Yesterday, 25 March, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced six new days of strike action. The news followed the union members’ vote to reject the government’s latest offer on pay and jobs. Following the announcement, supposedly-socialist health secretary Wes Streeting took to the Commons to continue his streak of bashing the doctors’ union.

His excuse for paltry pay offers this time? Well, the economic fallout of the war in Iran, of course. As if he was just brimming with constructive pay offers before Netanyahu and Trump started their latest bombing campaign, the little fucking weasel.

Strike action

On 24 March, the BMA officially rejected the government’s latest pay offer. This had included pay uplifts for doctors after the successful completion of their ARCP (annual review of competence progression). Likewise, it also committed to a reform of the nodal points of the pay scale structure.

However, the union called the government out for moving the goalposts during the negotiations. Resident Doctors Committee (RDC) negotiators said that, at the last moment, the Government reduced the original investment on the pay element of the offer. Worse still, they said they’d stretch this over a three-year period.

Given this appalling behaviour from the government, the RDC announced that residents will stage a six-day walkout. This will last from 7 April until 13 April.

Streeting — moving the goalposts

RDC chair Jack Fletcher explained that the government had failed to deliver on pay offers, in spite of weeks of negotiations. He said:

We have been negotiating in good faith for weeks to try and end the simultaneous pay and jobs crises for resident doctors. Frustratingly we had been making good progress right up until the point, in the last two weeks, when the Government began to shift the goalposts.

As talks progressed it became clear that the money proposed for pay increases was now going to be spread over three years. This is combined with today’s pay review body (DDRB) recommendation pointing to yet more years in which our pay, at best, barely treads water.

We have made abundantly clear throughout this dispute that our aim is pay restoration, and any deal that did not move us substantially in that direction was not going to fly.

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We also cannot ignore that, thanks to global events, economic indicators now point to years of greatly increased inflation. We are simply not going to put an offer to doctors that risks locking in further erosion of pay at a time when doctors continue to leave the UK for other countries.

The strike would be the first industrial action from the RDC since last December. However, the union emphasised that doctors want to get on with their jobs, rather than standing on picket lines – and the RDC is hoping that the threat of action will make the government take the matter seriously.

Likewise, Fletcher re-stated his willingness to negotiate:

We are not closing the door on talks. We remain willing to negotiate and are eager to get a deal done if we can simply recapture the early positive spirit of negotiations. No strikes need to happen, but Government will need to act fast to prevent them.

Streeting’s newest excuse

However, Labour’s health secretary is clearly hellbent on doing anything but negotiating in good faith. Instead, he’s once again resorted to threats and excuses.

This time, Streeting bleated that the war in Iran meant there was no chance of a better pay offer. But, as a reminder, Streeting was making no-pay-rise offers long before Iran. 

Speaking in the Commons today, 26 March, Streeting said:

The BMA has pointed to the war in Iran as reason to reject the deal, so let me spell out the consequences of what this country is facing.

This country wants to see de-escalation, a swift resolution to the conflict with a negotiated agreement that puts tough conditions on Iran and specifically its nuclear ambitions.

However, we are planning on the basis of a prolonged conflict because that is the prudent thing to do.

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In that eventuality, there would be an impact on the economy and on the public finances. Were that to happen, a future offer to resident doctors will not look better than what is on offer today.

Doubling down

Worse still, he chose to double down with his threats against the union. Before now, his tactic consisted of blaming resident doctors for handing the next election to Reform —s and thus destroying the NHS. That, and an utterly farcical attempt to blame the BMA for ruining Christmas (genuinely). 

However, Streeting is now threatening to renege on handing over the money that was already ringfenced to fund the government’s paltry pay offer to resident doctors.

He stated that the government’s patience for NHS disruption is running out, and issued an ultimatum: the BMA has until 2 April to call of the strike, or the government will spend the money on ‘minimising disruption’.

Let’s not mince words here. This is a health secretary speaking for a Labour government — supposedly the pro-union option — threatening to destroy months of negotiations in order to strong-arm workers out of a strike.

If Wes Streeting had any fucking shame, he wouldn’t be able to show his face above a red tie ever again. But at this point, the anti-union health secretary probably feels right at home in Starmer’s Labour, doesn’t he?

Featured image via the Canary

Two Labour MPs have separately issued strong responses to the government’s handling of the Morgan McSweeney phone scandal. Richard Burgon provided his in the form of a Parliamentary Written Question; Karl Turner, meanwhile, called McSweeney a “lying bastard”:

BREAKING: Labour MP says “lying bastard” Morgan McSweeney is “still running the job”.

Following my investigation yesterday into McSweeney’s unlikely account of a “phone theft”, the MP for East Hull, @KarlTurnerMP, has granted me an exclusive interview.

Here’s what he told me:🧵 pic.twitter.com/oegLcdSisg

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

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McSwindle

As we reported, Morgan McSweeney is Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff. He resigned in resigned in disgrace in February this year to take the fall for hiring Peter Mandelson — a close associate of the international paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, it’s emerged that McSweeney conveniently had his phone stolen not long after Mandelson got the boot. This has led to the accusation that McSweeney faked this event as cover to permanently delete messages:

Q: Critics say the theft and botched investigation of Morgan McSweeney’s phone stinks of a cover-up. Can you understand why people are suspicious about this phone being stolen just as the Mandelson scandal was unfolding? https://t.co/nDvTL34qZj

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) March 26, 2026

Speaking to Canary contributor Jody McIntyre, Labour MP Karl Turner said the following:

This morning on Sky News, Keir Starmer said that it is “a little bit far-fetched” to think that McSweeney could have known that “sometime in the future there would be a request for the phone”.

Labour MP Karl Turner told me this morning that the statement is “absolute bollocks”. pic.twitter.com/ANxfikYWai

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Labour’s Karl Turner told me that he’s not the only MP wary of McSweeney’s version of events.

“We all think it’s f***ing nonsense. The only one’s who will stick by McSweeney are the 2024 intake. The McSweeney, Mandelson, Doyle, and Faulding selections.”

The inner circle. pic.twitter.com/MRNPSr3Brj

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— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Explosively, Turner has alleged that McSweeney is still the puppet master behind our muppet prime minister:

The MP for East Hull admitted to having an “association” with Peter Mandelson himself, but said:

“With McSwindle, [Peter] Kyle, [Steve] Reed, and [Wes] Streeting, it’s more than an association…they’re very close friends!”

Streeting + Reed have both lied in defending McSweeney. pic.twitter.com/OCGXQ1DFOX

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— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Turner is one of many to note that McSweeney’s story doesn’t make sense. According to the disgraced McSweeney, he called the police, gave them the wrong details, and then called it a day. Like the rest of us, Turner simply can’t believe that:

Labour MP Karl Turner told me this morning: “I would say to Starmer: ‘Don’t protect McSwindle! You can’t confirm what he’s saying!’

Let’s get to the real issue: the whole world is at war because we’ve got a mad bastard in the White House indiscriminately bombing countries.” pic.twitter.com/gyJRP0kAu9

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

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Labour — National Security

Turner isn’t the only Labour MP taking the government to task. Richard Burgon announced the following:

I’ve submitted these formal Parliamentary Written Questions following reports that Morgan McSweeney’s phone was stolen.

Given the serious impact this could have on getting the truth about the Mandelson scandal (and even on the Labour Together scandal), we need answers.

Burgon is demanding to know:

Given the track record of Starmer’s government, we can’t imagine we’ll get plausible answers to these questions. The more the pressure builds, though, the sooner Labour will have to force the PM out, and the sooner the better.

Featured image via PickPik

After four ambulances owned by Jewish charity Hatzola were set on fire, Israel lobbyists – including Nigel Farage – were quick to claim an ‘Iranian terror cell’ was responsible. The lobby said this was clear proof of Iranian hostile acts on UK soil and demanded a terror ban on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The lobby’s media allies, naturally, amplified the claim.

None of the ‘mainstream’ media, of course, bothered to wonder why a crack ‘Iranian terror cell’ would choose four nearly-defunct ambulances as their first target. But others did:

Suspect

The supposed ‘terror cell’ behind the 23 March 2026 attack had never been heard of before March 2026. Its emblem spells ‘Islamic’ wrong in Arabic. Its statement claiming credit for the attack mentioned the “Land of Israel”, a phrase no Islamic group would use.

The language of the group’s statements is also, according to Amsterdam’s VU university’s political anthropologist Younes Saramifar, a weird mix completely inconsistent with people as familiar with Arabic as religious Muslim Iranians would be. Saramifar concluded that:

The language of announcements shows a clear lack of fluency in Arabic. The language is generated by an AI tool. Furthermore, the electronic device on which the new video was edited does not have Arabic or English as its native language in its operating system. This is clear from where the colon and the exclamation mark are placed in the sentence. This shows that the group is neither native Arabic nor English speakers. Native speakers are habituated to managing these technical glitches. Based on their language use, I don’t think they are a direct proxy or a sleeper cell associated with the Axis of Resistance.

It seems the courts and Crown Prosecution Service agree, as the suspects have been released on bail this morning, 26 March 2026. As Irish comedian and political activist Tadgh Hickey pointed out, this “weirdly lenient” decision doesn’t really fit with the idea of a ‘terror cell’:

That’s a weirdly lenient way to deal with members of a new bloodthirsty Iran sponsored Shia terrorist cell 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8nwTWhqPNO

— Tehran Tadhg (@TadhgHickey) March 26, 2026

Israel has a long and well-documented history of ‘false-flag’ attacks to achieve political ends, including in London.

Featured image via the Canary

What are the new screen time rules?

What else does the guidance say?

A resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly declared the transatlantic slave trade and the associated system of racialised chattel enslavement to be the gravest crime against humanity, a text that saw the UK and Ukraine abstain alongside 51 other nations, mostly European countries, as the measure passed with 123 votes in favour and only three countries, Argentina, Israel, and the United States, voting against.

The resolution emphasised that “claims for reparations represent a concrete step toward remedy.”

Funny how the UK, which got rich off the whole operation, suddenly found itself unable to pick a side, except to side with silence.

Of course, the US, Israel, and Argentina voted no — they are shameless. The shameless Americans also said the UN “was not founded to advance narrow specific interests and agendas” while arguing that reparations for historical wrongs are not legally owed because such crimes “were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”

He has also recently contributed to five case studies covering damages from slavery, conflict-related sexual violence, climate change, racial injustice, and structural adjustment.

As highlighted by Big Brother Watch, iPhone users will soon need to prove their age to maintain internet access. It’s the latest in a line of changes which have come in the wake of the Online Safety Act:

🚨NEWS: UK iPhone users must now prove their age or lose full internet access

“It is absolutely outrageous that, overnight, Apple has put a chokehold on Britons’ freedom to search the internet, access information and use apps unless they provide sensitive ID documents.

This… pic.twitter.com/GNuCsihcDD

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) March 25, 2026

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iPhone changes: “draconian”

Silkie Carlo (Big Brother Watch Director) said in full:

It is absolutely outrageous that, overnight, Apple has put a chokehold on Britons’ freedom to search the internet, access information and use apps unless they provide sensitive ID documents.

This means 35 million Brits who have paid hundreds or even thousands of pounds for Apple tech suddenly now have a child’s device unless they comply with invasive demands for personal information that go far beyond what UK law requires.

Apple has crossed the Rubicon with this software update which is more like ransomware, holding customers hostage to ID demands that are invasive, exclusionary and unnecessary.

Children’s online safety is vital but requires better parental controls and thoughtful tech responsibility – not sweeping, draconian, shock demands by foreign companies for all of our IDs and credit cards.

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Owners will have to verify their age after accepting the iOS 26.6 software update, according to the BBC. Anyone who refuses to verify their age will be treated like a child on a tablet with parental controls. Ofcom have described this as a “real win for children and families”, even though the move goes beyond what is legally required.

People have responded as follows:

Age verification is a Trojan horse for total control over the internet, your devices, and your entire digital life.

Not a single child will be protected by this.

If people don’t wake up and protest, your country is going to be next. https://t.co/BiH4F0cs7j

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— calle (@callebtc) March 25, 2026

Apple just turned 35 million UK iPhones into identity checkpoints. Apple has, without warning, placed a gatekeeper on the devices of 35 million UK users who paid good money for full-featured smartphones and now find themselves holding something closer to a supervised children’s… https://t.co/5qTTHn18uQ

— Reclaim The Net (@ReclaimTheNetHQ) March 25, 2026

It looks like Reddit may be the next platform to introduce mandatory age checks:

‼️ BREAKING: Reddit’s CEO announced he is forcing human verification on the platform.

He will force users to verify through biometrics on their device, a third party, or government ID.

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Every single option compromises your anonymity. On a platform built on anonymity. pic.twitter.com/HlpTWU95g7

— International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) March 26, 2026

Experiments

The BBC also reported:

Apple’s move follows a wider debate in the industry over how to keep young people away from harmful content online and the impact social media can have on children.

The UK government is trialling a test which will see 300 teens have their social apps disabled entirely, blocked overnight or capped to one hour’s use – with some also seeing no such changes at all – in order to compare their experiences.

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The test will run alongside the government’s consultation asking whether the UK should follow in Australia’s footsteps by making it illegal for under-16s to have access to many social media sites.

As we’ve covered, there are reasons to be concerned about the impacts of social media. At the same time, establishment forces are using these concerns to push for an end to online anonymity. The solution to all of these issues begins with wrestling control of the internet back from the US tech monopolies who control 99% of our digital lives.

Featured image via Apple

Surprising no one, a Minister attached to a review on foreign interference has failed to declare his affiliation with Labour Friends of Israel (LFI):

The group has been linked to the Israeli government and been at the centre of a high-profile instance of “improper interference in our democratic politics” in recent years.

Weird not to mention it, no?https://t.co/0zj9KJiNs8

— Laura Webster (@LauraEWebsterr) March 26, 2026

Labour — foreign interference

The minister in question is housing secretary Steve Reed. Reed is linked to Labour Together (LT), which is the group that pushed Keir Starmer into 10 Downing Street. LT also maneuvered Peter Mandelson back into government, despite Mandelson’s ties to the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Many suspected that Epstein worked for Israel’s Mossad; at the very least, he was a big supporter of what Israel were up to:

New photo emerges of Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet wearing an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) sweat shirt. The photo was supplied by Epstein’s butler (on the right) to the Telegraph (UK). pic.twitter.com/6pit5iovSX

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 9, 2025

So either Israel has secretly joined the United Kingdom or we’re all being scammed.

Featured image via Twitter

Yesterday, 24 March, Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced the offer of four replacement ambulances to Hatzolah, the Jewish-run charity ambulance service which suffered an arson attack on the morning of 23 March.

Since the attack, politicians across the political spectrum have voiced their condemnation of antisemitism. Predictably, some have also taken the opportunity to attack Muslims and migrants — without evidence that the attackers were either.

In Streeting’s case, both his words and his offer of tangible support are a clear demonstration of the energy we need when tackling bigotry in the UK. The problem is, this only makes his careless attitude to Islamophobia in his own NHS all the more egregious when we contrast the two.

Streeting — ‘Despicable act of evil’

In his statement, Streeting was unequivocal in his condemnation of antisemitism:

This shocking, cowardly, and despicable act of evil was not only an attack on London’s Jewish community, but on an ambulance service whose sole purpose is to save lives and care for others.

There is no doubt this attack was designed to strike fear into the heart of Jewish people in Golders Green and across the country. And, as a Member of Parliament who represents a significant Jewish community further east in London, I know what’s happened will be felt painfully and acutely by all Jewish people across our country.

Likewise, he also went on to praise Hatzolah, and offered his practical support:

Hatzola’s volunteers represent the very best of public service, providing rapid, life-saving care to anyone in need, and it is appalling that such a service has been targeted in this way.

Of course, the best form of solidarity is practical solidarity, which is why today, our London Ambulance Service colleagues are providing support to the team in Golders Green to make sure that we don’t skip a beat when it comes to responding to emergency call-outs. We will also be providing four replacement ambulances, initially on loan until we can provide permanent replacements. The Jewish community should not bear the cost of this hatred.

This moment demands more than practical support. The Jewish community will not stand alone – the government and this entire country stand with them.

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We’re not going to argue with any of this. It’s the exact kind of response we should expect in the face of rising antisemitism in the UK. The problem is that, for Streeting and much of the Labour Party, that attitude clearly doesn’t extend to all forms of racism.

Streeting’s ‘Lack of urgency and movement’

As a case in point, late last year the British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA) wrote a letter to Streeting and other senior figures in UK healthcare. The missive urged action against a pattern of Islamophobic attacks on Muslim staff and patients in the NHS.

On 4 December, BIMA president Dr. Sahira Dar wrote a letter to Streeting which stated:

I am writing to express our growing concern that we have still not received a response to our previous correspondence on 20th October 2025 or our meeting on 9th September regarding the safety, fair treatment and freedom of expression of Muslim healthcare workers. This lack of urgency and movement is increasingly difficult to reconcile with, especially in light of a serious Islamophobic incident reported at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, where a copy of the Qur’an was desecrated on NHS premises.

In another letter, BIMA reminded Streeting that:

The NHS constitution commits the service and its leaders to uphold respect, dignity, inclusion and safety for all staff. Ensuring that Muslim workers and patients can engage with the NHS without fear, while trusting that discriminatory behaviour will be taken seriously and responded to transparently is fundamental to these values.

It also reiterated the organisation’s desire to meet with the health secretary to continue their discussions. Likewise, it expressed its extreme disappointment with the lack of communication from Streeting over the months.

‘Embarking on wholesale repression’

At the time, I wrote that this apparent lack of concern for Islamophobia is particularly galling, given that Labour recently launched an investigation into racism in the NHS which appears to privilege antisemitism over other forms of racism.

The government outlined these plans in a press release issued in October. Egregiously, the proposals introduce a blanket ban on expressions or symbols of solidarity with Palestinians.

The plan also advises the NHS to adopt the definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The organisation places Israel beyond reproach, and frequently conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

In reaction, a coalition of 23 groups — including trade unions and Jewish organisations — undersigned a joint statement penned by Doctors in Unite (DiU) criticising the proposals.

Dr Coral Jones, chair of Doctors in Unite, said:

The government is embarking on wholesale repression within the NHS to try to silence health workers from speaking out against the bombing of hospitals and the detention, torture, and killing of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza.

They accused Labour of elevating antisemitism above other forms of racism, and pointed to the Forde Report of 2022, which highlighted the hierarchy of racism within the Labour Party.

Streeting’s reaction to the attack on Hatzolah clearly demonstrates that he knows what a useful and constructive reaction to discrimination looks like. However, as the letters from BIMA and DiU show, the health secretary doesn’t extend that same care to all.

Labour published the final version of the Forde Report in 2022. However, it remains depressingly obvious that the hierarchy of racism is still deeply entrenched within the PLP.

Featured image via the Canary

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP is chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations. (The spelling with a “k” is deliberate.) On 25 March, the UN International Day for the Remembrance of Victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, she presented a petition in Parliament. It calls for an apology for the UK’s role in African chattel slavery and colonialism.

Ribeiro-Addy’s petition hand-in comes as UN delegates vote on a historic motion, tabled by Ghana, which would recognise the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as a crime against humanity. The UK government has not indicated whether it will support this motion.

The petition calls on MPs to push for a state apology on behalf of the government and the monarchy for the UK’s role in the slavery and colonisation of African people.

It also asks parliamentarians to establish an All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory Justice. This would examine the legacy of these crimes and propose concrete steps to address their lasting damage.

It notes that there has never been:

a genuine apology for the enslavement, trafficking, genocide, and exploitation committed under British authority.

Ribeiro-Addy said:

To this day, our country has never provided a genuine apology for the crimes of British Empire or the Transatlantic slave trade.

Rather than acknowledging these historical injustices and how they have shaped the world we live in today, our institutions have sought to sweep them under the carpet.

So many of the intersecting global challenges we now face are rooted in the legacies of enslavement and empire: from geopolitical instability to racism, inequality, underdevelopment and climate breakdown.

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To truly confront these issues, we must acknowledge where they come from. An apology could be a meaningful basis for action, signalling our country’s commitment not simply to righting historic wrongs but to tackling ongoing issues they have created and exacerbated.

Featured image via the Canary