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The 2026 Community Barometer report is the first major report into the health of the high street that focuses on putting place first. The Association of Convenience Stores launched the report, which highlights the use of the ‘Makerfield Test’ as a means to deliver good growth on high streets.

The ‘Makerfield Test’ is the idea that a policy must work for somewhere like Makerfield or the government ditches it.

There is a stark contrast in the report between the high streets that people feel are getting better and those that are getting worse. Across the UK, only Greater London emerged as a net positive when it comes to high streets. Every other part of the country feels as though high streets are getting worse than before.

The worst affected areas are Scotland, the East of England, and the South West. Although outside of London, all parts of the country clearly need more targeted support to create high streets that people can be proud of.

The Community Barometer report seeks to identify the reasons why these places feel left behind. The top five reasons why people believe their high street is getting worse are:

• Too many empty shop units.
• Poor range of shops and services.
• Fewer shoppers due to the cost of living.
• Stronger competition from online shopping.
• Prevalence of dodgy shops.

The report asks about the services that people want more and less of. And it finds a clear need for a diverse range of services like:

• Specialist shops.
• Bank branches.
• Pubs.
• Bars.
• Restaurants.
• Sports facilities.

However, the businesses that people don’t like appearing on their local high street are:

• Vape shops.
• Pawnbrokers.
• Barber shops.

Respondents suggest these kind of shops seem to pop up when a high street is losing its vitality.

What do people want in their high street?

This sentiment shows in the ranking of local services and their impact on the community. Pharmacies, post offices and convenience stores rank as the top three services that people regard as essential and having a positive impact on an area. Convenience stores rank as the number one service for supporting local growth.

Association of Convenience Stores chief executive Ed Woodall said:

Access to local services that make people feel good about where they live should not be a nice-to-have. The Community Barometer sets out a blueprint for the changes that are needed to give the whole of the UK reason to be proud of their high streets.

Thriving local shops, diverse places to eat and drink, and core services like post offices and pharmacies are all part of the makeup of a successful high street. But too often these businesses are failed by rising costs, slow planning decisions, and lawlessness that goes unpunished.

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If the next prime minister is serious about effecting change and delivering good growth, high streets need to feel safer, business rates need be reduced and planning decisions need to speed up.

The Community Barometer sets out three priority areas for the government to consider as it forms its new High Streets Strategy. These three priority areas are consistent with the recommendations of 15 reports on high streets delivered over the last decade that successive Westminster governments have failed to implement. They are:

• Making safety on the high street a priority, with better and faster use of closure orders and criminal behaviour orders. These can address the problems of retail crime and the presence of dodgy shops locally.
• Reducing the cost of operating by leveraging business rate reliefs, making it more appealing to take on empty properties. This addresses the number one reason why people feel their high streets are in decline.
• A town centre first planning system that moves at the pace of the businesses it serves. It would direct new retail sites onto high streets, concentrating footfall and investment activity where it’s most needed.

The Association of Convenience Stores has written to Andy Burnham ahead of his appointment as prime minister, setting out the change needed on high streets.

You can download the full Community Barometer report here.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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Andy Burnham, July 2026 (Alamy)

3 min read43 min

Exclusive: Andy Burnham is building out his No 10 with new hires, including Alison Phillips, former editor of The Mirror and head of Starmer-supporting think tank ThinkLabour.

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PoliticsHome can reveal that Alison Phillips has been serving as transition director for Andy Burnham’s campaign and will continue planning and delivering the transition into No 10, “to establish a high-performing organisation”.

A source said: “Her priority will be to establish No 10 as an effective team that can deliver Andy’s ambition to give Britain breathing space in the cost of living, deliver growth in every postcode and return power to communities.

“She has led large and complex organisations, delivering results and overseeing cultural change.”

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Phillips was editor of The Daily Mirror from 2018 to 2024, before replacing ex-MP Jonathan Ashworth in 2025 as chief executive of the Labour Together think tank, which recently rebranded as ThinkLabour.

Sarah Brown, previously London mayor Sadiq Khan’s director of communications and strategy, also worked on the Burnham campaign and has been confirmed as his director of strategic communications in No 10.

Matthew McGregor, CEO of political activism organisation 38 Degrees and formerly director of campaigns and communications for Hope Not Hate, is being hired as the head of political strategy.

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He has worked on elections in the UK and overseas, including Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, and is widely liked in Labour circles.

“In a political culture that has all too often rewarded the worst behaviours, the appointment of Matthew is a signal that things will change under Andy,” one Labour source outside of Burnham’s team told PoliticsHome. “But perhaps most importantly I think he will help Labour’s chances at the next election.”

The source added: “He is analytical but in a very human way. Lots of international political knowledge not just UK and US. He has strong values and ethics without every being pious. They drive him. He is kind and decent and very hard-working. And funny.”

Burnham has also chosen Graeme Cooke, a close ally of his new chief of staff James Purnell, to be director of the No 10 policy unit. Cooke has been working as a policy adviser in Keir Starmer’s Downing Street.

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Harvey Redgrave, the current head of the policy unit, will stay on the team in a new role as home affairs and justice special adviser, according to the New Statesman.

Josh Simons, the former Makerfield MP who stood down to allow Burnham a run in a parliamentary seat and who had been expected to be appointed to head up policy, is said to be taking a “breather” instead.

Simons was director of Labour Together before entering Parliament. He served as a minister until he resigned from government following reported that he had been responsible for commissioning a report that investigated journalists who had reported unfavourably on the think tank he ran.

The MP said he had “never sought to smear” the journalists and apologised. Starmer’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus found that Simons had not broken any rules.

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The Canary can reveal further leaked WhatsApp messages from a secretive, Zionist Green Party group called ‘Greens Against Antisemitism’. The group appears to be orchestrating a campaign to brand opponents as antisemitic while plotting to sink a historic anti‑racist motion: Zionism Is Racism.

More leaked Green Party WhatsApps

At a time when the Green Party of England and Wales faced a watershed vote on whether to declare itself an anti‑Zionist party, internal messages obtained by the Canary lift the lid on a coordinated effort by a Zionist faction to manipulate the democratic process and drive out members who support Palestinian liberation.

Following our investigation into Disciplinary Committee member Rachel Collinson – which potentially exposed her apparent bias and potential abuses of power – a fresh cache of leaked WhatsApp messages from the same group, Greens Against Antisemitism (GAA), now reveals yet more wild accusations and conspiratorial organising behind the scenes of the Green Party.

At its centre is long‑standing party figure Elise Benjamin, whose messages lay bare a strategy of procedural sabotage, smear‑by‑accusation, cynical weaponisation of antisemitism, an apparent closeness to UK Lawyers For Israel and even genocide denial:

The messages, which date from the months leading up to Spring Conference, show Benjamin – with help from her husband Craig – actively plotting to derail the motion Zionism Is Racism, a motion that would formally commit the Green Party to an anti‑Zionist position:

The effect of such a blizzard of amendments is obvious: at a packed conference, contentious motions can be squeezed out of the timetable or diluted into meaninglessness. This stifles a democratic vote and could work to paint one of the most popular grassroots campaigns in the party as procedurally toxic.

Even Zack Polanski is now an antisemite

The leaked conversations also show Benjamin reaching for the label ‘antisemite’ with a promiscuity that makes a mockery of genuine anti‑racist work. The list of her targets, named directly in the chat, includes:

• The Canary.
• Jewish anti‑Zionist campaigner Tony Greenstein.
• Green Party councillor and YouTuber Kernow Damo.
• Anti‑racist social media account Bladeofthesun.
• American streamers Hasan Piker and Cenk Uyghur.
• The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its former director Ben Jamal.
• Rapper and activist Lowkey.
• And even the party’s own Jewish deputy leader, Zack Polanski.

Most disturbingly, Benjamin floats an extraordinary conspiracy theory concerning PSC and Ben Jamal:

To suggest that the UK’s foremost Palestinian solidarity organisation – and its Palestinian‑led leadership – were somehow complicit in the events of 7 October 2023 is a grotesque smear that trades on the darkest Orientalist tropes.

But there is one form of antisemitism that Benjamin apparently cannot see.

When a member of the GAA chat raised the Times’ widely condemned caricatures of Green Party leader Zack Polanski – images that evoked the most hateful Nazi‑era stereotypes – Benjamin’s response was telling:

By contrast, Benjamin rushes to defend openly far-right Zionist group Our Fight when its use of Union Jack imagery is questioned:

Our Fight is a hardline organisation directed by former Spiked columnist Mark Birbeck. It deploys militaristic, British‑fascist aesthetics redolent of Britain First and the EDL, as well as organising delegations of non‑Jewish supporters to travel to the Zionist entity in occupied Palestine.

Hollowing out democracy

These messages, coupled with the previous leaks regarding Disciplinary Committee member Rachel Collinson, show a worrying pattern of seeing everyone this group disagrees with as antisemitic and organising – on those grounds – to have people that align with anti-Zionist views extradited from the party.

The Green Party leadership now faces a clear choice: side with the members who want to confront apartheid and racism in all its forms or allow a small cabal to hollow out the party’s internal democracy, one bad‑faith accusation at a time.

The Canary will continue to follow this story.

We tried to reach out to Elise Benjamin for comment via multiple platforms, but did not receive a response at the time of publication. 

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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Welsh Reform UK politician Cai Parry-Jones MS has been caught out lying about his fossil fuel interests.

Another anti-Net Zero campaigner in Reform, Parry-Jones strongly denied the claim that his share holdings benefit from climate deregulation. He was quickly shown up for it.

To make matters worse, this all took place as Wales and the UK grappled with another intense heatwave. Some 2,700 people already died across the UK from extreme heat exposure. In summer 2024, in just five days, at least 557 Welsh people died of extreme heat. This is our climate-changed future.

Here’s yet another story of right-wing climate-reality denialism, corporate greenwashing and destructive political lobbying. All that, plus Reform once again being called out on their bullshit. About time.

Hi Cai,

Great to hear from you. You said a lot of stuff there so I thought I’d breakdown my reply:

1. An elected politician owns shares (worth at least 50% of their salary) in a company where roughly 90% of the profits are from fossil fuels.

At the same time the politician is… https://t.co/DAjP2K2xJK

— Will Hayward (@WillHayCardiff) July 13, 2026

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Caught with oily hands

Parry-Jones MS is Reform’s shadow minister for ‘Finance and Government Efficiency’ (read: Crypto and Austerity). He was called out for his five-figure holdings in fossil firm Phillips 66. His register of interests as a Senedd Member (MS) publicly lists some £38,000 in the company.

This was first highlighted by Welsh journalist Will Hayward and his team, who approached Parry-Jones for comment. He didn’t. Hayward explained Parry-Jones’ public policy positioning online:

He derided people “crying” about global warming. … He called on any climate roles inside the Welsh government to be scrapped. Among the roles that he called to be scrapped include things that actually help mitigate climate change, which will help with things like coastal erosion, or helping us combat heatwaves, or help farmers adjusting to the new reality of climate change.

Hayward rightly points out that the evidence is “overwhelming” that: a) climate change is really happening; and b) it is caused foremost by the combustion of fossil fuels. Yet Parry-Jones has direct, material interests in the continuation of that apocalyptic fossil fuel production and consumption.

Even more astutely, Hayward points out that Reform have the largest support base among poorer Welsh people. Yet the poorest in society, and those from the “most deprived backgrounds”, are those most at risk from climate change-related disasters. Hayward asks:

Why are Reform seemingly lobbying against the interests of the people that voted for them?

The company Parry-Jones holds £38k of shares in, Phillips 66, is an US-based oil company. It:

• Owns 13 refineries, which can produce 2.2m barrels of oil per day; and
• Owns over 15,000 miles of pipelines.

Hayward mentions DeSmog’s reporting that two-thirds of Reform UK’s political donor base are fossil fuel companies or those linked to them. Hayward asked Parry-Jones whether these interests were linked.

Climate change missing from most UK media reports on June heatwave

Reform — Here comes the slippery denial

He declined Hayward’s request for comment. Yet Parry-Jones nonetheless took to X and other platforms to denounce Hayward’s reporting:

Will Hayward suggests that because I hold shares in Phillips 66, I have a financial interest in scrapping Net Zero. Ten minutes of real research tells a different story.

He claims that, since the UK’s Net Zero targets were announced in 2019, his shares actually rose by 14%. Therefore, by Parry-Jones’ adept analysis, he couldn’t be anti-Net Zero on account of his shares. He adds:

Furthermore, the company has invested in developing the UK’s Humber Zero project, one of the world’s largest planned carbon capture schemes, part-funded by government decarbonisation money and needing more of it to go ahead. On Will’s own logic, my shares would do better if Net Zero stayed.

And yet I want it gone. I will always call for this economy-destroying target to be scrapped. It is killing British industry and loading some of the most expensive energy prices in the world onto hard-working families. If people want to scrutinise my interests, good. But start with doing proper research.

What Parry-Jones has tried to do here is paint himself as self-sacrificing, entirely uninterested in his shares. (Despite the fact that these are literally called his registered interests.) He’s also tried to greenwash the Phillips 66’s activities, stating — not untruthfully — that they’re building “carbon capture“.

On the surface, ‘carbon capture’ is an environmentalist initiative. It claims to extract CO2 and other harmful greenhouse gases from the Earth’s atmosphere. But, as reporting has shown, carbon capture is pushed by fossil fuel companies themselves — so that they can continue pumping harmful emissions into the air.

Worse still, it’s a terribly underdeveloped technology, especially compared with renewable energy sources which can already replace fossil fuels. ‘Carbon capture’ is essentially pie in the sky — an oily distraction.

Hottest June day ever provokes climate denial from right-wing cranks

Hayward hits back hard

Here’s the thing that “ten minutes of research“, as prescribed by Parry-Jones, can tell you. Like many harmful such fossil fuel companies, Phillips 66 wants to publicly cover its back. No surprises there.

The carbon capture psy-op, like the “carbon footprint” scam before it, is pushed by the profiteering companies who control our energy. Not so that they can actually solve the climate poly-crisis, but so they can continue making unimaginable profits for shareholders. Hayward points this out:

An elected politician owns shares (worth at least 50% of their salary) in a company where roughly 90% of the profits are from fossil fuels. At the same time the politician is deriding and undermining efforts to tackle a climate crisis. A crisis which is driven overwhelmingly by fossil fuels. If you can’t work out why that’s a story – I can’t help you.

So Phillips 66 is still overwhelmingly — 90% by Hayward’s reporting — invested in fossil fuels. Therefore, the company is predominantly invested in the environmental destruction that harmful fossil fuels cause globally. And, by extension, so too is Parry-Jones: via his shares and his position in oily Reform PLC.

As we’ve seen for decades globally, Parry-Jones is yet another fossil-backed politician working against any regulation that would curb emissions. Reform PLC is just the newest, shinier front for oil in the UK.

And Hayward picks up on Parry-Jones’ actual lack of research, too:

I don’t want to preach to a seasoned investor but clearly UK net zero policy isn’t the only determinant on the share price of a Houston based oil company. The UK market is less than 10% of their revenue (did you not read your shareholders report?).

Hayward also skewers the MS and his party’s refusal to engage, before throwing an online tantrum:

You can’t whine about a lack of research while refusing to engage. …

You talk about wanting scrutiny, but your party is the only one which relentlessly declines interviews and questions. I have literally written books about the failings of Labour, Plaid and the Tories, and they still grant interviews. By contrast your party, who say they advocated debate and free speech, relentlessly hide and dodge questions. If you actually welcome scrutiny, why not do an interview with me?

Second heatwave in 3 weeks highlights urgent need for stronger, faster climate action

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By Cameron Baillie

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Senior figures at Britain’s internal security agency MI5 lied repeatedly in court over the case of an abusive neo-Nazi agent. Deputy investigatory powers commissioner Sir John Goldring has slammed a number of senior figures at MI5 over their behaviour.

As the Canary reported on 17 March 2026, the spy agency has been ordered to pay compensation to a woman:

coercively controlled, abused, and attacked with a machete by a neo-Nazi agent it employed.

The fascist agent also:

had fantasies about eating children.

Goldring’s new report is scathing, confirming BBC revelations that:

MI5 lied to the courts, something the security service vehemently denied.

Goldring, who was ordered to investigate allegations MI5 had lied in its testimony in the High Court, said:

MI5 recognises without hesitation the seriousness of our failings in these proceedings […]

I repeat my previous apologies to both courts for the incorrect evidence that was provided, and for our slowness in recognising what had happened.

The details beggar belief. The BBC said:

The investigation examined how MI5 gave false evidence to three courts about having kept to its core secrecy policy – known as ‘neither confirm nor deny’ (NCND) – about the agent status of the violent neo-Nazi informant.

Adding:

MI5 claimed it had maintained NCND and, consequently, the courts allowed it to keep information secret from a woman who was abused by the informant.

The report found MI5’s claims to be untrue.

Senior figures at MI5 lied

The report found numerous senior figures deceived the courts. One senior MI5 officer, known as Officer 2 had:

repeatedly told “lies” and these “formed the foundation of MI5’s false account” to the three courts. He “put forward a wholly fictitious account” in which he denied ever telling me that X [the neo-Nazi agent] was an MI5 agent.

Another senior officer, known as Officer 3 had:

“misled” his own colleagues and did not act in good faith. The report concludes that he “bears considerable responsibility for the continuation of MI5’s falsehood” because he “misrepresented” what Officer 2 had said to him. He was not “truthful” about warnings he received from colleagues.

The spy agency’s lies could have had a serious negative effect on the case brought by the woman, named Beth, abused by their agent:

The courts accepted MI5’s arguments. This meant Beth and everyone else was banned from ever officially being told X was an agent and denied access to the key evidence. She was left at a serious disadvantage and may have lost the case.

The BBC reported:

A panel of senior high court judges, including the Lady Chief Justice, will now have to decide whether to initiate contempt of court proceedings against any MI5 officers or MI5 itself.

They added that:

Given the find that lies were told, there is also the potential for a criminal inquiry.

As the Canary has pointed out in regard to this case, MI5’s website claims its mission is:

to keep the country safe, both now and in the future.

How recruiting and retaining a far-right neo-Nazi sympathiser with a known fetish for violence squares with these aims is unclear. But it is clear that it is long past time the security services were subject to proper democratic scrutiny.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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In May 2026, Holocaust survivors and descendants wrote an open letter to Keir Starmer for his war on anti-genocide speech and protest. As with their earlier letters, Starmer ignored it. But how will Burnham act…

Now, the group has written to incoming PM Andy Burnham to demand the reversal of Starmer’s police-state policies targeting protest and speech against genocide and in support of Palestinians. And the Jewish activists are asking, “Will Burnham ignore us like Starmer did?”

The full letter, which points out the prominence of Jews in anti-genocide protest and the fact the only abuse they receive is from Israel fanatics, reads:

Andy Burnham MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Burnham,

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How the Labour Government responds to Jews who support Palestinian rights

We are Jewish and write as members of Holocaust Survivors and Descendants against Gaza Genocide (HSD), Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL – formerly Jewish Voice for Labour) and Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

Since October 2023, when the Israeli Government’s retaliation to Hamas’s murderous attack on 7th October was brutal and indiscriminate, we have marched along with the large Jewish Bloc on the Palestine Marches in support of Palestinians in Gaza, calling out what we firmly believe has become a clear case of genocide. We eagerly await your premiership in the light of your recent call for stronger action against Israel along with your apology for the Labour Government’s slowness to call for a ceasefire.

Our immediate concern relates to the letter from Sarah Jones at the Home Office in response to a letter to the Prime Minister from 44 Holocaust survivors and descendants. The letter criticised statements by Keir Starmer and others that linked attacks on Jewish persons and property to pro-Palestine marches. Symptomatic of the dismissive, we would say insulting, letter to the survivors and descendants is Ms Jones’s attempt to reframe their experience of harassment on the Marches. As noted in the response on 10 July from the survivors and descendants:

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“… you fail to mention that this [hostility] has come not from our fellow pro-Palestinian protesters, from whom we have received only goodwill and support but from the pro- Israel counter-demonstrators”.

There are several Jewish ‘communities’ and a wide diversity of views on Israel among Jewish people in the UK and we trust that you will meet with us and other members of the Jewish Bloc in the near future.

There has been an increasingly charged disagreement over the interpretation of antisemitism, since 2015 in particular. Supporters of Israel have found a useful tool in the definition of antisemitism by the IHRA, long discredited among most Jewish scholars – and its original author, Kenneth Stern, who has vociferously condemned its abuse as a weapon to curtail free speech. See this article for example here in the Guardian from 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect

In effect many of the examples in the IHRA encourage the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel. The Labour Party’s treatment of allegations of antisemitism, guided by this conflation, was deeply flawed and resulted in around 70 Jewish members of the Party being accused in some way of antisemitism. Remarkably, even questioning the Labour Party’s interpretation or its processes was itself ammunition for a charge of antisemitism.

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This false interpretation has been destructive in its effects. It has spoilt relations between all communities, has given Israel a protective cloak around the brutality of its actions, has undermined the right to freedom of speech and the right to protest and, we now believe, is contributing to an increase in antisemitism by appearing to privilege Jews above other ethnic groups.

We hope you will oppose any further attempts to muzzle the Palestine marches.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Manson (Co Chair JVL)
Leah Levane (Co Chair JVL)
Stephen Kapos and Agnes Kory (both child survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust)
Richard Kuper (JVL and JJP)

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So far the signs are not promising — Burnham has approved of Starmer’s war on UK freedoms for Israel and shows every sign of going even further.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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A self-funding businessman is seizing on messy scandals to try and topple President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate for a deep-red House seat.

Republican Daniel Keenan is making a hard run at former Sheriff Mark Lamb in Arizona’s 5th District, pouring over $1.6 million of his own cash into the effort and raising questions about Lamb’s fitness for office following a string of sex scandals. The race will test whether GOP voters care more about the allegations — or whether Trump’s support is enough to get him across the finish line.

A multi-part Arizona Republic investigation found that Lamb allegedly engaged in a yearslong pattern of sending sexual images and instigating intimate encounters between him, his wife and others. One woman involved, Jillian Stannard, alleged Lamb encouraged her husband to have sex with other women, including Lamb’s wife. She also alleged that Lamb threatened her, saying there would be consequences, when Stannard raised concerns to leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which both Lamb and Stannard were members. Screenshots the Republic obtained of messages with another woman, Tammy Peacock, suggest Lamb — then a sitting county sheriff — threatened to leverage Arizona’s revenge porn law against her. In a statement, Lamb spokesperson Ed Morabito said “these allegations are false and come from long-discredited political opponents.”

Reached for comment on Wednesday, Stannard said her allegations reported by the Republic are “accurate and true.” Peacock passed away in 2021.

“A guy that goes around and says, ‘God, family freedom,’ is sending pictures of himself and nude pictures of his wife, encouraging his friends and his employees to have sexual relations with his wife,’” Keenan said in an interview this week of the allegations, repeating similar attacks he’s made in campaign advertising. “That’s not ‘God, family freedom.’ That shows you’re morally broke.”

Morabito, the Lamb spokesperson, noted the candidate has Trump’s endorsement and is “confident Republican voters will stand with him.”

“[Keenan] is spending millions attacking a Republican and not a dime attacking Democrats. His name ID is less than 30 percent and he is not a serious factor in this race,” Morabito said in a statement.

Janel Lamb, Mark Lamb’s wife, said in a May Facebook post that “a massive smear campaign is certainly not going to stop us from doing what we know is right.”

The race’s outcome will reveal the power of Trump’s endorsement in a deep-red Phoenix-area district. Already this year, GOP primary voters have been willing to accept scandal-ridden candidates favored by Trump. In Texas, Republican primary voters nominated scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

“I’ve never seen in Republican politics in my life a stronger endorsement than Trump’s,” said former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who represented the 5th District. “And I think that the rank-and-file within the Republican party would rather do anything than cross Trump.”

Keenan has put more than $1.6 million of his own money into his campaign and is using that to make sure voters know all about the reporting. His campaign has spent more than $1.8 million on TV advertising listing the allegations in the Republic, is also hosting numerous town halls a week and has put significant cash into mail advertising as well. Meanwhile, Lamb’s campaign hasn’t put a penny onto the airwaves, according to the tracking service AdImpact.

Lamb has also faced scrutiny for spending much of his time on a ranch in Tennessee and not in the district he is seeking to represent. And Keenan is hitting him over another top issue for Arizona Republicans: Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

“[Lamb] betrayed our president after the 2020 election,” Keenan told POLITICO. “However he feels about election fraud,
he testified for Democrats saying there was no fraud and that President Trump lost the election. I think all of that is disqualifying to represent this district.”

There is some evidence that the pitch to voters is landing. An internal poll from Keenan’s campaign obtained by POLITICO shows Keenan leading Lamb 42 percent to 40 percent, narrowly within the poll’s margin of error. The campaign’s earlier polling from late June had shown Lamb leading 43 percent to 35 percent.

Keenan said he has been in touch with the White House about his bid and made the case that he has always been a steadfast supporter of Trump. He also said Georgia businessman Rick Jackson’s recent gubernatorial primary win without Trump’s endorsement shows he can win without the president’s nod — even if it’s hard.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Still, Lamb’s allies are taking notice of Keenan’s rise. The Washington-based Club For Growth poured $250,000 into pro-Lamb advertising in recent weeks, which Keenan says is a sign of Lamb’s vulnerability: “There’d be no reason for them to do that if he wasn’t in trouble,” Keenan said. Asked about the spending, a spokesperson for the Club pointed to their own internal poll from a few weeks ago showing Lamb up by a 34-point margin.

Lamb was never charged with a crime for his alleged actions. An investigation by the Pinal County attorney found no criminal wrongdoing, though it also concluded a previous county attorney failed to adequately investigate the accusations.

“I know him. I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him time and time again stand for the right things,” said Tyler Farnsworth, a Republican candidate for the Arizona House in Gilbert. “My belief is that the voters here in CD5 have seen who Mark Lamb is.”

“I tend to believe what I see out of the legal system, the justice system, much more than some reporting that may have some very intentional bias toward it,” he added.

The women in the Republic investigation said they also repeatedly raised concerns to Latter-day Saint church leaders. It is unclear what disciplinary action, if any, the church took: The church does not publicly disclose membership status or disciplinary proceedings. The church did not respond to a request for comment.

The stories sent waves through the district’s large Latter-day Saint community. Arizona’s 5th District — sometimes colloquially called the “Mormon district” — includes Gilbert, Queen Creek and parts of Mesa, all areas with significant Latter-day Saint populations.

“When you see the picture of him in a baptismal outfit, with the brother he baptized, and he’s having an open marriage with his wife and this man, it doesn’t seem to uphold our gospel standards,” Suzanne Lunt, an independent voter in Gilbert, said of the allegations. Lunt helped organize Latter-day Saints against Trump in 2024.

In late May, as the Republic’s reporting rocked the valley, a group of prominent Latter-day Saint politicians and strategists coalesced to try and force Lamb out of the race, noting Lamb could make the seat a vulnerability for Republicans in November, or drag down statewide Republicans in the crucial race for governor. But that push tapered off after it became clear Lamb — or his supporters — wouldn’t budge.

“More of an effort hasn’t been made because he doesn’t have a serious opponent well-funded enough to make the numbers close enough,” said Tyler Montague, a Mesa-based political operative who is a Latter-day Saint. “That’s why there isn’t any real movement elsewhere.”

Keenan begs to differ, arguing that Lamb’s scandals could put the district that went for Trump by 20 points “at risk.”

“I don’t actually like [Keenan],” said Amy Wudel, a Republican in Gilbert. “He’s sort of on the extreme side, from typically what I would vote for.” But Wudel, who worked for an independent challenger to Rep. Andy Biggs in the 5th District last cycle, will vote for Keenan because “I do not vote for candidates who do not display the character worthy of office.”

Keenan still faces an uphill battle. His own poll shows the huge name ID deficit he faces — when voters were asked their opinion of Keenan and Lamb, one-third said they were not sure about Keenan, while only 11 percent said the same of Lamb.

It’s unclear how much the mudslinging will land with voters. The Arizona legislature moved the primary date up from early August to late July, meaning thousands of voters already cast a ballot through mail-in balloting or early voting. And the timing of the primary could make it a low-turnout affair: Because many Phoenix-area public schools return in late July or early August, many families are trying to beat the heat by getting in late-summer travel.

“This time of year, any given week, the pews are empty on Sunday and everyone is in Show Low, Flagstaff or San Diego,” said Chad Heywood, a Republican strategist who is neutral in the race.

Meanwhile, Lamb’s supporters are bullish, especially after Trump reinforced his endorsement of Lamb in a social media post Sunday without addressing the scandals. To show his dominance in the 5th District, supporters point to the 2024 election. Lamb ran for Senate, and even as he was being trounced in the primary by Kari Lake, he still managed to win his home of Pinal County by 25 points. One ally also pointed out that Lamb received a standing ovation during a June gathering of Republican women, long after the allegations became public. And his allies in Congress are sticking by his side: Lamb’s campaign sent out fundraising solicitations from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in recent weeks.

Even Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz), who previously said Lamb’s activity “borders on immoral” and that Lamb should drop out of the race if he isn’t willing to address the accusations, is now keeping the race at arms length.

“I stay out of [District] 5, because it’s not my district,” Schweikert said in an interview at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “If that’s good enough for his voters, I mean, they’re the ones in the district.”

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In February, the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer wiped the floor with Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin in the Gorton & Denton by-election. Goodwin proved to be such a sore loser that people started calling him ‘Matt Badloss’. And now, Badloss has saddled up his loser pony to take another tour around the rodeo of humiliation:

Matt Goodwin now on a tear about how the Gorton and Denton by-election, which he lost, by a lot, was "rigged".

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

Matt Goodwin: tears of a clown

As a reminder, here’s what the results looked like in the Gorton & Denton by-election:

The Green Party didn't just win in Gorton & Denton, they beat Reform and Labour into a distant second and third – congratulations Greens!

By @willem_moore_uk https://t.co/iba6aIoRZa

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) February 27, 2026

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In the aftermath of the by-election, Goodwin and his dirtbag colleagues began claiming there was some sort of fix:

Straight into TRUMP MODE, blame cheating.

You pathetic little sore loser. You lost because you're a prick, not because of cheating. Because enough good people saw through your bull shit.

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— OGDad (@OGDAD__) February 27, 2026

Matt Goodwin blames loss to white woman on Muslims

As we noted at the time:

You’ll note Farage blames two things here:

• Sectarian voting (by which he means Muslims refusing to vote for an openly Islamophobic candidate).
• Cheating (by which he means the Green Party being better at politics).

Blaming Muslims was an interesting choice given that Gorton & Denton is majority Christian. Reform also spoke about ‘family voting’, which is when a husband escorts his wife into a booth to tell her how to vote. This was a convoluted conspiracy, because Reform had to argue that culturally conservative Muslims were forcing their wives to vote for the culturally progressive Greens – a party led by a gay man. It was insulting to everyone involved and nobody bought it.

In March, it was confirmed that this family voting conspiracy was what we said it was in February:

So-called ‘family voting’ exposed as a Reform con job

Later in March, Goodwin would publish a heavily-criticised book that was riddled with factual errors – a book clearly written by ChatGPT. This is why people call him ‘MattGPT’ in addition to Matt Badloss.

The MattGPT affair was so embarrassing that Goodwin’s GB News colleagues joined in making fun of him. All in all, then, it’s not been Goodwin’s year. So of course he’d resort to lies and conspiracies to make himself feel better.

Cry baby

Here are some other highlights from Badloss’s speech:

There was also a line in Matt Goodwin's speech about sending £11m worth of condoms to Iran, which as far as I can tell is entirely made up. Perhaps a hallucination. #CPACGB

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

We assume he got this claim from the same AI tool that made up the nonsense in his book.

Goodwin also said:

Matt Goodwin channels Tony Blair, saying the only three words he cares about are "deport, deport , deport".

Says he wants illegal immigrants immediately detained, "ideally in Labour or Green Party areas".

— Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) July 16, 2026

More politics of hate from a spiteful loser.

Thank God this man never won in Gorton & Denton!

And you can thank whichever god you like too, because it clearly wasn’t just Muslims who recognised this chump as the fraud that he is.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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