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Politics Home Article | Can The Student Loan Genie Be Put Back In The Bottle?

Published

5 hours ago

15 February 2026

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Can The Student Loan Genie Be Put Back In The Bottle?

Haris Malekos

6 min read7 min

The issue of student loans has exploded into life in Westminster in recent weeks, with figures across the political spectrum demanding a serious conversation about the ‘Plan 2’ system. But will it come to anything?

Late last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves defended her decision in the November Budget to freeze the threshold at which graduates start to pay back their loans as “fair and reasonable”.

She was responding to Martin Lewis, the TV personal finance expert, who earlier that week argued it was “not a moral thing” to do because it was essentially treating debt like tax. “It’s a contract that the government signed with young people who had not been given any education on these loans,” Lewis said, who urged Reeves to “please have a rethink”.

Since then, the Labour government has faced a backlash from a generation of ‘Plan Two’ graduates, seemingly leading ministers to strike a more emollient and open-minded tone on the question of whether student loan reform should be on the table.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said last week it was a “debate clearly rumbling and worth having”, while Labour Deputy Leader Lucy Powell has this week acknowledged that there are “absolutely” issues around the Plan Two student loan interest.

Under the Plan Two agreement, graduates are charged interest on loan repayments equal to Retail Prices Index (RPI) plus up to three percentage points. However, monthly repayments often do not meet interest, leaving many graduates with debt larger than what they originally borrowed, years after leaving university. Some people have shared details of such cases on social media, fuelling the growing wave of outrage.

Former education secretary Alan Johnson, who is now chancellor of the University of Hull, last week told BBC’s Today programme that the current system is “horrendous”.

It is noteworthy that there are now significantly more MPs with Plan Two student loans than ever before, which is helping calls for reform gain traction in Westminster. Plan 2 loans were issued to English undergraduates who started courses between 2012 and 2022.

PoliticsHome understands that several Labour MPs in this cohort have had discussions with sympathetic ministers about what can be done to help address the sense of unfairness.

It is currently seen as unlikely that the Labour government will commit to a task as significant as overhauling the student loan system, especially given the many other major policy challenges that it is already grappling with, like thorny and complex SEND reforms.

Speaking on Thursday, Reeves said she would lower student loan repayments by cutting inflation. “But by getting inflation down, we can also reduce the interest on student loans and I think that will make a big difference in making that more affordable,” she said.

However, there are no signs of the debate disappearing.

Two Labour-aligned think tanks, The Institute for Public Policy Research and Labour Together, are preparing new pieces of work in this area, PoliticsHome understands, while Plan 2 MPs like Labour backbencher Chris Curtis are publicly calling for changes to the system. Clips of New Statesman journalist Oli Dugmore calling for reform on BBC Question Time have gone viral.

Former Tory education secretary Justine Greening said Kemi Badenoch’s party should “lead” on the issue of student loans to help rebuild support with young people (Alamy)

It is for this reason that other political parties are starting to look at it.

PoliticsHome understands that the Conservatives, under whom the current student loan system was created, are looking at student loans as part of work on their wider higher education policy. The Tories have been warned that they must rebuild support among young people to have a route back to power, with just 8 per cent of 18-24-year-olds and 25-39-year-olds voting for them at the 2024 general election, according to YouGov.

Former Conservative education secretary Justine Greening told PoliticsHome that Kemi Badenoch’s party should take the lead on student loans to help “reconnect with young voters”.

She told PoliticsHome: “The very system that was supposed to support aspiration and social mobility has now become a system that has the opposite effect. Many young people, especially with fewer family resources to fall back on, are understandably scared of the student debt that they are going to have to take out if they want to get to university.

“It means that tuition fees and student loans are a mainstream ‘retail’ policy, just like income tax rates. If it wants to build a connection to those generations, then the Tory party needs to lead on this and come up with real solutions.”

A former Conservative adviser who worked close to the issue in recent Tory administrations was sceptical about a “total rewriting” of the system, however.

“My sense is that officials know a lot of people have issues with the student loan system, but anything to make it more affordable is going to result in the taxpayer picking up more of it, which isn’t fair for half of the population who don’t go to university,” they said.

Reform UK, which, if a general election were held tomorrow, would be in a strong position to form a government, according to opinion polls, pledged in its 2024 manifesto to scrap interest on student loans and extend loan capital repayment periods to 45 years.

When asked about the party’s current position, a Reform source told PoliticsHome: “We are prepared to be radical to end the injustice of high student debt.”

“Young people should learn vocational skills that earn good wages, or degrees that are genuinely useful to them and the country,” they added.

PoliticsHome understands that Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats are planning to release a university policy paper in the coming weeks.

There is some nervousness among Lib Dem figures about making universities a major policy focus, with the coalition-era U-turn on tuition fees and subsequent electoral backlash felt to be a ghost not yet fully exorcised, PoliticsHome understands.

However, the party is understood to be considering how students can be protected from changes to their contract, capping total payments in real terms, and whether the use of RPI can be replaced.

Meanwhile, a Green Party spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “The government has become a Student Loan Shark, with people on Plan 2 student loans — the vast majority — finding themselves saddled with debt for over 30 years. We strongly oppose plans to freeze the loan repayment threshold and want to see the exorbitant interest rate cut.

“Ultimately, the Green Party wants to see the restoration of grants and the end of tuition fees. Education is a right, not a privilege, and we need to see it as public investment, not private debt.”

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Polanski slams authoritarianism, live with Trevor Phillips

Published

15 minutes ago

15 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Polanski slams authoritarianism, live with Trevor Phillips

Zack Polanski has appeared on the 15 February edition of Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips. If you’re unfamiliar with Phillips, he has a decades’ long history in Labour Party politics. As such, it wasn’t surprising to see him denying the creeping authoritarianism which is happening under Keir Starmer’s government:

Phillips “This is not a country where people get thrown in jail for things they say”@ZackPolanski: 2,700 people have been arrested for holding up signs
And well done to Zack for challenging Phillips smear that ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is antisemitic pic.twitter.com/fuEDYQJa9K
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 15, 2026

Labour liar, pants on fire

In the clip above, Phillips says:

In the press release today, you talk about a ‘Big Brother Britain’. I’m assuming that you’re talking about George Orwell’s oppressive state rather than the telly programme. Isn’t this going over the top a bit? I mean, this is not a country where people get thrown in jail for things… they say, at least not very often.

If you’re a regular reader of the Canary, you’ll know this is complete horseshit from Phillips. Thankfully, Polanski explained why for us:

Well, I think we’re spiralling down that road. First of all, we saw 2,700 people potentially imprisoned, some of them waiting trials, a lot of them for holding up signs saying, I oppose a genocide. We have seen a genocide happen in Israel now for the last couple of years.

To add some specificity, the signs in question said this:

I oppose #GenocideInGaza I support #PalestineAction https://t.co/6j08nAMQNS
— Steve Mackie (@1SteveMackie) February 14, 2026

The government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, which allowed them to arrest those who support the group. The people who held these signs got arrested for speech, albeit in written form.

As we reported on 13 February, a court has now overturned the proscription. Polanski also touched on this:

“The govt have been completely shamed in court & I’m proud the entire Green MP group all voted against proscription of Palestine Action”@ZackPolanski on the high court declaring the proscription unlawful pic.twitter.com/XUqaelUN8o
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 15, 2026

Back to the interview, Phillips responded:

No, that’s not the signs that they’re being arrested for. It is signs which say things like, from the river to the sea, a sign which imply elimination of the State of Israel, which are at some sense antisemitic and intimidating.

This simply isn’t true; Trevor Phillips is a fucking liar.

He’s not just any liar, either; he’s a liar who picked Peter Mandelson of all people to be the best man at his wedding.

The 2,700 in question relates to those arrested for supporting Palestine Action. Additionally, the ‘River to the Sea‘ chant is a call for the Palestinians to no longer be contained in an open air prison — not anything else.

Polanski responded:

Well, as a Jewish person, I don’t find that antisemitic. And in fact, Benjamin Netanyahu himself has used that phrase.
I’m one of only five people in British history who have been Jewish and lead a political party. So antisemitism needs to be taken really seriously in the same way that Islamophobia or any form of racism or hate crime needs to be taken seriously.
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But criticism of the Israeli government, I would say, is a moral responsibility when we’re seeing what they are doing to innocent people day in, day out. And our government is not just complicit in that. They are actively enabling it.
So for people who are protesting against the genocide, I would say those people are actual patriots of this country who are saying, let’s have a world where we make sure we’re standing for human rights.
It’s not just Palestine action, though, by the way. We’ve seen authoritarianism over the prime minister wanting mandatory ID cards. We’ve seen the authoritarianism of scrapping jury trials. Pattern over pattern shows that Keir Starmer is a deeply desperate caretaker prime minister who is clinging on to power by trying to crush dissent.

Things took a turn for the ridiculous later on, by the way:

So Phillips moved from talking about thousands of people arrested under terrorism legislation for holding up signs to criticising the idea that the UK is becoming an oppressive police state & then declaring the solution to fly tipping is more surveillance. He really is woeful.
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 15, 2026

In bed

As Novara’s Aaron Bastani highlighted, the New Labour types have a lot of support in broadcast media:

The press broadly backs the Tories. But why does the Labour right get such easy treatment from broadcast media?
The answer is political sympathies. Just look at who is married to who. TV news, and New Labour, until recently, went together like sun and shadow. pic.twitter.com/zwPZJOkUNl
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 5, 2026
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Haven’t seen many/any videos of the broadcast media harassing Mandelson outside his house. Was constant during Corbyn leadership – and indeed for some time after.
I’d say ‘curious’, but it’s because basically the whole of broadcast media (except GB News) swings New Labour.
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 10, 2026

Phillips perverting reality as he did above is a clear example of this.

Featured image via the Canary

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Reform UK’s poverty plan is to pretend it doesn’t exist

Published

22 minutes ago

15 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Reform UK's poverty plan is to pretend it doesn’t exist

If you’re wondering how Reform plan to tackle poverty, we now have an answer to that. The plan is to deny it even exists

Zia Yusuf claims that “real poverty does exist in this country.”
@TrevorPTweets challenges Reform UK’s head of policy on his comments ⬇️#TrevorPhillips https://t.co/LFPXoeri6h pic.twitter.com/lqN76RkQ1q
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 15, 2026

Denial

In the clip above, Zia Yusuf says:

So firstly, it’s really important people understand when the term poverty is used primarily by left-wing politicians, let’s define that term. It is… a relative term, which means that you could literally – this is a mathematical fact – you could increase everybody’s incomes tenfold and that statistic would stay the same.

Oh my god, shut the fuck up, you oily, little nerd.

‘I can tell you mathematically what poverty is‘.

You sound like a Star Trek android, and not the good one.

We can tell you what poverty is, Zia, because most of us here at the Canary have experienced it.

Poverty is not having enough to get by.

Poverty is watching your outgoings outpace your incomings.

Poverty is spending hours a week figuring out how to make the money go around.

Poverty is constantly worrying about bills and life choices.

Poverty is fear and anxiety.

Poverty is the feeling that things will only get worse.

Yusuf thinks it’s a mathematical equation, because he has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about; he’s just another ex-Tory, ex-Goldman Sachs rich boy who wants to gut the welfare state to give his billionaire mates handouts.

Too much will never be enough for these people.

They will take more than they can ever spend, and they will shit, and piss, and moan as they bite the hand that feeds them.

Yusuf continued:

But the most important thing is that Reform, we are fiscally prudent, and we wanted to make sure anything we announced was going to be fiscally neutral.

“Fiscally prudent”, is it?

If you’re familiar with Curb Your Enthusiasm, start imagining the end credits now as you read the following headlines:

Reform have totally let the cat out of the bag about who they are.
Zia Yusuf lecturing that poverty and peoples everyday struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated.
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A party of the failed status quo, funded and representing big corporate interests. https://t.co/G000aCvbLl
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 15, 2026

Social bullshittery

Phillips asked Yusuf if poverty measures are all made up, to which Yusuf responded:

No, it’s worse than that, because real poverty does exist in this country, Trevor. And absolute poverty does exist in very, very small pockets. If you actually want to do the right thing for as many people as possible in this country, then you need to create social mobility. That has been crushed by the Tory government and now this Labour government.

To be clear, ‘social mobility’ is not the phenomenon in which everyone becomes more affluent. It’s the phenomenon in which some working class people land middle class jobs. This is great for sly politicians like Yusuf, because it allows them to point at the fortunate few and say:

See – it is possible for you layabouts to earn more — anyone on poverty wages is just lazy.

If you’re old enough, you will remember the UK’s middle class did indeed expand in the 90s. Social mobility was happening on a larger scale, and we got the ‘lower middle class’ — i.e. working class families who could afford to alternate between taking their kids on holiday to Menorca and Butlin’s Pwllheli (if that seems oddly specific, I’m talking from experience).

This phenomenon happened because we took advantage of the cheap labour of countries like China, allowing us to live beyond our previous means. We could have locked in that progress, and ensured the country’s wealth was evenly distributed. We didn’t do that; instead we got runaway capitalism, with the rich claiming more wealth and authority, and the rest of us losing our rights and purchasing power.

Now, we’re at a point where social mobility can’t happen because even the middle class are fucking struggling. Tinkering around the edges or making savings here or there won’t cut it; we need to hobble the billionaire class, and we need to rob them of their power and influence.

Only then can we have a society in which people can live day to day without dreading tomorrow.

Bootstrapping

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps‘, but did you know where it comes from? As Useless Etymology report:

The phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” originated shortly before the turn of the 20th century. It’s attributed to a late-1800s physics schoolbook that contained the example question “Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his bootstraps?”
So when it became a colloquial phrase referring to socioeconomic advancement shortly thereafter, it was meant to be sarcastic, or to suggest that it was an impossible accomplishment.

It’s literally impossible for everyone in a capitalist system to be well off and content, because it’s a tornado designed to pull everything up to the top.

In other words, beware of geeks bearing false grifts.

Backlash to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is putting vulnerable Republicans in a tough spot, forcing them to shift their tone to appease frustrated Hispanic voters — or risk losing key battleground seats.

It’s a delicate pivot for Republicans in South Texas, who spent years taking a hardline approach on immigration and flipped historically blue districts in the process.

Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, representing a majority-Hispanic district, has gone from calling for mass deportations to focusing on the “worst of the worst.” In lieu of expediting removals, she wants to create new visa categories for undocumented workers to fill jobs in construction and agriculture. And instead of slamming the Biden White House for its “border failure,” she’s setting up private meetings at the Trump White House to plead for temperance in immigration enforcement.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, whose district shares hundreds of miles with Mexico, wants his party to talk more about the border, and said he plans to “continue to advocate that the Republican Party needs to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens” amid broad outrage over deportations of undocumented people with no proven risk to public safety.

Like other Republicans, they are trying to slowly distance themselves from the massive immigration crackdown that has quickly become political kryptonite for the GOP — but without being seen as disloyal to the president or undercutting their previous positions.

“President Trump made a promise, and he’s kept that promise by securing the border. That was stage one,” De La Cruz said in an interview. “Now we’re at stage two, which is having a conversation of true immigration reform.”

Republicans’ efforts to change the conversation will test their ability to maintain, or even extend, Trump’s 2024 gains with Hispanic voters — and play a pivotal role in the fight for control of Congress in November. A slew of polls in recent weeks has shown many Hispanic voters across the country, repulsed by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, are souring on the Republican president they supported to a historic degree in 2024.

It’s a warning the White House appears to be taking seriously. In recent weeks, after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by an immigration enforcement officer in Minneapolis, the White House has signaled openness to paring back its deportation operation. On Thursday, border czar Tom Homan announced the administration’s massive immigration surge in Minneapolis would come to a close.

Latino voters’ embrace of Trump was a political earthquake, and South Texas was the epicenter.

De La Cruz’s district — which sprawls from the Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border up to the San Antonio suburbs — was represented by a Democrat in Congress for 120 years before De La Cruz won her seat in 2022. In 2024, Trump romped to an 18-point victory.

The 15th Congressional District was among those redrawn by the Texas legislature’s redistricting gambit last year, offering De La Cruz an even more favorable electorate. But that bet relies heavily on Hispanic voters sticking with the GOP: Nearly 80 percent of the district identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and if those voters flip back to the Democratic Party or stay home, it could erase much of the new map’s intended friendliness to Republicans.

“With the border secure and Latinos responding to ICE raids and government overreach, the districts that Republicans thought were their future a year ago are likely to be their undoing,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who is a frequent critic of Trump. “Hard to find another situation in the past 50 years where a political party has squandered a generational opportunity like this.”

Flipping De La Cruz’s district is a top objective for House Democrats this cycle, who are salivating at the prospect of winning back Latino voters. She’ll face either Bobby Pulido, a Tejano music star with widespread name ID recruited by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or Ana Cuellar, an ER doctor who has an impressive penchant for fundraising.

Local Republicans have begun sounding the alarm.

Daniel Garza, president of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group based in South Texas, said “Biden’s border chaos” was directly responsible for Texas Republicans’ victories in recent election cycles, including De La Cruz’s, but that moving toward the other extreme — a harsh crackdown — could again dissuade Hispanic voters who might otherwise support the GOP.

“We don’t have to be a nation that has to decide between an ‘everybody-in’ or an ‘everybody-out’ approach,” Garza said. “I honestly feel that the counties across the entire Texan border shifted to the right because of the border chaos. … But this sort of everybody-out approach, I think, is also causing some reflection.”

The immigration crackdown has wreaked havoc for the area’s business community. Greg LaMantia, who runs a major beer wholesaler in the region, said his company’s sales are down as a result of the raids. “You have people that are legal that are scared to death to get caught up in this fiasco and deported,” said LaMantia, who voted for Trump and has donated recently to both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. “It’s caused sales to go down, no doubt about it. It’s chaos.”

Daniel Guerrero, CEO of the McAllen-based South Texas Builders Association, said rampant ICE activity has sent a shiver through the construction industry, leading to massive delays. He said ICE is notorious for following concrete trucks to job sites, then apprehending workers as they begin pouring a foundation, leaving half-poured concrete slabs.

“The sentiment is pretty clear across the table, that nobody really expected this magnitude of enforcement,” said Guerrero, who voted for Trump and De La Cruz in 2024.

He said the Hispanic Trump supporters he knows are souring on this administration, an observation supported by recent polling. In the latest warning sign, Latino voters helped a Democrat flip a reliably red seat in Fort Worth last month. Taylor Rehmet, who picked up a state Senate seat in a special election, won about 4 out of 5 Hispanic votes across the district, a massive 26-point improvement over Kamala Harris in 2024.

Many Republicans are trying to steer the discussion around immigration to focus on how border crossings have dropped to historic lows under Trump — which they hope will remind Hispanic voters why they should stick with the GOP.

“The Hispanic population gives President Trump and Republicans a lot of leeway with just how bad things were before and where they’re at now,” said Gonzales, whose sprawling border district is majority Hispanic. “They have a lot of leeway to get a lot of runway, if you will.”

De La Cruz successfully ran in 2024 on deportations and the “worst border security crisis in our nation’s history.” Now she’s proposing a new visa category, H-2C, allowing employers like those in construction and hospitality to hire foreign workers. She also introduced legislation which would expand the H-2A visa category for seasonal agricultural workers.

In recent weeks, De La Cruz said she has taken constituents to meet with the Labor Department, the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson, pitching them on her bills and encouraging the administration to change its tact on immigration enforcement.

“There’s limited resources, period. And we want those limited resources to be focused on the worst of the worst, the criminal immigrants that have come in,” De La Cruz said. “We have legal immigrants in our district who have work visas that they don’t want to go out to work because some may have fear about the process that is currently being administered.”

But De La Cruz’s shift in messaging has simultaneously earned skepticism from some industry leaders and frustration with the base, underscoring the political tightrope she must walk until November.

Guerrero, the construction nonprofit leader, said he sensed political opportunism in De La Cruz’s newfound interest in helping his industry.

“People feel abandoned because you never showed face, and now that there’s an actual crisis, you want to show face?” Guerrero said. “It’s like, dude, it’s a little too late, man.”

The MAGA base, meanwhile, doesn’t love the shift, either. Patricio County GOP Chair Rex Warner thinks De La Cruz has become too soft on deportations. “I align with some of it, but very little,” he said.

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Nigel Farage Corrected 5 Times While Defending Jim Ratcliffe

Published

2 hours ago

15 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Nigel Farage Corrected 5 Times While Defending Jim Ratcliffe

Nigel Farage was fact-checked four times in a toe-curling interview over Jim Ratcliffe’s controversial claim that the UK is being “colonised” by migrants.

Ratcliffe, the billionaire co-owner of Manchester United, triggered major backlash last week when he said: “You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits, and huge levels of immigrants coming in.

“The UK is being colonised by immigrants.”

He claimed: “The population of the UK was 58 million in 2020. Now it’s 70 million. That’s 12 million.”

Ratcliffe offered a limited apology on Friday, saying he was “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK an Europe”.

But, he insisted it was still “important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth”.

Speaking to Sky News, Farage defended Ratcliffe – who has previously described the Reform party leader as “intelligent” – saying he had only pointed out a “fact” that 12 million people have come into the country.

But presenter Matt Barbet corrected Farage: “Well, he got the dates wrong didn’t he?”

Farage admitted: “He said 2020 but he meant 2000. Since 2000, 12 million people is the population increase in Britain. Over 85% of that is the direct impact of immigration. That’s a fact.

“There are nine million living in Britain on benefits of some kind, although some of them in work benefits.”

Barbet cut in with a second correction: “Most of them are in work benefits, actually.”

Farage also alleged that Ratcliffe had only withdrawn the use of the word “colonised”, not the overall sentiment.

Asked about his use of that loaded term, Farage said: “I think it’s probably in the dictionary definition correct – but perhaps people aren’t quite ready for that.”

“It has historical overtones though doesn’t it?” Barbet said. “I want to ask you about the language, the rhetoric. People using words like that, people referring to Enoch Powell’s speeches, is that overshadowing having a considered debate on immigration?”

Farage said: “It’s just one word. Everything he said was right. One word can be used in a different context.”

The MP for Clacton claimed the Office for National Statistics (ONS) census also shows a million people can’t speak any English.

But Barbet pointed out: “It says they aren’t speaking good English. That doesn’t mean there’s a million who aren’t speaking any English at all.”

“Five million don’t speak good English,” Farage insisted. “A million don’t speak English at all. Those are the census facts we got a couple of years ago.”

Barbet then pointed out that Ratcliffe himself is an economic migrant as he lives in Monaco.

“He’s a tax migrant,” Farage replied.

“He’s an economic migrant then, isn’t he?” Barbet replied, but Farage dodged the comment by claiming Ratcliffe is not claiming social security.

“He’s spending lots of money in Monaco employing people and spending money on the high street,” the Reform Party leader said.

“Actually, Nigel Farage, he’s cut hundreds of jobs here in the UK, in Grangemouth,” Barbet said, with a cutting fifth correction. “He wanted to build Ineos Grenadier car in Wales, you know where it’s built now? It’s built in France.”

Farage just blamed the “moronic energy policy” put in place by Labour and the Tories.

.@MattBarbet asks Reform UK ‘s Nigel Farage whether Jim Ratcliffe was “right to apologise” for saying Britain has been “colonised by immigrants”.
Watch the full interview live on Politics Hub ⬇️https://t.co/x4wJcskjGb
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 12, 2026

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Labour Together implicated in another spy story

Published

2 hours ago

15 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Labour Together implicated in another spy story

‘Labour Together’ — the sabotage outfit that brought down Jeremy Corbyn and conned Labour members into choosing Keir Starmer — paid investigators to spy on, and smear two Times journalists. Unsurprisingly, the pair — Harry Yorke and Gabriel Pogrund — have publicised their experience as unique.

@Gabriel_Pogrund and I were the subject of a disgraceful smear campaign — just for doing our jobs
I’m proud that The Sunday Times is calling it out on the front page tomorrow
Labour activists paid for smear campaign against journalists https://t.co/Uw9UjNJtzm
— Harry Yorke (@HarryYorke1) February 14, 2026
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Labour Together pursues journalists

The Sunday Times, which covered the story, reported that:

The group that helped to get Sir Keir Starmer elected as Labour leader hired lobbyists to investigate the personal, political and religious background of a Sunday Times journalist behind an article about secret donations that funded its work.
Labour Together paid £36,000 to Apco, a US public affairs firm, to examine the “backgrounds and motivations” of reporters behind a story before the general election.
The aim was to discredit The Sunday Times’s reporting by falsely suggesting its journalists might be part of a Russian conspiracy or had relied on emails hacked by the Kremlin.
Apco produced a 58-page report including almost ten pages of deeply personal and false claims about Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times Whitehall editor. He and Harry Yorke, the newspaper’s deputy political editor, were named as “persons of significant interest”.
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Old news

But Pogrund and Yorke only stand out for being the only ‘mainstream’ hacks known to have been targeted by Labour Together. The pressure group was formerly run by disgraced Starmer adviser Morgan McSweeney and other ‘red Tories’ in Starmer’s faction. But these latest revelations and labour Together’S spying activities is not new — not in any real sense. Their not-so-covert operations have been in the public domain for months.

In fact, news of the spying broke on the Canary in September 2025. McSweeney’s outfit set investigators on Paul Holden, the author of The Fraud. This exposes Labour Together’s dark tactics and Starmer’s dishonesty. Furthermore, the book has been serialised by the Canary.

Labour Together did the same to Andrew Feinstein, the author and former Mandela government minister. He stood against Starmer in the 2024 general election and decimated his majority. Moreover, it did the same to journalists John McEvoy, Khadija Sharife and Peter Geoghegan.

Labour Together’s spies targeted Pogrund for being Jewish — ironic given their weaponisation of supposed ‘Labour antisemitism’ against Corbyn and the left. But they did the same to the Jewish Feinstein. They smeared Pogrund and Yorke as being linked to Russia — they’d done the same to Feinstein and Holden.

In fact, not even the ‘news’ about Yorke and Pogrund is new. The Canary reported it last week. No wonder McSweeney and his cadre are scared of the Canary. They have tried and failed to destroy it while Corbyn was still leading Labour.

Featured image via the Canary

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Experts Share Just How Often You Should Be Cleaning Your Car

Published

2 hours ago

15 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Experts Share Just How Often You Should Be Cleaning Your Car

During the winter months, it takes a lot more time and effort to go outside and clean the car. However, if you don’t clean your car regularly, it can cause damage to the whole car and can even decrease the value of it over time.

Car Care Expert Katie Newman from Carfume, shares just how often you should be cleaning your car and five reasons why it’s essential.

How often should you clean your car?

Washing your car regularly is really important for preventing all sorts of cosmetic and structural damage. Generally speaking, you should try to wash your car at least every two weeks. However, if you live in rural areas where your car is more likely to be exposed to dirt on the roads, then it might be better to wash your car weekly. Here are five reasons why it’s essential to clean your car regularly:

Dirt, salt, bird droppings and leaves can damage your car’s paintwork if not cleaned. Washing your car regularly will help to maintain the finish of the paint and prevent paying for any costly repairs.

Reduces the risk of mould

Fortnightly cleaning, such as hoovering or wiping down surfaces, will eliminate any potential mould and help to dry out moisture. Once the interior is clean and dry and you’ve addressed any moisture, then using an air freshener can keep the car smelling fresh and cleaner for longer.

Not only does a messy car look unsightly, but leaving belongings to build up in your car isn’t cost-effective. Extra weight from clutter can actually make your car work harder, reducing mileage over time, so not cleaning your car out regularly might just be costing you!

Cars often see lots of food and drink throughout the week. Whether it’s drink spillages or crumbs, this can leave a lingering unpleasant smell inside the car. Fortnightly cleaning of the interiors and regular air freshener usage can help to reduce any of those odours.

It’s really easy, especially in the winter, for mirrors, lights and windows to become dirty and reduce visibility. This can be extremely dangerous through the winter. Making sure you clean your windows, lights and mirrors will improve overall safety during the cold winter months.

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