The massive issues Keir Starmer ignored about Peter Mandelson went far beyond the disgraced Mandelson’s fan-boying of serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. New information from “multiple sources” indicates that UK Security Vetting (UKVI) raised concerns about numerous Mandelson relationships.

These included his long-known closeness to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, links to Chinese finance minister Lan Fo’an and to Israeli military intelligence boss Tamir Hayman. All were flagged before Starmer appointed Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US — and ignored just as much Mandelson’s ardour for Epstein. A fourth compromising — and British — figure was also flagged, but has not yet been named publicly.

Israeli funding

UKSV also raised concerns about a million-pound loan provided to Starmer for him to put into an Israeli start-up. And it euphemistically flagged his supposed naivety about other dodgy relationships. Taken together, all of this made Mandelson a “high” security risk and an unfit appointment — surprising absolutely no one who had paid any attention to the disgraced Blairite fixer’s career and connections.

Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador was not the only scandal involving Starmer. Starmer brought in Mandelson shortly after conning his way into the Labour leadership — and had known about Mandelson’s Epstein links well before that. So had the rest of the UK, because they had been a matter of public record since at least 2019.

Mandelson — cover-up

Keir Starmer and his lackeys show every sign of continuing to try to hide the true extent of Starmer’s guilt and cronyism — at best — over Mandelson. The UK’s top security body has warned that Starmer’s underlings — laughably appointed to ensure transparency — are withholding key, damning documents. The regime has already let Mandelson off the hook by not demanding his personal WhatsApp messages and has accepted former top aide Morgan McSweeney’s excuse that his own mobile was mysteriously stolen without back-up records. Three quarters of Brits think the excuse is bollocks.

Starmer still claims he had not been told Mandelson had failed vetting. 99.96% of people think that if you believe that they will sell you a bridge. Of course he knew — and so did all his closest Number 10 lackeys.d continued long after.

As for Mandelson, even if he had not been linked to other questionable characters, his previous record made him obviously unreliable for any public office. And even if his only issue had been Epstein, his closeness to the paedophile Israeli spy linked him to many of the worst people in the world.

Featured image via Peter Nicholls/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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Westminster is making Scotland complicit in Trump’s illegal, Zionist-led war on Iran. That is: concretely, materially and operationally complicit, via a publicly owned airport in South Ayrshire.

Scotland’s Government claims it cannot legally close Prestwick to US Air Forces without Westminster, but the UK Government will not publicly account for its decisions.

Westminster — An obfuscated Labour letter

In early March, Scotland’s External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson wrote to Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, seeking urgent reassurance.

The Scottish Government-owned airport, Robertson noted, was “not provided information about the purpose or mission of the aircraft using their facilities.” He asked, plainly, whether Prestwick or any Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd sites had been used as part of Trump’s strikes on Iran.

He offered to receive sensitive information, even on ‘Privy Council’ terms (a voluntary confidentiality pact between government and opposition). These terms would’ve shielded information from the wider public but at least inform Scotland’s newly re-appointed SNP government.

Jones’s response, dated 10 March and only obtained by the National through an FOI request — the UK Government did not publish it voluntarily — is a masterclass in the language of non-answer. The UK Government, speaking through Daren Jones, said it:

maintains a rigorous oversight of all military and allied activity within UK airspace and infrastructure

Meanwhile, Jones wrote that civilian facilities:

continue to play an important role as stopover points for our NATO allies

Jones assured Scotland that the First Minister, John Swinney, would nonetheless:

continue to be briefed on security matters relevant to his official responsibilities.

What Jones did not do, at any point, was confirm that Scottish airports were not used in the strikes.

In effect, the Scottish Government had to use FOI powers to find out that the UK government would not tell it anything. That sentence should be read again slowly.

Stop the War Scotland called this plainly what it is. The UK Government is:

deliberately obscuring information in an attempt to minimise its own role in this illegal war.

The UK Government’s public line is that that civilian airports in Scotland:

are not being used by the US to launch military strikes

But this arrives alongside a studied refusal to engage with the specific questions that Robertson put to Jones in writing. It is a denial that denies nothing verifiable. It is next to uselmeaningless.

Yet more democratic deficit

John Swinney says his hands are tied. He is almost certainly right, and that is the fundamental point.

The powers required to exclude foreign military aircraft from Scottish airspace — national security, aviation, air transport, defence, foreign affairs — are all reserved to Westminster. Swinney has said he looked “very closely” at the issue yet found no legal route.

Swinney’s referenced the “enormous concern and unease” Scots feel about the conflict, the consequences for energy prices, cost of living, mortgages, the environment, and so on. He’s sought meetings with UK ministers. His ministers wrote letters that required FOI requests to retrieve. Still nothing.

Trump warmly congratulated Swinney — a “good man” — on his recent election win. The two looked chummy together in the Oval Office (see top) and Swinney was the only devolved leader to attend Trump’s Windsor Castle banquet in 2025.

However, Swinney “politely declined” to return to Washington in April, amid the war. (He blamed the May elections but has separately called for “de-escalation” in the Iran war.

But Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie is done waiting:

The First Minister has previously said he would look into banning the use of publicly owned Scottish infrastructure like Prestwick in the US war efforts, yet months later, there has been no action.

Harvie’s broader framing is worth quoting directly: Trump has shown “contempt for Scottish and international law,” kidnapping Venezuela’s president, threatening Greenland and Cuba, waging war in Iran.

This is exactly why we should have nothing to do with this war-mongering White House regime.

He is calling on the Scottish Government to move regardless — to use whatever power it has over airport contracts and kick US military operations out.

The Scottish Socialist Party has made the same argument as Greens, pointing also to RAF Lakenheath in England and calling on Keir Starmer to ban the use of UK bases entirely. He will not, of course.

Scotland pushes for independence vote, Westminster refuses

Featured image via the White House

By Cameron Baillie

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Scotland is apparently complicit in Trump’s illegal, Zionist-led war on Iran. That is: concretely, materially and operationally complicit, via a publicly owned airport in South Ayrshire.

Scotland — flights implicated in war crimes

The National‘s analysis of flight tracking records reveals that US military aircraft departed Glasgow Prestwick Airport at least eight times in May 18–25. These seven days preceded Monday’s renewed strikes on Iran.

Among aircraft identified were the C-17 Globemaster and the Lockheed C-130T Hercules. Both are heavy military transport planes, flying onwards to staging posts including Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. The Sicilian bas is a key hub in the architecture of US operations in West Asia.

The week before, by contrast, had zero identifiable US military departures from Prestwick.

This isn’t the first time this pattern has emerged. Immediately before late February’s Operation Epic (or AIPAC) Fury, the US military used Prestwick at least 32 times in the preceding ten days.

Those illegal strikes killed Iran’s then-leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and opened the current phase of the war, leading to thousands of civilian deaths. Most criminally, these strikes included the Minab school massacre which killed around 170 innocent people, mostly young girls and their teachers.

Recorded flights included onward flights to US and NATO military hubs in the Mediterranean and West Asia and, on some occasions, to Israel. One military intelligence expert told the National at the time that the data constituted “concrete proof” the airport was embedded in the US’s illegal bombing supply chain.

This pattern is now repeating. Whatever the MoD says about “defensive missions,” the planes are flying, they’re going before strikes happen, and they’re leaving from Scotland’s publicly owned airport.

U.S. found responsible for strike on Minab school, but shambolic Trump evades accountability

Hugely unpopular war polling

Trump warmly congratulated Swinney — a “good man” — on his recent election win. The two looked chummy together in the Oval Office (see top) and Swinney was the only devolved leader to attend Trump’s Windsor Castle banquet in 2025.

However, Swinney “politely declined” to return to Washington in April, amid the war. (He blamed the May elections but has separately called for “de-escalation” in the Iran war.

For anyone still inclined to frame this as a niche concern of the anti-war left, polling previously published by Scotland on Sunday offers a correction.

Fifty-six percent of Scots oppose US bombers using Prestwick Airport. Sixty percent oppose the US-Israeli war on Iran altogether. Only a quarter support the military action.

The  opposition runs to 70% among SNP voters, 70% among Scottish Greens supporters, and 76% among Liberal Democrats. Even 55% of Scottish Labour voters oppose Prestwick’s use.

Scottish opinion researcher Mark Diffley put it clearly: 25% public support in the early stages of any conflict is already very low. As this war drags on, particularly when it inevitably hits fuel prices and household bills,

even that 25% could really fall away.

The Scottish Tories and Reform are outliers, with majorities of their voters backing the war. This speaks volumes about which side of this debate is out of step with the Scottish public.

Scotland does not want this war. It does not want its publicly owned infrastructure used to prosecute this war. And the UK government, with the power to stop it, will not confirm what it is doing — let alone explain why.

Irish government assisting illegal US-Zionist war on Iran

Featured image via Robert Perry / Getty Images

By Cameron Baillie

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Democrats want to move on from 2024. The Bidens won’t let them.

Former first lady Jill Biden put a glaring spotlight back on the debate that ended her husband’s political career while promoting her new memoir. Former President Joe Biden is drawing attention again to his audio interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur as he sues the Justice Department to prevent their release. And his scandal-ridden son Hunter Biden, whose past Republicans repeatedly weaponized on the campaign trail, is making headlines again — this time for appearing on a podcast with flame-throwing conspiracy theorist Candace Owens.

Jill Biden’s stunning admission this week that she thought her embattled husband was having a stroke on the debate stage in June 2024 stood in stark contrast to her positive spin and staunch defense in the moment. And it ripped open barely healed wounds from Democrats’ disastrous effort to hold the White House, setting off a fresh round of backward-looking fingerpointing less than a week after the party’s botched autopsy of the 2024 presidential election.

Leading Democrats say it’s an unnecessary distraction as they push to keep their party focused on a critical midterm — and what voters truly care about.

“We don’t need to be distracted by what the DNC says about the autopsy. I don’t need to be distracted about anyone’s book,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, told reporters on the sidelines of a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington on Thursday. “What I need to do is to focus on making a difference in the lives of people. And that’s what I think they’re getting really frustrated about, is all this nonsense. I don’t think the average Democratic voter, honestly, particularly in New Mexico, gives a damn about that book or the debate anymore.”

Lujan Grisham, who sat on the national advisory board for the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign, stressed that she didn’t mean “any disrespect” to Jill Biden and later said she is a “big Joe Biden fan.”

Still, Jill Biden’s confession that she was “frightened” by her husband’s debate performance landed with a thud among former Biden White House and campaign staffers who were told in the moment to treat the then-president’s halting and haphazard debate performance as little more than a blip.

Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Joe Biden in the White House who left before the 2024 reelection bid, cautioned that the timing and context of the former first lady’s memoir risks dealing Democrats a setback at a time when they’re on an electoral hot streak.

“I think that they need to sell books, and I think that Dr. Biden wants her story out there,” she said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire,” hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.

“It is not welcome from Democrats,” Hays said. “We have a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ‘24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats. I think it’s a tough place to be.”

Hays wasn’t the only former Biden official who expressed frustration.

“My reaction was basically: ‘Welcome to the club.’ Every person across America and in your administration wondered the same thing, and instead of acknowledging that, we were told for days to ignore it — that it was just a bad night, just an anomaly,” said another former Biden White House staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Still, several prominent Democratic strategists, former party leaders and past Biden-Harris officials downplayed the significance of this latest bout of 2024 relitigating, dismissing it as little more than white noise that wouldn’t have much effect on the party’s prospects in 2026 or 2028.

“Let everyone finish venting about ‘24 now and get it out of their systems,” former Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), who narrowly lost her reelection that year as Trump carried her state, said in a text message to POLITICO, adding that “voters won’t remember any of this in 2028.”

But, she added, “I am a bit unhappy about the DNC’s delayed release of the autopsy of 2024. We don’t need those reminders in writing and we certainly don’t need to give the Republicans any more oppo to remind voters of everything we did wrong in 2024.”

A spokesperson for the Bidens declined to comment. A former Biden White House and campaign staffer, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a text message that the party writ large has moved on.

“While it feels painful and traumatic for those who had to deal with this at the time, the public is focused on the current president and related concerns: high gas prices, immigration concerns, [Jeffrey] Epstein,” the person said.

The renewed firestorm around the two-year-old debate comes as other moves by the Biden clan force Democrats to again confront his decline in real time.

Joe Biden is suing the Trump administration in an effort to block the release of recorded interviews with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the Justice Department during a now-shuttered probe of whether he had mishandled classified information. But his effort to stop the tapes and transcripts from going public is dredging up another painful encounter that derailed his second term hopes.

Hur chose not to charge the president in that investigation because he believed jurors would likely see Biden as an“elderly man with a poor memory,” a moment that set off a political firestorm. The audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden, released last year, backed that up.

As Biden tries to keep those tapes under wraps, his son made recent moves to draw more attention to himself and his family.

Hunter Biden has triggered a raft of headlines in recent days after he taped a podcast with Owens, the conspiratorial conservative influencer who has repeatedly attacked the Biden family and the former president’s mental capacity. In the interview, Owens promised not to disparage Joe Biden and even commended Hunter Biden for defending his father. But the widespread media coverage still generated backlash within the party.

Some Democrats are simply ready to sweep the Bidens into the dustbin of history so their party can move forward.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the worst debate performance since the Greek Republic. Why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about Hunter Biden? Why is Hunter Biden talking about Hunter Biden?” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Barack Obama’s campaigns but was not involved in Joe Biden’s or Kamala Harris’ bids.

“Your time has passed, move on. … The Republicans and all their super PACs are going to outspend us three-to-one, four-to-one — that’s what we need to be focused on,” he added.

But the Bidens — and Harris — show no signs of slinking back into the shadows. Harris, who released a book last year criticizing the president with whom she served, has signaled she could mount a third presidential bid in 2028. Joe Biden, for his part, has begun endorsing his former administration officials who are running in midterm contests; one of his picks, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, won her gubernatorial primary last week in the key swing state of Georgia. Jill Biden is embarking on a book tour to promote her work.

And other Democrats say they’re less frustrated at the Biden family itself than they are with their party’s most vocal factions, which descend into a circular firing squad with each drip of new information about 2024.

“I would rather not have to talk about it. But they both have the right to do what they’re doing,” Maria Cardona, a prominent Democratic strategist who backed Biden’s reelection bid, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the DNC meeting. “But we also are in control with how we react to it. So let them do their thing. They are no longer in control of the party. We don’t have to rehash every single word that comes out of it.”

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The BBC’s former Middle East correspondent has described how the broadcaster was a “prime mover” in the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam that helped topple Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Tim Llewellyn was writing a review, for Electronic Intifada, of Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s new book Killing Corbynism: Zionism’s War on Socialism.

Llewellyn says that the BBC generated a “tidal wave of lies and misreporting” on Corbyn’s party and the left in general. He adds that this tidal wave was so large — and so unchallenged by so-called ‘mainstream’ journalists — that it is routinely parroted as fact. Often by those same hacks, despite being entirely made up. The same tactics are now being deployed against Zack Polanski and his Green party.

The scam was “a political, racist libel that made impossible proper debate about foreign affairs running up to two general elections”. And it was driven and funded by Israel and its lobbyists:

Israel and its British-based Fifth Column of propagandists and character assassins helped deliver the party leadership to his deputy, Starmer, now prime minister, an active Zionist and supporter of Israel before and since the start of its genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians after 7 October 2023. …

…The coffers of the pro-Israel lobby are filled by businesses and Zionist organizations here and in Israel.

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The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Ministry of Strategic Affairs are at the heart of the successful deception campaign to merge criticism of Israel – or criticism of Zionism as a political movement – with traditional, racist anti-Semitism.

The book lists 60 of these Israeli front organizations, many of them posing as charities. Gordon-Nesbitt selects just nine charities from the Zionist alliance, the best known being the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and UK Lawyers for Israel.

BBC — Manufactured moral panic

Llewellyn recalls a couple of the most notorious moral panics Corbyn’s opponents came up with during his tenure — and dismisses them as “nonsense”:

“Muralgate” emerged in a blog in 2015, which reported that in 2012 Corbyn had objected publicly (on Facebook) to the destruction of a mural painted on a London wall by a leftist street artist. This showed six capitalists sitting at a table borne on the backs of faceless black and brown men. Two of the capitalists were Jewish, Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg. The Israel machine went into overdrive.

Observer journalist Nick Cohen asked: “Is there a difference in [sic] supporting anti-Semites and being one?” Three years later the mural was resurrected by one of Corbyn’s most virulent parliamentary enemies, the MP Luciana Berger. Pro-Israel organizations called it “blatantly anti-Semitic.”

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It was not. It was, plainly, a leftist commentary on the capitalist system. But “Lady” Berger (after losing her seat in the 2019 elections upon quitting the Labour Party as a pre-election attack on Corbyn) is now in the House of Lords and Corbyn is a backbench independent MP, expelled from Labour.

Another egregious case was “Wreathgate.”

Just before the general election of June 2017, the London Sunday Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and The Jewish Chronicle, London’s Zionist weekly, published stories saying that in 2014 Corbyn had attended a wreath-laying event in Tunis, former HQ of the Palestine Liberation Organization, for Palestinian terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic killings of Israeli athletes.

The story was nonsense.

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The ceremony was a memorial event for an Israeli air strike on the PLO’s area, in October 1985, which killed as many as 70 Palestinians and 25 Tunisians. This was where and why Corbyn laid his wreath. Such facts never hindered this much-repeated story; and it took its place among the stores of ammunition plundered to assassinate Corbyn during the coming five years.

And he recalls just how extensively the “prime mover” rigged the sham “debate”. Not just in the appalling Panorama mockumentary “Is Labour Antisemitic”, but across the BBC’s output:

The BBC was a prime mover in all this.

I remember many occasions on which a BBC report or discussion would have the Zionist or pro-Zionist accusers repeating false charges on air against Corbyn, nearly all citing his or his party’s “anti-Semitism.” For the required “balance,” Labour apparatchiks, often senior right-wingers – the very people who were the dedicated enemies of Corbyn within Labour – would explain how they were trying to deal with anti-Semitism, admitting thereby that it existed in Labour.

The debate was rigged. Hardly ever did a pro-Corbyn Labour voice get an airing.

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Llewellyn is not the only current or former BBC employee to admit that the corporation panders to, or actively collaborates with, Israel and its UK lobbyists. In 2025, over 100 BBC employees wrote publicly and mostly anonymously of the BBC’s terror of offending Israel. But it goes far further than fear-driven compliance. Many senior BBC figures, both in front of and behind the cameras, are ardent supporters of Israel — many of them not Jewish. These affiliations are not disclosed as they parrot Israeli talking points.

The influence of Israel’s supporters and lobbyists has only lessened because of the Gaza genocide. That mass slaughter and Israel’s lies to justify it have increased the public’s awareness of what a racist, murderous ideology Zionism is. But even now, the British government refuses even to allow it to be discussed officially. In its recent ‘report’ on supposed ‘foreign interference’ in UK politics, Israel — the biggest interferer — is not mentioned once.

Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images

By Skwawkbox

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A flurry of incidents showed that Hindutva activists used Eid to intimidate Muslims in India.

Mosques were asking worshippers to pray in shifts, as authorities issued threats against congregations, Al Jazeera reported.

In one incident, Hindu supremacists attempted to bring a pig into a housing society of Muslim families in Mumbai’s Mira Road, Maktoob Media reported.

Hindutva activists protesting Eid sacrifice plans in Mumbai’s Mira Road attempted to bring a pig into a housing society after opposing the presence of goats kept by Muslim families.https://t.co/DjYldorYXu pic.twitter.com/5FRGpSFUm1

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) May 26, 2026

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The Bombay Municipal Corporation removed and relocated the goats owned by the Muslim families, Maktoob added.

Hindutva group carrying a pig to a housing society in Mumbai, where Muslims were preparing to celebrate Eid. Hindutva jokers have turned India to a terrible joke. pic.twitter.com/2yL281tGNt

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) May 26, 2026

Hindu supremacists, through their antics, had turned India into a “terrible joke,” Professor Ashok Swain posted, sharing a video from Mira Road, Mumbai.

Maktoob Media also reported that local Muslim organizations in Karnataka’s Hassan boycotted buying animals for Eid amid fear of backlash from Hindu supremacists.

Local Muslim organisations in Karnataka’s Hassan announced a boycott of purchasing animals for Eid ul-Adha amid Hindutva intimidation campaigns, triggering anxiety among dairy farmers who warned they would march their cattle to the deputy commissioner’s office if their… pic.twitter.com/zVRpNKzUeK

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) May 27, 2026

Hindutva bulldozer bullying

In Kolkata, a video was posted by Article19 India showing a campaign to run bulldozers on several houses belonging to Muslim families on the eve of Eid. The video claimed that the houses were being bulldozed by local authorities using the pretext that they were illegally built. 

“एक घर है वो भी छीन लोगे तुम लोग, बताना चाहिए क्या गलत है ना कि सीधा बुलडोजर चलाने का नोटिस चिपकाना चाहिए”

बकरीद त्योहार से एन वक्त पहले पश्चिम बंगाल में मुसलमानों के साथ ये सब हो रहा है!

कोलकाता के तोपसिया में अवैध निर्माण बताकर कई घरों पर बुलडोजर चलाने की कवायद शुरु हो गई है pic.twitter.com/v6uO3LktVc

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— Article19 India (@Article19_India) May 26, 2026

The bulldozer is a symbol of fascist violence, the South Asia Solidarity Group recently wrote in an op-ed for The Canary.

It involves both the state and a section of fascist social forces that spearhead and celebrate the violence. JCB remains the primary instrument; the British company is synonymous with home demolitions.

With several Indian states showing rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and restrictions around religious practices, Muslim communities have spent Eid in India in fear.

Featured image via Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

By The Canary

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The Israeli Prison Service is among other Israeli entities added to the UN sexual violence blacklist, The Jerusalem Post (JP) reported on Wednesday.

This development follows a July 2025 report by the UN Secretary-General’s Guterres representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, Ynet reported.

The report had stated that:

Since November 2023, Israeli armed and security forces have arrested and detained thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, with a dramatic deterioration in conditions of detention. The United Nations verified 12 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli armed and security forces, including the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Prison Service including the “Nachshon” Unit and Keter special forces, the Israel Security Agency (also known as Shin Bet) and the Police Counter-Terrorism Unit (Yamam), in Naqab/Ketziot and Ofer prisons and Etzion detention centre against seven Palestinian men, including one rape; one attempted rape; three incidents of squeezing or pulling detainees’ genitals; and seven incidents of kicking, or beatings to, genitals.

The JP reported that following Hamas’ inclusion in the blacklist, “heavy pressure was exerted on the UN Secretary-General to include Israel on the list as well.”

UN verdict: rife sexual violence

The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine — Francesca Albanese — has also documented these crimes.

Earlier this year, she released a report called “Torture and genocide,” which showed that various forms of torture have become tools of genocide by Israel against Palestinians. She also warned that the practice extends far beyond prison walls.

She reported that sexual violence against children, women, and men is “rife,” detailing that:

Israeli personnel have committed rape, including gang rape, often involving objects such as iron bars, batons and metal detectors. Detainees are subjected to beatings and electric shocks on their genitals or anus, forcibly and publicly stripped naked, and forcibly and invasively strip-searched in humiliating positions.

Pattern of discrediting international law

In response to this step being taken by the UN, Israel is reportedly cutting ties with UN chief Guterres.

The JP reported that Israel is “freezing” relations with the UN Secretary-General’s Office and has cancelled Patten’s planned visit to Israel.

This is a pattern used by the US and its proxy Israel.

The United States on Wednesday reimposed sanctions on Albanese. The Treasury Department blacklisted her globally, blocking her from using credit cards or banking.

The US had removed the sanctions a week earlier after a federal judge blocked them, citing free-speech violations. But an appeals court issued a stay on that ruling Friday.

US-backed Israeli attempts to discredit UN investigators and the International Criminal Court are part of its thuggery.

Reuters also reported that Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces, it said.

Featured image via David Silverman/Getty Images

By The Canary

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BBC’s Question Time is at it again — this time, the show has put together a homogeneously pro-AI panel for tonight’s special on the environmentally ruinous technology.

Green leader Zack Polanski went so far as to speculate that the entire episode was bought and paid for by the AI lobby. Likewise, journalist Caroline Cadwalladr characterised the show as laundering AI’s image in a similar manner to its performance with Nigel Farage.

Long-time readers will already be familiar with the Canary’s distaste for the national broadcaster’s flagship panel show. Question Time has previously faced allegations of blocking pro-Palestine audience members, mis-labelling panelists to massage right-wing images, and biasing its audiences against the left, to name but a few instances.

So, really, presenting a grab-bag of AI shills and calling it a panel is par for the course.

Could we not get Skynet?

So, who exactly has Question Time dragged up to face a light grilling from Fiona Bruce at 9pm tonight? The show posted:

Joining Fiona on the panel are Darren Jones, Julia Lopez, Mo Gawdat, Laura Gilbert, and Victor Riparbelli

Let’s break that down, shall we?

Darren Jones is the Labour MP for Bristol North West. Whilst he’s been critical of companies like Royal Mail using AI to monitor employees, he’s also been a champion of the technology, particularly in the form of ChatGPT-style large-language models. Oh, and he dismissed worries about job losses, which we’re already seeing.

Julia Lopez is the Tory shadow technology secretary. She’s previously criticised the government for its apparent alignment with an EU act which attempts to regulate AI. Likewise, she’s also criticised Ed Miliband’s environmental protection policies for stifling the growth of AI companies. Noticing a pattern here? 

Mo Gawdat was once the chief business officer for Google X, the company’s pie-in-the-sky research division. On multiple occasions, he’s called for humanity to hand over control of society to AI, claiming “it may actually become our salvation.” This is a technology currently known for being unable to count fingers, by the way. 

Laura Gilbert is the senior director for AI and innovation at the Tony Blair Institute. That’s the same Tony Blair Institute, which took over £250m from Trump-buddy Larry Elison, owner of software company Oracle. 

Last but not least, Victor Riparbelli is co-founder and CEO of SynesthesiaIO. Synesthesia bills itself as “the world’s #1 AI video creation platform”.  

Question Time — ‘Not one critical voice’

Fab, so our balance here ranges between ‘enthusiastic support, with caveats’ to ‘we should crown AI as king of the world’. Oh, and half of them stand to make a bunch of money from widespread AI adoption, too. Fantastic, no notes – the BBC has outdone itself here.

In reaction to the flagrant bias on display, Green leader Zack Polanski called out the Tony Blair Institute’s ties to the AI business:

Oracle’s £250m gift to the Tony Blair Institute appears to buy you an entire Question Time episode.

Likewise, journalist Caroline Cadwalladr pointed out the similarity to Question Time’s past indiscretions:

So you know what @bbcquestiontime did with Farage? They’re now doing it with AI.

This ‘expert’ panel on AI is a disgrace: not one critical voice.

She also highlighted the incredibly leading nature of the questions the show posted in the run-up to its special episode. Question Time asked:

How has AI changed your life? Do you use it to help meet deadlines at work or school?

‘So do you like AI, or do you love it?’ ‘Well, having lost my job to an incompetent robot, I love how much free time I have to spend at home.’

Theft and destruction

Just in case tonight’s Question Time fails to acknowledge the problems with AI, here are just a couple.

Coupled with the threat to workers, AI is also a monumental threat to creatives. Generative AI relies on training from a vast well of data, which companies rarely bother to come by legally. As the Good Law Project explained:

This fake art isn’t just produced by algorithms that are trained with vast amounts of energy and by people paid poverty wages. It also depends on AI giants using creative work and refusing to pay for it. Companies like Meta and OpenAI are hoovering millions of copyright books, songs and films into their AI tools without permission – creative work that the companies admit they would never be able to afford if they were actually paying for it.

Beyond this, widespread AI adoption also comes at a massive cost to the already dying climate. For example, the Yale School of the Environment published research on the amount of energy it takes to power traditional computing vs AI.  It found that:

A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. run.

So sure, you might be jobless and thirsty on a boiling earth, but at least you’ll be able to watch an AI video of Homer Simpson making passionate love to Hank Hill.

Let’s see if the Question Time panel gets round to that.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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A new report has laid out the scale of public funds Stormont is pumping into rip-off private nursing agencies every year, rather than using in-house staff. The standout figures in The Use of Temporary Nursing Staff in Northern Ireland show the Department of Health (DoH) spent £162 million on agency nursing staff in 2024-25, a figure three times the £52 million frittered away in 2018-19.

Authored by the comptroller and auditor general Dorinnia Carville, the report also reveals the scale of the shortfall in overall nursing staff levels. It shows the region has 17,024 “whole time equivalent registered nurses in the HSC [Health and Social Care] system”. This number is 2,195 short of the nurses needed to provide “safe and effective staffing levels”.

The use of staff from private agencies outside the government-run HSC body is an attempt to cope with this shortage. However, as is usually the case with privatisation in public services, the cost of bringing in agency staff is much higher than HSC employing workers directly. A more cost-effective measure for temporary staff is bringing in ‘bank nurses’. These are workers hired directly by Health and Social Care.

Agencies take a cut from every nurse whose services they provide to HSC. In England, this is capped at £4.87 per hour. However, the Department of Health has not secured this kind of deal, meaning:

…fees have ranged from £2 per hour to £15 per hour.

Six Counties’ agency nurses more expensive than those in London

This has dropped somewhat in May 2025 to a maximum of £10 per hour. Carville states that DoH:

…could not provide an explanation of why the variance is so significant.

Absurdly, this means HSC has been paying higher sums per hour than the NHS does for nurses working in Central London. As the report outlines:

In most of England, this rate is capped at £24.06 per hour while in inner London, which pays the highest rates for agency nurses in England, the comparable rate is capped at £28.87 per hour.

The highest rate paid for agency nurses for night, and Saturday shifts is £36.10 per hour in inner London which is still lower than the £36.86 average hourly rate for Band 5 nurses working standard day shifts in Northern Ireland.

The figures go even higher in some cases. For “Sunday and Bank Holiday shifts” in the Six Counties, some nurses receive £52.10 per hour. In the case of Inner London, the figure is £43.32. Nobody ought to begrudge skilled workers being well-paid for essential work. The issue is the agencies acting as rent-seeking middlemen, hoovering up inflated profits.

Payments dwarfed the agency spend figures for Scotland and Wales, despite those countries’ larger populations. The DoH forked out that £162 million sum in 2024-25, versus £57 million and £79 million for Scotland and Wales respectively during the same period.

Surely for all this spending we’re getting better results, though? Well, you may be shocked to know, that just as with rail, water, buses and any other privatised service, the public not only pays more, but they get worse results. Carville explains how:

…research shows a connection between a high usage of agency nurses with increased patient mortality rates, less work being completed by nursing staff, reduced patient safety levels and lower patient satisfaction.

The comptroller and auditor general also cites an October 2022 statement from then-minister of health Robin Swann acknowledging that use of agencies:

…was not a cost-effective use of taxpayers’ money, and could lead to a lack of workforce continuity, with the potential to undermine patient safety.

Nursing — neoliberalism working as intended

Staff often end up in agencies or leave the profession entirely due to the dire conditions in the public health system generally. These ultimately stem from Tory austerity policies throughout the 2010s that also hit Stormont’s finances. Carville highlights a 2024-25 Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) survey which found:

…24 per cent of those surveyed left their roles in the profession due to physical and mental health combined with burnout and exhaustion.

It also showed that:

Just 28 per cent of leavers would promote the profession – with 51
per cent considering themselves active detractors of the profession.

The report said higher agency pay rates:

…caused core staff shortages and an increased dependency on more costly agency staffing.

This is neoliberalism working as intended. Use austerity policies to defund services until the staff crack, and the service breaks. Staff leave their roles for private sector equivalents or quit entirely. Patients gravitate towards private options too. You now have an inflated private sector which the public option must rely on to meet its obligations. More money therefore flows into private coffers, and the literal death spiral littered with deceased patients continues until ultimately public health care is gone entirely.

Carville provides six recommendations for hopefully heading off that dire outcome. Notably, she suggests that:

The Department of Health should consider actions taken in other jurisdictions in the UK to reduce reliance and spend on agency nursing staff and ensure learning is built into future strategies.

Other proposals include introduction of targets to reduce agency usage, and working out how to better retain HSC staff. Addressing the broader dysfunction within Westminster and Stormont was perhaps beyond her remit.

The non-existence of a functioning executive in the Six Counties between 2017-2020 and 2022-2024 prevented major decisions on health care being made. Tory pandemic mismanagement placed a crushing burden on nurses, driving many away. Yet more fundamental is the capitalist system in which oligarchs buy off politicians and ensure austerity policies that crush the ordinary person. Health care is one of the most grave casualties, as this report lays bare.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

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AFTER 57 DAYS, THE BUDGET IS DONE!

TAXING TRUMP’S BUCKS: Gov. Kathy Hochul believes there should be ramifications for anyone who accepts cash from President Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund — and the money should go toward helping New Yorkers.

“I have no problem with there being consequences for people who accept that money,” she told reporters at an unrelated news conference.

The Democratic governor stopped short today of fully endorsing proposals germinating in the Legislature that would slap a 100 percent tax on payouts from the president’s $1.776 billion fund — a posture she takes with nearly every bill before it’s approved.

But Hochul clearly signaled she would support an arrangement in which payouts are taxed by New York.

“If there’s a tax that goes into a fund that helps New Yorkers, it might be a good way to go,” she said.

POLITICO first reported Wednesday night that New York Democratic state lawmakers are pushing for a vote by next week for a bill that would, in essence, confiscate any payments.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris is in the process of introducing a bill in his chamber. Assemblymember Alex Bores, a Democratic House candidate, initially proposed the measure.

Money from the fund is meant for people who are “victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress,” according to Trump’s acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Trump has not ruled out providing some of the money for people who were convicted of crimes in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In remarks before signing a budget bill, Hochul called the pot of cash “a slush fund.”

“That kind of money — it’s obscene to be setting aside to award people who have committed crimes and injustices, including assaulting police officers on Jan. 6,” she said.

In Albany, lawmakers are racing to get the bill over the finish line by next week. The legislative session is scheduled to end June 4.

New York is among the blue states considering 100 percent taxes on payouts from the fund, which the president announced as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice after he sued the IRS.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week embraced fully taxing the money. Democratic state lawmakers in New Jersey and Wisconsin are also pursuing similar measures.

Some Republicans have blasted the fund, and it’s received a cool reception among the GOP in the U.S. Senate.

Republican candidate for governor Bruce Blakeman, though, steered clear when asked about it this morning.

“I haven’t even focused on it,” said Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a Trump ally. “I’m too busy focusing on state issues where I can actually make a difference in peoples’ lives.”

His response underscores the politically delicate position the fund puts Republican candidates in this election season.

Blakeman, though, insisted Democrats should be trying to spend the remaining session days addressing utility costs and public safety, not a national issue.

“Those are the things people want the Legislature and the executive branch to focus on,” he said. — Nick Reisman

From the Capitol

HOLTZMAN BACKS ANTI-TRAFFICKING BILL: Former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman worked the halls of Albany today in support of a bill that would allow Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to seek damages from his estate.

“I’ve fought for a long time in Congress and as district attorney against sexual violence against women, so it’s a subject that’s very dear to my heart,” Holtzman said.

The bill is one of several high-profile measures competing for attention in the condensed homestretch of this year’s legislative session where there’ll only be time to pass a handful of complicated bills. But the sponsors have been doing what they can to help raise its profile — state Sen. Zellnor Myrie hosted Epstein’s victims in a committee meeting earlier this month and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal joined the former representative today.

“The fact that Congresswoman Holtzman made the trip to Albany and talked to members really gives it a lot more prominence and chance of passing,” Rosenthal said. — Bill Mahoney

FROM CITY HALL

ZO TENSE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch agree that security must be beefed up in Manhattan during this weekend’s Israel Day Parade.

But there was no doubt about the tension bubbling just beneath the surface during a parade security briefing both of them held at NYPD headquarters today.

“It’s the mayor’s decision not to march and it is my decision to march — proudly,” Tisch, the NYPD’s first female Jewish commissioner, said when asked if she’s concerned about Mamdani opting not to join her and thousands of other New Yorkers. Mamdani’s decision to sit out the parade breaks with a long-standing tradition of mayors participating in the annual event.

Standing alongside Mamdani, Tisch said she is also “incredibly proud” that the organizer, the Jewish Community Relations Council, named her an honorary grand marshal of this year’s parade. The event’s theme is “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists.”

Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor and a longtime critic of Israel, insisted he’s committed to making the parade safe for all participants even though he won’t be at it.

“I said on the campaign trail that I wouldn’t be attending the parade, and I’ve made my views on the Israeli government abundantly clear,” he told reporters. “I also said on that same campaign that I would have a responsibility as the mayor of the city to ensure the safety and security of each and every New Yorker, and I don’t believe my presence as the mayor should determine whether or not a New Yorker is safe or secure.”

It would be extraordinarily fraught for Mamdani to attend the parade. His pro-Palestinian supporters would likely be outraged. And parade-goers might be inclined to boo him if he showed up.

Still, Marc Schneier, a Long Island rabbi and frequent critic of Mamdani, said the mayor is signaling by skipping the parade that “the Jewish community of New York is not a constituency he is willing to stand beside.” His takeaway: good riddance. 

“We don’t want you anyway,” Schneier said of Mamdani.

In an apparent extension of his long-running effort to troll his successor, former Mayor Eric Adams also announced yesterday that he will march in the parade.

Asked by Playbook after today’s security briefing how he feels about Adams’ parade attendance, Mamdani said: “He’s welcome to spend his time as he so chooses.” — Chris Sommerfeldt 

NOT ZO FAST: Citizens Union, a New York City-based government watchdog group, is raising concerns about Mamdani’s newly announced Commission on Government Efficiency, warning that its timeline — particularly a push to advance ballot questions this November — risks being rushed.

While calling the commission’s goals “laudable” the group cautioned that a new charter commission “will have less time to seek public input, conduct research, and deliberate than even the highly criticized, rushed commission established by Eric Adams.”

The new commission comes immediately after Mamdani dismantled Adams’ Charter Revision Commission, first reported by POLITICO. The current mayor’s commission is tasked with proposing government efficiency measures to voters this fall. Mamdani’s team says the commission will hold 10 hearings across the city in the coming months ahead of any ballot proposals.

Citizens Union pointed to the clash between the new panel and the Adams-era commission — which has signaled it may sue to continue its work — as emblematic of the use of charter commissions for political reasons. The group noted that five such bodies have been created in three years, a rate they say erodes public trust and participation.

Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokesperson for the Adams commission who served as the former mayor’s press secretary, pointed to the commission’s work to add open primaries and told Playbook “the idea of New Yorkers having a voice in the future of their city — and the right to vote in open primaries — terrifies City Hall.” The advent of open primaries, which would expand the pool of voters to more moderates, would complicate a reelection run for Mamdani in 2029.

“We are prepared to pursue all available legal remedies to protect the people’s voice,” Mamelak Altus said.

Mamdani said today the commission, known as COGE — a nod to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — is part of a “sincere commitment” to improve government.

Asked whether there’s anything he admired and is trying to emulate from Musk’s DOGE, or whether it’s just a similar name, Mamdani told reporters, “It’s just the name, and what it should have been.”

“Elon Musk took that language and used it to cut as many jobs that were as critical as possible for so many of the neediest people across the country and across the world,” he said. “Ours is going to be a focus on actually delivering efficiency.” — Gelila Negesse and Janaki Chadha

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

PAC IT UP: VoteVets is investing $1 million to boost Army veteran Cait Conley, one of five Democrats vying to take on Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

The ad touts Conley’s military service, saying that “after the Towers fell, [she] answered the call,” and that in Congress, she’ll “take on Trump’s corruption, rein in ICE and bring down costs.”

The ad buy makes VoteVets, a Democratic group that backs veterans, the biggest spender in the primary, according to the ad tracker AdImpact. Conley and Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson have been on the air for weeks, though neither have spent close to as much as VoteVets’ $1 million.

The group also released a poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group earlier this month, showing Conley and Davidson pulling away from the pack — though more than one-third of respondents were still undecided. The survey, which polled 500 likely Democratic primary voters, had Conley with 29 percent of support, Davidson with 22 percent, Tarrytown trustee Effie Phillips-Staley with 6 percent, former TV reporter Mike Sacks with 4 percent and Air Force veteran John Cappello with 2 percent. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.4 percentage points.

Earlier this week, two former primary contenders — tech executive and local government official Peter Chatzky and former FBI official John Sullivan — endorsed Davidson, citing her experience as a local elected official. — Madison Fernandez

IN OTHER NEWS

— A CHANGE IN TUNE: Mamdani is considering endorsing Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist, in the NY-13 race, despite committing to support incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat last year. (The New York Times)

— BUFF UP: Facing a $103 million structural deficit, Buffalo scored a $65 million aid boost in state budget deal. (Buffalo News)

— ‘THIS IS INSANE’: In a federal case brought by immigrants detained at 26 Federal Plaza, internal emails show ICE agents were aware and concerned over conditions there. (Gothamist)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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