Politics
The House Article | Casework Crisis: Increase In Constituency Caseload Takes Its Toll
Illustration by: Tracy Worrall
12 min read
The inexorable growth in casework is stopping MPs from fulfilling their other roles. Alice Lilly sifts through the inbox looking for what might be done to relieve the pressure
None of this is new. Nearly two decades ago the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) expressed concern that MPs’ “casework appears to be growing inexorably”.
At the time MPs’ offices were complaining that they were dealing with a few hundred letters a week, as well as phone calls and the occasional, still relatively novel, email. Today MPs routinely post casework figures on their social media that imply they are dealing with tens of thousands of cases a year.
Some of the drivers are well understood: public services in decline, the pandemic, and technology that eases communication. But also at the heart of the ever-expanding workload is a deep confusion over what MPs, shared in no little measure by the members themselves, are actually for.
The absence of reliable data on casework illustrates the point. Speak to somebody in an MP’s office and they can give you figures on their caseload, now usually drawn from the casework management software that many use.
But – because MPs are effectively treated like 650 small businesses – nobody sees it as their job to collect and collate this data. This makes it difficult to avoid over-generalising about their experiences, especially given that constituencies can vary considerably, as can MPs’ own approaches to their work: some still have earnings from employment outside of the Commons, although the nature of this work varies as well.
Necessary caveats aside, it is clear that many MPs, irrespective of party, are experiencing high workloads that have sharply increased even in the last few years.
When Hollie Wickens first began working for a Labour MP in the late 2010s, the office might expect to receive around 1,000 emails per month. Her current MP’s office, she says, can now receive double that. Ben Lake, the Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion Preseli, has likewise noticed an increase. In 2017, when he was first elected to Parliament, he might open 40 new cases per month – compared to 150 per month now. While numbers have been steadily on the rise for decades, “Covid changed everything,” says Lake. Initially, many MPs thought that the rise in casework during the pandemic would eventually subside. But it never has.
Demand has not only increased: it has done so more consistently across the year. The dips in casework that used to happen over the summer have faded, meaning that there is less chance to catch up. “We’re just keeping our noses above water most of the year,” says Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington. Estelle Warhurst, an MP office manager with over 20 years’ experience, uses strikingly similar language: “There’s no downtime any more. No chance to catch up. We’re fighting to keep our head above water.”
Within these numbers are two main categories of correspondence: casework, and policy and campaign enquiries. Though they can entail different amounts of work, both are on the rise.
Policy and campaign enquiries – which can range from specific questions about an MP’s stance on a particular issue to mass-generated campaign emails – tend to make up a larger share of the inbox than casework.
Although casework may be a smaller part of the inbox, it usually entails more work. Some pieces of casework can be straightforward to deal with, while others are much more complicated. And it isn’t always easy to initially judge what work will be required. Warhurst points out that the issue a constituent presents with may only be the tip of the iceberg. One piece of casework could generate several email chains, as well as calls and meetings. And it can involve working with government departments, local councils, NHS trusts, or even private companies providing public services. Navigating this is a skill, and some MPs seek out staff with experience in addressing the kinds of issues that crop up time and again in their casework, for example SEND.
Because both casework and policy enquiries are growing so much, MPs must prioritise. Generally – and unsurprisingly – those wanting specific and sometimes urgent help tend to get dealt with first. When it comes to dealing with policy and campaign enquiries, approaches vary. Some MPs will try and write individual responses where they can, especially to specific policy enquiries (rather than mass campaign emails). Lizzi Collinge, who represents Morecambe and Lunesdale for Labour, points out that this is often a helpful way of thinking through policy issues. But, Collinge says, it takes time.
The trade-offs are often not understood by the public. This can drive frustration. Sometimes people assume that they’ve received a “boilerplate” response that has actually been specifically written for them.
Put together, all this can exert a toll on both MPs and staff – even if most will say it can be rewarding. In a 2025 staff survey, more than half agreed it could be “emotionally draining”. Laura Gherman, who previously worked for a senior Conservative MP, says burnout is a growing problem. “Nothing we do ever feels good enough,” adds Wickens. MPs are not immune to this either. It is “relentless”, to the extent that you can begin to question whether you’re doing a good enough job, says Nichols, who estimates that she can have 400 outstanding emails at any one time.
Then there is the nature of some of the work. Warhurst is aware that staff can sometimes find themselves dealing with constituents in the midst of severe mental health crises to the point of being suicidal. This is not the kind of thing that can simply be forgotten about at the end of the working day.
Beyond the impact on staff is the deeper issue of what this rising tide of work is doing to MPs’ abilities to do other work. Almost two decades ago, the SSRB fretted that casework “detracts from [MPs’] other roles of scrutinising legislation and holding the executive to account”. Scepticism about MPs’ roles as ‘super-councillors’ has persisted for years, but have we normalised something that should be aberrant?
Casework has “taken over MPs’ offices”, says Gherman, to the extent that it can make it hard to deal with anything else. Lake agrees that “MPs cannot be omnicompetent”, arguing that “we need more MPs with a bit of bandwidth to think” about legislation, as well as big policy challenges.
Government and public services are often a confusing patchwork… But everybody knows that they have an MP
The plain truth is that the way that many MPs perform their roles is shaped more by facts on the ground – in particular, rising casework – than by a broader society-wide debate about what the purpose of MPs is.
Marcial Boo, who headed Ipsa (Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority), for six years, says “every MP has their own view on what should change”. That no one body speaks for MPs makes it difficult to reach agreement – even if one was possible.
Some want more resource, others more flexibility. Others focus on increasing staff pay bands and giving more opportunities for progression in an effort to boost retention. AI might help to some degree – but even if MPs were able to agree on what steps to take, many of these things would only help to manage the growing caseload and its effects, rather than deal with the factors driving it. As Dr Rebecca McKee, an expert on MPs’ staffing arrangements, wrote in a 2019 report, changes “have offered relatively short-term solutions and the evolution of staff funding has lacked an explicit overarching vision of the role of an MP, what support they need, and how it can most effectively be delivered”. A more sustainable approach would be to ask some fundamental questions about what is driving rising caseloads and what this means for MPs.
A key driver of rising caseloads is what the mySociety researcher Alex Parsons calls “failure management”, in which MPs are increasingly first and last resort for constituents experiencing problems from across bits of the state. One MP echoed this, reflecting that their inbox indicates “everybody seems to be under an inordinate amount of pressure” and often deals with people “who have been badly let down” by other services, that are themselves overstretched.
This highlights another driver of ever-higher caseloads: confusion about which bits of the state do what, and where to go to get issues dealt with. Government and public services are often a confusing patchwork in the UK, meaning it is hard to know who has primary responsibility for a particular issue or the power to solve it. But everybody knows that they have an MP. Many of the issues that come up in inboxes, like potholes or planning, are somebody else’s responsibility.
Constituents can think that MPs have more power than they do. Hollie Wickens found when she first began working for an MP that “people think they are Batman and can go and solve any problem”.
These factors are underpinned by the incentives that many MPs face. Clearly, many parliamentarians have a strong incentive to try and help constituents because they went into politics to try and help people – and casework is a direct, tangible way of doing that. This incentive is even stronger given the very difficult situations that can arrive in the inbox. “MPs think they can do everything and want to do everything,” says Gherman.
Alex Parsons has another take on this. He suggests that the ability of the average backbencher to make policy or legislative change is constrained to the extent that it can be more rewarding for them to focus on helping individual constituents. Because there aren’t good mechanisms in place for many MPs to aggregate their casework and use it to bring about broader change, they instead pursue casework as a sort of “fragmented ombudsman” in which they “are poking the big state when it goes wrong, but not doing it in a joined up way”.
But there are also political incentives. Being regarded as a responsive and engaged MP that is active in the constituency can clearly have electoral benefits. The SSRB suggested as much in 2007, stating that “some MPs appear to welcome or accept [rising casework], at least in part because of the opportunity it offers for them to raise their profile with their constituents”. It is hardly surprising that MPs respond to this – but it goes to show once more how important public views and expectations are about what their elected representatives should do. As Lizzi Collinge puts it, an MP is likely “to receive more praise for spending an hour in a church hall than an hour in a select committee”.
There are no easy ways to unravel these problems. If it is hard to get agreement from MPs on practical steps to address the pressures many of them face, then it is likely to be even harder to reach a consensus on how to tackle the underlying causes of those pressures. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. And much of this is about more than the views of MPs and their staff, though those matter: it’s about what the public wants, expects and needs.
A recent experiment by Ipsa provides one potential starting point for these overdue public debates. In the autumn of 2025, Ipsa ran its first ever citizens’ forum on MPs’ pay and funding, bringing together 23 members of the public to hear from a range of experts about the workings of MPs and Parliament. At the end of the programme, members of the forum published a statement. “We were surprised to learn of the amount that goes on behind the scenes,” it read. “An important lesson… is that, for many people, what MPs do on a daily basis is not at all clear, and this needs to be the starting place for meaningful discussion on MPs’ role, pay and funding.” This was not the first attempt to understand what the public want from their representatives. Several years previously, in 2022, a citizens’ assembly on democracy, run by the Constitution Unit and Involve, recommended that Parliament play a stronger role in scrutinising government policy and legislation. It remains to be seen what effect, if any, these kinds of efforts will have. But both the citizens’ assembly on democracy and Ipsa’s citizens’ forum highlighted the way that better public awareness of what their elected representatives are doing can start to generate useful discussions.
None of this may feel much like a priority when there are so many other urgent challenges to deal with. But we have to question whether a system which often leaves the public frustrated, and is leaving many MPs and staff exhausted and struggling, is serving anybody in the way that they want. As Marcial Boo puts it, “We could carry on like this for decades. But should we?”
Calculating Casework
With the absence of any consistent data on workload, a more creative approach is required to find hard numbers. One way of getting a sense of the scale of the issue is to trawl MPs’ social media accounts, which many use to provide updates on casework.
At the end of 2025, for example, some MPs used Facebook posts to sum up their year in casework. Stuart Anderson, the Conservative MP for South Shropshire, posted that he had dealt with over 9,500 cases during 2025. Up in Halifax, Labour’s Kate Dearden wrote that she had resolved 8,925 cases and responded to 16,764 emails. Dearden’s colleague in Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, posted that he’d responded to 21,142 inquiries and handled 11,000 cases. Over in St Albans, the Lib Dems’ Daisy Cooper had resolved over 9,630 cases; Andrew Pakes, Labour (Co-op) MP for Peterborough, over 8,200; and the Conservative James Wild, in North West Norfolk, 6,825.
These were all figures for just one year. Over the course of an MPs’ time in office, the numbers can be eye watering: Luke Evans posted in February 2025 that he had dealt with over 32,500 enquiries since he was first elected Tory MP for Hinckley and Bosworth some 1,900 days before.
Alice Lilly is a senior researcher at The Institute for Government
Nigel Farage announced the Reform UK shadow cabinet today, with former Tories taking front and centre. This is despite the fact that Reform UK has just eight MPs, so is in no need of a shadow cabinet.
As the racist party are not the official opposition, so they don’t get to name a shadow cabinet. But, why would the facts stop Farage? At a flashy event reminiscent of an American election campaign, Farage announced the first members of his “shadow cabinet”.
New Tory cabinet for Reform
And surprise, surprise, it’s full of Tories
Robert Jenrick has been named as their shadow chancellor. Jenrick defected from the Tory party last month and has stolen the role from both Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf.
Jenrick, who lost the Tory leadership to its current leader, Kemi Badenoch, is expected to give a speech outlining his economic plan sometime this week. By that point, he might’ve actually come up with one.
The most recent Tory defector, Suella Braverman, will take on more than one role. As well as education and skills, she will also handle equalities. Though this is Reform, so that means she’ll be hellbent on destroying any sort of equality. Namely, she wants to get rid of the Equality Act.
Richard Tice isn’t too glum about being sidelined as Chancellor. As well as deputy leader, he’ll now be ‘in charge of’ (and we use that term loosely) business, trade, and energy. His biggest focus is on getting rid of net-zero targets to focus on oil and gas.
And then finally, we have Zia Yusuf as Reform’s ‘home secretary’. Again, there’s a heavy use of quotation marks here, because they aren’t the shadow cabinet or opposition.
Definitely not a one-man band
One person noticeably missing was Reform laughing stock Lee Anderson. Ol’ 30p will apparently remain as “chief whip”, but it’s interesting he wasn’t announced for a welfare role when he’s apparently been their “welfare spokesperson” for months now.
Presumably it’s because he can’t so much as move without making a fool of himself. Most recently, he was mocked for campaigning in the wrong place,
As well as no DWP “shadow” minister, there was no health secretary announced. This surely shows what Reform’s priorities are. You can only assume this is because Reform are so snugly in private healthcare’s pockets.
Farage said a big reason for naming a “cabinet” was so the world didn’t see Reform as a “one man band”. Which would be more believable if he wasn’t constantly fucking everywhere. But then it’s not like he’s got many people to sub in is it?
Despite apparently not wanting to be the star of the show, Farage announced each member of his cabinet in the centre of a big stand at a podium. Instead of letting them speak at his podium, they all had their own smaller podiums. These were also, naturally, slightly further back.
Reform are not to be taken seriously
The naming of Reform’s shadow cabinet confused a lot of people, but probably none more so than 30p Lee Anderson. Just three weeks ago, Anderson rebuffed rumours of an almost correctly predicted shadow cabinet.
When a Tory, Luke Robert Black, remarked that this was “savage” towards Anderson, he replied
Thicko alert. We cannot possibly have a shadow cabinet, we have spokespersons. I was made DWP Spokesperson last year. Carry on being a useful idiot for the Tory party, but you won’t get that safe seat you want. They’re laughing at you.
This tweet is currently still up, but let’s see how long it lasts. Instead of addressing this, Anderson tweeted this afternoon that the new cabinet was “the Beginnings of a World Class Team.”
This latest announcement from Reform UK is just the latest in the long line of them assuming they have any sort of authority or power in Westminster.
More than anything, it shows how entitled they all are. But to the country it’s just another silly stunt by Farage, and even more reason to not take Reform seriously.
Featured image via the Canary
Harry Potter newcomer Johnny Flynn is addressing the backlash surrounding JK Rowling after he accepted a role in the latest adaptation of her novels.
Johnny is set to play Lucius Malfoy in HBO’s new Harry Potter TV show, which will dedicate one season to each of Rowling’s books.
Since the project was announced, several cast members have received backlash for accepting roles in the series due to the author’s involvement as an executive producer, as she has become a polarising figure in recent years due to her commentary on issues relating to transgender people.
This has included – but is not limited to – deliberately and repeatedly misgendering transgender public figures, and donating tens of thousands of pounds to the campaign group which raised the initial legal challenge that led to the UK Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling that the legal definition of a woman should include only those who were assigned female at birth.
During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Johnny was asked about the new Harry Potter series and raised the issue of Rowling himself.
“Obviously, there’s quite a lot of stuff around Jo Rowling,” he began. “I suppose that’s been quite interesting to navigate, the conversations there – but all important conversations to have.
“The people working on this are really, really great and create a really special atmosphere, [like] Francesca [Gardiner] the showrunner, and Mark Mylod and various directors. There’s such care.”
He pointed out that his character is “hardly in book one”, meaning his appearances in season one are limited, although he insisted the show has “such a welcoming environment” on set.
Among the prolific names already cast in the Harry Potter series are John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape.
Shortly after John’s casting was announced, the two-time Oscar nominee admitted he was “absolutely not” expecting the backlash he received for accepting the role of Dumbledore, pondering: “I wonder how JK Rowling has absorbed it. I suppose at a certain point I’ll meet her and I’m curious to talk to her.”
More recently, the Conclave star told The Hollywood Reporter of the controversy: “I take the subject and the issue extremely seriously.
“JK Rowling has created this amazing canon for young people, young kids’ literature that has jumped into the consciousness of society. Young and old people love Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stories. It’s so much about acceptance. It’s about good versus evil. It’s about kindness versus cruelty. It’s deeply felt.”
He added that, because of this, he found Rowling expressing “such views” on transgender people both “ironic and somewhat inexplicable”.
Meanwhile, after ruffling feathers with his own casting, Nick Frost insisted last year that his and Rowling’s views on the trans community are markedly different.
“She’s allowed her opinion and I’m allowed mine,” he insisted. “They just don’t align in any way, shape or form.”
Crisis-hit UK PM Keir Starmer is fast-tracking gigantic spikes in war spending. He says it is to defend the country. In reality, Starmer is yet again sucking up to US president Donald Trump. The UK government needs to get its head out of 1997 for all our sakes.
Starmer wants £14bn a year spent on war and the military. That is to say, £14bn more going into the pockets of arms firms and their fellow travelers.
The Guardian reported:
At the Munich Security Conference at the weekend, Starmer argued for higher and more sustained defence spending to meet the threat from Russia. “We must build our hard power because that is the currency of our age,” he said. “We must spend more, deliver more and coordinate more.”
Currently the UK spends 2.3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. The increase would take that figure up to 2.6%.
But it could go higher still:
The BBC said No 10 was considering an increase to 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament in 2029 to meet Starmer’s ambition, although it is unclear if this will turn into a concrete plan given the many obstacles.
Politico explained the rate of acceleration:
Featured image via the Canary
Marvel’s latest hit TV show follows the story of Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), an aspiring actor struggling in the entertainment industry who’s desperate to star in a major remake of his favourite childhood superhero film, Wonder Man.
Simon meets fellow actor Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley), and the pair strike up a friendship as they attempt to bag themselves life-changing roles in the new film.
The pair get into a few scrapes throughout the series, and we see Simon struggling with anxiety, his racing thoughts and emotions getting the better of him.
In one scene, Trevor teaches Simon about the art of “box breathing” to regulate himself, which the actor then continues to utilise throughout the series.
While it’s not a new technique, viewers who weren’t previously familiar with this breathing exercise have now adopted it in their own lives, with positive results – especially when they’re feeling anxious.
What is box breathing?
As the exercise involves holding your breath, Medical News Today notes that people with high blood pressure or who are pregnant should consult a doctor before trying it.
To give it a go, draw a box in your mind – or in the air in front of you with your finger:
- Breathe in for four seconds, while drawing along one side.
- Hold your breath for four seconds, while drawing along the next.
- Breathe out for four seconds, while drawing along the third side.
- Leave your lungs empty while you draw along the fourth side.
Mental health pros are big fans of this breathing technique.
Counselling Directory member Donna Morgan tells HuffPost UK: “Box breathing is one of the simplest and most effective tools I use in my work as an anxiety therapist.
“I smile when clients mention they first saw it on Wonder Man, because popular culture sometimes introduces people to techniques that are genuinely powerful.”
Breathing properly (that is, utilising your lung’s full capacity) has many benefits –it can reduce stress and anxiety levels, slow heart rate, lower blood pressure, and sharpen focus.
Morgan explains that box breathing is effective because it creates balance and predictability, “which is incredibly reassuring for an anxious nervous system”.
“What makes it so effective is not just that it distracts the mind, but that it directly influences physiology. Slow, controlled breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and supports the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and repair,” she shares.
Counselling Directory member Sabah Moran agrees it’s an effective strategy to help regulate stress hormones and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, taking our body back to its ‘rest’ state.
When we are anxious, our fight or flight response is activated leaving us with those classic symptoms: raised heart rate, shallow breathing, sweaty palms and that nauseating feeling in the pit of your stomach.
“The controlling of the breath both in and out, allows the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide to be back in balance. Adrenaline and cortisol can leave the system,” Moran adds.
Donna Morgan noted that when we consciously slow the breath and create even counts, “we send a clear message to the brain that we are safe”.
“We have the power to do this. Over time, clients learn that they can influence their own state rather than feeling hijacked by it,” she added.
Love box breathing? Try the ‘5,4,3,2,1 method’
In addition to box breathing, both therapists love grounding techniques such as the 5,4,3,2,1 method, which is designed to bring someone out of anxious thinking and back into the present moment by using the senses.
5. Name five things you can see.
4. Notice four things you can feel or touch.
3. Identify three things you can hear.
2. Notice two things you can smell.
1. Name one thing you can taste or one thing you appreciate.
Explaining why it works, Morgan says: “When someone is anxious, the amygdala is activated and the brain is scanning for threat.”
This method redirects attention to neutral sensory data, however. “That shift reduces cognitive spiralling and signals safety to the nervous system. It also engages the prefrontal cortex which supports rational thinking and emotional regulation,” she adds.
“Like box breathing it is simple. We may not be superheroes on screen, but we all have the capacity to influence our own mind and calm our nervous system when we understand how it works.”
Clearly, Trevor is onto something…
All eight episodes of Wonder Man are available to watch on Disney+ now.
Workers at a Cumbria packaging firm will vote on strike action after rejecting an ‘insulting’ pay offer.
Pay offer = pay cut
More than 100 workers at Futamura, in Wigton, turned down the company’s 1.2 per cent pay offer by a majority of 94 per cent. Trade union GMB is demanding a 3.8 per cent pay increase, in line with inflation. This is to ensure members do not suffer yet another real-terms pay cut.
The union has engaged with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to help bring the company back to the table.
Futamura makes cellulose film for packaging.
The dispute mirrors other situations where pay has failed to keep pace with inflation. And it comes against a backdrop of long-term “pay depression” going back 20 years.
Michael Hall, GMB Regional Organiser, said:
This 1.2 per cent offer is nothing short of an insult. GMB members have spoken loudly and clearly. Enough is enough. Futamura workers deserve a fair pay rise that simply keeps up with the cost of living.
The company should be listening, not digging in. GMB has been patient and our members have been patient. But Futamura has refused to make a fair and reasonable pay offer.
Featured image via the Canary
Nigel Farage tried to belittle a female journalist during his press conference on Tuesday, instructing her to “write some silly story”.
After announcing the briefs for his spokespeople, the Reform UK took questions from more than two dozen reporters in the room.
The Financial Times’ Anna Gross asked two questions, both of which seemed to rile the MP for Clacton.
She asked about Reform Home Office spokesperson Zia Yusuf’s plans to introduce mass deportations with a US-style ICE force in the UK, and then began a second question by pointing out education spokesperson Suella Braverman went to a school which charges £17,000 a year.
But Farage cut her off to mock the question, saying: “Oh dear, what a terrible human being she must be!”
Gross said, “Not at all” – but pointed out Richard Tice, Yusuf, Robert Jenrick and Farage also went to expensive private schools.
She asked how Reform would respond to voters who fear how committed they are to state education.
Farage said: “I love the FT. It’s fantastic. The day after the big Mandelson story broke, your front story was about a Reform council in Kent, so we’ll leave it at that.”
Actually, the FT has been credited as one of the primary driving forces looking into ex-ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson’s friendship with the dead convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mandelson once described it as an “FT obsession”.
But Farage pressed on: “We’ll leave it there. There’s no point, just write some silly story tomorrow and have fun with it, we won’t bother to read it. ”
The Reform supporters laughed and applauded at that.
That’s not the first time Farage has hit out at a female journalist.
Farage previously accused Camilla Tominey, from The Telegraph, of playing a “silly little game” back in November when she asked about the make-up of his top team.
She asked Farage: “You say you expect an election in 2027. The fact that Zia Yusuf is here – does that mean he is your preferred candidate for chancellor, not Richard Tice?”
Farage told the reporter that was a good try and it is no wonder she is well-paid, adding: “I’m just not playing your silly little game.”
He also called Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain “love” in an interview last October.
When Farage said any Russian airspaces being flown into Nato airspaces should be shot down, she asks if he is concerned that could “inflame tensions”.
He replied: “Listen love, you’re trying ever so hard. Listen love, you’re trying ever so hard.”
Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy has announced her withdrawal from the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) because of filmmaker Wim Wenders’ “jaw-dropping” comments on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Roy described Wenders’ comments as “a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time”. Wenders said at a press conference on 12 February 2026 that the art world should “stay out of politics“:
We have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. [Filmmakers should be] the counterweight of politics, we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.
Arundhati Roy speaks out
The “shocked and disgusted” Roy was unequivocal in her opposition to Wenders’s nonsense:
To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping,” said Roy in a statement announcing she would be exiting the Berlinale jury. “It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.
It is, of course, inherently political to say that art should not be political, because silence aids the oppressor. The Israel lobby always attempts to cow politicians, news media, and artists into either silence or active collaboration. All too often it succeeds.
The festival previously marketed itself as the most political major film festival, but capitulated to the Israel lobby after the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Humanitarian campaigners called for a boycott of the 2024 festival for its refusal to denounce the genocide and Israel’s other crimes against the Palestinian people.
Roy’s full statement reads:
In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, a whimsical film that I wrote 38 years ago, was selected to be screened under the Classics section at the Berlinale 2026. There was something sweet and wonderful about this for me.
Although I have been profoundly disturbed by the positions taken by the German government and various German cultural institutions on Palestine, I have always received political solidarity when I have spoken to German audiences about my views on the genocide in Gaza. This is what made it possible for me to think of attending the screening of Annie at the Berlinale.
This morning, like millions of people across the world, I heard the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza. To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping. It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time – when artists, writers and film makers should be doing everything in their power to stop it.
Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. It is supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime.
If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them. I am shocked and disgusted.
With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale.
Arundhati Roy
Featured image via the Canary
Emma Best is a London wide London Assembly Member and a councillor in Waltham Forest.
I have always been amused by the left’s obsession with ideological purity. Momentum at war with Labour more often than with their opposition, Keir Starmer dismissed as a right-wing plant and Jeremy Corbyn accosted at the Your Party Conference for being too pro-Israel. All symptoms of a mindset which allows for zero compromise and rationalisation.
It is these instances of intolerance of thought that have always made me proud, and somewhat relieved, to be a Conservative. I enjoy being a part of a City Hall and Council group that are representative of a broad church of centre-right opinion. I want to campaign for candidates even if they have fundamental differences to me on some policy areas as I (and the vast majority of Conservatives) understand that we agree on 80-90 per cent of life’s core questions and are not each other’s enemy.
We’ve watched the left tear each other apart time and time again; fighting in factions with a more visceral hatred for those in their own circles than outside.
It frustrates me therefore that we are falling into this trap. Increasingly I see good Tories dismissed as ‘wets’ or ‘nutters’. Not in a jovial way, but in a concerted bid to distance ourselves from each other. This attitude might fulfil left wing ideals of political purity but it won’t win elections. If some on the right want this approach fine; but let it not come from us.
These assessments are also flawed. We are humans after all, with a complex myriad of evolving and sometimes conflicting opinions. Without long and personal discussions assertions of others political compass are a stab in the dark.
The fact of the matter is when you look at our recent successes the political personalities are diverse. In Scotland success came through the charisma of Ruth Davidson, in shires and rural villages we owe much to those that espouse traditional values like Jacob Rees-Mogg and in the West Midlands the pragmatism of Andy Street. Of course, the first-time Tory voter of 2019 was often successfully attracted by stoic Brexiteers like Mark Francois, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Steve Baker, David Davis (and yes, Boris Johnson).
Do not dismiss these politicians as wet liberals or right-wing nutters. They are all pillars of conservatism.
It is easy to acknowledge where scepticism of broad church values arises from though. In the 2015 General Election a key pledge of the Conservative manifesto (against the backdrop of overwhelming euro scepticism) was a Brexit referendum. To stand as a Tory at that election without realising you may have to enact a decision to leave the EU would have been idiotic. The alternative, willingly standing knowing you wouldn’t, is much, much worse. This is a mistake Kemi Badenoch has certainly learned from by making it clear that any candidate at the next election will have to agree to leaving the ECHR. Clearly on key manifesto pledges, with substantial public mandate, there are red lines of agreement.
As Badenoch gradually makes inroads in both popularity and the polls many would do well to remember TikTok likes don’t win elections. Vibes or radical opinions court engagement but there are no prizes for proving an undying allegiance to one nation conservatism, Thatcherism or popularism. The only prize is winning elections and serving the people of Britain. We can only do that together.
Thomas Teevan speaks at the opening of Largy Hall
10 min read
The opportunities – and constraints – of Northern Ireland in the middle of the last century are illuminated by the lives of two men who briefly represented Belfast West. Aaron Callan tells the story of MPs bound together by faith, family, politics and ultimately tragedy
Reverend James Godfrey MacManaway, a clergyman soldier turned parliamentarian, and his political heir Thomas Leslie Teevan, a brilliant young lawyer and public servant, are barely Westminster footnotes. Both served as Belfast West MP for less than a year.
And yet their story embodies a sense of promise broken by legal anomaly, electoral mischance, and personal tragedy.
James Godfrey MacManaway was born into an ecclesiastical family as the son of Rt Rev Dr James MacManaway, Bishop of Clogher. He was educated at Campbell College and Trinity College Dublin. Aged just 16, while still at Campbell College, he enlisted to fight in the First World War, seeing action at the Battle of Loos and later joining the Royal Flying Corps. In 1923, he was ordained by the archbishop of Armagh and served a curacy at Drumachose, Limavady, before moving to Christ Church, where he became rector in 1930 and remained for 17 years; in 1926, he married Catherine Anne Trench.
During the Second World War, MacManaway again “took the King’s shilling”, serving as senior chaplain to the forces. He experienced the evacuation of Dunkirk with the 12th Royal Lancers, later serving in the Middle East with the First Armoured Division and returning in 1945 to the Italian Front as senior chaplain to the 10th Armoured Division, a service for which he was awarded the MBE.
Contemporaries remembered him as one of the most colourful figures in the Church of Ireland, a gifted storyteller who could hold an audience spellbound, sometimes allowing his imagination to outrun accuracy. A favourite anecdote described him swimming for two hours after his Dunkirk vessel was hit, only for his wife to puncture the tale by reminding everyone that he could not swim at all – a story that captured both his flair and the affectionate tolerance of those around him.
By 1947, MacManaway resigned his Church of Ireland post and turned to politics, successfully contesting the city of Londonderry seat at Stormont as a Unionist, winning by a majority of 4,028 and again taking over 60 per cent of the vote in 1949. His oratorical gifts and colourful personality quickly established him as a notable figure at the parliament of Northern Ireland.
His ambitions soon extended to Westminster. As an ordained clergyman, doubts arose over his eligibility, but he sought legal advice from Edmund Warnock, attorney general of Northern Ireland, who advised that the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 meant earlier statutory bars on clergy sitting in the House of Commons did not apply.
On this advice, MacManaway resigned his remaining Church offices, relinquished his clerical rights and sought and obtained Ulster Unionist selection for Belfast West, a difficult marginal seat held by Labour’s Jack Beattie. After a vigorous campaign in the 1950 general election, assisted by activists including a young Ian Paisley, he defeated Beattie by 3,378 votes, becoming the first clergyman in 150 years to sit in the House of Commons.
His election caused a stir in Westminster, where few had anticipated that a disestablished Irish clergyman would gain a seat. The challenge came from Labour backbencher Maj Geoffrey Bing, and the issue was referred to a select committee, prompting strong Unionist defences of MacManaway, including from Winston Churchill, yet the committee declined to reach a decisive conclusion and recommended urgent legislation instead.
The matter went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which identified a lacuna in the law: although the Irish Church Act 1869 disestablished the Church of Ireland, it did not expressly permit its clergy to sit as MPs, leaving in force the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801, which barred any person ordained priest or deacon from sitting or voting.
The Privy Council held that the 1801 act applied not only to clergy of the established churches of England and Scotland but to anyone ordained by a bishop according to episcopal forms, which included the Church of Ireland. In contrast, ministers not episcopally ordained, such as those who would later include Rev Martin Smyth, Rev Robert Bradford and Rev Ian Paisley, were not similarly disqualified.
The House of Commons accepted the Privy Council’s view and, on 19 October 1950, resolved that MacManaway was disqualified, though it waived any financial penalties for the five divisions in which he had voted while ineligible. He protested bitterly against what he saw as an unjust anachronism and the ignoring of later legislation that allowed priests to sit if they renounced benefice, emoluments, and pension, but his Westminster career had lasted just 238 days.
The judgment also compelled him to resign his Stormont seat, as the same legal principle applied in Belfast. Personal tragedy followed swiftly: his wife died in January 1951; his health, never robust, declined sharply; his eyesight deteriorated so that he virtually lost one eye and was threatened with blindness in the other, and he could walk only with great difficulty and the aid of a stick.
MacManaway remained politically active despite infirmity and was severely injured when he tripped on the staircase of the Ulster Club in Belfast while on his way to address a meeting for his political heir, Thomas Leslie Teevan, the Unionist candidate for Belfast West.
He died shortly after in the Royal Victoria Hospital, aged 53, the coroner finding that meningitis following a skull fracture from the fall was the cause of death, and remarking that he scarcely knew when to stop in service to causes such as that of Ulster.
Even before his death, MacManaway had recognised a successor. He did not contest the by-election triggered by his disqualification; instead, the Ulster Unionist Party selected 23-year-old Limavady Urban Council chairman Thomas Teevan, MacManaway’s godson, of whom he said he was glad that “the people chosen to take up the torch which he had not been allowed to continue to hold was another Limavady man”.
Thomas Leslie Teevan was born in Limavady in July 1927 into a family with deep roots in the town and a wider Cavan lineage marked by public service. Family tradition recounted ancestors who served as army medics and doctors, tended the wounded in turbulent times, and even survived the Charge of the Light Brigade, stories that underlined a long-standing engagement with Irish and British military history.
Educated at Limavady Academy, where he served as head boy, Teevan went on to study law at Queen’s University Belfast. After graduation, he became a lecturer in law, remembered for his vibrant personality, fellowship and capacity for friendship across social and sectarian boundaries.
Academically, Teevan was highly regarded. He combined intellectual rigour with a flair for exposition. Little wonder he quickly made his mark at the Bar. Belfast’s senior magistrate JH Campbell QC believed that, but for his early death, Teevan would have left an indelible imprint on the Northern Ireland legal profession – a view echoed by Charles Stewart QC, who described him simply as a “great lawyer” despite his short practising career.
Teevan’s public service began early. He became the youngest urban district councillor in Northern Ireland and rose to be chairman of Limavady urban district council. Wherever he entered an institution, be it Queen’s University, the council chamber, or later Parliament, he swiftly assumed responsibility and won trust. His warmth, wit and optimism enabled him to bridge divides and “love his fellow men regardless of creed”, an attribute widely remarked upon in later tributes.
The disqualification of MacManaway in 1950 created the opening that propelled Teevan onto the Westminster stage. Selected as Ulster Unionist candidate for the Belfast West by-election, he framed his campaign as the continuation of his godfather’s cause, calling on the “Loyalist community” to rally behind him as they had rallied behind MacManaway.
The by-election of 29 November 1950 proved a hard-fought contest. Teevan secured 31,796 votes (50.8 per cent) to Jack Beattie’s 30,833 (49.2 per cent), a majority of 913 on a turnout of 79.8 per cent, thereby becoming the ‘Baby of the House’, the youngest MP at that time.
He entered Parliament on 5 December 1950 and, in 1951, spoke six times, including a maiden speech on 11 April during the budget and economic survey debates, concentrating particularly on the economic and social needs of Belfast West.
Teevan’s parliamentary tenure was brief, lasting 330 days. In the 1951 general election, he again faced Beattie in what became the narrowest result in the United Kingdom that year: both candidates secured 50.0 per cent of the vote, but Beattie polled 33,174 to Teevan’s 33,149, a margin of just 25 votes out of more than 66,000 cast.
This wafer-thin loss made Teevan not only one of the youngest MPs ever elected but also one of the youngest to lose his seat. The result underscored both his appeal and the volatility of Belfast West, where demographic and political shifts rendered Unionist representation precarious despite his personal popularity.
Defeat did not end Teevan’s public engagement. Called to the Bar in 1952, he continued to lecture in law at Queen’s University while maintaining his leadership role as chairman of Limavady urban district council, embodying a rare combination of academic, professional and civic commitments.
Across these spheres, he retained the same qualities admired in his student days: exuberance, loyalty to family and community, and an infectious optimism that could lift the burdens of those around him. Colleagues from different backgrounds acclaimed his capacity for friendship and his refusal to be constrained by the sectarian lines that shaped much of public life.
In October 1954, at just 27, Teevan died suddenly from severe pneumonia, prompting widespread grief in Limavady, at Queen’s and within the legal and political worlds of Northern Ireland. He was buried at Christ Church, Limavady, the same parish in which MacManaway was also buried and where their intertwined stories found a poignant convergence.
The sense of loss was captured in John Irvine’s poem ‘Ave Atque Vale’, which depicted neighbours and friends mourning a young man whose promise had been cut short, yet whose memory remained cherished. The verses, steeped in the imagery of rural funerals and quiet roads, framed Teevan’s passing as not only a private sorrow but a communal bereavement.
Following his death, friends and admirers from both sides of the Irish border contributed to memorials in Teevan’s honour. At Queen’s University Belfast, the faculty of law dedicated an oak chair and inscription in Celtic script, with senior members of the judiciary, local government and his family in attendance, a reflection of the breadth of his influence.
The fates of MacManaway and Teevan also raised broader questions about law, representation, and Unionism’s generational leadership.
A House of Commons select committee in 1951 acknowledged the anomalies of the clergy disqualification laws exposed by the MacManaway case but recommended no immediate change, leaving the issue unresolved for half a century.
Only in 2001, amid the candidacy of former Roman Catholic priest David Cairns, did Parliament finally enact the Removal of Clergy Disqualification Act, lifting most remaining bars on ordained ministers sitting at Westminster – a relief that could have saved MacManaway. Differently, demographic change and the knife-edge defeat of 1951 ensured that Teevan’s promise as a Unionist standard-bearer for Belfast West would also remain unfulfilled.
Seen together, the stories of James Godfrey MacManaway and Thomas Leslie Teevan trace a distinct Limavady thread through church, war, law and politics in mid-20th-century Northern Ireland.
Both were men of faith, intellect and service, shaped by family traditions that valued public duty and by a town that produced leaders capable of commanding respect across communities.
Their intertwined careers – rector and godson, MP and Baby of the House, both cut down in their prime – embody a sense of promise broken by legal anomaly, electoral mischance and personal tragedy.
Yet in church records, university memorials, legal recollections and the collective memory of Limavady, the clergyman soldier and the lost leader remain enduring figures.
They are reminders of what Northern Ireland gained for a time, and what it lost too soon.
Aaron Callan is senior parliamentary researcher for Gregory Campbell MP
The following is a repost of a piece by Areej Alghazzawi which Amnesty International published on 16 February.
Silent Traumas
Trauma follows us like our shadows during daylight. At night, trauma envelopes us until we feel like we are drowning.
Trauma also lives inside us like a disease. Good people in Geneva, New York, and The Hague say there is a cure, but we can’t inject their statements.
14-year-old Shorouq Thabet is the only survivor of her immediate family, who were all killed during Israel’s genocide. When I first asked her how she was, she simply responded with “nightmare”.
Adulthood is being forced on Shorouq, and she fights it by fantasising about being a young child again, when her only worry was wondering where her doll had wandered off to.
She longs to hear her parents’ voices; even their arguments could bring some comfort. They were killed in Deir Al-Balah following an Israeli attack on 17 March 2024. It was the last time she would sleep beside her mother and feel that special warmth. It was the last time she’d play with her younger sister, Shahed.
Destruction everywhere and in everyone in Gaza
Shorouq has been in therapy for some time now in the hope of learning to resist the darkness. Until now, there has been no relief. The smell and sight of destruction that is everywhere, and in everyone, in Gaza, open up the wounds again within seconds of leaving her therapy sessions.
On the night of the Israeli strike, she told me she had a strange feeling – that danger was in the room with them. She asked her mother to turn on a flashlight and hold her closely.
At some point, she said she managed to sleep, but when she woke, she was in a hospital. Her mother had survived the attack and was covered in blood:
She was frantically checking on me, my sister, and two brothers, Mohammed and Ahmad. I could see her but not feel her. I was going in and out of the darkness.
It was the first time she had seen her mother in such pain. Her mother’s face, covered in blood, is the last memory she has of her.
Her mother didn’t survive, nor did her father, little sister, or older brothers. The full details of her family massacre were only told to her when she was out of the hospital after seven days of urgent medical attention.
Everybody was crying. Nobody was talking.
Now she lives with her uncle Wael and his wife. I saw many people gathered at their home when Shorouq arrived. Everybody was crying. Nobody was talking.
A few days later, Shorouq told me:
At that moment, surrounded by so many unhappy people, I felt a change. I felt myself turning into an adult, with responsibilities. Now is not the time of dolls and dreams.
Try as she did to resist the pain, it was clear that young Shorouq just wanted to say a last goodbye to her sister and play together one more time.
Her lack of closure has been explored in her therapy sessions. The therapist asks her to draw what she feels. Sometimes, an empty paper expresses everything she feels.
She told me:
I used to love playing with dolls with Shahed. After the massacre, I lost my interest in everything. I actually still have a small piece of my doll that I found under the rubble.
In her free time, when she is not in school, she feels the pressure, and the flashbacks come back. She tells me she is consumed with uncontrollable thoughts. Now she is enrolled in an additional school. The time spent studying is an attempt to escape from her memories.
The detachment may be helping. Recently, Shorouq told me:
I hung a drawing on the door in my room. It’s a drawing of a warm home with open windows. Each morning, I look at that because it looks like peace.
Areej Alghazzawi is a junior accountancy student at the Islamic University of Gaza. She hopes to become a teacher and an accountant. She had one year left of her studies before Israel’s attack put her hopes on hold.
Alghazzawi is currently displaced but still in Gaza and, along with her family members, struggling every day to survive.
Featured image via the Canary
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