Politics
Labour Together leaked memo shows paranoia over Canary
A newly-leaked Labour Together report shows that the Starmeroid sabotage group continued to monitor the Canary for years after trying to destroy it. And, Skwawkbox was monitored too – although the geniuses at the shady group failed to spell it correctly. One thing is very clear: Labour Together have been running scared of journalists reporting on their connections and movements.
Evidently, any attention on what they got up to in pursuit of their aims – and how they funded it – clearly made Morgan McSweeney and company fearful of discovery. This is flagged in the preamble of the leaked report, which says that:
recent articles and blog posts…have contained more information than ever before, raising questions and concerns about the sources of the information.
Labour Together’s dossier
The Morgan McSweeney faction‘s frank terror of left media, especially the Canary, was well and truly exposed in Paul Holden’s excellent book The Fraud. That fear triggered McSweeney and his partner in crime Imran Ahmed to try to “destroy” the Canary.
The faction’s fear of left media clearly didn’t stop when the propaganda groups they set up managed to topple Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader by sabotaging the 2019 general election – and came close to forcing the Canary to close.
McSweeney resigned in early February 2026 as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff after years – as Holden exposed – of running covert campaigns against the left and its media. The immediate cause of his resignation was McSweeney’s closeness to disgraced string-puller Peter Mandelson. It was a doomed attempt to protect McSweeney’s boss Keir Starmer – but the scandals have just kept on oozing out ever since.
This week, Rupert Murdoch’s Times ‘broke‘ the news that McSweeney’s outfit Labour Together paid tens of thousands to private investigators to spy on two Times hacks. It wasn’t breaking; it wasn’t even news. The Canary and others had already reported on it – and had reported six months earlier on Labour Together’s spying on a number of left-wing journalists, as well as on author Paul Holden and former Mandela minister Andrew Feinstein.
Something bothering you, lads?
The newly-leaked report shows just how much Labour Together was discomfited by what the Canary and others were digging up. The memo begins with some anxiety over who is watching their every move:
For both left- and right-wing influencers, Labour Together and CCDH sit at the centre of a nexus of conspiracy theories that involve government attempts to suppress free speech, increasing state censorship, the sabotaging of left- and right-wing leaders, and pro-Israel advocacy, among many other accusations.
Conspiracy theories? What is it about the Canary and other independent journalists that so bothers Labour Together? Perhaps that we’re not in the pockets of billionaires or politicians, and actually report the truth as we find it?
The memo also confirms that the McSweeney group continued to monitor the Canary – with particular attention to how it exposed Imran Ahmed’s sock-puppet groups. This was going on long before Holden’s book was published, though Holden features too:
The report was prepared for Labour Together in December 2023, marked “Strictly Private and Confidential”. Oh well. After introducing the Canary as one of the main outlets paying attention to Labour Together’s actions from the start of Starmer’s diseased tenure as Labour leader, and to Labour Together’s links with the Israel lobby, it then turns to the exposure of McSweeney and Ahmed’s shamelessly named fake-news campaigns [emphases added]:
December 2020: The far-left website The Canary published an article which focused on the Stop Funding Fake News campaign following its successful campaign urging corporations to stop advertising on The Canary website.
The article focused on the connection between SFFN and Morgan McSweeny [sic]. McSweeney was identified as one of the directors, alongside Imran Ahmed, and as Keir Starmer MP’s Chief of Staff at the time. The article noted celebrity Rachel Riley’s support for both SFFN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
The article accused CCDH of being linked to a “number of figures on the Labour right” and suggested that McSweeney and Ahmed had been operating both campaigns for longer than the organisations were “willing to admit”.
Labour Together is briefly mentioned as an organisation that shares its address with CCDH and is accused of being a grouping of Blue Labour and Labour Right figures – including Lisa Nandy at the time.
Who is Imran Ahmed?
Like McSweeney, Imran Ahmed is one of the most shadowy figures on the Labour right. Initially a staffer for right-wing Labour horror Angela Eagle and desperate to protect Eagle from deselection by angry party members, Ahmed was at the centre of fake claims that left-wingers threw a brick through Eagle’s office window. The whole thing was made up. The window was not Eagle’s. There was never any evidence the left had anything to do with it. There was never even a brick. But following a pattern that was soon to become characteristic of Labour Together’s operations, the corporate and state press were more than happy to amplify the false claims fed to them.
Ahmed then went on to co-found the Orwellian smear factory ‘Stop Funding Fake News’ (SFFN) to target the Canary. When that was no longer needed, SFFN morphed into the equally misnamed ‘Centre for Countering Digital Hate’ (CCDH). Ahmed moved to the US and touted CCDH’s services to the anonymous wealthy and powerful to attack their opponents using similar tactics to those used against the Canary. He also specifically courted Israel and its donors, eager to target Palestine and the anti-genocide movement. Author Paul Thacker has accused Ahmed of working with or for UK intelligence services.
Given Ahmed’s links to nefarious groups and his closeness to McSweeney, it’s clear – and no surprise – that any scrutiny was unwelcome.
Shit out of luck
The Canary features numerous times in the memo, each time as a thorn in the McSweeney-Ahmed axis’s side. In each case, the information exposed by our journalists about Labour Together’s activities and personnel has subsequently been proven to be true, particularly by Holden’s book, which was serialised by the Canary in the autumn of 2025.
When Jeremy Corbyn was still leader of the Labour party and the left media were central to his prospects of success, Morgan McSweeney told his fellow saboteurs, “kill the Canary before the Canary kills us“. They came close, but they are now disgraced relics while the Canary is thriving more than ever. And, for good measure, so is Sk(w)awkbox.
Featured image via the Canary
Keir Starmer has appointed Antonia Romeo to be the UK’s most senior civil servant, making her the first female cabinet secretary in history.
The decision will raise eyebrows, considering Romeo has previously been accused of bullying and questioned over her use of expenses when she was the UK’s consul general in New York.
However, the government said the allegations were investigated at the time and there was “no case to answer”.
She got the job after a due diligence process overseen by crossbench peer Baroness Gisela Stuart, the First Civil Service Commissioner.
Starmer said: “I am delighted to appoint Dame Antonia Romeo as the new cabinet secretary. She is an outstanding public servant, with a 25‑year record of delivering for the British people.
“Since becoming prime minister, I’ve been impressed by her professionalism and determination to get things done. Families across the country are still feeling the squeeze, and this government is focused on easing the cost of living, strengthening public services and restoring pride in our communities. It is essential we have a cabinet secretary who can support the government to make this happen.
“Antonia has shown she is the right person to drive the government to reform and I look forward to working with her to deliver this period of national renewal.”
Romeo’s predecessor Sir Chris Wormald resigned last week, barely a year after he was appointed – making him the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history.
Amid a wider reshuffle of No.10 staff, he agreed “by mutual consent” with the prime minister to stand down.
The prime minister hailed Wormald’s “exceptional” leadership when he was announced as cabinet secretary in December 2024.
However, Starmer was reportedly unhappy with Wormald’s performance.
He was the third senior official to leave No.10 in the last week after Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quit last Sunday and communications director Tim Allan resigned the following day.
Romeo’s new appointment follows growing speculation about Starmer’s judgement after his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson to be the UK’s ambassador to Washington last year.
The disgraced former Labour peer was sacked seven months later over his connections to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson is now facing a criminal investigation over allegations he passed market sensitive information to the billionaire financier when he was business secretary in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday accepted President Donald Trump’s offer to help fix the massive sewage spill outside the city, making an unusual request for Trump to declare the area a disaster and pay for repairs.
Bowser’s request came days after Trump tried to blame the spill on her and other Democrats and said that if they want federal help “they have to call me and ask, politely.”
Bowser signed her letter “Respectfully” in asking for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offset all “costs incurred” by the city and regional sewer authorities following the Jan. 19 collapse of a sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland. FEMA usually pays 75 percent of disaster repairs unless damage is extreme.
Bowser’s office did not respond to questions Thursday morning about why she was making the request now. In addition to seeking assistance, the three-term mayor — who is not seeking reelection — declared a local public emergency and asked the federal government to support several other water quality and flood protection projects in the city.
No president has approved a disaster declaration for a sewage spill, according to an E&E News analysis of FEMA records dating to 1953.
President Barack Obama approved an emergency declaration in 2016 for water contamination in Flint, Michigan, that began in 2014. FEMA provides limited aid for emergencies.
But presidents have authority to approve disasters for a wide range of events. In his first term, Trump approved disaster requests for every state to cover their costs of handling the Covid-19 pandemic. FEMA has given states roughly $140 billion for pandemic costs.
Bowser’s letter contains no cost estimates — which governors routinely include in their multipage disaster requests — and acknowledges aid would help residents outside her jurisdiction, in Maryland and Virginia.
Federal law says that disaster requests “shall be made by the Governor of the affected State” — or by a government leader such as a tribal chief, territorial governor or the mayor of Washington, and that a disaster request must be based on a finding that a jurisdiction cannot handle an event by itself. Bowser’s letter to Trump makes no such claim.
Neither Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland nor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, both Democrats, have requested disaster aid from Trump. DC Water, the sewer authority, operates the sewer line that extends from as far as Dulles International Airport to a treatment plant in the city and did not respond to a request for comment.
“Maryland will not be seeking an emergency declaration because the responsibility for the repair and subsequent clean up does not fall to Maryland,” said Rhylan Lake, a spokesperson for Moore, in an email. “Since Maryland owns neither the infrastructure nor the land, Maryland does not anticipate needing supplemental resources at this time.”
Neither the White House nor FEMA responded to questions Thursday about whether they planned to grant D.C.’s assistance request.
Considered the largest raw sewage spill of its kind in U.S. history, the broken sewer line has released over 250 million gallons of raw sewage in the Potomac River. Environmentalists have been raising concerns for weeks about the spill, which could render the river unsafe for fishing and boating and undermine longstanding efforts to repair the Chesapeake Bay.
Local environmentalists said they would welcome federal funding to help with the cleanup, but that the priority should be to increase water quality monitoring and better notify the public about whether it’s safe to use the river.
“Going directly from zero comments on it to an emergency declaration after the fact seems like an unusual pathway,” said Betsy Nicholas, president of Potomac Riverkeeper Network. “We haven’t heard anything from the mayor or the mayor’s office on this for an entire month, which in and of itself was a little surprising and frustrating.”
Representatives for the utility have previously noted that they are working to accelerate a previously planned rehabilitation project to fix the sewer line. The line dates to the early 1960s.
Trump administration officials and local authorities have traded jabs in recent days over who is responsible for the spill, with the exact cause still undetermined.
Trump has primarily cast blame on Moore, with the White House describing the state as responsible for protecting water quality in the Potomac. But both Moore’s office and Bowser say that EPA is the primary regulator of DC Water.
A FEMA report Thursday morning says DC Water “is engaged with” EPA, FEMA, environmental agencies in the District, Maryland and Virginia, and the National Park Service, which owns the wooded parkland where the spill occurred next to the Potomac.
“Since the incident was first reported, DC Water has provided daily updates,” the FEMA report says.
Robert Carlye has been announced as a new addition to the cast of Line Of Duty ahead of production beginning on the much-hyped seventh season.
On Thursday morning, the BBC announced that the Trainspotting actor will play a new detective constable character, Shaun Massie, when the award-winning crime drama returns to our screens next year.
“Having been a huge admirer of [Line Of Duty creator] Jed Mercurio’s work for many years, I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to join such an exceptional cast for series seven of Line Of Duty,” he enthused.
“The scripts for the series are excellent and will absolutely maintain the quality that the audience have come to expect from this fantastic show. DC Massie is an extraordinary character and I look forward to bringing him to life.”
Robert’s other work includes his Bafta-winning performance in The Full Monty, an Emmy-nominated stint in the miniseries Human Trafficking, the horror sequel 28 Weeks Later and the family fantasy drama Once Upon A Time, in which he played Rumplestiltskin.
More recently, he’s appeared in the TV series Toxic Town and The Hack, as well as Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, making an uncredited cameo as John Lennon.
Earlier this week, The Sun reported that the next season of Line Of Duty would once again focus on the mysterious “H” after many viewers were unimpressed with how things played out in the most recent finale.
The BBC declined to comment when contacted about this by HuffPost UK.
Filming on the new episodes of Line Of Duty is due to get underway in the spring, with the finished product airing on BBC One in 2027, six years since the most recent instalments had the whole nation gripped.
Vicky McClure, Martin Compston and Adrian Dunbar will all reprise their roles from the first six seasons in the new episodes, in which Robert is listed in an official press release as the new “guest series lead”.
Showrunner Jed Mercurio said: “On Line Of Duty, we’ve been honoured by the glittering guest leads who’ve joined the cast over the years. We couldn’t be more thrilled that Robert Carlyle will star in series seven as Specialist Rifle Officer Shaun Massie.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Robert’s work for many years and it will be a career highlight to work with him.”
He added: “Robert always brings mesmerising power and depth to every role; I know viewers will be on the edge of their seats wondering what his character will do next, and why.”
The first six seasons of Line Of Duty are available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.
In his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, former prince Andrew notoriously claimed that Virginia Giuffre’s allegations against him couldn’t be true because he’s unable to sweat.
He’s likely to have discovered a few sweat glands since his arrest this morning.
All too typically for the British establishment, the arrest was not for sexually abusing trafficked and potentially under-age girls. Instead it was for ‘misconduct in public office’, after an Epstein files release revealed Mountbatten-Windsor was allegedly bunging sensitive secret information to the serial child-rapist while a UK trade envoy.
That fact is a disgusting betrayal of Epstein’s and Andrew’s victims. It’s also a detail that is likely to have ‘prince of darkness’ and former Starmer adviser Peter Mandelson joining Windsor in a sweat bath. The same release of Epstein files also revealed ‘Mandy’ repeatedly doing the same thing: sending sensitive, confidential and highly lucrative government information to Epstein. This information would have enabled Epstein and his mates to make a fortune in ‘insider trading’.
The British establishment deciding to throw ‘Randy Andy’ under the bus for that instead of his alleged crimes against trafficked girls should have ‘Mandy’ in a lather too.
For more on the the Epstein Files and the betrayal of victims, please read the Canary’s article on way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.
Featured image via the Canary
PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a bellwether Democrat on AI and data centers, is tempering his message ahead of his reelection campaign.
Shapiro, a swing-state Democrat and a 2028 presidential prospect, has staked his state’s economic fortunes on the tech industry. He wooed a $20 billion investment from Amazon along with major investments by Microsoft and Google. Shapiro has backed President Donald Trump’s call for more nuclear and natural gas plants to power new tech hubs.
He’s now trying to hedge his bet as data centers absorb a nationwide backlash from voters increasingly concerned about their impact on electricity bills.
“Pay for your own power, so it’s not saddling local businesses or homeowners with higher costs,” Shapiro said in an interview with POLITICO earlier this month from a union hall in Philadelphia.
It’s an unmistakable pivot by a leading practitioner of data center politics who along with other Democratic governors has been trying to bring under control rising electricity prices that could be political kryptonite for both parties. Household electricity bills are rising at twice the rate of inflation. In recent weeks, Shapiro has joined Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democrats who are sharpening their tone and putting new policies in place to try to claw back taxpayer expenses, increase pressure on utility companies and address local backlash against development.
“Too many of these projects have been shrouded in secrecy, with local communities left in the dark about who is coming in and what they’re building,” Shapiro said in his annual address to the Pennsylvania General Assembly earlier this month.
Shapiro, who is riding high in the polls as he launches his reelection campaign, is pitching the AI and data center boom as a source of union jobs during the yearslong construction phase — but also trying to manage the boom’s potential to alienate other voters.
Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, said Shapiro’s “get stuff done” political brand runs into trouble if voters tie energy affordability concerns to data center projects.
“People have started to connect the demand for AI and data centers to pricing,” he said.
Jobs and energy
Few Democrats have anticipated the data center zeitgeist as deftly as Shapiro. Shortly after taking office in 2023, he ordered an analysis of where the state and U.S. economies were headed. AI jumped out as a key opportunity, a top adviser said.
“Not just because we thought it was cool, but because we have strengths,” said Rick Siger, a former Obama staffer who serves as Shapiro’s secretary of community and economic development.
Carnegie Mellon University, a top engineering and technology school, was a selling point. So was the state’s manufacturing base, which makes hardware for data centers and boasts tech companies that will deploy advanced AI. Shapiro’s team fixated on what major developers were after. “Speed matters, in particular to companies that are competing in AI,” Siger said.
In June 2025, Shapiro announced Amazon’s $20 billion investment in two data center complexes: one in the Philadelphia suburbs of Bucks County and another south of Wilkes-Barre.
“The employees will be making, in some cases, double the average wage in that county,” Siger said, “to work in a high-tech job and be able to stay home and raise their kids in their hometown.” The data center piece of the AI juggernaut also works well for Shapiro’s union-heavy constituency. He toured Steamfitters Local Union 420’s training center in Philadelphia earlier this month, which is training apprentices to install cooling systems for the computer chips packed in wall-to-wall racks inside the cluster of AI factories being developed in Bucks County.
Rory Carroll, a 42-year-old steamfitter who was among the trainees greeting Shapiro, said he’s “tried everything” to make a living. “I sold cars, delivered pizza, managed a supermarket.” Now, he says he’s on a rising tide.
Local officials in Bucks County — which Trump flipped red in 2024, for the first time since 1988 — are wary but welcoming.
“Do I think the trend of technology replacing jobs will continue with the data centers? Of course I do,” said Erin Mullen, vice chair of the Falls Township Board of Supervisors. But she said the temporary construction jobs were worth pursuing. “This is a blue-collar township,” Mullen said. “So even though the jobs are temporary, a lot of families here survive on temporary jobs, and this is huge for the trades.”
Data centers’ demand for energy also works for Shapiro, who’s been touting the state’s large natural gas reserves in talks with tech companies. Last summer, he joined Trump and the state’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick, in Pittsburgh to announce multibillion-dollar commitments for restarting aging hydropower and expanding electricity generation from nuclear and natural gas.
Now, after cuts to federal renewable energy tax credits, he’s still touting Pennsylvania energy — with a partisan edge.
“I’m an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy governor,” Shapiro said in the POLITICO interview. “Unfortunately, the president of the United States has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from clean energy development in this commonwealth, which has cost us 26,000 union trade jobs who were set to work on these projects.”
“I don’t think it’s an either-or — it’s a both-and,” he continued. “We need to generate more power. Yes, it will rely in part on Pennsylvania natural gas. We also need to generate more power with renewables.”
Power politics
Shapiro’s call for data center developers to pay for electricity infrastructure that could drive up utility bills echoes the Trump administration’s recent rhetoric exhorting them to “pick up the tab” — but Shapiro’s focus on power bills was a long time coming.
In July 2024, as Shapiro was chasing Amazon, mid-Atlantic ratepayers were hit with a $14.7 billion, one-year charge from PJM Interconnection, the region’s electricity grid manager. The double-digit cost increases in utility bills came as a result of projections that electricity supplies could fall short of demand across the 13-state region stretching from northern Virginia to Chicago.
Shapiro demanded a price cap in December 2024 on the fastest-rising part of PJM customers’ electricity bills — a headline-grabbing event in Pennsylvania. And he’s threatened to pull Pennsylvania out of the PJM market all together, a major uprooting of the way power is delivered in the region. He’s attacked PJM for its byzantine utility-heavy leadership structure that leads to a sclerotic response to rising power prices.
According to federal data, electricity prices in Pennsylvania rose roughly 20 percent between November 2024 and November 2025 — the highest rate in the country. And PJM has warned that states could face power shortages by the end of the decade if the construction of new data centers race ahead of the energy supply.
“PJM is broken,” Shapiro said in December. “They’re too damned slow. And the needs we have in this country to produce more energy to support everything from data centers to more manufacturing need to be met. And we are being held captive.”
The enormously complex market rules that affect power prices in Shapiro’s state are outside average Americans’ conversations. But Shapiro and Trump have tied a rising part of their political parties’ credibility to the outcome of their pledges to make data centers pay their own way.
In January, Shapiro went to the White House alongside other East Coast governors of both parties to call for PJM to control power prices — and for data centers to “bring their own power” through long-term contracts with new generation developers.
Big tech companies are starting to sign on. Trump used a Truth Social post in early January to announce the White House was working with tech companies to get more agreement on containing the public cost of energy infrastructure. Microsoft then pledged to shoulder more of those costs.
Shapiro’s tack could work for him, according to recent polling.
A POLITICO poll released last week showed an electorate still wrestling with the data center question. Respondents’ top concerns surrounding data centers were power prices and the risk of blackouts — yet they were generally willing to support a new data center in their area evenif it hikes their power bills.
In his address to lawmakers, Shapiro proposed a three-pronged strike against rising energy costs — proposing new rules for data center developers, electric utilities and the regional grid PJM. He pledged to “hold data center developers accountable to strict standards if they want our full support.”
Last week, PJM agreed to extend price controls on future electricity production into 2030.
Former PM Gordon Brown has said that he dobbed former prince Andrew into “several UK police forces”.
Brown wrote a five-page letter to various forces, including the Met, Sussex and Thames Valley, which he says contained “new and additional” information from the Epstein files. The ex-royal was arrested this morning on suspicion of ‘misconduct in public office’ — which carries a potential life sentence but does nothing for Andrew’s and Epstein’s victims.
Brown doesn’t seem to have been asked quite why he had information from the Epstein files not previously available to police. Keir Starmer has helpfully added ‘What the king said’, insisting like Chuck that the “law must take its course”.
The whole establishment now seems to be getting in on the Andrew act as some kind of ritual hand-washing of its own metastatic part in Epstein’s decades of child-rape, trafficking and spying for Israel. Which isn’t how they’re describing it, of course — especially the Israel bit.
For more on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary’s article on the way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.
Featured image via the ScottishGreens
The Green Party believes it is only 73 votes behind Reform in run-up to the Gorton and Denton by-election, HuffPost UK understands.
The party came to that conclusion after more than 13,000 doorstep conversations, according to an internal Green Party WhatsApp group seen by HuffPost UK.
Campaigners in the constituency believe the Greens are now just 0.2% behind Reform, equating to just 73 votes.
The activists described the vote as being on a “literal knife edge”.
Voters in the Greater Manchester seat will head to the ballot box next Thursday for the crunch contest.
The seat has traditionally been Labour so it will be a significant test of Keir Starmer’s authority and approval among the electorate.
The Greens and Reform UK have both soared in popularity over the last 18 months and are hoping to boost their seat numbers in the Commons.
The outsider parties have also insisted they are now locked in a race with each other, while Labour has told HuffPost UK that it is only between their party and Reform.
Meanwhile, the UK Polling Report’s website is currently predicting Labour will hold the seat.
It claimed Labour candidate Angeliki Stogia will win with 35.47% of the vote, while Reform’s Matt Goodwin will come in second place with 29.17%.
The Greens’ Hannah Spencer is expected to come in third with 20.83%, according to the data.
Reform UK and Labour have been contacted for comment.
Green activists also used their WhatsApp group to warn they are “seriously short of campaigners for the final stretch of the campaign”.
The party believes that they need 300 people every weekday to campaign across the remaining week, with more 1,000 activists on the trail this weekend and 2,000 people on polling day.
In a message to campaigners, warns that the party is “not even close” to reaching that number right now.
When approached for comment on a potential shortage of campaigners, a party source told HuffPost UK: “That’s campaigns, campaigning. We have hundreds of volunteers out every day and we are expecting Saturday to be the largest action day the party has ever had.
“Our data shows we’re neck and neck with Reform and every extra volunteer out on the streets from now till next Thursday could make the difference to stop Reform.”
I don’t know about you but suddenly all of my friends are experts on skiing, figure skating and snowboarding – and it’s all thanks to the 2026 Winter Olympics completely captivating them all.
I mean, who can blame them?
The drama, the skill, the absolutely terrifying risks they take as athletes — these sports are not for the faint-hearted and for us, the audience, they make for an incredible viewing experience, even for those who don’t usually care about sports.
All of this got me thinking, though, how do they cope with performance anxiety?! I struggle to keep it together for a Zoom presentation to 12 people. Can you imagine knowing the world has its eyes on you and the country you represent is depending on you to win?
What Olympians can teach us about performance anxiety
Writing about the mental health impacts of being an Olympian back in 2021, Dr David M. Lyreskog, of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said: “In elite sports teams, the prevalence of depression and anxiety is sometimes as high as 45%, and in adolescent elite sports the prevalence of eating disorders is approximately 14%. The pursuit of performance – of excellence – does not appear to be a healthy one.”
Among the wider population, mixed anxiety and depression is Britain’s most common mental disorder, with 7.8% of people meeting the criteria for diagnosis, according to the Mental Health Foundation.
So, how do almost half of Olympians cope with anxiety when they’re supposed to be at the top of their game? And what can we learn from them?
Writing for the official Olympics website, four-time swimming Olympian-turned-sports psychologist Markus Rogan shared how he had been an anxious athlete and had learned four key lessons to get him through bouts of anxiety.
1. ‘Growing through anxiety’ and connecting with loved ones you trust
“It’s easy to surround yourself with people when you’re amazing, but maybe you can explore relationships with those who are there with you when you’re down,” he said.
2. Facing tough questions
When your brain is racing with ‘what if’ questions, ask yourself why you’re worried about this. Is the worry founded or are you just having anxious thoughts?
3. Asking people for their opinions
Sometimes, our anxiety simply comes from the unknown. Ask your loved ones to help. Ask them what you’re afraid to hear and trust them to protect you as they do so.
4. Not ignoring your thoughts
Sometimes bad thoughts are just bad thoughts, but once you label them, you can work on them. “Don’t forget that even the most profound thought is still just a thought,” he assured.
Speaking to Psychology Today, Dr Cindra Kamphoff, who has worked with professional and Olympic athletes for two decades, shared how she supports them following Olympic performances.
She said: “After the Olympics, we debrief. We evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and how to grow from the experience. Then we reset goals and begin preparing for the next competition.
“Confidence and mental performance are ongoing processes, not event-specific interventions.”
Disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, has finally been arrested in connection with revelations from the Epstein files.
Among those who have responded are the family of Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre accused Windsor of sexual abuse:
Statement from the family of Virginia Giuffre:
“At last.
Today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty.
On behalf of our sister, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, we extend our gratitude to the UK’s Thames Valley Police for their… pic.twitter.com/bgtHZtb2qO
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) February 19, 2026
Nevertheless, it hasn’t escaped attention that the arrest is regarding misconduct in public office and apparently not in connection with Giuffre’s allegations.
Andrew arrest: ‘at last’
On 19 February 2026, Thames Valley Police arrested Andrew on suspicion of misconduct in public office. This came after they reviewed documents from the Epstein files which suggest he shared information from his time as a UK trade envoy with the late convicted paedophile.
Mountbatten-Windsor is currently in police custody amid searches of multiple properties as part of the criminal inquiry. The Epstein files have raised serious concerns about the scale of this sinister web of elitist men. This has prompted widespread demands for full transparency and accountability for sexual abuse against women and girls.
However, this pattern underscores how far more precedence is given to economic interests and institutional power over justice for victims and accountability for abusive men.
The statement from Giuffre’s family reads in full:
At last.
Today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty.
On behalf of our sister, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, we extend our gratitude to the UK’s Thames Valley Police for their investigation and arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
He was never a prince.
For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you.
Virginia Giuffre
Virginia Giuffre accused Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was just 17 years old. She became a prominent advocate fighting against sex trafficking, in light of her own experience being sexually exploited by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. She died by suicide in April 2025 leaving her loved ones and survivors across the world devastated and heartbroken. Giuffre’s push for accountability has been continued by advocacy groups across the West. Many have joined the call in demanding powerful men face consequences for the abuse they have evidently inflicted.
We wrote about Andrew’s arrest shortly after it happened:
If former royal, and mate of serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was hoping for any public sympathy after his arrest this morning – on his birthday – he’s going to be sorely disappointed.
The family of Virginia Giuffre, Andrew’s most well-known victim, welcomed the arrest as a sign that no one is above the law:
“At last, today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty,” Giuffre’s family said in the statement given to CBS News.”
However, Windsor was arrested on suspicion of ‘misconduct in a public office’. Knowing the British state, this was more likely linked to his leaking of secrets to Epstein than his abuse of trafficked and potentially under-age girls. But the offence carries a potential life sentence, so there’s that.
Giuffre had long pursued seeing the suspected paedo-prince face accountability for his abuse against her. Obviously, Andrew has always denied these claims, which is no surprise as it’s damn rare to find a man actually hold his hands up in disgust at the abuse he has inflicted.
Because of this, she was denied the justice she deserved over the allegations against Windsor, after Epstein and Maxwell allegedly trafficked her to him. Giuffre also shared in her memoir even more sinister allegations against former Israeli PM Ehud Barak.
We wrote in October:
Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent survivors (but now a victim) of serial child rapist and trafficker – and almost certain Israel intelligence asset – Jeffrey Epstein, was repeatedly left battered and bloodied after being beaten and raped by a man she describes, in a new memoir published after her death earlier this year, as a “well-known prime minister”.
Adding:
Giuffre said that she called the man ‘the Prime Minister’ and did not name him, because she was afraid he would come after her and cause her harm if she did. Before Epstein’s death, however, she named former Israeli PM Ehud Barak – also a close friend of Epstein’s ardent fan Peter Mandelson – as one of the many men to rape her, an accusation he has denied.
Virginia Giuffre wrote in horrific detail about the violence inflicted on her by the ‘PM’, whom she met when she was just eighteen:
“He repeatedly choked me until I lost consciousness and took pleasure in seeing me in fear for my life. Horrifically, the Prime Minister laughed when he hurt me and got more aroused when I begged him to stop. I emerged from the cabana bleeding from my mouth, vagina, and anus. For days, it hurt to breathe and to swallow… [He] raped me more savagely than anyone had before.”
King’s ‘concern’
The King chose his words carefully – and choice matters here, because men can choose to amplify victims’ voices and examine allegations critically. Rather than doing so, he voiced his “deepest concern” about his brother’s arrest and stated that “the law must take its course,” adding:
What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities.
This statement is reported to have the full support of Will and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales. Queenie Camilla had nothing to offer but a wave when asked for her feelings on the arrest. We can’t help but feel the Royal family’s concern here lies solely with Andrew, the man-child sex-pest, rather than the countless victims across the world who fell victim to powerful, privileged men and their sick fancies.
How the mighty have fallen, thus proving that powerful men can be brought to task if the political will is there:
‘Do you know who I was?’ #Andrew #AndrewWindsor pic.twitter.com/Gp6Eu5NuD9
— The Rev. Anton Mittens 🌹👮🎓 (@MittensOff) February 19, 2026
Accountability NOW
Don’t get us wrong, it is bloody wonderful to see the disgraced prince brought to task and finally facing a criminal investigation. A potential life sentence is equally refreshing to see. Nonetheless, many wish to see this go further. Despite the long relationship with Epstein, there has never been a thorough investigation into his involvement in the apparent trafficking ring instrumentalized by Epstein and co.
Enough must be enough. Andrew is now in a police station with more than enough evidence to legitimise a full investigation into allegations of sexual abuse. Yet powerful men have shown us that the protection of young girls will never be as important as protecting power.
Shame on them. Down with the monarchy.
For more on the Epstein Files, please read:
Featured image via the Canary
Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) is celebrating the legal victory, with another huntsman brought to justice. Northampton magistrate’s court has found Philip Saunders guilty of illegal hunting on Wednesday 18 February. Saunders is one of the arsehole huntsman for criminal gang, the Pipewell Foot Beagles.
Another one?
The conviction is the second time these bloodthirsty arseholes have been caught out illegally hare-hunting.
And it beautifully landed just before the 21st anniversary of the Hunting Act.
The court heard how Saunders led his pack to kill a hare at the Boughton Estates on Kettering. Richard Scott is the current Duke of Buccleuch and one of the largest land owners in Scotland. It’s no shock that he would allow an illegal hunt to take place on ‘home turf.’
Courageous wildlife photographer Emma Reed was on the scene and captured the entire incident.
Reed’s video clearly shows Saunders encouraging the hounds to kill. The huntsman was heard growling “Get onto it!” at the dogs. This is a specific hunting term which incites animal cruelty and it proves the hunt intended to pursue the hare.
As per usual, the HSA provided names to the police at the time, but they failed to act on the evidence. Again.
Losing the horn
The magistrate fined Saunders £1,000 for his role in the illegal hunt. He also has to pay £3,600 in costs and a £400 victim surcharge.
In the landmark move, the court also ordered the destruction of Saunders’ hunting horn. Saunders must surrender it to the police by 5pm Thursday 19 Feb.
Destroying the horn is beautifully symbolic as this is the primary tool a huntsman uses to control the hounds. The HSA believe this should be common practice in all cases as it effectively strips the bloodthirsty wankers of the ability to lead.
Reed expressed her satisfaction with the guilty verdict stating:
“I am pleased with the guilty verdict as justice has been served. The judge was strong in his summing up of sending a message to the hunting community that these illegal actions will not be tolerated and are totally unacceptable.”
Justice for wildlife
The Judge was strong in his summing up of the case, making it clear that illegal hunting of hares is totally unacceptable and it sends a clear warning to the hunting community.
Simon Russell, chair of the HSA spoke to the Canary about this landmark victory:
Hare Hunts always pack up and go home when sabs find them, this is what they are really doing when they’re not under observation, killing our public wild Hares. A good hunting horn is hard to come by, the really decent ones rack in at £300 plus and we would suggest that future convictions have the horns donated to the Hunt Saboteurs Association. We would put them to good use saving wildlife.
Images via Emma Reed
Google’s new music tool, Lyria 3 is here
Winter Olympics 2026: GB’s men into curling semi-finals but women edged out
Trump administration provides $175M funding for coal plants
-
Video3 days agoBitcoin: We’re Entering The Most Dangerous Phase
-
Tech5 days agoLuxman Enters Its Second Century with the D-100 SACD Player and L-100 Integrated Amplifier
-
Crypto World2 days agoCan XRP Price Successfully Register a 33% Breakout Past $2?
-
Sports3 days agoGB's semi-final hopes hang by thread after loss to Switzerland
-
Video6 days agoThe Final Warning: XRP Is Entering The Chaos Zone
-
Tech3 days agoThe Music Industry Enters Its Less-Is-More Era
-
Business2 days agoInfosys Limited (INFY) Discusses Tech Transitions and the Unique Aspects of the AI Era Transcript
-
Entertainment1 day agoKunal Nayyar’s Secret Acts Of Kindness Sparks Online Discussion
-
Video2 days agoFinancial Statement Analysis | Complete Chapter Revision in 10 Minutes | Class 12 Board exam 2026
-
Tech1 day agoRetro Rover: LT6502 Laptop Packs 8-Bit Power On The Go
-
Crypto World6 days agoBhutan’s Bitcoin sales enter third straight week with $6.7M BTC offload
-
Sports16 hours agoClearing the boundary, crossing into history: J&K end 67-year wait, enter maiden Ranji Trophy final | Cricket News
-
Entertainment22 hours agoDolores Catania Blasts Rob Rausch For Turning On ‘Housewives’ On ‘Traitors’
-
Crypto World6 days agoKalshi enters $9B sports insurance market with new brokerage deal
-
Business2 days agoTesla avoids California suspension after ending ‘autopilot’ marketing
-
NewsBeat4 days agoThe strange Cambridgeshire cemetery that forbade church rectors from entering
-
Crypto World1 day agoWLFI Crypto Surges Toward $0.12 as Whale Buys $2.75M Before Trump-Linked Forum
-
NewsBeat4 days agoMan dies after entering floodwater during police pursuit
-
NewsBeat5 days agoUK construction company enters administration, records show
-
Crypto World6 days agoBlackRock Enters DeFi Via UniSwap, Bitcoin Stages Modest Recovery