Politics
LIVE: Reform Launches Manifesto in Wales
Farage is with Dan Thomas to launch Reform’s manifesto for the Senedd election.
Donald Trump’s administration has asked Ukraine for help to counter Iranian drones, despite being very reluctant to help Kyiv over the Russian invasion.
The US is looking to intercept Iranian attacks on its military bases in the Middle East after Trump and Israel launched joint strikes on Tehran at the weekend, a move which has sparked a regional war.
Kyiv has expertise in this area because Iran has been exporting its Shahed drones to Russia for use against Ukrainian troops for much of the four-year conflict.
In a post on X, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there have been requests from the US, Europeans and other partners in the Middle East for advice from Kyiv on how to deal with these attacks.
He said: “They are seeking our expertise. We are open. If their representatives come, we will provide the expertise.”
But the US request comes after the Trump administration put relations with Ukraine under immense strain over the last year.
In his bid to end the war as soon as possible, Trump has repeatedly sided with Vladimir Putin, despite the US’s alliance with Ukraine.
A year ago, the president cornered Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in front of the press and claimed Ukraine “does not have the cards” in the war.
He also called Zelenskyy a “dictator” while his team also attacked the Ukrainian president for not wearing a suit.
While their alliance has improved in the months since, the US has remained wary about offering Ukraine much help.
At the same time, Trump has been rolling out the red carpet for Putin, even inviting him to face-to-face summit in Alaska last August.
The president pushed for trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US earlier this year but they have failed to make any significant progress so far.
In his frustration, Trump has repeatedly accused Ukraine of not coming to the table with further compromises over territory – even though that is a red line for Kyiv, especially as Russia already controls more than a fifth of its sovereign land.
The president has also echoed false Kremlin talking points by accusing Ukraine of starting the war – despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
The Iran conflict has delayed the next round of trilateral meetings which were due to start today and run until March 9.
The US request has caused significant outrage on social media, too….
2 min read
Exclusive: The number of paid ministerial roles is to increase as part of new government reforms to be announced on Thursday.
The government is set to bring forward legislation permitting an additional 11 ministerial roles to be paid with a salary, PoliticsHome understands.
The reforms, which are expected to be brought forward today by Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds, are designed to bring the total number of paid ministerial roles in line with the average size of government since 2010, which is around 120 ministers. Under current legislation, the limit is 109.
As things stand, 12 ministers in the Labour government serve without pay.
The new salaries are expected to be largely allocated to ministers in the House of Lords, who are often seen as experts in their fields.
The government is expected to argue that it is not right that a number of ministerial roles favour those who have the financial means to fulfill them without a salary.
A government source told PoliticsHome: “The current Cabinet has the highest proportion of state-educated members in history, and the Prime Minister believes that ministerial office should not be reserved for those wealthy enough to fund it for themselves.”
Ministers will also argue that the reforms will help improve transparency by ending the practice of ‘borrowing’ whips’ salaries to fund departmental roles, which successive governments have used when organising their payroll.
The salaries themselves are expected to remain at the same level.
The Strait of Hormuz, one of the most vital shipping routes in the world, has been closed by Iran since the US and Israel began their airstrikes last week. This event might not seem as newsworthy as the assasination of Ayatollah Khamenei and the potential demise of the Islamic Republic – but make no mistake, the consequences could be just as profound. Particularly for the UK.
The impact of the Strait’s closure has already been unprecedented. And no wonder: roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through this narrow, 90-mile stretch of water separating the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Prices for oil and gas have skyrocketed – in the UK, wholesale gas prices increased 100 per cent in the first 48 hours of conflict, the sharpest rise since records began. Adding to the chaos of the Strait’s closure was Iran’s successful strike on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura, the world’s biggest oil-export terminal, sending Brent crude prices soaring. Ras Laffan, the world’s biggest terminal for exporting liquified natural gas, based in Qatar, has also closed down after it was hit by Iranian drones. Global energy markets are in complete turmoil, with no end in sight.
The UK, which has depended on foreign imports for energy for decades, is in the eye of this storm. In a more rational world, then, one might hope that UK energy secretary Ed Miliband would reassess his longstanding hostility to fracking on British land and drilling in the North Sea. Miliband, you might remember, has banned fracking for natural gas, while slowly strangulating the economic viability of the North Sea oil and gas industry. Surely the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz ought now to force him into some soul-searching about Net Zero, and his unquenchable drive to abandon fossil fuels?
Alas, no. The phrase ‘doubling down’ seems to have been invented for Miliband. ‘To ensure our energy security in an unstable world’, Miliband said on Wednesday, the Labour government will ‘keep driving’ for ‘clean, homegrown power’. What Miliband is saying, with his typical nursery-school level of insight, is that the wind and sun in the British Isles are more reliable and affordable than fossil fuels from the Middle East. The war is further proof, in Miliband’s deluded mind, that his flagship Net Zero target – of 95 per cent of British electricity coming from renewables and nuclear by 2030 – has never been more urgent.
So, we will be asked to forget the higher prices that motorists can now expect for fuel at petrol stations, and the higher bills that households can equally expect for gas-fired central heating. Never mind that Britain will always need gas-fired power stations to back up, at vast expense, its intermittent production of renewable energy. Erase from all memory our Ed vandalising two potential sites for UK fracking by pouring concrete into them – and of him banning the issuing of new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea, in favour of buying supplies from Norwegian drillers.
Instead, look forward to Miliband citing the Hormuz crisis as a vindication of Net Zero, and of his belief that Britain should decouple from Middle Eastern petrostates through home-grown wind and solar. In his typically imperious style, he will go on thinking that the UK’s Net Zero policy shows the way to the rest of the world. In truth, the rest of the world will continue to see Britain as an example of exactly what not to do. Of course, with Britain labouring under the weight of some of the world’s highest industrial-energy prices, they would be right.
Miliband has drawn precisely the wrong lesson from the war in Ukraine. When Russia invaded its western neighbour in 2022, and sent global energy prices soaring, he never even seemed to entertain the idea that oil and gas beneath our soil and seas could be a solution to the inevitable energy shocks of the future. Such was the extent of Miliband’s Carbon Derangement Syndrome that the idea of developing British-based sources of hydrocarbons – the source not just of fossil fuels, but also of lifesaving pharmaceuticals, agricultural fertilisers and plain old methanol – did not even enter his mind.
Speaking at an International Energy Agency summit last year, UK prime minister Keir Starmer conceded that fossil fuels would be part of Britain’s energy mix for ‘decades to come’. He was, for once, right. What a shame, then, that Starmer appears to have done nothing to follow through on this insight.
Britain must take energy security seriously, even if Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer refuse to. The danger of Net Zero – to the UK’s energy security and indeed national security – has never been so obvious. The war in Iran might have been beyond the UK’s control, but our vulnerability to its consequences was not. The coming energy crisis has Miliband’s fingerprints all over it.
James Woudhuysen is visiting professor of forecasting and innovation at London South Bank University. Follow him on X: @jameswoudhuysen.
The Bear is set to end after its upcoming fifth season, cast member Jamie Lee Curtis has claimed.
Late last month, the Oscar nominee appeared to let the cat out of the bag with a revealing Instagram post.
In the picture, Jamie – who plays matriarch Donna Berzatto in the comedy-drama – appeared alongside The Bear’s Abby Elliott, suggesting the actors had just finished filming a scene together.
“FINISHED STRONG!” she wrote in the caption. “Surrounded by an extraordinary crew and group of writers and producers and scene partners on the show that Chris Storer created, completing the story of this extraordinary family that we have all fallen in love with.”
Fans speculated this meant the end of the road for the popular culinary series, which Jamie has confirmed to be the case.
Earlier this week, a reporter from Access Hollywood asked the Freaky Friday star whether the post confirmed that the next series would be the last.
“Everybody’s confirmed the show is ending,” she insisted. “I don’t understand why that’s such a [big deal].
“Unless I’m gonna get a call from all the people saying, ‘You just told [everyone],’ I think everybody understood that it was the last season of the show. If it isn’t, then I’ve completely blown it.”
Although there has been no official statement from The Bear about its upcoming ending, undisclosed sources confirmed to Deadline that Jamie’s comments were accurate.
However, this news won’t come as too much of a surprise to fans of the show, as leading man Jeremy Allen White previously revealed that the show’s creator, Christopher Storer, had originally only planned for the show to run for four seasons.
Series four ended with Jeremy’s character, Carmy, leaving the restaurant and signing over his stake in it.
Despite feeling like a goodbye to The Bear, the series was soon renewed for its fifth season, although at the time there was no word if it would be the last.
Over the last three months, the cast has been spotted around Chicago, filming new scenes for the upcoming final episodes.
The Bear premiered in 2022 to huge acclaim, winning 21 Emmy awards and five Golden Globes over the course of the series, including individual acting wins for Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
There is no current release date for season five of The Bear, but you can watch all four series of The Bear on Disney + now.
Politics
Politics Home | Alexion teams up with Premier League club to raise awareness of rare diseases
Alexion and the Wolves Foundation unite for Rare Disease Day to spotlight conditions affecting 1 in 17 people through a community football programme
Rare diseases affect approximately 3.5 million people in the UK – with 1 in 17 impacted by one of the 10,000 known rare conditions at some point in their lives – a collective prevalence similar to cancer.1,2 However, with each rare disease affecting so few people, these conditions are often overlooked.
Many rare conditions are life-limiting or life-threatening, making access to a timely diagnosis, expert care and effective treatment critically important. In healthcare systems geared towards more common diseases, it can be difficult for people with rare diseases to navigate and access the specialist services they need.3 This results in poor health outcomes and experiences of care – challenges that have been reflected in the UK Rare Disease Framework since 2021, with work underway to measure its impact.4
In late 2025, health ministers from all four nations agreed to extend the UK Rare Diseases Framework by one year through to February 2027.5 Over the next 12 months, it is critical that this time is used to determine the long-term priorities for the rare disease community, those specific areas where national policy and coordination can make the most meaningful impact, and how best to track progress.
Every year, Rare Disease Day takes place on 28th February – or 29th February in leap years to coincide with the rarest of days – to raise awareness of all rare conditions. Work by patient organisations underlines how low awareness of rare conditions makes it harder for others to relate to their experiences. As a result, empathy, understanding and support can be harder to find.6
For Rare Disease Day 2026, Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease and the Wolves Foundation have partnered to raise the visibility of rare diseases and support the foundation’s disability football programme and the Wolves Wishes initiative.
Wolves Wishes organises memorable club-related experiences for fans facing health challenges. The Premier League fixture between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa, which took place on 27th February, featured the disability teams playing at half-time to mark Rare Disease Day.
The team wore a kit they had designed themselves, reflecting the diverse and unique nature of rare conditions. They showed their skills and beat the Aston Villa team 1-0, with both home and away fans united in their support for these important players and cause.
Through the partnership, Alexion is supporting the foundation’s eight disability teams by providing new kit for the players and backing the Wolves Wishes project.
“This partnership reflects our shared values of equity and inclusion, while raising awareness of rare diseases with a broad audience,” said Deborah Richards, Managing Director of Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK. “Rare diseases often bring challenges that aren’t always visible, but they have a clear impact on those they affect and their families. Through this partnership, we can help make rare disease more visible and build greater understanding within the football community and beyond.”
“Our disability football and Wolves Wishes programmes are built on years of evidence showing how sport and local communities can transform lives,” said Kieron Ansell, Head of Business Development at the Wolves Foundation. “Through our partnership with Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, we can continue this important work while also shining a light on rare disease awareness. It shows that local children and families are seen and valued, and that their health challenges are recognised beyond the medical world, which can make a real difference, particularly for those at the beginning of their diagnostic journey.”
To find out more about the Wolves Foundation visit, https://foundation.wolves.co.uk/. To find out more about Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, visit https://alexion.com/worldwide/UK.
This article was developed and funded by Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease.
M/UK/NP/0191 | March 2026
References
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/
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https://www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/research/cancer-prevalence
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https://shca.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SHCA-Health-Inequalities-Report.pdf
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/our-campaign-for-a-new-uk-rare-diseases-framework/
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World leaders’ relentless focus on economic growth is a key driver of social inequality and extreme poverty. That same centering of profit at all costs is fuelling the climate crisis and hastening the death of our planet.
But then, the Canary would say that, wouldn’t we? We’re a bunch of rabid leftists who probably read Marx on the shitter before wiping with recycled toilet paper.
Except it’s not us that said it — it’s the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Olivier De Schutter. In April, he will present his findings to the UN and advocate for a global shift toward a ‘Beyond Growth’ approach.
New economies for eradicating poverty
De Schutter leads a team entitled ‘New Economies for Eradicating Poverty,’ or ‘NEEP’. At the heart of what they do is the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, a blue print for:
expand[ing] the range of policy options available in the fight against poverty, beyond those that rely on economic growth.
Once finished, the Roadmap will offer a catalogue of concrete policy measures that governments, international agencies, and other stakeholders can implement that place human rights, care, and well-being at the centre of the economy, while respecting planetary boundaries.
The roadmap will set out policies for both richer and poorer countries, having suffered under the pursuit of endless growth. De Schutter stated that, in the case of poorer nations:
Although these countries still need to create resources to invest in hospitals, schools, infrastructure and so on, the growth that they are forced to pursue, particularly to reimburse their foreign debt … means they must export, and in order to export, they must produce not for their own population and not based on ecological considerations, but based solely on what the big buyers in global supply chains demand.
Likewise, for richer countries, the roadmap will suggest that:
instead of public revenue being raised by taxing income from labour or economic activity, we should ensure that public revenue is raised by taxing wealth, financial assets, immovable property, financial transactions, and all the ills of the economy, including from the extractive industry and especially of fossil energy.
Beyond growth
The special rapporteur argues that politicians must set aside the growth mindset focusing on the profits and the:
frivolous and destructive demands of the ultra-rich
In its place, world leaders must adopt a new mindset to fight ecological collapse, inequality and the far-right. De Schutter states:
The scarce resources we have should be used to prioritise the basic needs of people in poverty and to create what is of societal value rather than serve the frivolous desires of the ultra-rich.
As such, the roadmap argues for policies including debt cancellation, universal basic income, job guarantees, and an extreme wealth tax. De Schutter also took care to distinguish the movement beyond growth from uncontrolled economic collapse:
We should avoid the confusion between recession or stagnation of the kind we saw after 2008 or 1929 and the carefully planned and democratically controlled transition to something else.
This shift in mindset would involve a re-ordering of the way we conceptualise the global economy. Only yesterday, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves gave her spring statement on the country’s finances, with that fictional holy grail of growth front-and-center.
Beyond GDP, beyond inequality
As such, one might assume that an anti-growth stance is a fringe idea within the UN. However, De Schutter argues that an increasing number of individuals within the organisation have believed in the “imperative of moving beyond growth” for years. However, their:
existing mandate does not always allow them to say this politically at the highest level, and there is a taboo still about questioning growth.
As such, the special rapporteur’s findings could provide a crucial mandate for ‘beyond growth’ arguments within the UN.
Towards this end, De Schutter is advocating to establish a UN body to ensure that:
the economy is redistributive and sustainable by design rather than encouraging destructive growth and then trying to make up for the mess that creates.
This new body, he argues, could follow the pattern of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This goal is also backed up by the timing of the report. Its April release will coincide with two similar initiatives, as reported in the Guardian:
one instigated by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, which looks at replacing GDP as the key measure of economic success, and a second report by a G20 panel of independent experts on global inequality led by the renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz.
De Schutter argues that this moment in time offers:
a realistic opportunity to shape the post-2030 agenda with a viable alternative that will reconcile planetary boundaries with social justice and the fight against poverty and inequalities. That’s the challenge and the opportunity.
Now, this article should of course come with hefty caveats. This is the UN we’re talking about — a world body famed for a focus on talk over action. After all, the IPCC has warned and warned of imminent planetary destruction, but we’re still sleepwalking towards annihilation.
We can criticise the proposed roadmap for failing to go far enough, for coming too late, for revolving around the presumption of a money-based economy. The idea of a wealth tax is a curb on extreme wealth, but it doesn’t eliminate inequality altogether.
All of these things should be said. However, the news of NEEP’s work is notable still — even the fucking UN is cottoning on to the simple fact that we must abandon the pursuit of economic growth in order to survive.
Endless growth is a fiction; it is not economically, socially or ecologically possible. Rather, its pursuit is a cancer on our societies and our world.
Featured image via the Canary
US President Donald Trump’s war may be costing Americans $1bn a day. As the US switches from ‘smart’ bombs to ‘gravity’ bombs there are questions about where this runaway conflict is going. And now an esteemed air power scholar has warned the Americans are stuck in a strategic trap.
The US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
Atlantic reporter Nancy Youssef posted on X on 4 March:
The preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 billion a day, a congressional official told me.
— Nancy Youssef, نانسي يوسف (@nancyayoussef) March 4, 2026
An anonymous official’s comment must be taken with a pinch of salt. But the debate about the cost and nature of this attack is urgent. And let’s be clear, this war isn’t ending anytime soon.
On 4 March, US Congress turned their backs on peace and left Trump unchecked:
US Senate Republicans backed President Trump’s military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress https://t.co/1KivKwJfyS pic.twitter.com/9KbMnsvVoP
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 5, 2026
Not that the Iranians – who say they were stabbed in the back when the 28 February attack came amid fruitful talks – are in the mood to get back around the table:
Iran says it did not request negotiations with US https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 28, 2026
Iranian deputy foreign minister Esmail Baghaei explained the Iranian position at length on 4 March:
Trump in over his head
The Costs of War Project have been trying to estimate what the attack will cost the US taxpayer:
Operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities last year cost $2-2.25 billion.
This war will likely cost far more. https://t.co/QTfp0EGDEn pic.twitter.com/B8tdSjoIHA
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026
It’s much easier to say who the beneficiaries of the US-Iran war are going to be: arms firms.
Northrop Grumman’s share price rose 6% yesterday, increasing its market value by billions of dollars in just one day of trading. https://t.co/CqiF6rP2Wx
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026
The war is changing character, possibly due to depletion of ammunition stocks. US Democrats raised concerns on 4 March that:
the US has been burning through interceptors to defend against ballistic missiles launched by Iran.
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine acknowledged:
that concern, a person familiar with the matter said, even as he expressed confidence in stockpile levels in public.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was moving away from ‘stand-off’ weapons towards gravity-based bombs:
The Hill reported:
Hegseth noted that the U.S. had largely been using standoff munitions — such as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles fired from ships or ground positions — in the campaign so far.
Hegseth said:
More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.
Gravity bombs are a more conventional form of munition which is dropped from an aircraft rather than fired. B-2’s will arrive at a UK airbase within days on their way to Iran. The UK’s role deepens by the day.
This never works
Professor Robert Pape, a highly-regarded American expert on air warfare, posted on X:
THE SMART BOMB TRAP IS BECOMING A DUMB BOMB
The war is widening.
Not rhetorically.
Operationally.And the reason is technical — but the consequences are strategic.
— Robert A. Pape (@ProfessorPape) March 4, 2026
Pape told Time magazine on 3 March:
In announcing the goal of regime change through air power alone, President Trump is up against the weight of history. Not just Iran, but the weight of history. For over a century, states—including the United States, European states, Russia, and Israel—have tried to topple regimes with air power alone. It has never—and I’m choosing my words carefully—it has never worked.
You can read his Substack or listen to more of his analysis here:
As this domestically unpopular war expands rapidly without a plan, the costs in lives and dollars will expand too. Experts insist Trump has chosen the wrong tactic in using air power. A shift to old-fashioned bombs hints at depletion of stock. Meanwhile, the Iranians understandably say they consider this an existential war.
Featured image via the Canary
You might already keep a weather eye out for phishing emails, dodgy texts, and suspicious calls.
But it seems scammers have found an unlikely new way into your phone: your calendar app.
Cybersecurity company Malwarebytes raised the alarm about the “fake calendar invites” back in November of last year.
Since then, the trend seems only to have risen.
What is the phone calendar scam?
It involves fake invites sent to your device’s calendar that you often can’t delete, or that come back no matter how many times you get rid of them.
Apple lists “unwanted Calendar invitations and subscriptions” among possible phishing attempts to look out for.
These invites might say something really attention-grabbing, like “impending payment” or “phone security compromised”; they could ask you to call a number, and they may sometimes contain a link.
On iPhones, “the spam alerts generally don’t require an app to be installed, so they can fill up a user’s calendar without passing through the App Store and show up directly in a user’s iOS notifications,” Newsweek said.
That can be a sneaky way to get around Apple’s strict security rules.
Once these invites have been sent, scammers hope that their victims will panic and click the link or call the number included in the entry.
From there, they might try to get your banking details, sell you an overpriced product, or get you to install software that’ll give them enough details to access your accounts.
Whatever they try after you click a link or call a number, scammers almost certainly will be after money. Don’t click or call these.
How can I spot an iPhone calendar scam?
If you notice unexpected calendar invites, especially those with alarming names and/or phone numbers or links, that’s a huge red flag.
“If you’re suspicious about an unexpected message, call or request for personal information, such as your email address, phone number, password, security code or money, it’s safer to presume that it’s a scam – contact that company directly if you need to,” Apple said.
How can I get rid of scam calendar invites?
Apple says people with iPhone iOS 14.6 and later should:
- Open Calendars,
- Tap the event you want to get rid of,
- Tap “unsubscribe from this Calendar”, which should appear at the bottom of the screen,
- Tap “unsubscribe” to confirm.
And if your iPhone uses an earlier iOS:
- Open the Calendars app,
- Tap Calendars in the bottom part of the screen,
- Tap the More info button next to any calendar you don’t recognise or want,
- Scroll down and tap Delete Calendar.
- Open Settings,
- Tap Calendar > Accounts, or, for iOS 13, tap Passwords & Accounts > Accounts,
- Tap Subscribed Calendars,
- Look for calendars you don’t recognise or want and tap them,
- Select “delete account”.
Black Democratic strategists, lawmakers and activists are frustrated that Texas Democrats rejected Jasmine Crockett as their Senate nominee Tuesday night — but they also saw it coming.
Following Crockett’s single-digit loss, they recounted a laundry list of why she fell to state Rep. James Talarico: Her campaign was unfocused; she had an insufficient campaign infrastructure to challenge Talarico, even though she earned the backing of former Vice President Kamala Harris. They also said her media strategy relied too heavily on social media rather than television ad buys — typically seen as critical in a sprawling state like Texas and its nearly two dozen media markets.
“People who don’t understand politics will be upset because Jasmine was their hero,” said Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, a Democrat. “But for people who understand politics, [Crockett] literally had no ground game.”
She added: “This L is on her.”
Taken together, Crockett’s campaign shortcomings doomed the upstart Senate bid of the two-term congressmember who entered the contest with broad name recognition and hopes of showcasing her firebrand personality and penchant for viral moments to help Texas Democrats end their nearly 40-year winless streak in Senate races.
Still, Black strategists and activists warn Crockett’s loss will have ripple effects.
They say the party rejected an established star in favor of an untested, white state lawmaker over style — the two candidates did not substantively disagree on policy — raising concerns that Black voters, especially women, will not turn out when the party needs them the most.
“A lot of Black women who work in the Democratic Party, vote for Democrats, organize for Democrats, have always had a sense of this,” said Houston-based political strategist and social media influencer Tayhlor Coleman. “It is a lot more apparent now: A lot of people in the Democratic Party want our labor, they do not want our leadership.”
A spokesperson for Crockett’s campaign pushed back on the criticism of her campaign, saying it came from “Monday morning quarterbacks.”
“This was the most expensive Democratic primary ever in Texas with the overwhelming majority of those dollars being spent on attacks against the Congresswoman,” former deputy campaign manager Karrol Rimal said in a text message Wednesday afternoon. “Despite being outspent, she held our own and excited an untapped base of support for Democrats with record numbers of first time primary voters. There was also the intentional voter suppression of voters in Dallas and Williamson counties. That can not be ignored.”
After Crockett conceded, she tweeted her support for Talarico, saying, “Democrats must rally around our nominees and win.”
Democrats for years have praised Black women as the “backbone of the party.” And Crockett, a former civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, rose to prominence in part by viral moments from House hearings. Just last month, she garnered praise from party insiders for her sharp criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi during a House Judiciary hearing over the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein documents.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary election — the first of the 2026 midterm cycle — there was optimism Crockett could harness her star power to beat Talarico, a seminary student and former teacher who drew national attention when Texas Democrats fled the state to try to block a major redistricting effort.
Talarico also built his national name with a sitdown on the nation’s top podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience” where the show’s host urged him to run for president — weeks before he officially launched his Senate bid, and later turned an online interview with the late night host Stephen Colbert into a fundraising boon.
Throughout the primary, Crockett faced constant questions about her viability and campaign decisions, including whether she hired enough staff. She also faced criticism that the get-out-the-vote efforts were virtually nonexistent.
“She ran a fucking terrible campaign that many will question if she’s running a campaign at all,” said one Black national Democratic operative granted anonymity to give a candid assessment of Crockett’s campaign.
Crockett staked much of her political campaign on her ability to connect with young voters and rebuked her party for trying to win Republicans instead of wooing hard-to-reach Democrats that have grown frustrated with the party. By contrast, Talarico was praised by many Democrats for the way he leaned into his seminarian background as a way to appeal to progressives, independents and disillusioned Republicans.
“In many ways, she has been and has felt like a woman on an island,” said Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of the Collective PAC, which works to elect Black candidates to local, state and federal offices.
“Even though she has substance, not everybody likes her style,” she added. “And I think that sometimes her style is one that is not appealing, especially to the old guard Democrats, whose fighting style is antiquated and outdated.”
State and national Democrats acknowledged Talarico built a strong campaign that shored up grassroots support and built a statewide infrastructure long before Crockett entered the primary in December, just months before voters began casting their ballots. He was able to raise money quickly, establish a field and digital plan and craft a message that cast him as a fighter and someone who would bring down high costs.
Some Democrats anticipate Talarico’s victory is going to ignite a fresh round of uncomfortable conversations among insiders about the importance race, gender and identity politics will play in Democratic political circles moving forward.
“The way that we have seen people rally around new, more untested white male candidates” is troubling, said Maya Rupert, a Democratic strategist who served as the campaign manager of Julian Castro’s 2020 presidential campaign.
While she is excited about Talarico’s nomination against what she called “a very weak Republican field,” Rupert said Crockett’s loss will continue to “sting” for months to come, especially with few opportunities beyond Texas for Black women candidates to win in statewide contests.
“There are a lot of people who see this and see a very qualified, very popular Black woman — that, once again — feels like people fail to appreciate the strength of,” Rupert adds. “And that is a very dangerous position for the party to be in.”
The amount of compensation payments the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has authorised has more than doubled since 2021. “Consolatory payments” are issued when DWP fucks up with your claim so much that you’re left in deep distress. They’re usually a paltry amount and are not the same as a back payment.
DWP admits compensation has shot up
Labour MP Anneliese Dodds asked the DWP about these payments via a written question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many consolation payments have been offered, per annum for the last ten years, to benefits claimants whose cases are mishandled or excessively delayed.
She also asked other, more specific questions about consolatory payments by region and the mean and mode amount of payments. However, she was told this information isn’t available, or to provide some of this information would cost the department too much. Which is a bit rich for a department that shelled out over £12.7 million in bonuses last year.
Anyway, despite asking the question in December, it was finally answered.
Andrew Western, Under-Secretary of State for Transformation in the Department for Work and Pensions (whatever the fuck that means), answered:
Consolatory payments recognise personal impacts such as gross inconvenience or severe distress.
Complaints to DWP have increased year on year in-line with increases in caseloads, as well as the department continuing to improve its handling processes. The rise in special payments made to recognise impacts on customers’ well‑being, reflects better acknowledgement of when service has fallen short.
He also helpfully provided a table showing how many payments there’d been, the average amount and the total the DWP spent on apologising for their fuck ups in the last decade.
Figures have been rounded to the nearest 5:
Incompetence
There’s one very obvious, notable thing about the figures. There was a very dramatic leap in payments from 2020/21 to 2021/22. For some reason, the amount of consolatory payments more than doubled in just a single year. Leaping from 3,150 payments issued in the financial year ending 2021 to 6,480 in the year ending 2022.
This means the amount they spend trying to right their mistakes also shot up. From £294,315 in 2021 to £525,855.
There’s also the fact that since then, it’s only gotten worse, leaping up to 7,860 affected and 658,810 spent the following year. Since that peak, it has slowly come down, but it’s only back to where it was in 2022 when it first shot up.
It could be that this is another consequence of the beginning of the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, where everything came to a standstill. When many had excessive waits for their claims to be processed.
But compensation has nothing to do with back payments. What’s more likely is that the DWP is so shoddily ran that not only are payments being delayed, but their staff are treating claimants with utter contempt.
I know from my own experience of the DWP trying to end my claim because they didn’t open my reassessment form in time, just how unfeeling they can be. In my instance, this was their error, not mine, but I was made to feel like I was at fault. I was eventually given an extra £20 for my trouble.
In January 2025, the Canary found that DWP complaints increased by 38% in just three years.
DWP too busy blaming claimants to sort out their own problems
As we know full well though, the DWP is a disgustingly incompetent excuse for an organisation. Recently, they’ve been dragged by MPs for spending more time demonising claimants than fixing their broken system. They were forced to admit that 1 in 5 privately contracted benefit assessors aren’t safeguard trained and that 52% of new benefits assessors didn’t make it through their first year.
Partly due to this, they’ve got such a bad benefits backlog that they had to divert staff from dealing with new claims to get the reassessment figures down. This left 40,000 new PIP claimants in the lurch. And thats without the added stress they’re causing with the constant rhetoric that we’re all faking it.
The DWP and Labour may consistently blame the failures of the Tories and demonise claimants for the benefits bill. But it’s clear that the reason the department is haemorrhaging money is that the DWP is a joke of an organisation that needs razing to the ground.
Featured image via the Canary
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