Politics
Rich’s Monday Morning View
Rich’s Monday Morning View
David Lammy has repeatedly refused to say whether the UK should rejoin the European Union as Labour’s Brexit civil war burst back into the open.
The deputy prime minister refused five times to say whether the result of the 2016 referendum should be reversed when asked on Sky News.
Meanwhile, a Labour MP said it was “absolutely brainless” for the party to even be discussing the issue because it would cost them even more support in working class areas that voted to Leave.
Labour’s splits over Brexit reignited over the weekend when leadership hopeful Wes Streeting described it as “a catastrophic mistake” and said the UK should rejoin the EU.
That piled pressure on his rival, Andy Burnham, who wants to be Labour’s candidate in the upcoming by-election in Makerfield, where the majority of people voted for Leave.
Burnham, who told last year’s Labour conference that he wanted to see the UK back in the EU in his lifetime, wants to avoid discussing the issue during the campaign.
Asked on Sky News this morning by presenter Sophy Ridge if he would like to rejoin the EU, Lammy dodged the question and would only say he was “really proud” to have been the first foreign secretary to be “back around the EU table” last year.
Asked a second time, he said: “We set red lines in the manifesto.”
Ridge then asked the same question a third time.
Lammy said: “I’m not going to make a commitment about the next election manifesto process.”
The presenter said: “I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you, David Lammy, would you like to rejoin the EU.”
He replied: “Me, David Lammy the deputy prime minister, am committed to collective responsibility.”
Asking a fifth time, Ridge said: “Tell us what you really think, go on.”
But Lammy would only say: “I am in government delivering for the British people.”
Jonathan Hinder, the Labour MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, said his party was mad to be talking about Brexit again.
He told Radio 4′s Today programme: “To suggest that the solution now is for us to reopen [the Brexit] debate is just staggering and the Labour Party is in an existential crisis, it really is, and the idea that we can reconnect to our working class base by reopening this debate is just a staggering level of out of touch.”
He added: “The priority of the British people right now is not to reopen this debate … and we’re doing that again. It’s just absolutely brainless.”
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Jewish anti-genocide activist Tony Greenstein was arrested at the Nakba Day march in London on Saturday 16 May. Greenstein’s supposed offence was to hold a placard saying “Globalise the Intifada”.
Greenstein was handcuffed and bundled into a van, triggering crowing from Israel lobbyists. The lobby hates Greenstein and other anti-Zionist Jews for exposing the lie that all Jewish people support Israel and its crimes.
Brighton-based Greenstein was attacked by all the ‘usual suspects’ of the most hateful and racist social media accounts that push pro-Israel propaganda.
The phrase, “Globalise the Intifada”, has been declared by the Zionist Starmer regime to be criminal and arrestable because, supposedly, it is a call ‘for the death of all Jews’. This is flatly untrue: the first intifada was a Gandhi-esque, non-violent campaign of civic resistance in Gaza.
‘Intifada’ simply means ‘shaking off [chains]’. But it is one of the facets of Starmer’s war on pro-Palestine speech and protest. It is cast as inherently antisemitic even though it is aimed at a colonial project, not at Jews — and even when, as on Saturday, it is held by a Jewish protester.
Greenstein punished amidst fascist impunity
But while peaceful resistance is criminalised under the Starmer regime, outright fascist hate is not. Greenstein pointed to the openly racist and Islamophobic signs held by the misnamed, extremist “Unite the kingdom” flop that took place at the same time as the huge Nakba march.
Like this one:
Those holding such signs went untroubled by the Met Police. Indeed, they were protected.
Greenstein is defiant. He says he hopes the police charge him, so he has a chance to expose the nonsense of the ban in court.
‘I HOPE THEY CHARGE ME FOR THE SIGN’ – Greenstein defiant after arrest pic.twitter.com/aVOLSL3H6s
— The Crispin Flintoff Show (@CrispinShow) May 17, 2026
He knows what he is risking. Greenstein has already been convicted of planning to participate in an action to damage an Israeli weapons factory. He still faces prosecution under terror legislation for other acts of protest. He refuses to stop challenging the Starmer police state and the Israel lobby.
Featured image via Tony Greenstein
By Skwawkbox
Following the closure of the key shipping channel, the Strait of Hormuz, jet fuel prices have reportedly doubled.
Since then, some airlines have floated the idea of, or issued, price hikes and even cancelled some journeys, despite airline bosses like TUI’s CFO Mathias Kiep and Elevate Jet CEO Greg Raiff suggesting worries about an outright jet fuel shortage are overblown.
Previously, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said he wasn’t too stressed, either. “We think the risk of a supply disruption is receding… A month ago, we were saying we’re all fine until the end of May. The fuel companies are now saying they’re seeing no supply disruption risk until the end of June,” he shared.
But speaking to CNBC, the company’s CFO, Neil Sorahan, said the budget airline did have plans should an “Armageddon” scenario arise.
Ryanair expects other airlines to suffer from higher costs
The CFO stressed that the company have hedged 80% of its summer fuel stocks, meaning it’s “not planning for cancellations”.
“We’re in obviously very volatile oil markets at the moment. If we go back a couple of months ago, we probably had some concern around oil supply, but we’re increasingly confident that there won’t be issues in relation to oil into this summer,” he added.
Still, though Ryanair appears pretty secure in its supplies, and while Europe may increasingly source fuel from other countries like Venezuela, the CFO added that he expects fuel prices to remain high.
This, he thinks, might leave already-weaker airlines on even thinner ice, predicting collapse for some.
O’Leary had previously said that if these high prices continue through the summer, “real failures” could happen among European airlines, which “in the medium term, would probably be good for Ryanair’s business”.
More recently, Sorahan said, “do we have plans for some kind of Armageddon situation? Of course, we do, but I don’t see that coming to pass. As things stand, we’re operating a full schedule this summer and plan to operate a full schedule into the winter period”.
The CFO hinted at price increases
O’Leary had previously said that “weaker” than usual demand in June to September could lead to lower fares.
“We can guarantee people there’ll be no price increases, no fuel hedging, no fuel surge levy surcharges, regardless of what happens to summer supply,” he told CNBC.
But Sorahan added that doesn’t mean they’ve ruled out any rises at all.
“We haven’t promised no price increases. Ryanair operates a load active yield passive strategy, which means we price to fill the planes, and the consumers pretty much decide what that pricing is going to be,” he said.
4 min read
Labour MP Rupa Huq shares her diary from Hungary, where she led a team of international MPs examining the elections that saw Viktor Orbán defeated
It was the morning after Hungary’s landmark election last month. “I think they heard the cheers in Brussels, Washington and Moscow,” one of two Portuguese MPs I bumped into in Budapest city centre told me. We were amongst international parliamentarians there to observe and certify them legit.
Over the years, I’ve conducted monitoring all over the world: the US, Poland, Turkey, Kazakhstan… When asked to lead the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) MP team examining the electoral contest that eventually ended Viktor Orbán’s four-term premiership, I had no hesitation.
My role included Budapest twice: a scoping visit in the run-up to the mission; then chairing briefings for 200-odd fellow MPs from 38 countries, culminating in an intense election day of primary schools where voting occurs to see the process close-up. I met ministers, media, NGOs and counterparts in the Hungarian parliament (architecturally based on Westminster) along the way.
Our mission was the second most popular after the US, such was the gravity of what was at stake from Maga strongman politics to multilateralism. Observers were deployed all over the country to check no funny business was afoot.
On the Sunday night, as the outcome became clear from my hotel room, I heard cheers and hooting of horns from mostly young people excited at both the record 80 per cent turnout and the remarkable turnabout – a regime that seemed so entrenched was gone.
I was flagging after a long polling day from opening of polls in central Budapest to the count, so I ducked out. I was also conscious that as team leader I needed to be impartial. The Portuguese, however, had gone out for air and crashed impromptu festivities, witnessing history.
Queues had already started building when we arrived to inspect empty ballot boxes at 6pm, then subsequently secured shut before us. It reminded me of similar showing-off routines with 1970s/80s magician tricks when girls were sawn in two.
We criss-crossed Budapest, observing multiple polling stations including in Veresegyház and Pestszentlőrinc. We encountered huge numbers of people; a 95-year-old great gran, kids skipping hand in hand with parents. I did a 10am press conference in a polling station location where the message was things were going smoothly. At 8pm, at the final station I ended up in, proceedings saw the boxes opened and two separate lots of ballot papers manually recounted by municipal officials, such was the unprecedented volume with a 85 per cent turnout. It all concluded beyond 10pm.
On the Sunday night, as the outcome became clear from my hotel room, I heard cheers and hooting of horns
Memorable from my first visit in March was President Volodymyr Zelensky looking out from every lamppost and billboard, with Ursula von der Leyen a close second starting from the airport road. It had to be explained to me that these were negative scare-mongering Fidesz/governing party posters about the wrong turn the country could take if it fell into opposition hands. “Wipe the smile off of Zelensky’s face, don’t be a vassal state of the EU,” they screamed, demonstrating how it takes a sophisticated electorate to recognise such propaganda – albeit with crude messaging.
On paper, Hungary has efficient election systems and a multiple-choice contest, but allowing unlimited campaign funding limits and the folding of many parties to allow Tisza a clearer run make “free and fair” hard to certify. The new parliament has different flavours of right-wing, from the victorious Tisza to extreme nationalists “Our Homeland”.
By visit two, Orbán was omnipresent – plastered too on government-owned billboards, looking suspiciously chisel-jawed compared to recent TV footage. We heard how he’d used his prime ministerial status to write to every mother in the land promising tax reductions the more kids they produced, abusing state resources for party politics.
Fears that factors wider than just the day itself of systematic changes to judiciary, constituency boundaries and media ownership designed by Orbán for Orbán would ensure his re-election were confounded. Even government “state of danger” emergency powers invokable to overrule parliament and rule by decree – rather like Boris Johnson’s Covid provisions – came to nought. The OSCE concluded it was a fair fight on the day but the line between state and party along with any ‘level playing field’ had dissolved over the 16 years.
The EU, US and Russia where the cheers landed should take note: even with a meticulously rigged system, you can’t deny an unstoppable thirst for change.
Rupa Huq is the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton
“I like the team that I’ve got,” Kemi Badenoch told The Sunday Times before the local elections. “I put them there for a reason.”
And in the latest ConservativeHome survey, it seems party members are broadly content with the line-up she has assembled. Nobody in the shadow cabinet falls into negative territory and only shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew, at +9.4, remains in single figures.
At the top, meanwhile, Badenoch continues to pull away from the field. The Tory leader posts a net satisfaction rating of +84.9 – her strongest showing yet – and maintains a substantial lead over Nick Timothy, who holds second place since he joined the shadow cabinet, on +61.8. Behind him comes Claire Coutinho on +59.6, consolidating her reputation as one of the party’s more effective media performers in opposition.
There is then a fairly tight cluster of senior figures. Mel Stride and Chris Philp both remain comfortably above +50, while Laura Trott, Kevin Hollinrake and James Cleverly continue to poll solidly with members. Figures such as Andrew Griffith and Helen Whately remain in strong territory, if without quite breaking into the party’s top tier.
The more striking feature of the table, though, may be how compressed it is. Even some of the party’s more divisive or battle-scarred names – including Priti Patel on +15.7 – remain comfortably above water with the membership. There are no dramatic collapses and few obvious liabilities, although the bottom five remain the same names (if in a different order). For Badenoch, that may reinforce the argument for caution rather than upheaval.
Despite her public insistence that she is content with the current team, there remains persistent speculation in Westminster about a future reshuffle and I understand that Badenoch has still been mulling a change in her ranks. But now the government is tearing each other to shreds, don’t expect it any time soon.
A LOTO source told me: “She does want to change things around but it only makes sense to wait to see what a future Labour government looks like and then move people accordingly.
“She only really wants to do one before the general election so you’ve got to make it count.”
That calculation has fed into a wider argument within Conservative circles over whether Badenoch should start promoting newer MPs faces and creates some distance from the old Tory brand, as senior figures of previous governments like Priti Patel and Mel Stride still retain senior positions despite the electorate’s appetite for renewal.
Our guest columnist today, former No10 head of comms Lee Cain makes that very point. “A reshuffle is long overdue, and new talent needs to be put in front of the country in the shadow great offices of state roles, people who are hungry and have something to prove and who give voters a concrete reason to believe the party has actually changed rather than simply rebranded,” he writes.
Another LOTO source tells me that there is an increased understanding Patel would be okay with taking a step back from the shadow cabinet and perhaps expect a peerage. Beyond that, there are some concerns about sending more senior members to the backbenches or into a demotion – and questions over whether they would then be prepared to do the actual parliamentary work of opposition that is needed.
But those in the new intake, with its many rising stars, might not want to get their hopes up too quickly. The same LOTO source who said Badenoch only wants to rearrange her shadow cabinet once more before another general election told me that it feels too soon for the 2024 intake to be promoted into the top rung. There is reluctance to thrust inexperienced MPs into major briefs before proper time is allowed to establish themselves at Westminster. But there is only one way to gain more experience.
There is growing pressure for fresher faces from the 2019 and 2024 intake to be given a higher profile – if not immediately in the shadow cabinet, then at least across the broadcast round to communicate a new message, with fresh faces, to the public. “That is more important for votes than most despatch box moments. On local election day Jesse Norman was doing our morning round – ridiculous,” one Tory source said.
For now, though, Badenoch’s immediate political problem is not internal dissent but managing the wider party’s success. Her own ratings remain significantly stronger than those of the Conservative brand, and this latest table suggests members continue to see her as the party’s clearest electoral asset.
The post Shadow Cabinet League Table: Badenoch tightens her grip on the Tory party appeared first on Conservative Home.
Iraqi lawmakers have revealed that Israel built a second secret base in the desert in Iraq. This comes after a shepherd was found dead for exposing the first.
This means that Israel, a genocidal terrorist state, operated two covert bases intermittently and illegally for well over a year.
Only last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on the first illegal outpost in the Iraqi desert. Since then, Iraqi officials have told The New York Times that there was another undisclosed base. This is also in Iraq’s western desert.
According to the New York Times, Israel used the first base, which Mr. al-Shammari discovered, during the 12-day war in June 2025. As far back as 2024, the IOF started preparing to build the makeshift base by identifying remote sites from which it could operate.
To make matters worse, it has become clear that the US knew about at least one of the bases since June 2025, or even earlier. This means that the US failed to tell Iraq that hostile forces were on its soil.
Iraq — ‘western desert region’
One Iraqi lawmaker, Hassan Fadaam, told The New York Times that Israel had established at least one other outpost. He said:
The one in al-Nukhaib is just the only one that was found out.
A second official confirmed the existence of a second base. They did not provide a location; however, they said it was also in a “western desert region”.
According to Iraqi officials, official protocol requires Washington to inform Baghdad of any activities on Iraqi soil. So, did the US purposefully conceal the Israeli activity? Or did it inform Iraq’s top command of the operations, which kept them confidential?
The officials thought it was extremely unlikely, however, that Iraqi leaders knew the presence was Israeli until the exposure by the shepherd. It also most likely assumed the sites were American.
According to the family of the shepherd, authorities have ignored his murder.
Officials also reported that the US role in Iraqi security was part of Israel’s “calculations” in deciding it could operate safely and clandestinely in Iraq.
The first Israeli base in al-Nukhaib is no longer operative; however, the status of the second is currently unknown.
Israel is a rogue terrorist state. The setting up and operating of clandestine military outposts on sovereign Iraqi territory is a blatant war crime. How can anyone believe that Israel truly wants peace in the region when it keeps invading the region’s countries time and time again?
Feature image via Owen Franken/Getty Images
By HG
A report published in April by the Children’s Commissioner for England on the police’s record on strip searching children has caused tumult in elite circles. The document, ‘Police powers and children – strip searching and use of force’, states: ‘Although only six per cent of the population of 10- to 17-year-olds in the 2021 census were black, 35 per cent of the children strip searched were of black ethnicity.’ The conclusion, we are told, is obvious: Britain’s police are systemically racist.
Few statistics are deployed more aggressively in Britain’s culture wars than those around policing. Yet the claim that British police are racist is as lazy as it is unfair. It rests on a single move: take a statistic showing a disparity, strip away all context, and assume a motive. No serious discipline would accept that standard of evidence or such dishonest reasoning. Yet, when the topic is policing, it is simply taken at face value. Maybe because the reality is less convenient.
The first point to make is that policing is not distributed evenly across the population. It is concentrated in the places where crime is most prevalent. These areas are generally the most economically deprived and contain the highest number of people from ethnic-minority backgrounds (that certain minorities are statistically more likely to be poorer in the first place is a separate debate). This means law enforcement clusters in specific neighbourhoods, particularly in major urban centres. These areas do not resemble the country as a whole, either in crime patterns or demographics.
The accusation of racism crumbles when this fact is acknowledged. If police activity is focussed in a relatively small number of high-crime areas, and those areas have distinct demographic profiles, then uneven outcomes are inevitable.
Critics are quick to cite disparities in enforcement, the recent complaints about strip searches being a perfect example. But they are far less willing to engage with the realities of criminality and youth exploitation in the areas where these searches occur. It is a sad fact that black people (of all ages) are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than other ethnic groups. In London, 62 per cent of homicide victims are black – but so are 65 per cent of offenders. So what are the activists saying – that the police shouldn’t try to prevent homicide from happening?
None of this requires the belief that policing is perfect. Of course officers make mistakes. Procedures are sometimes poorly followed. Oversight has, in some cases, identified serious failings in the treatment of minors. These issues deserve attention. But they do not at all amount to evidence of a system animated by racial bias.
This is not serious thinking. It is political rhetoric. Even the commonly cited evidence does not support the sweeping conclusions drawn from it. Too many studies and news reports collapse different contexts into a single headline figure, erasing the role of geography, crime distribution and police strategy. The result is a narrative that is emotionally forceful but factually thin.
Accusations of systemic racism reflect what has become an inbuilt woke scepticism toward an institution which, in recent years, has bent over backwards to appeal to the lanyard classes. This has warped public trust and, ultimately, the willingness of ordinary coppers to act decisively in high-risk situations – especially with the senior ranks’ propensity to throw front-line police under a bus at the first hint of controversy. That outcome serves no one, least of all the communities most affected by crime.
The truth, as ever, is less convenient than the slogans. Policing means meeting the demands of public safety with the imperfect judgement of human beings, usually operating under substantial pressure. Disparities can emerge from all of these factors without requiring a single, all-encompassing explanation. To insist otherwise is not to pursue justice. It is to impose a politically charged narrative.
Certainly, the strip-search figures deserve scrutiny. But they do not justify the confident declaration of systemic racism that so often follows. If Britain is to have an honest debate about policing, it must begin by abandoning the idea that unequal statistical outcomes are racist. They are not. And until that distinction is acknowledged, the conversation will remain driven, not by evidence, but by ideology.
Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.
The ban failed almost as soon as it began. On the very day in December 2025 that it was supposed to have taken effect, hordes of under-16s trolled PM Anthony Albanese’s X account. ‘I’m still here’, they posted, and ‘wait until I can vote’. It was spectacularly embarrassing for the government – though very amusing for the rest of us.
During a lengthy propaganda campaign, which cost the Australian taxpayer $76.1million, bureaucrats insisted children needed to be kept safe from harmful material such as pornography, self-harm content and body-image pressures. This is hardly a controversial position to take – most of us would agree.
The problem here is that the Australian government’s apparent concern about protecting children collapses completely under scrutiny. As many have pointed out, far more explicit corners of the internet such as Pornhub and OnlyFans remain only partially policed, inconsistently age-gated, and easily evaded with a virtual private network (VPN). Children also continue to inhabit the gaming-platform, Roblox, which was not on the government’s verboten list, despite the grooming risks there being well documented.
But the hypocrisy extends beyond inconsistent bans. Far more damning is the fact that the very same bureaucrats who recently discovered the notion of childhood innocence have, for years, been exposing schoolchildren to sexualised and ideological material over which parents have little meaningful control. Such material has been disguised within benign-sounding programmes such as Australia’s ‘Respectful Relationships Education’ or the UK’s ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ (RSE). Yet on closer inspection, both are awash with gender theory, queer theory, intersectional feminism, toxic-masculinity workshops and third-party classroom activities so explicit they would make Bonnie Blue blush.
In terms of its embrace of radical gender ideology, Australia has long outstripped the UK. This is largely because Australian parents are handing over their two-year-olds to kindergarten teachers who have been ordered by the government to explore children’s gender identity. Teachers have been instructed that early childhood is a critical time for children to begin understanding gender, and that kindergartens need to be, as one state government website puts it, ‘safe spaces where LGBTQI+ children and families feel welcomed, honoured and supported’. They have also been warned against ‘heteronormative ways of working and ensuring rainbow families are meaningfully included and experience a sense of belonging’.
The UK’s RSE programme was made compulsory for primary and secondary school students in 2020 by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. While the Department for Education’s statutory guidance for schools talks a great deal about respect, inclusion and age-appropriate content, the programme has simply acted as a gateway for nefarious organisations to indoctrinate children. While charity Mermaids – which claims that ‘our gender is decided by other people when we’re born, based on the way our body looks’ – gives out chest binders for girls to try out in their spare time, Stonewall tells kids in its LGBTQ+ glossary that ‘G’ is for Gender Identity:
‘This is the gender that someone feels they are. This might be the same as the gender they were given as a baby, but it might not. They might feel like they are a different gender, or they might not feel like a boy or a girl.’
At this point, the only thing children might feel is confusion and anxiety.
RSE takes us to the Wild West of sex education. This was made apparent in the Cass Review, the landmark independent review of gender-identity services for children in England, which found a great deal of emphasis is being placed on ‘non-normative’ sex. As one resource laments, ‘penis-in-vagina sex can be a bit meh, or rubbish, for many couples’. At every opportunity, it seems, heterosexual sex is either actively denigrated or struggling to keep up with an endless parade of more ‘exciting’ alternatives. In one lesson plan from an award-winning independent school, 12- and 13-year-olds are asked what they ‘know / think / feel’ about the kind of sex had by ‘heteronormative couples’ and ‘non-heteronormative couples’.
Though official guidance makes no mention of pornography or masturbation, the Cass review found that both have become fixtures of RSE. Resources included ‘Masturbation: A Hands-On Guide’, and material from an organisation called Split Banana, including ‘A Simple Guide to Great Sex-Ed: How to Talk About Porn’.
How do we reconcile the vast chasm between the government’s feverish attempts to ban children from social media on the grounds of safety, with its continued insistence on exposing those same children to explicit and controversial sexual content in the classroom? One can only conclude that this was never about protecting kids from harm at all. It was about control. The state wants to be the one doing the indoctrinating – to shut parents out of their children’s formation while it assumes ever greater authority with ever less transparency. This uneasy arrangement now sits at the heart of our educational crisis.
Bella d’Abrera is the Director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation at the Institute of Public Affairs, and the author of Mindless: How the Education System is Indoctrinating Children and Destroying our Civilisation (Wyborn Press, 2026).
Just days before the start of the 2026 World Cup finals, international warnings are escalating regarding the climate risks that players and fans may face during the anticipated tournament in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. These concerns are rising amid increasing fears about the impact of high temperatures and high humidity on physical safety and athletic performance.
The Reuters revealed that about 20 international scientists and experts in health, climate, and sports performance directed an open letter to FIFA, in which they asserted that currently approved heat management protocols are “insufficient” and do not align with the latest scientific studies related to heat stress in sports.
High heat, elevated humidity, and solar radiation
According to the report, experts warned that the danger is not solely linked to temperature but is exacerbated by high humidity and intense solar radiation. This combination increases fluid loss and raises the likelihood of muscle cramps, exhaustion, and heat stroke, especially given the congested match schedule and the staging of some matches during daytime hours.
The experts, according to Reuters, indicated that some host cities might experience temperatures ranging between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius during the summer tournament. They called for extending mandatory cooling breaks to at least six minutes, in addition to postponing or rescheduling matches when climatic conditions reach levels that threaten player safety.
World Cup and the impact of climate change on football
For its part, The Guardian newspaper, in its report, focused on the broader climate dimension of the tournament, suggesting that the 2026 World Cup could turn into an “unprecedented test” of global football’s ability to adapt to the repercussions of climate change.
The British newspaper explained that the risks of extreme heat have doubled compared to the 1994 World Cup hosted by the United States, due to globally rising temperatures in recent decades. It also pointed out that several American and Mexican cities are likely to register very high temperatures during matches, particularly during daytime fixtures.
According to The Guardian, the concerns are not limited to players but also extend to fans, with expectations that spectators will be exposed to long periods of direct heat inside the stadiums and surrounding open areas.
Unsafe climatic conditions
BBC Sport highlighted the position of the professional players’ union, FIFPRO, which considered some expected climatic conditions during the tournament to be “unsafe” for players, especially with the increasing match congestion in modern football.
The British network clarified that FIFA is already considering a series of protective measures, including implementing mandatory cooling breaks during both halves of matches, providing air-conditioned benches for substitutes and technical staff, and continuously monitoring heat and humidity levels inside the stadiums.
BBC also mentioned the possibility of adjusting the timing of some matches to avoid peak heat hours, as the international federation seeks to reduce health risks for both players and fans.
As part of fan protection plans, FIFA is working to provide shaded areas, misting systems, cooling buses, increase water distribution points, and allow closed water bottles into matches held in extremely hot conditions.
With mounting scientific warnings and pressure from players’ unions, the 2026 World Cup appears not just to be a global football event, but a real test of football’s ability to confront the challenges of a changing climate, in a tournament that may be held under one of the most severe thermal environments in World Cup history.
Featured image via Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
By Alaa Shamali
In the runup to the local elections, investigators exposed many of Reform UK’s election candidates. The investigations didn’t stop with the local election results, however, and more has come to light since then. Among the latest revelations is that Reform UK’s Bradford leader is a racist and a creep:
Reform — disgusting
The above post highlights three posts Place shared.
The first suggests ‘London has Fallen’ as a result of embracing Islam; the second depicts Angela Rayner as a sex worker who charges “£1 for 30 minutes”; the third we’ve blurred because it’s an AI creep shot of what appears to be teenage girls.
So he’s a bit of a dirtbag, this Place, isn’t he?
And for reference, this is what he looks like:
Clearly, the man is old enough to know better. We have further reason to know this too, because he just spoke to the BBC about another Bradford councillor that Reform has severed ties with:
Place told BBC Politics North: “It’s entirely his decision what he does now, but he’s not a Reform councillor.”
“Words have consequences and I don’t condone his words at all – they’re horrific, he should never have put those out,” Place said.
However, he added that Devaney was “absolutely devastated” and had previously issued “heartfelt apologies”.
“His words were wrong but I have to have a bit of empathy for him for the fallout of this. It’s absolutely ruined him,” Place said.
For reference, councillor Daniel Devaney said that Muslims are “pure scum”. We have to assume Place actually agrees with this sentiment (or has previously agreed with it), because he’s also shared posts like this:
Two faced
In conversation with the BBC, Place knows that racism is bad. On social media, however, he’s more than happy to promote Islamophobia between the AI child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
This man clearly isn’t fit for office. He’s not even fit for the cesspit which is social media.
Featured image via Getty Images (Dan Kitwood)
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