Politics
Henry Higgins: How to fix London’s broken planning system
Cllr Henry Higgins is the Chairman of Planning in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
It is no consolation to say that 150 or even 100 years ago, in London, we built some of the most beautiful and practical streets of houses that the world has ever seen and which are still the envy of anybody: not just of people looking for a house here, but of people of most cities in the world. We seem to have lost the ability to do that.
We have national and a citywide recognition of the need to keep building more houses and places to live, but we struggle to fulfil that clear purpose. In some boroughs, government policy requires that we build as many as 2,000 new homes each year, but such targets are rarely, if ever, achieved.
There are practical reasons why these failings happen and we need to understand them.
It is a builder who builds a house, not a politician. People and politicians may want houses, but the prospect and the project have to be practical for the builder who will do the work.
For them, that means:
- A space to build.
- Preparing the design and architecture.
- The ability to connect to services, like water, drains, gas, electricity, roads and so on.
- Employing the skilled labour and sourcing the materials.
- The approval of the local community and understanding their needs.
- Finding a customer who will buy the completed work.
- Engaging in whatever the legal and formal requirements are.
- Funds to carry out all that expensive work while it is in progress.
- An investment in which they will undertake financial risk, but that makes sense for them and meets their own criteria for approval.
We often describe a person, or an enterprise, who engages in these in the successful pursuit of these activities at scale, ‘a developer’
The motivations for building houses are quite simple to understand
- People want places to live, go to work, raise their families and enjoy living their lives in one of the best cities in the world.
- Builders and developers want to participate in the architecture and quality of life in the city and make good return on the investment they need to make.
- Politicians want to build houses but they also need to protect people both from exploitation and unsafe conditions, and to make their contribution to the quality of life in London. They need to make sure public money is properly spent and to guard against unfair monopolies affecting the prices people pay.
For all three of these there is an abundance of understanding, desire and demand.
Politicians have a responsibility to play certain roles in all this. They have to take certain actions expeditiously and to be able to leave some things alone for builders and developers to do and for individual people and their families to decide.
Helping to identify those, and particularly, improve the way political bodies handle them, is the purpose of this paper. I will refer to both private builders and developers as ‘developers’, to keep the discussion simple.
What goes wrong?
Developers are reluctant to meet the requirements needed for approval
Consents and permissions: The requirements and conditions for obtaining approval to proceed are sometimes uneconomic for developers and there is insufficient help to make the development practical.
The market price: The price people are able pay at that time to buy or rent their house or flat may be too low to make the investment viable.
Social Housing: Both local and national government may place requirements for social housing such that the price people pay for a significant number of the houses or flats being developed is below the market level to meet reasonable investment criteria for the whole scheme.
Developers receive approval to build, but delay before proceeding.
For a developer, obtaining the permissions to proceed with a plan is only one of the hurdles they face to beginning, let alone completing, building work. For a council – granting the permissions does not imply the work will be complete.
Across the UK there are 1.2 million approvals for house building that have not been completed. In some London boroughs there could be as many as 3,000 more houses today if developers acted on existing planning approvals.
The delays can occur because:
- Conditions were applied when obtaining planning consents which are difficult, expensive and time consuming to meet.
- The engineering infrastructure of connections to services, communications and transport does not exist at the site and will not be available when the houses are ready to be sold.
- Other social and environmental issues have not been resolved – there are no shops, or schools or green spaces to make an attractive area, the lack of which in turn diminishes the value of the new houses.
There is confusion and lack of coordination between the different tiers of government
Londoners have three levels of government: the borough in which they live and which collects their council tax; the mayor of London; and central government, all of whom take an active interest and play roles in the project to build more houses.
This relationship has good intentions, but it does not always function well for the benefit of local people or the developers whose investment and professional skills are needed. It is a serious issue.
There is a need for clear financing of both the administrative functions of councils and the long-term building and maintenance of infrastructure; and often that does not occur.
Sometimes adjustments to central government financial policy impede the necessary processes of development. The government need to know when this happens and deal with it
Sometimes the Mayor’s office causes conflict with local borough councils. The mayor’s office need to be vigilant in watching for this and prevent it.
As in all politics, the ambitions of the individuals and their offices sometimes take precedence over the actual needs of people. That needs to be said and such occasions quickly stopped.
Recommendations
- Local borough councils should be allowed, by the Treasury, to retain and use more of the Business Rates collected in their area. This not only would provide more funding, but it would be an incentive to increase local business activity, improve the connection between business and the council, and grow the use and renovation of local business property.
- We have to treat ‘social housing’, which means housing for people who struggle to afford market prices, as a key to economic growth; and we have to make it work. It provides the opportunity for people to work in London who would not otherwise be able to do so. The provision has to be implemented in such a way that it does not create a disincentive to developers
- We should abolish ‘Stamp duty’ on primary residences. It raises the cost of purchase of a property and acts as an impediment to the sale of newly built homes- which is an essential requirement of development.
- It is completely wrong to remove the ‘Community Infrastructure Levy’. This proposal, by the Mayor, is a very serious mistake. We have to improve our management of the construction and maintenance of essential infrastructure. We don’t have an effective way of building in a timely and affordable way all the services and communications that are needed. Some of this is for London boroughs to resolve, some is between boroughs and some of it is for councils in the areas surrounding London. It may include more small towns outside London. At present the levy is our best way of funding this work.
- We should encourage small infrastructure developments because we know that large scale ones always present problems that take years to resolve. ‘Small scale’ means local schools, shops, GP surgeries, libraries, parks, road improvements and so on: all the facilities that make life agreeable and enjoyable.
- The proposed ‘Homes for London’ initiative as it is written, is wrong. It calls for, and permits, a reduction in the standards of home building which we have established over decades. We should not build houses without proper light and space between them. Nor should we build ‘tower blocks’. We have learned that these developments present so many social problems, it is foolish to think those will not recur as the buildings age.
- We need quickly a ‘Fair funding review and formula for London Boroughs which is practical, cross party, long term and pragmatic – genuinely intended to meet the needs of local people.
- In all our work we need to recognise and assist developers who make the investment in house building and take the financial risks that go with their projects. If we are to build homes we have to make it as practical as possible for developers to do their work.
- People do not want conflict between the Mayor and the local borough councils, they want humble, effective, cooperative working that is simply for the benefit of Londoners.
It is easy to understand why central government should urge the Mayor of London to drive an increase in house building, however it is wrong, and a complete misunderstanding, to deploy ‘special powers’ to assist in his achievement of targets. The initiative that is needed is closer working with, and assistance to, each Borough to help THEM to meet their required levels of building.
To be very specific, London has the space to build over 460,000 homes on ‘brownfield’ sites. A programme to simplify the release of that space by London boroughs for practical development would be transformational. Our experience is that the conditions placed by the Mayor on brownfield developments are counterproductive. In contrast, it is profoundly unwise for the Mayor’s office to designate ‘greenfield’ space for which they are not directly responsible for building. It is bound only to cause local problems for the councils involved. It should be stopped.
The proposal to grant the Mayor expanded emergency powers is extremely troubling. “Temporary” measures often become permanent. What begins as an ‘emergency response’ risks becoming a new normal lower standard, with inadequate infrastructure funding, and communities built without supporting services.
The people of London don’t want that; there is no need for it and it will be regretted for generations.
Nicki Minaj spent the past year transforming herself from a polarizing rap superstar into a high-profile conservative provocateur, lobbing viral attacks at Democratic leaders, boosting MAGA talking points and earning public praise from President Donald Trump and his allies.
On social media, Minaj’s pugnacious persona and sharp-edged posts — including repeated broadsides against California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have made her a darling of the Trump administration and the conservative movement, drawing millions of views and steady amplification from far-right influencers.
But quietly, humming in the background of her varied social media blitzes, a sophisticated army of bots was unconditionally praising and amplifying Minaj’s content, according to a new report shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The report, compiled by the disinformation detection company Cyabra, identifies a coordinated network of bots — more than 18,000 of them — that drove algorithms to spread Minaj’s posts on X.
The analysis, which looked at social media activity from Nov. 11 to Dec. 28, provides a window into how the rapper was able to capture millions of views online and position herself as a celebrity the White House found value in partnering with. Last month, Minaj joined the president at the Trump Accounts Summit — where Trump invited her on stage, showered her with praise and recorded a chummy TikTok video with her afterward.
“We don’t really see a lot of high volume, high impact orchestration of bad and fake actors within that intersection of the geopolitically driven and music culture,” said Dan Brahmy, the CEO and founder of Cyabra. “It is scarce in our field to see the combination of the bad and the fake online world with the entertainment world.”
The report found inauthentic accounts repeatedly amplified Minaj’s posts with praise that used “highly similar language,” particularly in response to posts where authentic accounts were criticizing Minaj.
“Supportive comments generated by fake profiles were predominantly brief, repetitive, and low in semantic complexity, consisting largely of praising keywords and positive hashtags rather than original or substantive engagement,” the report found.
Other inauthentic activity surrounding Minaj included “longer, more detailed comments designed to appear organic.”
“Nicki you are brave for living your truth, people might not always agree with what’s being played out, but as an artist and watching your growth as a person is inspiring,” read one comment from a purported Minaj fan, @LAX76283656, that was deemed fake by Cyabra.
“This pattern suggests a deliberate attempt to integrate into genuine conversations, increasing the credibility and visibility of the amplified content,” the report read.
Cyabra identified one day, Dec. 26, when fake profiles made up 56 percent of all comments on political posts made by Minaj.
Bot networks have become a familiar feature of modern politics since revelations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when coordinated inauthentic accounts were used to inflame divisions and manipulate online discourse. Such campaigns are now routinely detected around wars, elections and geopolitical flashpoints — but far less often around celebrities or the music industry.
That backdrop helps explain why Cyabra’s findings seem so peculiar. Rather than a short-lived spike tied to a single event or appearance, the company found sustained and coordinated amplification of Minaj’s posts across a range of political and cultural topics over time.
When Minaj posted about her support for Trump, her concern over the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and Newsom’s perceived alignment with the transgender community, the bots were there to back her up, Cyabra’s report shows. They also amplified her posts related to the music industry.
Representatives for Minaj did not respond to requests for comment.
Alex Bruesewitz, a media and political adviser to Trump who considers Minaj a “very close friend,” told POLITICO he is confident there are no bots involved with the rapper’s social media presence.
“Nicki has never used bot activity to promote herself on social media, because she doesn’t need to,” Bruesewitz said. “She has one of the largest fan bases of any musician that’s alive today.”
The Cyabra report was commissioned by a person who was granted anonymity because they fear public retaliation.
Cyabra is about 85 percent confident the more than 18,000 profiles identified are fake. But if the company were to narrow that scope to profiles that exhibit even stronger signs of inauthenticity, the confidence level could easily rise into the 90s, Brahmy said.
“We always have to make sure that we play at a confidence level that’s strong enough for people to rely on it, and doesn’t really change the narrative,” he said.
And when accounts boosting Minaj posted content that researchers identified as “toxic,” the algorithm drove her posts even further. Companies like Cyabra determine toxicity by assessing not just the “positive” or “negative” words used in a post, but the apparent intent behind them, Brahmy said. Personal attacks, slurs, threats or comments that seem designed to deter a reasonable person from engaging in conversation are typically considered toxic.
“When the conversation is limited to toxic content, a substantially stronger amplification effect emerges,” the report found. “These accounts predominantly amplify content produced by Nicki Minaj and Turning Point USA, indicating a notable overlap between the two within this discourse. Several of the accounts involved had previously been identified as exhibiting fake campaign-like behavior in the context of Minaj’s online activity within and relating to the music industry.”
Turning Point USA didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The analysis also shows how foreign and domestic political narratives can be manipulated by bot networks without broad public awareness — and how influential figures in the hip-hop world are making inroads into the conservative political conversation in America.
Minaj’s online activity was not only amplified by inauthentic accounts — but also a string of authentic accounts, including those of popular conservative influencers Dom Lucre and Matt Wallace, Cyabra found. The way those accounts parroted Minaj’s talking points suggest strategic coordination behind the scenes, Brahmy said.
“Real human beings are behaving the exact same way, utilizing the exact same behavioral patterns, as you would expect from a well coordinated campaign,” Brahmy said. “They amplify each other. They are riding the same, similar wave of narrative.”
Lucre responded with a statement saying, “This is one of the most absurd conspiracy theories I have ever seen in my entire life brother.”
He then uploaded videos to his X and YouTube accounts reacting to POLITICO’s questions about whether he was coordinating his posts about Minaj with others or being paid for posts related to the rapper.
“Nicki Minaj is now pulling so many liberals to the right that they now have to push out a theory that these aren’t real organic people, and that she’s now manipulating the system with bots,” Lucre said. “If Nicki Minaj was manipulating systems with bots on Instagram, TikTok, X, do you not think there would be a conclusive data that they would have to present this instead of asking influencers to say yes?”
Wallace did not respond to a request for comment.
Minaj’s foray into politics comes after Trump made inroads with Black and Hispanic voters in the 2024 election. He and his allies have been eager to propel a political realignment around a multiracial, working-class, right-populist coalition, but polls show that that 2024 coalition has frayed badly over the last year.
Minaj has moved toward embracing the MAGA movement since July of last year. Her rightward shift was cemented in December during her appearance with Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest convention. In late 2025, before Trump embraced her at last month’s summit, her political views also drew praise from the likes of Vice President JD Vance and Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz.
On social media, her barrage of GOP-friendly posts garner millions of views, including those taking aim at Newsom.
“Career politician at the brink of his moment realigns to become nothing more than a Nicki Minaj ANTI. OOF,” Minaj wrote in December, with a photo depicting Newsom behind bars in a jail cell. “So now he’s the guy running on ‘wanting to see trans kids’ AND willing to lower himself to becoming just another FEMALE RAPPER to get obliterated by NICKI MINAJ.”
“Let’s wait…I think Gavvy’s still transitioning,” she said in another post on the same day, which generated over 1 million views.
A spokesperson for Newsom — who is named multiple times in the report and was a frequent target of Minaj during Cyabra’s analysis period — sent a statement ridiculing Minaj when asked for comment on the report’s findings.
“Like most MAGA mouthpieces, we are not surprised Nicki Minaj needs bots to stay relevant,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said.
Cyabra’s report identifies 18,784 fake profiles that were at the ready to boost Minaj’s content.
Those accounts represented 33 percent of the total profiles evaluated by Cyabra — a ratio of inauthentic activity similar to those seen during wars and presidential elections, Brahmy said. Inauthentic accounts typically represent between 7 and 10 percent of organic social media discourse, the company said.
Cyabra works with corporations to identify online bot activity and misinformation campaigns, with the goal of helping them protect their reputation and understand malicious actors online. It uses software to analyze social media activity — and provides its services to PR firms, legal practices, multinational corporations and governments.
Cyabra gleaned the bot activity by examining the accounts’ temporal synchronization, their linguistic and stylistic uniformity and the similar demographics shared by the fake identities. The company developed a machine learning algorithm to identify fake accounts.
Jen Golbeck, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland who studies artificial intelligence and social media, told POLITICO the purpose of a “botnet” can go beyond manipulating the narrative in a single comment section. The bots’ interactions signal to social media algorithms that a post draws high-engagement, which drives the algorithm to spread the content further.
“You can really expand your reach beyond your follower base if you get high levels of interaction, and these interaction bots do that,” said Golbeck, who also writes the MAGAReport substack.
Joel Penney, a professor at Montclair State University who studies popular culture and politics, said Trump’s adoption of Minaj into his political project is likely part of a larger strategy to reach younger, more diverse audiences.
“They’ve made a lot of efforts to include celebrities who are supportive, including hip-hop figures; Nicki Minaj is probably the biggest name to kind of become a pretty public advocate,” Penney said. “They don’t have the power to wave a wand and make all their followers or fans of their music support their political advocacy. But it matters. It contributes to this kind of war for public opinion that we see play out on social media.”
The BBC is facing a backlash after a message in support of Palestine during one of this year’s Baftas acceptance speeches was removed from broadcast.
On Sunday night, brothers Wale Davies and Akinola Davies Jr. picked up the Bafta in the Outstanding Debut By A British Writer, Director Or Producer prize for their work on the film My Father’s Shadow.
After celebrating their fellow nominees and thanking their collaborators on their film, Akinola gave a shout-out to “all those whose parents migrated to obtain a better life for their children”, “the economic migrant”, “the conflict migrant”, “those under occupation, dictatorship [and] persecution” and “those experiencing genocide”.
“Your stories matter more than ever. Your dreams are an act of resistance to those watching at home,” he said. “Archive your loved ones. Archive your stories yesterday, today, and forever.”
Akinola concluded: “For Nigeria, for London, the Congo, Sudan, free Palestine.”
However, the BBC – who airs the Baftas ceremony on a two-hour time delay – chose not to include this last section of Akinola’s speech, which has since been uploaded to Bafta’s YouTube page in full.
The decision for the BBC not to feature the political parts of Akinola’s speech has been met with a widespread backlash, particularly as a racist slur uttered by Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson as part of a tic during a speech by Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo aired uncensored.
A BBC spokesperson told Deadline: “The live event is three hours and it has to be reduced to two hours for its on-air slot. The same happened to other speeches made during the night and all edits were made to ensure the programme was delivered to time.”
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for additional comment on the backlash over its editorial decision.
Take a look at our full list of winners from the 2026 Baftas here.
Martin Lewis clashed with Kemi Badenoch on live TV over her plan to help graduates struggling to pay back their student loans.
The Tory leader has said her party would freeze the interest rates currently being charged in an attempt to bring down repayments.
But appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Badenoch was challenged by Lewis, the programme’s resident financial expert.
As presenters Ed Balls and Susanna Reid looked on, Lewis walked onto the set to confront the Tory chief directly.
He told her: “If you want to help the middle-earning students, the most important thing is the repayment threshold should have been increased.”
That was a reference to chancellor Rachel Reeves’ controversial decision in last year’s Budget to freeze the threshold, thereby dragging more graduates into the punishing repayment scheme.
Badenoch hit back: “Martin, this is exactly why young people are suffering.
“We’ve got lots of people who have finished university, where they didn’t have to pay fees, didn’t have to take out loans, and now you’re all saying nothing can be done.
“I’m the first person who’s even tried to solve this problem.”
Lewis interrupted her to say: “Shall we have a chat about it because I think you’ve got the right idea, but this is not a solution that will help middle and lower earning students.”
As Ed Balls then asked whether a middle earning graduate would benefit from the Tory plan, Badenoch said: “You’re both talking over me – excuse me. Let me explain what my policy is.
“I want to make sure that those young people who are paying and paying and their debt is not going down get a relief. If you think there’s a better offer, let’s look at it.
“But what’s made the difference now is that in her Budget, Rachel Reeves increased the number of people getting in because the threshold has been frozen. I don’t think this is fair.
“The whole student loan system is not working properly, someone has to do something. And the thing that shocks me is the minute I say ‘let’s do something’, everyone says ‘oh no no no, this in not right’. We are going round in circles.”
But Lewis told her: “If you have a billion pounds to help students, the most direct thing that would help all students would be not freezing the repayment threshold, it would be increasing the repayment threshold.”
Later in the interview, the Tory leader said: “What is the problem now is that any time someone says ‘well let’s look at this, there’s always someone – sometimes it’s Martin – who says ‘oh that’s a terrible idea’ and then nothing happens.
“Nothing is happening. No one is helping these people and I’m coming out with some ideas and with some solutions.”
Politics
FBI Director Kash Patel Faces Backlash For Flying To Winter Olympics And Partying With Team USA
FBI Director Kash Patel is facing a backlash for reportedly using an FBI jet to head to Italy where he spent the final days of the Winter Olympics watching hockey and, later, celebrating Team USA’s gold medal win over Canada on Sunday.
Patel, a hockey fan since his childhood, was spotted at the US men’s semifinal game against Slovakia, and later at the final, where he was seen celebrating with Team USA centre Dylan Larkin in the locker room after America’s overtime win.
“Congratulations Team USA,” Patel appeared to say while making a shaka sign with his hand during Larkin’s post-game Instagram Live feed, per a clip shared by MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian.
On Sunday, he took to social media to remark on Team USA’s golden accomplishment. The conspiracy-pushing FBI director also shared snaps from the post-game celebration, including one that shows him cracking a smile alongside coach Mike Sullivan.
Social media users swiftly slammed Patel over the trip, with a number particularly pointing to the Justice Department’s controversial, slow drip release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
“Are the Epstein files there?” X user Gerald Celente questioned.
Another user, Hannah Cox, reacted to Patel’s Instagram Live selfie with Larkin, simply writing, “Meanwhile, solving no sex crimes mind you.”
“Why is Kash Patel in the locker room?” asked @AmanitaFugax on X. “They don’t even try to hide their corruption and self enrichment anymore. This guy is a podcasting grifter. He should not be anywhere near public service.”
On Thursday, Patel headed to the Milan Cortina Games on the FBI’s Gulfstream jet, sources told MS NOW’s Dilanian and Carol Leonnig. The report estimated that Patel’s trip to Milan cost taxpayers as much as $75,000.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson confirmed the trip but argued it was “personal” in nature, claiming it was planned months in advance, and Patel was there to meet with Italian officials for meetings and briefings related to government duties.
Williamson went on to defend the trip by claiming that the FBI plays a “major role” in security for the Games as well as the World Cup, which is set to go down this summer in the States.
“So we have a U.S. consulate briefing on Olympic security and current FBI posture, as well as thanking FBI personnel on the ground,” he wrote.
Patel has previously come under fire for using an FBI jet to go see his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, perform at a wrestling event in Pennsylvania last year.
He later defended the move, arguing that he’s not allowed to fly commercial and declaring that his partner is “a rock-solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation than most will in ten lifetimes.”
Patel is the first known active FBI director to make an Olympic-related trip since Robert Mueller did so in 2003, although that trip occurred several months prior to the start of the 2004 Athens Games, MSNBC noted.
Boris Johnson has been accused of “attention seeking” after calling for British troops to go to Ukraine immediately.
Speaking shortly before the fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the former prime minister said the west was only giving Ukraine enough to stop them from losing, not enough to help them win.
“I think we need to show we’re willing to give the Ukrainians the military support,” he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg – and that means deploying non-combat troops now.
“If we can have a plan for boots on the ground for after the war, after Putin has condescended to have a ceasefire, why not do it now?” Johnson said, alluding to Keir Starmer’s promise to deploy British peace-keeping soldiers in the event of a ceasefire.
“Just make this point that it is up to the Ukrainians. These people wouldn’t be there in a war-fighting capacity,” the ex-PM added.
But his comments fell flat with the show’s panellists, as the Independent’s editor Geordie Greig said: “I think his comments are reckless and irresponsible.
“It’s typical of the attention-seeking stance which he’s become known for.
“To have unarmed British troops in Ukraine… they would be sitting ducks.
“Putin has shown he can attack almost anywhere in Ukraine. The idea that Johnson can flip a switch in Putin’s mind is laughable.”
He said the former Conservative PM should try to speak to Donald Trump instead, and encourage the US president to support Ukraine instead of falsely blaming the country for the lack of progress in peace talks.
Johnson also used his BBC interview to claim that the west “should have done more” to stand up to Putin and deter his invasion back in 2022.
Johnson, who was the prime minister at the time, said: “The real problem is with Ukraine is that Putin does not believe, or he has not yet been convinced, that the west regards it as an overwhelming strategic objective for Ukraine to be a free and independent European country.”
He also took aim at the White House saying there is a “delusion” in the US if they believe Putin wants peace – and claimed he had shared that sentiment with Trump.
“We won’t end this war by asking the Ukrainians to make further concessions,” he said, alluding to the US’s insistence that Ukraine must give up more land to achieve a ceasefire.
The drag world is in mourning following the death of the Australian performer Maxi Shield.
Internationally, Maxi – the drag alter-ego of Kristopher Elliot – will be best known to RuPaul’s Drag Race fans for her appearance on the inaugural season of the reality show’s Down Under iteration, where she finished in sixth place.
Last year, she shared that she had been diagnosed with cancer, with her death at the age of 51 being announced on Sunday evening.
A post on the company of the Australian company Wigs By Vanity read: “It’s with the heaviest of hearts that we share the news that our dearest sister, Maxine, has passed away.
“We are all mourning the loss of an incredible icon, friend, and our beloved sister. Thank you for the laughs, the cackles, and the magic you brought into our lives.”
Season one winner Kita Mean was among those paying tribute, remembering Maxi as “the kindest queen that has ever been” and celebrating her “love for drag”, “wicked sense of humour” and “giving spirit”.
“There will forever be a void in my heavy heart where your fabulousness hit me like a tonne of bricks,” Kita said. “Your strength over the last few months has been incomprehensible and I will go forward with such pride in my heart knowing I was friends with the best sister in the business.
“I love you so much… may your spirit rest in peace.”
Fellow competitor Anita Wigl’it also wrote: “I am very saddened to hear that our beloved Maxi Shield has passed on. You have been an absolute delight of a friend and sister.
“I’ll remember you for so many things; cackling about our friends, plotting the wonderful things that we are going to do in our careers, your support, constantly laughing, your wonderful stories, talking about men, the time you dressed as Penguin, the love you have for everyone. I love you my friend.”
Maxi was a prolific figure on the Australian drag scene, and was notably among the performers at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
She was also a regular fixture at the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations each year, and played a lead role in the 2023 comedy The Winner Takes It All.
Before he became president, Donald Trump was notorious for using personas to engage with the media. Now, people are speculating that Trump has revived one of his old pseudonyms:
🚨 NO WAY 😭
“John Barron” just called @CSPAN to complain about the Supreme Court nuking Trump’s tariffs.
Yes — that John Barron.
The fake name Trump used for decades.They cut him off mid-call.
💀You cannot make this up. 😂🥴 pic.twitter.com/iOPLRebnYa
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) February 22, 2026
John Barron
When we say Trump was ‘famous’ for deploying personas, we weren’t exaggerating. There is literally a Wikipedia article on the topic:
As you can see, those aliases are in order:
- John Barron.
- John Miller.
- Carolin Gallego (??).
- David Dennison.
Here’s what that same page says about the John Barron persona:
Trump used the alias “John Barron” (sometimes “John Baron”) throughout the 1980s, with its earliest known usage in 1980 and its last acknowledgment in 1990. According to The Washington Post, the name was a “go-to alias when [Trump] was under scrutiny, in need of a tough front man or otherwise wanting to convey a message without attaching his own name to it”. Barron would be introduced as a spokesperson for Trump, and is even described as a vice president of the Trump Organization in an article by Robert D. McFadden.
This is how that section ends:
Some New York editors recalled that “calls from Barron were at points so common that they became a recurring joke on the city desk”.
Trump stopped using the pseudonym after he was compelled to testify in court proceedings that John Barron was one of his pseudonyms. The Washington Post suggested that Trump might have used the pseudonym longer if not for the “lawsuit in which he testified, under oath in 1990, that ‘I believe on occasion I used that name.’”
And here’s what caller ‘John Barron’ said in the clip at the top:
Well, this is John Barron, and you have… Look, this is the worst decision you’ve ever had in your life, practically. Jack – and Jack’s going to agree with me, right? But this is a terrible decision, and you have Hakeem Jeffries, who – he’s a dope – and you have, Chuck Schumer, who can’t cook a cheeseburger. Of course, these people are happy. Of course, these people are happy.
But true Americans will not be happy. And you have the woman earlier. I assume she’s a woman. She’s a Democrat. But she said… she’s disgraced. She’s devastated.
Confusing, unclear stuff.
In other words, believing it could be him is easy.
But is it?
Journalist Mehdi Hasan suggested it must be a phoney:
Surely it’s an impersonator, right? Right?? https://t.co/TuH5BLNUiC
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 22, 2026
It’s certainly true that the caller doesn’t sound exactly like Trump, but then again, neither does Trump at this point.
The man has aged dramatically over the past 12 months, and he’s lost more and more impulse control.
Given that, is it so hard to imagine a sundowning Trump reviving one of his old personas?
Yes, it is, actually.
I’m Carolin Gallego – thanks bigly for reading this article.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Newsom Calls Trump A ‘Punch-Drunk Boxer’ For Lashing Out At Supreme Court Over Tariffs Ruling
California Governor Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump of flailing after he admonished the US Supreme Court for striking down his sweeping tariffs last week.
On Friday, the court ruled Trump didn’t have the emergency power to impose the sweeping tariffs, prompting him to sign an executive order on Friday night stating he could bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on global imports.
Then on Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was raising the global tariff to 15%.
“Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday, after MANY months of contemplation, by the United States Supreme Court, please let this statement serve to represent that I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been “ripping” the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level,” Trump wrote.
“The whole thing is a farce,” Newsom told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview that aired Sunday. “I talk about petulance. It was 10% two days ago, maybe 20% tomorrow. I mean, this is madness.”
Newsom also said Trump was flailing.
“He’s a punch-drunk boxer,” Newsom said. “He’s just trying to hit anything, a shadow, and he’s a shadow of himself. He’s lost a step or two.”
Newsom said Trump’s tariffs were ”always an illegal act,” and that he needs to return the money.
“He needs to refund that money with interest,” Newsom said. “He could do that in a nanosecond. They could do that electronically.”
Newsom then likened Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to the 1994 screwball comedy “Dumb & Dumber,” and said the pair had “wrecked this economy.”
“[Trump’s] entire economic paradigm is mass deportations, tax cuts for billionaires and tariffs. And he’s been exposed. He’s a fraud. And by the way, the tariff? This is a self-dealing operation. This is about his personal portfolio,” Newsome added.
Watch a clip from Newsom’s “State of the Union” interview below.
A spokesperson for Bafta has responded to the backlash over two key omissions from the “in memoriam” section of this year’s awards show.
Every year, the Baftas pays tribute to those from the movie industry who have died over the last 12 months, with this year’s tributes being accompanied by a touching performance from Jessie Ware.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, a Bafta rep said: “We honour those within the sector in which their work was most closely associated. Our TV Awards take place later this spring.”
Last week, it was also confirmed that Eric had died at 53, having been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2025.
BITEBACK TO PUBLISH IAIN DALE’S UNFILTERED AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Biteback Publishing has acquired Iain Dale’s searingly honest autobiography, offering a rare, honest look at failure, imposter syndrome and the art of broadcasting.
Award-winning broadcaster Iain Dale has led a life full of incident and success but also some very public failures. In this refreshingly honest account of his life and careers in business, politics and media, he tells all for the first time.
With the same raw candour that earns him 750,000 weekly listeners, he recounts his journey from driving a combine harvester at age eight to driving the national conversation on LBC, taking in his encounters with a host of household names, including HM Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Cliff Richard, Kylie Minogue, Joan Rivers, Jennifer Saunders, the Duchess of York, Olivia Newton-John, Terry Pratchett and twelve of our fifty-eight Prime Ministers.
He also reflects movingly on coming out at age forty, coming to terms with his thwarted political aspirations, and the heartbreaking phone-ins that have made him ‘the friend they’ve never met’ to millions.
This is the ultimate insider’s guide to the corridors of power and the pressures of the studio. Whether he’s nearly throwing up on Margaret Thatcher, coming to blows with senior MPs or accidentally calling the Archbishop of Canterbury something less than pious on live radio, this is Iain Dale off-air and unfiltered.
One of Britain’s leading political commentators and a celebrated broadcaster, Iain Dale presents the evening show on LBC Radio and is a regular contributor to Good Morning Britain, Question Time and Newsnight. His podcasts include Where Politics Meets History and the award-winning For the Many. He is a regular columnist for the Telegraph, the Evening Standard and the i paper.
Iain has written or edited more than fifty books, including Why Can’t We All Just Get Along…, The Prime Ministers and, most recently, Margaret Thatcher, selling more than a million copies in the past twenty-five years. He is a visiting professor of politics and broadcasting at the University of East Anglia.
Olivia Beattie, Editorial Director at Biteback, acquired world English rights from Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown.
Dale said: ‘You only get one chance of writing an autobiography, and I’m delighted that my old firm Biteback have taken it on. It is very much warts and all and includes all the various scrapes I’ve been involved in, as well as telling what it’s really like to be a radio presenter. The whole book is anecdote-tastic and is designed to entertain. I don’t flinch about possibly going into too much detail about certain aspects of my life, hence the title of the book. I can’t wait for it to appear in July and to promote the hell out of it throughout the summer and autumn.’
Beattie said: ‘Everyone at Biteback has missed Iain enormously since he stepped down as MD in 2018, so it feels like a wonderful homecoming to be welcoming him back with this very personal memoir. This is trademark Iain, with all the right ingredients – his candour and raw emotion and sense of humour – and we’re really looking forward to sharing it with a wider audience.’
Have I Said Too Much? will be published on 15 July 2026, supported by a major publicity campaign.
Price: £22 hardback
ISBN: 9781837360581
For more information please contact Ruth Killick on publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk
Signed copies can be ordered HERE
Buy from Amazon HERE
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