Politics
Kuenssberg just laundered a disgraced minister’s reputation
Josh Simons is the ex-cabinet minister who had to resign in disgrace because he’d been running a spying operation on UK journalists. Or, if you’re the BBC or in specific Laura Kuenssberg, he’s a naive young man who simply didn’t realise it was wrong to do blatantly bad things in secret:
‘I was naive,’ says minister who quit over Labour Together claims https://t.co/wRYLeZmJlW
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 28, 2026
What the above headline doesn’t convey is that Laura Kuenssberg raised the idea that Simons was simply “naive” and “foolish”. And she suggested it in one of those wretched moments in which an establishment journalist provides an answer and then asks the interviewee if they’d like to claim it as their own.
Young, dumb, and full of shit
Simons resigned from the government on 28 February. As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary:
Just in case readers are unfamiliar with the case, or are tempted to take anything Simons says at face value, Labour Together were caught paying tens of thousands to a firm run by a fellow Labour right-winger’s wife to spy on independent journalists.
This has been known for months, but the ‘mainstream’ media only started to pay attention when two of MSM-aligned journalists were targeted.
Additionally:
From 2022 to 2024, Simons ran the sabotage outfit, Labour Togther. He took over after disgraced Morgan McSweeney moved on to become Keir Starmer’s (now former) chief of staff.
As we reported, the Canary was among those who Labour Together spied on.
The following is the clip in which Kuenssberg furnished Simons with his excuses.
I am trying to imagine a universe in which an actually left-wing politician would spy on journalists, report them to the security services, belatedly get called out for doing so, and then Laura Kuenssberg would sympathetically ask “were you just a bit naive?” pic.twitter.com/GK1RT3ivMy
— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) March 28, 2026
In the clip above, Kuenssberg says:
Do you now think that you were naive? Do you think you were foolish? You say you weren’t meaning to do anything wrong – it wasn’t what you intended for a journalist to be investigated. But, if you went to a PR firm saying, ‘please, can you find out about where this story came from?’ – surely, actually, it was inevitable they were going to look into what the journalists had been doing, if you’re asking where a story comes from.
So looking back now, do you think, were you naive? Were you foolish? Were you mistaken? How do you characterise it?
We’re going to write this in capitals so it’s clear:
THIS IS NOT HOW INTERVIEWS SHOULD WORK.
You can’t give someone a helpful answer and then ask if they want to claim it.
And of course he did want to claim it, because it presented him in the most flattering light possible.
This was how he answered:
Absolutely, I was naive. And there’s a lot I’ve learned from it. And there’s things that I would have done differently.
And this is how the BBC wrote it up:
A Labour MP who resigned as a Cabinet Office minister has said he was “naive” and “so sorry” in his first full interview since leaving his role.
This should read ‘Laura Kuenssberg suggested he was naive, and Simons agreed‘.
Abysmal stuff.
Kuenssberg — Form
As academic Nicholas Guyatt added, Kuenssberg has a history of laundering the reputation of Britain’s worst politicians:
Laura Kuenssberg is the GOAT of rehabilitating disgraced Labour right figures: she also threw a lifeline to Peter Mandelson back in January, hailing his “unique perspective” on Trump and giving him twenty minutes to pose as a geopolitical expert before even mentioning Epstein pic.twitter.com/dZG2BqsKxn
— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) March 28, 2026
20% off at the reputation laundry https://t.co/0Qm1lffMRB
— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) March 28, 2026
Guyatt also provided further commentary:
I imagine that Paul Holden, author of The Fraud (@StarmertheFraud) and one of the journalists targeted by Josh Simons, will be looking very carefully at Simons’s remarks (transcript below); it’s quite the claim that you decided to investigate a journalist because of his publisher pic.twitter.com/80ndi9GgQO
— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) March 28, 2026
The Fraud
You can read a serialisation of the first chapter of Paul Holden’s The Fraud here. It covers the dirty tactics that Labour Together used to maneuver Keir Starmer into Downing Street — tactics they sorely needed because Starmer has all the political competence of a quiche.
To be absolutely fair, though, when they did all the bad stuff, many of these career politicians could simply have been a bit naive.
Featured image via BBC
Politics
‘Killing Corbynism’ shows how Corbyn’s Palestine support ‘made the left a target’
Killing Corbynism, by Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, examines an issue largely absent from mainstream discussion of the Corbyn years. Namely, the role of the State of Israel and its lobby in the campaign to undermine supporters of Palestine and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the opposition.
The book draws on extensive research. It demonstrates that a campaign against the left was developed in Jerusalem and exported to the UK when Corbyn was elected Labour leader.
For more than four years, a smear campaign discredited and demeaned Corbyn and his supporters. The campaign destabilised a political project that had given hope to millions. This paved the way for a lack of mainstream UK political opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and West Asia more widely.
Killing Corbynism provides both a compelling narrative and a meticulous repository of evidence, much of which has since been deleted. It goes to the heart of the UK Establishment, into both houses of parliament, the charitable sector, the media and the honours system.
Gordon-Nesbitt’s anti-racist analysis examines the Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-GRT racism, and even antisemitism, inherent within the campaign against Corbynism.
Published by Incarnadine, Killing Corbynism will be available in hardback, paperback and eBook editions from 24 April 2026.
Praise for ‘Killing Corbynism’
Ghada Karmi:
A welcome exposé of the pro-Israel dirty tricks campaign used to bring down Jeremy Corbyn. ‘Killing Corbynism’ is an informed, well-researched guide to the workings of a political network of malign influence that should alarm us all.
Leah Levane
In 2017 Jewish Voice for Labour was set up to try to counter the false allegations of anti-Semitism levelled against Jeremy Corbyn and all of us who supported his ideas.
One of our ongoing tasks has been to separate Judaism and Zionism and to emphasise that the majority of Zionists are not Jewish and that a significant – and growing – proportion of Jews are non- or anti-Zionist.
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s clarity on this is all-too rare. She also recognises, as we do, that using anti-Semitism to mean criticism of the Israeli State or Zionism as an ideology is dangerous, not least for Jews in the face of very real anti-Jewish hatred.
That this tactic is still being used to attack – and suppress the freedoms of – hundreds of millions across the world who support the rights of the Palestinian people is another reason this book is so important.
Rebecca’s meticulous research reveals the methodology used by those who want to keep our society working in the interests of the few and helps give us the tools we need going forwards.
Ken Loach:
This book must be taken seriously as an analysis of how the claims of anti-Semitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party got such a grip on the political discourse.
So many people were wrongly accused, so many accusations were exposed as unfounded, so many statements misquoted yet allowed to stand uncorrected and so many Jewish Labour members suspended or expelled for racism against Jews.
It was a witch-hunt, without question. Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s rigorous analysis is compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand what actually happened to remove Jeremy Corbyn and the politics he represented from the Labour Party.
It has been called a ‘political assassination’. This book should ensure that it never happens again.
Moshé Machover:
The true nature of the Zionist project of colonisation – employing apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people – is increasingly grasped by the public. Support of Palestinian rights has become the defining position of present-day progressive opinion.
The forces of reaction have been trying hard to stem the tide by deploying fabricated accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’. This book is a forensic case study of one of the major campaigns against the left, using this poisoned weapon.
Michael Mansfield KC:
This courageous research exposes the extent of pernicious anti-democratic forces which have been spreading a toxic and false narrative for many years.
Ilan Pappé:
In a world of low-calibre self-centred politicians, focused on their career as an occupation and not a vocation, Jeremy Corbyn shone as the absolute antidote to what is wrong with politics in our time.
The smear campaign against him, based on the false allegation of anti-Semitism, should not have surprised anyone. His potential success would have led to politics that would challenge greedy capitalist stakeholders, who benefit from a world scorched by fires of war and global warming.
His success could have also led Europe for the first time to play a constructive role in protecting the Palestinians from further colonisation and dispossession.
‘Killing Corbynism’ provides the most detailed, authoritative analysis of how a pro-Israeli lobby played a crucial role in trying to topple Britain’s most honest living politician of our time.
This essential book will help us to be better prepared in the future as this could happen again to the few individuals who entered politics in order to make the world, including in Palestine, a better place through moral clarity and ethical strategy.
Yanis Varoufakis:
The brilliant tactics with which the Zionist lobby orchestrated Jeremy Corbyn’s character assassination is a master class in how vacuous accusations of anti-Semitism can be weaponised to safeguard capital’s hegemony.
A book that must be read by anyone interested in restoring the possibility of democracy in Britain and beyond.
Asa Winstanley:
Fascinating. A worthy successor to my book ‘Weaponising Anti-Semitism’, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s ‘Killing Corbynism’ contains many essential details of this story which I’d not known.
Featured image via Incarnadine
By The Canary
Politics
UK named worst violator of anti-nuclear weapons treaty
The UK has been named as the worst violator of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor 2026, a report by Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA).
Its ranking as the worst state in terms of “non-compatibility” with the treaty is, in part, due to the UK having its own nuclear weapons, as well as being understood to have started hosting nukes for Trump’s USA.
A damning report
The report explained why it focuses on the TPNW:
It tracks progress towards a world without nuclear weapons and highlights activities that stand between the international community and the fulfilment of the long-standing goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In measuring this progress, the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor uses the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as the primary yardstick, because this treaty codifies norms and actions that are needed to create and maintain a world free of nuclear weapons.
The TPNW is the only legally binding global treaty that outlaws nuclear weapons. It was adopted on 7 July 2017 and entered into force on 22 January 2021. The impact of the TPNW will be built gradually and will depend on how it is welcomed and used by each and every State.
The TPNW is supported by 99 of the world’s 197 states, with 74 joining as parties and 25 as signatories that have not yet ratified the treaty.
Political pressure
No nuclear-armed states have joined the treaty, but the Ban Monitor said:
Every non-nuclear-armed State that joins strengthens political pressure for nuclear disarmament.
Adding:
With ratification processes advancing in several signatory States, further progress in expansion of the treaty membership appears likely in 2026.
The report took aim at the poor record of European states on eliminating nuclear weapons, saying “support for the TPNW is strong across all regions of the world except Europe,” and warned:
Europe stands out as a major obstacle to further progress toward universalisation of the TPNW.
The UK was singled out as having the most policies or practices in 2025 that were viewed by the report’s authors as being “non-compatible with, or of concern in relation to, one or more of the TPNW’s prohibitions”.
It was singled out alongside 44 other states found to have non-compatibilities with the TPNW. Most were not compatible with the TPNW’s “Prohibition on assisting, encouraging or inducing prohibited activity”.
The UK, meanwhile, was identified as being non-compatible with a total of six prohibitions:
- on “development, production, manufacture, or other acquisition”;
- on “possession or stockpiling”; on “receiving transfer or control”;
- on “assisting; encouraging or inducing prohibited activity”;
- on “seeking or receiving assistance to engage in prohibited activity”;
- and on “allowing stationing, installation or deployment” of nuclear weapons.
The next least compatible country was the US, which had five prohibitions it was not compatible with.
‘Evidence suggests’ UK received US nukes and is expanding its own stockpile
ICAN head of communications Alistair Burnett told the Canary:
The Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor reports annually on the size and composition of the arsenals of the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries and it also assesses how compatible each country is with the provisions of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Of the nine nuclear-armed states, Britain violates more articles of the treaty than any other because it not only has its own nuclear weapons, it may have also started hosting US nuclear weapons on its soil again after a break of 18 years.
In 2008, US nuclear weapons that were held at US air bases in Britain were quietly withdrawn, but last year evidence suggests the US may have returned upgraded nuclear bombs (the B61-12) to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Neither country shares any information publicly on this, but research by the Federation of American Scientists revealed new facilities to store these weapons were being built at Lakenheath and flights by the US planes that ferry nuclear weapons around the world have been monitored arriving there.
The United Kingdom also engages in assistance and encouragement of banned nuclear activities under the TPNW in its nuclear cooperation with France, and the United States.
In 2021, the UK also removed the cap on the number of warheads it has and stopped releasing information on nuclear warhead numbers.
UK faces becoming ‘more and more isolated diplomatically’
Burnett went on to explain how the UK’s failure to support the TPNW is likely to make it increasingly diplomatically isolated, and recommended how the government could work towards a nuclear weapons-free future.
He said:
The TPNW came into force in 2021 and a majority of the world’s states have already either signed or ratified the treaty (74 have ratified and a further 25 have signed it and are working on ratification). As more and more countries join it, Britain and the other nuclear-armed countries become more and more isolated diplomatically
The TPNW provides a fair and verifiable pathway to eliminating nuclear weapons, and Britain – which committed to getting rid of its weapons when it joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 – should engage with the TPNW and work towards joining that treaty as well in order to fulfil the disarmament commitments it has made and also to help reduce the nuclear threat that continues to menace the whole world.
It is impossible to envisage any use of nuclear weapons in conflict that would be consistent with international law, of which the British Government claims to be a champion.
A first step would be for the UK to stop voting against annual UN General Assembly resolutions on the TPNW and the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. In 2024, the UK, alone with Russia and France, even voted against setting up an independent scientific panel to update our understanding of the impact of the use of nuclear weapons in 2024.
In addition this year, the UK Government, at a minimum, should also observe the first Review Conference of the TPNW that is being held at the UN in New York in late November and early December.
The Canary approached the Ministry of Defence (MOD) for comment on the government’s shaming in the report. An MOD spokesperson deferred to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The FCDO did not respond to a request for comment.
UK Government urged to end its ‘nuclear hypocrisy’ and engage with TPNW
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Sophie Bolt told the Canary:
It’s little surprise Britain is the worst violator of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for 2026. It’s ploughing ahead with the multi-billion pound modernisation of its nuclear-armed submarines, update and expansion of its nuclear warhead stockpile, hosting of US nuclear weapons on British soil, and giving the RAF a nuclear role for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
The Canary reported earlier in April that campaigners were demanding that the UK stops hosting Trump’s nuclear weapons, in response to his veiled threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran.
Bolt continued:
As the government is facing increased pressure to enforce more austerity to fund major military spending hikes, a quarter of the MoD’s budget is blown on nuclear weapons.
What’s more, these nuclear projects are facing delays and ballooning costs with diminishing oversight. Nuclear dangers have never been higher but having nuclear weapons doesn’t increase security. Britain needs to end the nuclear hypocrisy and finally engage with the TPNW.
Nuclear deterrence is ‘naïve idealism’ – professor
University of Sussex emeritus professor Andy Stirling reacted to the report by telling the Canary:
Recent events show more than ever, that notions of ‘nuclear deterrence’ are a delusion that only lasts so long. Now more than ever, time is running out.
As with the same claims made in the past for explosives, machine guns and aircraft, nuclear weapons are not – and never can be – technologies to end war. Nuclear deterrence is naïve idealism.
With impacts of global war now more existential than ever, the security of each country must be viewed with reason, not sentimental nationalist blinkers or militaristic ideology.
Even where only a few countries claim exclusive national rights to make nuclear threats against others, the inevitable result will be nuclear war.
The only rational way to reduce the threat of nuclear war is to address security globally. As in the playground … or in gangland … the only realistic way to abolish nuclear threats for all is for each to stop making them against others.
Those who make nuclear threats lower their own security by adding to risks of surprise nuclear attacks against them.
It is too often forgotten that even a small nuclear attack by any one country will (even if it is not retaliated against), cause devastation in that country as well through nuclear winter. In that way too, nuclear threats are a suicide vest.
In a debate on ‘Civil Preparedness for War’ in the House of Lords on 20 April, MOD minister of state Lord Coaker confirmed that the government does still support the NPT and representatives would be attending the NPT review conference in New York later in April.
This could be seen as a thin sliver of hope for the UK eventually working to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
By Tom Pashby
Politics
Shabana Mahmood wants to ‘taser and deport’ her political rivals
The home secretary has apparently expanded the list of people she’d like to deport to include her rivals from each main political party.
Shabana Mahmood was being interviewed by comedian Matt Forde in London’s West End when she said it but that hasn’t stopped the criticism.
Asked by the Telegraph who out of Polanski, Farage, Badenoch or Davey she would taser or deport, she said: “I want to taser and then deport … all of them"
(Via Telegraph) pic.twitter.com/Q6l2d1hBeh
— Stats for Lefties
BREAKING: Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood threatens to deport Green leader Zack Polanski.

(@LeftieStats) April 21, 2026
Shabana Mahmood is spitting mad
If you’re unfamiliar with Forde, he’s the man who wrote what may be the worst comedy sketch of all time mocking Jess Phillips, who was then shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding.
The fact that Labour MPs still talk to this guy is surprising, but here we are.
Matt forde being horny for Jess Phillips is not what I needed to see before midday on a Monday https://t.co/CTb2R3N1EL
— R (@rjb_1998) October 4, 2021
Mahmood was also asked which of the opposition leaders – Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch, Zack Polanski or Sir Ed Davey – she would either deport or taser. She replied: “You are talking to me so I want to taser and then deport… all of them.”
What does “You are talking to me” mean? Is she implying she has some sort of violent and uncontrollable condition? This is the sort of response the Joker would give, not a government minister.
If @Nigel_Farage said he’d ‘taser and deport’ a political opponent we’d have a week long media feeding frenzy – led by the Labour Party.
But @ShabanaMahmood can say that about political opponents and it’s….fine? Why the double standard? pic.twitter.com/CgLnfJQJwj
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 21, 2026
Do we want a home secretary to be making jokes about deporting people? The obvious answer is no. It makes her seem like an inhumane monster who doesn’t care about human suffering. That or she’s someone who enjoys inflicting it.
I do not think there is any context in which it is acceptable for the Home Secretary to threaten to inflict violent attacks on the persons of opposition leaders and suggest she intends to strip them of their citizenship and deport them.
This is a very, very grim moment.
— Stats for Lefties

(@LeftieStats) April 21, 2026
Home secretary tells hecklers to ‘fuck right off’
Mahmood also got upset because hecklers accused her of copying Reform. The home secretary then responded by saying the hecklers could “fuck right off”.
She said:
I’m not going to let a tinpot racist or some random heckler, or anybody else claw away at the foundations of who I am as a person.
I’m a proud English woman. I’m a proud Brit. I’m a hugely proud Muslim. That is the absolute core of my life.
Then added:
I do think there is that element of it which is: ‘How dare you, a brown woman, say a thing that we white liberals think you’re not allowed to say?’ Well, I’m saying it.
This is the Labour of today in a nutshell, isn’t it?
On the policy front, they want to enact the cruel right-wing proposals of Reform; on the rhetoric front, they want to deploy 2010s-style identity politics.
You can’t do the ‘I’m a proud, Brown woman with multitudes‘ shtick when you’re defending a wretched system that dehumanises Brown women.
Having their cake and deporting it
Voters have seen through Labour at this point. Many ex-voters think the party is unnecessarily cruel now while others don’t believe they’re cruel enough.
Lab is now losing far more votes to Greens (7.4pts) than to Reform (3.6pts).
Overall, a majority of 2024 Lab voters are now backing other parties, and a whopping 70% of those are fleeing leftward.
Lab’s collapse is not the result of a right-wing surge, but of left-wing dissent. pic.twitter.com/OpdGfeLzw2
— Stats for Lefties
(@LeftieStats) April 11, 2026
Mahmood can crack wise with pervert comedians all she likes, but the real joke is Labour’s polling.
Featured image via X/ Barold
By Willem Moore
Politics
NatureScot spends thousands in public cash to prop up controversial seabird hunt
Scotland’s nature agency, NatureScot, has spent more than £72,000 of public funds in just the first three months of 2026 on matters relating to the controversial guga hunt. This is according to new figures that advocacy group Protect the Wild has obtained.
The documents reveal that NatureScot has already spent nearly £30,000 this year on research it’ll use to assess how many birds the hunters can kill. This is alongside further spending on legal advice connected to the licensing of the hunt.
Tens of thousands more has gone on hiring additional security and repair costs associated with protests and growing public opposition.
Crucially, these figures do not include staff time, which NatureScot admits is not recorded separately. So the true cost to the public purse is likely to be significantly higher.
Campaigners say the spending raises serious questions about priorities. Public money is being directed towards maintaining and managing a controversial activity, rather than invested in nature restoration and biodiversity recovery.
Devon Docherty, Scottish campaigns manager at Protect the Wild, said:
The licence for this hunt is entirely discretionary, and the Scottish government has confirmed this. That means continuing to license the guga hunt is an active choice by NatureScot, and one that is becoming increasingly costly not only to the taxpayer, but to our already struggling wildlife.
There is a clear expectation that public funds allocated to a nature agency are used to restore and protect nature, not to sustain an outdated and cruel tradition. The guga hunt benefits a very small number of people, at the expense of wildlife and the wider public interest.
NatureScot’s responsibility for protected species
NatureScot is Scotland’s public nature authority, responsible for protecting and enhancing Scotland’s natural environment. As part of this role, it decides whether to grant licences allowing the killing of otherwise protected species, such as gannets, which the guga hunt targets.
The guga hunt is the UK’s last remaining seabird hunt. It involves a group of hunters traveling to the remote island of Sula Sgeir to slaughter gannet seabird chicks. Their flesh is taken back to the Isle of Lewis where it is sold and consumed as a local delicacy.
In 2025, the birds reportedly sold for £35 each. If all 485 birds taken were sold, this would equate to a potential value of around £17,000.
Docherty added:
Nobody should be making money off the killing of a protected native species. And our public money should certainly not be spent on aiding it.
Over a quarter of a million signatures have now been gathered on petitions to end the guga hunt. NatureScot must listen to the clear mandate for change, and use its discretionary power to stop the slaughter of seabirds on Sula Sgeir.
NatureScot has said if a licence application comes in for 2026, it will go before its board for decision.
Featured image via John Ranson for the Canary
By The Canary
Politics
Watch: Israeli propagandist boasts of 60k-strong pro-genocide hasbara operation
Former Israeli intelligence officer Ella Kenan’s boast to a pro-Israel conference has exposed the occupation’s massive digital propaganda operation. Kenan’s 60,000-strong ‘army’ is focused entirely on undermining global support for the Palestinian people.
Israeli arrogance
With typical Israeli arrogance, she claims that her organisation’s reach is ‘completely organic’. Then, in the next sentence, she boasts that its propaganda goes ‘viral’ because of coordinated ‘communities’ of 60,000 – and the help of ‘non-Jewish influencers’ that ‘collaborate’.
‘Organic’ is doing some heavy lifting in Kenan’s brain.
Kenan then boasts of whitewashing Israel’s genocide and apartheid and of making up slogans that reach the speeches of US presidents. And she adds that her ‘communities’ run ‘take-down’ campaigns to remove news they don’t like from social media platforms.
But all ‘completely organic’, of course:
Every accusation is a confession
Her unironic claim of coming up with ‘Hamas is Isis’ is, as usual, a case of ‘every accusation is a confession’. The ISIS-linked organisation in Gaza works for Israel. As author Susan Abulhawa rightly pointed out:
Actually, Israel is ISIS, but 10x worse.
Kenan has also boasted of ‘beating Greta Thunberg’ after Thunberg called for the freedom of Gaza as Israel began its genocide there.
Israel is a terror state that is allowed to throw huge resources at spreading the lies it tells to excuse its crimes. And its professional propagandists are not even shy about admitting it.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
Politics
BBC faces backlash for using Reform’s branding on the news
The BBC has once again attracted criticism for its handling of Reform UK, this time for using its logo and branding in a TV news report.
This is shocking https://t.co/p6IQickZtz
— Mr Ethical
(@nw_nicholas) April 21, 2026
We should note that the big red arrows were added by the person drawing attention to the Reform branding. Still, though, that’s most definitely the Reform logo and that’s most definitely Reform’s trademark turquoise.
BBC or the British Reformcasting Corporation?
In the above clip, the journalist is explaining how Reform’s asylum policy will work. Presumably, the BBC would say that this is why it has Reform’s logo and colours on screen.
However, the reason it isn’t clear is because the logo and text bar are placed where you would normally see the BBC’s logo and text bar. As such, it looks less like the BBC is explaining Reform policy and more like it’s rebranded as the British Reformcasting Corporation (BRC).
If the BBC would be so kind as to pull the Reform Party’s trousers back up when it’s finished round there, that’d be just swell
Giving Farage’s party its own own logo in its own colours for its own segment Seriously?
— Stuzi

(@stuzi_pants) April 21, 2026
Of course, the BRC accusations go much deeper than the above. For a start, the BBC has a tendency to come running every time a Reform politician clears their throat.
Reform UK has now announced this unworkable, monumentally expensive ‘policy’ three times in the last year.
Yet the BBC still rush breathlessly to report every word they say.
It’s just madness. — Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) April 20, 2026
https://t.co/h6RLUaOApn
As the Canary wrote last December:
A research group has brought out a new study on the political biases behind broadcast news. The results are truly damning – shining a light on the disproportionate coverage of far-right Reform UK on the BBC and ITV.
The BBC also has a mysterious fascination with Nigel Farage, which has seen him land more Question Time bookings than anyone else this century.
Nigel Farage’s 38 Question Time appearances are among the highest ever, Compared to main political leaders such as Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Sturgeon, or Starmer, Farage has appeared more frequently, This is the BBC’s booking choices,
— Chris Harrop OBE (@ChrisHarropOBE) September 9, 2025
The BBC loves inviting Nigel Farage. They might aswell give him his own show.
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) December 6, 2024
Comparisons
The BBC is treating Farage and Reform like a government-in-waiting. This is far from normal in terms of how they usually behave.
As an example, we don’t have to go back far to see how the BBC treated another insurgent politician who was shaking up the system. (Jeremy Corbyn.)
I don't know why people are surprised. The BBC literally photoshopped a russian hat onto Corbyn and got away with it.
However, the model is right and needs protecting. The rot lies with the Tory Exec who have politicised the BBC.
The BBC leadership should be politically… pic.twitter.com/B2dsuIJ28V
— Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) November 11, 2025
It might be worth getting used to the BBC being turquoise, anyway, because if Farage forms the next government, it will be permanent.
Featured image via BBC
By Willem Moore
Politics
Hackney Greens pledge to improve the borough’s environment
Hackney Greens will launch a “buddy” scheme to promote access to gardening. This is just one among dozens of environmental plans in the party’s local election manifesto, titled Hope for Hackney.
Hackney Greens have promised to work to match up people who have green space that they are unable to look after with a “buddy” who can tend to it instead.
Green candidate for mayor, Zoë Garbett, says:
The evidence shows that gardening is good for exercise and mental health – plus together we can protect and grow our natural environment. We also hope that the buddy programme will help tackle loneliness and build strong friendships.
The Green manifesto Hope for Hackney states:
We believe everyone should have the opportunity to be involved in stewarding the natural spaces around them and building a connection with the ecosystem on which we depend and are a part of.
When our natural environment is controlled from the top down, local people are deprived of agency in their green spaces, creating a disconnect with where they live. This affects feelings of community and has detrimental impacts on mental and physical health.
We want residents to be involved in decisions that shape their local environment.
The Hackney Greens manifesto includes dozens of specific and practical plans in Chapter 6: Caring for our Environment:
- To help repair the borough’s fragile ecosystem.
- Support community food growing and innovative use of land.
- Keep our streets clean.
- Protect our planet and prepare for the future.
- Adapt to our changing climate.
Residents that Green Party volunteers are meeting at the doorstep have responded especially well to the Hackney Greens pledge to establish a community skip. This would move around the borough, allowing residents to dispose of bulky items conveniently and for free.
A Green council would also support and empower local community energy projects. These can help lower energy bills for residents and businesses, as well as reducing carbon emissions.
The Hackney Greens manifesto pledges support for existing local community groups, biodiversity champions, Tenants and Residents Associations and schools with training. And there’s a commitment to working with the Rights of the River Lea campaign.
A Green Council would mark International Mother Earth Day ‘Pachamama’ (22 April) as a borough-wide week of climate action and learning. This would highlight global majority and Indigenous perspectives on environmental stewardship.
You can read the full manifesto here.
Featured image via Hackney Green Party
By The Canary
Politics
From the Coalition of the Willing to the Bayeux Tapestry: how France and the UK renewed their vows
Helen Drake and Pauline Schnapper argue that the rebuilding of interpersonal ties has been integral to the recent improvement in Franco-British relations.
The resilience of the Franco-British couple is quite something to behold. In 2026, one long decade on from the UK’s referendum decision to leave the European Union, France and the United Kingdom are drawing ever closer. Already in May 2025, France and the UK had finalised plans to exchange priceless, historical artefacts: the Bayeux Tapestry would come to the British Museum, which would lend its own Sutton Hoo Treasures to museums in Normandy. The British Museum’s exhibition is expected to draw record numbers of visitors, such is the appeal of the tale it has to tell of the centuries of entwined Franco-British history.
Yet Brexit had pulled at the fabric of that relationship, unravelling diplomatic certainties and routines and fraying interpersonal trust. Indeed, during those Brexit years, Franco-British bilateral relations were variously strained, fractured and frozen, and cross-Channel contacts dwindled. No summits were held in the five years between 2018-2023, and not only because of Covid restrictions; diplomats were barred from speaking to each other following the crisis over AUKUS, and the people-to-people and trade links that had for so long characterised the bilateral relationship were now hindered by Brexit constraints on the free movement of goods, services and people. The cordial personal connections typical of diplomatic exchange between heads of state and government gave way to bad-tempered if not downright rude personal exchanges, reaching their nadir during the Covid pandemic when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s puerile humour landed very badly with his French counterpart President Emmanuel Macron, and when vaccine nationalism stoked mutual hostility and derision.
In 2026, the picture could not look more different. Barely a week goes past, it seems, without a decision or development drawing the two countries into a closer and tighter embrace. Already in 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered a hasty assembly of a ‘coalition of the willing’, where Paris and London jointly led 34 countries to prepare for a possible deployment of troops on the ground in the case of a ceasefire. Following the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 and the chaos this unleashed, France and the UK have not only initiated new forms of collaboration but have also carefully unpicked some particularly knotty obstacles in the path towards closer bilateral cooperation, including at UK-EU level. This is the context, for example, of the UK’s grudging willingness to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus scheme (previously popular with French students) and, most recently, to expedite legislation allowing for dynamic alignment with certain EU trading standards.
Work to repair and celebrate the fabric of Franco-British ties had in fact started to take shape before the international environment imploded. In 2022, ephemeral UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s decision to attend the first meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) in October 2022 in Prague, an initiative of French President Macron, was a first step. Following her departure from office, Rishi Sunak cleared the ground for the signature, in 2023, of the Windsor Framework on Northern Ireland by the UK and the European Commission, a development which itself explicitly paved the way for the first Franco-British summit since 2018, held in Paris on 10 March 2023 (at which, amongst many other things, the two sides reached an agreement to revert to pre-Brexit immigration controls on school visits from France).
In September of that same year, France hosted a state visit by King Charles III to France and, in the following April, the two countries ceremoniously celebrated the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, a set of agreements first concluded in colonial times. Keeping up the pace, in July 2024, the freshly-elected Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his French counterpart President Emmanuel Macron agreed to hold a summit in July 2025 to be preceded by a state visit to the UK by President Macron, hosted in Windsor Castle by King Charles III. In the Joint Declarations of that 37th UK-France Summit, held on 10 July 2025, the French and British leaders committed themselves to the ‘delivery’ of significant initiatives in the fields of ‘defence, energy, industrial cooperation’, including a refresh of the 2010 defence agreements to cover nuclear and conventional fields, especially cyber and hybrid warfare. Challenges inevitably remain, notably in the context of tightening immigration law on both sides of the Channel, but the capacity and willingness to address them is tangible.
What accounted for the speed and depth of repair to the Franco-British relationship? Shared interests were clearly substantial and pressing, but left gaps in the overall picture. With reference to 14 high-level interviews conducted with diplomats and officials close to the relationship between 2020 and 2025, we propose a number of supplementary observations. We saw that both the practice and the culture of the relationship were disrupted, first by the shock result of the Brexit referendum itself; then by the tenor of the negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement and TCA, which led to a breakdown in trust and diplomatic normality between the two governments; and of course, in time, by the phasing out of the intra-EU diplomacy that had involved routines of regular diplomatic interactions at different levels, alongside agreed procedures and means of communication.
We observed that the restoration of the relationship occurred not only as a result of shared interests (especially security of all kinds) and the continuity of institutions (especially in intelligence and defence) but via the creation of opportunities – these partly due to the passing of time, and also to the changing of personnel at various levels – for interpersonal contact, the refraining from incendiary language, the creation of friendly gestures and the recognition and repairing of the deep historical, sentimental fabric of the relationship. These viewpoints offer a more complex understanding of post-Brexit bilateral relations, and point to the possibility that the Franco-British relationship has every opportunity to thrive along as-yet uncharted lines, with signs of both sides having learned the lessons of the importance, to diplomacy, of the humanity of international society.
By Professor Helen Drake, Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs, Loughborough University London and Pauline Schnapper, Professor of Contemporary British Civilisation at the University of Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle.
For a longer discussion of the themes in this blog, see Drake, H. and Schnapper, P. (2026) ‘Franco-British Bilateral Diplomacy After Brexit, 2020–2025: Mending the Ties That Bind’. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.70113. Selected wording in this blog is duplicated from that article.
Politics
Reform’s Zia Yusuf: ‘Failed Tories are trying to infiltrate us’
According to Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf, “failed Tories” are trying to “infiltrate” the party. While no one is disagreeing with this sentiment, the problem is these failed Tories are walking in through the front door:
"Failed Tories are trying to infiltrate us."
Suella Braverman — Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) April 21, 2026
Lee Anderson
Robert Jenrick
Andrew Rosindell
Danny Kruger
Nadhim Zahawi
Nadine Dorris
Andrea Jenkyns
Jonathan Gullis
Jake Berry pic.twitter.com/12DwdTyPBa
Reform UK aka The Tories 2.0
As a startup party, we have already made history and smashed the two-party system.
To be fair, this is accurate, as the Canary reported.
Labour/Tory support has dropped 37 points since last elections
Following years of failed neoliberal guff from the duopoly, it's clear to see why Labour and Tories' polling is in the toilethttps://t.co/tBSDC2yQs8https://t.co/tBSDC2yQs8
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 21, 2026
However, Reform isn’t solely responsible for this because the Green Party has also taken votes away from the duopoly. The difference is the Greens actually offer some sort of alternative to the dead end neoliberal failures of the past few decades by:
- Seeking to minimise the gap between the billionaires and the rest of us.
- Targeting the issues driving the Affordability Crisis.
- Identifying solutions to the problems faced by renters and homeowners.
- Opposing cruel immigration and policing policies
- Listening to experts on how to solve the ‘War on Drugs’.
- Supporting its candidates when they’re smeared by the media and Zionists (finally).
Meanwhile, Reform looks to:
- Double down on failed immigration policies at the expense of the economy.
- Prevent the UK achieving energy security by blocking cheap renewable energy projects.
- Promote crypto (a technology many have compared to a pyramid scheme).
- Produce an endless supply of candidates who praise Hitler and British fascists.
Yusuf is correct that they’re outside the two-party system, but Reform isn’t an alternative; it’s just the Tories on steroids.
Yusuf: ‘We will not back down’
Reform’s spokesperson for home affairs continued:
We will not back down.
We will defeat the uniparty and break the establishment that has failed and betrayed the British people.
Clearly, Yusuf is thinking: ‘To beat the uniparty we must think like the uniparty. We must accept all of their worst MPs and copy their worst policies’.
It’s obvious why Yusuf would think this because Yusuf is himself a failed Tory.
It’s hilarious that people don’t realise Zia Yusuf was a Tory less than 2 years ago.
Being he’s never been elected to anything, you might say he’s a #FailedTory. https://t.co/1Sf51t6yK3
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) April 22, 2026
Yusuf is far from the only failed Tory to join up, and Farage and co often weren’t kind about their new friends.
Jenrick is a fraud. I’ve alway thought so, this quote proves it. pic.twitter.com/pMcuhe88mw
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 18, 2025
Nigel Farage appears to have changed his mind… pic.twitter.com/IUfhE388vN
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 26, 2026
Oh, and as the Canary reported on 20 April, many of these ex-Tories are currently predicted to lose their seats to their old party come 2029.
Chicken Run Alert — Kevin Hollinrake MP (@kevinhollinrake) April 19, 2026


https://t.co/H9YAaH9K71
Turquoise takeover
Yusuf finished his post by claiming:
Nigel Farage will be our Prime Minister, supported by a majority of turquoise-blooded Reform MPs.
A brighter future awaits Britain.
![]()
‘Turquoise-blooded’ doesn’t have the same ring to it as ‘red-blooded’ or ‘blue-blooded’, does it?
The colour is fitting, however, because Reform’s turquoise is really just a louder version of Tory blue. We can see it, and so can all these Tories who keep ‘infiltrating’ the party at the invitation of Nigel Farage.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/ Chris McAndrew/ David Woolfall
By Willem Moore
Politics
AI firm in Israel uses deepfake rape survivor videos ‘for good’, it claims
An Israel-based AI firm, Generative AI for Good, claims to be using deepfake technologies for positive ends. ‘Positive’ appears to mean creating deepfake videos to help the illegal US-Israel war on Iran.
Like this clip that the company showed recently at an UN event in New York. The film is intended to show women who claim to have been raped by Iranian security forces during the CIA/Mossad-coordinated riots in Iran in January 2026.
Generative AI for Good claims that it uses AI to “help survivors testify safely — in their real voice, without revealing their identity”. But Israel and its mouthpieces have been shown to have used false allegations of rapes and other atrocities on 7 October 2023 to justify its genocide in Gaza.
The claims have been repeatedly exposed as fiction, yet continue to be quoted by politicians and media as grounds for supporting Israel’s crimes.
One of the firm’s handful of employees, ‘creative director’ Tal Harari, still has a post on her Instagram profile repeating those claims of rape and beheaded babies which are complete fiction.
View this post on Instagram
‘AI impact leader’ Mlamdovsky Somech founded the tech company
The post mentions Noa Argamani. Israel has attempted to use Argamani as a poster child for its genocide propaganda, but she has refuted the occupation’s claims of her supposed mistreatment in Gaza. Likewise, she debunked its claims that Palestinians had killed one of her friends, when in fact the IOF killed him.
Harari does not list her military service on her LinkedIn profile though like any Israeli, she will almost certainly have been in the IOF. However, her colleague, marketing manager Noa Rosenberg, speaks on hers.
Rosenberg talks about her pride in leading an event for military veterans and includes in her list of jobs her service in the IOF’s ‘Psychotechnical Headquarter’. No doubt useful in her current company.
The firm’s founder, Shiran Mlamdovsky Somech, doesn’t list her military record either. But she did tell the Jewish Post and News in early 2024 that “Artificial intelligence is a secret weapon of ours” in what the paper described as “using the revolutionary technology to bolster [the military’s] efforts both online and on the ground” in the “information war being waged alongside the military battlefields in Gaza”.
More links with Israeli military
In 2023 — before 7 October — Mlamdovsky Somech also claimed that Jews are pitted against “two billion Muslims”.
We are only 15 million Jews around the world, versus 2 billion Muslims…Our slingshot is technology.
Mlamdovsky Somech made that comment at an event she organised in cooperation with the IOF’s notorious Unit 8200. Unit 8200 is the cyberspy outfit whose operatives mark their headsets for each Palestinian they help kill and which played a key role in the murder of Iran’s leader in its war of aggression.
Nonetheless, just as with Israel’s atrocity propaganda against the Palestinians and its denials of its own atrocities, we’re supposed to believe that its AI videos of ‘Iranian women’ depict reality. That AI is only being used to protect identities and not because, yet again, it’s all made up and Israel is trying to bolster support for its crimes.
If you’re even tempted to believe that, there might be a bridge or two for sale.
Featured image via the Canary
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