Politics
Martin Clunes’ Huw Edwards Performance Praised By Critics
Martin Clunes has received widespread praise for his leading performance in a new drama about Huw Edwards, even if the show itself has proved to be more on the divisive side.
The Wuthering Heights star portrayed the disgraced BBC News anchor in Power: The Downfall Of Huw Edwards, a feature-length drama which aired on 5 (the broadcaster previously known as Channel 5) on Tuesday evening.
After the show aired, the Wuthering Heights actor received unanimous praise for his portrayal of Edwards.
However, reviews for the show itself were considerably more mixed, ranging from a lowly two stars in The Independent and The Standard to a perfect score in the Daily Mail.
Here’s a selection of what critics have had to say about Power: The Downfall Of Huw Edwards so far…
“Martin Clunes is in total go-for-broke mode in the title role, uncannily furrowing his brow to just the right degree and bringing overqualified Welsh-accented gravitas to a script that asks him to repeatedly sink to all kinds of mucky carnal urges. The project he’s in, though, doesn’t match him: it’s the kind of rush-job TV lobotomy that satisfies nothing but a viewer’s baser instincts.”
“[Martin Clunes] is horribly convincing in this ripped-from-the-headlines drama about the newsreader’s grooming scandal. You might not even be able to stomach it […]
“[Power] might not represent the pinnacle of drama – in truth, its eagerness to exist comes at the expense of nuance – but it does go an awfully long way to capture a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach.”
“Arguably, the most eerie element is Martin Clunes’s portrayal of Edwards. It isn’t an attempt to imitate the Welsh newsreader, but he’s captured his essence, particularly the wafer-thin false modesty and barely concealed narcissism.”
“Clunes delivers an extraordinary portrayal that captures the body language, demeanour and menace of the man without descending into impersonation. His Welsh accent (never a Clunes strong point) sometimes wavers, but his refusal to allow Edwards an ounce of sympathy does not.”
“Clunes didn’t initially seem to me like the obvious casting choice, but he is skilful and convincing as Edwards, blending irascibility, a thin skin and self-importance with genuine terror that the media would crucify him if it discovered his secret.
“[He] also looks the part, perfecting the trademark raised eyebrow and the very distinctive rhythm of his voice and the way he sat at the BBC desk.”
“Clunes strikes a balance between the meek Welsh competence, with the needy, boozing predator in dark rooms and eternal running gear, conducting Ryan to do his bidding like a schoolteacher would. There’s also the calculating curmudgeon, always covering his own back and admonishing perceived missteps.”
“Clunes bears little physical resemblance to Edwards and doesn’t make a great effort to mimic his Welsh accent. But he does copy the arms-along-the-desk pose and that slight curl of the lip.”
“Clunes plays [Edwards] with a sociopathic stare […] [Power] should be chilling – and it is, especially given the fact that ‘Ryan’s’ own words [have] undoubtedly informed what we see on screen. Unfortunately, the drama itself is hamstrung by some surprisingly tin-eared dialogue and equally shaky acting, rather sapping the whole thing of its potency.”
Power: The Downfall Of Huw Edwards is now streaming on 5’s catch-up service.
The University of East London (UEL) hosted a cross-sector symposium at the House of Commons on 9 February, bringing together parliamentarians, employers, practitioners and people with lived experience to examine how workplaces can better support colleagues affected by trauma, substance use and recovery.
Held in partnership with the International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction (ICUDDR), the event focused on employers’ responsibilities in a changing landscape of work and health, and the role recovery-ready, trauma-informed practices can play in addressing long-term sickness and economic inactivity.
Discussions were framed in the context of the Government’s Keep Britain Working agenda and the growing recognition that good work can support long-term participation in the labour market.
Opening the symposium, UEL Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Amanda Broderick said: “East London is a place of extraordinary energy, resilience and creativity. But it is also where communities often experience the sharpest edges of health inequality, economic precarity, trauma and addiction-related harm.
These realities do not stop at the workplace door. They show up in absence, presenteeism, disciplinary processes, and too often, in people falling out of work altogether.
Our work is deliberately practice-based and grounded in a responsibility to deliver solutions that benefit learners, employers and communities alike. Developing recovery-ready, addiction-informed workplaces is, for us, a practical way of enacting that responsibility – translating evidence, values and lived experience into real organisational change.”
Through keynote contributions, panel discussions and facilitated roundtables, participants explored how organisations can move beyond basic policies to create workplace cultures that reduce stigma, support early intervention, and enable people to stay in or return to work safely and sustainably.
The symposium heard that around 2.8 million working-age adults are economically inactive due to ill health. Roughly one in five working-age people is out of work. The economic cost of this is estimated at over £200 billion a year.
Guests included House of Commons host the Rt Hon James Asser, MP for West Ham and Beckton, Deputy Mayor of London Mr Howard Dawber, the Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham and Minister for Social Security and Disability, and Dr Laurie Krom, Executive Director, and Dr Carmel Clancy, Director, from ICUDDR.
Professor Fatima Annan-Diab, Executive Dean of the Royal Docks School of Business and Law, told guests, “We are committed to working with employers, policymakers, practitioners, and partners to translate evidence into capability – and intent into delivery. Through our interdisciplinary expertise and our Recovery-Ready and Trauma-Informed Professional Pathway, introduced today, we are building the infrastructure needed to support real and lasting organisational change.”
“This work does not begin and end with an event. It is ongoing, and it is designed to be collaborative.”
Over the next phase, the collaboration will focus on developing professional education and practical resources for employers, including continuing professional development (CPD) courses, employer toolkits and opportunities for applied research.
View all our short courses (CPD)
The Association of Former Members of Parliament has published the latest edition of its official journal Order! Order!
4 min read
When I look at the structure of our student loan system in 2026, I don’t recognise it as a loan.
It is a retrospectively rewritten graduate tax that punishes aspiration, entrenches inequality, and falls hardest on women at every stage of their working lives.
An entire generation was told repayments would feel like “a phone contract” or “a few coffees a week.” That was a lie. Only a third of Plan 2 borrowers will ever clear the balance.
The rest pay 9 per cent of every pound above a frozen threshold for up to 40 years – a 51 per cent marginal rate when combined with income tax and National Insurance. A graduate on £50,000 will only keep 49p of each additional pound – how dare politicians continue to call it a loan.
Beneath these headline injustices sits a deeper one policymakers refuse to name: this system is gendered from the day it is signed to the day a woman retires.
Women make up 57 per cent of UK students. They leave with the same debts as men but a labour market that pays them 14 – 15 per cent less and expects them to take career breaks for caring but doesn’t give financial relief. In the student loan system they pay for longer, pay more in real terms, and rarely clear their balance.
Our research found Ms JD puts the arithmetic in words ministers should read: “Unless you are being paid over £66k annually, you do not even start to break even. To earn £66k as a female in a male-dominated industry will be almost impossible.” Seven and a half years of consistent repayment have taken her balance from £57,000 to £83,000. She finds it “near impossible to buy a house on my own.”
Then there is motherhood – if a woman can afford it. Interest does not pause for maternity leave.
Ms HS, 32 and child-free despite wanting to be a parent, says: “Knowing my student loan balance would still be growing during maternity leave adds an extra layer of financial pressure.” Ms HG and her husband pay £420 a month and have put off starting a family: “This is why the birth rate is so low, we can’t afford to do so.” Westminster wonders about falling birth rates. It has engineered one of them.
The unfairness begins before a woman has even taken out her own loan. Ms CM describes how the parental assessment for maintenance loans assumes a stepparent will fund an adult stepchild’s university costs – penalising single mothers who re-partner. Most single-parent households are headed by women. That is not a footnote. It is structural.
Then there is the pension pipeline. The part that should stop ministers in their tracks. Every pound deducted in a woman’s 20s, 30s and 40s is a pound not compounding in her pension. Women retire with 40 per cent less pension wealth than men. As Ms HS puts it: “Ultimately, it’s a 9 per cent additional tax for life.” The state that raids her payslip now will rescue her later. That is not social policy. It is a doom loop.
Layered on top is a retrospective rewriting of the deal. The repayment threshold was promised to rise with earnings; it has been frozen and re-frozen. Interest rate bands were tightened at the 2025 Budget without mention in the Treasury’s own Budget documents. The 6 per cent cap from September 2026 does not enable graduates to clear their debts, it merely slows the rate at which those debts become unrepayable. In any regulated consumer credit market, marketing debt on terms this misleading would be a clear breach of consumer protection law and bee deemed a scandal.
What I have described is, on its face, indirect sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. No gender impact assessment has been published for the threshold freeze or the hidden tightening of the interest bands, raising a serious question about whether ministers have discharged the Public Sector Equality Duty at all.
Fairness is not free; nor is unfairness. Proper reform, retrospective justice, a lifetime repayment cap, and a mandatory gender impact assessment on every future change – costs roughly 0.3–0.4 per cent of GDP. Reforming the triple lock releases savings that would address this intergenerational unfairness. A political choice, not about affordability.
The student loan system promised social mobility and has delivered a debt trap.
This government has committed to closing the gender pay gap, the gender pension gap and reversing birth rate decline, so cannot credibly defend a policy that measurably widens all three. Ms HG asks the question ministers must answer: “When did hard work mean only surviving?”
Gina Miller is founder of MoneyShe, and co-founder of SCM Direct. You can read her TSC submission here and policy white paper here.
When does cowardice become complicity? I wondered this on Sunday morning when my bike ride through Woodcock Park in Harrow was interrupted by a vast stretch of police tape. It was jarring to see this leafy enclave with its trickling brook turned into a crime scene. But I knew two things right away: first, that the target would have been the synagogue that sits on the edge of the park; and second, that the chattering class’s response to this latest brutalising of England’s Jews would be as meek and quiet as this park normally is.
I was right on both counts. A quick Google confirmed that, overnight, the Kenton United Synagogue had been targeted for fiery destruction. A bottle containing ‘accelerant’ was hurled through a window. More simply, a synagogue was firebombed, in London, in 2026. Mercifully, the homemade device of fascist terror failed to ignite and the synagogue suffered only a little smoke damage. Then came the next act in the anti-Semitic drama, the one that follows with baleful predictability every outrage against our Jewish compatriots: the snivelling, gutless silence of ‘the virtuous’.
We need to speak plainly: England’s Jews are being terrorised and the left is silent. Jews are being subjected to a campaign of fascist-style animus and so-called anti-fascists are saying fuck all. The world’s oldest racism has burst back to bloody life and ‘anti-racist’ influencers either haven’t noticed, don’t care, or they like it. How else to explain their craven self-gagging in the face of racist violence? ‘We would have hidden Jews in the attic’, these preening ‘progressive’ moralists love to say, when the only thing in their attics are Palestine flags, spare keffiyehs and placards saying ‘Zionism is cancer’.
The situation could not be more serious. The attempted burning of Kenton United Synagogue was the third violent assault on a Jewish institution in London in a week. There was also the attempted firebombing of the Finchley Reform Synagogue on Wednesday. In the dead of night, two people in balaclavas hurled petrol-filled bottles at it. Thankfully, the damage was minimal. Then on Friday, a man placed a bag containing three bottles of flammable liquid outside the former offices of Jewish Futures in Hendon, a Jewish educational charity. They failed to fully ignite. And it was only last month that four Jewish ambulances were destroyed in Golders Green in a fiery act of racial hatred. And only last year that two Jews were slain on Yom Kippur in the Islamist atrocity at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester.
The events of the past week, those three attempted incinerations, leave no doubt: a campaign of terror is underway against the Jews of Britain. The message of these Nazi-like arsonists is as clear as it is sick: you aren’t safe here. In the suburbs where you live, in your educational institutions, even in your places of worship, we will find you. This is a violent crusade to strip our Jewish citizens of their sense of security, to plunder them of the thing every British citizen should enjoy – the feeling that we belong, that we are safe. These petrol-pouring lowlifes want nothing less than to make life intolerable for the Jews of this kingdom.
Worse, there are suspicions the Islamic Republic is involved in this violent rebirth of anti-Jewish persecution. A group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia has claimed responsibility for some of the anti-Semitic arson in the UK and other attacks on Jews in Europe. It is thought to be a proxy or at least a fanclub of the tyranny in Tehran. After the failed burning of the synagogue in Kenton this weekend, the Metropolitan Police said it is ‘alive’ to the ‘threat of Iranian state aggression in the UK’.
Think about this: it is possible British Jews are being terrorised at the behest of a foreign regime. It is possible the Islamist theocracy in Iran is engaged in a war of attrition against Jews in Hendon, Kenton, Finchley. If the Iranian link is substantiated, the government’s response should be the immediate closure of the Iranian Embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian diplomats. No quarter whatsoever can be given to regimes that encourage militant racists to take up arms against Jewish Britons. As for that sickly, suicidal Islamo-left alliance that makes excuses for, or outright cheers, the Islamic Republic and its ‘axis of resistance’ – they are now completely morally indistinguishable from Oswald Mosley and his mob who did fascism’s bidding in Britain.
The brainless apologists for Tehran among Britain’s affluent faux-socialist classes will say: ‘It was only a few makeshift petrol bombs. And they didn’t ignite.’ Yet those three dreamt-of fires will have made Jews across London feel fretful. Is their synagogue next? Will the next bag of accelerants catch fire? That’s terrorism’s mission – to terrorise. What’s more, the explosion of Jew hate in Australia after 7 October 2023 also started with the ‘low-level’ intimidation of synagogues, including firebombings. And we know how things ended there. It is at the very start that the Islamo-fascist menace must be quashed, before it leads to more than smoke damage, and to the harming of more than bricks and mortar.
I am now at the point where I find the ‘progressive’ silence in the aftermath of these attacks more unnerving than the noise of the violence itself. Anti-Jewish savagery is tragically to be expected from the Islamic Republic and its simps in the West. It’s the cowardice of the cultural elite that feels truly foreign, truly unsettling. A whole week of terror against Jews in London and the government just issues a few perfunctory comments while the media elites briefly wring their hands before getting back to the Mandelson scandal. Where’s the anger? Where’s the righteous fury of those liberals who said everything from Brexit to Trump was ‘like the 1930s’ yet who now seem so soullessly unfazed by literal firebombings of synagogues?
As for the left, their claim to oppose racism lies in the gutter where it belongs. It has been exposed as a gross lie by their own wordless timidity as synagogues are targeted with fire. These people got angrier over the Supreme Court ruling saying men aren’t women than they did over a week of anti-Semitic arson in London. I don’t know what we’re meant to call an activist class that shows more interest in the right of men to piss wherever they fancy than it does in the right of Jews to live in safety. But I know it’s not anti-fascist.
The terrorisers in our midst are not only goading England’s Jews – they’re goading all of us. They’re laying down a gauntlet alongside their petrol bombs, to see if Britain will stand with its Jews or betray them. And right now we are failing, badly. Civil society sleeps. The government is too busy saving its own arse to save British Jewry. And ‘progressives’ just carry on with their one-eyed, unhinged demonisation of the Jewish State and everyone who supports it, effectively hanging a target sign around the necks of Britain’s Jews. There is a moment in which silence becomes complicity. When moral nonchalance helps to normalise savagery. When our collective failure to speak out is viewed by the fascist enemy as permission for further violence. We’ve reached that moment.
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
When the Tories started defecting to Reform UK en masse, the reason for them doing so was obvious. Reform were riding high in the polls while the Conservative Party was sinking lower and lower.
Ironically, Reform have dropped in the polls since accepting these Tory defectors. Reform sold themselves as an alternative to the Labour-Conservative duopoly, so opening the party up to ex-Tories made it clear that Farage’s bunch are just another status quo party.
Now, it looks like several of these Tory defectors could eventually lose their seats to their old party:
Chicken Run Alert — Kevin Hollinrake MP (@kevinhollinrake) April 19, 2026
https://t.co/H9YAaH9K71
For all the MPs who moved for the cynical purpose of saving their skin, this has got to burn.
Things can only get beta – for Reform, anyway
The above is from the website UK Polling Report. The site describes itself as being in the ‘beta’ stage, which implies it’s available to the public but still undergoing testing.
Looking at the front page, this is their polling prediction for how many seats each party would win should an election happen today:
We’re highlighting this to note their model is producing very different results to some pollsters:
– Seats – Poll: @Ipsos_in_the_UK, 9-15 Apr (+/- vs 11 Mar) pic.twitter.com/iOenwmYCvo — Stats for Lefties
POLL | Reform lead by 6pts
Ref: 25% (-3)
Con: 19% (+2)
Lab: 19% (-2)
Grn: 17% (=)
Lib: 14% (+5)
Res: 3% (new)
Ref: 262Con: 85Lib: 85Lab: 70Grn: 70
SNP: 47
Plaid: 8
(@LeftieStats) April 17, 2026
— Seats — Poll: @YouGov, 12-13 Apr (+/- vs 7 Apr) pic.twitter.com/m0PQxoBh26
— Stats for Lefties
POLL | Reform lead by 5pts
Ref: 24% (=) Con: 19% (=) Grn: 18% (+2) Lab: 17% (+1) Lib: 13% (=)
Res: 4% (=)
YP: 0% (-1)
Ref: 282 Grn: 91 Con: 83 Lib: 81 SNP: 47 Lab: 34
(@LeftieStats) April 14, 2026
This variation is to be expected, of course; we’re just highlighting that you shouldn’t take UK Polling Report’s predictions as gospel. You should, however, find some amusement when you look at the predictions for the Tory defectors.
We’ve covered Robert Jenrick already; next is Suella Braverman:
Reform’s Danny Kruger:
Sadly, however, Andrew Rosindell is projected to keep his seat (boo):
The more things change
Saying all this, there’s obviously no reason to celebrate the Tories getting back into the seats they lost to Reform.
It’s not like there’s any real difference between the two parties; if there was, we wouldn’t have seen so many defections.
And let’s be real – the only reason the defections dried up was because Reform’s polling went South.
It’s good Reform are failing to hold on to their lead, but it won’t mean much if their loss is the Tories’ gain.
Featured image via UK Polling Report
By Willem Moore
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If you’re currently losing sleep over your teenager’s upcoming exams, you’re certainly not alone.
One in four parents say they lie awake at night worrying about their children’s exams, while over half (51%) report the home being hit negatively by exam stress.
The good news is: if you’re based in England and think your child might be falling behind in GCSE Combined Science, there’s still time to make something of a difference before exam season starts on 4 May.
Up Learn, a digital teaching platform trusted by over 100,000 students and 600 UK schools, has launched its GCSE Science course, designed to help students learn faster and remember more.
The online learning platform utilises expert teaching, cognitive science and AI-personalised learning pathways to help kids focus on exactly what they need to improve – whether they’ve missed lessons, lost confidence, or simply never fully understood a topic in class.
With a combination of video lessons, quizzes and 24/7 access to human tutors, parents are hailing it “a godsend”, “game-changer” and “worth every penny”. One parent noted the platform is also “much cheaper than a tutor”.
Alyssa Barros, who got an A* in her maths A-Level after using Up Learn at the age of 13, said: “It’s always great to just be able to open up your computer and have access to the learning.
“The videos make it more interesting with the animations. And it’s a great idea to ask questions about the lesson during the lesson, it’s just reinforcing it in my head. It’s more interesting, and helps me stay focused.”
How much is it?
Up Learn is currently offering a free three-day trial. After that, a monthly subscription is £49.99 or you can get full access until August 2026 for £89.99 (currently reduced from £249.99).
For parents looking for extra reassurance, the learning platform even offers a GCSE Science Money Back Guarantee: complete the course and get an 8-8 grade, or your money back (T&Cs apply).
Time to shun the sleepless nights: if you or your child are worried about the upcoming exams, particularly as far as science is concerned, there’s still time to make a difference. Start your free trial here.
Over the weekend, Palantir posted a summary of Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” – which was slammed as being “evil.”
Palantir: technofascists are technofascisting again
The post makes explicit what Palantir wants: the supremacy of the US military industrial complex to infiltrate every aspect of everyone’s life. It is also an ode to the PayPal Mafia, like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Unsurprisingly, the two South African-born white men who grew up under apartheid are the poster boys! Though the post is calling for American conscription, bet Thiel and Musk will be dodgers, just like their mate Trump!
The book, which serves as the manifesto of the AI giant, is twenty-two rambling points: –
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
The response to the post has been widespread alarm and disdain.
The post is indeed alarming with its glorification of past German and Japanese fascism, the glorification of Musk, the glorification of Western ‘culture’, and the glorification of Western totalitarianism.
Palantir’s call for western culture – read violence – has been in a lot of its marketing material. In its Q4 2024 results, the company referenced Samuel Huntington’s book ‘Clash of Civilisations.’
As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible “by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion . . . but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”
He continued: “Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
Huntington’s thesis, which argued that the main “clash” would be between the West and Islam, is called by Ruby Hamad a “self-fulfilling prophecy; a foreign policy directive in (thin) disguise.”
Feinstein commented on Palantir’s post, saying that Thiel’s apartheid South African upbringing shaped his racist, pro-genetic, pro-Israel, psychopathic worldview, and Palantir is now being handed the British state by Labour’s Starmer, Streeting, and Mandelson, among others.
Peter Thiel’s upbringing in apartheid South Africa & what is today Namibia clearly had enormous influence on his thinking: racist white supremacy, geneticism, glorification of South Africa’s closest ally the ethno-nationalist Israeli state, an almost psychopathic indifference to… https://t.co/SPWlUt1QUT
— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) April 19, 2026
We think Lammy’s recent handshake with Palantir sponsored Thiel should also be highlighted.
Lammy calls Palantir-sponsored JD Vance a ‘friend’ on latest Washington trip
Who is going to vote for David Lammy’s party in the local elections? With friends like Vance and Mandelson, it’s anyone’s guess. ‘Debasement’, as @ZackPolanski saidhttps://t.co/03b0PrMmwK…
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 15, 2026
Yanis Varoufakis summarized Palantir’s post, the main point of which can be, as Varoufakis put it, ‘Ethics is for suckers. The West needs more of Palantir’s murderous software.’ He also said, “If Evil could tweet, this is what it would!”
Old advertisement for Israel trends
The bizarre post also led to people posting the whole-page advertisement that Palantir bought in October 2023, in support of Israel.
Palantir stands with genocide. https://t.co/6zYAqNGqzZ
— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) April 19, 2026
People like Mai El-Sadany also emphasised Palantir’s connections to ICE and Israel.
Today, a lot of people will be talking about the manifesto that Palantir released. In addition to pouring over what those words mean, I invite you to ground the conversation in what Palantir has already done.
Its work with Israel and ICE show us exactly what it stands for.
— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany) April 19, 2026
From a £1 NHS COVID contract to long-term roles in health and defence, Palantir is now part of the UK’s data infrastructure. This company, which is boasting about being evil, should be nowhere near civilian infrastructure.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
On Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid tore apart the weak excuses put out by UK PM Keir Starmer over the ongoing Peter Mandelson scandal.
Susanna Reid: on it
This followed the PM’s latest round of pathetic denials he had any knowledge of disgraced Peter Mandelson failing to pass security vetting before he was appointed as ambassador to the US.
By setting out a clear timeline alongside Keir Starmer’s own past comments on ‘Petie’ Mandelson, Reid shows Starmer’s measly attempts to escape accountability simply do not stack up.
Moreover, this takedown of the UK Prime Minister underscores a serious issue in our democracy, where corrupting influences hold far too much sway in the corridors of power in Westminster. All the while, ordinary people are fed lie after lie and expected to swallow them.
Reid, like many across the country, appears to have had quite enough of Starmer’s nonsense.
Susanna Reid lays it out. Keir appointed Mandelson despite knowing everything about him, he claims he didn't know Mandelson had failed the vetting, which means he never followed it up & never asked about it, & finally we know no.10 did know months ago so someone is lying
Damning pic.twitter.com/B3XDafRk5H
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 20, 2026
Keir Starmer is a liar
It will hardly surprise many in the electorate to learn that their PM is a liar. Frankly, his career has been littered with lies as he navigated his way to the upper echelons of power. In fact, we only have to look to 2019 Labour under Corbyn to see that lying has quite literally been Starmer’s comfort zone.
Reid makes this reality unmistakably clear by laying out a timeline of what was known and when. That, in turn, will tighten the pressure on Keir Starmer as scrutiny intensifies ahead of the May 7 local elections. Once again, the PM has left himself little room to wriggle out of a political mess of his own making. A mess he will undoubtedly be made to pay for at the ballots in just over two weeks.
Susanna Reid’s takedown in full:
Susanna Reid: It feels like there are three different issues here.
One is the judgment of Sir Keir Starmer right at the beginning, appointing Lord Peter Mandelson. He had been given a due diligence report. And on that report, it said Peter Mandelson had numerous conflicts of interest and described him carrying reputational risk.
A week later. It is announced by Sir Keir Starmer that Peter Mandelson was going to be the ambassador to the States.
So right off the bat, who appoints someone that you have been warned is a reputational risk? Never mind the vetting. You had been given a report that he was a walking red flag. So that’s the first issue.
The second issue is then he goes through this developed vetting. How competent are you as a prime minister that you then are not, as you say, either curious enough to know, well, what happened? Have we cleared him? Is it all safe? Keir Starmer in that position says, well, nobody told me.
As you say, it’s absolutely beggars belief that someone at number 10 wouldn’t have then said, is everything OK? Are we sure that we can now give him the green flag?
And then the third issue, it seems to me. is whether there is any lying going on, because that’s what Kemi Badenoch says. So, the Prime Minister has actually lied about this. As you mentioned, Gillian, there was a report a few months ago in The Independent. Downing Street knew Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting for the US ambassador role seven months ago because the reporter David Maddox at The Independent had… put concerns to Number 10, the then Director of Communications, Tim Allen, and said, I found out, or I’ve got a source that says MI6 had failed to clear Mandelson.
So David Maddox, the Independent, knew, Number 10 knew. So how can the Prime Minister say he didn’t know?
Finally, getting to the far more likely reality at the sinister heart of this sordid saga:
Gillian Keegan: Because he did not want to know.
It seems Starmer has even lost favour from pro-Israel voters, who he really should have in the bag:
Starmer has lost Good Morning Britain https://t.co/HFdsdwo2Fp
— Sandy.
Starmer is a disaster (@AddictScrabble) April 20, 2026
Of course, he bloody well knew – as Susanna Reid pointed out
The optics can no longer be denied, as our own Skwawkbox wrote recently:
In any other walk of life both Starmer and Mandelson would be toast. But it seems running a protection racket for the predatory elite comes with very little in the way of consequences these days. This is a whole lot more than just a typical Westminster sleaze story, isn’t it? Starmer’s Labour is recycling the very worst of Blairite cronyism instead of breaking with it, once and for all.
This is the same Starmer who purged socialists to the glee of the pro-Israel parliamentary Labour party, ditched public ownership, and told poor and working-class voters their demands for wealth taxes and rent controls were unrealistic.
Yet protecting a mate with extremely fucking grubby Epstein ties? That was apparently non-negotiable for Keir Starmer. It can be so very easy to mistakenly assume this is down to Starmer’s incompetence and horrific lack of judgement. But this is elite impunity baked into his DNA.
Cover-Up Keir Always Lies, Always
Make Keir Former PM Now https://t.co/nQTOSNzeZe — CaseClosed (@wds08) April 20, 2026
Political advantage?
Others have gone further than Susanna Reid, questioning whether Mandelson’s ties to Epstein – and the shadow of the Epstein ‘kompromat’ files – may have played a role in his swift path to the White House. After all, it is becoming clearer by the day that a powerful and seedy few likely shape foreign affairs through damaging information they hold. Seen in that light, it doesn’t take a great leap to suggest that Starmer may have believed he could turn that cynical dynamic to his own advantage.
Here, Reid’s intervention powerfully hits the mark. It also exposes a wider truth: political leaders often prioritise their own advantage over decency, integrity in office, and, frankly, basic morality.
This has all come against the backdrop of our government’s ongoing complicity in the genocide on Gaza and Israel’s terrorism in the West Bank. Therefore, this palpable imbalance hardly surprises anyone.
For many across the UK, it will only change once Labour is out of government.
Featured image via the Canary
My pugalier Rocky has always had a gift. His ability to sniff out a tennis ball anywhere is remarkable. At the park in thick grass, under the couch, buried in someone’s garden. For years, I joked that I wished I could teach him to find gold or truffles or anything more valuable. Once he found one, he’d demand a long game of fetch before chewing it for hours. It seemed like exactly what a happy dog was supposed to do.
When Rocky was 9, we took him in for a routine dental checkup. The vet said his teeth weren’t in great condition and she needed to put him under anaesthesia to assess the damage properly. We expected one or two teeth might need work. Instead, she removed 10.
The cause of the problem? Tennis balls.
The vet told us it is more common than we’d ever imagine. I texted every dog owner I knew that day to warn them.
Tennis balls are so embedded in dog ownership that most people never question them. They’re cheap, they’re everywhere and dogs go crazy for them. But veterinarians have been watching the damage accumulate for years.
“The fuzz on tennis balls acts like sandpaper when it contacts a dog’s teeth, especially once it traps dirt and grit,” said Dr. Ezra Ameis, owner of Paw Priority veterinary clinic. “When a dog repeatedly chews or carries the ball, that abrasive surface slowly wears down the enamel. I have seen canines that are literally flattened across the tips from chronic tennis ball chewing. This is not a fracture problem. It is attrition.”
Ameis diagnoses tennis ball-related dental wear almost daily, particularly in high-drive retriever and shepherd breeds. “Owners assume tennis balls are safe because they are sold everywhere and often marketed for dogs,” he said. “People are shocked when I show them smooth, worn-down canines and explain what caused it.”
Veterinarians even have a name for it: tennis ball mouth.
Dr. Stephanie Liff, a New York City-based veterinarian and practice owner, sees the same pattern. “I frequently see the crowns of teeth worn down significantly in chronic tennis ball chewers,” she said.
Her own parents have a 13-year-old golden retriever whose teeth are all blunted from his obsession with tennis balls. “Even though the balls feel soft, the consistent gnawing motion over time can wear the teeth down significantly, and most owners have no idea it’s happening,” she said.
Callum Russell, a dog owner in Kent, England, watched this happen with his Jack Russell, Gunner. “She would often fetch a ball and then chew for hours after her walk,” he said. “As she got a bit older, we noticed her teeth looked unusually flat and worn down, not to mention her bad breath.” Gunner was eventually diagnosed with tennis ball mouth. She is 11 now, and by the time the damage was caught, the vet recommended removing all her remaining teeth to end her pain.
Not every case ends in an emergency. Raziul Hoque found out about the problem when his dog’s vet flagged it during a routine visit.
“There was no dramatic incident. No choking. No emergency,” he said. “Just slow wear that blended into normal behaviour. I realised the surface isn’t actually soft in the way we think. It’s abrasive. Combine that with repetitive chewing pressure, and it acts more like sandpaper than a plush toy.”
Lysandra Cook via Getty Images
Worn teeth are only part of what tennis balls can do.
“The most common emergency we see is an intestinal blockage, often when the pet swallows a tennis ball without the owner realizing it,” said Dr. Danielle DeBrincat, a veterinarian and medical director at VEG ER for Pets in Colorado.
A colleague of hers treated a dog that choked on a tennis ball and stopped breathing. He was revived, but a second tennis ball in his stomach still required surgery to remove. “These owners are often shocked when they learn the cause,” DeBrincat said. “A lot of them say they wish they’d known the risks beforehand.”
Dmitrii Malashkin took his German shepherd, Ernie, to an emergency vet after a night of retching and drooling. An X-ray confirmed Ernie had swallowed a tennis ball whole. “Everyone assumed immediate surgery was required,” Malashkin said, “but the vet suggested attempting to remove it with an endoscope to minimize the trauma.”
While the endoscope camera was inside, the vet found leaves, crumbled plastic wrappers and a piece of string that the fraying ball had collected at the park and carried into his mouth. Everything was removed without surgery. Malashkin said he never imagined a tennis ball could carry that much debris into a dog’s stomach.
Dental damage can be easy to miss. Ameis encourages owners to check their dog’s front teeth every few months. “Early on, the front teeth may look shorter or blunted. The tips lose their normal sharp point. Sometimes you will see a subtle yellow center as enamel thins and dentin becomes exposed,” he said.
By the time a dog shows sensitivity, the damage is already permanent. “In severe cases, I have seen pulp exposure requiring extraction or root canal treatment,” he said. “Dogs are stoic. They often act normal despite significant oral pain.”
Fetch itself is not the problem.
“Fetch is fine, since most dogs playing fetch are holding the ball rather than gnawing on it continuously,” Liff said. The issue is unsupervised chewing. She recommends dental rawhides, soft rubber Kongs, or indestructible rope toys as alternatives, and points owners toward the Veterinary Oral Health Council’s approved product list for guidance.
Ameis offers a simple test for any ball or chew toy. “If you can press your thumbnail into it and it has some flexibility, that is usually a good sign,” he said. “If it is hard enough that you would not want it hitting your own kneecap, it is probably too hard for your dog’s teeth.”
Rocky is 12 now. He has very few teeth left, but he still eats his wet food faster than seems physically possible. Fetch is still his favorite game, but now we swap in a rubber toy the vet recommended, and we don’t leave him alone with it.
It’s a shame it took 10 of Rocky’s teeth to teach us that.
Reform UK has been condemned over the party’s “cruel” plan to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if it wins the next election.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman, said a Reform government would review all successful asylum claims going back five years.
Anyone found to have arrived in the UK illegally or overstayed their visa would be deported, he said.
As many as 400,000 immigrants would potentially be affected by the policy, according to the party.
Yusuf said: “Reform will reverse the invasion of Britain. Anyone who broke into the country illegally, or came in on a visa and overstayed to claim asylum (which is almost all of them) will have their status revoked and be deported.
“This is an addition to all those currently in Britain illegally.”
At a press conference on Monday, Reform leader Nigel Farage said Britain was being “invaded” by illegal immigrants.
The announcement comes after 602 people crossed the English Channel on small boats on Saturday, making it this year’s second busiest day for crossings and bringing the total number of arrivals in 2026 to more than 6,000.
Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward condemned the Reform plan.
She said: “Another superficial, ill-thought-out and cruel announcement by Reform UK, which will fail to tackle the roots of the asylum crisis whilst making sure more suffering is heaped on the most vulnerable.
“We do not want to see people risking their lives crossing the Channel in small boats. What we need is strong international co-operation to address the reasons that people are having to seek asylum in the first place: war, poverty and the climate crisis, and to provide safe and managed routes that would offer a real alternative to people smugglers.”
“We must remember our basic humanity. Many of those seeking asylum have endured horrendous trauma. They include mothers and children. We have a duty to offer compassion and sanctuary, not insecurity, fear and intimidation.”
Will Forster, the Liberal Democrat immigration and asylum spokesman, accused Reform of “churning out hostile, headline-grabbing” plans that will “do absolutely nothing to tackle our broken asylum system”.
He added: “The backlog of cases is already sky high thanks to the mess the Conservatives left us in. Reviewing five years worth of asylum grants is an impractical farce that will just slow down the process even more.”
Subscribe 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.
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