Findings from a new national survey from Internet Matters and Full Fact highlight a significant challenge to the government’s intention to lower the voting age. Extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds risks becoming a missed opportunity to strengthen democratic participation and trust in politics, unless young people get more support to navigate political information online.

The survey quizzed more than 550 young people aged 13-17, and over 800 parents and carers across the UK. It found that young people do not feel well-equipped to assess the political information they are encountering online from a young age.

Key findings – young people want to know more

Children are navigating political content well before voting age. 74% of those aged 13-14 have seen content about news, politics or current affairs online.

Children lack foundational skills for evaluating political information. Only 53% of young people aged 13-17 who have seen political information online are confident in telling whether it’s true or false. And just 59% feel confident distinguishing fact from opinion online.

Misinformation and AI are undermining trust in elections. 63% of young people say they’re concerned about voters being misled by false or misleading claims during elections. 60% are concerned that AI-generated content may affect the results of a general election. And the same number ignore what politicians and political parties say because they don’t know if they can trust them.

Parents think children aren’t ready to make informed electoral decisions. 52% of parents think young people are unprepared to vote. Only 49% express confidence in their child’s ability to recognise satire.

Young people believe there’s a shared responsibility for helping them to identify false or misleading information online. This spans across schools, parents and carers, government, and social media companies.

Recommendations – institutions need to do better

Internet Matters and Full Fact are calling on parliament and government to take four immediate steps to ensure support for newly enfranchised voters to participate confidently in democratic life.

1. Schools need support to strengthen media and digital literacy across the curriculum through access to high-quality resources and comprehensive teacher training. A recent independent review of the curriculum in England highlighted the need to equip young people with the ability to make informed decisions and to help them to understand how opinions, AI-generated content and satire can all influence democratic participation.

2. The government needs to establish a clear, coordinated national approach to media literacy. This should involve supporting young people and adults, including parents and carers. The government should urgently publish its ‘vision statement’ on media literacy, setting out objectives, priorities and measures of success.

3. The government must commit to sustained funding to deliver media literacy education outside schools. This should include the Electoral Commission delivering evidence-based public information campaigns on issues such as misinformation.

4. Parliament must require social media companies to support users’ media literacy on platforms, including labelling AI-generated content, design features that support critical evaluation (e.g. read-before-you-share prompts and source information labels), and user controls for recommender systems.

Rachel Huggins, CEO of Internet Matters, said:

Young people are growing up in a digital world where much of their political information comes from online platforms, where it can be difficult to judge what is a fact and, with the rise of AI-generated content, even what is real.#

Lowering the voting age will only succeed if young people – and the parents and carers supporting them – are given the tools to navigate and engage successfully within that world, rather than attempting to shut them out of it.

Mark Frankel, Head of Public Affairs at Full Fact, said:

By the age of 13, many young people are engaging with political information. Rather than banning them from social media, we need to teach children the skills to navigate and assess these sources of political information.

MPs debating the Elections Bill need to send a clear message that future elections will be protected from disinformation and AI, to keep young people engaged with politics.

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Emily Darlington MP, Member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said:

We have seen from the Committee’s inquiry into the 2024 summer riots just how damaging misinformation can be for our democracy. This research shows that a majority of kids agree, and that they’re worried about how safe our democracy is in this new age of AI and mis/disinformation.

If the next generation of voters doesn’t have confidence in our democracy, we have a responsibility to act before it’s too late. Online platforms must be participants in the fight to protect trust in our democratic processes, rather than undermine it.

Kirsty Blackman MP, Co-Chair of the APPG on Political and Media Literacy, said:

These findings underline what members of the APPG have long argued: extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds must come with a whole-of-society commitment to equipping young people to navigate the digital information environment they already inhabit.

When 6 in 10 young people are concerned about the potential for misinformation and AI-generated content affecting elections, protecting our democracy means embedding political and media literacy education in the National Curriculum, supporting teachers to deliver it, and holding tech platforms to account through media literacy by design.

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Stella, a student aged 14, told Internet Matters:

I think it’s important for children and young people to be taught how to navigate the information they see online from a young age, so they can feel confident forming their own views about politics and voting. The earlier this support starts, the better prepared young people will be to take part.

Featured image via the Canary

Jewish activists from Jewish Anti-Zionist Action, and other grassroots groups within the Jewish Bloc for Palestine have protested and interrupted the launch event of the “Reform Jewish Alliance”.

As Reform UK leader Nigel Farage took the stage to address the launch event’s attendees at London’s Central Synagogue, a group of protesters in the audience disrupted his speech. They loudly accused him and members the Reform party of “inciting attacks” on refugees and minority groups. And they claimed that Farage’s party “would have deported” the protesters’ ancestors when they arrived in Britain as Jewish refugees in the first half of the 20th century.

Jewish protesters criticise synagogue for hosting Reform

Protesters also gathered outside the Central Synagogue to picket the launch event and protest against the use of Jewish religious spaces to host such events. They accused the venue of providing a platform for racism, xenophobia and antisemitism. And protesters held signs highlighting a series of high-profile controversial quotes by Reform UK-affiliated politicians. Several referenced antisemitic remarks which Nigel Farage allegedly made during his time at Dulwich College.

Max Hammer, a spokesperson for the Jewish Bloc for Palestine, said:

It’s not surprising to see disgraced right-wing provocateurs and former spokespeople for Israel’s genocidal government make overtures to Farage’s Reform.

But we’re dismayed and disgusted to see the Central Synagogue play along. How can a synagogue provide a platform to a man who allegedly spent his school days saying that Hitler was right?

We cannot stay silent when known antisemites use our sacred spaces to try and launder their reputation. Farage and his ilk are dangerous to Jews, dangerous to Muslims, and dangerous to all minority groups in the UK. No one in our community should let him forget that.

A coalition of progressive Jewish groups had previously decried the launch of Reform Jewish Alliance. Reporting suggests the group will aim to provide members with a programme of regular events featuring senior politicians from the far-right party and figures in the Jewish community.

The Jewish Bloc for Palestine previously released a statement denouncing the Synagogue’s plans to host the Reform Jewish Alliance launch. They called it a “desecration of [the synagogue’s] purpose” and encouraged Jewish community leaders to condemn the event.

The Reform Jewish Alliance was reportedly initiated by noted right-wing Jewish activist Gary Mond. And its leader will be Jason Pearlman, a former advisor to Israeli president Isaac Herzog.

Amid the high-profile accusations of antisemitism against Farage, the controversy surrounding its launch symbolises the growing political polarisation within the UK Jewish community. Recent polling by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research indicates that support for Reform UK has risen sharply among Jews in the past year. Although at 11%, it remains substantially below the levels of support in the overall British population.

Featured image via Talia Woodin / Jewish Anti-Zionist Action

Infamous outsourcing company Maximus is telling employers their staff living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) need to exercise more to “boost energy” and “get more done”.

Amid a shocking and, likely, wilful misrepresentation of the devastating chronic systemic neuroimmune disease, the notorious privatisation giant is promoting dangerous treatment “strategies”, namely, Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), that a leading UK health body roundly discredited in 2021.

Maximus peddling ME advice to employers

Maximus, with its decades of hoovering up government contracts to profit from making chronically ill and disabled people’s lives hell, appears to have appointed itself the oracle of:

Creating inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities.

Setting aside the first red flag that it’s clearly not operating from the Social Model of Disability and using community-preferred ‘disabled people’, its history of benefit deaths and harm hardly screams authority on inclusivity. Nevertheless, the ‘Kill Yourself’ scandal benefit assessor has a whole host of advice for employers with disabled staff — because of course it does.

Specifically, it’s providing this in the form of free ‘toolkits’ on particular health conditions and disabilities.

One of these offers information to employers on ME. The first issue to note here is that, instead of ME, it heads its webpage:

Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and multiple sclerosis toolkit

So to start with, Maximus is ignoring the community-preferred term. Not only that, but it’s also conflating ‘chronic fatigue’; the symptom, with ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’; the condition.

And naturally, with that strong start, it’s all only further downhill from there.

Exercise yourself better

A sparsely-informative three-page spread tells employers that ME is a:

long-term chronic fluctuating illness affects many parts of the body, including the nervous and immune systems.

It then states that:

The most common symptoms are severe fatigue or exhaustion, problems with memory, concentration and muscle pain.

Predictably, the toolkit fails to even mention the hallmark of ME — post-exertional malaise (ME). This involves a disproportionate worsening of other symptoms after even minimal physical, social, mental, or emotional exertion. And it’s the key reason that Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) is dangerous for people living with ME.

So with this omission, it opens the door to the guide promoting GET and GET-type rebrands (‘activity management’). This is despite the fact that in 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) removed GET as a treatment recommendation in the treatment of ME.

There’s a brief mention of pacing. However, any good work it does highlighting this, it quickly undoes with talk of increasing activity.

A separate page on its website gives further alarming advice to employers around staff with ME. In an A-Z of Disabilities, Maximus tells employers to give “onsite exercise classes” and “discounts on gym memberships”.

This is because, according to the self-appointed ME expert (emphasis ours):

Symptoms may be worsened by over-exercising or too much inactivity

Think yourself better

Of course, no gaslighting guide to cover for employers unprepared to make genuine accommodations for people with ME would be complete without an undercurrent of psychologisation.

Maximus was only too happy to hawk this psychosomatic intimation. In the toolkit, it lists CBT amid its “treatment strategies”. NICE downgraded this ‘think yourself better’ garbage for people living with ME in 2021 as well. For years, psychologising clinicians have used it as a stick to beat ME patients with. The unsubtle implication is always that it’s all in their heads.

The A-Z is no less minimising. It tells employers to “reduce stress by promoting mindfulness” and signposts to Maximus’s own Access to Work Mental Health Support Service.

Parts of the guidance point to “large or unhealthy meals” and “lack of relaxation” as exacerbating symptoms. People with ME will likely have specific dietary requirements due to symptoms and co-occurring conditions. However, the suggestion that it’s their unhealthy lifestyle that’s making their ME worse is insulting. The aim — and effect — is to shift responsibility away from employers and the medical profession who are failing ME patients everywhere.

A brand new toolkit — entirely out-of-date

If all this weren’t bad enough, another toolkit gives practically the same advice to employers over long Covid.

Maximus might be forgiven (though still wrong) for hosting an error-riddled toolkit like this in 2021. But over four years after NICE published its updated guidelines, it’s indefensible that the outsourcing giant is STILL peddling these harmful stereotypes and treatments for people living with ME.

According to source page information, the A-Z webpage is from 29 September 2022. In other words, it published this nearly a year after the NICE guideline changes. And Maximus even updated this again in January 2025.

To make matters worse, in the toolkit’s case, source information dates the toolkit to 2 December 2025. Maximus seems to have even modified the page in early January 2026. So, this is essentially brand new guidance it’s promoting to employers.

Not the first time Maximus has done this

This isn’t the first time Maximus has produced flawed information around ME either. The Canary previously exposed how alongside other outsourcing giants like Serco and Capita, it compiled problematic ME training materials for staff administering Work Capability Assessments (WCA).

It’s another glaring example of why profit-driven private companies should be nowhere near services supporting chronically ill and disabled people inside or outside of work. In this instance, the information is out-of-date and actively dangerous.

What’s patently clear is that it should not be posing as any sort of expert in ME or long Covid. But Maximus’s fallacious advice is very convenient for corporate capitalists and a government hell-bent on coercing chronically ill and disabled people into low-waged, inaccessible, and inappropriate work.

And at the end of the day, misinformation and manipulations like this are nothing you wouldn’t expect from a money-grubbing megacorporation like Maximus.

Featured image provided via the author

US plans to fund MAGA-aligned think tanks in Europe could reshape debates over Britain’s Online Safety Act and global platform regulation.

A new transatlantic political debate is emerging around Britain’s Online Safety Act. The issue is now being shaped not only in Westminster but also in Washington.

Reporting by the Financial Times says the US State Department plans to fund MAGA-aligned think tanks and charities across Europe. The programme links to the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence. Officials say it will promote what they describe as “American values,” including free speech.

A “freedom of speech tour” for MAGA

According to the report, US Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers travelled to London, Paris, Rome, and Milan last year. Officials described the trip as a “freedom of speech tour.” During the visit, she met right-wing think tanks and political figures and discussed how grant funding could support their activities.

The MAGA-linked programme is expected to focus in part on opposing online-regulation laws such as the UK’s Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Services Act. US officials argue these rules threaten American technology companies and free expression online.

Across Europe, governments are tightening rules aimed at protecting children and reducing harmful online content. Countries such as Australia have also introduced tougher limits on children’s access to social media. This shows how global regulation in this area is moving in a stricter direction.

At the same time, Washington has increased criticism of these measures, arguing that they unfairly target US-based platforms.

State Department response

In response to questions from the Canary, a State Department spokesperson said the MAGA think tank funding represents “a transparent, lawful use of resources to advance U.S. interests and values abroad.” The spokesperson added that officials were “not shy” about supporting American aims overseas. They rejected claims the programme was a “slush fund,” stating that every grant would be publicly disclosed and accountable.

Campaigners and digital-policy researchers take a different view. Dr. Elinor Carmi of City St George’s, University of London, told the Canary:

Just like any democratic society, freedom must be regulated so people are not harmed.” She added that the same principle should apply to digital platforms, where regulators have taken years to address harms affecting children and other vulnerable users.

The issue is especially sensitive in Britain, where the Online Safety Act has already generated intense political debate between those calling for stronger protections and those warning about the risks of expanding state oversight of online speech.

A growing influence debate

For the UK, the question is no longer only how the Online Safety Act will be enforced. It is also whether state-funded international MAGA-linked networks will begin to play a more visible role in shaping domestic regulatory debates. As these efforts expand, some observers ask a broader question: are we seeing routine diplomatic advocacy, or the gradual normalisation of what critics once described as dark-money politics, now operating more openly through state-backed influence campaigns?

Featured image via the Canary

Marina Purkiss has renewed scrutiny of Reform leader Nigel Farage, arguing that his conduct does not match his divisive public rhetoric.

Farage…

Rails against WFH while employing his wife to WFH

Rails against the EU while taking the EU pension

Rails against “elites” while being bankrolled by them and happily hobnobbing with them

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Rails against people speaking other languages while his own kids speak German.… pic.twitter.com/npFfX6Q3uk

— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) February 10, 2026

Farage: ‘rules for thee, but not for me’

The post in full reads:

Farage…

Rails against WFH while employing his wife to WFH

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Rails against the EU while taking the EU pension

Rails against “elites” while being bankrolled by them and happily hobnobbing with them

Rails against people speaking other languages while his own kids speak German.

Do you spot the pattern?

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Rules for thee, but not for me.

Purkiss’ rebuttal to Farage comes following his calls for an end to working from home and the ‘focus’ on employees having a work-life balance. Farage instead stated that it was a ‘nonsense’ that people are more productive working from home, suggesting that being with ‘fellow human beings’ would be best.

Yesterday, our own HG hit back at the attack and argued it would have serious negative consequences in practice, saying:

A Reform government would push even more disabled and chronically ill people into work.

Importantly, working from home allows some disabled people to hold down a job. Farage’s attempts to end work-from-home whilst also claiming to want more disabled people to have jobs are contradictory and bullshit. If he actually cared about disabled people, he would be encouraging work-from-home, or work from wherever the hell you want to, as long as the work gets done.

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Farage is a hypocrite. And basically, you can’t work from home unless it serves him and his pumped-up little agenda.

Given the above, we can’t help but think Farage is thinking more of ensuring bosses can oversee their inferior staff members, putting them ‘back in their place’, than anything to do with the wellbeing of workers.

We even wrote at the end of 2025 a roundup of the hypocrisy running rife in Reform, with our own Willem Moore reporting on one of their lies used to gain votes:

As we reported in October, Kent County Council was also eyeing up a 5% Council Tax rise. You’ll be glad to know that they did not proceed with this ridiculous 5% figure. They did, however, raise Council Tax by 4.989%.

So really, when you think about it, that’s a saving of 0.11 percentage points for the people of Kent who were worried about the 5% rise.

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Purkiss’ timely reminder of Farage’s well-documented hypocrisy has been well-received on X, with one account reminding us:

Reform is a scam https://t.co/Is6XApc1Cr

— Trevor McArdle (@McardleTrevor) February 11, 2026

This account points out yet again the double standard for people who work for Farage and co:

On the side of the bosses, not the workers

Once again, Reform and its privileged MP’s prove that they will never be on the side of ordinary people. Instead, they will always be on the side of the already-rich and powerful, or those who work directly for them.

After all, working from home is good for Farage’s wife, but not for ordinary people living ever more strenuous lives.

Featured image via the Canary

Lakenheath Alliance for Peace has updated us with details of more flights from supposed RAF bases in the UK.

On 9 February six F-35As, from 134th Fighter Wing based in Vermont in the USA, landed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. They were escorted by three KC-135R air-departed to-air refuelling planes that landed at ‘RAF’ Mildenhall.

This is on top of 12 F-15Es, from the 494 Fighter Squadron based at Lakenheath, which departed for the Middle East / West Asia in January. Earlier in that month 12 F-15Es from Seymour Johnson air base in the US passed through Lakenheath on their way from the US to West Asia.

As well as fighter jets at least 14 C-17 transport planes left RAF Lakenheath for West Asia.

RAF also on the move

The UK has also been bolstering its presence in the region. On 6 February six F-35Bs from RAF Marham in Norfolk left for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. They’ll join the Typhoons already in Cyprus carrying out missions over Iraq and Syria. Typhoons from 12 Squadron also deployed to Qatar in January.

Several states including Saudi Arabia, UAE and even Israel have expressed concerns about the possible attack on Iran. And they’ve denied over-flight for forces taking part in any potential attack on Iran.

Anti-war campaigners have raised concerns that the UK is falling into another military conflict and increasing military tensions. They are holding a demonstration at RAF Marham on 28 February. And there’s an International Peace Camp at RAF Lakenheath from 1-6 April.

Peter Lux from Lakenheath Alliance for Peace said:

Although we are obviously against military conflict this is an issue that should concern everyone. No matter how noble you think your cause is, no matter how right you feel you are, once you drop the first bomb and unleash the horrors of war you do not know what the consequences will be.

Yet again, after the debacle of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria which cost hundreds of UK lives and hundreds of thousands of others we are blindly walking into another conflict with little discussion or even awareness of what is being prepared.

If it all goes wrong – for example Israel suffers huge losses – it must be remembered that they have nuclear weapons which would unleash untold horrors.

Featured image via YouTube / Military Aviation Channel

800 arms firms have sent an open letter to chancellor Rachel Reeves demanding she open a special ‘war’ bank just for them. These massive scroungers want guaranteed flows of state cash so they can line their pockets from global instability. Reeves doesn’t appear to have answered them yet. But Keir Starmer has pledged to build the UK economy around war — despite evidence suggesting defence spending does little for growth.

Politico reported:

More than 800 British defense companies have urged Chancellor Rachel Reeves to launch a global rearmament bank to guarantee lending to the sector as the U.K. government attempts to ramp up military spending

The letter was coordinated by Make UK Defence, a trade body for arms firms. They want the UK signed up to a Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB). A former senior NATO official is leading the charge:

The DSRB was conceived by former head of NATO innovation, Rob Murray, with the aim of creating a multilateral AAA-rated bank providing loans to allied governments, potentially allowing the U.K. to borrow directly from the institution at a lower cost.

The British government ruled out such a measure in September 2025. But now they are under pressure from the arms firms looking to guarantee a few more third homes and yachts for shareholders.

Accelerate defence spending

Make UK Defence chief Andrew Kinniburgh wrote in the letter seen by Politico:

It is therefore essential that defence spending is accelerated in a way that translates into real industrial capacity and military capability. The DSRB could be a significant pillar in achieving this, alongside our NATO and non-NATO allies.

Politico explained that arms firms are sad they don’t have all of the money:

A multinational rearmament bank would also provide credit guarantees to commercial banks, allowing them to lend at a greater scale to defense businesses, which report struggles in accessing finance, particularly among small and medium-sized firms.

Please, won’t somebody think of the arms firms?

On a side-note, if you look at Make UK Defence’s website you’ll find its backers include everything from establishment think-tanks like the Royal United Service Institute (RUSI) to arms firms like Lockheed, Boeing and Anduril. You’ll also see various military charities like the RAF Benevolent Fund and SSAFA.

Perverse. But at least they’re committed to Net Zero. Great work, team. All is forgiven…

A spokesperson for the UK treasury said:

We are committed to deepening cooperation with our allies to deter and disrupt threats — including strengthening the UK’s unshakeable commitment to NATO.

But Labour’s economic plans have holes in them so big you could drive an aircraft carrier through them.

Military Keynesianism

The Labour government has decided to build an economy around Military Keynesianism. Their logic is off. Economist Michael Burke has said:

There is an entire body of thought devoted to the idea of promoting military spending as an economic benefit dubbed by its supporters as ‘military Keynesianism’.

John Maynard Keynes was a socialist-ish economist whose work on government spending informed many positive state programs in the 20th century.  But what Starmer has proposed is a “vulgarisation of Keynes’ work”:

supporters suggest any type of government spending is beneficial to the economy, and given that military spending enhances the power and prestige of the country, then military spending should be prioritised.

It’s easy to get bogged down in complex economics here. But here is Burke’s key point:

military spending has one of the lowest ‘employment multipliers’ of all economic categories.

He added:

It ranks 70^th in terms of the employment it generates, out of 100.

So what sort of economic activity actually is good? Well:

Health is rated number 1.  Everything from agriculture to energy to food manufacture, chemicals, iron and steel, to computers, construction, and a host of others in between all have greater ‘employment multipliers’ than military spending.

Labour obsession with handing out free money to arms firms seems more ideological than useful. That said, they have stated they aren’t going to start up a war bank. But Starmer’s government is weak and getting weaker. They’re still inured to NATO, the US and the demands of global capital. Time will tell if they hold out in the face of pressure from Big Death.

Featured image via the Canary