The loss of radical bookshops does not just stifle the spread of radical ideas. What replaces these spaces is isolation. Yet across the UK, radical booksellers are now fighting back.

The far right in the North East

Increasingly, political life is pushed online, where it can connect, but just as easily fragment. Without physical spaces, it becomes harder to build trust, confidence, and solidarity. And in that vacuum, disillusionment can be redirected. People who are rightly angry about declining living standards are bombarded with online propaganda that encourages them to blame migrants or trans people, rather than billionaires and corporate power.

Here in Newcastle upon Tyne, the far right has been protesting every Saturday for months. Organised neo-Nazis travel in from across the country, attempting to convince people already deprived of community, services, and quality of life that migrants are to blame.

Their short-term aim is to recruit, radicalise, and normalise anti-migrant sentiment. The long-term vision is grounded in fantasies of mass deportations and race war. At the same time, Reform UK looks set to gain ground in upcoming local elections. Like elsewhere in Britain, the far right is growing.

Many of us have tried to understand this moment by looking to history, particularly the rise of fascism in the early 20th century. For me, one lesson stands out sharply: fascist movements did not only fight their opponents in elections or on the streets. They systematically destroyed the physical infrastructure that made left-wing organising and ideas possible.

Fascist tactics

In Italy, from the outset, Benito Mussolini’s forces targeted trade union halls, socialist presses, and meeting spaces. They understood that these were the places where people gathered, built relationships, spread ideas, and developed collective power.

The same pattern unfolded in Germany. The Nazi Party dismantled the institutional and cultural life of the left, crushing unions and banning socialist literature. When they consolidated power, socialist organisers were quickly driven underground, imprisoned, or killed. By that point, it was too late. The only movement capable of halting fascism without mass death and destruction was already disempowered.

Today’s far right doesn’t even need to carry out that same level of coordinated destruction. Decades of neoliberalism have done much of the work already. Rising rents, weakened unions, the erosion of public life, and the dominance of multinationals, have hollowed out the spaces that once sustained collective organising. ‘Third spaces’ have steadily disappeared. The Alliance of Radical Booksellers lists no less than eight now-closed radical bookshops in Newcastle in its UK map of historical radical bookshops. Today there are none.

Bookshops fight on

Shops like Housmans in London, Bookhaus in Bristol, and Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh remain strong as hubs for organising, education, and community-building: hosting meetings, distributing radical literature, and connecting movements. New community-owned radical bookshops are opening across the country, as communities gather to resist neoliberalism’s regime of isolation.

Newcastle once had its own versions of this. Days of Hope (affectionately known as “Haze of Dope”) was the city’s last radical bookshop. It closed in the 1986, before I was even born. Like others of its kind, it was more than a retail space. It was a base for socialist political education, for organising, and for building relationships that extended beyond individual campaigns. That absence has been felt ever since.

A new radical bookshop in Newcastle

That’s why a collective I’m part of is crowdfunding to launch Books From Below – a new radical bookshop and community space in Newcastle.

The aim isn’t nostalgia but necessity. In a city with such a strong history of struggle, but also limited access to spaces that can sustain it, the need is urgent. Instead of leaving space for far-right voices to dominate, we can fill our streets, our conversations, and our communities with radical ideas. Then we can build the collective power to turn them into reality.

All radical bookshops start this way, with ordinary people pooling what they’ve got to create something for everyone. If we can do this here in Newcastle, so can anyone in any other town or city that still doesn’t have a radical bookshop.

This isn’t just about books. It’s about collectively rebuilding infrastructure: places where people can meet face-to-face, share ideas, and organise collectively to win against the far right. 

For this, we need places that are visible, accessible, and rooted in our communities. In an age of not just mass inequality but also an increasingly empowered far-right, we need radical bookshops and other left-wing community spaces more than ever.

Featured image via the Bookseller

The moment Union Berlin announced Marie‑Louise Eta as interim head coach, German football crossed a threshold it had never approached, let alone stepped over. Eta, 34, became the first woman to lead a men’s team in the Bundesliga, a milestone that reverberated far beyond Köpenick. But this wasn’t a ceremonial appointment or a symbolic gesture. It was a decision forged in crisis, urgency and the cold reality of a season slipping away.

Union Berlin have a task on their hands

Union’s slide has been stark. A 3–1 defeat to Heidenheim pushed the club to the brink of a relegation fight they had spent months pretending they weren’t part of. The table still shows them in mid‑pack, but the performances and the mood tell a different story. The club’s hierarchy finally said it out loud.

In a statement to CBS Sports, sporting director Horst Heldt said:

We have had a hugely disappointing second half of the season so far and will not allow ourselves to be blinded by our league position. Our situation remains precarious and we urgently need points to secure our place in the league.

Heldt didn’t stop there. He pointed directly to the numbers that had become impossible to ignore:

Two wins from fourteen matches since the winter break do not give us the confidence that we can still turn things around with the current set‑up.

That set‑up included Steffen Baumgart, a coach known for energy and emotional charge, but whose tenure unravelled as Union’s form collapsed. His exit was swift. The decision to elevate Eta was even swifter.

Eta’s rise has been steady, methodical and built on substance rather than noise. She holds a UEFA Pro Licence, has been a key figure in Union’s youth development, and in 2023 became the first female assistant coach in the Bundesliga. She even stepped in during a touchline ban earlier this season, guiding the men’s team through a matchday in a small preview of what was to come.

Eta steps up

Eta said:

I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task.

It was a typically understated response, delivered without fanfare. She also acknowledged the stakes with the same clarity the club had shown:

Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure.

The BBC described her appointment as “a historic moment for German football,” noting that no woman had ever led a men’s team in any of Europe’s top‑five leagues. Eta, who has long been respected internally for her tactical detail and calm authority, now finds herself at the centre of a story far bigger than Union’s league position.

A club at a crossroads

Union’s season has been defined by inconsistency, defensive fragility and a loss of identity. The team that once thrived on structure and collective discipline has looked increasingly disjointed. The BBC highlighted the pressure that had been building for weeks, with results deteriorating and confidence draining.

Eta inherits a squad that knows the stakes. The next match against Wolfsburg, is more than a fixture. It’s a test of nerve, clarity and belief. Five games remain. The margins are thin. The pressure is immense.

Eta has never framed herself as a pioneer, but the significance of her appointment is impossible to ignore. German football has long been conservative in its coaching pathways. The Bundesliga, for all its innovation on the pitch, had never entrusted a men’s team to a woman. Until now.

But Eta’s focus is narrower, sharper, more immediate. She has a team to stabilise, points to win, and a season to salvage. The symbolism will take care of itself.

The task ahead

Union Berlin have gambled not on novelty, but on competence. On a coach who has earned trust inside the club. On a leader who brings clarity at a moment when everything around her feels uncertain.

Five matches.

A fragile squad.

A historic appointment.

And a league watching closely.

Whether Union survive or not, the Bundesliga will never look the same again. Eta has stepped into the spotlight not because she sought it, but because she was ready for it.

Featured image via the Canary

A dispute has emerged between a former MP and an MSP candidate over the future of the guga hunt. This has thrust the controversial practice into the centre of the election campaign.

Edinburgh Central candidate Robert Pownall is standing while campaigning dressed as a gannet to raise awareness of the issue. He has called for the hunt to be banned, arguing that the killing of young seabirds in a protected area can no longer be justified in modern Scotland.

Talking to the National newspaper, former MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Angus MacNeil, accused Pownall of “cultural imperialism”. He said guga is a “prized delicacy” and part of a longstanding island tradition. MacNeil was in the SNP until 2023 and is now a member of Alba.

The guga hunt – tradition or shame?

The guga hunt is the last remaining seabird hunt in the UK. It involves a group of men from the Isle of Lewis travelling to the remote uninhabited island of Sula Sgeir each year to take juvenile gannets.

The chicks, who are unable to fly, are killed for consumption. Once rooted in subsistence during times of hardship, the practice is now largely maintained as a tradition and for a local delicacy.

Though killing wild birds is normally illegal, the guga hunt continues due to a specific legal carve out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act. It is this exemption Pownall is campaigning to end.

Taking aim at Pownall’s political campaign, MacNeil told the National newspaper:

He just doesn’t understand. Has the man been to Sula Sgeir? There’s big demand for them in Lewis, demand outstrips supply. It is very popular.

Pownall, who runs non-profit organisation Protect the Wild, responded by saying:

I have not visited Sula Sgeir, for good reason. It is a protected site and access is restricted, meaning it would be unlawful to visit without specific permission.

I have no intention of disturbing a protected seabird colony. What is striking, however, is that while it would be illegal for me to visit and monitor these birds without permission, it remains legal for others to kill thousands of their chicks each year for a ‘prized delicacy’.

Pownall also said the practice raises serious welfare concerns. He pointed to the way chicks are taken from their nests and “bludgeoned to death” in front of other birds.

MacNeil was MP for the Western Isles between 2005 and 2024. He said he had accompanied the guga hunters to Sula Sgeir around 15 years ago and that the killing is:

as quick and as humane as any slaughterhouse.

MacNeil added:

It’s historic in that it’s the last bird hunt I think anywhere in the British Isles. The Faroes and Iceland might have a little bit of it, but it’s certainly the last in Scotland of the bird hunts.

Pownall said that the fact this has been going on for so long is “not something to be proud of” and:

The fact that other forms of animal suffering exist does not justify this one.

He added:

It is also a strange line of argument to defend the practice by comparing it to a slaughterhouse. If the strongest defence is that it is as humane as industrial animal killing, that does not resolve the concern, it reinforces it.

Despite claims from supporters that the guga hunt does not harm the gannet population, documents which Protect the Wild obtained through a Freedom of Information request suggest otherwise. They show that Sula Sgeir is underperforming compared to every other comparable Gannet colony in Scotland. In fact, it’s the only Special Protection Area where the population has declined over the long term, while others have seen substantial growth.

Featured image via the Canary

LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty told a caller on her radio show that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) could be “a whole lot worse” in Lebanon, implying the IOF was not at the point of “no restraint at all”.

She followed up with:

Frankly, Steve, I will tell you how it helps. Again, this isn’t justifying what Israel is doing, I am just telling you how advising a population to leave because you are going to drop bombs in a city — would you want to know that? I’d like to know that and I’d get the hell out, wouldn’t you?

‘Would you like to be warned before they bombed your city?’
‘No… Why would I?’

Caller Steve butts heads with @ShelaghFogarty over Israel’s strikes in Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/c7GBam2VYm

— LBC (@LBC) April 10, 2026

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LBC host’s attitude branded ‘shameful’

On March 19, RT‘s Lebanon bureau chief Steve Sweeney, and his cameraman Ali Rida, were wounded in an IOF airstrike in southern Lebanon while reporting on Israel’s invasion and resistance responses.

Sweeney reshared Fogarty’s clip, saying that Israel’s evacuation warnings are a sham — often posted on social media to areas with poor connectivity in the middle of the night.

Sharing on X, he wrote:

I calculated times between the warnings being issued and the bombings back in 2024. In the first three weeks, the shortest was 4 minutes, and the longest was 29 minutes.

Let me tell you something about these “warnings” that the benevolent I$raeli army issue.

They are posted on social media and usually target areas with poor connection and at times when people are sleeping

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I calculated times between the warnings being issued and the bombings… https://t.co/xqzM0QGRwf

— Steve Sweeney (@SweeneySteve) April 12, 2026

Israel has already displaced over 1.1m people in Southern Lebanon and killed thousands. But humanitarian disasters are its speciality, and just like in Gaza, it has now created another one in Lebanon.

As usual, Israel’s standard excuse for bombing Brown people is ‘defeating terrorists’. In this case, in Lebanon, it’s ‘defeating Hezbollah’. Of course, everyone with even half a working brain can see that’s bullshit.

While Zionists like Fogarty sanitise genocide, it’s clear that mainstream media shows no restraint in acting as spokespeople for the IOF.

Featured image via the Canary

Arsenal allow Zionism

Money over morals

Media bias

The commercial value of influencers

The illusion of apolitical football

You can always tell that a political party is in trouble, because its MPs start using different branding: in the past, we’ve witnessed Tories using Labour red; now, we’re seeing Labour using green – a colour most commonly associated with the Green Party:

Now why would a Labour MP be using Green branding eh? https://t.co/9oLEIfjExK

— Gyll King Post Skip Diplomacy (@GyllKing) April 12, 2026

Labour is a lean, green, election losing machine

We’ve been through this before, and we know what the excuse is:

‘It’s not Green Party green – it’s House of Commons green‘.

The problem with this argument is that we’re not that gullible, and we know exactly what these politicians are doing.

When an MP puts out promotional materials, it should be clear what party they’re promoting. The reason parties have colours in the first place is to aid in this.

It goes without saying that Lucy Rigby is a House of Commons MP; what her constituents want to know is which party she represents and what values she seeks to uphold.

As Ed Sykes reported for the Canary on 8 December:

After a year and a half in charge of Britain, Keir Starmer’s Labour has clearly become a toxic brand. Starmer is the least popular prime minister ever, and a 3 December poll had the party at just 14%, four whole points behind a surging Green Party. So it’s no wonder many Labour MPs – even on Starmer’s top team – seem to have been distancing themselves from Labour branding.

The problem, of course, is that switching colours will only get you so far. People’s issue with Starmer’s Labour Party isn’t the brash, rose red of their branding; it’s the fact that the government is tinkering around the edges while the floor keeps falling out from under us.

Sykes added:

As Labour MPs and others attacked Green Party leader Zack Polanski in recent days, some people highlighted that one attack came from an MP consistently avoiding Labour branding and using neutral House of Commons-style branding instead:

If you saw this, what party would you think the MP was from? https://t.co/WxE6QD0218 pic.twitter.com/CC4AMcYJLF

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) December 7, 2025

Sykes also noted:

In 2010, Labour and the Tories both tried some rebranding to secure power, with the Tories going for a green tree to make them look a bit friendlier. And after 14 years proving they were anything but friendly, Conservative candidates started avoiding the Tory blue, using purple, green, and even red in campaign leaflets instead. They seemed positively desperate to distance themselves from what the party has done to the country since 2010.

It’s not a positive sign that UK politicians frequently feel a need to distance themselves from their own parties.

The future is Green

Until the past 12 months, the Greens were never serious contenders. Now, it’s clear Labour MPs are taking them deathly seriously.

And as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Featured image via Lucy Rigby

Pakistan’s recent role as a mediator on the world stage – trusted by the US, Iran, and the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC), according to the BBC – is shadowed by Imran Khan’s imprisonment.

Ever ready to muscle in where he doesn’t belong, Keir Starmer shared that he spoke to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, and thanked him for Pakistan’s critical role.

However, it was pointed out by Declassified that the UK has had a ” muted at best and complicit at worst” reaction to Pakistan’s incarceration of Khan. Khan has been imprisoned since 2023 on corruption charges he rejects. The UK says Pakistan’s courts are responsible for the legal process, but Khan should receive humane treatment.

Keir Starmer spoke to Pakistani PM Sharif, but there’s no record he raised the ongoing imprisonment of Imran Khan, who has been held largely in solitary confinement, in “inhumane” detention conditions (UN) and denied family visits.

👉 https://t.co/CIb1oWSv5o pic.twitter.com/TA0Onf4f9G

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— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) April 13, 2026

Imran Khan question

Political commentator Ben Norton posted a claim on X that the US backed a coup against Imran Khan to put the current ‘puppet’ Prime Minister Sharif, in power. He implied that Sharif had allowed the White House to write his public statements for him, sharing a New York Times story on the previously agreed, now nulled ceasefire between Iran and the USA.

This is why the US backed a coup against Pakistan’s independent Prime Minister Imran Khan and helped put in power Shehbaz Sharif, a corrupt US puppet from an oligarchic dynasty.

Sharif is such a shameless puppet that the US writes his public statements.https://t.co/y1Ddyg4hqk pic.twitter.com/70ZSwyO1oB

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) April 10, 2026

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Just before the failed talks between Iran and the US in Islamabad over the weekend, Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) of Pakistan, along with 40 popular movements from around the globe, issued a statement condemning Western supremacy. The group said they:

Condemn the escalating war of aggression waged by the United States, Zionism, and its allies against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This hot war was prepared over decades through “cold” yet deadly sanctions, covert sabotage, targeted assassinations, military encirclement, and cognitive warfare. Its aim is to collapse the Iranian state — an agenda of balkanization through ethnic strife and de-develoment through bombardment that has become a hallmark of contemporary imperialist war.

The HKP is part of the Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan (Movement to Protect the Constitution of Pakistan or TTAP), which is a coalition of several political formations and is headed by Pakistan Tehreek-Insaaf (PTI), Pakistan’s main opposition party, and founded by Khan himself

In February, PTI called a general strike in Pakistan amid Imran Khan’s incarceration, the second anniversary of the “rigged elections”, and Pakistan’s participation in Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza, according to People’s Dispatch. The outlet reported:

February 8 marks the anniversary of the 2024 Pakistani general elections, which were held two years after the removal of Imran Khan, of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from the office of prime minister in a vote of no confidence. The 2024 elections were marred with irregularities, seemingly aimed at preventing the victory of the PTI and Imran Khan who was already in prison.

Implications

Khan’s imprisonment leaves an obvious question. Had he not been ousted in questionable circumstances, perhaps Pakistan would not have been on the colonial sham of Trump’s Board of Peace. Pakistan’s Ministers would also not be deleting X posts criticizing Israel.

We Pakistanis stand by every word of the tweet by @KhawajaMAsif. We wish and pray our country will play an important role, INSHALLAH, in annihilating and obliterating the illegitimate, illegal, terrorist and genocidal state of Israel. pic.twitter.com/d1O2ykWzkT

— Haider Ali Butt (@HaiderSalma_) April 10, 2026

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A lawyer and Vice President of Pakistan’s HKP reshared the current Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s post, criticizing Israel. Asif deleted the post after Zionist pressure.

However, Butt said:

We Pakistanis stand by every word of the tweet by @KhawajaMAsif.

It is, again, unlikely Asif would have had to delete such a post under Khan. And, neither would Pakistan have found itself the lapdog of the US and Israel even as it stretches to host negotiations with Iran.

Featured image via the Canary

Help and support:

‘Young Bob’ is a Gen-Z British activist who was previously in the pocket of the American right. While he’s most famous for being repeatedly beaten up, he’s also known for talking complete and utter shite.

His most recent example of this was seen here:

“Why are young people flocking to Restore Britain?”

I spoke to Britain’s youngest elected councillor, who recently defected to Restore Britain, on why young people are moving towards this new right-wing political party. pic.twitter.com/y9j1zne2BL

— Young Bob (@YoungBobRB) April 12, 2026

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The problem with the above is that young people aren’t flocking right; they’re demonstrably moving left, and in numbers too big to ignore.

Oh, and don’t punch Young Bob if you see him on the street.

If nothing else, it will only give him another month’s worth of content.

Gen-Z aren’t ‘flocking’ anywhere

For those who are unfamiliar, Restore Britain is a Reform UK breakaway party. It exists because the Reform guys with the least agreeable personalities decided that the party wasn’t anti-social enough.

While the new party claims to have over 100,000 members, this is disputed:

It’s been a few months now since Restore started, and there’s still no official membership portal.

They have 120,000 donations which could be anywhere around the world, but they don’t have members. https://t.co/kuPU11Zkrm pic.twitter.com/fQNcxIaKH7

— Curtis Daly (@CurtisDaly_) April 11, 2026

In the video at the top, Young Bob is interviewing Kieran Mishchuk. We covered Mishchuk when he was still with Reform, and we did so because he was a brazen bullshitter who got caught in a lie:

GBNews speaking to “random residents”.

Only he’s actually a Reform UK councillor (Kieran Mishchuk, representing 20 mins down the road) being platformed like they’re a random resident.

No one has a problem with the flag, give it a rest.

It doesn’t belong to Reform UK and… https://t.co/gihgI4tlQr pic.twitter.com/7HuFbTWxMl

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) October 14, 2025

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He’s also – much like Young Bob – the sort of young person that you’d describe as a ‘briefcase wanker’.

Appealing or appalling?

In the video, Young Bob asks:

Why do you think Restore is appealing to so many young people?

Mishchuk answers:

I think it’s common sense really and pride as well, patriotism, hope, stuff that the left the left wing parties that they don’t really clamp on is the history. When you come from a working town like Sittingbourne… you’ve got hundreds of years of history, and you’ve got generations of family members that have done the same thing, and over the last hundred years that industry that was there is gone.

In Sittingbourne, it was paper, bricks, and barges that were built. On my granddad’s side of the family, it was barges. They used to build and design barges. That industry, that boat industry is gone. It’s just completely gone.

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Okay, but in the time that all happened, we had a procession of right-wing neoliberal governments.

What do you think Thatcherism was?

Thatcher said her greatest legacy was Tony Blair.

And now we’ve got Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves doing an even worse tribute act.@TheGreenParty say tax the super rich, nationalise our public services and strengthen workers rights.

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) March 19, 2024

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If you don’t know, Thatcherism was the ideology of selling off everything that wasn’t nailed down and handing off sovereignty to the City of London.

It wasn’t a left-wing project.

What the fuck are you talking about, Kieran?

Leftwards shift

All that aside, young people aren’t interested in Restore anyway:

Young people (18-24s) are 22x more likely to support Zack Polanski’s Green Party than Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.

The British youth are the most progressive in the history of this country.

Do not let anyone convince you otherwise. https://t.co/JJyUiZ0LHS pic.twitter.com/UkghCql9Jt

— thelefttake (@thelefttake) April 12, 2026

Other than that, though, lads – good work.

We can see why young people are flocking towards your movement.

Featured image via Young Bob

Prince William makes £1.5m a year in taxpayers’ money renting Dartmoor prison to the HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). Whilst this in itself is a bloody outrage, it gets worse. HMP Dartmoor is utterly unusable – a wildlife-infested pit filled with radon gas.

HMP Dartmoor was forced to close its doors due to dangerous levels of the radioactive gas back in July 2024. In both 2020 and 2023, parts of the prison showed radon levels ten-times the legal limit.

Radon is the UK’s second-highest cause of lung cancer, after smoking. Since being left empty the property has become infested with “rats, birds, bats and insects”, according to the Times. 

However, the rental agreement is apparently locked-in until 2033. As such, the public looks set to pay up to £68m leasing the useless building over the course of the contract. Over the 2024/25 financial year, William made around £23m from the Duchy of Cornwall portfolio, of which HMP Dartmoor is just one part.

Prince William: The Duchy Files

Back on 2 November 2024, the Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches broke a story on the massive property empire making Charles and William millions a year. The extent of the portfolio was a closely guarded secret, even from Parliament. The Times reported that:

In a five-month investigation, we used the royal addresses to uncover their business contracts and discovered how the duchies are making millions of pounds each year by charging government departments, councils, businesses, mining companies and the general public via a series of commercial rents and feudal levies on land largely seized by medieval monarchs.

The Duchy Files show the royals charge for the right to cross rivers; offload cargo onto the shore; run cables under their beaches; operate schools and charities; and even dig graves. They earn revenue from toll bridges, ferries, sewage pipes, churches, village halls, pubs, distilleries, gas pipelines, boat moorings, opencast and underground mines, car parks, rental homes and wind turbines.

At the time, the Canary commented that a large portion of the land was originally seized by medieval monarchs. This shatters the notion that royal privilege is a thing of the past. In very real ways, the Royal Family is still living in the Medieval Ages, and we’re all paying the price.

Likewise, we also reacted with fury at the fact the monarchy was actively draining money from charities. This included charging massive amounts of rent to Macmillan and Marie Curie. Damningly, the royals are patrons and notable donors to both institutions.

‘Blind panic’

Since the Duchy Files exposé, William has stopped charging rent for village halls, school playing fields, the fire service, and lifeboat stations. However, he’s still raking in the cash from HMP Dartmoor. That’s in spite of the fact the property’s even more unfit for human habitation than the average prison.

Since its closure some 23 months ago, the public has paid prince William at least £2.5m for the defunct prison. The Duchy of Cornwall has refused to comment on whether it will review the rent contract. Instead, the Duchy stated that:

The lease of HMP Dartmoor reflects long-standing arrangements governing the site and was negotiated on a standard commercial basis with both parties taking independent advice. We remain in regular contact with the Ministry of Justice, as it determines the future of the prison.

Public accounts committee MPs stated back in January that senior civil servants renewed the HMP Dartmoor lease in 2023 “in a blind panic”. Reportedly, the responsible parties knew about the prison’s radon levels, but wanted to secure prison places.

Nevertheless, the prison has since had to relocate its 682 inmates. It’s also reportedly hemorrhaging a further £4m a year in an attempt to secure the empty building and improve its ventilation. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Tory chair of the accounts committee, called the MoJ’s handling of the affair “an absolute disgrace”:

We heard claims that the leasing of this unusable building, known for years by HMPPS to be choked with radon gas with all the health risks that entailed, was sensible, driven by the need for prison places. […]

Our committee rejects this excuse outright. Dartmoor appears to the committee [to be] a perfect example of a department reaching for a solution, any solution, in a blind panic and under pressure.

‘Highest possible value for taxpayer money’

At the same time, over 100 staff and prisoners held at Dartmoor have since taken legal action against the Ministry of Justice over radon-induced illness. They join a total of 750 similar legal claimants from 42 prisons and probation facilities across the country with dangerous radon levels.

HMPPS said:

We continue to assess safety and feasibility at HMP Dartmoor, and will make a decision on the site in due course that prioritises the highest possible value for taxpayer money.

As there is an ongoing [Health and Safety Executive] investigation and live legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further, but we have strengthened radon management across the prison estate in line with regulatory requirements.

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A fine demonstration of completely avoiding the issue there.

So, just to recap – prince William is making more than a million a year renting an unlivable prison to HMPPS. The civil servants who signed the contract knew it had illegal levels of radon. However, they were in a panic to find prison spaces. The contract won’t run out until 2033.

In the meantime, the MoJ has still had to relocate the inmates, after having endangered their lives by knowingly locking them in a building full of radioactive gas. Now, the public is also on the hook for the lawsuit, as well as the ongoing bill to try to make HMP Dartmoor useable again.

This utter farce has exposed two things more than any others. First, our absurd rush for prison places is putting lives at risk. Alongside this, it’s acting as a black hole for public money.

And second, for all that we pretend our monarchy is a defunct fossil, they’re clearly still reaping the benefits of a ancient feudal land system. It’s long past time we ended this ridiculous rulership by blood rights for good – starting with the crown’s ownership of 52,000 hectares of UK land.

Featured image via the Canary