High Court, 1998: Naz Shah and her sister Fozia protest against their mother’s conviction for murder | Image by: : PA Images / Alamy

3 min read1 hr

A fearless memoir of survival, Honoured is both painful and inspiring. Naz Shah recounts her life with unflinching honesty, a witness to her father’s violence towards her mother, enduring his abandonment, and being taken out of school aged 12 and sent to Pakistan. She shares her experiences of living in Pakistan, including only being allowed to return after being forced into marriage at 15.

Back in the UK, as education was no longer an option, she ends up working in a factory packing nappies. Just as adulthood seemed to offer some relief, she experienced more trauma. Her mother Zoora was arrested for killing the man Naz had believed to be a trusted uncle. Convicted and sentenced to 20 years, Zoora’s imprisonment shocked Naz. She had been unaware that he had been physically and sexually abusing her mother for many years. Naz writes with raw honesty about how, as a child, she had even questioned her mother’s character, not realising that Zoora had endured so much to protect her children, even sending Naz to Pakistan to protect her from being exploited too.

Through these memories, the weight of abuse and societal shame becomes clear. Her mother carried the blame, while those responsible were often protected by silence. Shah explores how honour, or izzat, shaped their lives: how shame silenced her mother, how single mothers were judged unfairly, and how coercive control – unrecognised at the time – governed women’s lives.

Honoured is not just a story of trauma  but a story of resilience, faith, activism, and triumph

She also reflects on her own lack of agency in her first marriage: “When I first went to Pakistan, there was a list of things I couldn’t do because I didn’t have a father. I was returning to the UK with the same lack of control, only now I belonged to a man who had power of veto over my life. My existence was once again defined by a man.”

Forced to grow up quickly, Naz recounts shouldering parental responsibility for her younger siblings while navigating a marriage she never wanted. She confronts her darkest moments with unflinching honesty, including her suicide attempts. Amid this turmoil, she campaigned relentlessly to reduce her mother’s prison sentence – a campaign she ultimately won. Early in her efforts, she sought support from then long-serving Labour MP Marsha Singh, never imagining that one day she would rise from hardship to occupy his seat as the MP for Bradford West.

Honoured is not just a story of trauma  but a story of resilience, faith, activism, and triumph. Naz’s Islamic faith provided a quiet anchor through her hardships, and her grit propelled her to a remarkable political victory, defeating George Galloway in the 2015 general election despite his aggressive campaigning. The book begins on the eve of that election, marking the start of a new chapter in her life.

Naz’s experiences continue to fuel her politics. The same fire that helped her survive childhood drives her advocacy for vulnerable women, children, and families, especially those who, like her, feel abandoned or unheard. She confronts uncomfortable truths about abuse, honour culture, and the justice system, challenging readers to face these realities. Ultimately, Honoured is a story of transformation – showing how one life, forged in hardship, can ignite change for countless others.

Baroness Gohir is a Crossbench peer

Honoured: Survival, Strength and My Path to Politics

By: Naz Shah

Publisher: W&N

In an interview with Green Party leader Zack Polanski, BBC presenter Nick Robinson insisted on amplifying the voice of genocidaires and genocide-deniers. He even claimed it’s the BBC‘s job to do so.

With the overwhelming weight of expert opinion calling Israel’s mass murder in Gaza genocide, however, people expressed serious concern about the BBC still clinging to its longstanding efforts to downplay the genocide.

BBC wants to be “fair” to the people committing genocide

In the interview, Robinson interrupted Polanski to say:

I don’t want to have a debate about the word, but I do want it noted that no court has said it’s genocide and Israel completely rejects the idea it’s genocide.

Criticising the BBC‘s pro-Israel bias in 2025, actor Liam Cunningham asked:

Are we saying, due to impartiality, that if this was 1944 or 1945 when we discovered the horrors of Auschwitz, would we be contacting Heinrich Himmler for his take on the genocide? Because that’s what’s going on now.

Fast-forwarding to 2026, Robinson did just that. Because after emphasising the genocidaires’ denial, he insisted:

it’s only fair to point that out.

And when Polanski challenged him on X after the interview, Robinson doubled down:

Simple answer Zack. Our job is to report. We interview you & those you quote who use the word genocide. We do the same for those who disagree. We also report that no international court has yet made a judgment. Nor has the UN. That’s not me or the BBC taking sides or downplaying…

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) March 22, 2026

Hi @bbcnickrobinson, you said “Nor has the UN made a judgment” but on the 16th of September 2025 the UN made a judgment (see below). I trust you’ll have the integrity to acknowledge your honest oversight to @ZackPolanski & BBC licence fee payers.

Source: https://t.co/yBkL6cU3VZ https://t.co/3aldaJ8H1x pic.twitter.com/uzcvSYGgK0

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— Ben Goren (@BanGaoRen) March 23, 2026

As the Canary has documented in depth, UN legal expert Francesca Albanese absolutely has called Israel’s actions genocide, as has the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Countless genocide scholars, legal professionals, human rights groups, and humanitarian organisations have joined them. Even prominent Israeli genocide scholars have reached the conclusion that Israel has committed genocide. And a Dutch media report summarised that “leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous”.

This overwhelming consensus is why so many people are sick of BBC figures trying to explain away their shocking ‘both sides‘ approach to genocide:

When the overwhelming body of experts describe it as genocide, and you still disagree, this is making a judgement. The BBC would not deny climate change. Nearly every major human rights and academic experts on genocide have determined Israel has carried out genocide.

— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) March 22, 2026

You’re wrong on the UN. The UN Commission concluded in their report in September 2025 that Israel has committed genocide. You should not only know this, you should state this every time the issue arises.

https://t.co/iUD5AUgWlG

— Omar Baggili 💙 (@OmarBaggili) March 23, 2026

Balance, Nick. Please.
We’ve have been here before on climate change denial. pic.twitter.com/4ChWfVTFuP

— Mick ☕️🍉 (@MickCoffey2) March 23, 2026

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Giving genocidal allies an equal say is complicity

Genocide expert Martin Shaw has previously called media outlets avoiding the word genocide “tame“. And he highlighted that the BBC has hardly been rushing to amplify his voice, saying:

But Nick you don’t “interview those who use the word genocide”. I’m one of the most prominent British genocide scholars and I called Israel’s genocide in October 2023. I’ve had a lot of international media attention but my BBC total in 30 months is one interview on Radio Ulster.

He also suggested that the BBC probably wouldn’t jump to highlight the voices of genocidaires in other cases:

This. Even in his interview with @ZackPolanski, @bbcnickrobinson had to say ‘but Israel says’.

I don’t think he would have said ‘but the Myanmar government says’ if Zack had referred to the genocide of the Rohingya. https://t.co/isUZQCdcb0

— Martin Shaw (@martinshawx) March 23, 2026

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A terrible betrayal of journalistic standards & duty of BBC @bbcnickrobinson

Genocide Convention 1948 is designed to stop genocides. Not for the world to wait for a final court judgement

The evidence of a genocide in Gaza is conclusive

BBC is protecting Israel, the… https://t.co/tRRP0mQGSm

— Tom London (@TomLondon6) March 22, 2026

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And as experts have highlighted, genocidal campaigns would struggle to get off the ground without favourable media coverage:

From the Gaza Tribunal, which of course the BBC completely ignored.

Genocide denial is ALWAYS a part of genocide. https://t.co/ifRPWmxYpZ pic.twitter.com/kFGfJkHUnP

— Wokerati Marty (@WokeratiMarty) March 23, 2026

Polanski: “it feels like it’s getting a lot worse”

Polanski, meanwhile, shared a speech that he thinks is appropriate to consider:

whenever a BBC journalist denies the evidence in front of our very eyes in the name of “balance.”

The speaker was former BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, who spoke about the famous ‘boiling frog’ scenario, where a frog will jump out of already boiling water but stay in water that gradually boils around it. She said:

we have to stop normalizing the absurd.

And in a critique of the kinds of attitude that lead the BBC to both-sides genocide, she explained that:

we don’t have to be campaigners, but nor should we be complacent, complicit onlookers. Our job is to make sense of what we’re seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, that frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then, we’re so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.

The BBC has a history too. In the past, for example, the broadcaster’s director of news and current affairs had to admit that its climate-change coverage was “wrong too often”, insisting that:

You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.

The speech from Maitlis, Polanski said, “should have been a turning point”. Instead, he stressed:

it feels like it’s getting a lot worse

And it really is hard to get much worse than constantly straining to emphasise the denial of genocidaires when experts overwhelmingly conclude they’ve been committing genocide. We know the BBC is state propaganda. But this is just nauseating.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/BBC Politics

Why might that be?

What are some examples of animal and vegetable fats?

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com

Ask an SNP voter to name the Scottish government’s greatest achievements since it came to power in 2007 and you are all but guaranteed to hear the following: free university tuition, free prescriptions, free school meals, baby boxes, and free bus travel for young people. Nicola Sturgeon’s handling of the covid pandemic might also get a mention.

The trouble with these feats of civic nationalism, towering though they may be, is that they date, respectively, from 2008, 2011, 2015, 2017 and 2020. In other words, none of this passes what political scientists call (or ought to call) the Janet Jackson test: What have you done for me lately?

In my latest round of Scottish research, even some previously loyal SNP voters were starting to wonder if their party’s record over 19 years – let alone the last five – wasn’t beginning to look a bit thin. Only around half of them say it has done a good job on health, schools or the economy, or on keeping its promises. Some even dared commit the heresy of asking whether the money spent on universal free benefits might have been better directed towards those actually in need.

Among voters as a whole, the proportion saying the SNP has done well on these measures barely exceeds three in ten. Things like the ferry fiasco, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital scandal and the police investigations into the party’s finances have done nothing for its reputation for competence or for honesty and integrity – the single measure on which it scored lowest in my survey. Energy and momentum have drained away since the intoxicating days of the referendum campaign and the subsequent election surge. Voters described John Swinney as an “interim manager” and a “wet weekend”; nobody expects him to come up with anything that could honestly be called a new idea.

So why, in common with other pollsters, do I find the SNP once again entering the election campaign in pole position?

One reason is that – not for the first time – they have been given a considerable helping hand by their opponents. I barely found even a Labour voter in Scotland who had a good word to stay about Keir Starmer’s record since 2024. Few thought his party had brought any change for the better, and Scots were more than twice as likely to say the SNP were doing a good job in Holyrood as to say the same of Labour in Westminster. Though they were much more likely than not to think Anas Sarwar had been right to call for Starmer’s resignation, most also saw it as a somewhat desperate tactical move to try and distance Scottish Labour from the London party.

Another reason for wavering SNP voters to fall into line is the rise of Reform UK, vying to become the second largest party in Holyrood after May. This phenomenon has not come out of nowhere. The effects of small-boat migration are increasingly making themselves felt in Scotland, and the records of the Conservatives and Labour in London and the SNP in Edinburgh have condensed into what one chap articulated as “a strong need to give someone a sore face”. While former Tory voters are the biggest source of Reform support, they are not the only one: I found more than one in ten 2021 Labour list voters leaning in Reform’s direction, not to mention one in sixteen of those who backed the SNP.

Even so, this gives the SNP a new purpose: that of a bulwark against the “far right” and, of course, the threat of England’s nasty political culture taking hold north of the border. (I would expect to see that message on a leaflet or two in the next few weeks).

Being the antidote to England, whether in the form of Starmer’s hopelessness or Farage’s right-wingery, is the SNP’s sweet spot. “Standing up for Scotland” was the only area in which I found most Scots – and three quarters of SNP voters – saying the Holyrood government had done a good job.

This can only be pushed so far, however. Only a quarter of Scots backed the idea that a pro-independence majority would constitute a mandate for another referendum. Indeed, only just over half of likely SNP voters agreed with the proposition. Those leaning towards the Greens – whose profile and credibility had received a boost from their success in the Gorton and Denton by-election – were divided but on balance agreed that we can’t assume someone supports independence just because they vote for a particular party. In fact, only a quarter of likely SNP voters put independence in the top three most important issues facing Scotland; for those leaning Green, the issue ranked equal eighth.

Just as the failings of the established parties – including the SNP – have opened the door to Reform, so Nigel Farage will concentrate nationalist minds. In other words, in this election, Reform and the SNP need each other. Who knows what the campaign will bring. But if, when the votes are counted, Farage and Swinney are the two big winners, both will regard that as a pretty good night’s work.

4 min read8 min

Our nation is facing serious challenges: war in Europe, chaos in the Middle East, and a cost-of-living crisis that is hitting households and businesses hard.

Tough choices had to be made. Fiscal discipline and defence of Britain’s interests must be the order of the day.

This does not mean that the profound challenges faced by other countries around the globe no longer exist, particularly for those facing the impacts of extreme weather events. The government is therefore right to try to create a smarter, more streamlined aid budget, but it must leverage more private investment to make up the shortfall.

Last year at COP30 in Brazil, I heard firsthand about the damage wildfires are causing to both the Amazon rainforest and farmers’ livelihoods. But wildfires, floods, and droughts happening in faraway lands are not without consequences for the UK.

Although I would much rather British farmers feed our nation, we still import up to 48 per cent of our food, including products even the best British farmers would struggle to produce at scale, such as bananas, coffee, and cocoa. Britain still imports over 110,000 tonnes of tea annually, mainly from Kenya (36 per cent), which is on the frontline of extreme weather events.

If these crops are damaged or destroyed abroad, food shortages and price increases in the UK are inevitable.

But extreme weather events won’t just drive up the price of tea. When crops fail, and whole regions become uninhabitable, migration levels will continue to increase as people look to escape the harsh consequences of food systems failing.

Britain has to come first. We need to fix our own economy, increase defence spending, and keep inflation under control.

But we should remember that putting Britain first also means a role, even if it is much smaller, for strategic climate finance.

This spending has too often been used to fulfil some misplaced sense of moral obligation that makes us feel better. Instead, it should be about making a tangible difference that boosts Britain’s own security by protecting food prices and reducing migratory pressures.

Fortunately, even with tighter fiscal restraints, we still have levers we can pull to help mitigate these disasters, particularly from private finance.

That is why the government’s decision to cut funding for British International Investment (BII) by 70 per cent is such a damaging blow to our interests overseas, as this finance institution is the best vehicle for the UK to leverage private investment.

BII should be a core part of what a smarter aid budget looks like. It currently manages a £1.5bn portfolio, investing in aid opportunities globally with a mandate to make a return on its investment.

Due to its rate of success — a 5.1 per cent return in 2024 — private investors can see first-hand the value of investing with BII. For every $100 of public money invested, private investors add an extra $71, making this one of the most efficient ways that the government can spend our aid budget. The returns are then reinvested, creating an even larger portfolio to support developing countries by investing in climate-resilient crops, nature-based defences for flooding, or heat-proofing technologies.

Instead of cutting funding for BII, ministers should have at least protected it. BII is an overlooked organisation that strategically invests taxpayers’ money, grows aid spending organically via the returns it makes, and encourages private investment to serve our interests without burdening taxpayers. It’s an efficient, common-sense approach to spending public money.

While reducing the aid budget is necessary, the £300m cut to BII is a huge mistake. If we want to continue tackling the impact that extreme-weather events overseas have on us here in Britain, we have to incentivise private investment, not just rely on public money, and BII does precisely this.

Now more than ever, we have to build a more efficient and affordable aid budget, living within our means and ensuring that it serves Britain’s interests first. BII and private investment should be the cornerstone of this approach. Before it is too late, the government must reconsider its funding priorities and once again back the BII.

Blake Stephenson is Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and a candidate for the Senedd in May.

A great deal has been written about Reform UK’s potential electoral performance in May’s devolved elections, but what do they actually stand for? There is much cause for concern.

Reform’s rise has come too quickly for its own good.

Polling suggests it will be the second largest party in both the Welsh and Scottish parliaments in two months’ time, and the most popular (and unpopular) party in the wider country. This has required a rapid and large scale-up not just in terms of its operations, but its philosophy. With so many new people and a general anti-establishment message, the party is courting a range of views from a variety of political hinterlands. This leads to intellectual inconsistency and a vibes-over-policy mindset.

This is quite handy for campaigning, being all things to all people, but it sows the seeds for an early demise as voters are led to believe they are for one thing when they are not. Once unravelled, it would be a particularly devastating charge for Reform who explicitly position themselves as more trustworthy than the traditional parties who they (not unfairly) claim have a poor record of keeping promises and delivering results.

The tightrope has been walked over the last two years as its more libertarian, tax-cutting desires clash with its more interventionist, statist approach. Only one can win and voters deserve to know which. Such an obvious misstep was its fluid position on the two-child benefit cap which, at the last vote, led to its MPs voting in different directions. A party confident in its guiding values would not have made a mistake like this.

Indeed, what does it tell us about their values? It has been suggested to me more than once that I defect to Reform – but what would I be joining? I know both the triumphs and shortcomings of the Conservative Party. It is imperfect, but I know where I stand. Can the Reform member say the same without reverting to the general lines of the anti-establishment protest voter?

What concerns me, in particular in these elections, is how Reform’s self-defining image as a party that is against so much and for so little will impact on the most important faultline of all.

In January, a piece in The Times highlighted Reform’s ambivalence towards the Union under its new Scottish leader, Lord Offord. One might think a party often caricatured as an English nationalist one and led by an ex-Tory would not be flirting with Scottish independence. Yet, Offord claimed, “rational nationalists” could find common ground with “moderate unionists,” and they could “deal with the constitution later”. He was not “ruling [a referendum] out in the future” when a decision on independence could be based on “strength, not just emotion”.

Those of us who place the preservation of the United Kingdom and recognise the dangers of enabling separatist rhetoric know that there is no such thing as a “rational nationalist” and understand that all their actions are designed to lead to an end goal. Reform may want to win pro-independence voters, but it should be through persuasion of the merits of their agenda (for what it is), not by humouring that of the separatist. It should oppose another referendum.

Something similar is happening in Wales too. The Welsh Conservatives produced a great montage of Reform figures, including Nigel Farage and his new Welsh frontman, saying they want more devolution and more powers in Cardiff Bay. Have they not learnt the lesson of the British Conservative Government who did that and the Welsh Labour Government who abused those powers, all in turn servicing Plaid Cymru’s nationalist agenda time and time again? They claim to hate the world Blair made, yet here they are building on his legacy, not demolishing it.

Reform supports the expansion of the Senedd from 60 to 96 members at a cost of £120m. On both enlarging and empowering the Senedd, Reform is on the same page as Labour, Plaid, the Lib Dems, and the Greens. Only the Welsh Conservatives have opposed this expansion from the start and want to reverse it. As a candidate, I have spoken with many people who are considering Reform believing they are anti-establishment. Once they are made aware of this enabling agenda, they reconsider and will look at the Conservatives again.

Reform councillors are not even living up to some of the party’s supposedly reliable positions, with their sole Cardiff councillor failing to back my motion to close the illegal migrant hotel in the city. If Reform councillors cannot back even this, then what can we expect of them?

It is this ongoing inability to pick a lane – as well as the feuds with Farage – that inspired the founding of Advance UK and Restore. It is noticeable that the Lowe outfit is established on the basis that Reform is too mainstream. Whilst this has mainly centred on immigration, given its closeness to establishment policy in Wales and Scotland, it does give credence to an emerging pattern – that Reform is not a radical break from the norm. It is just another flawed political party destined to repeat the mistakes all others make. Its new branding, but politics as usual.

However, Reform’s youth coupled with its sudden popularity is a recipe for these mistakes to become catastrophes. With less than two months until the Senedd election, Reform has announced no candidates. It is not just to avoid scrutiny – it has a serious problem in finding quality people to stand. My fear is a large group of Reform MSs will be elected but will fall under the spell of the devocratic establishment and go native, which correlates with its devocratic calls for more powers and politicians in Cardiff Bay. We need serious anti-establishment politicians to challenge the devolved system of government that has failed Wales for three decades, not easily bored rabble-rousers who don’t recognise the dangerous of separatism.

I assert that Reform is actually to the political left of the Conservatives. Faragists may talk in more forceful terms, but Kemi Badenoch’s policy programme does outflank Farage from the right. The Conservatives are notching up a lot of wins and doing much of the legwork of the Opposition but, frustratingly, the scars of government run deep, and other are the beneficiaries.

Convincing evidence of this is the volume of Conservative defectors, another source of anger for those who choose Restore but also those within Reform. Its Scottish and Welsh leader as well as all its MSPs and MSs are ex-Tories. Most Reform MPs used to be Conservative MPs. Whilst I consider Robert Jenrick and Danny Kruger to be losses to our party (in terms of their ability, not loyalty), Reform have also done us a favour in taking off our hands the mediocre and the mad.

Reform just being an outfit for the dregs of the Conservatives was further compounded at the launch of its Welsh manifesto earlier this month – a blatant rip-off of the Welsh Conservative programme of the last decade. Seriously, there was little difference in its contents – other than Reform’s suggestion to put tolls on the M4 relief road. Not sure how much traffic that will relieve.

With less than seven weeks to go until polling day, much remains uncertain. What we do need to know is for what does Reform actually stand and can it be trusted to protect the Union?

Donald Trump has called off his strikes on Iran’s energy sites for the next five days.

The US president said the US and Iran have had “very good and productive conversations” regarding a “complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East”.

He added, “I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period”, depending on the success of ongoing discussions.

Trump had claimed only over the weekend that Iran had just 48 hours to open the major oil shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz, or the US would “obliterate” its power plants.

That escalation came hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people on Sunday.

His bizarre warning meant Iran had only until 11.44pm (GMT) tonight to respond.

Iran had threatened to “completely destroy” key military sites across the region in retaliation.

Here’s the president’s TruthSocial post in full:

I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates or follow HuffPost UK on X at @HuffPostUK or on Facebook.

8 min read30 min

Angela Hicks knows what people think about Weston-super-Mare – her parents once ran hotels in the seaside town near Bristol.

The businesswoman saw its postcard charm curdle into ugly deprivation, until by 2009 the town was home to around 11 per cent of the UK’s drug rehabilitation places.

But today, although still struggling to cling on to declining numbers of tourists, Hicks detects a small but growing renaissance as so-called ‘digital nomads’ start new ventures in the town.

The House recently visited The Hive, a business support centre on the edge of Weston that has become a focal point for the town’s small-business community. More than 25 entrepreneurs gathered there for a roundtable hosted by the Startup Coalition and the town’s Labour MP, Daniel Aldridge. Arriving at the centre’s car park, young founders stepping out of Range Rovers and Porsches seemed a far cry from the stereotypical image of Weston as a town of pensioners on mobility scooters.

It was the first roundtable of its kind in the constituency, with businesses including a technology company designing electronics and firmware, a cybersecurity and IT consultancy, a firm that designs and builds conversational AI systems and chatbots, and many more.

Hicks, who runs The Hive, says more startups are now betting on Weston as the place to set up. The centre brings together two not-for-profit organisations offering free, impartial business support and office space for micro-businesses, supporting tech startups alongside health, wellness and hospitality brands. Success stories include an R&D firm outfit now working with GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence.

“It’s a very different dynamic now,” Hicks says. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, a lot of people, because of house prices, have moved down here.”

She traces the rise in entrepreneurship to changes in working patterns since the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when large numbers of people realised their jobs could be done from anywhere with a laptop. Across the UK, coastal towns saw a surge in interest. By March 2021, Rightmove data showed Cornwall had overtaken London as the most searched-for area on its website, while fewer than half of London homebuyers were looking to stay put.

Weston is not alone in seeing its demographics and economy change rapidly. Along the southern coastline in Eastbourne, Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde argues that coastal stereotypes are being challenged. “People have associated seaside towns with being sleepy,” he says. “Those stereotypes are being busted by new energy and innovation.” He has backed co-working spaces and a digital festival he describes as the largest in the South East.

But evidence suggests this revival is uneven across the country. Research by Venture Forward in 2024, which analysed data from more than half a million online microbusinesses, found strong growth in southern coastal areas such as Suffolk, Bournemouth, East Devon, the Isle of Wight and St Austell and Newquay. However, northern coastal towns, including Blackpool South, Scarborough and Whitby, showed far slower growth.

Proximity to large, booming cities matters, with many successful southern coastal towns benefiting from gaining residents priced out of London or Bristol.

Back in Weston, roundtable attendees compare notes on why they chose the town. Mike Turner, 34, left school at 16 and set up an IT support business that later evolved into software development. He describes Weston as a “natural fit” for his company, thanks to lower housing costs, proximity to Bristol and an unexpected niche which he was able to tap into: addiction treatment software for the many rehabilitation centres that once clustered in the town.

Neil Criddle, 42, set up his financial and business consultancy after losing his job during the pandemic. “It makes sense to be based in Weston from an office perspective because it’s cheaper,” he says. “And the talent, in my opinion, is probably just as good.”

Hazel McPherson, founder of an information and cybersecurity consultancy, wanted to challenge the assumption that serious tech conversations must happen in major cities. “My business model is cybersecurity, and very often we have to go to places like Bristol or London,” she says. “But that is money and time which small business owners can’t really afford.”

Her response was to create CSIDES, the UK’s first cybersecurity event built by and for a coastal community. “Why don’t we do it in Weston? Why don’t we do it on the pier?” she recalls. “We wanted to prove that it was possible to do it in Weston or a coastal community and raise the profile of the town.”

One of the challenges we have is convincing them and getting them to recognise that they can spend their money in the town rather than just get back on the motorway and go up to Bristol

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More than 300 people attended the inaugural event last year. Still, McPherson worries that Weston risks becoming a dormitory town, where people live but spend their working lives and money elsewhere. “We’ve got an awful lot of housing springing up… as that grows, is that going to become just another suburb of Bristol?”

However, if there was one point of agreement among founders at the roundtable, it was that starting and running a business has become harder in recent years. Entrepreneurs cited rising National Insurance contributions, increases to the minimum wage and expanding digital tax reporting requirements, which have pushed up accountancy costs for sole traders and small firms.

Turner also sees the town’s social challenges through his work with a Somerset mental health charity. “Lots of the issues are around employment, and a lack of understanding of what to do about education,” he says.

Talent remains a concern. Despite diversification, Weston still struggles to retain enough young people with the skills new businesses need. Yet the benefits of a small coastal town are clear. “The best thing about being in Weston is probably that there is quite a nice little business community here,” Turner says. “We all work with each other.”

Labour MP Aldridge agrees that opportunities in the town since he grew up there have “absolutely been transformed”, with thousands of professionals moving in over the past decade. “But one of the challenges we have is convincing them and getting them to recognise that they can spend their money in the town rather than just get back on the motorway and go up to Bristol,” he says. “But we are seeing that change.”

Most of Weston’s growth has come from organisations with up to four employees, as remote working has enabled people to work from anywhere on their laptop. However, this then limits these businesses’ ability to grow.

“They could have way more office space,” Aldridge argues. “One of the things that I will knock on the door of No 11 for is investment in those office blocks. We do not have the scale-up infrastructure in the same way.”

One workaround has been the use of empty retail units as flexible workspaces. “Locals didn’t particularly like it at first,” Aldridge admits. “But I think locals are starting to see it as really positive, because those people are spending the day there. They’re buying their lunches in town.”

Transport connectivity remains a constraint for the town’s businesses. Cheaper housing attracts commuters from Bristol, but congested roads underline the need for transport investment.

The economic and political stakes are high for the mission of spreading this growth more evenly across the country. Coastal constituencies have become fertile ground for Reform UK, with four of the five seats won by the party in the 2024 general election located along the coast.

Ministers appear alert to the risk. In September 2025, the government announced a £1.1bn coastal investment package, backed by the private sector and academia, aimed at boosting jobs and skills in maritime and tech-aligned sectors, including clean energy and innovation.

For Aldridge and other Labour MPs, regenerating coastal economies is central to pushing back against populist politics.

Coastal tech startups will not, on their own, undo decades of deprivation. They face real challenges: weak infrastructure, limited finance, talent shortages and the risk that new wealth is imported but not embedded locally.

But in Weston-super-Mare and towns like it – from Margate to Eastbourne to the Isle of Wight – these ventures are starting to offer something that has long been missing: a reason to stay, to invest and to imagine a future beyond a fading tourism industry.