Politics
The disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist
‘Anti-Semitic art exhibition this way’, announces a sign, held up by a cutesy self-drawn picture of the artist next to a bike. Follow it, and you’ll find that Matthew Collings’s new show in Margate stays true to its word.
Inside the gallery are hundreds of Collings’s furiously hatched colour-pencil drawings, all of them with some connection to Israel or Gaza. One shows Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu naked, with blood pouring from his mouth and hands, his cock erect, as he hypnotises the world. UK prime minister Keir Starmer is shown meekly taking orders from the Star of David. A pot-bellied and yellow-faced trio called ‘The Lobby’ – the Israeli or Jewish lobby, he presumably means – is sketched above the words, ‘They are nuts but utterly in control’. A scaly green lizard vomits blood with the slogan, ‘Stop Apartheid Demon’. A blood-stained Donald Trump is marked ‘Death’, ‘Epstein’ and ‘Israel’, and is surrounded by hollow-eyed monsters. The caption explains: ‘Trump thinks: “Hmm… Epstein… better invade Iran and murder Muslims”.’ The moment you walk into the gallery, you feel like you’re in that scene in a slasher film, when the victim stumbles into her kindly helper’s man-cave, only to discover his crazy, violent drawings that tell you he’s the villain.
You might have heard of Collings before. He was a critic before he was an artist (if you can really call him that), editing Artscribe magazine and presenting on BBC’s The Late Show in the 1990s. He wholeheartedly embraced the Young British Artists wave, writing Blimey! – From Bohemia to Britpop: London Art World From Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst. He went on to present This Is Modern Art on Channel 4. Collings, like so many tiresome critics, made a name for himself by praising modern art, claiming it to be too complex for the public to understand, while at the same time attacking the Old Masters who most people tend to like. All of this was done in a mockingly cynical manner. He would express his disapproval with a pretentiously raised eyebrow to the camera. It was all a bit glib.
Now that he’s moved from critic to artist, Collings seems to want his artworks to speak to what he considers profound, leading him to embrace the tragedy and horror of Gaza. Like many ageing Boomers, Collings has rediscovered the youthful radicalism he turned away from in his early career, largely with the help of the Palestinian cause. He has grown angrier and more certain in his beliefs, too. Even the grotesque pogrom of 7 October 2023 gave these artist-cum-activists no pause for thought. They had already decided that the Jews were the baddies and the Palestinians the long-suffering martyrs. So when Hamas’s thugs raped, slaughtered and kidnapped Israelis, all the pro-Gaza crowd saw was an act of righteous rebellion.
Collings’s turn from Britpop-loving centrist dad to an uncloseted Israelophobe took him into Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and then straight out again. He was adopted as the parliamentary candidate for South West Norfolk in 2019. Within a day of his selection, he was suspended from the party for having dismissed allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour as a ‘witch-hunt’, and for calling the late chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, a ‘hate-filled racist’. He also shared conspiratorial diagrams on social media, purporting to reveal the ‘influence’ of Jewish businessmen on British politics. That’s right – Collings took things too far, even for the Corbynistas.
The Margate exhibition is laughably titled Drawings Against Genocide. The artworks look childish and this is deliberate. Collings is trying to strip away all artifice to let the unalloyed feelings shine out. The trouble is that, in letting us see directly into his soul, what we see there is repulsive.
Collings would no doubt argue that his ‘art’ is in the tradition of the anti-Vietnam War art of the 1960s radicals, like Michael Sandle’s Mickey Mouse at the Machine Gun (1972) or Leon Golub’s paintings of torture and killing, even though his Margate show is entirely misanthropic and hate-filled.
Some have called for the exhibition to be banned, but that would be a mistake. On the contrary, Matthew Collings has done us a great service by showing us the disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist. It is good that we all see the depravity that lies at the heart of this movement.
James Heartfield is the author of Britain’s Empires.
A skateboarding charity has successfully reopened its much-loved skatepark in a new Derby location after being evicted from its former premises.
Flo Skatepark unveiled its 20,828 sq-ft indoor skatepark in Derby’s Derbion shopping centre earlier this month, transforming the former Eagle Market space.
Its opening day featured a packed skate jam, filled with upbeat energy that made attendees of all age groups feel alive.
Mark Deans, chairperson of Flo Charitable Trust, which was set up to stop the skatepark disappearing, summed up the mood.
It can only get better and better from here. The park is there to be used by a whole range of small wheels.
Flo Skatepark centres diversity and inclusion
Flo Skatepark had to leave its Nottingham home in 2024 when the site was repurposed for a new footbridge over the River Trent.
For the skaters who mastered their wheels under its roof, and for the charity behind it, the closure felt personal, not just practical.
However, the departure from the old location led to Flo landing in a new place, prompting potential for a bigger platform and a great future.
Its new space puts diversity and inclusion at the forefront. Alongside a dedicated beginner zone for first-timers, it offers substantial features for experienced riders, including a vert ramp and a bowl.
Deans says Flo has always facilitated growth throughout the entire skating journey, from that nervous first push to elite training.
In the past, we’ve taken someone from beginner to national champion. Whether you’re trying it for the first time or training for the Olympics, this park can support you — at any level in between.
That is of great importance in today’s skateboarding landscape as the sport now operates on the world’s biggest stage.
Since joining the Olympic programme at Tokyo 2020 and returning at Paris 2024, skateboarding has gained legitimacy, allowing an increased number of young people to pursue the sport professionally whilst preserving the culture and creativity that define it.
Why indoor spaces like Flo Skatepark matter
The most concrete message enunciated at the opening centred on safety and confidence, particularly for people who can feel excluded in outdoor spaces.
In the UK, indoor skateparks answer a straightforward challenge derived from the weather and its limitation to outdoor presence. Year-round access enables consistent practice and structured coaching for the sport, both crucial for helping young riders improve and stay engaged.
Flo’s expansion aligns with national aims from Sport England to keep people active by facilitating access to welcoming local amenities.
A city centre skatepark with real visibility
The Derbion’s location places skateboarding at the heart of the city, alongside shops, places to eat and other attractions. That visibility reshapes who encounters it, who gives skateboarding a go and who feels it’s truly a sport for them.
Beth McDonald, managing director of the Derbion, called it “world-class” and said it would “unite sport, culture and community”.
Derby City Council leader, Nadine Peatfield, framed it as part of a bigger city-centre plan.
She said:
This is a brilliant addition to our city centre, providing a world-class space where people of all ages can come together to stay active and inspired…
I can’t wait to see the positive impact it will have.
What does Flo’s move mean for British skateboarding?
Flo’s story reaches beyond a single building and demonstrates the resilience of a skating community that refused to fade away.
Nottingham was a defining chapter, proving a focus on nurturing talent, building confidence and creating a place to belong for its young community.
However, Derby is the next step: bigger, bolder and far easier to find. As Mark Deans put it, it’s a new era.
Featured image via Marketing Derby
By Faz Ali
The University of East London (UEL) has announced plans to open its first South Asia Careers Hub in Chennai, strengthening its long-term strategic commitment to India and the wider South Asia region.
Planned to open in Autumn 2026, the Hub will serve students, alumni, employers, researchers and entrepreneurs across South Asia. It will bring together international academic practice with regional industry and community expertise to create practical, career-focused learning opportunities.
The Hub will support:
- internships and live industry projects
- executive education and workforce development
- applied research partnerships
- support for start-ups and entrepreneurship
Focus areas aligned with regional priorities:
The Hub’s initial academic focus will include:
- Health and Behavioural Sciences
- Engineering
- Business Management
- Psychology
These areas closely align with Tamil Nadu’s priorities in healthcare, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and inclusive development.
Developed in partnership with the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and the Government of Tamil Nadu, the Hub will work directly with industry to provide hands-on experience while supporting fast-growing sectors such as advanced manufacturing, health technologies, digital innovation and the creative economy.
Announcement made at India International Higher Education Summit
The announcement was made at the India International Higher Education Summit (IGES), where Professor Amanda Broderick, Vice-Chancellor and President of UEL, is leading the University’s delegation.
Professor Amanda Broderick, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of East London, said, “India is one of the most dynamic education and innovation markets in the world, and Chennai is at the heart of that momentum. The launch of our first South Asia Careers Hub represents a major step in UEL’s long-term commitment to India, bringing our careers-first, enterprise-led education model directly into partnership with government, industry and academia.”
“This collaboration with the Government of Tamil Nadu and TIDCO allows us to co-create globally relevant, industry-embedded education, applied research and workforce development that delivers real impact – for students, employers and society. Together, we are building new pathways for talent, innovation and inclusive growth that will shape the future workforce across India and South Asia.”
The Hub will also support alumni engagement across India and South Asia, strengthening links between education, employers and lifelong learning, while creating new opportunities for academic and research collaboration in the years ahead.
Government of Tamil Nadu statement
The Government of Tamil Nadu welcomed UEL’s decision to establish its first South Asia Careers Hub in Chennai, reinforcing the state’s position as India’s leading destination for global education, advanced skills and innovation-led growth.
Formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding with TIDCO, the initiative reflects international confidence in Tamil Nadu’s governance, talent ecosystem and policy stability, strengthening its reputation as the preferred destination for high-quality global universities.
Planned to open in 2026, the Hub will support high-value job creation, skills development and inclusive economic growth, aligned with the India–UK Vision 2035 and Tamil Nadu’s ambition to act as a global gateway for education, innovation and talent mobility.
Find out more about studying in the UK as an international student.
The University of East London (UEL) hosted a cross-sector symposium at the House of Commons on 9 February, bringing together parliamentarians, employers, practitioners and people with lived experience to examine how workplaces can better support colleagues affected by trauma, substance use and recovery.
Held in partnership with the International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction (ICUDDR), the event focused on employers’ responsibilities in a changing landscape of work and health, and the role recovery-ready, trauma-informed practices can play in addressing long-term sickness and economic inactivity.
Discussions were framed in the context of the Government’s Keep Britain Working agenda and the growing recognition that good work can support long-term participation in the labour market.
Opening the symposium, UEL Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Amanda Broderick said: “East London is a place of extraordinary energy, resilience and creativity. But it is also where communities often experience the sharpest edges of health inequality, economic precarity, trauma and addiction-related harm.
These realities do not stop at the workplace door. They show up in absence, presenteeism, disciplinary processes, and too often, in people falling out of work altogether.
Our work is deliberately practice-based and grounded in a responsibility to deliver solutions that benefit learners, employers and communities alike. Developing recovery-ready, addiction-informed workplaces is, for us, a practical way of enacting that responsibility – translating evidence, values and lived experience into real organisational change.”
Through keynote contributions, panel discussions and facilitated roundtables, participants explored how organisations can move beyond basic policies to create workplace cultures that reduce stigma, support early intervention, and enable people to stay in or return to work safely and sustainably.
The symposium heard that around 2.8 million working-age adults are economically inactive due to ill health. Roughly one in five working-age people is out of work. The economic cost of this is estimated at over £200 billion a year.
Guests included House of Commons host the Rt Hon James Asser, MP for West Ham and Beckton, Deputy Mayor of London Mr Howard Dawber, the Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham and Minister for Social Security and Disability, and Dr Laurie Krom, Executive Director, and Dr Carmel Clancy, Director, from ICUDDR.
Professor Fatima Annan-Diab, Executive Dean of the Royal Docks School of Business and Law, told guests, “We are committed to working with employers, policymakers, practitioners, and partners to translate evidence into capability – and intent into delivery. Through our interdisciplinary expertise and our Recovery-Ready and Trauma-Informed Professional Pathway, introduced today, we are building the infrastructure needed to support real and lasting organisational change.”
“This work does not begin and end with an event. It is ongoing, and it is designed to be collaborative.”
Over the next phase, the collaboration will focus on developing professional education and practical resources for employers, including continuing professional development (CPD) courses, employer toolkits and opportunities for applied research.
View all our short courses (CPD)
The Association of Former Members of Parliament has published the latest edition of its official journal Order! Order!
4 min read
When I look at the structure of our student loan system in 2026, I don’t recognise it as a loan.
It is a retrospectively rewritten graduate tax that punishes aspiration, entrenches inequality, and falls hardest on women at every stage of their working lives.
An entire generation was told repayments would feel like “a phone contract” or “a few coffees a week.” That was a lie. Only a third of Plan 2 borrowers will ever clear the balance.
The rest pay 9 per cent of every pound above a frozen threshold for up to 40 years – a 51 per cent marginal rate when combined with income tax and National Insurance. A graduate on £50,000 will only keep 49p of each additional pound – how dare politicians continue to call it a loan.
Beneath these headline injustices sits a deeper one policymakers refuse to name: this system is gendered from the day it is signed to the day a woman retires.
Women make up 57 per cent of UK students. They leave with the same debts as men but a labour market that pays them 14 – 15 per cent less and expects them to take career breaks for caring but doesn’t give financial relief. In the student loan system they pay for longer, pay more in real terms, and rarely clear their balance.
Our research found Ms JD puts the arithmetic in words ministers should read: “Unless you are being paid over £66k annually, you do not even start to break even. To earn £66k as a female in a male-dominated industry will be almost impossible.” Seven and a half years of consistent repayment have taken her balance from £57,000 to £83,000. She finds it “near impossible to buy a house on my own.”
Then there is motherhood – if a woman can afford it. Interest does not pause for maternity leave.
Ms HS, 32 and child-free despite wanting to be a parent, says: “Knowing my student loan balance would still be growing during maternity leave adds an extra layer of financial pressure.” Ms HG and her husband pay £420 a month and have put off starting a family: “This is why the birth rate is so low, we can’t afford to do so.” Westminster wonders about falling birth rates. It has engineered one of them.
The unfairness begins before a woman has even taken out her own loan. Ms CM describes how the parental assessment for maintenance loans assumes a stepparent will fund an adult stepchild’s university costs – penalising single mothers who re-partner. Most single-parent households are headed by women. That is not a footnote. It is structural.
Then there is the pension pipeline. The part that should stop ministers in their tracks. Every pound deducted in a woman’s 20s, 30s and 40s is a pound not compounding in her pension. Women retire with 40 per cent less pension wealth than men. As Ms HS puts it: “Ultimately, it’s a 9 per cent additional tax for life.” The state that raids her payslip now will rescue her later. That is not social policy. It is a doom loop.
Layered on top is a retrospective rewriting of the deal. The repayment threshold was promised to rise with earnings; it has been frozen and re-frozen. Interest rate bands were tightened at the 2025 Budget without mention in the Treasury’s own Budget documents. The 6 per cent cap from September 2026 does not enable graduates to clear their debts, it merely slows the rate at which those debts become unrepayable. In any regulated consumer credit market, marketing debt on terms this misleading would be a clear breach of consumer protection law and bee deemed a scandal.
What I have described is, on its face, indirect sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. No gender impact assessment has been published for the threshold freeze or the hidden tightening of the interest bands, raising a serious question about whether ministers have discharged the Public Sector Equality Duty at all.
Fairness is not free; nor is unfairness. Proper reform, retrospective justice, a lifetime repayment cap, and a mandatory gender impact assessment on every future change – costs roughly 0.3–0.4 per cent of GDP. Reforming the triple lock releases savings that would address this intergenerational unfairness. A political choice, not about affordability.
The student loan system promised social mobility and has delivered a debt trap.
This government has committed to closing the gender pay gap, the gender pension gap and reversing birth rate decline, so cannot credibly defend a policy that measurably widens all three. Ms HG asks the question ministers must answer: “When did hard work mean only surviving?”
Gina Miller is founder of MoneyShe, and co-founder of SCM Direct. You can read her TSC submission here and policy white paper here.
When does cowardice become complicity? I wondered this on Sunday morning when my bike ride through Woodcock Park in Harrow was interrupted by a vast stretch of police tape. It was jarring to see this leafy enclave with its trickling brook turned into a crime scene. But I knew two things right away: first, that the target would have been the synagogue that sits on the edge of the park; and second, that the chattering class’s response to this latest brutalising of England’s Jews would be as meek and quiet as this park normally is.
I was right on both counts. A quick Google confirmed that, overnight, the Kenton United Synagogue had been targeted for fiery destruction. A bottle containing ‘accelerant’ was hurled through a window. More simply, a synagogue was firebombed, in London, in 2026. Mercifully, the homemade device of fascist terror failed to ignite and the synagogue suffered only a little smoke damage. Then came the next act in the anti-Semitic drama, the one that follows with baleful predictability every outrage against our Jewish compatriots: the snivelling, gutless silence of ‘the virtuous’.
We need to speak plainly: England’s Jews are being terrorised and the left is silent. Jews are being subjected to a campaign of fascist-style animus and so-called anti-fascists are saying fuck all. The world’s oldest racism has burst back to bloody life and ‘anti-racist’ influencers either haven’t noticed, don’t care, or they like it. How else to explain their craven self-gagging in the face of racist violence? ‘We would have hidden Jews in the attic’, these preening ‘progressive’ moralists love to say, when the only thing in their attics are Palestine flags, spare keffiyehs and placards saying ‘Zionism is cancer’.
The situation could not be more serious. The attempted burning of Kenton United Synagogue was the third violent assault on a Jewish institution in London in a week. There was also the attempted firebombing of the Finchley Reform Synagogue on Wednesday. In the dead of night, two people in balaclavas hurled petrol-filled bottles at it. Thankfully, the damage was minimal. Then on Friday, a man placed a bag containing three bottles of flammable liquid outside the former offices of Jewish Futures in Hendon, a Jewish educational charity. They failed to fully ignite. And it was only last month that four Jewish ambulances were destroyed in Golders Green in a fiery act of racial hatred. And only last year that two Jews were slain on Yom Kippur in the Islamist atrocity at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester.
The events of the past week, those three attempted incinerations, leave no doubt: a campaign of terror is underway against the Jews of Britain. The message of these Nazi-like arsonists is as clear as it is sick: you aren’t safe here. In the suburbs where you live, in your educational institutions, even in your places of worship, we will find you. This is a violent crusade to strip our Jewish citizens of their sense of security, to plunder them of the thing every British citizen should enjoy – the feeling that we belong, that we are safe. These petrol-pouring lowlifes want nothing less than to make life intolerable for the Jews of this kingdom.
Worse, there are suspicions the Islamic Republic is involved in this violent rebirth of anti-Jewish persecution. A group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia has claimed responsibility for some of the anti-Semitic arson in the UK and other attacks on Jews in Europe. It is thought to be a proxy or at least a fanclub of the tyranny in Tehran. After the failed burning of the synagogue in Kenton this weekend, the Metropolitan Police said it is ‘alive’ to the ‘threat of Iranian state aggression in the UK’.
Think about this: it is possible British Jews are being terrorised at the behest of a foreign regime. It is possible the Islamist theocracy in Iran is engaged in a war of attrition against Jews in Hendon, Kenton, Finchley. If the Iranian link is substantiated, the government’s response should be the immediate closure of the Iranian Embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian diplomats. No quarter whatsoever can be given to regimes that encourage militant racists to take up arms against Jewish Britons. As for that sickly, suicidal Islamo-left alliance that makes excuses for, or outright cheers, the Islamic Republic and its ‘axis of resistance’ – they are now completely morally indistinguishable from Oswald Mosley and his mob who did fascism’s bidding in Britain.
The brainless apologists for Tehran among Britain’s affluent faux-socialist classes will say: ‘It was only a few makeshift petrol bombs. And they didn’t ignite.’ Yet those three dreamt-of fires will have made Jews across London feel fretful. Is their synagogue next? Will the next bag of accelerants catch fire? That’s terrorism’s mission – to terrorise. What’s more, the explosion of Jew hate in Australia after 7 October 2023 also started with the ‘low-level’ intimidation of synagogues, including firebombings. And we know how things ended there. It is at the very start that the Islamo-fascist menace must be quashed, before it leads to more than smoke damage, and to the harming of more than bricks and mortar.
I am now at the point where I find the ‘progressive’ silence in the aftermath of these attacks more unnerving than the noise of the violence itself. Anti-Jewish savagery is tragically to be expected from the Islamic Republic and its simps in the West. It’s the cowardice of the cultural elite that feels truly foreign, truly unsettling. A whole week of terror against Jews in London and the government just issues a few perfunctory comments while the media elites briefly wring their hands before getting back to the Mandelson scandal. Where’s the anger? Where’s the righteous fury of those liberals who said everything from Brexit to Trump was ‘like the 1930s’ yet who now seem so soullessly unfazed by literal firebombings of synagogues?
As for the left, their claim to oppose racism lies in the gutter where it belongs. It has been exposed as a gross lie by their own wordless timidity as synagogues are targeted with fire. These people got angrier over the Supreme Court ruling saying men aren’t women than they did over a week of anti-Semitic arson in London. I don’t know what we’re meant to call an activist class that shows more interest in the right of men to piss wherever they fancy than it does in the right of Jews to live in safety. But I know it’s not anti-fascist.
The terrorisers in our midst are not only goading England’s Jews – they’re goading all of us. They’re laying down a gauntlet alongside their petrol bombs, to see if Britain will stand with its Jews or betray them. And right now we are failing, badly. Civil society sleeps. The government is too busy saving its own arse to save British Jewry. And ‘progressives’ just carry on with their one-eyed, unhinged demonisation of the Jewish State and everyone who supports it, effectively hanging a target sign around the necks of Britain’s Jews. There is a moment in which silence becomes complicity. When moral nonchalance helps to normalise savagery. When our collective failure to speak out is viewed by the fascist enemy as permission for further violence. We’ve reached that moment.
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
When the Tories started defecting to Reform UK en masse, the reason for them doing so was obvious. Reform were riding high in the polls while the Conservative Party was sinking lower and lower.
Ironically, Reform have dropped in the polls since accepting these Tory defectors. Reform sold themselves as an alternative to the Labour-Conservative duopoly, so opening the party up to ex-Tories made it clear that Farage’s bunch are just another status quo party.
Now, it looks like several of these Tory defectors could eventually lose their seats to their old party:
Chicken Run Alert — Kevin Hollinrake MP (@kevinhollinrake) April 19, 2026
https://t.co/H9YAaH9K71
For all the MPs who moved for the cynical purpose of saving their skin, this has got to burn.
Things can only get beta – for Reform, anyway
The above is from the website UK Polling Report. The site describes itself as being in the ‘beta’ stage, which implies it’s available to the public but still undergoing testing.
Looking at the front page, this is their polling prediction for how many seats each party would win should an election happen today:
We’re highlighting this to note their model is producing very different results to some pollsters:
– Seats – Poll: @Ipsos_in_the_UK, 9-15 Apr (+/- vs 11 Mar) pic.twitter.com/iOenwmYCvo — Stats for Lefties
POLL | Reform lead by 6pts
Ref: 25% (-3)
Con: 19% (+2)
Lab: 19% (-2)
Grn: 17% (=)
Lib: 14% (+5)
Res: 3% (new)
Ref: 262Con: 85Lib: 85Lab: 70Grn: 70
SNP: 47
Plaid: 8
(@LeftieStats) April 17, 2026
— Seats — Poll: @YouGov, 12-13 Apr (+/- vs 7 Apr) pic.twitter.com/m0PQxoBh26
— Stats for Lefties
POLL | Reform lead by 5pts
Ref: 24% (=) Con: 19% (=) Grn: 18% (+2) Lab: 17% (+1) Lib: 13% (=)
Res: 4% (=)
YP: 0% (-1)
Ref: 282 Grn: 91 Con: 83 Lib: 81 SNP: 47 Lab: 34
(@LeftieStats) April 14, 2026
This variation is to be expected, of course; we’re just highlighting that you shouldn’t take UK Polling Report’s predictions as gospel. You should, however, find some amusement when you look at the predictions for the Tory defectors.
We’ve covered Robert Jenrick already; next is Suella Braverman:
Reform’s Danny Kruger:
Sadly, however, Andrew Rosindell is projected to keep his seat (boo):
The more things change
Saying all this, there’s obviously no reason to celebrate the Tories getting back into the seats they lost to Reform.
It’s not like there’s any real difference between the two parties; if there was, we wouldn’t have seen so many defections.
And let’s be real – the only reason the defections dried up was because Reform’s polling went South.
It’s good Reform are failing to hold on to their lead, but it won’t mean much if their loss is the Tories’ gain.
Featured image via UK Polling Report
By Willem Moore
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If you’re currently losing sleep over your teenager’s upcoming exams, you’re certainly not alone.
One in four parents say they lie awake at night worrying about their children’s exams, while over half (51%) report the home being hit negatively by exam stress.
The good news is: if you’re based in England and think your child might be falling behind in GCSE Combined Science, there’s still time to make something of a difference before exam season starts on 4 May.
Up Learn, a digital teaching platform trusted by over 100,000 students and 600 UK schools, has launched its GCSE Science course, designed to help students learn faster and remember more.
The online learning platform utilises expert teaching, cognitive science and AI-personalised learning pathways to help kids focus on exactly what they need to improve – whether they’ve missed lessons, lost confidence, or simply never fully understood a topic in class.
With a combination of video lessons, quizzes and 24/7 access to human tutors, parents are hailing it “a godsend”, “game-changer” and “worth every penny”. One parent noted the platform is also “much cheaper than a tutor”.
Alyssa Barros, who got an A* in her maths A-Level after using Up Learn at the age of 13, said: “It’s always great to just be able to open up your computer and have access to the learning.
“The videos make it more interesting with the animations. And it’s a great idea to ask questions about the lesson during the lesson, it’s just reinforcing it in my head. It’s more interesting, and helps me stay focused.”
How much is it?
Up Learn is currently offering a free three-day trial. After that, a monthly subscription is £49.99 or you can get full access until August 2026 for £89.99 (currently reduced from £249.99).
For parents looking for extra reassurance, the learning platform even offers a GCSE Science Money Back Guarantee: complete the course and get an 8-8 grade, or your money back (T&Cs apply).
Time to shun the sleepless nights: if you or your child are worried about the upcoming exams, particularly as far as science is concerned, there’s still time to make a difference. Start your free trial here.
Over the weekend, Palantir posted a summary of Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” – which was slammed as being “evil.”
Palantir: technofascists are technofascisting again
The post makes explicit what Palantir wants: the supremacy of the US military industrial complex to infiltrate every aspect of everyone’s life. It is also an ode to the PayPal Mafia, like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Unsurprisingly, the two South African-born white men who grew up under apartheid are the poster boys! Though the post is calling for American conscription, bet Thiel and Musk will be dodgers, just like their mate Trump!
The book, which serves as the manifesto of the AI giant, is twenty-two rambling points: –
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.
2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.
3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.
4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.
5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.
6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.
8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.
9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.
10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.
11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.
12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.
14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.
15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.
16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.
17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.
19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.
20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.
21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.
22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
The response to the post has been widespread alarm and disdain.
The post is indeed alarming with its glorification of past German and Japanese fascism, the glorification of Musk, the glorification of Western ‘culture’, and the glorification of Western totalitarianism.
Palantir’s call for western culture – read violence – has been in a lot of its marketing material. In its Q4 2024 results, the company referenced Samuel Huntington’s book ‘Clash of Civilisations.’
As Samuel Huntington has written, the rise of the West was not made possible “by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion . . . but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”
He continued: “Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
Huntington’s thesis, which argued that the main “clash” would be between the West and Islam, is called by Ruby Hamad a “self-fulfilling prophecy; a foreign policy directive in (thin) disguise.”
Feinstein commented on Palantir’s post, saying that Thiel’s apartheid South African upbringing shaped his racist, pro-genetic, pro-Israel, psychopathic worldview, and Palantir is now being handed the British state by Labour’s Starmer, Streeting, and Mandelson, among others.
Peter Thiel’s upbringing in apartheid South Africa & what is today Namibia clearly had enormous influence on his thinking: racist white supremacy, geneticism, glorification of South Africa’s closest ally the ethno-nationalist Israeli state, an almost psychopathic indifference to… https://t.co/SPWlUt1QUT
— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) April 19, 2026
We think Lammy’s recent handshake with Palantir sponsored Thiel should also be highlighted.
Lammy calls Palantir-sponsored JD Vance a ‘friend’ on latest Washington trip
Who is going to vote for David Lammy’s party in the local elections? With friends like Vance and Mandelson, it’s anyone’s guess. ‘Debasement’, as @ZackPolanski saidhttps://t.co/03b0PrMmwK…
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 15, 2026
Yanis Varoufakis summarized Palantir’s post, the main point of which can be, as Varoufakis put it, ‘Ethics is for suckers. The West needs more of Palantir’s murderous software.’ He also said, “If Evil could tweet, this is what it would!”
Old advertisement for Israel trends
The bizarre post also led to people posting the whole-page advertisement that Palantir bought in October 2023, in support of Israel.
Palantir stands with genocide. https://t.co/6zYAqNGqzZ
— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) April 19, 2026
People like Mai El-Sadany also emphasised Palantir’s connections to ICE and Israel.
Today, a lot of people will be talking about the manifesto that Palantir released. In addition to pouring over what those words mean, I invite you to ground the conversation in what Palantir has already done.
Its work with Israel and ICE show us exactly what it stands for.
— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany) April 19, 2026
From a £1 NHS COVID contract to long-term roles in health and defence, Palantir is now part of the UK’s data infrastructure. This company, which is boasting about being evil, should be nowhere near civilian infrastructure.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
On Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid tore apart the weak excuses put out by UK PM Keir Starmer over the ongoing Peter Mandelson scandal.
Susanna Reid: on it
This followed the PM’s latest round of pathetic denials he had any knowledge of disgraced Peter Mandelson failing to pass security vetting before he was appointed as ambassador to the US.
By setting out a clear timeline alongside Keir Starmer’s own past comments on ‘Petie’ Mandelson, Reid shows Starmer’s measly attempts to escape accountability simply do not stack up.
Moreover, this takedown of the UK Prime Minister underscores a serious issue in our democracy, where corrupting influences hold far too much sway in the corridors of power in Westminster. All the while, ordinary people are fed lie after lie and expected to swallow them.
Reid, like many across the country, appears to have had quite enough of Starmer’s nonsense.
Susanna Reid lays it out. Keir appointed Mandelson despite knowing everything about him, he claims he didn't know Mandelson had failed the vetting, which means he never followed it up & never asked about it, & finally we know no.10 did know months ago so someone is lying
Damning pic.twitter.com/B3XDafRk5H
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 20, 2026
Keir Starmer is a liar
It will hardly surprise many in the electorate to learn that their PM is a liar. Frankly, his career has been littered with lies as he navigated his way to the upper echelons of power. In fact, we only have to look to 2019 Labour under Corbyn to see that lying has quite literally been Starmer’s comfort zone.
Reid makes this reality unmistakably clear by laying out a timeline of what was known and when. That, in turn, will tighten the pressure on Keir Starmer as scrutiny intensifies ahead of the May 7 local elections. Once again, the PM has left himself little room to wriggle out of a political mess of his own making. A mess he will undoubtedly be made to pay for at the ballots in just over two weeks.
Susanna Reid’s takedown in full:
Susanna Reid: It feels like there are three different issues here.
One is the judgment of Sir Keir Starmer right at the beginning, appointing Lord Peter Mandelson. He had been given a due diligence report. And on that report, it said Peter Mandelson had numerous conflicts of interest and described him carrying reputational risk.
A week later. It is announced by Sir Keir Starmer that Peter Mandelson was going to be the ambassador to the States.
So right off the bat, who appoints someone that you have been warned is a reputational risk? Never mind the vetting. You had been given a report that he was a walking red flag. So that’s the first issue.
The second issue is then he goes through this developed vetting. How competent are you as a prime minister that you then are not, as you say, either curious enough to know, well, what happened? Have we cleared him? Is it all safe? Keir Starmer in that position says, well, nobody told me.
As you say, it’s absolutely beggars belief that someone at number 10 wouldn’t have then said, is everything OK? Are we sure that we can now give him the green flag?
And then the third issue, it seems to me. is whether there is any lying going on, because that’s what Kemi Badenoch says. So, the Prime Minister has actually lied about this. As you mentioned, Gillian, there was a report a few months ago in The Independent. Downing Street knew Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting for the US ambassador role seven months ago because the reporter David Maddox at The Independent had… put concerns to Number 10, the then Director of Communications, Tim Allen, and said, I found out, or I’ve got a source that says MI6 had failed to clear Mandelson.
So David Maddox, the Independent, knew, Number 10 knew. So how can the Prime Minister say he didn’t know?
Finally, getting to the far more likely reality at the sinister heart of this sordid saga:
Gillian Keegan: Because he did not want to know.
It seems Starmer has even lost favour from pro-Israel voters, who he really should have in the bag:
Starmer has lost Good Morning Britain https://t.co/HFdsdwo2Fp
— Sandy.
Starmer is a disaster (@AddictScrabble) April 20, 2026
Of course, he bloody well knew – as Susanna Reid pointed out
The optics can no longer be denied, as our own Skwawkbox wrote recently:
In any other walk of life both Starmer and Mandelson would be toast. But it seems running a protection racket for the predatory elite comes with very little in the way of consequences these days. This is a whole lot more than just a typical Westminster sleaze story, isn’t it? Starmer’s Labour is recycling the very worst of Blairite cronyism instead of breaking with it, once and for all.
This is the same Starmer who purged socialists to the glee of the pro-Israel parliamentary Labour party, ditched public ownership, and told poor and working-class voters their demands for wealth taxes and rent controls were unrealistic.
Yet protecting a mate with extremely fucking grubby Epstein ties? That was apparently non-negotiable for Keir Starmer. It can be so very easy to mistakenly assume this is down to Starmer’s incompetence and horrific lack of judgement. But this is elite impunity baked into his DNA.
Cover-Up Keir Always Lies, Always
Make Keir Former PM Now https://t.co/nQTOSNzeZe — CaseClosed (@wds08) April 20, 2026
Political advantage?
Others have gone further than Susanna Reid, questioning whether Mandelson’s ties to Epstein – and the shadow of the Epstein ‘kompromat’ files – may have played a role in his swift path to the White House. After all, it is becoming clearer by the day that a powerful and seedy few likely shape foreign affairs through damaging information they hold. Seen in that light, it doesn’t take a great leap to suggest that Starmer may have believed he could turn that cynical dynamic to his own advantage.
Here, Reid’s intervention powerfully hits the mark. It also exposes a wider truth: political leaders often prioritise their own advantage over decency, integrity in office, and, frankly, basic morality.
This has all come against the backdrop of our government’s ongoing complicity in the genocide on Gaza and Israel’s terrorism in the West Bank. Therefore, this palpable imbalance hardly surprises anyone.
For many across the UK, it will only change once Labour is out of government.
Featured image via the Canary
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