout coming on 7 May and decided that stripping 4.5million people of their vote was preferable to facing the consequences of their own failures.
What made it worse was what these councils were planning to do had the elections not gone ahead. Spared the inconvenience of facing voters, they weren’t even willing to show a modicum of humility or contrition by freezing council tax. Indeed, the councils that planned to delay their elections are expected to add £121million more in council tax compared with the previous year. Some of them would have been postponing elections for the second year in a row and yet they were still planning to hike bills.
The average band-D household in England is paying 16 per cent more in council tax than in 2022-23. Councillors would have been adding even more to that burden without any democratic mandate to do so. The principle of ‘no taxation without representation’ is centuries old, dating back well beyond the American Revolution. Sadly, this age-old tenet is incomprehensible to the posse of petty authoritarians we call our elected politicians.
Depending on how generously you’re counting, this is somewhere around Labour’s 14th u-turn in government. At this point, the u-turn is Keir Starmer’s only consistent governing philosophy. Announce something outrageous. Face pushback. Retreat. Repeat. Future historians trying to summarise the Starmer years will struggle to find a defining achievement, but they won’t struggle to find a defining pattern.
Now, thanks to the legal incompetence of our former prosecutor turned prime minister, councils face a scramble to organise elections they had written off. Reversing the bad decision won’t reverse the damage it caused. Taxpayers will be forced to foot the £63million bill that central government has put aside to help councils deal with the fallout from this u-turn and the chaotic reorganisation of town halls.
If Keir Starmer wants to pretend that he even has a shred of respect for the local democracy and the hard-working taxpayers that he has spent months trying to crush, there is only one thing he should be doing: bringing in an iron clad law to prevent this from ever happening again. If in future there is ever another attempt to trample on local democracy, councils should be forced to freeze council tax and all other charges. The principle is simple: no vote, no tax rise. It’s the least councils could do.
While some may take the local-elections u-turn and claim it as a win, what we won’t do is pretend it represents anything other than a government that tried to strip millions of people of their vote, failed, and is now hoping we’ll forget about it and move on. This is a stain that will indelibly mark this government for as long as the British electorate is condemned to suffer under its rule.
Anne Strickland is a researcher at the TaxPayers’ Alliance
Politics
Cynthia Erivo Shrugs Off Online Criticisms About New Dracula Play
Cynthia Erivo has insisted that she’s not letting any of the discussions online about her new play Dracula affect her performance.
However, the Oscar nominee has told BBC News that what people have to say about her performance on the internet isn’t something she’s paying all that much attention to.
Cynthia explained: “I’m not paying attention to any of them as no-one knows the experience except me. It’s not for me.
“I have a job to do and I want to do it as well as I can and I want to do it with all my heart. I don’t let the comments take the energy that I should be spending on the stage.”
The British actor conceded that she was “still learning my lines and figuring it out” during her first week of shows, and while Cynthia’s performance has been widely-praised, some reviews from press night acknowledged that there was some “stumbling over her words” and “fumbling” of lines on occasion.
While primarily known for her Oscar-nominated performances in movies like Wicked and Harriet, Cynthia got her start in live theatre, winning a Tony in 2016 for her work in the Broadway musical The Color Purple.
Her new stage venture is directed by Kip Williams, who has previously enjoyed success for his stage adaptations of Jekyll & Hyde and the Olivier-winning The Portrait Of Dorian Gray, the latter of which was also a one-person production starring Succession actor Sarah Snook.
Politics
Should You Use The ‘777 Rule’ In Your Relationship?
“Don’t go to bed angry.” “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.”
There are many relationship adages and “rules” that have become part of our cultural vocabulary, but not all are meant to be followed. So when I first learned about the “777 rule” – a concept to help partners find time to connect – on social media, I brought a healthy level of skepticism to the guidance.
“The 777 rule is a viral framework that encourages couples to spend consistent, intentional time together,” said Julie Nguyen, a dating coach with the dating app Hily.
“The guideline suggests couples to go on a date every seven days, take a weekend trip every seven weeks, and go on a longer vacation every seven months.”
She noted that this method isn’t rooted in formal research or relationship science but is “more of a catchy formula” that makes it easy to remember how to have special shared experiences with your partner. Of course, there’s room for flexibility as well.
“Every seven days, have a date or spend some intentional time together – this can be a meal at home without any screens or kids, something simple,” said Tracy Ross, a licensed clinical social worker specialising in couples and family therapy.
“The important part is focusing on one another without distractions and trying to tune in to your relationship.”
Try something that requires a bit more effort every seven weeks.
“Go on a road trip, spend a day going on a hike, go away for the weekend – again it’s intentional time together with the goal of connecting and not being distracted by screens, work, friends or family,” Ross noted.
And then make an extra special, out of the ordinary plan every seven months.
“Go on a trip, conquer a challenge together,” Ross said. “Take time away from your life to do something that you both look forward to, want to experience together, and requires you to spend time and effort on being together – and of course again, without distractions.”

MoMo Productions via Getty Images
The 777 rule made the viral social media rounds last year, and it also wound up in headlines in 2023 thanks to reports about English actor Amy Nuttall following her husband’s alleged affair. The underlying idea goes back even further, however.
“While the name feels sparkly and new, this really is a traditional relational concept under a new name,” said clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff.
“The foundation of this concept is rooted in the idea that our relationships require novelty, quality time, intentionality and investment of emotional, financial and time resources to feel full and satisfying. I think this took off so easily because of the simplicity and clean packaging around it which gives couples a clear way to think about planning and how they prioritize the relationship.”
What are the potential benefits to following this ‘rule’?
“Over time, it can be easy for couples to take the relationship for granted and drift apart,” Nguyen said. “The 777 rule is a reminder to protect your time together so the connection won’t get deprioritised by work, routine, parenting or daily life. Making space for shared closeness gives couples opportunities to experience something new together.”
The 777 rule provides a simple, concrete structure to help strengthen connections without overcomplicating things.
“This creates intentionality around planning and activities without having to reinvent the wheel and guessing about what the ‘norm’ should be,” Romanoff said. “Shared expectations are one of the most important predictors of relational harmony, and this rule helps to get both people on the same page.”
A little can go a long way in relationships, and this easy structure is actionable and impactful.
“It’s a myth that a good relationship will just remain good – a relationship needs to be nurtured and tended to,” Ross said. “If you neglect your relationship, it will deteriorate and get worse – it won’t stay the same.”
She emphasised that the 777 rule builds in new things and experiences to bond over. For couples with a strong foundation but recent issues with life stress and lack of time, this framework could kick-start their journey to reconnect after a period of neglect.
“When I work with couples, I talk a lot about how our brains respond to novelty and attention,” said Sarah Barukh, a therapist with Kindman & Co.
“Early in relationships, everything feels new, and we’re naturally very attuned to each other. Over time, the brain gets efficient and goes on autopilot, and we start assuming we know what our partner needs instead of staying curious about them. Intentional time together can help interrupt that autopilot and bring people back into connection.”
What are the possible downsides?
“I appreciate the spirit behind the 777 rule because it’s trying to solve a real problem – couples often let quality time fall to the bottom of the to-do list,” Logan Ury, a dating coach and the lead relationship scientist at Hinge. “But I don’t love rigid formulas for relationships because they can create unnecessary pressure or guilt when life doesn’t cooperate.”
Couples who feel like they’re failing to meet a prescribed formula can feel added stress and engage in unhealthy comparison.
“The downside is when connection becomes treated like a checklist,” Nguyen said. “Presence and engagement matter far more than going through the motions with a half-hearted vacation.”
The 777 approach may also remove the natural joy and spark of trying new things together.
“It could take away the spontaneity and ‘specialness’ of these events, especially when they can become rigid, routine and taken-for-granted,” Romanoff said.
Plus, this kind of rule isn’t necessarily accessible to every couple, at least not in all life phases.
“It assumes a certain amount of time, money and flexibility that many couples don’t have,” Barukh said. “I’m also mindful that sometimes big or novel experiences can become distractions. Couples may be spending plenty of time together, but not necessarily in ways that deepen their understanding of each other or help them feel more supported and known.”

Yana Iskayeva via Getty Images
What strengthens relationships the most is not the scale of the plan, she added, but whether both people feel emotionally present, open and curious about each other.
“The 777 rule doesn’t address deeper problems,” Ross said. “It’s not a substitute for difficult conversations or resolving differences. You have to follow the spirit of the exercise. If you don’t really engage with the activity, the planning, the time together, it can be empty and not connecting. Don’t dial it in!”
Although this approach might be “good maintenance” for some relationships, she warned that it can’t tackle unresolved issues, distance betrayal or mistrust. So don’t use the 777 rule as a substitute for emotional work or excuse to ignore those challenges.
“I don’t recommend it for couples who are struggling with serious issues or are in a crisis,” Ross said. “And it’s not appropriate for couples who have been brushing things under the rug and need to address layers of unresolved issues.”
What do relationship experts recommend?
“I recommend this rule in theory, not in practice,” Romanoff said. “In other words, it’s a good guideline to open up conversations for couples to talk about what they want and expect from the relationship to reduce disappointment, resentment and guesswork. It shouldn’t be defaulted to as a black-and-white rigid rule.”
Rather than treating the 777 approach as a hard-and-fast rule, use it as a jumping off point to reach shared understanding and agreement with your partner.
“Many couples forget to prioritise their relationship once life gets busy,” Barukh said. “New experiences together can be great, but closeness doesn’t only come from trips or big plans. It usually comes from moments of vulnerability, attention and curiosity about each other.”
The goal is to feel connected and prioritised. And there are many ways for couples to reach that mutual appreciation and fulfillment.
“For some people, it’s regular date nights,” Ury said. “For others, it’s small daily rituals – like always eating breakfast together or a 10-minute check-in before bed. The research on relationship maintenance shows that consistency matters more than grand gestures.”
She suggested asking each other, “What’s one small thing we could do daily, one medium thing weekly and one bigger thing monthly that would make you feel loved?” Personalising a framework makes it more realistic and sustainable.
“Another variation is one meal together a week, one night out a month and one overnight a year,” Ross said. “This is less than 777, but for some couples it’s easier to commit to and follow up on – and still has an impact.”
Remember there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so figure out whatever works for your schedule.
“Think about how you can fold in more consistent attention and shared presence, which can be supported through some type of ritual that works for you and your partner,” Nguyen said. “For example, my boyfriend and I usually have a relationship check-in every three months where we take time to deeply listen to each other.”
Instead of fixating on completing a scheduled task, the focus is making the space to be curious about each other.
“The important part isn’t the number of hours spent together,” Barukh said. “It’s whether both people feel seen, connected and willing to keep choosing each other over time.”
Politics
Russia and Israel protected by Olympics committee
A Ukrainian athlete was disqualified from the Winter Olympics for a helmet which depicted fellow athletes whom Russia had murdered.
The BBC labelled it:
The Games’ biggest controversy so far.
The Ukrainian athlete, Vladyslav Heraskevych, was wearing a helmet that displayed images of more than 20 fellow Ukrainian athletes, all of whom Russia has murdered since the start of its invasion.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) made the decision due to Heraskevych’s:
refusal to comply with the IOC’s Guidelines on Athlete Expression. It was taken by the jury of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) because the helmet he intended to wear was not compliant with the rules.
The IOC Rule 50 states:
No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.
However, nowhere on his helmet did it mention war, Russia, or how Russia killed these people.
Astounding hypocrisy over Russia
At the very same Winter Olympics, Maxim Naumov, an American figure skater, held up a photo of his dead parents as he received his final score.
His parents were world champion figure skaters – but they competed in two Olympics for Russia.
So, athletes are allowed to celebrate dead Russians, but not dead Ukrainians?
Since then, Heraskevych has accused the IOC of fuelling Russia’s propaganda. He added:
it does not look good. I believe it’s a terrible mistake that was made by the IOC.
But the IOC’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there.
Israel is allowed to compete in the event – a literal genocidal terrorist state, with team members who served in the genocidal Israeli Defence Forces who have committed atrocities against Palestinians. Meanwhile, the IOC banned a Ukrainian athlete for wearing a helmet that might upset Putin.
One Swiss commentator called out the Israeli team during a bobsled race. As the Canary previously reported:
Stefan Renna, who works for Swiss Radio and Television (RTS), pointed out that bobsled racer Adam Edelman calls himself “Zionist to the core“. Edelman has also made numerous social media posts supporting Israel’s Gaza genocide. Renna even used the g-word – genocide – that terrifies UK corporate ‘journalists’, referring to the findings of the UN International Commission of Inquiry.
The IOC has maintained that both Israel and Palestine should have equal opportunity to compete at the Games. However, Israel has a team at the Winter Olympics, whilst Palestine does not.
Whilst Palestine has never entered the Winter Olympics, only the summer games, we can put that down to the lack of infrastructure and the continued system of apartheid, which means the country lacks the funding to support its athletes’ development to an elite level. Perhaps Palestine could put a Winter Olympics team together if Israel stopped razing them to the ground every few years.
Israel has murdered over 800 athletes and sporting officials since October 2023. That figure includes more than 100 child athletes. The terrorist state has also destroyed 273 sports facilities – meaning Palestinian athletes who survived have nowhere to train.
Make your mind up
The IOC has banned both Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing under their own flags. Meanwhile, there has, of course, been no equivalent ban for Israeli athletes.
However, in September, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) lifted its ban on athletes from both countries competing at the games, which doesn’t make sense when Russia’s attacks on Ukraine are still ongoing.
The IOC needs to make up its mind.
Either athletes cannot remember and dedicate their victories or performances to the dead, or they can. And the answer to that should not depend on where they come from.
Similarly, can murderous regimes compete under their state’s flag, or not? Of course, they unequivocally should not. But the IOC cannot have one rule for one and one rule for another.
Obviously, we know why this is. Israel is funding politicians left, right and centre who can put pressure on sporting bodies to have countries banned as and when they see fit, as Lisa Nandy did only this week.
Moreover, the West, the mainstream media, the majority of our politicians, and apparently the IOC, seem to care more about dead white people than they do about dead brown people. The hypocrisy stinks – and Israel should not be allowed to compete whilst simultaneously murdering Palestinians. The double standards are strewn everywhere.
Featured image via ABC News (Australia) & Euro Media News / YouTube
Politics
The House Article | Forensic science in England and Wales is failing the public

4 min read
Forensic science in England and Wales is not working.
Not for the police, not for forensic scientists, or lawyers and ultimately, it is not working for the public and the criminal justice system.
That’s what our recent House of Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry heard from Professor Angela Gallop, a renowned forensic scientist. Our report, Rebuilding forensic science for criminal justice: an urgent need, found little to contradict this. The criminal justice system relies on good, solid forensic science to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent. But we have grave concerns about the forensic science system in England and Wales on the basis of our inquiry.
Prior to 2012, forensic science was provided by the Forensic Science Service, which was at arms length from the Home Office. It was shut down and replaced by a mix of a private forensic science market and in-house provision by the police. Witnesses to our inquiry, including Government ministers responsible for overseeing the system, were almost unanimous in saying that this system needs urgent reform. Let me outline why.
When the Forensic Science Service was closed, the responsibility for storing new evidence fell to the 43 police forces, who were apparently not resourced to undertake it properly. Some rose to the challenge. But national guidance was not consistently followed, and many criminal cases are collapsing, often due to lost and damaged evidence. Overstretched police forces are struggling to keep up. This is true in digital forensics as well. It’s increasingly important for fighting crime, but a backlog of over 20,000 digital devices to be analysed has not shrunk in years.
Police provision is patchy, inconsistent, and lacking in oversight. There are 43 police forces in England and Wales, so the quality of in-house forensic provision varies in a ‘postcode lottery’ – some is excellent and some is quite badly underresourced. Our committee believes that forensic science should be at arm’s length from the police to avoid unconscious bias.
There is no equality of arms between prosecution and defence. Defence experts are needed to challenge the claims made by the prosecution, but rely on limited legal aid funding which is often painful to obtain. The defence expert community is being allowed to wither away, which risks leaving claims from the prosecution unchallenged.
The market meant to provide many forensic services has collapsed. Market competition was supposed to provide better forensics at a lower cost. But the market is dysfunctional, with one buyer – the police – resulting in very thin profit margins; and there are very high barriers to entry for new companies to set up, get accredited, and compete. The result is that now one company provides more than 80% of forensic science to the police. This puts the market in a very perilous position.
The market is also not supporting specialist forensic disciplines like fibres, marks and traces because they don’t make money – but we’ve heard from witnesses about high profile cases that would never have been solved without these specialist disciplines. Without more funding, we will lose these areas of expertise forever, and some cases may become impossible to solve.
Nor are these problems new – this inquiry is a follow-up to one I participated in back in 2019. Many of the problems we identified then have got worse in the intervening years.
Ministers accept that this system has to change. They have launched proposals for large-scale police reforms that will consolidate the number of forces and deliver forensics on a national basis. This is a good first step to finally address some of these problems and hopefully provide consistent and reliable forensic science across the country.
I was struck throughout our inquiry that there was widespread agreement on the issues. No one wants to risk miscarriages of justice when forensic science is used incorrectly. No one wants the guilty to walk free or the innocent to be convicted because of a lack of quality, independent forensic analysis. The forensic science community is full of hard-working, dedicated professionals: in the police, in forensic science providers, in the law, in academia, who do what they do out of a desire to see that justice is done. They are constrained by a failing system.
These deeper-rooted issues of structural underfunding, market failure, inequality of arms between prosecution and defence, and independence—capacity, resilience, quality, and fairness—must be addressed. We have urged the government to take action now, and not to wait for the end of this lengthy and uncertain policing reform process. Otherwise, there is a very real risk of more miscarriages of justice, which could take years or decades to be put right. These reforms, and the sense of crisis around the sector, provide a real opportunity to address these long standing problems. Will the Government finally seize it?
Lord Mair CBE, Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology
Politics
Alexandra Vivona: The fear and loathing in Gorton and Denton
Alexandra Vivona is a family lawyer based in London. She is a grassroots activist and comments on US and British politics.
The Westminster bubble has spent their time gnawing on its own scandals, but the real story, the genuine barometer of where British campaigning is heading, lay hundreds of miles away in the rain‑soaked streets of Gorton and Denton. This is a constituency split down the middle, a place where two political climates exist side by side: Manchester’s youthful, diverse wards on one hand, and Tameside’s older, more traditional communities on the other.
Electoral Calculus claims this seat might even fall to Reform, projecting them at 32 per cent to Labour’s 22.6 per cent and the Greens not far behind on 23.3 per cent. The predicted probability of victory is Reform 61 per cent, Labour 21 per cent and Greens 18 per cent, turning what was once a Labour stronghold into a three‑cornered brawl.
The seat itself contains eight distinct wards: Burnage, Denton North East, Denton South, Denton West, Gorton and Abbey Hey, Levenshulme, Longsight and Audenshaw. Each one brings its own electoral flavour, its own backstory, its own tensions. Manchester’s wards are young, mobile and diverse, with significant population under 35, while the Tameside side skews older and more rooted. You can feel the difference physically when you cross from one into the other.
This was a by‑election I wanted to see firsthand. Not through the usual sanitised tranquilliser of party press releases, but through the raw weather of it: doorstep arguments, half‑lit streets, volunteers stomping through puddles. Politics is only ever truly understood when it’s blowing sideways in the rain.
It was raining steadily when I checked into the hotel, the sort of constant Mancunian drizzle that dulls the edges of everything except political ambition.
The Industrial Estate Odyssey
Reform HQ sits on a Denton industrial estate which has all the glamour of a tax return. The car park was alive with activists. I leaned out of my window, asked if they were Reform, and was directed toward an office thrumming with energy.
Security on the door nodded as if I were entering a private members’ club for the permanently aggrieved. Inside, it felt more like a campaign start‑up than a fringe insurgency: banners, posters, stacks of literature, a photo wall ready for digital consumption.
Matt Goodwin moved past with the steady confidence of a man who has done the work and knows it shows. Zia Yusuf watched everything with quiet precision. An ex–Mumford & Sons guitarist appeared with the kind of unexplained surrealism you eventually stop questioning in politics.
The activists were friendly, brisk, and thrust a clipboard into my hand. Paper, not apps. Ink, not pixels. The old ways. Data is king, and the disciples know it.
Before long, my London polish dissolved and the Mancunian accent came roaring back.
Into Levenshulme, the Forbidden Zone
I stared at the route sheet in disbelief when I saw our destination. Levenshulme. I asked George Hollyhead, the activist I was assigned to, whether this was a joke. He explained that Reform insisted on canvassing everywhere, arguing it was undemocratic to allow whole areas to become no‑go zones. Noble, brave or slightly naive depending on your point of view.
Rain lashed the windows as we drove. Light dimmed. The atmosphere took on the feel of a social science field trip conducted under hostile conditions.
The first door hadn’t even slammed shut behind us when a woman threw open her downstairs window and unleashed a torrent of abuse that could have stripped varnish. She kept going long after we’d moved on, screaming as if we’d stolen something from her, sanity, perhaps.
Every door on the street glowed with Green Party signage. Thousands of tiny, fluorescent reminders that this was not friendly terrain. It felt less like canvassing and more like walking through a theme park designed by George Orwell.
Then, out of the mist, a man with a camera. Eyebrows raised to the heavens. A glint of disbelief. And then the recognition hit: Aaron Bastani, co‑founder and public face of Novara Media, eyebrows raised in amused astonishment.
He looked at our group and asked, with visible disbelief, whether Reform were truly canvassing this side of the constituency. His expression suggested the answer ought to have been no.
“Reform? Here? Really?”
Yes. Really. And the astonishment on his face was the most British thing I’d seen all day.
At this point, the Reform group decided my five‑foot‑three frame and blonde bob did not make me ideally suited to the rising street hostility and ushered me back toward HQ. Chivalry is not dead in British politics; it simply wears waterproofs.
A Darkening Contest
Constituency Chairman, Rob Barrowcliffe, radiated optimism despite the political storm. Three canvassing sessions a day. Volunteers flat out. The classic battle cry of campaigners running on determination and too little sleep. If we lose, he said, there was nothing more we could have done.
If this by‑election is a preview of the general, then Britain is in for three years of political trench warfare conducted in drizzle. Hostility. Suspicion. Demographic territories defended like fiefdoms.
Electoral Calculus’ projections show why emotions here run so high. Labour may have won 50.8 per cent of the vote in 2024, but their predicted share has collapsed. And the Manchester wards, younger and more Green‑inclined, drag the race leftward while the Tameside wards pull hard in the opposite direction. A seat cracked down generational and ideological lines is now expected to produce one of the most volatile results in the country.
Hotel Bar Seminary
Later, at the hotel bar, I met the future of British politics in the form of young activists, everyone seemed to be called Adam. They were polite, Mancunian, and entirely free of the red‑pill nonsense the commentariat claims is consuming all young men.
I had a slight exchange of words with a young female councillor who complained that she wasn’t allowed to run her own TikTok account.
That’s Gen Z: Politics is increasingly just branding with a ballot box attached.
Sunday Surge
Despite my commitment to the previous night’s wine list, I arrived bright‑eyed for the 10 a.m. session, baffling the HQ lads who had assumed I was dead.
Lee Anderson appeared to declare that if Reform could win here, they could win anywhere. Gawain Towler stalked the streets in red scarf and tweed.
Residents were weary. One woman swore everyone had knocked on her door this week, and the numbers backed her up. Labour fielded around a hundred activists on Sunday, and the previous day the area had already been heaving with hundreds more.
Tactical voters spoke cryptically about “doing what’s best for the community,” which invariably means “voting against the people we dislike.”
A regional campaign manager (also named Adam) summarised the battlefield like a general marking trenches. Levenshulme is Green. Longsight is Labour-ish. Burnage, Gorton and Abbey Hey are the pivotal swing wards.
Interesting, it appears the Greens are focusing on leafleting rather than canvassing. Tameside Council candidate, Raymond Dunning, declared that the Greens “aren’t knocking because they’ve nothing to say to the people here,” He further dismissed their rhetoric as merely: “Greyhound dogs and a load of bollocks.”
What Triggered the Contest
The by‑election was precipitated not by policy failure or political fatigue, but by the fallout from a vile and deeply damaging WhatsApp scandal centred on former MP Andrew Gwynne. Messages leaked from the Labour WhatsApp group Trigger Me Timbers revealed Gwynne making offensive remarks about the very residents he was elected to represent, including saying he hoped a 72‑year‑old constituent “croaks” before the next general election, after she complained about bin collections.
The messages also showed him joining conversations laced with racist, sexist and derogatory slurs, contributing to what investigators later described as “complete disregard” for standards in public life among group participants. Gwynne was suspended from the Labour Party in 2025 and ultimately resigned in January 2026, forcing the by‑election.
His downfall has become a symbol of something larger and far more corrosive: a Labour hierarchy seen as insulated, coarse, and contemptuous of ordinary people. The revelations sparked genuine anger in Gorton and Denton, where residents already felt politically overlooked.
Seeing their own MP joking about their deaths, mocking vulnerable individuals, and disparaging local communities confirmed a suspicion long whispered on doorsteps, that the party’s local machine had grown detached from the lives and dignity of those it claimed to champion. The scandal has created a vacuum of trust, and every candidate now must contend with the shadow of a party exposed as out of touch with its own electorate.
Welcome to Gorton
I’m frustrated that this by-election hasn’t had more coverage and that the news cycle is once again dominated by scandals amongst the elite, all taking place within the Westminster village. This only feeds into the problem of an electorate increasingly suspicious and apathetic towards politicians.
Looking closer, it feels like a warning, a premonition of what the next general election will look like. Hostility, demographic silos, tactical voting dressed up as moral superiority, activists marching through hostile terrain with clipboards held like shields.
Gorton and Denton is modern Britain in miniature. Fractured. Suspicious. Bristling. And utterly unpredictable.
And if the Electoral Calculus projections are right, the chaos has only just begun.
Politics
New Hampshire’s GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte draws her first major challenger
Cinde Warmington launched a repeat bid for governor of New Hampshire on Wednesday, giving Democrats their first major challenger to GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte in the purple state.
Warmington, a former state executive councilor, ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2024, losing the Democratic nomination to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig who then went on to lose to Ayotte. She now enters a relatively open Democratic field, with just one other declared candidate.
In a launch video posted to her campaign website, Warmington attacked Ayotte for “making your life more expensive.” She also accused the Republican of not standing up to President Donald Trump’s attempts to open an ICE detention facility in the state.
“I’ll stand up to Trump when he jacks up health care costs and tariffs. I’ll say ‘no’ to ICE’s warehouse. I’ll work for our small businesses and I’ll make sure we don’t have a sales or income tax,” Warmington said in the video. WMUR first reported her launch.
Ayotte, for her part, has clashed with Trump. She has criticized the lack of transparency around the ICE warehouse and forced the resignation of a state official who had been communicating with the Trump administration without alerting the governor. Her refusal to redistrict last year led the White House to weigh putting up a primary challenger against her.
Ayotte spokesperson John Corbett blasted Warmington in a statement, saying the former health care lobbyist “chose to make money off big pharmaceutical companies who hurt Granite Staters, and she is absolutely disqualified from serving as our Governor.”
Democrats are bullish they can block Ayotte from a second term, emboldened by their party’s wins in the off-year elections. But they face an uphill battle in a blue-leaning battleground state that routinely elects Republican governors while sending all-Democratic delegations to Congress.
Recent history is not on Democrats’ side: The party thrice failed to unseat Ayotte’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. And prognosticators rate the seat as “likely Republican” this year.
Democrats may also face another messy primary just two years after Warmington and Craig waged a bruising battle to be their party’s nominee. For now, just Warmington and Democrat Jon Kiper, who finished a distant third in the 2024 race, have declared their candidacies. But Democratic Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern has been publicly weighing a bid for governor as recently as this month.
A University of New Hampshire survey from January showed Ayotte leading both men in hypothetical general-election matchups; it did not test her against Warmington. Ayotte notched a 50-percent approval rating in the poll, though 44 percent of likely voters said she did not deserve to be reelected compared to 42 percent who did.
Politics
Wings Over Scotland | The Future Is Yesterday
So on the one hand there’s obviously very little point paying attention to the SNP’s regional list candidates for May’s Holyrood election, because as this website has comprehensively demonstrated over recent months, the chances of the SNP having any list MSPs elected are remote.
However, nothing is impossible, so let’s take a look at the B team, which also serves as a guide to the party’s upcoming talent taking its first steps towards the gravy bus.
Well, that was even grimmer than expected.
We should probably start at the very bottom of the barrel.
Because the SNP seem absolutely hell-bent on inflicting the utterly loathsome Fatima Joji on the people of Scotland by hook or by crook.
Not only is she the constituency candidate for Aberdeenshire West – currently held by Alexander Burnett for the Tories on a slim majority of under 3,400 and looking very vulnerable given their collapse in national polling from 22% to 11% – but she’s also been voted third on the SNP’s regional list, which sounds like no chance until you realise that the top two (Stephen Flynn and Gillian Martin) will very likely win their constituency seats, which are both currently SNP with the Tories in second.
So in the event that the SNP do fail to win a few constituency seats in the North-East, Joji will effectively be first in line to pick up a list seat even if she hasn’t won Aberdeenshire West. And even in a region currently represented by both Karen Adam and Maggie Chapman, that is a pretty catastrophic degradation in member quality.
But Joji isn’t the only one being offered a belt-and-braces double ticket. Most of the regional lists are being topped by people also standing for (and likely to win) constituency seats, so the electorate’s chances of rejecting them are almost nil. Let’s redline those and see what’s left.
An incredible 45 of the full slate of 71 list candidates (63%) are also contesting constituency seats, which means that some of the very worst of the party’s absolute dregs – including serial carpetbagger Graham Campbell, the hideous Declan Blench and his fellow “Out For Independence” stalwart Michael Gibbons – are actually in pole position to get list seats should the SNP manage to secure any, despite finishing as low as NINTH on the party’s internal ballot.
There’s also a generous smattering of FILTH – Failed In London, Try Holyrood – trying to get back to the trough after being unceremoniously binned at the 2024 UK election.
(bold entry indicates a double ticket, both constituency and list)
John Beare
Steven Bonnar
Deidre Brock
Alan Brown
Allan Dorans
Patricia Gibson
David Linden
Kirsten Oswald
Tommy Sheppard
Alyn Smith
Alison Thewliss
(You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of some of those names despite them being MPs for years, we hadn’t either. But it’s nice to see serial failure Toni “independence is off the agenda” Giugliano getting yet another swing at it. Poor old Katy Loudon must be gutted.)
Basically, as long as you really really hate women’s rights and represent no danger whatsoever of dissenting from the leadership, the SNP will bust a gut to make sure you get into Parliament somehow, no matter what the voters think.
What all that tells us, of course, is that the SNP’s talent pool has the depth of a soggy tissue, and that its next generation makes the useless current one look like a team of geniuses. Readers, if there were still any of you contemplating a list SNP vote despite everything, we simply invite you to picture Fatima Joji, Graham Campbell and Declan Blench trousering £75,000 a year for the next half-decade and shaping the laws of Scotland while they do it.
There is no rescuing the party. Only its destruction will do.
Politics
Trump accused of censorship over Colbert
Donald Trump is accused of censorship in an escalating row over Stephen Colbert’s interview of Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.
US journalist Joshua Eakle explained that Trump threatened the US broadcaster CBS over Talarico’s segment. And CBS caved!
It’s important that you understand what happened last night.
Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a candidate who, by all accounts, is on track in the polls to flip Texas blue.
In response, Trump’s FCC reportedly threatened… pic.twitter.com/IEyWg7KnuW
— Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 (@JoshEakle) February 17, 2026
Eakle posted the segment, which was still published online, adding:
In modern American history, no president has been more hostile to free speech than Donald Trump. But censorship always backfires.
Colbert himself said:
He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast
Cancel Kid Trump for the loss
Now Talarico’s team is making hay with the cancellation – OBVIOUSLY.
.@JamesTalarico: The reason the Trump administration and their billionaire friends are trying to silence me and this movement is because they’re worried that we are going to flip Texas in November.
We have traveled every corner of this state, recruited more than 22,000… pic.twitter.com/kCvQiDrfGu
— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) February 18, 2026
But here is the thing. The young candidate is a liberal Christian with some mild criticisms of US-Israel relations and who has slammed Christian Nationalism:
.@JamesTalarico: For 50 years, the religious right convinced our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage—two issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible.
Jesus tells us exactly how we’re going to be judged: by feeding the hungry, by healing… pic.twitter.com/FapsoUzZwB
— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) February 17, 2026
As you can see, he’s hardly the second coming of Lenin.
Yet the cancellation has seen a spike in interest in what this guy is saying:
Try to censor @JamesTalarico at your own risk. pic.twitter.com/RkDt95PFHa
— JT Ennis (@jt_ennis) February 17, 2026
LOL.
And the Youtube video of the Colbert interview is in 2.7m view after 24 hours:
As the Guardian reported, CBS’ lawyers allegedly pulled the interview:
stemming from a concern that it would trigger a legal requirement to provide equal access to Talarico’s campaign rivals.
As YouTube is not subject to restrictions from the Federal Communications Commission, the interview is freely available online.
Texas can whup your ass
Texas is a volatile state and one which some argue is a bellwether for US politics. The idea of a left-ish Democrat taking a seat there is obviously terrifying to the Trump regime.
Texas is often viewed by ignorant outsiders as innately right-wing. The state is no stranger to reactionary ideas, but as liberal Texan and Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright has pointed out, the truth is far more complicated. Up until the 1970s, Texas was “an entirely Democratic state”.
And what Texas does can shift US politics entirely:
What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas. …Texas is a behemoth and it has an outsize influence on the direction of America and we have a responsibility, I think as Texans, to make sure that we take care of our state in a way that would enable us to be the proper custodians of the future of America.
It’s hard to say how it will all play out in a place like Texas. But the truth is if Trump isn’t careful the Lone Star state which gave us Megan Thee Stallion, weed-smoking, bio-fuel selling country star Willie Nelson and the Alamo might just whup his orange ass. It’s also a state which has felt the brunt of Trump’s paramilitary thugs in recent months.
Here is Nelson with honorary Texan Johnny Cash and actual Texans Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson speaking out against war, poverty, fascism and the sniveling state of US media 30 years ago:
So there’s only one thing Donald trump needs to do now. And that’s quit his damned hollerin’.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Epstein survivor rejects Starmer apology
Anouska de Georgiou is a British survivor of the crimes of serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein and his sick circle of powerful men and their enablers. She has published a TikTok video rejecting Keir Starmer’s weasel non-apology for knowingly appointing Epstein fanboy Peter Mandelson as ambassador and his senior adviser.
De Georgiou has spoken of receiving death threats, threats to her family, and sinister packages from Epstein’s clients and enablers who want to remain hidden. And she says that Starmer is part of the structure that is protecting perpetrators and betraying victims.
Epstein: Starmer is complicit
Starmer knew Mandelson had continued his friendship with, even ardour for, Epstein long after the latter’s first paedophile conviction. In fact, such a fact was freely known amongst the British media.
Starmer’s ‘apology’ was in fact all about Starmer – an attempt to exonerate himself for his decision. He ‘apologised’ for “believing Mandelson’s lies”, yet clearly signalled he will block as much as he can get away with from becoming public. ‘National security’ and ‘foreign relations’ concerns, don’t you know.
But de Georgiou didn’t just reject it for herself. She said she was speaking on behalf of all those who survived Epstein’s evil – and the victims of his UK-based fellow paedophiles in the al Fayed/Harrods empire. To all of them, she said, Starmer and his regime are a barrier to justice and his ‘apology’ does nothing to change that at all:
@anouska_de_georgiou #jeffreyepstein #keirstarmer #harrods #alfayad #trafficking ♬ original sound – Anouska de Georgiou
Starmer and his “paedo lover” party are more than a passive barrier. Starmer is accused of:
Whistleblower
De Georgiou made her feelings on Starmer clear:
You [Starmer] said Epstein victims face barriers to justice for trafficking and abuse they suffered and you said you would do everything in your power to ensure victims get justice and there’s a big lie that causes me to reject your apology. At the dismissal hearing of Jeffrey Epstein’s charges my statement was I am every girl this happened to and every one of them is me.
De Georgiou is right. Starmer is a huge barrier to justice and transparency – and the ‘mainstream’ media are not telling the British people even a fraction of it.
What has he done to ensure justice for Epstein’s British victims, like Anouska? Nothing.
Featured image via the Canary
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