Politics
Philip Stephenson-Oliver: We have the plans to do density well, let’s copy them
Philip Stephenson-Oliver is the current Association Chairman of the Queen’s Park and Maida Vale Conservatives (formerly Westminster North). He serves as a soldier in the Honourable Artillery Company and has worked in the wine trade for over ten years.
As I drove up to Norfolk for Christmas, I was struck by how relentlessly the countryside has been consumed by new housing estates. Through Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and into Norfolk, the same developments appeared again and again: vast tracts of identikit homes, thrown up at speed, devoid of character, and rooted in the cheapest possible design philosophy.
This is housing as a numbers exercise, not as a place to live. Indeed, one of Angela Rayner’s first acts as Secretary of State for Housing was to remove any notion of a ‘right to beauty’ as a guiding principle in housing development.
These estates are the very definition of lazy architecture. They are built to satisfy short-term targets rather than long-term communities. And as the late Donald Rumsfeld observed, there are ‘known-unknowns”. One such known-unknown is this: somewhere within many of these developments lies a poorly built, over-regulated design flaw that will reveal itself in twenty or thirty years. When it does, these houses will not merely lose value; they will become prisons for their owners, costly to maintain, difficult to sell, and politically toxic to repair.
It does not have to be this way.
If planners, officials, and ministers were serious about solving the housing crisis properly — not just hitting annual completion figures — they would look to a tried and tested model of urban development. They should look at Maida Vale in West London.
For the past eight years, I have been happy to call Maida Vale home. It is a near-perfect example of Victorian urban planning at its finest. Across the ward stand rows of handsome red-brick mansion blocks, typically seven or eight storeys high, elegantly proportioned and thoughtfully laid out. While individual flats are not always large by modern standards, they benefit from high ceilings and generous windows, creating a genuine sense of light and space that modern developments consistently fail to replicate.
But Maida Vale’s real secret is this: it is one of the most densely populated areas not just in London, but in the entire country — and you would never know it.
On paper, the ward has a population density of around 18,000 people per square kilometre. Yet that figure understates the reality. Nearly a third of the area is taken up by Paddington Recreation Ground, a large and much-loved public park. Remove that from the calculation, and the true density rises to something closer to 25,000 people per square kilometre. To put this into perspective, the City of London has a population density of around 5,000 people per square kilometre, Marylebone around 10,000, and Vauxhall just under 17,000.
And yet Maida Vale does not feel crowded, oppressive, or hostile. It feels calm, orderly, and beautiful. This is density done properly.
That beauty matters more than many planners are willing to admit. Medium- to high-density urban living is where the majority of people now wish to live, and it is the obvious solution to our housing pressures. Yet it has been rendered deeply off-putting by decades of poor design: from the unforgiving brutalism of the 1960s, through the plasticised PVC architecture of the 1980s, to the soulless, cladding-wrapped developments of the 2000s.
As for much of today’s so-called architecture, the less said, the better. Even the most ideologically committed, pearl-clutching Liberal Democrat NIMBY would struggle to object to the development of this kind we see in Maida Vale. The lesson is obvious: people will accept density when it is done well.
This matters because housing — its availability, affordability, and quality — is one of the most important issues facing my generation and those below it. In my view, it is also a major contributor to Britain’s alarmingly low birth rate. When people cannot afford space, stability, or permanence, they do not start families. It is as simple as that.
I have just entered my thirties, and the vast majority of my friends either do not have children or do not plan on doing so. For aspirational middle-class families, the decision not to have children is often driven by cost. Britain’s housing system has become a generational Ponzi scheme: those lucky enough to buy early have grown wealthy on paper, while their children and grandchildren are trapped in high rents and obscene house prices.
There are only a limited number of ways this can change. One is a serious reduction in immigration — something that may finally be starting to happen as visa numbers fall and post-pandemic schemes unwind. But immigration policy alone will not solve the problem.
What we also need is a fundamental rethink of how and what we build.
I am not arguing that Maida Vale is a museum piece. I am arguing that it is a model. The cheap, modernist estates spreading across the country today will not be standing in a hundred years. Many will be demolished and replaced by something just as ugly and just as disposable. The Victorian mansion blocks of Maida Vale, by contrast, will still be there — a permanent legacy of beauty, density, and intelligent urban design.
If we want to build homes that last, communities that endure, and cities that people are proud to live in, we already know how to do it. We simply need the courage to copy what works.
Farage is with Dan Thomas to launch Reform’s manifesto for the Senedd election.
Politics
Politics Home | Alexion teams up with Premier League club to raise awareness of rare diseases
Alexion and the Wolves Foundation unite for Rare Disease Day to spotlight conditions affecting 1 in 17 people through a community football programme
Rare diseases affect approximately 3.5 million people in the UK – with 1 in 17 impacted by one of the 10,000 known rare conditions at some point in their lives – a collective prevalence similar to cancer.1,2 However, with each rare disease affecting so few people, these conditions are often overlooked.
Many rare conditions are life-limiting or life-threatening, making access to a timely diagnosis, expert care and effective treatment critically important. In healthcare systems geared towards more common diseases, it can be difficult for people with rare diseases to navigate and access the specialist services they need.3 This results in poor health outcomes and experiences of care – challenges that have been reflected in the UK Rare Disease Framework since 2021, with work underway to measure its impact.4
In late 2025, health ministers from all four nations agreed to extend the UK Rare Diseases Framework by one year through to February 2027.5 Over the next 12 months, it is critical that this time is used to determine the long-term priorities for the rare disease community, those specific areas where national policy and coordination can make the most meaningful impact, and how best to track progress.
Every year, Rare Disease Day takes place on 28th February – or 29th February in leap years to coincide with the rarest of days – to raise awareness of all rare conditions. Work by patient organisations underlines how low awareness of rare conditions makes it harder for others to relate to their experiences. As a result, empathy, understanding and support can be harder to find.6
For Rare Disease Day 2026, Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease and the Wolves Foundation have partnered to raise the visibility of rare diseases and support the foundation’s disability football programme and the Wolves Wishes initiative.
Wolves Wishes organises memorable club-related experiences for fans facing health challenges. The Premier League fixture between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa, which took place on 27th February, featured the disability teams playing at half-time to mark Rare Disease Day.
The team wore a kit they had designed themselves, reflecting the diverse and unique nature of rare conditions. They showed their skills and beat the Aston Villa team 1-0, with both home and away fans united in their support for these important players and cause.
Through the partnership, Alexion is supporting the foundation’s eight disability teams by providing new kit for the players and backing the Wolves Wishes project.
“This partnership reflects our shared values of equity and inclusion, while raising awareness of rare diseases with a broad audience,” said Deborah Richards, Managing Director of Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK. “Rare diseases often bring challenges that aren’t always visible, but they have a clear impact on those they affect and their families. Through this partnership, we can help make rare disease more visible and build greater understanding within the football community and beyond.”
“Our disability football and Wolves Wishes programmes are built on years of evidence showing how sport and local communities can transform lives,” said Kieron Ansell, Head of Business Development at the Wolves Foundation. “Through our partnership with Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, we can continue this important work while also shining a light on rare disease awareness. It shows that local children and families are seen and valued, and that their health challenges are recognised beyond the medical world, which can make a real difference, particularly for those at the beginning of their diagnostic journey.”
To find out more about the Wolves Foundation visit, https://foundation.wolves.co.uk/. To find out more about Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease UK, visit https://alexion.com/worldwide/UK.
This article was developed and funded by Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease.
M/UK/NP/0191 | March 2026
References
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/
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https://www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/research/cancer-prevalence
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https://shca.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SHCA-Health-Inequalities-Report.pdf
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/news/rare-conditions-the-stories-behind-the-stats/
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https://geneticalliance.org.uk/our-campaign-for-a-new-uk-rare-diseases-framework/
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World leaders’ relentless focus on economic growth is a key driver of social inequality and extreme poverty. That same centering of profit at all costs is fuelling the climate crisis and hastening the death of our planet.
But then, the Canary would say that, wouldn’t we? We’re a bunch of rabid leftists who probably read Marx on the shitter before wiping with recycled toilet paper.
Except it’s not us that said it — it’s the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Olivier De Schutter. In April, he will present his findings to the UN and advocate for a global shift toward a ‘Beyond Growth’ approach.
New economies for eradicating poverty
De Schutter leads a team entitled ‘New Economies for Eradicating Poverty,’ or ‘NEEP’. At the heart of what they do is the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, a blue print for:
expand[ing] the range of policy options available in the fight against poverty, beyond those that rely on economic growth.
Once finished, the Roadmap will offer a catalogue of concrete policy measures that governments, international agencies, and other stakeholders can implement that place human rights, care, and well-being at the centre of the economy, while respecting planetary boundaries.
The roadmap will set out policies for both richer and poorer countries, having suffered under the pursuit of endless growth. De Schutter stated that, in the case of poorer nations:
Although these countries still need to create resources to invest in hospitals, schools, infrastructure and so on, the growth that they are forced to pursue, particularly to reimburse their foreign debt … means they must export, and in order to export, they must produce not for their own population and not based on ecological considerations, but based solely on what the big buyers in global supply chains demand.
Likewise, for richer countries, the roadmap will suggest that:
instead of public revenue being raised by taxing income from labour or economic activity, we should ensure that public revenue is raised by taxing wealth, financial assets, immovable property, financial transactions, and all the ills of the economy, including from the extractive industry and especially of fossil energy.
Beyond growth
The special rapporteur argues that politicians must set aside the growth mindset focusing on the profits and the:
frivolous and destructive demands of the ultra-rich
In its place, world leaders must adopt a new mindset to fight ecological collapse, inequality and the far-right. De Schutter states:
The scarce resources we have should be used to prioritise the basic needs of people in poverty and to create what is of societal value rather than serve the frivolous desires of the ultra-rich.
As such, the roadmap argues for policies including debt cancellation, universal basic income, job guarantees, and an extreme wealth tax. De Schutter also took care to distinguish the movement beyond growth from uncontrolled economic collapse:
We should avoid the confusion between recession or stagnation of the kind we saw after 2008 or 1929 and the carefully planned and democratically controlled transition to something else.
This shift in mindset would involve a re-ordering of the way we conceptualise the global economy. Only yesterday, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves gave her spring statement on the country’s finances, with that fictional holy grail of growth front-and-center.
Beyond GDP, beyond inequality
As such, one might assume that an anti-growth stance is a fringe idea within the UN. However, De Schutter argues that an increasing number of individuals within the organisation have believed in the “imperative of moving beyond growth” for years. However, their:
existing mandate does not always allow them to say this politically at the highest level, and there is a taboo still about questioning growth.
As such, the special rapporteur’s findings could provide a crucial mandate for ‘beyond growth’ arguments within the UN.
Towards this end, De Schutter is advocating to establish a UN body to ensure that:
the economy is redistributive and sustainable by design rather than encouraging destructive growth and then trying to make up for the mess that creates.
This new body, he argues, could follow the pattern of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This goal is also backed up by the timing of the report. Its April release will coincide with two similar initiatives, as reported in the Guardian:
one instigated by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, which looks at replacing GDP as the key measure of economic success, and a second report by a G20 panel of independent experts on global inequality led by the renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz.
De Schutter argues that this moment in time offers:
a realistic opportunity to shape the post-2030 agenda with a viable alternative that will reconcile planetary boundaries with social justice and the fight against poverty and inequalities. That’s the challenge and the opportunity.
Now, this article should of course come with hefty caveats. This is the UN we’re talking about — a world body famed for a focus on talk over action. After all, the IPCC has warned and warned of imminent planetary destruction, but we’re still sleepwalking towards annihilation.
We can criticise the proposed roadmap for failing to go far enough, for coming too late, for revolving around the presumption of a money-based economy. The idea of a wealth tax is a curb on extreme wealth, but it doesn’t eliminate inequality altogether.
All of these things should be said. However, the news of NEEP’s work is notable still — even the fucking UN is cottoning on to the simple fact that we must abandon the pursuit of economic growth in order to survive.
Endless growth is a fiction; it is not economically, socially or ecologically possible. Rather, its pursuit is a cancer on our societies and our world.
Featured image via the Canary
US President Donald Trump’s war may be costing Americans $1bn a day. As the US switches from ‘smart’ bombs to ‘gravity’ bombs there are questions about where this runaway conflict is going. And now an esteemed air power scholar has warned the Americans are stuck in a strategic trap.
The US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
Atlantic reporter Nancy Youssef posted on X on 4 March:
The preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 billion a day, a congressional official told me.
— Nancy Youssef, نانسي يوسف (@nancyayoussef) March 4, 2026
An anonymous official’s comment must be taken with a pinch of salt. But the debate about the cost and nature of this attack is urgent. And let’s be clear, this war isn’t ending anytime soon.
On 4 March, US Congress turned their backs on peace and left Trump unchecked:
US Senate Republicans backed President Trump’s military campaign against Iran, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress https://t.co/1KivKwJfyS pic.twitter.com/9KbMnsvVoP
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 5, 2026
Not that the Iranians – who say they were stabbed in the back when the 28 February attack came amid fruitful talks – are in the mood to get back around the table:
Iran says it did not request negotiations with US https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO https://t.co/Rf4aoDkMQO
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 28, 2026
Iranian deputy foreign minister Esmail Baghaei explained the Iranian position at length on 4 March:
Trump in over his head
The Costs of War Project have been trying to estimate what the attack will cost the US taxpayer:
Operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities last year cost $2-2.25 billion.
This war will likely cost far more. https://t.co/QTfp0EGDEn pic.twitter.com/B8tdSjoIHA
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026
It’s much easier to say who the beneficiaries of the US-Iran war are going to be: arms firms.
Northrop Grumman’s share price rose 6% yesterday, increasing its market value by billions of dollars in just one day of trading. https://t.co/CqiF6rP2Wx
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) March 4, 2026
The war is changing character, possibly due to depletion of ammunition stocks. US Democrats raised concerns on 4 March that:
the US has been burning through interceptors to defend against ballistic missiles launched by Iran.
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine acknowledged:
that concern, a person familiar with the matter said, even as he expressed confidence in stockpile levels in public.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was moving away from ‘stand-off’ weapons towards gravity-based bombs:
The Hill reported:
Hegseth noted that the U.S. had largely been using standoff munitions — such as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles fired from ships or ground positions — in the campaign so far.
Hegseth said:
More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.
Gravity bombs are a more conventional form of munition which is dropped from an aircraft rather than fired. B-2’s will arrive at a UK airbase within days on their way to Iran. The UK’s role deepens by the day.
This never works
Professor Robert Pape, a highly-regarded American expert on air warfare, posted on X:
THE SMART BOMB TRAP IS BECOMING A DUMB BOMB
The war is widening.
Not rhetorically.
Operationally.And the reason is technical — but the consequences are strategic.
— Robert A. Pape (@ProfessorPape) March 4, 2026
Pape told Time magazine on 3 March:
In announcing the goal of regime change through air power alone, President Trump is up against the weight of history. Not just Iran, but the weight of history. For over a century, states—including the United States, European states, Russia, and Israel—have tried to topple regimes with air power alone. It has never—and I’m choosing my words carefully—it has never worked.
You can read his Substack or listen to more of his analysis here:
As this domestically unpopular war expands rapidly without a plan, the costs in lives and dollars will expand too. Experts insist Trump has chosen the wrong tactic in using air power. A shift to old-fashioned bombs hints at depletion of stock. Meanwhile, the Iranians understandably say they consider this an existential war.
Featured image via the Canary
You might already keep a weather eye out for phishing emails, dodgy texts, and suspicious calls.
But it seems scammers have found an unlikely new way into your phone: your calendar app.
Cybersecurity company Malwarebytes raised the alarm about the “fake calendar invites” back in November of last year.
Since then, the trend seems only to have risen.
What is the phone calendar scam?
It involves fake invites sent to your device’s calendar that you often can’t delete, or that come back no matter how many times you get rid of them.
Apple lists “unwanted Calendar invitations and subscriptions” among possible phishing attempts to look out for.
These invites might say something really attention-grabbing, like “impending payment” or “phone security compromised”; they could ask you to call a number, and they may sometimes contain a link.
On iPhones, “the spam alerts generally don’t require an app to be installed, so they can fill up a user’s calendar without passing through the App Store and show up directly in a user’s iOS notifications,” Newsweek said.
That can be a sneaky way to get around Apple’s strict security rules.
Once these invites have been sent, scammers hope that their victims will panic and click the link or call the number included in the entry.
From there, they might try to get your banking details, sell you an overpriced product, or get you to install software that’ll give them enough details to access your accounts.
Whatever they try after you click a link or call a number, scammers almost certainly will be after money. Don’t click or call these.
How can I spot an iPhone calendar scam?
If you notice unexpected calendar invites, especially those with alarming names and/or phone numbers or links, that’s a huge red flag.
“If you’re suspicious about an unexpected message, call or request for personal information, such as your email address, phone number, password, security code or money, it’s safer to presume that it’s a scam – contact that company directly if you need to,” Apple said.
How can I get rid of scam calendar invites?
Apple says people with iPhone iOS 14.6 and later should:
- Open Calendars,
- Tap the event you want to get rid of,
- Tap “unsubscribe from this Calendar”, which should appear at the bottom of the screen,
- Tap “unsubscribe” to confirm.
And if your iPhone uses an earlier iOS:
- Open the Calendars app,
- Tap Calendars in the bottom part of the screen,
- Tap the More info button next to any calendar you don’t recognise or want,
- Scroll down and tap Delete Calendar.
- Open Settings,
- Tap Calendar > Accounts, or, for iOS 13, tap Passwords & Accounts > Accounts,
- Tap Subscribed Calendars,
- Look for calendars you don’t recognise or want and tap them,
- Select “delete account”.
Black Democratic strategists, lawmakers and activists are frustrated that Texas Democrats rejected Jasmine Crockett as their Senate nominee Tuesday night — but they also saw it coming.
Following Crockett’s single-digit loss, they recounted a laundry list of why she fell to state Rep. James Talarico: Her campaign was unfocused; she had an insufficient campaign infrastructure to challenge Talarico, even though she earned the backing of former Vice President Kamala Harris. They also said her media strategy relied too heavily on social media rather than television ad buys — typically seen as critical in a sprawling state like Texas and its nearly two dozen media markets.
“People who don’t understand politics will be upset because Jasmine was their hero,” said Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, a Democrat. “But for people who understand politics, [Crockett] literally had no ground game.”
She added: “This L is on her.”
Taken together, Crockett’s campaign shortcomings doomed the upstart Senate bid of the two-term congressmember who entered the contest with broad name recognition and hopes of showcasing her firebrand personality and penchant for viral moments to help Texas Democrats end their nearly 40-year winless streak in Senate races.
Still, Black strategists and activists warn Crockett’s loss will have ripple effects.
They say the party rejected an established star in favor of an untested, white state lawmaker over style — the two candidates did not substantively disagree on policy — raising concerns that Black voters, especially women, will not turn out when the party needs them the most.
“A lot of Black women who work in the Democratic Party, vote for Democrats, organize for Democrats, have always had a sense of this,” said Houston-based political strategist and social media influencer Tayhlor Coleman. “It is a lot more apparent now: A lot of people in the Democratic Party want our labor, they do not want our leadership.”
A spokesperson for Crockett’s campaign pushed back on the criticism of her campaign, saying it came from “Monday morning quarterbacks.”
“This was the most expensive Democratic primary ever in Texas with the overwhelming majority of those dollars being spent on attacks against the Congresswoman,” former deputy campaign manager Karrol Rimal said in a text message Wednesday afternoon. “Despite being outspent, she held our own and excited an untapped base of support for Democrats with record numbers of first time primary voters. There was also the intentional voter suppression of voters in Dallas and Williamson counties. That can not be ignored.”
After Crockett conceded, she tweeted her support for Talarico, saying, “Democrats must rally around our nominees and win.”
Democrats for years have praised Black women as the “backbone of the party.” And Crockett, a former civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, rose to prominence in part by viral moments from House hearings. Just last month, she garnered praise from party insiders for her sharp criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi during a House Judiciary hearing over the Justice Department’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein documents.
Heading into Tuesday’s primary election — the first of the 2026 midterm cycle — there was optimism Crockett could harness her star power to beat Talarico, a seminary student and former teacher who drew national attention when Texas Democrats fled the state to try to block a major redistricting effort.
Talarico also built his national name with a sitdown on the nation’s top podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience” where the show’s host urged him to run for president — weeks before he officially launched his Senate bid, and later turned an online interview with the late night host Stephen Colbert into a fundraising boon.
Throughout the primary, Crockett faced constant questions about her viability and campaign decisions, including whether she hired enough staff. She also faced criticism that the get-out-the-vote efforts were virtually nonexistent.
“She ran a fucking terrible campaign that many will question if she’s running a campaign at all,” said one Black national Democratic operative granted anonymity to give a candid assessment of Crockett’s campaign.
Crockett staked much of her political campaign on her ability to connect with young voters and rebuked her party for trying to win Republicans instead of wooing hard-to-reach Democrats that have grown frustrated with the party. By contrast, Talarico was praised by many Democrats for the way he leaned into his seminarian background as a way to appeal to progressives, independents and disillusioned Republicans.
“In many ways, she has been and has felt like a woman on an island,” said Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of the Collective PAC, which works to elect Black candidates to local, state and federal offices.
“Even though she has substance, not everybody likes her style,” she added. “And I think that sometimes her style is one that is not appealing, especially to the old guard Democrats, whose fighting style is antiquated and outdated.”
State and national Democrats acknowledged Talarico built a strong campaign that shored up grassroots support and built a statewide infrastructure long before Crockett entered the primary in December, just months before voters began casting their ballots. He was able to raise money quickly, establish a field and digital plan and craft a message that cast him as a fighter and someone who would bring down high costs.
Some Democrats anticipate Talarico’s victory is going to ignite a fresh round of uncomfortable conversations among insiders about the importance race, gender and identity politics will play in Democratic political circles moving forward.
“The way that we have seen people rally around new, more untested white male candidates” is troubling, said Maya Rupert, a Democratic strategist who served as the campaign manager of Julian Castro’s 2020 presidential campaign.
While she is excited about Talarico’s nomination against what she called “a very weak Republican field,” Rupert said Crockett’s loss will continue to “sting” for months to come, especially with few opportunities beyond Texas for Black women candidates to win in statewide contests.
“There are a lot of people who see this and see a very qualified, very popular Black woman — that, once again — feels like people fail to appreciate the strength of,” Rupert adds. “And that is a very dangerous position for the party to be in.”
The amount of compensation payments the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has authorised has more than doubled since 2021. “Consolatory payments” are issued when DWP fucks up with your claim so much that you’re left in deep distress. They’re usually a paltry amount and are not the same as a back payment.
DWP admits compensation has shot up
Labour MP Anneliese Dodds asked the DWP about these payments via a written question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many consolation payments have been offered, per annum for the last ten years, to benefits claimants whose cases are mishandled or excessively delayed.
She also asked other, more specific questions about consolatory payments by region and the mean and mode amount of payments. However, she was told this information isn’t available, or to provide some of this information would cost the department too much. Which is a bit rich for a department that shelled out over £12.7 million in bonuses last year.
Anyway, despite asking the question in December, it was finally answered.
Andrew Western, Under-Secretary of State for Transformation in the Department for Work and Pensions (whatever the fuck that means), answered:
Consolatory payments recognise personal impacts such as gross inconvenience or severe distress.
Complaints to DWP have increased year on year in-line with increases in caseloads, as well as the department continuing to improve its handling processes. The rise in special payments made to recognise impacts on customers’ well‑being, reflects better acknowledgement of when service has fallen short.
He also helpfully provided a table showing how many payments there’d been, the average amount and the total the DWP spent on apologising for their fuck ups in the last decade.
Figures have been rounded to the nearest 5:
Incompetence
There’s one very obvious, notable thing about the figures. There was a very dramatic leap in payments from 2020/21 to 2021/22. For some reason, the amount of consolatory payments more than doubled in just a single year. Leaping from 3,150 payments issued in the financial year ending 2021 to 6,480 in the year ending 2022.
This means the amount they spend trying to right their mistakes also shot up. From £294,315 in 2021 to £525,855.
There’s also the fact that since then, it’s only gotten worse, leaping up to 7,860 affected and 658,810 spent the following year. Since that peak, it has slowly come down, but it’s only back to where it was in 2022 when it first shot up.
It could be that this is another consequence of the beginning of the COVID pandemic and lockdowns, where everything came to a standstill. When many had excessive waits for their claims to be processed.
But compensation has nothing to do with back payments. What’s more likely is that the DWP is so shoddily ran that not only are payments being delayed, but their staff are treating claimants with utter contempt.
I know from my own experience of the DWP trying to end my claim because they didn’t open my reassessment form in time, just how unfeeling they can be. In my instance, this was their error, not mine, but I was made to feel like I was at fault. I was eventually given an extra £20 for my trouble.
In January 2025, the Canary found that DWP complaints increased by 38% in just three years.
DWP too busy blaming claimants to sort out their own problems
As we know full well though, the DWP is a disgustingly incompetent excuse for an organisation. Recently, they’ve been dragged by MPs for spending more time demonising claimants than fixing their broken system. They were forced to admit that 1 in 5 privately contracted benefit assessors aren’t safeguard trained and that 52% of new benefits assessors didn’t make it through their first year.
Partly due to this, they’ve got such a bad benefits backlog that they had to divert staff from dealing with new claims to get the reassessment figures down. This left 40,000 new PIP claimants in the lurch. And thats without the added stress they’re causing with the constant rhetoric that we’re all faking it.
The DWP and Labour may consistently blame the failures of the Tories and demonise claimants for the benefits bill. But it’s clear that the reason the department is haemorrhaging money is that the DWP is a joke of an organisation that needs razing to the ground.
Featured image via the Canary
Days before International Women’s Day (Sunday, 8 March), King’s College London has published a report that found Gen Z men, born between 1997 and 2012, are most likely to say women should always obey their husbands.
Almost a third (31%) of Gen Z Men surveyed said they felt that way.
That’s over twice as much as Baby Boomer men (born from 1946-1964), who were least likely to express the sentiment at 13%.
And for Boomer women, that number plummeted to 6%.
What percentage of each generation said women should always obey their husbands?
In this research, which involved 23,000 people from 29 countries, including the UK, US, Brazil, and Australia, the breakdown was as follows:
- Baby Boomers (1946-64)
Men: 13%, Women: 6% - Gen X (1965-1980)
Men: 21%, Women 13% - Millennials (1980-1997)
Men: 29%, Women 19% - Gen Z (1997-2012)
Men: 31%, Women 18%.
Interestingly, Millennial women seem slightly more likely (1%) than their Gen Z counterparts to agree with the statement. Gen Z women were the only group in the survey that disagreed more with it than their gender’s prior generation.
This trend held true throughout the results
Gen Z men were also twice as likely as Boomer men (24% vs 12%) to say a woman shouldn’t appear too independent or self-sufficient.
59% of Gen Z men say their gender is asked to do too much for equality compared to 45% of Boomer men.
57% of Gen Z men said we’d gone so far to promote women’s rights, we’ve become sexist towards men; 42% of Boomer men agreed.
And 21% of Gen Z men said “real women” never initiated sex, vs 7% of Boomer men.
In all of these, women were significantly less likely to agree with the statements.
This is “deeply concerning”
“It is deeply concerning to see traditional gender norms persisting today,” Professor Heejung Chung, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School, said.
“Our data reveals a striking gap between people’s personal views, which are far more progressive, and what they imagine society demands of them.
“This gap is particularly pronounced among Gen Z men, who not only appear to feel intense pressure to conform to rigid masculine ideals, but in some cases seem to also expect women to retreat to more traditional ways of being.”
And the Hon Julia Gillard AC, Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s Business School, added, “It is troubling to see that attitudes towards gender equality are not more positive, particularly among young men. Not only are many Gen Z men putting limiting expectations on women, they are also trapping themselves within restrictive gender norms.
“We must continue to do more to dispel the idea of a zero-sum game in which women are the only beneficiaries of a gender-equal world… As a society we need to resist the pressure to go backwards.”
A former head of MI6 has hit out at Donald Trump’s “unnecessary war” with Iran.
Sir John Sawers, said the conflict was “not required” and could lead to the country becoming a “failed state” and even bigger danger to the world.
The US and Israel began their bombing campaign against the Tehran regime last Saturday, but since then the apparent rationale for the military action has changed on a number of occasions.
Speaking to CNN, Sawers – who was chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service from 2009 until 2014 – warned of the chilling consequences which could transpire as a result.
He said: “This is an unnecessary war. It was not required because it was not as if it was to pre-empt an imminent threat against the United States or indeed against Israel.
“The rationale, to the extent that there is one, is that it secures Israel for decades to come … but this will come at a cost.
“The very best outcome you can expect from the current conflict is that a successor leadership comes in and behaves differently from its predecessors. That is what some in America are calling the Venezuela option.
“I think just as dangerous is the possibility that the regime might corrode or collapse and lose control of parts of the country, and then you could have a situation like the one we’ve faced in Syria for the last year or so, where the country fragments into several different parts.”
Sawers also said it was “unwise” for Trump to call on the Iranian people to rise up against the country’s ruling regime.
He added: “If the country dissolves into component parts, it will be basically a failed state, and we’ve known from the last 40 years what happens in failed states – it becomes a centre for terrorism, for smuggling, for gun running, for drugs, for criminality of all sorts.
“If you just dismantle the regime completely, you could end up with the sort of chaos we’ve had to deal with in Afghanistan, or indeed in Lebanon, Libya and Syria.”
Ali Ahmadi, Catherine Barnard and Fiona Costello look at the implications of the Labour governmen’s promise to close all asylum hotels.
The UK government has committed itself to closing all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament. It aims to discontinue the use of contingency hotels and rely instead on other asylum accommodation such as Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) and family houses, as well as investigating the further use of ‘large sites’ such as ‘modular buildings’ and former military bases like Wethersfield in Essex and Cameron Barracks in Inverness. This policy is intended to save taxpayer money and improve the suitability of accommodation. But what does this transition mean in practice given the housing shortage in England? And what are the implications for local authorities, support organisations, local communities, and asylum seekers themselves?
Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office is responsible for housing destitute asylum seekers. Between 2012 and 2019, this was delivered through six regional contracts known as COMPASS. In 2019, COMPASS was replaced with seven similar arrangements, the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASCs). These contracts were awarded to three providers: Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group, and Serco. Under these contracts, asylum seekers are dispersed on a ‘no-choice’ basis to areas where accommodation is cheap and available which has meant that dispersals have been concentrated in deprived (and thus low-cost) areas.
For instance, the Guardian’s analysis of Home Office data in 2016 showed that 57% of asylum seekers were housed in the poorest third of the country while the richest third housed only 10% of asylum seekers. The distribution has also been uneven across local authorities, with some accommodating none (e.g. Lincoln, Cambridge, North Norfolk, Great Yarmouth, West Suffolk) and some having more than one asylum seeker per 200 local residents (e.g. Hounslow, Halton, Belfast, Coventry), exceeding the limit set by the original dispersal policy.
In 2022, the Home Office announced the policy of ‘Full Dispersal’, distributing asylum seekers more equitably across all local authorities, requiring the providers to use an indexing tool to procure accommodation, taking into account factors beyond population size such as market availability, homelessness rate, and level of hate crimes. This has had some success. For instance, in 2014, 75% of local authorities (285 out of 375) hosted no asylum seekers while in March 2025 just 16% (59 out of 361) hosted none.
However, significant disparities remain, with asylum seekers clustered in certain deprived areas such as Glasgow in Scotland and Halton in the North-West. A Parliamentary inquiry found that providers intentionally avoid procuring dispersal housing in more expensive urban areas to maximise profit. These local authorities face significant pressure on services like schools, healthcare, and homelessness support. The Home Office provides an ‘asylum dispersal grant’ to local authorities (currently £1,200 per asylum seeker per year) but this is not sufficient to meet the full costs.
While the Home Office tried to use local housing in the dispersal areas, it was not able to provide enough such housing and so it increasingly turned to using contingency hotels, especially at the time of the pandemic and now due to asylum backlogs. At the end of March 2020, only 5% of asylum seekers were staying in contingency accommodation (mostly hotels), but by 31 March 2025, this figure rose to 35% (over 32,000 people). Asylum hotels are significantly more costly than other forms of dispersal accommodation. In 2024-25, they accounted for more than half of asylum support cost (£2.1 billion out of £4 billion). Despite the high costs, hotels are reported to be in poor condition. Asylum hotels have also been the subject of community tensions, most notably in Epping in Essex and Norwich in Norfolk. For these reasons, the government plans to end their use.
For asylum seekers, hotel closure means moving to dispersal accommodation or ‘large sites’, often in rural areas far from urban centres. This often means they lose access to support services. For example, third sector organisations that provide legal assistance, mental health and integration support are primarily based in urban areas. They may not have the resources to reach asylum seekers who are located in rural areas. One refugee support organisation in the East of England talked of the difficulty of reaching asylum seekers in rural dispersal accommodation: “[From] Lowestoft to Haverhill, opposite corners of the county, is about 75 miles apart, which with a small team is quite a challenge.”
They also said that availability of services, support, and public transport (in rural dispersal areas) is not a factor in the Home Office’s dispersal index/formula: “….if you’re lucky, the village will have one bus a day that goes to a nearby town…. Some may not have that. So, no, Serco don’t take any of that into account. You know, local school places… don’t take into account if it’s families. Provision of service and culturally appropriate services, not at all.” This affects the lives of the individuals: there are multiple reports of serious mental health crises at Weathersfield. In the first three months of 2024, there were 30 recorded occurrences of men self-harming, attempting suicide, or at serious risk of doing so, and over 160 safeguarding referrals made regarding suicide and self-harm.
It is also not clear whether the government will make any cost saving. Evidence suggests that the use of large sites may, in fact, be more expensive than hotels. The Home Office estimates that Wethersfield costs around £132 per person per night compared to hotels at £144.98. However, these estimates exclude the £105 million in acquisition, lease, and setup costs. A Parliamentary inquiry found that ‘large sites’ attract considerably more public attention, complaints, and media coverage than smaller sites. There are also added policing costs.
To conclude, closing asylum hotels may redistribute costs and pressures rather than reducing them, let alone eliminating them. Local authorities, voluntary organisations, and asylum seekers themselves are likely to bear much of the burden. Dispersal accommodation and ‘large sites’ can work only if they are accompanied by sustained investment in local services, support, and community engagement. There is currently little evidence of this.
By Ali Ahmadi, Research Associate, University of Cambridge and PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University, Catherine Barnard, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe & Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge and Fiona Costello, Assistant Professor, University of Birmingham.
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