Politics
Rayner cleared in the nick of time for potential leadership run
Angela Rayner has been cleared of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness by HMRC, according to the Guardian. Coincidentally, this ‘redeeming’ news for Rayner comes just in the nick of time as her former boss’ position appears increasingly untenable.
As a result, likely runners Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham look set to face another contender. Nonetheless, it hardly feels like any of these contenders will actually provide any real difference to the public at large.
After all, they have all been perfectly happy to sell out their principles to get closer to power – that isn’t likely to change when the next job offers even more power.
As we all well know from the numerous examples we’ve seen over the years: power corrupts.
EXCL: Angela Rayner has been cleared by HMRC of deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness over her tax affairs, paving the way for a potential leadership bid if Keir Starmer’s grip on power unravels.
The former DPM has settled £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty, but has not paid any…
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 14, 2026
Rayner will ‘play her part’ in making Starmer step aside
According to the Guardian’s political editor, Rayner has cleared her stamp duty debt of £40k but has not received any penalties from the HMRC for failing to pay it in the first place. Apparently, this is likely to make her a hopeful in the upcoming – likely fiery – leadership battle for the job of PM after they inevitably oust Starmer.
Journalist Pippa Crerar posted on X:
HMRC was also satisfied there was no tax avoidance.
Rayner tells me she was “bruised” by whole experience because of intrusion into her disabled son’s personal life, but also because it had appeared as though she was “in it for myself” rather than on the side of ordinary people.
Rayner indicated she may run in event of a contest as she would “play my part” and that she understood why Labour MPs were so upset following last week’s election crushing. She said Starmer should “reflect on” stepping aside.
Whilst Labour MPs are clambering to distance themselves from Starmer, it is hard to ignore the fact that many of these same MPs have had no issue up until now with the PM’s leadership.
Rayner, more specifically, had been seen as a genuine advocate for working class people in years gone by. Nevertheless, her apparent comfort to back down on her principles, and her sense of humanity, has not gone unnoticed.
For instance, despite full solidarity having been offered to her constituent – a Palestinian man – before entering government, he was later seen being forcibly removed from a public event. This followed an appeal to Angela Rayner for help and compassion after multiple members of his family were murdered by Zionist Israel.
Heartbreaking moment Dalloul al-Neder confronts Angela Rayner about his family who died in Gaza.@NadiaWhittomeMP reacts on the new Pod Save the UK with @cocobyname & @MrNishKumar. Listen here: https://t.co/0G12rmurTr#PodSaveTheUK pic.twitter.com/E7BWdXZ5Lj
— Pod Save the UK (@podsavetheuk) February 2, 2024
Rayner – where has your voice been?
The Morning Star reported at the time:
Dalloul al-Neder, who has lost his mother, brother, pregnant sister-in-law and two nieces during bombing in December, confronted Ms Rayner during the fundraising event at the Village Hotel in Cheadle.
“I lost my family in Gaza,” Mr Neder began as Ms Rayner looked on.“Why did you not demand a ceasefire?”
He was dragged away seconds after his intervention by a police officer.
Another protester shouted: “Fifteen thousand children and women are dead: where has your voice been?
“You call yourself a modern-day feminist? I don’t think so. Women are having to use scraps, tents, for sanitary towels.”
Therefore, it is surely pretty clear – as it is to the electorate – that any of these Labour MPs running for leadership might change the face at the top, but their priorities will unlikely change in practice.
Many in the UK also see the futility in any of the leadership ‘hopefuls’ for Labour:
Labour are finished, neoliberalism should never have been the guiding light for Starmer’s change’ schtick. — EuropeanPowell (@EuropeanPowell) May 10, 2026
Now they are paying the price.
Rayner was all for a free Palestine, but quickly threw her principles out of the window.
Burnham was already blocked over becoming an MP by…
The post above finishes:
Chaos, treachery, U-turns, the Epstein saga, McSweeney, Palantir, Blackrock, supporting genocide, purging the left, punching down instead of up.
Labour are finished, watch them tear each other apart in their death throes.
Join the Green Party, the only truly viable party of the left.
We can’t keep doing the same thing and somehow expect a different outcome
We know by now that the Labour political elite are all more focused on bending to powerful people, rather than effectively defending and championing the ever-eroding civil rights and freedoms of ordinary people. Following Starmer’s purge of socialist, anti-Zionists from the Labour Party, this really was inevitable. Rayner may have been more loyal to working class people – but she could have done far better.
As a result, this misplaced priority is dragging the country further into decline. The rich and powerful may be capable of weathering instability and uncertainty. However, that burden becomes increasingly unbearable for poor people across the UK.
Therefore, it is essential that people don’t buy into the misleading portrayals of these MPs as somehow different to their soon-to-be predecessor as PM. They, too, have shown they are perfectly happy to sell out their principles, and their constituents, for the right price.
British people deserve far better than the political class corrupting and subverting our democracy.
Featured image via the Canary
Birmingham-based criminal-defence lawyer Akhmed Yakoob has become an unlikely kingmaker in his city’s local politics, built on his relentless self-promotion, on his ‘straight-talking’, no-holds-barred online persona and on the public’s growing distrust of mainstream politics.
Yakoob has regularly promoted his legal services through catchy TikTok videos aimed at young people drawn to glamour and conspicuous wealth. He films himself next to his Lamborghini. Many in Britain would once have found his brash, Americanised style of marketing distasteful. Yet that style clearly resonates with a section of younger voters who feel alienated from traditional British politics, and who increasingly consume news and current affairs through social-media snippets, rather than through party manifestos or serious debate.
To some, Yakoob may appear clownish. But dismissing him as a joke misses the point entirely. He played a critical role in the election of nine independent councillors on Birmingham City Council in last week’s local elections. With the council now under no overall control, that bloc of councillors will inevitably seek influence and leverage through deal-making with larger parties.
When one looks closely at Yakoob’s campaigning themes, two issues dominate: bin collections and Palestine. The former is at least a local-government issue. The latter has virtually no relevance to the practical services local authorities are supposed to provide to residents.
The more important question is this: how have we reached a point where sectarian politics can secure sizeable clusters of council seats and where similar identity-driven politics delivered five parliamentary victories for independent candidates two years ago?
Having worked for more than 25 years within Muslim communities, I have seen first-hand how Palestine has repeatedly been used as a political football to suit the agendas of different groups in Britain. The first people to recognise its emotional and political potential were Islamist groups, affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood and toxic agitators such as Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri Muhammad, the self-styled ‘Tottenham Ayatollah’. They understood early on that Palestine could be weaponised emotionally to cultivate grievance, anger and communal identity politics.
Such is the gravitational pull of the Palestinian issue that for some British Muslims, it can cloud basic common sense. Many of those most animated by the issue will never visit the West Bank, let alone Gaza, yet they are drawn into the black-and-white thinking that now dominates discourse around Israel and Palestine. Israel is viewed as wholly evil, incapable of doing anything right, while everything Palestinian is automatically cast as virtuous.
The contradictions are glaring. Some passionately denounce Israel while taking Teva-manufactured medication for blood pressure or chronic illness, apparently oblivious to the fact that the medicine helping to prevent catastrophic health events originates in Israel. That is how emotionally charged and irrational this debate has become in certain circles.
On the far end of this polarised spectrum, some have even come to see Hamas as ‘freedom fighters’. The cognitive dissonance runs so deep that they refuse to acknowledge the most basic reality: that Hamas’s barbaric actions on 7 October 2023 directly triggered the catastrophe we are witnessing in the Middle East today.
It is precisely this constituency that Yakoob appeals to – people angry about Palestine, angry about Britain and emotionally invested in a permanent victim narrative claiming that ‘Muslims have it bad in Britain’. This narrative persists even among those whose families own extensive property portfolios across the Midlands and the north of England, and who enjoy opportunities unavailable to millions across the world.
Yakoob himself is not the root cause of the problem. He is a symptom of a much deeper malaise: the catastrophic failure of successive integration policies that abandoned muscular liberalism in favour of passive multiculturalism. Rather than confidently promoting shared civic values, governments retreated into hand-wringing platitudes about ‘communities coming together naturally’.
Indeed, the current Labour government appears determined to continue with the same failed ‘melting pot’ fantasy – the kumbaya politics of assuming that social cohesion somehow emerges automatically without challenge, accountability or a firm defence of democratic norms. Ordinary British people increasingly see through this. They are tired of sectarianism, tired of anti-Semitism and tired of the relentless ‘Britain is uniquely awful’ rhetoric pushed by parts of the activist left.
A closer examination of Yakoob’s own public record reveals a deeply divisive and polarising figure who has nevertheless succeeded in mobilising thousands of voters.
In March 2026, Yakoob was arrested on suspicion of racially abusing a West Midlands police officer. Footage showed him detained in the back of a police van and, true to form, he turned the incident into yet another performance for the cameras, using confrontation and controversy to reinforce his outsider image. He was later released on bail in what is becoming an expanding catalogue of allegations surrounding him.
In May 2025, he was charged by the National Crime Agency with money-laundering offences allegedly committed between February 2020 and January 2021. Yet even then, he brushed aside the seriousness of the allegations with characteristic swagger, remarking that ‘Today’s newspapers are only going to be used to wrap up tomorrow’s bag of chips’.
Other remarks are also cause for concern. In June 2024, Yakoob was heard suggesting that ‘over 70 per cent of hell is going to be women’. Then, during a Sky News interview in March 2026, he reportedly suggested to voters that ‘the Zionists control everything’ – rhetoric that veers dangerously close to classic anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory tropes.
I grew up in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s, when local and national politics revolved around issues such as council tax, Europe, standards of living, economic opportunity and Britain’s place within NATO. Those issues still matter profoundly today, arguably more than ever. Yet the politics now emerging on the streets of Birmingham bear little resemblance to the civic politics many of us once knew.
What we are witnessing points to two uncomfortable truths. First, how deeply divided Britain has become. And second, how identity politics has been allowed to fester unchecked for decades. How have we arrived as a country when a young British Muslim who has never worked, who still lives in his mother’s home and who has little stake in Britain’s economic future can be mobilised more passionately around Palestine than around building a career, contributing to society or strengthening the nation in which he lives?
No, Yakoob is not the disease, but he is a symptom of our age – and of weak, hesitant governments that lacked the courage to challenge sectarianism before it embedded itself into our politics.
Fiyaz Mughal is founder of Faith Matters and Tell MAMA.
(Alamy)
4 min read
Former minister Josh Simons is stepping down from Parliament to allow Andy Burnham to run as a Labour candidate.
Simons, MP for Makerfield, posted on X that he was standing aside so the mayor of Manchester could enter Parliament and “drive the change our country is crying out for.” Burnham will have to be approved by the NEC to stand as a candidate and step down from his current position as mayor.
Simons said it had not been an easy decision but he said Burnham provided the last chance to provide the change the country needed.
In his statement, the outgoing MP said: “For decades, Westminster has overseen the managed decline of towns like mine. We have talked big, then acted small, stuck in a politics of incrementalism that cannot meet the moment. We have lost the trust of those our party was built to serve. It is my unwavering belief that nothing short of urgent, radical, courageous reform will make a difference. That must start with a change in leadership.
“Today, I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield. I am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter Parliament, and if elected, drive the change our country is crying out for.”
At the last election, Simons won a majority of 5,399 votes, with Reform coming in second place. Makerfield has been Labour since its inception, but has been moving rightwards for the last decade. A victory for Burnham in a by-election would in itself therefore make a strong case that he should be allowed to run for the Labour leadership.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “We look forward to the contest and we will throw absolutely everything at it.”
Simons added: “This has not been an easy decision. This is my family’s home, where only a few weeks ago, doctors and nurses at Wigan Infirmary saved our newborn son’s life. But we all must make choices and in recent days I found myself with a difficult one: defend the status quo or step forward and act.
“I have made my choice. I am in politics because politics is how you change lives for the better. My party has one last chance to do that: deliver for the people and places I represent, drive economic growth, secure our borders, reform our state and politics, and change a status quo that is not working. That is the fight. I believe Andy is the one to lead it.”
Burnham has been trying to locate a seat in the North West for the last few days, as Keir Starmer has faced mounting leadership challenges since the local elections.
Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary on Thursday morning after he had lost confidence in the prime minister. He said a future leadership contest should be broad and protracted to allow the best candidates to challenge one another.
Burnham said he will be requesting the permission of the NEC to stand in the by-election, claiming he grew up close to Makerfield for 25 years.
In a statement, he said: “Millions are struggling and they need the Labour Government to succeed. It has already made changes to make life better for them in its first two years. After this week, we owe it to people to come back together as a Labour movement, giving the Prime Minister and the Government the space and stability they need as the by-election takes place.”
Burnham addded that he wanted to recognise the “difficult decision” taken by Simons.
The Manchester mayor added: “Finally, I truly do not take a single vote for granted and will work hard to regain the trust of people in the Makerfield constituency, many of whom have long supported our party but lost faith in recent times. We will change Labour for the better and make it a party you can believe in again.”
In the recent local elections, Reform UK won all eight wards by a comfortable margin. The breakdown of the results were:
Reform: 50.4 per cent
Labour: 22.7 per cent
Green: 10.9 per cent
Conservative: 9.9 per cent
Lib Dem: 3.8 per cent
Other: 2.2 per cent
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Andy Burnham has revealed the Commons constituency he wants to stand in so he can become an MP again and challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.
Labour MP Josh Simons has agreed to stand down from his Makerfield seat to make way for the Greater Manchester mayor less than two years after being elected.
In a statement, Simons said: “I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield. I am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home, fight to re-enter parliament, and if elected, drive the change our country is crying out for.
“This has not been an easy decision. This is my family’s home, where only a few weeks ago, doctors and nurses at Wigan Infirmary saved our newborn son’s life.
“But we all must make choices and in recent days I found myself with a difficult one: defend the status quo or step forward and act. I have made my choice.
“I am in politics because politics is how you change lives for the better. My party has one last chance to do that: deliver for the people and places I represent, drive economic growth, secure our borders, reform our state and politics, and change a status quo that is not working.
“That is the fight. I believe Andy is the one to lead it.”
Simons won the seat with a majority of 5,399 over Reform at the general election.
In a statement, Burnham – who was MP for Leigh between 2001 and 2017 – said: “Over the last decade, I have been challenging this failure from the outside and building a new and better way of doing politics.
“We have built Greater Manchester into the fastest-growing city-region in the UK and put buses back under public control, introducing a £2 fare cap to help people with cost-of-living pressures.
“However, there is only so much that can be done from Greater Manchester. Much bigger change is needed at a national level if everyday life is to be made more affordable again.
“This is why I now seek people’s support to return to parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people.
“Millions are struggling and they need the Labour government to succeed. It has already made changes to make life better for them in its first two years.
“After this week, we owe it to people to come back together as a Labour movement, giving the prime minister and the government the space and stability they need as the by-election takes place.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said his party “will absolutely throw everything at” the by-election campaign.
Before he became an MP, Simons used to run Labour Together, the moderate think-tank which helped Starmer become party leader in 2020.
He was forced to resign as a Cabinet Office minister in February over his part in a Labour Together smear operation against journalists.
Despite being a former ally of the PM, he said in the wake of Labour’s drubbing in last week’s elections that Starmer had “lost the country” and needed to go.
The dramatic development comes after Burnham’s leadership rival Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary with a ferocious attack on Starmer on Thursday afternoon.
He said it was clear that the prime would not lead Labour into the next general election on the back of the party’s drubbing in England, Scotland and Wales last week.
Streeting said: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”
Burnham stood down as an MP in 2017, and needs to find a way back to Westminster in order to challenge for the Labour leadership.
He tried to stand as Labour’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but was blocked by the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).
However, the NEC will be under intense pressure to let him stand again in the hope that he can win the seat and return to Westminster, which he quit in 2017.
Communities secretary and Starmer loyalist Steve Reed says: “I’m sorry Josh has taken this decision.
“If anyone thinks there is a caped superhero that is coming our way with all the answers they have another thing coming.”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Mandelson-protégé health secretary Wes Streeting is preparing to announce his bid to oust Keir Starmer. Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) is likely to play a major and potentially decisive role in who gets to stand in the contest to replace Starmer in Number 10.
Starmer is the worst PM in living memory. That’s quite an ‘achievement’ in a decade that has seen Boris Johnson and the dire Liz Truss in the same seat. But the odds are that the NEC – stacked as it is with Starmeroid and Blairite factionalists – will want a continuity candidate to win. That fact alone would have made it unlikely that Andy Burnham would be allowed anywhere near the contest.
Burnham is deeply flawed, but has a personality and some basic principles. Either would be enough to beat any of the Starmer-clones with which his faction crammed the parliamentary party. Either is enough to make him persona non grata for the NEC.
But Streeting’s rationale for announcing his leadership bid quickly will largely be based on making sure Burnham can’t even think about participating. Burnham would need time to find a parliamentary seat he could stand in before he can bid to lead. Even if the NEC allowed him to stand – rather than find a pretext to block him (again) – it’s far from certain any Labour candidate would win a by-election, even if a 2024 winner stepped down to make way for him.
Optics
But a single-candidate contest, or a Starmer v Starmer mini-me election, wouldn’t be great optics for what remains of Labour.
Former deputy PM Angela Rayner conveniently got a free pass on alleged tax-dodging from HMRC, just in time to throw her hat in the ring, though she’s not Blairite enough for most NEC limpets. And the NEC is currently under the control of the hardest-core factionalists, as new NEC members won’t be in place until the party’s annual conference in the autumn.
So, who might stand and what obstacles do they face? Might sheer inertia allow Starmer to cling on as the most hobbled of lame ducks? Ranjan Balakumaran looked at the situation for the Canary:
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Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
As the Met police tool up ahead of a big day of protest in London on Saturday 16 May, the UN has warned that the UK is eroding people’s rights.
The UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Gina Romero, has called on the UK to uphold its international human rights obligations.
This follows the adoption of restrictive legislation and political calls for a blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Romero said:
The entry into force of the UK Crime and Policing Act on 29 April introduces provisions fundamentally incompatible with international human rights obligations regarding the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, association, and expression, and the right of participation.
Of primary concern is the vague concept of ‘cumulative disruption,’ which grants law enforcement excessive discretionary powers to restrict assemblies, disregarding the standard that peaceful protests inherently entail a level of disruption that must be accommodated.
The Act’s criminalisation of face coverings is especially problematic amidst intensified surveillance, as anonymity is often essential to protect privacy and prevent chilling effects.
By imposing further restrictions on mobilisations near places of worship, the State risks creating ‘no-go zones’ for dissent, undermining its duty to facilitate assemblies within ‘sight and sound’ of their target audience.
Yes, Starmer does take a ‘two tier’ approach to protest
On 29 April, following multiple stabbings in Golders Green, London, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that he would consider banning some pro-Palestinian protests due to the “cumulative” effect that they were having on the UK Jewish community.
This statement followed Tory calls for a moratorium on all pro-Palestinian protests. The (allegedly) independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall echoed these calls and:
claimed that it was ‘clearly impossible at the moment’ for such demonstrations not to ‘incubate’ antisemitism.
However, Romero called on the UK government to refrain from stigmatising and banning pro-Palestinian marches in the name of preventing antisemitism:
Antisemitism is a serious problem that must be addressed through targeted and lawful measures. It cannot justify a blanket prohibition on peaceful protest.
Romero expressed concern that the government’s approach appears to apply heightened security scrutiny to protest activity associated predominantly with Muslim communities. But it doesn’t apply equivalent scrutiny to other forms of protest with direct links to antisemitic and racist incidents.
International human rights law prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to peaceful assembly on grounds including religion and race. Romero said:
Where restrictions are framed around conduct, such as antisemitism, but are applied in a manner that disproportionately burdens one community defined by religion or ethnicity, this may amount to discrimination.
The freedom to assemble is foundational to a democratic society. Banning pro-Palestinian protests would be an affront to democracy. This is especially important ahead of the Nakba mobilisations that will take place on 16 May.
The special rapporteur has previously raised these concerns with the government.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
President of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) has joined other trade unions in recognising that the ‘Starmer project’ has utterly failed. However, Ian Hodson goes further than the Labour-affiliated unions by arguing that people must collectively rebuild class politics itself.
Until then, he said:
the vacuum will continue to be filled by division, nationalism and billionaire-backed forces pretending to speak for working-class communities – whilst protecting the very system that caused the crisis in the first place.
Proving his commitment to solidarity, Hodson has worked with many groups including Platform for a Democratic Party. He told the Canary that he fully supports the idea of a grassroots political movement that empowers communities to shape policy decisions, and he has made clear that top-down politics harms the interests of working-class people.
After all, ordinary people always foot the bill in our crumbling society, while the rich evade tax and responsibility as they buy off politicians.
Thank you to @PlatformforaDP, of which I am proud to be a part, for this endorsement. Other members are Eric Barnes, Graham Bash, Michael Forster, Ian Hodson, Ken Loach, Ben Sellers and Audrey White. https://t.co/SlxQA98dH2
— NaomiFromKent (@NaomiFromKent) January 13, 2026
‘Starmer project has failed to deliver’
Ian Hodson spoke to the Canary following the moves by other unions to attempt to ‘right the ship’ that is Starmer’s failing Labour Party. In contrast to the other unions, Hodson believes the system will simply replace one stooge with another unless people force through radical, transformative change.
Hodson shared his insights with us, having worked alongside Labour and its leaders for many years, saying:
The Labour movement is at a pivotal moment. The Starmer project has failed to deliver the change our class was promised and in doing so has created the space for Reform to grow by feeding disillusionment, division and anger.
When politics abandons the language of class, inequality and collective hope, the far right step in with scapegoats and slogans.
He then spoke of how powerless trade unions are increasingly becoming to defend workers’ rights due to the blatant neoliberal status quo:
Trade unions cannot organise around managed decline, attacks on our own movement, and a political strategy built more on defeating the left than transforming society. Our class needs a real alternative that challenges poverty, insecurity and exploitation, not another version of the status quo dressed up as change.
Pointing to the radical change desperately required to remind politicians that the 99% matter and are the engine which drives our economy – even if the 1% offer lucrative, appealing backhanders:
What is needed now is a politics rooted once again in solidarity, public ownership, trade union freedom, redistribution of wealth and democratic control over the economy. A movement confident enough to confront corporate power, rebuild communities stripped apart by decades of neoliberalism, and give people something real to believe in instead of simply something to fear.
If we fail to rebuild that class politics, the vacuum will continue to be filled by division, nationalism and billionaire-backed forces pretending to speak for working-class communities whilst protecting the very system that caused the crisis in the first place.
Live launch of 'For the Many', with Audrey White, Ken Loach, Ian Hodson, Andrew Feinstein and more https://t.co/SRNQWrO1Ru
— SKWAWKBOX (@skwawkbox) October 9, 2023
Hodson: ‘We are conditioned to believe we are not meant to be heard as a class’
We then asked Hodson about the barriers that prevent working-class people from engaging in politics – or even considering it in the first place.
After discussing the barriers I personally felt putting my name forward in 2024 for the general election, Hodson said:
We are conditioned to believe we are not meant to be heard as a class. And women even more so.
Which is why it matters that we challenge and ultimately smash the machine that keeps power and wealth in the hands of the few.
It may take a generation, but every gain our class has ever won came because ordinary people refused to stay silent. We have had victories and defeats along the way, but every struggle leaves something behind for those who come next.
The BFAWU President isn’t alone in this principled ambition for the working classes. Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has strongly advocated for building collective power and has repeatedly warned that British society urgently needs to take “bold action”.
And, our own Ed Sykes wrote:
Sultana made it clear that strong policies and stances are necessary, and that the active participation of ordinary people matters, saying:
“The crises we face, which everyone in this room knows about – climate, cost of living, housing, inequality – they are too big for tinkering around the edges. They demand bold action and collective power. And that power starts here: it starts with you, it starts with our members, our communities, and our activists.
And Your Party has to be that platform for that power, a politics driven by the people: a politics that values diversity, but not as this window dressing exercise. It gives a voice to those who have deliberately made voiceless, and makes democracy feel real, feel tangible.”
Hodson: “Refuse to accept invisibility”
He finished by saying that it is essential that socialists today work to build a platform and provide the tools for a new generation to be even more empowered to “speak up and speak out”.
Beautifully, he finished by reminding us that courage and commitment today for working-class politics will provide:
Another step forward for our class, and for the generations of women that will follow and refuse to accept invisibility ever again.
We at the Canary couldn’t agree more: it is high time working-class people are finally taken seriously in UK politics.
Featured image via the Canary
The Labour MP who effectively pulled the plug on Keir Starmer’s premiership has now suggested she could still end up backing him to stay on as prime minister.
Catherine West announced last Saturday that she would run as a “stalking horse” in a leadership challenge to the prime minister in response to the party’s horrendous performance in last week’s elections.
The former Foreign Office minister said she planned to gather the required 81 Labour MPs’ names to formally challenge Starmer.
After Starmer vowed not to “walk away” from Downing Street in his make-or-break speech on Monday, she then decided to collect names of Labour MPs who would agree to set a timetable for the election of a new leader by September.
But her efforts were overtaken as ministers started to resign, putting more direct pressure on the prime minister.
Speaking after health secretary Wes Streeting dramatically resigned on Thursday, West then bizarrely claimed she could potentially vote for Starmer in any subsequent contest.
She said the “important thing” was the Labour Party is now having the conversation about how to beat Reform UK.
Asked if this was the outcome she wanted on Radio 4′s World At One, West said: “The original request I made was for the cabinet to get around the table and nominate someone to explain, to highlight, all the fantastic things the government has been doing with some urgency.”
She said she wants an “honest conversation” from candidates, including from the prime minister if he is a candidate.
“Many of us like Keir very much as a person, he’s got excellent credentials on the international stage and he could well win a competition if he were to put his name forward,” the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet said.
Asked who she would vote for, she said: “We don’t know who the other candidates are.”
But she added: “If Keir Starmer decides he’s got the bottle, then he can come and fight, fight as though he’s fighting for the working people of this country, then he could beat the others!
“Because he’s a very bright man but the impression he gives is that he’s driving a car but he’s not putting the gears into action.”
She said the country is “idling like a car which cannot go forwards or backwards”.
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Some research suggests that those already genetically predisposed to developing dementia could benefit from fish oil supplements. And another paper said that getting enough vitamin D in midlife could reduce risk, too.
Now, a study published in Neurochemistry International has found that an amino acid already present in many medications and supplements could target dementia before it has a chance to cause major damage.
Arginine could slow dementia-related damage
In this research, arginine – an amino acid naturally found in fish, nuts, and meat, and which is commonly used in medications for heart conditions and erectile dysfunction – appeared to reduce the buildup of amyloid plaques in animal and in vitro trials.
Amyloid plaques are sticky bundles of abnormal protein fragments, the accumulation of which has long been associated with dementia.
Alzheimer’s, the UK’s most common form of dementia in the UK, is also linked to stringy proteins called tau tangles. Amyloid plaques and tau tangles have been compared to the “trigger and bullet” in the development of the condition.
In the latest research, scientists noticed that arginine seemed to stop amyloid plaques from clustering together to create that troublesome buildup during in vitro (cells in glass test tubes or petri dishes) trials.
They then tested whether this worked for fruit flies and mice. After administering carefully-titrated amounts of arginine to the creatures, they noticed that the amino acid both prevented plaque accumulation and reduced the harm caused by that buildup.
Excitingly, as we already use arginine in medications and supplements, we know it can be safe for humans.
Study author Professor Yoshitaka Nagai said: “Our study demonstrates that arginine can suppress [amyloid plaque] aggregation both in vitro and in vivo.
“What makes this finding exciting is that arginine is already known to be clinically safe and inexpensive, making it a highly promising candidate for repositioning as a therapeutic option for AD [Alzheimer’s disease].”
What might this finding mean?
It doesn’t mean that any arginine supplement will work as well as the specific, carefully-calculated concentrations the scientists used in these animal trials, as the researchers note. (Additionally, animal trials don’t always map onto human health well).
But Professor Nagai said it could open an avenue for looking into the effects of the amino acid on human dementia risk.
“Our findings open up new possibilities for developing arginine-based strategies for neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding and aggregation,” the academic shared.
“Given its excellent safety profile and low cost, arginine could be rapidly translated to clinical trials for Alzheimer’s and potentially other related disorders.”
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