The Royal Navy’s spokesperson has refused to confirm whether UK sailors are aboard American ships bound for Iran. This is despite one ship in the USS Gerald R. Ford’s carrier group always having a British navigator, according to the Royal Navy’s own website.

The denials persist despite previous confirmations by the Defence Secretary himself – albeit to a much more pliable media outlet than the Canary: Murdoch’s Sky News.

The USS Gerald Ford Carrier group is Iran-bound in the Mediterranean. The supercarrier and its accompanying destroyers are headed for the Suez canal. The group will join with other US warships in the Gulf as the US threatens to attack Iran.

British navigator

The Ford has been in the Caribbean for several months. The carrier took part in the kidnap of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

Star and Stripes broke down the carrier group’s composition:

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and presumably its escorts, the destroyers USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, transited the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday, photographs posted by local ship watchers show.

As the Royal Navy’s own website bragged in September 2025:

USS Winston S Churchill is always deployed with a British navigator as a nod to the destroyer’s name but also to the close bond between the United States and the UK.

Note: “always”.

UK personnel may have been involved in the Venezuela raid in larger numbers. We asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about Venezuela operations in November 2025. We couldn’t get a straight answer then either.

Multiple UK personnel aboard

In November 2025, Sky News reported:

A small number of British military personnel – single digits – are understood to be deployed on USS Gerald R Ford, a giant US aircraft carrier, and other warships that form part of the carrier strike group that has been sent towards Venezuela.

The Murdoch-owned outlet said:

The defence secretary was asked whether these British personnel would be allowed to take part in any US attack on the country.

Healy replied:

We will make sure as we always do that our British military are consistent with international humanitarian law.

In terms of military and intelligence operations and sharing with the US, they are out closest security defence and intelligence partner and they will remain so.

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Iran armada

The Canary asked the MoD if this was still the case on 23 February:

Can I confirm it is still practice/policy to have a British navigator on the USS Winston Churchill? And that there is one aboard currently?

I can only point you in the direction of a recent PQ [parliamentary question] on this topic, which is below.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether UK armed forces personnel are embedded in the US Gerald Ford carrier strike group in the Caribbean.

Defence minister Al Carns replied on 12 January:

Featured image via the Canary

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden has called for the annulment of any trade deals arranged by disgraced Starmer adviser Peter Mandelson. The call comes after Mandelson’s arrest on suspicion of leaking UK secrets to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein.

Mandelson’s known closeness to Epstein did not prevent Starmer appointing him as a top Downing Street adviser, and as UK ambassador to the US. That closeness – ardour is more accurate – saw Mandelson sending Epstein hugely lucrative ‘insider trading’ information in emails exposed by the latest Epstein files release.

In an ‘X’ post linking to coverage of Mandelson’s arrest yesterday, Dearden wrote:

This guy has crafted some incredibly damaging trade and investment deals in the last 12 months, opening Britain to greater domination by Big Tech and Big Pharma. Those deals now must be reopened & rescinded.

https://t.co/nzMZyQmurG

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— Nick Dearden (@nickdearden75) February 23, 2026

Mandelson had a wide reach

Dearden did not elaborate on what mechanisms could be used to rescind the deals, but he has advocated for US companies to be barred completely from European and UK contracts to rein in Trump’s global trade war. In the same article, he also correctly points out that trade has always been a weapon for the rich to use against poor people:

Trade has always been a weapon used by the rich to disadvantage the poor, and free market rules are always waived when the interests of the rich are at stake. There has never really been a distinction between geopolitics and the international economy.

But the rescinding should not just be of trade deals between states. Mandelson’s client Palantir, the US spy-software company, was awarded a massive contract to handle NHS data. The Green party has demanded an investigation into that same contract. Palantir was also awarded a £240m Ministry of Defence contract – without any competitive process. In fact, Epstein had invested in the company.

But this should not just apply to deals brokered by Mandelson. The former prince Andrew, whose appointment as trade envoy Mandelson pushed has also been arrested for leaking similar information to Epstein. Anything touched by either man is irrevocably tainted and must be undone.

Featured image via the Canary

Speaking to Zack Polanski, Green candidate Hannah Spencer has explained what’s motivating her to run in Gorton & Denton:

Green Party candidate for Gorton and Denton Hannah Spencer,

“It’s a really natural thing for anyone to assume that, oh I could never do that, I could never be a politician, I don’t know about politics, I don’t have this background”

“But all the skills you get in life, are the… pic.twitter.com/1uX9hW2HI7

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) February 24, 2026

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Spencer also noted that the “shit about me online” comes from a vocal minority.

Hannah Spencer: “I’ve got to find a way to do this”

Explaining how she motivates herself, Spencer explained:

This is kind of what life is. A lot of us that do jobs where you’re often kind of in the unknown and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before but I think a lot of us have more skills than we realise for doing stuff like this.

And I think it’s a really natural thing for anyone to assume that I could never do that. I could never be a politician. I don’t know about politics. I don’t have this background. It’s like, but all the skills that you get in life are the exact skills that you need from doing this.

This is a leap into the unknown. But so was me training to be a plumber. So was when I trained to be a gas engineer. So is every time I go to a boiler that I’ve never seen before in my life. You just see what’s in front of you and you think I’ve got to find a way to do this.

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Polanski cut in to ask:

Wait, so you’re actually a plumber?

Spencer responded:

I’m going to set the record straight here and say, yes, I am a plumber.

Polanski later said:

There’s an Instagram post of where you went into the plastering college, and what had your… colleagues done for you?

Spencer explained:

Yeah, so I’d had the day off really kindly from my college tutor and they’d made a sign out of a scrap of plasterboard, and it said ‘Ministry of Plumbing and Plastering Hannah Spencer MP’. And they were all so proud of it, and I had a big picture next to me, and I was just smiling in such a cheesy way, and it’s really nice because there is a lot of shit about me online.

A lot of it’s very misogynistic, very sexist, like the idea that a woman couldn’t possibly do a job like this is still commonly held by some people, not the majority of people, but a very vocal minority. And so to go into this group of men who are really similar to me, like from a similar background, and just be accepted by them and not only accepted, but encouraged as well. And for them just to be like, you’ve got this, you’re absolutely going to smash it. Just, yeah, it just made my heart burst. I love that.

Featured image via Zack Polanski

A Liverpool player shared an exceptional experience during the holy month of Ramadan. Reds’ left back Milos Kerkez fasted for a full day for the first time alongside his Egyptian teammate Mohamed Salah, a move that garnered widespread attention on social media.

Hungarian player Kerkez posted a picture on his Instagram story, indicating that he was fasting for the first time ever. He captioned the post, “My first day of Ramadan,” adding a humorous emoji. Salah then shared the post, documenting his teammate’s participation in this special moment.

Liverpool’s squad includes several Muslim players, among them French defender Ibrahima Konaté and striker Hugo Ekitike, who recently stated that he observes Ramadan, considering it an opportunity to strengthen his spiritual connection and reinforce his personal discipline:

Kerkez’ experience comes within a broader context, as the English Premier League has adopted a special protocol during Ramadan, allowing matches to be temporarily paused to give Muslim players the opportunity to break their fast at sunset, a move that has been widely praised. In contrast, other European leagues have taken different stances, most notably the French Ligue 1, which has not adopted a similar protocol, sparking debate about the situation of Muslim players during the holy month.

These contrasting initiatives reflect the different European approaches to dealing with religious sensitivities within stadiums, between those striving to provide a more inclusive environment and those adhering to traditional procedures that do not take such considerations into account.

Featured image via Instagram

It’s been revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) gave civil servants over £12.7 million in bonuses in the tax year 2024-2025.

The Telegraph revealed that the Department gave 86,757 junior members of staff an extra £141.10, totalling £12.7 million. This surpasses last year’s bonuses – totalling £11.2m paid for 82,526 members of staff.

Staggering DWP staff bonuses

To add to this, almost 200 senior civil servants received an average bonus of £2,122.35. However, some got even more than this. The permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, and other executives, Amanda Reynolds and Catherine Vaughan, all got somewhere between £10,000 and £15,000 extra last year.

Schofield is one of the people responsible for many DWP failures, including the constant mishandling of the carers scandal. In January he was forced to answer to the Work and Pensions committee for the department’s part in demonising carers.

Chair of the committee Debbie Abrahams asked him how the DWP could justify not making any changes and the department’s attitude towards carers. Steve Darling MP accused him of talking “blancmange”.

To this, Schofield gave a ridiculous soundbite

We care, we deliver we adapt. We work together, we value everybody

Schofield resigned recently, but this was claimed to be for personal reasons, not, of course, him taking responsibility.

DWP defends itself, naturally

On top of these cash bonuses, 57,785 junior civil servants were given reward vouchers of around £39.44. This added up to an extra £4.4 million.

The DWP have, of course, defended this. A spokesperson said:

The DWP is the largest government department with over 90,000 employees who work to deliver vital services to millions of people, including benefits, pensions and employment support.

It is important the Civil Service is able to remunerate its staff in line with the private sector to attract and retain the best talent, as it delivers on the Government’s priorities to create opportunity and reform the welfare system.

It is important that people are paid for their work. But Peter Schofield’s salary last year was between £205,000 and £210,000. This rose from between £195,000 and £200,000 the year before. That’s more than enough “remuneration” without an extra 10k on top.

Staff bonuses whilst disabled people are penalised

It’s disgusting that so many people whose jobs are to make disabled and poor people’s lives hell are then being rewarded for that. It’s like saying “well done on kicking that sick scrounger off the benefits they need to stay alive!”

But it’s especially vile when you consider that the narrative being pushed by the department is that their expenditure is so high due to benefit fraud. £12.7 million is no drop in the ocean, especially from a department that claims the only way to save money is to cut benefits.

From April, new, disabled Universal Credit claimants who can’t work will receive half as much as current claimants. This means that instead of £429.80 a month, new claimants will get just £217.26. That’s a loss of £212.54 a month and £2550.48 a year. But hey at least they can afford to give their staff a nice cushy bonus.

If the DWP were so desperate to save money, staff bonuses would surely be the way to go. However, if you’re gonna do a job that vile, you’re not gonna do it without a decent financial incentive.

It just proves how fucking awful the DWP is that the only way they can keep staff is essentially through bribing them to stay.

Featured image via the Canary

A murder victim’s disability received fleeting mentions in court when it emerged Zahwa Mukhtar’s hearing aid was found by police, where she died outside a Romford care home.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, witness Abigail Winter said the 27-year-old was “acting crazy”, “screaming”, and “shouting” along the road when she encountered her in Hackney.

During cross-examination, defence barrister, Michael Borrelli KC, asked if Abigail appreciated Zahwa had “serious hearing problems”. 

“No,” she stated. “I just thought she was very loud.”

Zahwa Mukhtar trial: ‘it happened so quickly’

At age three, Zahwa contracted meningitis, which left her deaf in one ear. 

A hearing aid, recovered from her ear, was one of several of Zahwa’s items retrieved from outside Chadwell House care home where she died in the early hours of Saturday 16 August. Her shoes, an earring, a fake eyelash and a brown and leopard print crossbody handbag were also recovered.

The aspiring accountant fell backwards from standing after a punch to the neck by the defendant — Duane Owusu, of Althorne Way, Dagenham — who denies murder and manslaughter. She suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injury.

After watching distressing footage of the incident, tearfully Abigail said: “It happened so quickly. It was a blur. When he pushed me away, I didn’t see him hit her.”

Everyone was “screaming and shouting” to return to Zahwa, but Owusu said no, Abigail told the court. 

Nonetheless, the driver drove back towards Zahwa on two occasions — the second U-turn is what led to the car being stopped by police nearby on suspicion of drugs. 

The police stop had finished by about 5.20am and Zahwa was eventually found unresponsive by an officer at 5.31am after being alerted to her laying motionless on the ground by two separate passersby.

Evidence continues

When asked by prosecutor, Henrietta Paget KC, why she didn’t tell police about Zahwa, Abigail replied: “In my head, at first, I thought she was just going to get up and walk down while we were there, but I didn’t want to stand in front of them and say what had happened because I didn’t want them to think I was crossing everyone.”

“You didn’t want anyone to think you were a grass?” Judge Richard Marks KC interjected. Abigail agreed.

Footage from a Ring video doorbell footage captured Abigail and Paige talking while walking away. In it Abigail can be heard saying, “See, someone like that, she’ll fuck you and cry rape,” referring to Zahwa.

Mr Borrelli, defending, questioned what she meant. “That she was acting crazy and when I said about her being in the car and she kept saying she didn’t say what she said. She was crazy. She was acting mad.”

“Would you have made a comment like that about somebody you knew had been seriously hurt?” Mr Borrelli enquired. 

“No, definitely not,” she answered.

When she later learned Zahwa had died, Abigail remembered her and Paige “crying for hours”. 

“We were being sick. We were just really stressing.”

Events that night

Zahwa had travelled in a silver Mercedes with Abigail, Owusu, 36, and others, towards Dagenham after encountering the group for the first time in Hackney.

She had “just appeared in the group”, Abigail said, and later began getting involved in arguments between Owusu, known as “Nasty”, and the other men. Abigail didn’t believe the arguments were “serious” but told Zahwa to stay out of them.

She told jurors that Zahwa was “making a rubbing motion” and threatening to stab (“nank”) people in the car.

She added: “Her hands were down. It looked like she was sharpening something.” 

There has been no evidence to suggest Zahwa was in possession of a weapon.

It was agreed everyone, including Zahwa and the defendant, had taken nitrous oxide using balloons. At the house rave Abigail and the others had been at, she had taken up to two pills and several “small bumps” of cocaine. 

The plan was to go home after being in and around Stoke Newington Road, but Zahwa remained with them. 

“She was alright at first,” Abigail explained, but then she began arguing with Paige. “I’m not sure what it started over, but I remember them shouting at each other.”

“[Zahwa] went for Paige in the car and they had a little scuffle in the back. She grabbed her hair and started pulling it.”

The car pulled over, but Abigail was unsuccessful stopping the altercation. However, Zahwa apologised and was initially calm for a short time before “going mad”, Abigail alleged. 

“She was biting her nails and spitting them at us and kept saying, ‘White bitches’, ‘White trash’.” 

Her nails were aimed towards the floor of the car at Abigail’s legs, she clarified.

“The next thing I remember is she went to take a video of us.” 

Video evidence given

The seconds-long clip, a short pan of the car filmed from the back of the Mercedes at 4.33am, had previously been shown at The Old Bailey. On Tuesday, the prosecution drew attention to an “annoyed female voice that says, ‘Ah, please stop it’,” before the video cuts off. 

The video was recovered from Zahwa’s iPhone alongside photos of her leaving home at 7pm on Friday 15 August, another in Palatine Road shortly after 11pm and inside the pub shortly after midnight on Saturday 16 August.

Abigail continued: “Nasty said pull over the car and get her out because she was causing too much trouble in the car. I think he just said, ‘Pull over’.” 

“In what tone?” Ms Paget quizzed, but Abigail couldn’t remember.

She said: “He tried to tell her to get out the car, she wouldn’t get out. He threw her phone on the grass and said, ‘Go and get your phone’. Then he was trying to push her and she was hanging on to him.”

Zahwa Mukhtar trial continues

She added: “I just remember him getting out the car and I got out and ran round. [Zahwa] was out of the car and [Owusu] was out of the car. I ran round and he was shouting. 

“I didn’t want him to do anything or her to do anything, so I grabbed him to say ‘Stop! What are you doing?’ and he pushed me away. The next thing I see, she’s on the floor.”

The defence claimed that Owusu tried to get out of the car and stand up, so Zahwa, who had been sitting on his lap, “tips out backwards”. 

Mr Borrelli added: “He continued to get out of the car and then stumbles and trips over her.”

The trial continues. 

Featured image via the Canary

Inaccurate, misleading and intrusive press reporting is causing serious and ongoing harm to individuals and deepening tensions between communities. That’s the verdict of the Press Recognition Panel’s (PRP) 10th Annual Report on the Recognition System.

The report illustrates how irresponsible press coverage is being amplified online and across social media platforms. And this continues to stoke divisions and hatred, and lead to community tensions.

Stories circulate far beyond their original context, with misleading headlines repeated and reframed at scale. This is creating patterns of harm that impact a wide range of people, including women and children, and particularly marginalised groups.

More than 35 stakeholders responded to the PRP’s recent Call for Information. These included regulators, publishers, journalists, academics, campaigners, civil society organisations, and members of the public.

Groups including Amnesty International UK, the Runnymede Trust, Imkaan, the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Sport in Mind, and Trans Media Watch, reported widespread impacts and a lack of effective routes to redress.

Public wants better press regulation

Public polling reviewed in the report shows strong and consistent support for regulation independent of government and the press industry. Over half (54%) want a regulator independent of both, 22% favouring a statutory model. But only 3% support an industry-run body, an example of which would be the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

More than a decade has passed since the establishment of the Recognition System following the Leveson Inquiry. Yet Impress remains the only regulator to have demonstrated that it is independent, has proper funding, and is able to protect the public. Most major national publishers continue to operate outside this system, relying instead on membership of a trade complaints body or in-house arrangements.

This means that, across much of the press, accountability is not independently assessed, systemic issues are rarely subject to formal investigation, and access to low-cost arbitration is limited. This creates a system in which only the very wealthy can seek redress through the courts.

Legislative incentives designed by parliament to encourage participation in the Recognition System were never commenced and have since been repealed. This leaves the public with uneven access to redress and justice, and with limited protection against modern press harm. The Labour Party was once a staunch supporter of the Leveson framework. But it has yet to articulate a clear policy direction since taking office.

Kathryn Cearns, chair of the Press Recognition Panel, said:

The substantial harm caused by inaccurate, misleading and intrusive press reporting to individuals and communities across the UK is clearly evident. Lives are being destroyed, intruded upon, and marginalised groups in particular face sustained and enduring attacks.

Digital distribution, algorithmic amplification, and AI-assisted production, coupled with weak and inconsistent oversight, are magnifying this problem, sowing division and stoking community tensions.

The existing fully independent Recognition System remains operational. It protects the public through clear and consistent complaints processes, high standards, structural safeguards, and an independently assessed arbitration scheme that offers low-cost redress.

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Yet despite this, most news providers have chosen to remain outside the system, overseeing their own output, leaving ordinary people at the mercy of political and industry choices.

The PRP is calling for new incentives to encourage publishers to join a recognised, truly independent regulator, reform existing bodies, or form new bodies that could apply for recognition.

Featured image via the Canary

Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform mayor for Lincolnshire, has corresponded with the head of an American oil and gas giant in the hopes of opening up the UK to fracking. The environmentally ruinous practice was effectively banned in Britain back in 2019 due to questions over its safety.

On 24 February, the Guardian reported that Jenkyns emailed US fracking firm Heyco Energy to ask how she:

could help with your recent gas find in my county.

In 2025, Heyco’s UK subsidiary – Egdon Resources – published a major gas discovery beneath Lincolnshire’s Gainsborough Trough. However, scientists have known of the wider gas field itself for over a decade.

Unfortunately for Jenkyns, she apparently forgot that the majority of the mayoral authority’s emails are a matter of public record. As such, a freedom of information request revealed her courtship of the American fracking giant.

‘Confidential’ (or not)

In spite of fracking’s well-known potential to cause earthquakes, Jenkyns is reportedly keen to frack her own county. Likewise, and in defiance of the de-facto UK ban on the practice, the Reform mayor has met with fracking companies at least four times in the last 8 months.

The Guardian reported that:

In a presentation marked “Confidential”, Heyco downplayed concerns about toxic chemicals found in fracking fluid. It also shared a list of rebuttals to key criticisms of fracking and its benefits over renewable forms of energy, which was tailored to the Gainsborough Trough project, the documents obtained by the Guardian show.

Jenkyns said she was “very supportive of fracking” in her message asking how she could help the company, sent to Egdon’s general inbox in June last year. The company’s CEO, Mark Abbott, responded 11 minutes later, offering to meet her to “discuss the potential for gas in Lincolnshire and the surrounding area”.

In a Facebook post on the same day as this meeting, Jenkyns championed the exploitation of the Gainsborough gas as a “no-brainer.”

After the meeting, Abbott emailed Jenkyns and other Greater Lincolnshire county officials. He confirmed that they discussed Gainsborough Trough’s shale gas, and methods for building public support for operations in the area.

Egdon Resources and George Yates

Abbott also mentioned the possibility of a US visit for Jenkyns, and offered to set up a meeting with Egdon Resources’ CEO, George Yates. Yates is a major supporter of the Republican Party, a Trump donor, and has links to the ‘climate-sceptic’ Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Inevitably, he’s also previously characterised the concept of net zero as pseudoscience. At the Lincolnshire Energy Conference in February 2025, Yates tried to blame soaring energy prices on the UK’s green energy initiatives. In reality, prices had ballooned due to a worldwide spike in the price of natural gas.

In October 2025, Jenkyns and several other officials met up with Yates. At that meeting, the CEO presented Egdon’s study of the:

potential positive impacts of shale gas development for Lincolnshire.

Jenkyns then held yet another meeting with Heyco itself in 2025.

Fracking – a Ponzi scheme

Jenkyns has positioned herself as an enemy of green energy projects in Lincolnshire. She’s previously lodged complaints about solar farms in the county, and described the concept of net zero as a “con”. This is deeply ironic, given the close resemblance of many US fracking firms to Ponzi schemes.

Back in 2018, the Financial Times investigated the capital generation of 48 major US frackers. It found that the firms are making virtually no real revenue whatsoever. Instead, the companies borrow massive amounts, and buy time by using more loans to pay off the interest on previous debt.

The same rationale would inevitably apply in the UK, as the Brighton Energy Cooperative reported:

1. Gas usage has fallen for years. EU gas demand is 10 percent less than it was in 2007. Indeed, the standard European price of gas is at half its 2013 level. It’s unlikely a gas shortage will manifest to life raft those ailing balance sheets. More and more (non UK) producers have gas on the market – which doesn’t augur well for domestic competitiveness.

2. Renewables are getting cheaper, with large-scale wind and solar 50-60% cheaper since 2013.

3. The UK can’t frack cheaply, since most reserves sit under population centres. Funnily enough, these centres are remarkably unwilling to submit to the various cowboy operations forced upon them and who demand they give up the integrity of their substrata. And all the various conflicts this throws up – legal cases, regulatory obstacles, planning enquiries, public enquiries, public relations men and women – are expensive. Sussex fracker UKOG, for example, maintains it spent £1m on evicting a protest camp two years ago, and that’s only the start of it.

That analysis was published in 2018 – however, the UK’s use of natural gas has only continued to plummet since then.

No comment

Jenkyns and Greater Lincolnshire council refused to offer comment on the Guardian’s exposé. However, Yates himself stated that:

I meet with people of many and varied views on all matters. I am a long-standing Republican supporter, always open and transparent with my political donations, as required by US law. We look to engage with policymakers and politicians of all persuasions to make the case for indigenous resources, which have clear security of supply, economic and environmental benefits compared to increasing reliance on imports.

Meanwhile, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s (ECIU) Alasdair Johnstone stated that:

The public continue to be sceptical about fracking, with polls showing support barely breaks 20%. The Conservatives when in Government learnt to their cost how contentious fracking is as an issue, bringing down a Prime Minister in the process. It is clear that other members of Reform are more wary of the issue, with Reform-led Lancashire and North Yorkshire councils both opposing fracking projects in their areas.

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Reform can barely even keep its own councillors in line, Jenkyns’ fracking dreams in Lincolnshire are a clear violation of public trust.

The people of the UK are opposed to fracking. Environmental science is opposed to fracking. Even basic economic analysis – that supposed guiding light of the right – is opposed to fracking. Jenkyns is engaged in a blatant cash-grab, and she’s willing to rob the very land of Lincolnshire to do it.

Featured image via the Canary

Prime Minister Keir Starmer posing for a selfie during a visit in Yorkshire last year (Alamy)

3 min read40 min

The reforms are expected to see the New Media Unit (NMU), set up by Labour officials following the party’s 2024 general election victory, given expanded capacity.

For several months, senior officials have been developing plans to improve the government’s digital communications operation, amid a belief that the way departments promote their messaging is slow, antiquated, and failing to keep pace with how people increasingly get information.

James Lyons, who recently served as Keir Starmer’s director of communications in Downing Street, said soon after leaving government that Whitehall communications had “barely changed” since the turn of the century, and that “too many teams” are not equipped for the “modern media environment”.

The work to modernise government messaging has been led by David Dinsmore, a former editor of The Sun who was appointed as the permanent secretary for government communications in November. In December, The Guardian reported that Dinsmore had addressed Starmer and his cabinet on the proposed changes.

PoliticsHome understands that the restructure is essentially finished and is set to take effect in the next few weeks.

It is expected to centre on bolstering the NMU, with staff and resources being redeployed from elsewhere in Whitehall, according to government sources. Based within the Cabinet Office, the NMU was set up by Labour officials soon after entering office to help the government reach voters on new forms of media.

The overhaul includes strengthening digital capabilities, coordinating messaging across departments, and reaching voters across an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

PoliticsHome understands that the government’s communications budget is not expected to increase as part of the renewed online push, but there will be a drive to make output more efficient by streamlining and reducing the number of digital campaigns.

The reforms also reflect rising concern within the government about the spread of false or inflammatory far-right content on social media and the need to better combat it.

A government source told PoliticsHome: “Government needs to keep up with the times and reach people where they are — especially when the likes of Tommy Robinson are dominating so much space online.

“There’s plenty of scope to do things more efficiently in a way that creates more engaging content for both traditional and social media at the same time.”

PoliticsHome revealed last year that the government had started posting on Reddit as part of its effort to use more modern forms of media to get cut-through. A government TikTok account was set up in 2024, followed in December by the Prime Minister joining the platform.

The government has also stepped up its collaboration with content creators, with influencers increasingly being invited to interview ministers and attend press conferences and ministerial visits. PoliticsHome revealed that No 10 hosted its first-ever reception for online influencers in Downing Street last year.

Kanishka Narayan, the minister for artificial intelligence, told PoliticsHome in October that the government had to do “a lot more to win the battle of content online”.

Empire Magazine‘s Amon Warmann has spoken out over the scandal of the BBC’s censorship of filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr’s expressions of solidarity with Palestinian people during the recent BAFTAs ceremony – and ITV’s censorship of Warmann’s own support for Palestine.

The BBC cut out Davies Jr’s “Free Palestine” from his acceptance speech for a BAFTA awarded for his film My Father’s Shadow. The censorship is yet another example of state and media censorship of support for Palestine and opposition to Israel’s Gaza genocide and occupation.

With a two-hour delay, the BBC could’ve removed the N-word slur from its BAFTA coverage, and chose not to.
Meanwhile, it cut Akinola Davies Jr saying “Free Palestine”. A clear editorial decision driven by fear of pro-Israel lobby groups. Shame on them.

The BBC cut the whole ending of Davies’s speech, preventing viewers hearing his solidarity with refugees as well as with Palestinians:

To the economic migrant, the conflict migrant, those under occupation, dictatorship, persecution and those experiencing genocide, you matter and your stories matter more than ever. Your dreams are an act of resistance.

To those watching at home, archive your loved ones, archive your stories yesterday, today and forever.

For Nigeria, for London, Congo, Sudan, free Palestine. Thank you.

Shame on the BBC indeed.

Featured image via the Canary