Ruth Deyermond looks at Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference and argues that the US is now an unreliable partner and that Europe must develop its own defence capabilities and architecture.

A seemingly unbridgeable gap now exists between the US and Europe on matters of security and politics; as a result, there is an urgent need to develop a European security architecture that does not depend on Washington. Ironically, what has made this gap impossible to ignore is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s attempt at the Munich Security Conference to repair some of the damage done a year ago.

Rubio’s remarks were notably different in tone from Vice President JD Vance’s hostile and inflammatory speech in 2025. This was greeted with relief by some; and many European diplomats claimed to be reassured by it. But while the tone was clearly intended to calm tensions, the content remained largely unchanged  from Vance’s tirade.

The vision outlined in Rubio’s speech is one in which the US is not bound to NATO allies by shared liberal values like democracy and human rights or respect for the rule of law. Instead, what ties Europe and the US together is culture and heritage, Christianity, “ancestry”, and the superiority of what he calls Western civilisation, described by Rubio as “the greatest civilisation in human history”. These things, he claimed, are menaced by European weakness and by “the forces of civilisational erasure”.

European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas was the clearest in pushing back against this vision, noting acerbically that “woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilisational erasure” and asserting that “European enlargement is vital for securing democracy and overcoming Europe’s own imperial history”.

Rubio’s speech confirmed the radical ideological gap that has now opened between the US and Europe. To a worrying extent, the US now represents precisely the things that post-1945 Europe organised to prevent: authoritarianism; aggression; might-makes-right; and the glorification of imperialism, driven by civilisational mythologising. It increasingly resembles not the ally that helped to foster liberal democracy in the aftermath of authoritarian destruction, but the dark Other of Europe’s past against which contemporary European identity has been built. In the medium- and long-term Europe – both the European Union as an institution and the democratic states inside and outside it – cannot maintain a close alliance with a state dominated by this ideology while preserving its identity and values.

The speech highlighted another point of rupture: the rejection of “the rules-based international order”. This seems to refer to what is often called “the International Liberal Order” that emerged in the moment of post-Cold War US dominance, and in which democracy, human rights, non-aggression, respect for international law, and economic liberalism were core principles (even if not always adhered to in practice). This is clearly an order that the Trump administration rejects – as does Russia.

But the term more properly describes another order, the one that is not shaped by shared values but by the rules: respect (in theory) for the primacy of state sovereignty; territorial integrity; and international law as embodied by the UN Security Council. These rules were an attempt to learn the lessons of World War Two, which made the consequences of rejecting these devastatingly clear.

Worryingly this order, too, is rejected by the Trump administration. Although Rubio advocated reform of the UN in his speech, he also criticised the “abstractions of international law” and praised lawless acts such as the targeted killings of alleged drug runners in the Caribbean. From the start, the current Trump administration has made it clear that it does not consider itself to be constrained by law or by the principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. These are the building blocks of a world without major war; if the world’s most powerful state knocks them down, it is creating a world in which disputes have to be resolved by force.

This rejection of the rules-based order is being directed, among many other targets, towards the US’s supposed allies in NATO, Denmark and Canada. A collective security alliance cannot survive as a meaningful organisation when the major threat to some of those inside it comes from its most powerful member.

Attempts to paper over Trump’s determination to seize Greenland were badly damaged by the insulting public comments of Senator Lindsay Graham, who asked the audience “who gives a s**t who owns Greenland?”, and his even more insulting comments in private to the Danish and Greenland prime ministers.

A third point of rupture is Ukraine and Russia. The Trump administration has split from its former allies in Europe in abandoning support for Ukraine and pressuring Kyiv to agree to a peace settlement that would mean capitulation. That, and the desire to develop economic ties with Russia and to rehabilitate it diplomatically – clear, for example, in the late 2025 US peace plan – stand in sharp contrast to European assessments of the growing threat from Russia and the importance of Ukraine to European security. Rubio made almost no mention of this in his speech but it was central to those of key European leaders.

The consequences of this split between Europe and the US are enormous, and will only grow. Behind the diplomatic affirmations of continued alliance, and despite their own deep reluctance, many Europeans are moving to greater security independence from the US. This will carry huge economic – and therefore probably, political – costs, but there is no realistic alternative.

The Trump administration, which seems to have assumed that Europe has no choice but to bend to Washington’s will, are angry to discover that disregard for international law and untrustworthiness as an alliance partner carries penalites. They were forced into a humiliating climbdown on Greenland by European pushback, and they have been unable to successfully pressure Ukraine in part because Europe has stepped up support. They are reportedly trying to stop the EU prioritising European arms manufacturers in defence procurement. And concerns about illegality appear to have led the UK government to block the use of UK air bases in an attack on Iran. The US is losing influence and money.

Marco Rubio’s Munich speech seemed designed to reassure while reasserting an ideology and a rejection of a rules-based order that leave the US and its former European allies further apart than at any point since the 1940s. It has not been enough to reverse the move towards some form of divorce, which is now necessary for European security and its political integrity. Both Europe and the US will be poorer and more insecure as a result.

By Dr. Ruth Deyermond, Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security at King’s College London.

On Good Morning Britain, money saving expert Martin Lewis pushed back firmly against Kemi Badenoch. Pointing out her blatant oversight, Lewis confronted her misguided approach to the student loan crisis affecting workers across the country. In doing so, Lewis gave a master class in how politicians should be rigorously challenged on policies that impact working people’s everyday lives.

Rather than accepting the Tories headline-grabbing promises, he instead pressed for meaningful solutions. In fact, his challenge was so robust that he managed to get Kemi’s commitment to a direct discussion focused on reforms that would genuinely benefit students.

As opposed to attractive soundbites designed to win votes, as politicians often do.

🚨 WATCH: Kemi Badenoch clashes with Martin Lewis on her plans for student loanspic.twitter.com/pSNrUi8PkR

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 23, 2026

Advertisement

Martin Lewis: “I’m not saying nothing can be done. I’m saying what you should do”

Martin Lewis: If you want to help the middle-earning students, the most important thing is the repayment threshold should have been increased. When the Tories brought this in, it was a graduate contribution system.

Kemi Badenoch: This is exactly why young people are suffering. You’ve got lots of people who finished university where they didn’t have to pay fees. You didn’t have to take out loans. And now you’re all saying, “oh, nothing can be done. Don’t do this.”

Lewis: I’m not saying nothing can be done. I’m saying what you should do.

Here Badenoch deploys some pretty effective rhetorical word play to distract from the actual value of the policy, because apparently that’s not the point

Badenoch: Well, I’m the first person who’s even trying to solve this problem.

Lewis: Wonderful. Shall we have a chat about it? Because I think you’ve got the right idea that this is not a solution that will help middle and young students.

Advertisement

Badenoch: Martin, if you want us to have a debate, I’m very happy for us to have a debate.

GMB: Does a middle student benefit from a cut in the interest rate?

Badenoch: I think people need to even know what it is I’m talking about. You’re both talking over me. Excuse me. Let me explain what my policy is. I want to make sure that those young people who are paying and paying and their debt is not going down get a relief.

If you think that there’s a better offer, let’s look at it. But what’s made the difference now is that in her budget, Rachel Reeves raised the threshold. So it’s dragging more people into it.

Advertisement

Lewis: Freezing the threshold.

Badenoch: Well, sorry, increase the number of people getting in because the threshold has been frozen. I don’t think this is fair.

Lewis: Agreed.

Badenoch: The whole student loan system is not working properly. Someone has to do something. And the thing that shocks me is that the minute I say, well, let’s do something, everyone says, “oh, no, no, no, no, no, this is not the right thing”. We’re going round in circles.

Advertisement

GMB: Cutting the interest rate doesn’t help them. That’s the trouble.

Badenoch: We should not be making money off graduate student loans. That is not right.

Lewis: I 100% agree with you in principle. And I’ve objected to it since when the Conservative government brought it in 2012. I said we shouldn’t have above inflation interest rates on plan two student loans.

i love the idea that if you’re being interviewed on the telly, there is a chance that you get Martin Lewis’d. lets have it happen a few times and then watch people start to limit their exaggerated claims in case he’s behind the sofa waiting to jump out https://t.co/nqjWombVwN

— Graham (@____Graham_) February 23, 2026

Advertisement

Lewis: ‘But the practical solution, it won’t actually help’

Appearing to take a shit on the Conservatives that came before her tenure, Badenoch insisting she represents a ‘new generation’ of Tories. You know, the Tories that made this issue exponentially worse:

Badenoch: I’m glad you agree. That was five years before I became an MP. A new generation of Conservatives.

Lewis: But where we are now, as the interest has already been added to so many students’ loans, lowering the interest rate now will only help those who can clear within the 30 years, which means lower and middle earning graduates won’t benefit from that change. If you have a billion pounds to help students, the most direct thing that would help all students would be not freezing the repayment threshold, it would be increasing the repayment threshold. While the interest rate is psychologically damaging, I absolutely… I absolutely agree with you. It is really damaging for many people watching.

Badenoch: I just don’t think this is fair on young people. I just don’t think this is fair.

Lewis: But the practical solution, it won’t actually help.

Advertisement

Badenoch: I strongly disagree.

Lewis: But it won’t help the pounding people’s pockets.

Badenoch: But the other thing that is a problem is that many of these young people have gone to university and taken out courses that were not worth the money. That’s why we’re also talking about apprenticeships. I also did an apprenticeship. I remember more about the apprenticeship than the two degrees. So I’m speaking from experience. I did an apprenticeship, I had two degrees, I paid off student loans, I know what it’s like. And I think that this is the best thing. We have got to start reforming the system and making it better. We can have an argument about the technical details, but this is about the principle. What is happening right now is wrong and someone needs to fix it. Conservatives are the only party who have an answer.

Lewis: Just to say, we’re now on plan five, We’re talking about Plan 2, which is always for past students. So I think we have to be very careful. The debate about going forward is Plan 5 student loans, which are even more expensive because the last Tory government put the cost up even more. But we’re talking about Plan 2 loans, the one with above inflation interest.

Advertisement

Badenoch: I believe that the Plan 2 is where the real problem is. Those people who started their degrees between 2012 and 2023.

Lewis: Plan 5’s worse

Badenoch: Let’s have a debate about Plan 5 then. But what is the problem now is that any time someone says, well, let’s look at this, there’s always someone sometimes, it’s Martin, oh, this is a terrible idea, and then nothing happens. Nothing is happening. No one is helping these people.

Lewis: Shall we have a chat?

Advertisement

Badenoch: Yes.

Lewis: Shall we have a chat about it? With some ideas and with some solutions.

I fucking love Martin Lewis. You can see the frustration in his eyes as politicians utilise policy buzzwords just to garner support rather than actually helping people…. https://t.co/GhJ4ctp0l6

— Aymen Retibi (@aymenretibi) February 23, 2026

People want substance and value, not style

Here, Badenoch pretty successfully leans on slick rhetorical wordplay. Nevertheless, Lewis refuses to allow her to shift attention away from the actual substance – and value – of the student loan policy championed by the Conservatives. Kemi’s focus instead becomes the framing, not the facts, with presentation takes priority over practical impact.

Despite her attempts to distance herself, this interview suggests Kemi is just like the Tories before her. All the while, hard-working people juggle rising costs and student loan repayments, feeling their finances tighten day by day.

Featured image via the Canary

Matt Goodwin is Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton & Denton by-election. On 20 February, we reported that a GB News employee had accused him of sexual harassment. Now, it’s starting to look like Reform have backed away from their candidate.

Oh, and the sexual harassment story wasn’t the only big revelation about Goodwin last week:

Last week, LBC ran this headline after Matt Goodwin’s misogynistic ramblings with Jordan Peterson were disclosed.

Yesterday, Nigel Farage turned up in the middle of the Indian Ocean. 🤦‍♂️

I think it’s fair to say that he has cut Goodwin adrift for next week’s by-election. pic.twitter.com/vaKYheaRkL

Advertisement

— Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) February 22, 2026

It’s not going Goodwin

When Reform first announced him as their candidate, we reported that Matt Goodwin is an academic and a longtime establishment insider. Despite this, he’s tried to portray himself as an outsider who offers something different to the status quo.

To be fair, there is a notable difference between him and Green candidate Hannah Spencer. As far as we know, Spencer has never attracted allegations like the following:

Reform parachuted-in Gorton and Denton candidate Matthew Goodwin has been accused by a female GB News staffer of sexually harassing her. And Reform boss Nigel Farage is thought to have known about the allegation before he named Goodwin as the party’s candidate in the by-election.

Here’s what LBC reported following Goodwin’s ‘no-child tax’ scandal:

Nigel Farage has distanced himself from comments made by the Reform UK’s Gorton and Denton candidate after he suggested those without children should be taxed in a bid to tackle falling birth rates.

Here what our own Rachel Charlton-Dailey wrote about said scandal:

I can’t imagine the pain that this would cause to those who are struggling with fertility. On top of the emotional and physical toll this puts on you will be financial pressures. For those of us who are infertile, it sends one message. You are not good enough and deserve to be punished for failing as a woman.

I had an elective hysterectomy in 2017 after over a decade of pain. I chose my own health over a condition that was making me want to die, for the sake of one day having a baby. Many would call my decision selfish, but I frankly don’t give a fuck what people who would rather I were in pain think of me.

As much as I loathe a Handmaid’s Tale comparison, this is very apt here. In the novel, working-class women who are infertile are cast out of society. As they have no purpose in a society that values families over all else.

Obviously this is a very emotive issue for people, and you can see why Farage didn’t want to defend the idea of taxing people’s suffering.

Where on Earth is Nigel Farage?

People are talking about the Gorton & Denton race as a pivotal moment which could predict which party wins the 2029 national election. Given that, you’d think Farage would be at the heart and centre of it.

Instead, he’s literally on the other side of the planet:

Chagos is a restricted UK territory. Access is tightly controlled through permits because of the strategic military base on Diego Garcia. This isn’t a tourist island it’s a high-security defence asset.

So did Farage request a permit ?

Or is it another day another stunt https://t.co/ac0sWSJsGf

Advertisement

— Charlie (@CheckCharlieB) February 21, 2026

One person noted the following:

There’s something off about @Nigel_Farage‘s claim, as he watches the boat sail from Maldives to Chagos.
A round trip to Chagos takes between 6-7 days, covering around 600 miles. He would not have been able to do this trip and be back in UK for the #GortonandDenton by-election. pic.twitter.com/bXgeHlnhHV

— The Crane Report  (@TheCraneReport) February 22, 2026

So, did Farage simply fly to the Chagos Islands for a photo opportunity?

Or was he just looking for an excuse to get away from Goodwin?

We’ll let you decide that one.

Oh, and if Farage has abandoned Goodwin, he’s not the only Reform-linked person to do so:

Isabel Oakeshott is dating Richard Tice, a Reform MP.

Here she is roasting Matt Goodwin, a prospective Reform MP.

Advertisement

Is the end coming a little bit quicker than everyone imagined it would? pic.twitter.com/dW7icM8fbP

— Landeur 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (@Landeur) February 22, 2026

Featured image via The Canary

A confused Nigel Farage has kicked up a fuss because a UK military base isn’t letting in any old Tom, Dick, or Harry (with a big emphasis on ‘Dick’) wander about as they please:

Oh poppet, it’s a military base. Why did you think you could visit? It’s not a destination for your holibobs. https://t.co/J4hvYmQiM6

— Jess Brown-Fuller MP (@JessBrownFuller) February 21, 2026

Farage: grandad’s confused again

Do we think the UK should have military bases on the other side of the world?

No, of course not.

We’re not ‘Britain First’ types, but we do think our focus should be on improving our own isles and not worsening other people’s.

That said, here’s what a confused Farage said in the video above:

The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands.

Now if I was an ISIS fighter crossing the Channel to Dover, they wouldn’t give a damn. No, they put me in a hotel, they give me three meals a day. But here I am, a Member of Parliament, leader of a political party that’s topping the polls. The British government, the High Commissioner here, they’re doing everything they can. They’ve got search parties out trying to find me and they do not want me to leave this place. Quite why?

‘Do you know who I think I am?’ the man cries.

So this is how security clearance would work under Farage – bigshots like him would get to go wherever they like. We’re not sure you can run your military bases like that, but hey – it will be funny to see it in practice.

Farage also said:

If we do give away the Chagos Islands, already the Indians have cut a very substantial economic deal with Mauritius. We know that China is deep in Mauritius. There’s even a smart city there. Huawei do the communications. There will be a geopolitical battle for this part of the world, which has been settled ever since the end of World War II.

Again, we’re not ‘Britain First’, but why do we need to be thinking about this?

This is literally Asia’s business; we have our own problems to worry about.

When we cover global conflicts like Israel’s genocide, the reason we’re doing so is because our government is contributing to the misery, and we don’t want to see our taxes spent like that.

Farage should tell us what he’s going to do for the people of Clacton before he fucks off – yet again – on some globe trotting stunt.

People had some ideas about what Farage is up to anyway:

Let me get this straight: Farage traveled, likely sponsored by another dodgy oligarch, to Maldives claiming he could, from there, go to Chagos which is a restricted territory, therefore having to spend time in Maldives instead? Oh, what a shame. pic.twitter.com/iTDzeU5q0d

— The Finance Guy (@OneFinanceGuy) February 22, 2026

Advertisement

So disappointed that I haven’t been allowed to pretend I give a shit about Chagos islanders while scoring political points and stirring up morons who long for the days of Empire. pic.twitter.com/MyuUfh3xC9

— Parody Nigel Farage (@Parody_PM) February 21, 2026

Globe trotting

Would it really kill Farage to spend a week in Clacton – i.e. his parliamentary constituency?

His inability to be among the people who voted for him is becoming hard to ignore at this point.

Featured image via Nigel Farage

Max Thompson is Campaigns Officer, for the The Free Speech Union.

If the Crown Prosecution Service gets their way, we could very well be living in a country with an Islamic blasphemy law.

Last February, Hamit Coskun burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in Knightsbridge in a one-man protest against what he perceives as the Islamification of his home country, Turkey. As he shouted, “Islam is the religion of terrorism”, a religious fanatic, Moussa Kadri, violently attacked him. He spat at him, kicked him and slashed at him with a blade.

Naturally, one would assume that of the two men, the individual wielding a knife on the streets of London would face the full force of the law. Instead, the attacker avoided jail time, while Hamit — a man who had fled persecution in Turkey — was convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence. Little has been said about the Deliveroo rider who reportedly joined in the assault.

Burning a holy scripture — any holy scripture — is undoubtedly controversial. But it is not illegal.

Just because something offends polite society does not make it a crime. This case goes to the heart of freedom of expression and protest — and to the proper limits of the criminal law.

Parliament abolished blasphemy laws in England and Wales 18 years ago, under the last Labour government. Scotland followed suit in 2021 through the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. The last execution for blasphemy in Britain took place in 1697. We rightly regarded such laws as relics of a less tolerant age.

It is also worth remembering that Britain’s historic blasphemy laws protected Christianity alone. Yet we now stand on the cusp of something altogether different: a de facto Islamic blasphemy code that would silence criticism of Islam and its practices. And it is emerging not through Parliament, but through the combined and intentioned actions of the Labour government and the Crown Prosecution Service.

In October, it appeared that some rare common sense had prevailed. Mr Justice Bennathan overturned Hamit’s conviction, recognising that while his actions may have been deeply upsetting to Muslims, freedom of expression “must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.”

The Crown Prosecution Service was not prepared to leave it there.

The CPS has sought to overturn that ruling on appeal. The stakes could not be higher. If the Crown succeeds, it will effectively revive Britain’s blasphemy laws. It will send a message that criticism of Islam, even in the context of political protest, may be treated as criminal if it causes offence. Most concerningly of all, it will signal to religious fanatics that should they wish to violently enforce the Islamic blasphemy code, they can do so with the nod of the CPS.

It is inconceivable that someone would be prosecuted in Starmer’s Britain for setting a copy of the Bible alight – a point that the then Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick articulated last year when he questioned whether the CPS would even bat an eyelid should someone have burnt a Torah scroll outside the Israeli embassy or a Bible outside the Apostolic Nunciature. The principle must be consistent. The law cannot operate on different standards depending on the religion concerned.

In what may be the most damning indictment of all, senior figures in the Trump administration have indicated they would consider granting Hamit Coskun political asylum should his conviction ultimately stand. The notion that Britain — the birthplace of free speech— could produce its first free speech refugee is a damning indictment of Keir Starmer’s government .

Hamit himself has said that if he loses, he will have no choice but to flee once again — this time across the Atlantic. If he wins, it will set an important precedent affirming that freedom of expression in this country still means something.

But even if the CPS loses, the broader direction of travel remains troubling.

A blasphemy law may yet arrive in another form — through the Government’s proposed official definition of “anti-Muslim hostility”, formerly branded as Islamophobia. This ever-expanding definition is expected to include concepts such as racialisation and prejudicial stereotyping. However well-intentioned, such elastic language risks having a chilling effect on free speech and silencing legitimate debate on issues ranging from Islamist extremism to the grooming gang scandal.

Perhaps most alarming of all is the composition of the working group tasked by Angela Rayner with drafting this definition. An investigative briefing by the Free Speech Union found that all five members appointed to the group have had connections to Islamist-linked organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND). That alone warrants serious scrutiny.

Britain abolished its blasphemy laws because they were incompatible with a free society. We understood that beliefs — religious or otherwise — are not entitled to protection from insult, however distasteful.

If the CPS appeal succeeds, we will have taken a decisive step backwards.

A spokesperson for Turning Point (TP), the right-wing US movement founded by the assassinated demagogue Charlie Kirk, has reiterated the organisation’s desire to bring its particular brand of bile to Ireland. The chief executive of Turning Point UK, Jack Ross, was speaking to the Sunday Times where he claimed that TP has “a lot of interest from Irish people“.

Ross tried to distance the organisation from the far-right by saying:

I know you’ve got some crazies down there — some sort of white-nationalist types — which we’re not interested in. But certainly Fine Gael: that’s what we’re looking for.

Despite this, he went on to advocate exactly the sort of views and tactics used by the worst reactionaries in Ireland:

There’s a real effort to bury the hatchet between the two communities and unite to respond to common grievances such as Islamist terror or, particularly in Ireland, mass migration.

US hate group hope to push far-right narrative

By “two communities”, he is referring to the Catholic, nationalist, republican (CNR), and Protestant, unionist, loyalist (PUL) groupings, mainly in the north. While the far-right has been primarily associated with loyalists, recently fascists have been seen turning up to rallies with tricolours to try and push exactly the narrative Ross describes.

Fine Gael don’t quite fit the bill for what he seems to be after there, but Turning Point organisers will no doubt approve of their lack of redistributive policies, landlord boosting, and slavishness before US big tech and militarism.

The Belfast Telegraph had previously reported Erika Kirk’s intention to visit the North of Ireland. She is the widow of Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, who was murdered in September at a university in Utah while giving an outdoor talk.

The chances of the now CEO of the conservative grifters getting round the Six Counties uninterrupted seem pretty slim. Turning Point have typically focused on universities, and Queen’s University in Belfast has seen frequent protest of late. The socialist feminist group ROSA North have declared that Kirk’s visit “cannot go ahead without challenge“.

Her main backer thus far seems to be former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Ian Paisley Jr, who said:

…it would be most welcome [as it was] creating a space where difficult things can be said and debated.

Turning Point look to continue Charlie Kirk’s ugly legacy

Translation: I’d like someone to join me in saying toxic, hateful shit. Charlie Kirk was certainly a specialist there. Shortly after his death, the Guardian did a good job listing his odious views. These include the following quotes:

– If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.

– Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor [Swift]. You’re not in charge.

– The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.

Advertisement

– We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilisation.

The attempt to export the Turning Point model to Britain has largely been a flop. The fact its UK head Jack Ross seems pretty clueless about Irish politics bodes well for it making a balls of things on the other side of the Irish Sea too. The Sunday Times quizzed him, finding that when he was:

Asked about prospective candidates, Ross said his “knowledge of Irish politics isn’t the best”, so he would not be able to “name names”.

The malign influence of the US is already present to an excessive degree in Ireland, from toxic fast-food, to mind-numbing reality TV, through to tax dodging big tech, and neutrality wrecking militarism. We can do without the grifter Erika Kirk adding to that with the foul stench left from metaphorically dragging her husband’s corpse round this island.

Featured image via the Canary

Credit: Adobe

This article has been paid for and developed by Lilly UK.

The digital world offers convenience and connectivity, including access to healthcare. However, it has also enabled the rise of the illegal trade in medicines,¹ which generates up to $200bn a year globally in illicit proceeds.² Legitimate medicines are rigorously tested and evaluated before they are approved, and patients obtaining medicines through legitimate channels have assurances that they are receiving genuine medicines.³ Whereas medicines from unregulated sources like social media have no safety controls⁴ and may contain incorrect ingredients or doses or harmful contaminants.⁵

New Ipsos research commissioned by Lilly UK suggests that around one in ten UK adults* have considered purchasing prescription‑only medicines without a prescription.** The research suggested the main drivers for this are: convenience, lack of time to attend healthcare appointments, and discomfort when engaging with healthcare professionals.⁶  

The need for concerted action is clear.

On 11th March, Lilly will host a parliamentary event, Safeguarding Health: Combatting Counterfeit Medicines in the UK, to discuss challenges and solutions to tackle trafficking in medicines. Interested parliamentarians can RSVP via [email protected].

We believe every patient deserves real, UK-approved medicine, not a dangerous imitation. To support the campaign and constituents:

• Attend the event to hear directly from key stakeholders and share constituency insights.
• Support the work of the MHRA’s enforcement capabilities and improved intelligence sharing by the pharmaceutical industry to take action against illicit online sellers.
• Raise public awareness of the risks associated with purchasing medicines from unregulated sources and encourage the safe purchase of medicines online.

Trafficked medicines are a growing threat to public health. We are ready to partner with stakeholders to take action.

CMAT-08170 February 2026

* This finding is based on 403 respondents to an online survey conducted in the UK with a sample of n=2,000 individuals aged 18-75 years old, plus an additional sample of n=2,000 individuals aged 18-60. Participants were recruited from access panels. Weighting has been applied to align the sample to ensure national representation with the known population profile. Fieldwork was conducted from 30th October – 17th November 2025

** Following an in-person or virtual healthcare professional consultation

References

Advertisement
1. World Health Organisation. Substandard and falsified medical products. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/substandard-and-falsified-medical-products [Last accessed January 2026
2. Ziavrou KS, Noguera S, Boumba VA. Trends in counterfeit drugs and pharmaceuticals before and during COVID-19 pandemic. Forensic Science International. 2022; 338, 111382.
3. General Pharmaceutical Council. Buying medicines online – FAQ. Available at: https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/patients-and-public/standards-you-can-expect-using-pharmacy-services/buying-medicines-online-faq [Last accessed January 2026]
4. MHRA. MHRA seizes 7.7 million doses of illegal medicines and removes hundreds of illegal online listings as part of Operation Pangea. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mhra-seizes-77-million-doses-of-illegal-medicines-and-removes-hundreds-of-illegal-online-listings-as-part-of-operation-pangea [Last accessed January 2026]
5. FDA, Counterfeit medicine. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/buying-using-medicine-safely/counterfeit-medicine [Last accessed January 2026]
6. Eli Lilly and Company. Data on File: Ipsos UK Counterfeit Medicine Consumer Survey. 2026

Wes Streeting (Photography by Baldo Sciacca)

17 min read1 hr

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there’s more than one way to run the Department of Health and Social Care.

Some secretaries of state for health have chosen to dive into the detail, immersing themselves in white papers and policy minutiae. Others have preferred to exert control through the press office, gripping the system via the grid.

The House has spoken to MPs, ministers, political advisers and civil servants, as well as health experts and officials, to get an understanding of how Wes Streeting runs his department.

The portrait that emerges is of an intensely political politician – the opposite of a micromanager or a technocrat lost in spreadsheets. Supporters say this has helped him in having a clear view of what needs to be done to transform the NHS. Critics argue he has been distracted by his own broader ambition.

Ready, set, go

Unlike many of his predecessors, Streeting knew he was going to be secretary of state for health for a good period – almost three years – before assuming the role. This gave him the chance, while still a shadow, to consult with previous secretaries of state and permanent secretaries.

“He used the access talks a lot,” says a source who works with Streeting, referring to meetings between the Civil Service and opposition party in the run-up to a general election.

“But when you go in the day after an election, it’s different. The thing he did to set his seal on day one was say: ‘The NHS is broken.’ That was a dramatic input, which nobody in the department expected to happen. And nobody had come in as secretary of state saying that before.”

Streeting was also confronted on his first day with a vastly different situation to that encountered by any previous Labour health secretary: the department he heads no longer runs the NHS – that is NHS England’s job. Those responsible for NHS waiting times, for example, are not found in the department.

“For every meeting he has with the department, he has to have another with NHSE – sometimes two separate meetings and sometimes he has to construct joint meetings. Over the first six months, he realised that was clearly not working,” recalls the same source.

So, with DHSC not able to pull levers in the way other departments of state can, unwinding the Lansley reforms became a priority for Streeting. This culminated in Keir Starmer’s March 2025 speech announcing that NHS England would be abolished and its responsibilities brought in-house over a two-year transition period.

Another well-placed source agrees that Streeting has found the “invisible barriers” to getting things done in government – the subject of complaints by former No 10 head of political strategy Paul Ovenden and other departing spads – “harder than most”.

“He has struggled to get his priorities through,” they say. “He’s a very sharp guy. But when he came in, after getting his own way on policy in opposition, he was shocked about needing Treasury sign-off… It was a rude awakening.”

Streeting had a difficult start in terms of Civil Service churn, the source points out, with long-serving permanent secretary Sir Chris Wormald being lost as he was chosen by Starmer to be cabinet secretary (before being forced out after just a year in post). Chris Whitty was an interim (“as brilliant a mind as that man has, he’s not a permanent secretary”), then Samantha Jones – formerly of Boris Johnson’s No 10 – became the permanent successor last year.

“It’s been a period of big and fast change. I don’t think he would see that as a bad thing but as necessary,” a source close to Streeting remarks.

Streeting welcomed a totally new leadership, including Alan Milburn as lead non-executive director of DHSC (referred to as “the brain of the department’s policy output” by one source), Sir Jim Mackey as chief executive of NHSE and Dr Penny Dash as chair of NHSE. “That has really helped turn things around – the right people in the right jobs.”

A day in the life

Every day in Streeting’s ministerial life is different, but it always begins bright and early. He gets the car in at 5.45am if he is going to the gym, or half past six if he is not. The red box is worked through in the back seat and again at his desk in Victoria Street.

Mondays are for planning the week ahead and delivery meetings. Performance data is reviewed with his private office, departmental officials and NHS leaders. Over the last few months, with pressures intensifying, there have been weekly winter sessions. If a target is off track, he wants to know why.

Tuesdays bring Cabinet and external meetings. Once a fortnight, Streeting blocks out time to meet what he calls “the victims of the NHS” – maternity campaigners, families caught up in care failures, relatives of patients who have died after systemic errors. A source close to Streeting says he was advised by the department not to meet with victims of the maternity scandal, nor to set up inquiries into such failings, on the basis that it would set an undesirable precedent, but he has gone ahead regardless.

Wednesdays are for the longer-term agenda, such as negotiations with the British Medical Association. On Thursdays, he tries to get out of Westminster, visiting hospitals, GP surgeries and dental practices. Fridays are for Ilford North – a constituency day, as is typical for all MPs at the end of the week. Weekends are often spent campaigning or attending regional party conferences.

The ‘vision thing’

Streeting’s allies say he is clear about what he sees as his job: set the vision and define broad outcomes, then ensure the system delivers it. He believes the department’s power lies in direction-setting and enforcement. His supporters also freely admit that he is intensely political, which shapes everything he does.

“He cares about the details, but he doesn’t let them get in the way of narrative, drive and direction,” says a staffer. “He paints a picture and then leaves it to the Civil Service to deliver – but that’s normal. That’s his job.”

“He is acutely aware of the political context that he operates in, which is really important for getting things through,” adds a different source.

Rarely, if ever, has the same been said about the Prime Minister, who is not deeply rooted in the Labour Party’s factional undergrowth, and is often criticised for his managerial instinct. This facet of Starmer’s style and background is blamed by many observers, near and far, for his problems in Downing Street today.

While Starmer seems irritated by Westminster, Streeting – who cut his teeth in student politics – is animated by it. “He’s political up to his eyeballs,” as one source puts it. This is not always taken as a positive.

Politics so shapes Streeting’s approach, one source tells The House, that he tends to hire politically sympathetic civil servants to his private office. This is disputed by a source close to him who points out that he has brought in people who have worked for Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron; plus Conservative MP Caroline Dinenage was appointed to lead a children’s cancer taskforce, and Tory peer Baroness Blackwood has been appointed to chair the Health Data Research Service.

Their framing is instead that he does not see the job as a technocratic exercise nor as a mathematical formula, but as a mission determined by his values. He has decided, for instance, that savings coming in from NHSE redundancies should be redistributed to health services in areas most in need – rather than to trusts who process patients quickly, which would cut waiting lists faster.

Some question whether Streeting lacks a ‘North Star’, while others say he has a (Michael) ‘Goveish’ focus on projects for short periods. Multiple sources who have worked with him and met him in his role as health secretary say he often does not give the impression he expects to stay in post for the long term.

One Labour source who used to work directly with Streeting when the party was in opposition says they are convinced that he never wanted the shadow health secretary role in the first place – likely preferring a job in which he could be more overtly political.

Labour MPs and health stakeholders describe the post as somewhat of a poisoned chalice. A senior health policy expert who has worked with Streeting and his team says it is “quite a hard bit of government to play politics in, because it’s really hard to secure quick wins”.

“It’s probably the hardest job of all secretary of state positions, because your level of control over things is very, very limited,” they add.

“He can be quite up and down with his satisfaction with how the department is performing, but I think that happens with any health secretary – the job is so stressful. I think it’s second only to chancellor in terms of cabinet positions, which are just the worst,” an insider agrees.

“You’re dealing with the largest employer in Europe, with a budget the size of a small country, and it feels like however much money you throw at it, there’s nothing you can do.”

An ally of Streeting counters claims he lacks focus, saying: “Wes has got a North Star around inequalities and opportunities. His whole biography is about that.” (A longtime friend similarly mentions his East End memoir published in 2023, One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, pointing to it as evidence that “his biography is not separate from his politics”.)

The ally draws a comparison between the Health Secretary and Milburn, with neither coming from a privileged background. “Both are driven to improve services for real reasons.”

NHS waiting times are seen as a bureaucratic problem – but Streeting, the source continues, understands that it means millions not knowing what is going to happen to them and when, because the NHS is currently such a “passive” experience. “Politics is about changing the nature of public experiences. Wes has a strong North Star that the NHS is not good enough.”

They add that Streeting being intensely political should be taken as a positive: “We do need politicians to be good at politics. If a perm sec were good at politics, that would be a problem – but for a secretary of state, that’s a good thing!”

Soft landings

The charge that Streeting is “driven by press” surfaces repeatedly. In meetings, say those who attend them, he often reframes technical advice in political terms. If Chris Whitty explains a public health risk in dense epidemiological language, Streeting’s reaction is to test how it would sound on ITV’s evening bulletin.

“You’re sitting around a table talking to him about a complex bit of policy – like the neighbourhood health service – and he’ll start to develop a narrative. ‘How am I going to explain this?’ becomes an important part of forming it. I’ve never seen a secretary of state do that before,” says a source.

Most meetings, reports another insider, eventually circle back to the question: “How will this land?” Some will see this as cynical politicking, but it is not always cited as a criticism. “He knew that communication was half the battle, so it is justifiable from a policy perspective,” the source notes.

Streeting believes a big part of his role is translating expert advice into something the public can understand. As often the only elected politician in the room, surrounded by people explaining why X and Y isn’t deliverable and why Z is at risk of judicial review, it is his responsibility to consider the public’s view of policy and delivery. Taxpayers spend £200bn a year on the NHS – they deserve to know where it’s going, says a source close to Streeting.

Sources say his interest in the media has produced tangible change, perhaps his most solid win so far: a transformed DHSC communications operation. It was “so inept, so stuck in the noughties”, says one, whereas it is now video-led, quicker off the mark and better at turning dense statistics into usable lines.

The Health Secretary has paired with celebrities, including Geordie Shore’s Vicky Pattison and Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix, wanting to raise the profile of certain health issues. “Getting the machine to put out stuff like that is a result of him and Will [Streeting’s spad] being relentless on comms. It’s made video a primary output, and the department is no longer doing government by press release – a real success,” the same source says.

A Labour MP’s staffer, who notes that Streeting has his own Health and Social Care WhatsApp group for MPs, praises the speed with which his spads reply and how health figures are made easy to translate for a wider audience.

There is a counter-argument, of course. In a department that is permanently firefighting, bandwidth is finite. Some question whether the relentless focus on presentation risks becoming a distraction.

Bonfire of the quango

Streeting’s vision is encapsulated in the 10-Year Health Plan, which is built around three shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, sickness to prevention. The Lord Darzi review formed the basis of this intellectual underpinning, particularly in its warning that the NHS lags badly behind the private sector in its use of tech, and it will take a decade for it to reach modern standards.

The Health Secretary wants the NHS app to become the front door of the service. He is hopeful that artificial intelligence tools will free up clinician time and the UK’s life sciences sector will be boosted when it can fully make use of the golden goose that is the UK’s universal health system of 60 million patients.

The biggest gamble of his tenure has been the decision to scrap NHS England and fold it back into the department.

Supporters say the old arrangement had become dysfunctional, with blurred accountability, blocking and leaking making ministers miserable. “Everybody hated it. Policy dreams went to die with NHS England,” says a source.

NHSE staff have been told they will need to apply for jobs in the merged workforce between January and March 2027. There is widespread scepticism about this timeline, however, with many believing it will be pushed back. Senior figures in NHSE are encouraging staff to refer to it as the “New Department for Health” in the meantime.

An NHSE source tells The House they believe energy that could be spent improving services risks being diverted into legislative wrangling and internal restructuring for the next two years.

Hugh Alderwick, director of policy and research at independent charity the Health Foundation, warns that large-scale reorganisations can distract local leaders from improving care.

He also says Streeting’s two major reforms – the NHSE restructure and the 10-Year Health Plan – could conflict with each other. The challenge is that the detail of what the plan means in practice and how it will be delivered is “still thin”, he adds, and “the resources to deliver those reforms are constrained”.

Alderwick believes pressure directly from Starmer to bring down waiting lists could push the Health Secretary towards focusing more on that than “bigger, more fundamental” reform of the health system.

Another looming question is what progress DHSC has made on social care. The government has set up an independent commission, led by Baroness Casey, to look at reform. According to Alderwick, although it could help to “set a vision”, there is a risk it is simply “another commission, which we’ve had a long line of before, that kicks questions of social care reform back into the long grass”.

On the view that Streeting has conflicting priorities, a source defending him responds: “Think tanks say the NHS can’t do two things at once. I find that a bit weird. If you change the machine, they think that’s getting in the way of making the machine work better.”

There are 7.3 million people on elective treatment waiting lists. If we want to reduce the flow in 2027-28, the source says, new tech will be helpful – 20 per cent of dermatological diagnostics can be done initially with a photograph rather than a face-to-face appointment, for example. “That’s a new model of care that can reduce waiting now, not in 10 years’ time.”

But so far, NHSE abolition has been little more than a job-cutting exercise, say critics. A source close to Streeting acknowledges the change has mostly been on headcount so far, but argues this is no bad thing given the level of duplication and how the two organisations were marking each other’s homework. “I’m sure there will be unhappiness. But was the relationship between the two working well beforehand?”

The risk for Streeting is that, by 2029, his major achievements could be seen to amount to having cut the waiting list to the trajectory that it was already being cut in the last months of 2023 under the Conservative government, and ditching a large administrative body whose role the public was unlikely to have recognised.

While the government has achieved a fall in NHS waits for elective care, experts warn that this could prove to be a complicated legacy for Streeting when waiting lists for other services remain high. There is little public understanding of the difference between different types of NHS waiting lists – for example, elective care, diagnosis, or specialist appointments.

What will Streeting’s legacy be? One health expert offers a damning verdict: “The picture will be a person who talked a big game about reform, and talked a big game about transforming the NHS, but didn’t really have the tenacity to see it through.”

A for ambition

Staff describe Streeting as an “empowering” boss. Those who work directly for him have “extreme loyalty” to him, says one: “People stay with him for years. He will always tap into them and work things through with them. That means everyone feels valued.”

They insist that the perception he is driven by ambition for his own career is not borne out by the facts: he has not run away from Ilford North, he has no plans to take out a sitting PM, and he has done the toughest press rounds when the government has been at its lowest.

But that in itself is seen by some as a negative for becoming a revolutionary health secretary.

“You can’t be the guy who shovels the shit for the government at the same time as being the person who is delivering a policy revolution in your department. One thing totally distracts the other,” says a source who knows Streeting well.

“Because he’s got political ambitions elsewhere, Wes has wanted to have views on everything from Palestine to social media bans. That implies to me that you’ve got a secretary of state who is much more interested in the wider political context the department operates in than the infinite number of problems at his doorstep. You only have so much bandwidth.

“I think he’d be the first to admit that he’s been too distracted by what’s going on elsewhere on Whitehall, and too eager to jump in and involve himself in the other stuff going on. But that’s because he’s ambitious – he’s got eyes on the prize.” 

Additional reporting by Adam Payne

Which sweeteners were used in the study?

What did the study show?

This study only shows a correlation