Politics
Lucy Letby’s defenders are getting desperate now
Ever get the feeling you’re in the middle of a PR war? Less than a week after Lady Justice Thirlwall published her report into the failings of the Countess of Chester hospital, Channel 5 broadcast its third documentary about Lucy Letby, the NHS neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven babies in her care there, between June 2015 and June 2016.
The timing of the documentary was almost certainly not a coincidence. The 822-page Thirlwall Report demolished many of the claims of Letby’s defenders and reminded the public of her horrific crimes. It came a day after two of the supposedly world-leading experts, convened by retired neonatologist Shoo Lee, deserted Letby’s defence team and accused her lawyer of relying on arguments that are ‘inconsistent with the available evidence’ and ‘demonstrably inaccurate’. Team Letby needed to regain the initiative and Lucy Letby: Scapegoat?, a collaboration with the Sun newspaper, was ready to go.
The 70-minute documentary mostly reheats Letbyist slop, rattling through old copes and canards in scattergun fashion. The title alone is a red flag. Nobody at the hospital needed a scapegoat. The spike in deaths she caused alarmed some of the staff, but the outside world was oblivious. No doctors were being blamed for it and the hospital managers were desperate to move on. The documentary’s presenter, Sun journalist Rob Pattinson, argues that Letby was scapegoated because, after she was taken off the ward in July 2016 due to doctors’ concerns, the management rallied around her, threatened to report the consultants to the General Medical Council for bullying and considered managing them out. And so to cover their backs, the doctors then decided to call in the police.
This is such a peculiar theory that it requires a little unpacking. One problem is that it doesn’t explain why the consultants raised their concerns about Letby in the first place. But even if we put that down to a fit of pique, we are expected to believe that, having made false allegations against an innocent nurse, the doctors thought the best course of action was not to row back and apologise (as, in fact, they were forced to by the managers) but to call in the Old Bill. By a happy coincidence, the police found medical experts who concurred with the doctors that she had deliberately harmed several babies. The consultants had more good fortune when it turned out that the nurse whom they had victimised because she was always on duty when unexplained deaths occurred had taken home 241 handover sheets, obsessively searched for bereaved parents on Facebook and left notes in her bedroom saying, ‘I killed them on purpose’ and ‘I AM EVIL I DID THIS’. She also happened to be the nurse who was looking after two babies whom, it later transpired, had been poisoned by insulin. And in a final stroke of serendipity, they found a jury who, in August 2023, convicted her of multiple murders.
In other words, the consultants made Letby a scapegoat for some reason and then doubled down on the scapegoating when the management took her side. It was a massive gamble to avoid a trivial risk to their own reputations. While this is technically possible, a more realistic interpretation of events is that Letby was not the victim of a conspiracy, but was instead the beneficiary of a cover-up instigated by the hospital management, which would have succeeded if the doctors had not put the interests of patients first and insisted on a proper investigation.
The realists’ reading of events is given extra weight by the fact that a great deal of evidence points towards Letby being guilty, most of which is ignored in this documentary. Noting that several reviews into the spike in deaths were carried out before the police were called in 2017, Pattinson claims that ‘none of these reviews found any evidence of crime’. But, as Thirlwall points out, the reviewers were not given sufficient information to find a crime and would not have been equipped to conduct a forensic criminal review even if they had.
Neonatologist Dr Jane Hawdon conducted a case-note review in the autumn of 2016, but was not told that there were any suspicions and was not given all the post-mortems. She nevertheless reported that five of the 13 deaths she reviewed were ‘unexplained’ and another was ‘of concern’. The documentary claims that Hawdon’s review not only found no evidence of crime, which is vaguely true, but that it also found that ‘most of the deaths could be put down to poor care’, which is not.
Hawdon identified eight deaths, mostly from natural causes, which she said were ‘explained but may have been prevented with different care’ (my emphasis). She told the hospital’s medical director, Ian Harvey, that a ‘completely unexplained [death] on a neonatal unit is rare. So by definition more than one unexplained death does arouse suspicion.’ This was her way of sounding the alarm. The Thirlwall Report concludes that ‘the failure to call the police at this stage is impossible to defend’.
What about the infamous ‘statistics’? Professor Jane Hutton, described in Lucy Letby: Scapegoat? as ‘the leading statistician involved in the case’, appears in the programme telling her well-worn story about being hired and fired by the police during the investigation. In her telling, the police dropped her because she had too much integrity to produce a dodgy statistic that might lead to a wrongful conviction. After she raised her objections, the police informed her by email that: ‘The prosecutor does not agree with our line of inquiry and has instructed us not to pursue this avenue, any further, at present.’ This episode has been portrayed, not least by Hutton herself, as the police getting rid of an awkward expert, but this misses the point. The documentary shows an email from the police in which they do indeed seem to be fishing for a statistic along the lines of ‘the odds of an innocent nurse being present at all events are one in 50million’. Hutton was right to challenge this and the Crown Prosecution Service was right to tell the police to drop it. But that was the end of the story. The prosecution never made any statistical claims and therefore had no need of a statistician. The police took her advice. She won.
The Channel 5 documentary is not all money for old rope. Dr Colin Ferguson, a retired vascular surgeon, is a relative newcomer to the Letby circus. He says that the autopsy of babies who die from air embolism should show air in their hearts, and yet Pattinson tells us that ‘in six out of seven of the babies on the murder indictment, no air was found in the hearts of any of them’. Ferguson says that air cannot leave the heart after death. Dr Dewi Evans, who gave evidence for the prosecution, says that air can move, especially during resuscitation, and that air was found in other parts of the babies’ bodies.
Ferguson and Evans came face-to-face to debate the issue for the documentary, but the 90-minute discussion was so heavily edited to make Evans look dumbstruck that it is impossible to draw any conclusions from it. It is, however, worth noting that the paediatric pathologist who gave evidence to the Thirlwall Inquiry, Dr Jo McPartland, says that ‘you could have a significant amount of air at postmortem and it could be completely undetectable at autopsy’. (To add further confusion, neonatologist Prof Neena Modi, who is on Shoo Lee’s expert panel, has said that post-mortem imaging proves that some of the babies did suffer from air embolism, although she believes it happened during resuscitation. Shoo Lee himself says there is no evidence of air embolism at all.)
Letby was convicted of seven murders, but there were six other deaths during the same period in 2015 and 2016. ‘If Lucy Letby didn’t cause those deaths’, Pattinson asks, ‘what or who did?’. The simple answer is that five of them died as a result of severe congenital abnormalities. The other did not have a post-mortem, but the death certificate records ‘prematurity with sepsis’. Pattinson never answers his own question, but the viewer is encouraged to assume that it must involve sewage since that is where the documentary goes next.
Dirty water has been much on the mind of Letby’s defenders ever since she called a plumber as her sole witness at her first trial. A new face in the Channel 5 documentary is Annalise McClements, whose son was transferred from the Countess of Chester hospital in late 2016 after developing enterovirus and sadly died. She was told by doctors that the baby had contracted the disease from her, but she believes that he got it from some kind of sewage leak. All of this happened six months after Letby was taken off the ward, but it is included in the documentary because it supposedly proves that there was a deadly bug in the unit. ‘How many deaths [in the Letby case] are because of that?’, asks McClements.
The categorical answer is ‘none’. We can say this with certainty because such a disease would have shown up in routine testing. Infectious diseases cannot explain the deaths of any of the babies on the indictment and – with the exception of Baby D, who was recovering from pneumonia – no infectious disease was mentioned in their post-mortems. Natural disease cannot explain either the sudden collapses or the sudden recoveries that were such a feature of the Letby case. The theory that bad plumbing was the root cause of the spate of deaths in 2015 and 2016 falls at the first hurdle since none of the babies had the kind of illness that would be transmitted by dirty water. As the Thirlwall Report says: ‘There was no infection on the unit at all, still less one that could explain the deaths. There had been two periods of concern about infections on the unit – in 2012 and 2015, pseudomonas was found on the taps, and was dealt with and had no consequences for babies.’
Time and again, the Channel 5 documentary presents theories that have been knocked down by Thirlwall. The hospital was desperately short-staffed? Thirlwall says that ‘no deaths could be attributed to staff shortages… The nursing staffing levels at the Countess were slightly better than in all other comparable hospital neonatal units in the region.’ The deaths were the inevitable result of nurses being overwhelmed and expected to care for patients with complex needs, and without adequate senior supervision? Thirlwall says that ‘there was no good evidence that this contributed to a single death, still less that they had caused some or all of them’.
Could the drop in deaths after Letby was taken off the ward be explained by the hospital being downgraded at the same time, and thus taking in fewer patients? No, Thirlwall says that very few mothers were turned away after the neonatal unit stopped taking very young neonates and that the downgrade ‘was not an explanation for the absence of deaths and unexpected collapses’ in the years that followed. Was Letby cot-side when so many babies died because she was one of the most experienced nurses on the unit? Thirlwall says ‘she was one of the more junior nurses on the neonatal unit’. And did Letby write the ‘confession’ notes because a counsellor told her to as part of her therapy? Letby herself has never made this claim and Thirlwall says that ‘there is no evidence that counselling or any form of therapy was provided to Letby’.
The brickbats to Letby simps in the Thirlwall Report cannot be dismissed with the usual Letbyist complaint that Lady Thirlwall started from the presumption of guilt, nor that she is part of the legal establishment. Thirlwall based her conclusions on a strong body of verifiable facts and expert opinion that is thoroughly referenced and easy to check. The inquiry was commissioned to see whether Letby could have been stopped sooner. She did not need to take on Letbyist talking points. Debunking the many myths that have sprouted up around this case was arguably beyond her remit but she did it anyway, presumably because she finds them so contemptible. Yes, she is a pillar of the legal establishment and yes, she applies the presumption of guilt to convicted criminals.
Unfortunately for Letby and her disciples, Thirlwall is exactly the kind of person they will have to convince if they ever get their case before the Court of Appeal. If that day ever comes, they will encounter a tougher audience than Channel 5 gets at 10pm on a Monday night.
Christopher Snowdon is director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs and the co-host of Last Orders, spiked’s nanny-state podcast.
Watch the trailer for Lucy Letby: Scapegoat? below:
Turn the oven on? It’s still too hot for that, if you ask me. Call me lazy, but anything that requires more than minimal effort right now sounds like my worst nightmare.
For the last few months I’ve been existing solely on a diet of raw vegetables, dip, and anything that takes under 10 minutes to cook on the stove.
But sometimes even that is too much for me, and I’ve found something that fills my criteria of having a somewhat healthy dinner with little to no preparation whatsoever.
Plant-based meal delivery company Grubby took top spot in my round up of the best recipe boxes and meal kits for a reason: it creates tasty recipes loaded with all the fibre and protein you could want.
And while it has an option to cook your own recipes, which is great if you’re trying to add to your roster (not like that), the saving grace from its menu is its frozen ready meals.
I got five of its ready meals to try, and they quickly became my go-to when I didn’t have any food in, couldn’t be bothered to go to the shops, and when the dreaded heatwave hit.
Despite being called ‘ready meals’, these boxes are packed full of nutrition. For example, the Miso Tamari Buddha contains 29.2 g of protein, 15.9g of fibre, and best of all, takes under 10 minutes to cook in the microwave.
In other words, it’s perfect for a healthy mid-week dinner for one. As someone who mostly cooks for myself, I often struggle to buy just the right amount of food to have my five a day, without it expiring before I get round to eating it.
But these meals are designed specifically for one person, and I love that Grubby changes its menu regularly, while keeping some of its bestselling boxes available, so you can keep going back to your favourites and try new things at the same time.
In case you’re not convinced about the idea of a ready meal being healthy (I wasn’t), Grubby has even teamed up with science-backed gut health company Zoe to get its approval on its best recipes for your gut.
Ahead of the heatwave, I stocked up on my favourite recipes (my current rotation is the Chickpea Chutney Bowl, Cashew Mac & Greens, and Tofu Saag Curry) and I’m already thankful to past me for planning ahead.
You can plan to have them delivered every week or every other week, so you’ll know you always have something in your freezer.
Not to mention, it’s pretty affordable: each meal comes in at around £8, and you’ll also get a free brownie when you order more than six.
I’d also highly recommend adding a recipe box to your order when the weather cools down – I finally got round to learning some new recipes, and you can rest assured they’re going to be healthy and delicious.
It’s not just yumminess Grubby stands for, either, for each box you buy, it donates a meal to a child living in poverty – so it’s not just good for you.
Politics
Politics Home | Trade Unions Call On Burnham To End “Military Collaboration” With Saudi Arabia
Anti-war demonstrators march against the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen, February 2022, London (WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto / Alamy)
5 min read
Exclusive: Ten trade unions have signed an open letter to Andy Burnham calling on his government to end its “military collaboration” with Saudi Arabia amid concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
The letter, shared exclusively with PoliticsHome, criticises the UK government’s decision to provide military support to the Saudi-led coalition, which it accuses of targeting civilians and breaking international law in Yemen.
Conflict in the region has escalated in recent weeks, with Saudi Arabia claiming on Friday that it had intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthis.
Earlier this week, the UK government announced that it would provide additional defensive military support to Saudi Arabia, claiming “escalating tensions in the Gulf can have a serious impact at home in the UK”.
Ongoing disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route, mean any attacks affect Saudi Arabia’s ability to export oil through the Red Sea, hitting prices across the globe.
Ahead of Labour Party conference this weekend, the general secretaries of 10 unions – including four Labour-affiliated unions – said they were “shocked” by the decision to increase military support, and criticised the government’s reasoning.
“Contrary to the government’s statements, the more this war expands, the more expensive our bills will get. The only way out is a diplomatic settlement to the regional war,” the letter reads.
Affiliates Unison, Britain’s largest trade union, the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), among other unions, argued that Britain “should not collaborate with a military that has repeatedly violated international law and has been central to creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in Yemen”.
The letter calls for Burnham to urgently end both Britain’s military support for Saudi Arabia and the UK’s wider involvement in the Iran war “by revoking support for US air strikes launched from RAF bases”.
Burnham has argued that he agreed to help refuel Saudi jets to defend key energy infrastructure against the Houthis in a bid to keep oil flowing from the Gulf and ease economic pressures that will affect the UK.
The union signatories to the letter do not accept this justification, however.
“As the war expands, our members are paying the price. Inflation rose again in August, driven by petrol prices,” the unions said.
“Escalating this war will make our bills more expensive. If the government is serious about tackling the cost of living crisis, it must get serious about diplomacy.”
The Times reported on Thursday that ministers are drawing up plans to help poorer households with energy bills in next month’s Budget.
Khem Rogaly, co-director of Transition Security Project, the militarism-focused research centre that organised the letter, said: “Collaborating in Saudi military operations in Yemen is reckless, inflaming the regional war that started with the massive US-Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year.
“Britain should have no part in the US-led war against Iran or Saudi-led interventions in Yemen. Saudi interventions in Yemen have relied on British military support for more than a decade, leaving a legacy of war crimes and humanitarian crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.”
The letter is one of the biggest organised since Burnham entered No 10 and the unions led by the signatories collectively represent more than 2.3 million workers.
The full text of the letter is below.
Dear Prime Minister,
As trade union leaders we are shocked by the government’s decision to provide yet more military support to Saudi Arabia. Britain should not collaborate with a military that has repeatedly violated international law and has been central to creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in Yemen.
Providing military support to Saudi Arabia inflames the war started by the US and Israel against Iran in February, which has expanded across the region. Contrary to the government’s statements, the more this war expands, the more expensive our bills will get. The only way out is a diplomatic settlement to the regional war.
Saudi Arabia has intervened in Yemen for 11 years, with devastating results. Throughout this war, the Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly targeted civilians, breaking international law, while its air and sea blockade helped cause a humanitarian crisis that left 377,000 people dead by 2021.[i] Britain has supported this war throughout — supplying Saudi Arabia with aircraft, missiles and on-the-ground maintenance to keep its fighter jets in the sky. Earlier this year, the government approved a £468 million weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, mostly composed of missiles.[ii] These actions have fuelled a brutal war that has left Yemen in ruins. Providing military support to Saudi Arabia as the US-Iran war extends to Yemen only exacerbates regional conflict and takes us further from the diplomatic settlement that the world urgently needs.
As the war expands, our members are paying the price. Inflation rose again in August, driven by petrol prices. Energy bills will rise again in October, perhaps exceeding £2100 for the average household from January.[iii] Escalating this war will make our bills more expensive. If the government is serious about tackling the cost of living crisis, it must get serious about diplomacy.
First, we ask you to urgently end Britain’s military support for Saudi Arabia. Second, we ask you to end the UK’s wider involvement in the Iran war, by revoking support for US air strikes launched from RAF bases. These are essential steps for a cost-of-living government to take.
Yours sincerely,
Andrea Egan, General Secretary, UNISON
Daniel Kebede, General Secretary, National Education Union
Dave Ward, General Secretary, Communication Workers Union
Eddie Dempsey, General Secretary, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
Fran Heathcote, General Secretary, Public and Commercial Services Union
Jo Grady, General Secretary, University and College Union
Paul W. Fleming, General Secretary, Equity
Maryam Eslamdoust, General Secretary, Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association
Sarah Woolley, General Secretary, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union
Steve Wright, General Secretary, Fire Brigades Union
Christmas might sound like a long way off, but we hate to break it to you – there are less than 100 days to go.
We’re getting into serious shopping territory now, and considering that’s my literal job, things have been a little manic as of late.
If you’re looking for something (non-Christmas-related) to spend your money on this payday, we’ve got you. These are the best things the HuffPost UK team tested this month, from health to beauty and even home tech. Happy shopping!
As a skincare girly, I am always on the hunt for a fun new product to try. So when I saw that Byoma released their new Longevit-8 Peptide serum, I was intrigued. The product boasts eight benefits in one so I wanted to test and see if it really did what it said on the tin.
For a week I decided to try nothing other than this product so I could truly see the benefits. As a ten-step routine girly, I will admit this was tough, but I felt like it was the best way to see the true results of the product.
How to use the serum
You can use this serum morning and night, which I would recommend in order to see the most benefits. It is third in your routine. This is what I did:
- Cleanse
- Tone
- Byoma serum
- Moisturise/SPF in the mornings.
It can be used alongside other serums as well, so it’s truly a brilliant product and can enhance your current routine.
The product contains PDRN which is also a very hot-topic at the moment in the skincare community.
What is PDRN and what are the benefits?
PDRN is made from purified DNA fragments, traditionally sourced from salmon or trout (yes, you read that right).
It is meant to support hydrated skin, texture and barrier repair. The science behind it is very promising but there are still tests being done to see how it truly works in cosmetic use in the long-run. But the benefits are worth it.
The serum is totally different to anything I’ve seen before.
You may have heard PDRN is made from salmon-sperm, which sounds gross, but is not factually correct at all. Yes, it is taken from reproductive cells but it is extensively purified, so calling it that is kinda misleading.
Overall, PDRN is great because it works really well with other serums and active ingredients. It can enhance your skincare routine and leave you with fabulous skin. What’s not to love?
What’s the verdict?
I have absolutely loved using the Byoma Longevit-8 Peptide serum and to be honest, the new one is already in my shopping cart for when this one runs out.
So far I’ve used it for about ten days and I have noticed a visible difference in my skin texture. My skin feels softer, more glowy and definitely less red. What I love about this is that these results come from one product, not five.
My only gripe is that the lid is quite large and makes the bottle look a little bit larger than it actually is. But that’s my only thing, so overall, not bad.
If you’re looking for a great serum that will truly help your skin, then this is worth it. It starts at £21.99, which I know, feels pricier, but I truly believe in the benefits of using it and this will be a forever re-purchase for me.
President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is running into resistance within his own voter coalition, as more and more Republican candidates publicly break with him ahead of the November election.
New results from The POLITICO Poll help explain why: Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA Trump voters to say his mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, 31% to 14%. While roughly similar shares of both groups believe Trump’s campaign is about right, the MAGA base wants him to go even further: 36% of MAGA Trump voters say his campaign is not aggressive enough, compared with 23% of non-MAGA Trump voters.
Meanwhile, support across Trump’s entire voter coalition falls when it comes to deporting people beyond the most violent offenders, such as those with minor criminal offenses or who have been living in the U.S. for years without legal status.
The new survey, conducted by London-based Public First, reveals how Trump’s immigration agenda — which has long been one of his signature political issues and a reliable GOP rallying point — has divided the very coalition that helped power his two presidential wins. The president’s MAGA loyalists are still more inclined than other Trump voters to support a tougher immigration posture, but there are clear limits to how far voters want the administration to go.
Those intraparty tensions burst into public view this month, when Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) released a campaign ad pushing back against Trump’s deportation agenda, saying some of his efforts “have gone too far” and that Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024 “feel betrayed.” It was a remarkable break from a sitting GOP lawmaker over one of the president’s defining policies, as Democrats have locked in on Florida’s 27th District as a prime target in their bid to flip the House.
Salazar’s public rift with Trump exemplifies the fears Republicans had been privately warning about for months: that the president’s immigration enforcement — marked last year by high-profile, flashy raids that rippled through communities — was alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support border security and immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it is being carried out.
And as the party stares down a difficult midterm landscape, including in districts and states Trump won in 2024, other GOP candidates followed Salazar’s lead, increasingly putting distance between themselves and the administration on key issues like immigration — despite having voted last year to approve billions of dollars for border security and immigration enforcement. On Wednesday, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), whose race has tightened against Democrat Adam Hamilton, also softened his stance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement as raids in southwest Kansas prompt temporary business closures and schools.
“When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe,” he wrote on social media, adding that he’s been in direct contact with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
The POLITICO Poll finds most Americans — including majorities of both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — believe people convicted of serious violent or sexual offenses should be prioritized for deportation, underscoring broad agreement on a more targeted approach to enforcement.
The survey also finds that few people — including among both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters — prioritized targeting other groups for deportations. Less than a quarter of each group say people convicted of minor criminal offenses should be prioritized. Support falls further when voters are asked about prioritizing people who have lived in the U.S. for several years without legal status or people with dependent children in the U.S.
“A lot of it has to do with how you talk about it. They don’t want amnesty for people who have broken the law. They want everybody to do it the right way,” said a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss how Republicans are viewing the issue. “They understand that some people might be law-abiding, hard working.”
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said POLITICO is “skewing data to paint a false narrative.”
“The American people sent President Trump back to the White House to stop the invasion of our country and deport the millions of illegal aliens Biden and Democrats allowed into the country. The president is delivering on his promises,” she said.
Days after releasing the ad, Salazar said she had a “fantastic conversation” with Trump and urged him to protect the political “fortune” he had brought to the Republican Party on immigration. She also told CBS last weekend that Trump and the average American understand “the between the narco and the nanny and the gangster and the gardener.”
She said the administration should distinguish between criminals and unauthorized immigrants working in crucial industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and health care.
That distinction is also reflected in The POLITICO Poll. Both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters are open to maintaining or increasing the number of people coming into the U.S. to work in sectors facing labor shortages, such as health care or agriculture. Sixty-five percent of MAGA Trump voters and 69% non-MAGA Trump voters say they want to see about the same number — or more — people coming to the U.S. to work in those sectors facing labor shortages.
“Trump 2.0 that took over in January 2025 completely misread what voters were telling him and Joe Biden during 2024, which was that they wanted to see more order and security over the U.S.-Mexico border,” said Matt Barreto, who conducted polling for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign. “Instead, what Trump told Americans was, ‘Now I’m going to go hunt down immigrants who are just working and contributing to America.’ And there was extremely limited support for that.”
Past POLITICO polling on immigration has shown that the Trump administration has been unable to reverse the damage with voters on the issue. Last fall, battleground Republicans were already expressing concern about the administration’s immigration tactics. Those concerns intensified in the months that followed, while negative voter sentiment hardened by April after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
The Trump administration, in the wake of bipartisan outrage, softened its rhetoric and abandoned flashy raids that often devolved into clashes with protesters. The president also installed Mullin, who moved quickly to repair relationships on Capitol Hill and keep the Department of Homeland Security out of the headlines.
But Mullin is also facing pressure from MAGA critics and immigration hardliners who think he’s not committed to the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. In an effort to shore up his support with that contingent, top administration accounts, including Mullin’s, have ramped up posts about ICE, arrests statistics and tough talk about the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Zia Yusuf was cut off by ITV’s Good Morning Britain after dodging question about a tweet of his that sparked a racism row.
Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman was criticised after pointing out on X that a Labour by-election candidate was born in Somalia and adding: “Do you understand what’s happening?”
Sagal Abdi-Wali, who came to the UK as a child refugee more than 30 years ago and is leader of Camden Council, is standing for the party in Keir Starmer’s old seat of Holborn and St Pancras.
Commenting on Yusuf’s post, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “This is racism, straight out of the Trump playbook.”
Labour business secretary Jonathan Reynolds called it “pretty straightforward racism”.
On Good Morning Britain on Friday, presenters Ranvir Singh and Kate Garraway both tried to get Yusuf to explain what he meant by his tweet.
The Reform bigwig said the racism allegation against him was “absurd on its face”.
He said: “Shutting down legitimate concerns from British people by calling them names is not going to work any more.”
Singh told him: “The woman concerned was born in Somalia. Your colleague [former Tory cabinet minister] Nadhim Zahawi was born in Iraq. Are you saying that he doesn’t have a right to run in politics, because he has?”
Avoiding the question, Yusuf – whose parents moved to the UK in the 1960s – said: “Are you aware that we have more foreign nationals living in Britain than at any point in our history?
“Are you aware that we have more people born abroad than ever before, and are you aware that we have more members of parliament from abroad than at any point in modern British history?”
He added: “This is not to say that you can’t be a patriotic British person if you were born abroad, it is not to say that you can’t serve our country if you were born abroad.
“But there are a lot of people deeply concerned when they see a group of Pakistani heritage MPs getting together and writing a letter to lobby the Pakistani government about an airport in Mirpur.”
But Singh said: “That isn’t responding to the tweet that you put out … that’s a deflection.”
Garraway then said: “If you don’t explain what you meant by it, then it’s going to be open to all sorts of accusations. Do you think you could explain what you meant by it?”
When Yusuf tried to repeat the point he had just made, Singh said: “We don’t want a repeat of the same answer, but thank you so much.
“Zia Yusuf, you had your chance to respond to the tweet, but you chose to deflect by talking about another issue.”
As Yusuf tried to respond again, his microphone was cut off as he was still speaking.
Watch the full exchange below.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Katherine Ryan has responded after the news that the BBC is upholding complaints over a joke she made while guest hosting Have I Got News For You almost a year ago.
During the November 2025 broadcast, Katherine introduced a segment about Sir David Beckham’s knighthood, to which regular panellist Ian Hislop remarked: “He was meant not to get it, wasn’t he? Because he’d been pitching for it. And it was considered bad form to be ‘desperate’.”
“That’s exactly right,” the Canadian comic responded. Reading from a script in front of her, she continued: “In 2013, when he did not get a knighthood, he emailed his PR saying, ‘They’re a bunch of cunts, I expected nothing less’…”
Fellow comedian Maisie Adam responded: “It would have been nice and maybe poetic if Charles had got his own back just by knighting him and then going, ‘Arise, you cunt’.”
“I don’t know if we are allowed to broadcast the C-word,” Katherine then remarked. “But you did reference Victoria Beckham earlier, and we will allow that…”
Shortly afterwards, the BBC confirmed it had received multiple official complaints “from viewers who were unhappy with the inclusion of strong language in the programme”.
The broadcaster said at the time: “In this particular case, we feel that the use of the strong language was editorially justified as the panel were discussing a current news story about Sir David Beckham and directly quoting from leaked emails in which he had used the word in question, leading to further discussion,” the post continued.
“As is common practice for programmes that contain very strong language, we mitigated potential offence by adding a clear verbal warning at the start of the programme.”
However, on Thursday, the BBC’s executive complaints unit (ECU) ruled that while Katherine’s use of the C-bomb was justified, the comparison to Victoria Beckham was not.
“The relevant BBC Editorial Guidelines do not require programmes to avoid giving offence, but do require that any offence should be editorially justified,” the ECU’s statement said.
“In the ECU’s judgement, while the inclusion of the c-word in the programme derived editorial justification from David Beckham’s alleged use of it and the satirical reflections this prompted, there was no such justification for a comment which presented Victoria Beckham as equivalent to a particularly offensive word.”
Katherine has since posted a video message to Instagram addressing the ECU’s ruling, and revealing that she had previously apologised directly to Victoria when she messaged her about the incident.
“Hi, I’m ‘comedian’ Katherine Ryan, and today, the BBC announced their decision to uphold a complaint made by two very influential viewers about a joke that I tried to make on Have I Got News For You 11 months ago,” she began.
“At that time, though there is no defence, I have to tell you, I was suffering from a condition called [matrescence]. I was in that building with a 10-day-old baby. Should I have left the house? This is going to be a tough one for the feminists, because I was a woman going to work, but I did call another woman a c**t.”
Matrescence has been described as “the process of becoming a mother”, referring to “the physical, psychological and emotional changes you go through after the birth of a child”.
Katherine gave birth to her youngest daughter in October 2025, shortly before filming Have I Got News For You.
She continued: “Sometimes, I forget that celebrities are not my friends. If I had called Jimmy Carr a c**t, he wouldn’t have minded. Joanne McNally – c**t! – she wouldn’t have minded. But this was described by the BBC as a slur, as though c**ts are part of a protected group.
“The trouble is, now that section [of the episode] has been taken off iPlayer, so the incident only exists in printed media, online media, and then you lose the context. On the day, if you watched, it was clearly a joke, and the whole audience went *gasp* and then I said, ‘woah, I love her’.”
Holding up a copy of her latest book Firstborn Daughter, Katherine noted that she loves Victoria “so much that I included her in one of my celebrity firstborn daughter chapters”.
She then proceeded to read out the passage in question, while maintaining that she “remains very sorry”.
“Yes, I sort of jokingly called her a cunt in the BBC and she messaged me about it afterwards,” she added. “I apologised unreservedly, because though she is c**t, Victoria Beckham couldn’t be further from being a c**t.”
“I’m sorry,” she concluded. “Sometimes the jokes don’t land. And sometimes I sound sarcastic when I’m apologising, but I really am sorry.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Victoria Beckham’s team for comment.
The BBC said last year: “As a post-watershed entertainment programme, Have I Got News for You has always covered and discussed news stories in a humorous, often ironic, manner.
“The inclusion of any strong language is carefully thought through and it is never our intention to offend our audience.”
Mary Bevan as Morgana | Image courtesy of: The Royal Opera ©2026 Ian Hippolyte
5 min read
Imbued with the style of Coco Chanel and the wit of Alan Bennett, this dazzling RBO production of Handel’s masterpiece makes for a wonderfully enjoyable evening
Who knew that Hanoverian Britain could be quite so obsessed with sex? Oh yes! Sex in all its luxuriant lust and lasciviousness.
This is what Handel captures in Alcina: sex and how guilty those Hanoverians felt about it. Britain had just survived the repression of the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell, the exuberant release of the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution, the Act of Union under Queen Anne, and the reassertion of a dour Protestantism under George I.
All this is captured in this triumphant revival of the acclaimed 2022 Royal Opera production as it dissects the enchanting power of desire, the insidious cancer of jealousy and the redemptive force of faithful love. And it does it with the style of Coco Chanel (Alcina seduces Ruggiero in her little black dress and a pair of Louboutins) and the wit of Alan Bennett (the spurned and moody Oronte sulks in a potting shed replete with a voracious Venus flytrap). The serpentine twists of plot – of who is in love with whom, when and where –would be fruitless to adumbrate. So: what of the important stuff?
Prior to curtain up, the audience winced as a besuited front of house director came out to apologise that Lisette Oropesa (Alcina) had a cold but told us she was going to soldier on. He asked us to “bear with her”. He need not have bothered. Her voice needed no Strepsil to sweeten it. Dì, cor mio, quanto t’amai, her big Act One aria, established a voice of disarming tenderness as sweet as the sweetmeats she feeds to Ruggiero that are proffered by the former lovers she had turned into wild animals. Ah, mio cor! Schernito sei counterposes the rising pulse of the orchestral strings with Oropesa’s beautifully phrased realisation that Ruggiero’s love is waning, and her incredulous fury. A masterstroke of stagecraft here sees the room close in on her as the ruched curtains – now lit red – slowly descend revealing the blackness behind the inner wall and Oronte sneaking slowly off, stage right.
Costume makers and choreographers… must take their share of plaudits
Beth Taylor’s Bradamante had been much anticipated and did not disappoint. Her Act One È gelosia would make any love rival shudder to get on the wrong side of her. But it was the total command she displayed in the coloratura runs of Vorrei vendicarmi in Act Two that showed off her amazing vocal dexterity to its dazzling full. In many ways Alcina’s sister Morgana holds the opera together dramatically and few who heard Mary Bevan’s rip-roaring Uno, Due, Tre as she steals another da capo in Tornami a vagheggiar at the end to Act One would deny that she also stole the show. Her sinuous voice snakes its enchantment around the violin obbligato in Ama, sospira to persuade Alcina not to turn Ricciardo into one of the wild beasts; but it is the wit and pathos that she brings to wooing back Oronte in the sex scene in the potting shed – yes, really! – that allows one to marvel at the combination of assured vocal control, beauty of tone and acting ability.
Image courtesy of: The Royal Opera ©2026 Ian Hippolyte
And while we are in the potting shed, we should give due praise to the cellos and the archlutes who kept the steady pulse racing as the stage pivoted to accommodate the couple’s modesty. Where Handel demands true ‘canto sgranato’, Ru Charlesworth as Oronte lacked precise articulation and his high ‘A’ in È un folle, è un vile affetto was simply missed. However, a beautiful rendition of Un momento di contento while emerging from the potting shed, wearing just one red sock and a most unalluring pair of boxer shorts, disposed this audience member to forgive the earlier lapse.
No forgiveness was ever needed for Emily D’Angelo’s Ruggiero. Her full deep mezzo in Mi lusinga il dolce affetto displayed a prodigious breath control and a beguiling stage presence where Ruggiero begins to awake from his enchantment and is drawn magnetically in turn to the competing images of Alcina and his spouse Bradamante. Whether I would have sat Ruggiero in a tree to sing one of Handel’s most famous arias Verdi prati matters not at all when it is sung as beautifully as D’Angelo did. It is the ultimate aria of impending loss and she imbued it with deep pathos.
The singers were not the only stars. Costume makers and choreographers who rose to the challenge of cockerels and mandrills dancing with axes and garden hoes have to take their share of plaudits. Downsides? Some audience voices in the second interval were heard to complain that “they repeat too much and it makes it so long”. In truth the da capo musical structure A – B – A can seem strange to the modern ear where the singer is instructed to repeat the first A section. But Handel saw this as permission for the singer to improvise and ornament the original theme. Perhaps the tempi chosen by conductor David Bates sometimes did not always allow the singers enough space to elaborate their skills but then things would have taken even longer.
Ultimately, this was a wonderfully enjoyable evening where the Hanoverian puritanism of mercy, love, duty and courtesy are seen to vanquish luxury and sensuality. Or are they?
To find out, you will have to go and see for yourself. It is well worth it.
Barry Gardiner is Labour MP for Brent West
Alcina
Conducted by: David Bates
Directed by: Richard Jones
Venue: Royal Ballet & Opera – until Sunday 3 October
James Acaster has claimed that the sheer number of comedians on the cast of this year’s Celebrity Traitors gave him pause before the new series got underway.
The Off Menu host is joined on the new series by the likes of Joe Lycett, Miranda Hart, Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Joanne McNally, all of whom are big names on the comedy circuit.
Speaking to the BBC before the new series got underway, James admitted that seeing so many comedians on the line-up was “a concern” for him, especially in light of stand-up comic Alan Carr’s victory last year.
BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative
“There will be suspicions that it’s going to be at least one of these guys, that we might form an alliance if we’re not broken apart,” he speculated.
“I think we’re going to be the first ones under the magnifying glass being looked at. Particularly at the beginning when you have absolutely nothing to go on.”
James added: “Then you consider that a comedian won last year, with Alan Carr disarming everyone with jokes the whole time. He has tainted us all!
“Hannah Fry [the mathematician, who is also on the cast of The Celebrity Traitors season 2] will probably tell you that probability-wise, there’s most likely to be at least one comic chosen as a Traitor because there’s enough of us. Even though it could obviously easily be three people who aren’t comedians…
“I don’t know how it works out, but if maths turns against us we’re in big trouble.”
BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative
The long-awaited new season of The Celebrity Traitors hits our screens on Thursday 1 October. The full cast is as follows:
- Amol Rajan
- Bella Ramsey
- Professor Hannah Fry
- James Acaster
- James Blunt
- Jerry Hall
- Joanne McNally
- Joe Lycett
- Julie Hesmondhalgh
- Kenny Oghenovo “King Kenny” Ojuederie
- Leigh-Anne Pinnock
- Maya Jama
- Michael Sheen
- Miranda Hart
- Myha’la
- Richard E Grant
- Rob Beckett
- Romesh Ranganathan
- Ross Kemp
- Sebastian Croft
- Sharon Rooney
There’s so much to love about Christmas: delicious food and drink, great company, and don’t get me started on presents.
Personally, though, I reckon one of the best things about the most wonderful time of year is the scents.
It’s ot just the smell of baked spices: I’m a big fan of the seasonal scents that get released each year, too.
I’ve already waxed lyrical about Jo Malone’s Advent Calendar and Lush’s S’mores body wash, but when I found out there was a whole Advent calendar dedicated to warm and spicy festive scents, I was gripped.
Packaged in a gorgeous watercolour box with velvet ribbons, the Sentier calendar feels like something you’ll want to keep in your house and cherish for a long time.
Considering it costs just £109, it promises serious savings on the 12 scents you’ll find inside – because the whole thing is worth £529.
Everything about the experience of opening the calendar is special. By the end of the 12 days, you’ll have six 60ml scented candles and six 10ml perfumes to play around with for the whole year ahead, each with its own story attached.
The standout product, Ardent Cherry, blends (you guessed it) dark cherry, amber, sandalwood, and incense that promises to wrap you “in an unforgettable air of intrigue”. I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly how I want to be perceived by my nosy family members on Christmas Day.
Sentier has also included two alcohol-free perfumes in the calendar: Noor Riviera (a coastal fragrance in case you need some escapism from the cold) and Méribel, which is “inspired by snow-covered Alpine villages and the freshness of crisp mountain air”. I’m feeling cosy already.
Each of the scented candles has also been formulated to transport you into a different world. One of my favourites is Lait de Feu, which instantly shrouds me to the sensation of drinking a Bailey’s hot chocolate by the fire thanks to its blend of coffee, maple, rhum, vanilla, sandalwood, and vetiver.
I’m also not immune to a woody scent (who doesn’t love the smell of Christmas trees?!) so Alpine Chalet, the calendar’s pine and alpine air-inspired candle, also has a special place in my heart.
It’s no wonder that the calendar has sold out for two years in a row, and even though it’s available to shop now, I wouldn’t count on it being around tomorrow.
Great news for fragrance lovers while it lasts, though, we’ve got HuffPost UK readers 10% off the calendar with the code ‘ADVENT10’, so it’ll cost just £98.10 for a whole load of fragrances you will cherish for months to come.
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