Politics
DWP Universal Credit complaints rocket
Complaints to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about Universal Credit have increased by 43% in the last year. This is despite there only being a 12% increase in claimants.
The DWP publishes their official complaint statistics quarterly, so they’ve just released the figures up til the end of December 2025.
Overall, the department received 7,730 complaints, which is a 19% increase from December 2024. However
Universal Credit got over half of those complaints at 3,930. That’s a 43% increase from the previous year.
DWP blaming increase in Universal Credit again
They try to explain this away, of course, with the increase in Universal Credit claimants:
There are a range of different factors that may lead to a change in the number of complaints received. This can include increases in the caseload of a benefit, though you do not need to be in receipt of a DWP benefit to complain. In December 2025 there were 8.3 million people on Universal Credit, up from 7.4 million people on Universal Credit in December 2024.
However, the number of claimants only increased by 12%, so to blame that for a 43% leap is absurd.
There was also a sharp increase in complaints about disability services, which provide specialist support and advice to claimants. Whilst it hasn’t increased in number, statistically it has shot up by 62%. The type of complaint also matters. The DWP mentioned in the release that many complaints were ‘you’ve got it wrong’, but they conveniently missed out that many complained about staff not respecting them.
Just 4 out 10 complaints were upheld by the DWP, meaning many were probably once again treated poorly.
Universal Credit is currently experiencing a big increase in claimants as many are being forced to move onto it from legacy benefits. The DWP claims they are supporting everyone to move over, but the number who have failed to move over says otherwise.
Many disabled people have said they find the process too complex to navigate. So the process is probably not made any better by rude staff who don’t treat claimants with basic respect.
UC is generally a shit show
Along with migration issues, the Universal Credit system is, in general, an absolute shit show. Universal Credit sanctions are at a record high under Labour. The amount of compensation the DWP has had to issue due to their own incompetence has also shot up.
The Public Accounts Committee found that benefit claimants were overpaid by £1 billion in 2024-25 due to the DWP’s own errors. However, this was cancelled out by the fact that claimants were underpaid by £1.2 billion for the same reason 2024-25.
Instead of holding their hands up, the DWP once again blamed claimants.
The PAC report said:
The DWP has carried out some work to tackle the root causes of fraud and error – but this has focused on those committed by claimants, rather than errors by officials.
It’s clear from repeated inquiries, reports, and the DWP’s own stats that the department needs to spend less time demonising claimants and focus on teaching their staff how to be fucking compassionate.
But it’s clear from how much they’re pushing the workshy narrative that they care far more about forcing people off benefits than actually supporting people. But more people supported into benefits wouldn’t fit their narrative.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
The House | Cut pensions to fund defence? That’d be electorally unwise and socially irresponsible
(Alamy)
3 min read
The call from a handful of Labour ministers, peers and backbenchers to fund higher defence spending via welfare cuts ignores the purpose of our social security system.
Most welfare spending goes to pensioners, largely through the state pension. And much of the attention has focused on the triple lock that uprates payments according to wages, inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest. But even after years of this mechanism being in place, 1.9m older people still live in poverty, with millions more just about managing. In fact, when the Chancellor announced the disastrous decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance in 2024, it exposed just how many pensioners have incomes too low to pay any tax at all.
Triple lock critics often miss that the state pension is our clearest expression of intergenerational solidarity. Every working generation pays national insurance, which funds the state pensions of their predecessors. Today’s retirees aren’t getting something for nothing – it’s just their turn to have their pensions funded by today’s workers. To argue that this should be taken away is to misunderstand the case for the welfare state.
Any functioning society needs state intervention to ensure that everyone is able to thrive. Welfare also mitigates the effects of deep inequality, which otherwise risks social division and weakened cohesion. To treat it as a cash cow for the latest spending spree overlooks its core purpose.
And despite what the Conservatives and Reform might claim, our welfare system is far from generous. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculates that Universal Credit falls short of covering essential living costs by at least £22 per week for single adults and £51 per week for couples. Local Housing Allowance remains frozen, falling far short of the actual cost of rent in many parts of the country. Millions, including people in work, rely on the support of food banks.
Cutting the state pension would be short-sighted. Future generations of retirees will likely be even more reliant on the state pension for the bulk of their income after a lifetime of work than today’s pensioners. That is because the era of decent, final salary occupational pensions is long past its high watermark. Making the state pension less generous would inevitably push more pensioners into poverty, only adding pressure on future governments to intervene. Such short-termism is not what’s needed, especially when there are other ways that the government could raise money.
We could properly tax income from wealth, for example by applying National Insurance to investment income, raising up to £10.2bn a year. Reforming the Capital Gains Tax system, by increasing rates and closing loopholes, could raise around £12bn a year. And a two per cent tax on assets above £10m could raise up to £24bn a year.
It is a shame that the current fervour to divert money from welfare to defence in some quarters of the Labour Party has not matched by an enthusiasm for taxing the wealthiest. Such measures could allow us to build the council houses we need, fix our broken social care system or bring water back into public ownership.
Government isn’t just about deciding how to spend the money you raise – it’s also about whether enough is raised in the first place. If it isn’t enough, the answer lies in raising more, rather than simply moving money from one department to another. Asking pensioners, including those in poverty, to give up the triple lock so that we can spend more on defence is yet another electorally foolhardy and socially irresponsible suggestion. Let’s hope someone sees sense.
Neil Duncan-Jordan is Labour MP for Poole
Jonathan Portes reflects on the language used in political discourse following a debate he partook in to debunk the notion that the UK could be heading towards a civil war.
Is civil war coming to the UK? My King’s College London colleague David Betz has suggested that it might. In a recent debate at the Oxford Literary Festival, I set out why this claim is not only unconvincing, but potentially harmful.
There is no credible evidence that the UK is anywhere close to civil war, defined in the political science literature as sustained, organised violence between a state and non-state actors. Could it happen? Nothing is impossible, but Professor Betz’s estimate of a ‘18.5% chance over five years’ is the sort of speculative extrapolation of invented numbers that brings serious quantitative social science into disrepute.
More broadly, the UK remains a stable, high-income democracy, with functioning institutions, competitive elections and peaceful transfers of power. Comparative research shows that civil wars are strongly associated with weak state capacity and low levels of democratic accountability, rather than with established democracies like the UK. While trust in institutions has declined, this is neither new nor unique to the UK – and long-term data from the British Social Attitudes Survey shows it remains far from collapse. Protest is not insurgency, and polarisation is not civil war.
Professor Betz’s thesis became even more absurd when he tried to explain to a bemused audience the “sides” in this civil war, which will apparently be a three-way contest between the non-white population and their allies in the metropolitan elite, the “white British” outside the cities, and the remains of the state. My family, like millions of others, contains representatives of all three factions. While of course there are occasional tensions, I find it difficult to picture us “drilling out each others’ kneecaps” in Professor Betz’s lurid language.
More broadly, the idea that the UK is dividing into coherent blocs along racial or geographic lines does not withstand scrutiny. Social and political identities in the UK are overlapping and complex. Most families and communities span multiple such categories. This is not a society organising itself for violent internal conflict. Indeed, where civil wars do emerge, the actors and cleavages are typically visible well in advance, with organised groups, territorial control and escalating violence. There is no evidence of such dynamics in the UK,
The more relevant question is why this language is being used at all. References to ‘civil war’ are no longer confined to fringe spaces; they increasingly appear in parts of mainstream commentary. But this is not a neutral description of political conditions. It is a framing – one that shapes how those conditions are understood.
That framing matters. Language influences how people interpret politics. Repeated claims that institutions are illegitimate, that democratic outcomes cannot be trusted, or that the state no longer represents “people like you” do not simply reflect dissatisfaction. They help construct a narrative in which democratic processes are seen as fundamentally compromised. The claim by Reform that they lost the recent Gorton and Denham byelection because of “foreign” voters is just one example. A substantial body of research suggests that democratic institutions reduce the likelihood of political violence by providing channels for the peaceful resolution of differences. Framing politics in terms of impending civil war implies that these mechanisms have already failed.
This rhetoric is also rarely confined to abstract concerns about governance. It is frequently tied to arguments about identity – about who belongs, and who does not. Claims of crisis are often linked to the idea that “ordinary” Britons are under threat, whether from immigration, from ethnic or religious minorities, or from broader social and cultural change. The structure of the argument is familiar: an “us” that is being displaced, and a “them” that is being privileged.
There is nothing new about this as a political strategy. What is different is the escalation in language. Talking about “civil war” suggests that social and cultural divisions are not only a matter of concern but fundamental – and potentially irreconcilable except through violence.
This has several consequences.
First, it makes serious policy debate more difficult. Take immigration. It is entirely legitimate to disagree about its economic and social impacts, or about the appropriate policy response. But if immigration is framed primarily as a threat to national or ethnic survival, those debates become harder to conduct in a meaningful way.
Second, it risks weakening social cohesion. Democratic politics depends on a basic level of mutual recognition: that even where we disagree, we accept one another as legitimate participants in a shared political community. Evidence from UK-focused research highlights both the extent of perceived polarisation and the risks of misperceiving divisions.
Third, while the UK is not remotely close to civil war, such rhetoric may have effects at the margins. A small number of individuals may take it literally, or use it to justify confrontational or even violent behaviour. Studies of political violence in democratic contexts suggest that inflammatory narratives can play a role in legitimising such actions.
None of this is to suggest that the UK does not face serious economic and social challenges. Weak productivity growth, pressure on public services, regional inequalities and political dysfunction are all real issues. Analysing these problems – and proposing workable solutions – should be the focus of serious debate.
Framing the situation as one of impending civil war does the opposite. It distracts from underlying issues, while contributing to a more polarised and less constructive political environment.
So the answer to the original question is straightforward. No, the UK is not heading towards civil war. But the increasing use of that language is not a harmless exaggeration. It reflects – and reinforces – a way of thinking about politics that is more polarised, more exclusionary, and ultimately less helpful for understanding the challenges the UK actually faces.
By Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London.
Politics
‘The GOP should’ve done more’: Virginia Republicans point fingers after gerrymandering loss
After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.
Multiple Republicans say the party should’ve spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a single Republican tonight who doesn’t think the GOP should’ve done more in Virginia. It actually hurts more that it was so close,” said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others in this article.
There are mounting signs that Trump and the GOP have used valuable time and political capital on an arduous tit-for-tat that is so far looking like it will be close to a draw. Even if Republicans squeeze out gains in a new Florida map, their total gains are likely to be modest at best.
“I just don’t think that Republicans looked at the map and said, ‘Okay, what’s the worst case scenario, what could happen if all the Democrat-controlled legislators rebel against this?’” said one Virginia Republican. “We’re seeing a thing that felt really good at the moment erase gains that we fought for elsewhere.”
Tuesday’s results in Virginia, combined with gains in California and a new court-drawn seat in Utah, have effectively erased the advantage Republicans built off new maps in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. It’s a stark reversal nearly nine months after Trump first urged Republicans in the Lone Star State to redraw maps, upending the midterm battlefield.
“Just so you get the truth and not the partisan spin here, Republicans came up with the idea of the mid-decade redistricting fight and started in Texas,” Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base, wrote on X after the amendment passed in Virginia.
“Now, as drawn, the Democrats have an advantage from the redistricting fight,” he said.
The RNC and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson is holding out hope that the state’s Supreme Court, which reserved the right to weigh in on the new map after the election, voids Democrats’ effort.
“This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander,” Hudson said in a statement. “That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”
Still, several Virginia Republicans said their party could have done more to prevent Democrats from edging out a victory Tuesday. Democrats outspent Republicans by a roughly three-to-one margin, putting Republicans at a disadvantage on the airwaves until the late stages of the race. Virginians for Fair Elections — which led the “yes” effort — raised $64 million, according to Virginia Department of Elections data, boosted by nearly $38 million in support from House Majority Forward, a political nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership.
Even though Republicans have far more money stacked up in outside groups — including $297 million brought in by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. since the start of last year alone — they ultimately never matched Democrats’ investment.
“If they had spent some money, they could have won tonight and someone’s got to own that and explain why that decision was made,” said a second Virginia-based GOP strategist.
Some Republicans turned their ire to the Indiana Legislature, where GOP lawmakers rejected the White House’s push to draw a new map that would give them two additional red-leaning seats. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign co-manager and a longtime Virginia-based GOP strategist, shared a social media post on Tuesday calling out Republicans in Indiana for not being more aggressive.
It’s now too late for the state to redraw its lines, and Trump allies have spent time and millions of dollars to defeat the GOP legislators who opposed the effort.
With most states off the table, Republicans are now looking to DeSantis as one of their last and best chances to win back the upper hand ahead of November. The Florida governor delayed a special session to take up redistricting in the state until after Virginia’s election, and he has yet to release a new map proposal.
Former Trump White House spokesperson Harrison Fields urged Republicans in Florida to respond to the Virginia outcome with an aggressive gerrymander.
“To my friends in Tallahassee: in a state that is ruby red, it’s time to respond to what we saw tonight in Virginia with a redistricting plan that reflects Florida’s true partisan lean — and adds 3–4 GOP seats to our supermajority,” Fields said in a social media post. “Virginia is a purple state being drawn as deep blue. Florida should draw a map that’s even redder — and get it passed ASAP.”
Not everyone is on board with escalating the redistricting arms race. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican-turned-independent who was targeted by California Democrats’ gerrymander, said the result was further proof that the redistricting war never should have been started.
“It’s very unfortunate that it’s happened in Texas. I think it’s very unfortunate that it happened in California and Virginia and everywhere else where it’s happened,” Kiley told POLITICO after the Virginia race was called Tuesday evening. “Now that this whole thing has just gotten completely out of hand, there have been no winners, and it’s created such instability, maybe this is the time that we can come together and say, ‘Alright, enough is enough.’”
Yet for all the recriminations over Republicans losing ground in the president’s redistricting campaign, one person escaped largely unscathed: Trump himself.
The president mostly stayed on the sidelines until he hosted a tele-rally alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to urge people to vote “no” in the race’s final hours.
Some Republicans in the state were glad he stayed away, given his flagging national standing, particularly in a light blue state. Thirty-three percent of adults approve of Trump’s job performance, according to an AP-NORC poll released Tuesday.
“If I was the Democrats, I’d want Trump on the stump every day,” Virginia-based Republican strategist Brian Kirwin said.
Blake Jones contributed to this report.
It was just two days ago that we suggested Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI), Stormont’s business development agency, needs:
…a full review into all current… spending to see if further skeletons lurk in the closet.
That was following revelations in the Belfast Telegraph that showed Invest NI was ploughing public money into a software company helping ICE’s murderous intimidation campaign across the US. Now campaign group Act Now has shamed the corporate welfare body again, by highlighting its role in assisting Cooneen Group.
Act Now spoke to the Belfast Telegraph, who report that the County Tyrone-based company’s subsidiary Cooneen Protection Limited secured from Westminster:
…two Israel export licences for one of the group’s subsidiaries, Cooneen Protection Limited.
Defensive equipment still aids war crimes
That was in 2015. One license permitted the subsidiary to provide “armoured plate, body armour, helmets”. Often, those supplying the illegitimate settler-colony attempt to justify sales of military equipment on the basis that it is for defensive purposes.
This is a meaningless distinction. Defensive equipment enables continued offensive action. Iron Dome interceptors can protect offensive ‘Israeli’ hardware from damage, enabling the terror regime to continue its genocidal violence. Body armour can sadly protect an Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldier from death, enabling them to continue raping and murdering their way round Palestine and beyond.
Despite this, Invest NI have continued to pump funds into Cooneen Group. The company has:
…received more than £1,397,000 from Invest NI since 2004.
The Telegraph also report that as recently as September 2025:
…Invest NI sponsored and exhibited with the group at the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition in London, the world’s largest arms fair, attended by companies that sell weapons to Israel.
Roan Ellis-O’Neill of Act Now emphasised this continued support long after the first export licenses to the Zionist entity were granted:
Invest NI have been using taxpayers’ money to provide specialised financial support to drive overseas trade before and after the UK government granted the Cooneen Group the military export licences in 2015.
Act Now: revelation is “clearest link yet” between Invest NI and ‘Israel’
He suggested that Act Now’s findings show:
…the clearest link yet between publicly funded local companies exporting military goods and Israel.
He continued, regarding Invest NI:
Our research reveals that public money has been provided to the Cooneen Group to expand their overseas trade.
There is a real chance that Invest NI provided specialised support so that the Cooneen Group could build the relationships and networks that must be first established before applying for a military export licence.
Even if the funding was not for the purpose of securing an export licence to Israel, the grant types and the reasons support was offered by Invest NI demonstrate how crucial that funding was to develop trade links with countries such as Israel.
The likelihood is that Invest NI and those running the department of the economy of the years just didn’t care about the ethics of potential involvement in human rights abuses. They were just focused on corporate handouts to potentially profitable firms.
After all, they didn’t care when it came to helping to build F-35 warplanes, or when assisting ICE. Similarly, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) apparently saw nothing wrong with buying software and body armour from the land thieves of so-called ‘Israel’.
The fact that we now know a company inside the north of Ireland makes body armour, renders the PSNI’s purchase all the more shameful. We’ll say it again and go further – Invest NI, and all public bodies, need to ensure they have an ethics code that prevents this shit happening again. A good start would be to simply have a rule forbidding the funding of anything arms-trade related.
Featured image via the Canary
Micheál Martin’s government has failed to disclose 248 flights by US military warplanes over Irish airspace since August 2025. There is a strong chance that many of these aircraft are involved in war crimes committed by the Washington terror regime. The Irish Times says they used “open source software” to track the flights, after official figures showed a major drop-off in the number of passing warplanes to just a couple each month. Previous government figures showed 30 to 50 aircraft per month. The government blamed the discrepancy on “administrative error”.
After the Times notified the government, the latter published corrected figures on Thursday 16 April, which were in line with those provided for earlier periods. However, the revised figures show some revealing trends. There was a large drop-off in military traffic around October 2025, when so-called ‘Israel’ agreed to its fraudulent ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza.
While the illegitimate settler-colony has maintained its genocide, killing over 750 Palestinians since the agreement to stop hostilities was reached, the intensity of bombardment has dropped off. This decrease in mass murder is paralleled by a decline in US military flights over Ireland, suggesting Irish airspace is indeed being used to ferry weapons of genocide to the Zionist land theft project.
US military flights over Ireland likely involved in war crimes against Iran
Similarly, another change in flight numbers matches the launching of the illegal US-‘Israeli’ attack on Iran. The Irish Times says:
The figures show a 56 per cent surge in US military overflights of Ireland last month as the US launched hundreds of strikes on Iran.
The overflight of US warplanes is governed by the Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952. This mandates that all foreign military aircraft must obtain diplomatic clearance to enter Irish airspace. Exemptions can be granted on this basis, provided the plane is unarmed, not carrying weapons, not involved in intelligence gathering and not part of a military operation.
The Irish government takes this on trust from the US government. That is, they trust a government led by a war criminal and pathological liar. However, Micheál Martin’s band of sycophants have found it impossible to conceal the appalling truth. They admitted in October 2025 that they:
…allowed munitions of war – onboard a US military plane authorised by Simon Harris to touch down at Shannon Airport – to travel through Irish territory on their way to Israel.
The Irish Times point out the government breached the no surveillance aircraft rule when it allowed:
…multiple overflights of Poseidon P-8 surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft in early January.
These too were engaged in illegal activity by aiding:
…in the pursuit by the US military of a ship in the North Atlantic which had earlier attempted to collect sanctioned oil from Venezuela.
This was part of Trump’s illegal sanctions against the Central American nation, culminating in the murderous abduction of the country’s president Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
The Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Orders 1973 and 1989 permit exemptions to allow civil aircraft to carry weapons through Irish airspace, if granted an exemption by the minister for transport. According to Al Jazeera:
In 2024, the Department of Transport approved 1,354 applications for civil aircraft or Irish-registered aircraft to carry military weapons or ammunition through Ireland…
Government maintains absurd pretence that Ireland isn’t aiding US atrocities
Despite the fact that weapons transfer through Ireland has literally been confirmed by the Irish government itself, ministers and the Taoiseach himself are still happy to shamelessly lie about the matter. In the face of the damning new overflights figures, and evidence Shannon is a stop-off point for US warplanes on their way to the main German staging post for the assault on Iran, Martin said:
First of all, Shannon [Airport] is not being used for those purposes and there have been repeated attempts to conflate Shannon with both the war in Gaza – which was absolutely false, and there were false claims – and this is a continuing narrative from certain quarters politically within Ireland, which I think will damage Shannon.
Minister for foreign affairs Helen McEntee similarly insulted the public’s intelligence when she said there is “no reason to believe” weapons of mass murder are being moved through Ireland. She said of the rules prohibiting weapons transfer:
…we have no reason to suggest that they’re not [being adhered to].
Oh yes no reason at all, until you recall that the US, even pre-Trump, were serial liars when it came to their illegal killing sprees abroad. These kind of comments from the government are only likely to further enrage anti-war activists, and prompt more direct action against the criminal use of Shannon airport. Until Martin and co. stop participating in atrocities, long may these acts of resistance continue.
Featured image via the Canary
Trigger warning: themes of sexual violence and abuse.
The UK state-corporate press and broadcasters are continuing to ignore a CNN report. The report shows that over 64 million men signed up for an online ‘rape academy.’ In this academy, they learned how to drug and rape wives, girlfriends and other women.
MSM turns the other way
Although the report was published in March 2026, searches confirm that none of the UK ‘mainstream’ media have covered it:
The case of Gisele Pelicot
Singer and activist Annie Lennox pointed out the similarity to the case of Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman whose husband drugged her while a string of men raped her:
View this post on Instagram
The Pelicot case and the sentencing of her rapists received media attention in isolation. However, it appears UK media are uninterested in reporting the widespread phenomenon of millions of men studying how to do what her husband did.
Whyever would the establishment media in country riddled with powerful paedophiles and rapists not be interested in covering the existence of a mass rape ring?
Featured image via CNN
By Skwawkbox
The UK can now roll out a racist surveillance measure that had been delayed by a legal challenge filed by anti-facial recognition campaigners. The appeal has now been lost. Met commissioner Mark Rowley has once again praised facial recognition measures. He believes that the technology helps to catch criminal, while civil liberties groups are not quite so sure…
Imminent roll out
Rowley said facial recognition technology would:
help us catch more criminals quickly and precisely, saves officer time, and ultimately saves money.
And police minister Sarah Jones, channeling every authoritarian since time began, says only the guilty should be fearful…
I welcome today’s ruling because there can be no true liberty when people live in fear of crime in their communities.
Live facial recognition only locates specifically wanted people — law abiding citizens have nothing to fear.
Jones’ bizarrely inferred that criticism from people challenging the excessive deployment of facial recognition technology was unwarranted, saying:
This technology puts dangerous rapists and murderers behind bars — and I question any group who call that uncivil.
We are rolling out facial recognition across the country with record investment to keep communities safe.
A bit of a reach, minister…
Lost appeal ushers in surveillance state
Two concerned citizens had challenged the roll-out in the courts:
Youth worker Shaun Thompson, and Silkie Carlo, director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, brought the challenge over concerns that facial recognition could be used arbitrarily or in a discriminatory way.
The pair had argued that the use of the van-mounted technology:
breaches the right to privacy outlined in the European Convention of Human Rights.
Judges presiding over the case ruled:
We are not able to accept, on the thin submissions advanced before us, that concerns about discrimination infect the legality of the policy.
The government and police claim that the technology has resulted in few mistakes. However, Thompson said he had been misidentified by facial recognition:
No one should be treated like a criminal due to a computer error, I was compliant with the police, but my bank cards and passport weren’t enough to convince the police the facial recognition tech was wrong.
He likened its reliability to:
stop-and-search on steroids.
For several years now, the Canary has been covering the risks of facial recognition. On 1 November 2025, we shed light on the ways in which AI-integrated facial recognition is inherently racist, noting that the:
UN’s office for human rights, as well as anthropologists and tech experts, have long known that AI systems are inherently racist, either by design or through the biases of their creators — but the police facial recognition systems are going above and beyond in the service of racist discrimination.
Facial technology’s race bias
Examples include the case of the appeal claimant in the latest ruling, Shaun Thompson. The other claimant, civil liberties NGO Big Brother Watch, warned in the same month that cops were feeding passport photos into their AI.
Further evidence of the racialised use of AI facial recognition emerged on 15 September 2025. Police used the technology at Notting Hill Carnival—an annual celebration of black British culture—but not at the fascist-organised Unite the Kingdom event.
British securocrats have gotten their way today. Those of us who care about basic, hard-won freedoms must continue to challenge the UK’s bipartisan authoritarianism wherever we can.
Featured image via Unsplash/ the Canary
By Joe Glenton
This past weekend has been a good one for peacemakers, but disappointing for those of us who were enjoying the medieval-style spat between the papacy and the secular powers in the person of the American presidency.
Having been told by US president Donald Trump that he was ‘WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy’, Pope Leo offered a textbook display of turning the other cheek. He assured reporters on Saturday that his recent comments about the world ‘ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ had not been made in response to Trump’s earlier outpourings, but had been written separately, a fortnight beforehand, ‘well before the president ever commented on myself’. It was ‘not in my interest at all’ to debate the president, he added.
On Sunday, US vice-president JD Vance thanked the Pope for his pacific remarks. ‘While the media narrative’, he tweeted, ‘constantly gins up conflict – and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen – the reality is often much more complicated. Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day… He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.’
This outbreak of amity among the three men – just as Isaiah prophesied, the ‘calf and the young lion and the fatling’ dwelling together again in concord – may be a blessed relief for those who find it a trifle undignified for the Vicar of Christ and the Leader of the Free World to be engaged in a social-media slugging match. However, we should not be too enticed by the desire for seemliness. The clash is stimulating, epitomising the worth of the resurgent presence of Christianity in politics, both for church and state alike.
Of course, no one wants an overbearing church, like the 12th-century papacy, locked in a bloody struggle with secular authorities. We are not calling for heavies to chase after archbishops, or Keir Starmer, like Henry II, to be whipped by monks through the streets of Canterbury in his underclothes for his manifold offences (the prime minister would surely find such a prospect displeasing). But spats like that between Trump and Leo show that the church is contributing to political debate in a way that other actors are not able to manage.
The frequent fury directed towards the church and Christian advocates demonstrates that their messages – even in this apparently post-Christian age – are still able to pique the conscience. Consider the permanent rage directed towards Christians by Humanists UK and the National Secular Society during the assisted-suicide and late-stage-abortion debates. Christian statements about fundamental human dignity and freedom from coercion are met not with reasoned rebuttals and debate but rather hysterical eruptions warning of Christians in public life bringing an ‘ultra-conservative form of religious nationalism’.
The resort to an ad hominem response demonstrates the hollowness of their own position, aware that these Christian contributions to the debate are forcing people to think seriously about the fundamental origins of the right to life. Can they be tied to mere assurances given by governments in human-rights conventions, or do they need a more serious metaphysical foundation?
The Christian contribution to the debate about the merits of the Iran War has been equally important. Even for a doctrinaire supporter of war to bring about regime change in Tehran, it would still have been worthwhile to have listened to Rowan Williams’s warning based on the formal Christian criteria for a just war. Such a war would require, among other things, ‘a clear and immediate need for self-defence’, and ‘a clear definition of what would count as a successful outcome’.
He also cautioned that, ‘The real urgency in Iran is for a new political order that responds to what Iranian people are actually hoping for themselves – not some kind of covert annexation designed to serve geopolitical manoeuvring, not a puppet government, not a military protectorate’. Perhaps the rumblings of politicians against the churches are merely a grudging acknowledgement that they should have thought more carefully about political and military strategy.
However, these quarrels are also invigorating for the church. It is easy for any institution to fall into a comfortable consensus, and the churches are not immune. Their clashes with politicians are a salutary reminder for them to examine and challenge their own ethical pronouncements, which might not always be fully thought through.
One example is in the field of migration. In the US, Catholic cardinals have lined up to complain about the rigorous enforcement of the border by ICE. In the UK, Anglican bishops recently made Nigel Farage the target of their opprobrium after he announced his intention to deport 600,000 migrants over five years. ‘I heard no compassion in what you said for those who are at risk from people traffickers…’, wrote the Bishop of Oxford in an open letter. ‘The British people, as I understand them, want public policies founded on the deeply British and Christian values of compassion and care for those in need.’
The bishop, like the American cardinals and the Pope himself, is quite right to insist on Christian ideas of human dignity and compassion, and to ensure their presence in the debate. However, the stridency of the reply is an unconscious acknowledgement that Farage and like-minded politicians have a point, even in terms of a strand of Christian thought that the churches have so far been reluctant to acknowledge.
Christians owe a duty of compassion – protect the stranger, says scripture – but this compassion is owed as part of a wider matrix of obligation: one must also protect the widow and fatherless at the same time. How does one balance the duty of compassion towards the vulnerable in one’s own society and to those further afield? And what of the biblical injunctions to respect and preserve the laws and customs of one’s own society, and for guests to behave respectfully to their hosts? The engagement between politicians and the church puts questions in the air that it behoves the churches to answer properly.
One does not need to be a medieval fetishist to see that there is a benefit for public life in a creative tension between a confident, politically engaged church, and politicians who, like Trump, are bold enough to say, ‘Tell that to the Pope’. Let us hang on to our turbulent priests.
Bijan Omrani is the author of God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England.
The post Why Iran is not a new ‘forever war’ appeared first on spiked.
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 21
TRUMP FOR CONSTANTINO: Republican House candidate Anthony Constantino’s campaign to replace Rep. Elise Stefanik is a textbook example of how aligning with the MAGA extended universe pays off.
President Donald Trump today endorsed Constantino, the brash and hard-edged CEO of Sticker Mule, over Assemblymember Robert Smullen.
Trump’s nod for the businessperson is a microcosm of a decade of Republican politics. Smullen has lined up institutional support from the state GOP, county chairs and his fellow elected officials in Albany.
But none of that matters to Trump, who won his own insurgent primary a decade ago by bucking the Republican establishment.
Now the president is backing Constantino, who has assembled his own slate of endorsees far more suited to Trump’s temperament. That includes Rudy Giuliani, who backed Constantino after the candidate, according to his telling, wrote a “beautiful two-page letter” to the former New York City mayor.
Constantino has also enlisted Trump confidant and political operative Roger Stone.
Those ties were not lost on the president when he posted on Truth Social this afternoon. “Anthony is strongly supported by many of the most Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in our Movement, including Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone!” he wrote.
Then of course, there’s the large “Vote for Trump” sign Constantino erected atop a building that can be seen from Interstate 90.
That kind of tangible loyalty — which withstood a legal challenge by local Democrats — also played well with the president.
“Anthony has been such a Great Supporter that he actually put up a somewhat ‘controversial’ sign, against strong opposition, in my honor,” Trump posted. “The sign is still there!”
For his part, Smullen — whose support from numerous county chairs doesn’t quite equate to the large pro-Trump signage visible from I-90 — was publicly unconcerned by the president weighing in on the primary.
“A consultant got to the president, somebody who is being paid by my opponent,” he told our Bill Mahoney. “And I think the president’s made a mistake here.”
Still, it’s hard not to view this development as anything but a massive blow for Smullen, running to succeed an ardently pro-MAGA House lawmaker in a district that the president won three times.
The endorsement also highlights the strange position the state GOP finds itself in. The party took the unusual step of backing Smullen in the race amid deep concerns from party leaders over Constantino’s temperament.
New York Republicans are preparing for a future without Stefanik as its leader and top fundraiser with national standing. The North Country House lawmaker was in line to become Trump’s United Nations ambassador, only to have the nod yanked amid a messy selection process to pick her successor. Hard feelings from Stefanik’s team following the scuttled special election to replace her have lingered as a result.
One GOP official chortled at the situation, which also comes after Stefanik bowed out of the race for governor following Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s entrance.
“They knifed Elise in the special and then they got crushed by Roger Stone,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It is just the beginning of Elise’s allies including the president settling the score as Elise is in the midst of her successful book tour!”
For Constantino’s part, the endorsement is another step in what had initially seemed like a long-shot bid.
“I had a great talk with President Trump and am honored to receive his endorsement,” he said in a statement. “He noted every primary candidate he endorses wins so I look forward to winning the general election and making everyone who supported me very proud once I am in Congress.”
FROM CITY HALL
CC YOU IN COURT: A prominent police union filed a federal lawsuit against the Civilian Complaint Review Board today, alleging the oversight body is tarnishing officers’ reputations by releasing unredacted — and unsubstantiated — complaints against cops.
Beginning in October, the suit from the New York City Police Benevolent Association alleges, the CCRB began responding to Freedom of Information Law requests about three types of allegations against officers — sexual misconduct, racial bias and offering false statements — by releasing unredacted complaints that are then subsequently uploaded to a public database. Because CCRB does not redact identifying information, the police union argued, the accused officers’ reputations, safety, and employment prospects are unduly damaged.
“CCRB’s under-the-table collusion with anti-police activists to smear cops with false complaints is not only unfair and unconstitutional — it is a calculated effort to end proactive enforcement and drive cops away from the job,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said.
The PBA argued the complaint board is aware of how damaging the allegations can be to cops. The CCRB publishes a redacted version of the complaints on its own website.
The city’s Law Department declined to comment. And a CCRB spokesperson defended the agency but noted its ability to comment was limited by the suit.
“The CCRB’s investigations are complete, thorough and impartial,” spokesperson Dakota Gardner said in a statement. “The Agency continually reviews all applicable laws and regulations regarding the public release of its records, including disciplinary histories of members of service, to ensure it is fully compliant.” — Joe Anuta
CHARTERING A NEW COURSE?: Mamdani said at an unrelated press conference that his administration is weighing its options regarding the future of former Mayor Eric Adams’ Charter Revision Commission, which convened publicly for the first time Monday.
“We are reviewing all of the options that we have when it comes to this previously set up charter review,” Mamdani said at the press conference in Brooklyn.
Pressed on what those options might entail, the mayor added little clarity aside from noting with a laugh that “more and more are being presented by the day.”
The commission’s meeting focused on procedural steps, including selecting acting chair Gilford Monrose, as reported in today’s Playbook.
Created on Adams’ final day in office, the commission is tasked with crafting ballot proposals, including one to establish an open primary election system. This shift could complicate reelection prospects for Mamdani by opening the Democratic primary electorate up to a larger, more moderate-leaning pool of voters.
Mamdani — who has previously criticized the body as undemocratic — has several avenues to blunt its work. Charter experts say one option for the mayor’s office would be installing a chair who could stall proceedings.
Randy Mastro, the former first deputy mayor under Adams who’s now advising the commission pro bono, told Playbook yesterday he has received no assurances from the Mamdani administration about its plans. A person familiar with the matter said Mastro has also discussed the commission with Mamdani’s corporation counsel, Steve Banks.
Still, Mastro downplayed the influence of any single appointee amid the possibility of a Mamdani-selected chair helming the commission.
“I welcome anyone who wants to participate in a constructive process to improve our local democracy,” Mastro said. — Gelila Negesse
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
PRIMARY COLORS: Former state Assemblymember Taylor Darling ended her primary bid against battleground Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen earlier this week.
“Unfortunately, the technicalities of the current system make it challenging for community focused campaigns to fully participate in the Democratic process,” Darling wrote on social media. “While I respect the rules, it is clear that these barriers need to be addressed if we want a system where all voices, especially those from our communities, are heard and valued.”
Any primary challenger is poised to have an uphill climb against the incumbent Gillen, who has more than $3 million on hand. Darling, who entered the race after Gillen voted in support of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, raised just $24,000 last quarter and had $15,000 in the bank. Progressive organizer Kiana Bierria-Anderson is also in the race, though she said her petitions to get on the ballot are being challenged. — Madison Fernandez
IN OTHER NEWS
— WATCHDOG BARKS: Citizens Budget Commission urges lawmakers to limit government spending and hold off on tax hikes as new report shows tens of thousands of New Yorkers are leaving the city. (Gothamist)
— POLLUTERS PAY: Republicans in Congress are aiming to end New York’s climate law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay for weather-related damages. (Newsday)
— THAT STINKS: As state-funded daycare expands in New York, new education mandates regarding potty training and diaper changes for young students have left schools scrambling to create new policies. (New York Post)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
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