Tobias Ellwood is a Former Chair of the Defence Select Committee and a former Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Minister.

 When Britain talks about China, the conversation tends to drift towards the familiar.

Espionage. Cyber intrusion. The looming new embassy in central London. Military posturing around Taiwan. The erosion of democracy in Hong Kong. Human rights abuses.

These are serious issues. They are visible, recognisable threats, the kind we have faced before. We have committees, strategies, and institutions designed to deal with them.

But by focusing so heavily on what we recognise, we are missing what matters most.

China’s most effective influence on the UK today does not come via diplomats, soldiers, or spies. It comes through economics, through supply chains, through the everyday products that quietly shape our lives. It is slow, legal-looking, and largely ignored.

National security is no longer just about tanks, troops, and intelligence agencies. It is about standards, dependencies, and control of the systems we rely on every day. When we define security too narrowly, we leave ourselves exposed in plain sight.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the explosion of illegal disposable vapes across Britain.

They are everywhere, sold openly at pocket-money prices, often in blatant breach of UK regulations. This is not accidental. Many are manufactured in poorly regulated factories in China, falsely labelled, and pushed into the UK market via organised criminal networks.

These products frequently exceed legal nicotine limits. Some pose fire risks. Others leak toxic chemicals. They are addictive, environmentally damaging, and disproportionately used by young people.

Local councils and Trading Standards are overwhelmed. Enforcement becomes reactive, not strategic. Shops are shut down, headlines are written, and the problem returns a week later. Nobody seriously believes you win the drugs war by arresting street-level dealers alone.

This is usually framed as a public health or consumer protection issue, and on one level it is. But it is also a question of national resilience. When vast volumes of unsafe products can be funnelled into the UK at speed, bypassing regulation and enforcement, that is a strategic vulnerability. Harm is inflicted without a hostile act ever being declared.

This is why legislation like the Tobacco and Vapes Bill matters beyond its headline aims. It is presented as a health measure, but it is also an opportunity to reassert control over a market that has clearly slipped the net. Raising the legal age for purchasing vapes to 21 would be a practical step, reducing uptake and making enforcement simpler and more credible. That opportunity is currently being missed.

Clear, enforceable rules matter. They reduce loopholes. They signal that Britain will not allow safety standards to be bypassed for profit. That is what resilience looks like. And this is not just a British problem. European officials have already acknowledged that the continent is failing to protect consumers from the growing flow of unsafe goods entering from China.

The problem is compounded by inconsistency. In an integrated economy, resilience is only as strong as the weakest link. Differing standards across Europe create gaps that organised networks exploit with ease.

The same logic applies to infrastructure. We have already had this debate over telecoms and 5G. Yet the lesson appears not to have stuck.

Across Europe, fleets of Chinese-made electric buses are increasingly common. They are cheap, environmentally attractive, and an easy choice for councils under pressure to decarbonise on tight budgets. But these vehicles are digitally connected, reliant on software, and remotely updateable. Security experts have raised concerns about the presence of kill-switch capabilities that could, in theory, disable fleets from afar.

In Norway, authorities have already identified remote access to battery systems that can be switched off from China. Whether such features are intentional or an accident of design almost misses the point. The mere existence of that capability, and the uncertainty surrounding it, should give any responsible government pause.

Transport is critical national infrastructure. We learnt with telecoms that allowing essential systems to depend on external control creates leverage, whether or not it is ever exercised. Ignoring who owns and controls the software that keeps a city moving would be reckless.

These risks persist because our system is not designed to spot slow-burning threats. Spy scandals grab headlines. Economic infiltration does not. Responsibility is fragmented. Regulators focus on compliance, not strategy. Local authorities are left to pick up the pieces, overwhelmed by illegal goods on the high street or infrastructure choices made under financial pressure.

While Britain struggles to keep its head above water, China plays the long game. It relies on scale, patience, and regulatory asymmetry to flood markets and normalise dependency. Over time, standards erode, domestic capacity weakens, and leverage quietly accumulates.

This is not an argument against trade, nor a call for isolation. Open markets matter. But they only function when rules are enforced. Infrastructure, public health, and the exposure of young people to addictive products are not politically neutral.

A serious response would treat standards enforcement as a matter of national security. Trade, industrial policy, and security strategy must be aligned. Resilience is not protectionism. It is prudence.

If we only defend Britain from the threats we recognise, we will lose to the ones we don’t.

4 min read2 hr

Exactly 14 years to the day before Peter Mandelson resigned from the House of Lords, my old boss, Chris Huhne, resigned from the cabinet and the Commons for covering up a driving offence, which later saw him sent to prison. As the then-Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer ensured the case was prosecuted. That custodial sentence should sit uncomfortably with the disgraced former Labour peer.

British politics has an eerily familiar way of dealing with scandal.

First comes the revelation. Then the outrage. Then demands for resignation, suspension, or sanction. No matter what punishment follows (or often doesn’t), the story eventually fades, and the system that produced it remains intact. In this ecosystem, all the energy is directed towards chasing the offender; far less towards preventing similar abuses by others. 

Now is surely the time for us to acknowledge that this is not good enough.

The allegations against Mandelson demand thorough investigation – no one should escape scrutiny for their actions or complicity. If it is indeed the case that, having enjoyed their patronage, he leaked sensitive and confidential government discussions at the height of a national crisis to his own associates – individuals who potentially stood to benefit from that information – then that would be a very serious matter. Now that the police are investigating Mandelson, perhaps we could turn towards lessons learned and consequent reforms.

Buried within the Mandelson case are uncomfortable but unavoidable questions about the proximity of wealth and power: how former ministers, advisers and donors move between public roles and private interests; how access is sold and influence bought; and how the deepening links between private wealth and public power have become entrenched. 

When the Prime Minister took office, he declared that restoring trust would be one of the defining tests of this era. He was right to do so, but this episode will only reinforce a deeply held suspicion: that those with wealth enjoy privileged access to power, that they use that access in their own interests, and that politicians are too often complicit in this arrangement.

Polling consistently shows that public confidence in the integrity of our system is fragile. Yet too often, the political response treats each controversy as isolated, rather than cumulative. That is a mistake. 

The Mandelson affair should prompt a broader reckoning to finally break this cycle and send a clear message to the public that these offences are treated with the severity they merit. Fortunately, there are immediate opportunities to do exactly that. Parliament is currently considering measures to reform the offence of misconduct in public office through The Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Used properly, this could bring clarity, strengthen enforcement, and ultimately deter misconduct. 

We are also anticipating an elections bill. That legislation offers a chance to break the link between wealth and power, to end the dependency of our political parties who are increasingly reliant on a small number of very wealthy individuals. When a billionaire can do no more for them than someone running a local shop, the attention of some politicians will inevitably shift. 

We will soon, therefore, know if the righteous outrage voiced by backbenchers in Parliament this week translates into courageous champions for deeper reform.

The latest Mandelson affair should not be remembered solely as another chapter in Westminster’s cycle of outrage or the downfall of a political figure. It should be the moment when we finally acknowledge that restoring trust requires changing the rules of the game, not just disciplining those occasionally caught out.

This case underscores how enabling environments for corruption can intersect with other serious abuses. Where elite networks operate without oversight, and where misconduct faces no real consequences, multiple forms of exploitation – including sexual violence – continue with impunity. Accountability gaps don’t exist in isolation.

We owe it to the victims at the heart of this story to challenge the power structures that first meant their abusers thought they could carry on with impunity. That might be our best chance of no longer seeing scandal repeated and yet more suffer its abuses.  

Duncan Hames is Director of Policy at Transparency International UK and a former Liberal Democrat MP.

But while it’s since been pointed out that the garment in question may have been a promotional opportunity for The Biebs’ latest fashion line, it seems the Canadian star may have given less thought to what he wore on stage than you might have thought.

Earlier this week, Grammys executive producer Ben Winston gave an interview on Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, spilling some behind-the-scenes tea about this year’s ceremony.

In his wider interview, Winston went on to say that when he and his team first contacted Justin about his plans for his Grammys performance, he didn’t have much to tell them.

“When we had got reached out to him about his creative, he was just like, ‘I’m just going to get on stage and sing’,” he noted.

He added of the eventual performance: “It was what he wanted to do. It was all him. It was a career-defining moment for him. It was so different to what we’ve seen over the years.”

After an extended break from releasing music, Justin unveiled two albums in 2025, Swag and the follow-up Swag II, the former of which earned him four nominations at the recent Grammys, including the coveted Album Of The Year title.

How can I get tickets for Lola Young’s one-off concert at the London Palladium?

A Labour Party whistleblower has confirmed to the Canary that the disgraced Epstein associate Peter Mandelson, alongside then Director of Campaigns Morgan McSweeney, helped to vet Labour candidates for the 2024 general election.

Mandelson: the scandal continues

I have been investigating McSweeney’s operations for the last six months, and have personally heard accounts from several party insiders of widespread corruption in the run-up to the election, with local candidates systematically dumped in favour of Mandelson-McSweeney picks with no apparent connection to the area.

Furthermore, I was contacted by a former Labour MP who served as a frontbencher under Ed Miliband. He claims that Mandelson and McSweeney worked together to “get rid of” him. He added:

Everyone has overlooked Megan McCann, [McSweeney’s] former due diligence officer. She is his Achilles heel.

Megan McCann told me at a famous curry house meeting that when she had finished doing in candidates or getting them through, she built a dirty dossier on every MP. McCann takes instructions from McSweeney.”

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As it emerges that Peter Mandelson assisted McSweeney in building a covert network within the Labour Party to ensure their positions became policy, MPs who have defended the Epstein associate for so long are now moving to distance themselves.

We now know that as Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson passed classified government information to likely Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, even messaging the notorious paedophile on the day former Prime Minister Gordon Brown “finally got him to go.” But Mandelson had two deputies at the time, assisting him in his work: David Lammy and Pat McFadden.

Last year, Lammy, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, vehemently defended the appointment of Mandelson as US Ambassador, saying that he was “a man of considerable expertise”. Not words many of us would use for a person who described a convicted paedophile as their “best pal”.

Things get murkier when we take into account David Lammy’s 2014 failed London mayoral nomination bid.

Murky

His campaign was led by a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, David Mencer, who went on to become a spokesman for the Israeli government. You may have seen Mencer on television in recent months, defending the most heinous crimes of the Gaza genocide.

Life-long Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn donated £30,000 to Lammy’s the short-lived mayoral campaign. Chinn has funded both Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel throughout his life, and was personally awarded for “service to the state of Israel” by Israeli President and genocidaire Isaac Herzog.

But Chinn was also a director and major funder of Morgan McSweeney’s “Labour Together Ltd.” outfit. When McSweeney was found to have concealed £739,492 worth of donations to Labour Together, one of his excuses was that he trying “to protect Trevor”.

Another of Lammy’s financial backers is Lady Woodford-Hollick, the wife of Labour peer Clive Hollick. Clive Hollick was another funder of the Labour Together project, but he also previously served as a Special Adviser to Peter Mandelson.

From acting as his deputy in 2008 to defending him in interviews last year, the question needs to be asked: what did David Lammy know about the Mandelson-Epstein communications?

The McFadden link

Peter Mandelson’s other deputy during his tenure as Business Secretary was Pat McFadden. McFadden has been described as “the most powerful Labour politician most have never heard of”. He initially worked on Tony Blair’s 1997 election campaign alongside Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell.

In 2008, he was made Mandelson’s right-hand man. Indeed, in a fawning article printed by the Guardian in September 2023, Mandelson waxes lyrical on his former assistant, saying: “Pat has seen it all. He is a walking encyclopedia of political and policy knowledge, and experience in government.” But had McFadden “seen” Mandelson’s communications with Epstein?

During the 2024 general election campaign, McSweeney and McFadden’s desks were “right in the middle of the room” at Labour HQ. His wife, Marianna McFadden, was already McSweeney’s no. 2. Mandelson said that McFadden and McSweeney would complement each other, opining that “Pat is cautious…[whereas] Morgan is a hard-driven street fighter.” High praise all round from the Epstein-informant.

Megan McCann is now a Special Adviser to Labour Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds. Like former Mandelson deputy Pat McFadden, Reynolds is also a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, and both men have travelled on LFI-funded delegations. In 2019, Reynolds even accepted a £100 donation directly from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Israel connection and Labour Together

Recently, Starmer tabled an amendment to the motion to release the Mandelson Files, calling for an exemption for “papers prejudicial to UK national security or international relations”. The amendment was signed by the PM and three other Labour MPs. Jonathan Reynolds was one of them.

Another signer of the failed amendment was fellow LFI supporter and Chief Secretary to the PM, Darren Jones. Jones, who received over £57,000 in donations from Labour Together, recently said that Starmer picked Mandelson “because we want to do things differently”.

The third signer of the amendment to restrict the release of the Mandelson Files was Nick Thomas-Symonds. Thomas-Symonds received £35,521 from Labour Together.

Before working for Reynolds, McSweeney’s former “due diligence officer” Megan McCann was on the staff of Labour MP Oliver Ryan. Another suspected McSweeney-Mandelson “pick”, Ryan received £10,000 from Labour Together.

Tom Rutland, the new MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, was another member of Labour Together’s “£10k club”. A pattern is coming to the fore: the Mandelson-McSweeney cabal used not only Excel spreadsheets, but also the financial weight of Labour Together to ensure those loyal to them got elected.

Mark Sewards also received £10,000 from Labour Together. Last August, Sewards became the first Member of Parliament to create an “AI version of himself” to communicate with constituents, a disturbing move condemned by many for its potential detrimental effects on many of the most vulnerable in society.

Recently, Sewards travelled to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Last November, her was announced as the new parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Israel after previously accepting an LFI-funded trip to occupied Palestine in May 2025. These are the individuals waiting in the wings for Starmer’s downfall.

Tony Blair as well

Another of the new crop of Labour MPs is Georgia Gould, a member of the Jewish Labour Movement who previously served on Camden Council. Whilst there, fellow Camden Labour councillor + JLM member Izzy Lenga posted a photograph on Facebook in which she is wearing an Israeli military uniform, holding an automatic weapon and draped in an Israeli flag. The photograph was subsequently deleted.

Before moving into politics, Gould worked for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. She has previously been described as a “Blairite heiress who could be Labour leader one day” and a “close ally and mentee” of Alistair Campbell, the third wheel in the Mandelson-McFadden team behind Blair’s rise to power.

Marianna McFadden, Pat McFadden’s wife, had her own links to the infamous war criminal, having previously worked at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. She was later appointed as Starmer’s deputy campaigns director. The most unpopular Prime Minister ever is a continuation of Blair’s legacy in more ways than one.

Georgia Gould is the daughter of two “peers for life”. Her husband, Alex Zatman, was previously a Special Adviser to Liz Kendall, but is now a director at Teneo, a controversial lobbying firm with close links to the Clinton family. When Teneo was established in 2011, both Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were named as members of their advisory board. Clinton, who departed in 2012, had a yearly salary of $2.5 million.

In one leaked e-mail from the Jeffrey Epstein files, Ghislaine Maxwell writes to his “best pal” Peter Mandelson:

Pete, what is wrong. I am here for you. Call me – Clinton sd he will do what you want at the conference…PS Don’t be disgusting.

The e-mail is dated September 14th 2002. On October 2nd 2002, Clinton addressed the Labour conference in Blackpool. Ghislaine of course was the daughter of Robert Maxwell, the now deceased member of the British House of Lords, media baron, and, according to ex-Israeli intelligence operative Ari Ben-Menashe, Mossad asset.

Mandelson’s hands are all over the past 25 years

The extent of Epstein-informant Mandelson’s influence on government policy, and further revelations over the next days and weeks will be devastating for the Starmer regime and all those who defended him.

When Morgan McSweeney initially joined Labour in 2001, not long after his stint on an Israeli “kibbutz”, he was put to work on Mandelson’s “Excalibur” database, used to gather information on “internal political rivals”. The two have been close ever since, and the bullying tactics once employed by Mandelson are echoed by his political heir McSweeney today.

One prospective parliamentary Labour candidate in London, Sara*, spoke to me about being hauled in front of a now infamous three-person committee: Luke Akehurst, Sharma Tatler, and Anu Prashar. “I was given 5 minutes notice and then told I was not suitable, with no right to appeal”, she said.

Tom*, a Labour member from east London, told me about a culture of fear surrounding McSweeney: “Everyone is so scared to speak, and people are getting suspended for anything.” Sara told me: “You have to prove your loyalty by being mean and nasty…it’s a cesspit.”

The Mandelson-McSweeney-Starmer cabal has ruled Labour with an iron fist, but the house of cards is beginning to fall.

*Names have been changed to protect whistleblowers’ identities.

Featured image via the Canary

At this point, the following shouldn’t surprise anyone about Trump, and yet it is staggering to see:

BREAKING: Trump just posted an incredibly racist photo of the Obama’s faces photoshopped on to the body of apes.

Every day is a new rock bottom for this ugly pig. pic.twitter.com/GlMM7Cfjoe

— Dean Withers (@itsdeaann) February 6, 2026

Pure, unfettered racism from Trump

Everyone accepted long ago that it’s racist to depict black people as apes, and the video does literally nothing besides depicting the Obamas as apes.

There is no attempt to hide what his intent is here.

The only excuse you could make for Trump is that he’s too stupid and/or unwell to understand what he posted.

If that’s the case, WHY IS HE THE PRESIDENT?

A racist president is intolerable; a sick president with access to the nuclear button is potentially world ending.

Here’s how people have reacted to Trump’s latest hate crime:

This is the racist video Donald Trump posted.

This is where we’re at. pic.twitter.com/kH49rMWfVH

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) February 6, 2026

Trump posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys. Incredibly racist and disgusting. Beneath the office of the presidency, like everything he does.

Every American must condemn this. pic.twitter.com/vYbGgqqv09

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— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) February 6, 2026

Global problem

Given how America throws its weight around, it’s a problem for everyone in the world for there to be a racist and/or fascist president. It’s an even bigger problem for us in the UK, because politicians like Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, and Kemi Badenoch all think there job is to suck up to this man.

Starmer and Farage both drape themselves in flags but once again it’s really clear where their loyalty really is.

It’s Trump first. They will always be on the side of the super rich and powerful – no matter how heinous the crime.

This is not patriotism. It’s subservience. https://t.co/M7sVgGLgMJ

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— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) January 3, 2026

Featured image via X

Nick Buckley MBE is the Advance UK candidate in the Gorton & Denton byelection. With the fight for the seat heating up, we thought it was time we shone a light on what Buckley actually stands for. And it’s pretty dark:

This is what feminism has done to women – turned them into whores and made them unhappy – 20% of U.K. women are on antidepressants.

Feminism:%20Myths,%20Lies%20&%20Ungratefulness%3A%20Exploring%20Ground%20Zero%20Of%20The%20Woke%20Virus https://t.co/1vxHNVOYJ2

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) October 26, 2024

Let’s get it out of the way, you’re going to see a lot of misogyny and racism, so buckle up.

Another woman-hating, racist wanker on the ballot

Buckley has been on some really fucking wild rants on Twitter.  Firstly, he states women shouldn’t have tattoos, and we can’t do anything right:

Female tattoos are just a trendy way to self abuse – just like cutting, not eating, gender ideology, abortion and always picking wrong men. https://t.co/su3L2sTgx4

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) September 5, 2025

He fucking hates abortions and apparently all women do is hoof antidepressants and kill babies:

If we do not support women across the globe then how are they going abortion their babies, rely on antidepressants, neglect their children, hate men and contribute to the coffers of the multinationals??

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 28, 2026

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And comparing abortion to the holocaust is absolutely wild:

We are killing our babies almost as fast as we are making them. Abortion is out of control and a shame on our society like slavery and the holocaust. History will judge us and it will not be pleasant. https://t.co/XEAkgJ1mIB

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 23, 2026

He really fucking hates abortion:

Feminism taught us that men and women are the same. Women are just as evil as men and commit horrendous acts – they just do it differently to men. pic.twitter.com/UgY75PFrVX

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 15, 2026

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And let’s throw a little transphobia in there for good measure:

The Trans lunatics are back! The NHS, our NHS as we are constantly told, is going to be experimenting on kids – legally. All doctors involved should be stripped of their license and prosecuted for child abuse. pic.twitter.com/Q5ekCC2fJz

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) November 26, 2025

Policing

Let’s be honest, it’s not shocking at all that Buckley is racist. It’s almost a given with Advance UK:

This is a great example of the failures of DEI. We recruit rapists because we have to give blacks a job to ensure no one thinks we are racist. It started with feminism but ends with rapists. pic.twitter.com/3JXAQHU5Kq

— Nick Buckley MBE (@NickBuckleyMBE) January 8, 2026

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One commenter was quick to point out the case of Wayne Couzens, a white copper who killed Sarah Everard:

That’s never happened before. pic.twitter.com/8KRjEWrhgf

— catrellneff (@catrellnefff) January 9, 2026

The police literally ignored sexual harassment allegations made against him. Oh, and two other coppers shared racist and misogynistic messages with Couzens.

This isn’t an issue of political correctness; it’s an issue of the police ignoring the offences of its officers.

This disgustingly racist rhetoric is absolutely bullshit.

Currently, 97% of rape allegations are not even brought to charge in the UK; why the fuck isn’t he screaming about that? 6 out of 7 assaults against women are carried out by someone they know.

Why the fuck are we bringing race into this when it’s clearly just a man problem?

Advance UK throws another stereotype into the ring

Let’s be honest, none of this is shocking from a far-right party endorsed by Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk. But this sets a dangerous precedent for the trajectory of Advance UK. For a party that claims it’s not far right, it definitely seems like it is. And the leader, Ben Habib seems to fully support Buckley:

I am delighted @NickBuckleyMBE will be standing for @_AdvanceUK in the Gorton and Denton by election.

Nick is a proud patriot, local to the area where he also based his charity, Mancunian Way. His MBE was for charitable work.

Nick offers real change, not the same old or the…

— Ben Habib (@benhabib6) January 31, 2026

Luckily, Advance UK’s man seems somewhat irrelevant, but we need to be calling out these fascist wankers whenever we can, and Buckley is definitely one of them.

Featured image via Instagram