Politics
The House | For survivors of modern slavery, the right to work is the right to rebuild
(Cristian Storto / Alamy)
4 min read
Growth, according to the government, is Britain’s defining ambition. Work must pay, ministers insist, the benefits system must be fairer; labour laws must be enforced. Through these principles, the government hopes to restore prosperity and social cohesion under its Get Britain Working agenda.
Yet one question remains: why tens of thousands of people in Britain are denied the right to work altogether?
An estimated 122,000 people in the UK today live in conditions of modern slavery. Globally, the figure stands at 50 million. Hidden in plain sight, men and women are trapped in forced labour, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude.
For fifteen years, the Sophie Hayes Foundation has supported women survivors of modern slavery as they rebuild their lives. Each has strength, skill, and aspiration, but many face one impossible barrier: the inability to work legally. Those trafficked into the UK often enter the asylum system, where they must wait months or years for a decision before being granted the right to work. In that time, dependence deepens, and vulnerability to re‑exploitation grows.
A new evaluation of the Sophie Hayes Foundation’s Employability Programme has confirmed what survivors have long known: work is not a reward for recovery, it is the mechanism of it. Launched at the House of Lords in June by the University of Nottingham Rights Lab and King’s College London, in partnership with the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, the report found that safe, meaningful and supported employment is what allows survivors to live freely and independently.
Re-exploitation is all too little accounted for in the government response to modern slavery. The government does not even publish whether victims receiving support have been recognised as victims before. Re-exploitation, in other words, is invisible by design.
The Home Office has tendered an £800 million contract for victim support. Not a penny of it buys survivors the right to work. But without the cornerstone of financial independence, that support offers immediate safety without long-term opportunity. True rehabilitation requires not only safety from traffickers but the means to stand independently, through work.
This isn’t just unjust. It’s economically illiterate. Excluding survivors from work doesn’t just fail them – it costs the country. Denying the right to work is estimated to cost the UK up to £36m a year in lost tax revenue alone. At the same time, ONS data show over 700,000 job vacancies across the country. The contradiction is obvious: a workforce in shortage, and thousands ready yet unable to contribute.
At the end of June, the Home Secretary announced that asylum seekers will have to repay up to £10,000 in support costs before they can settle – a debt triggered by the very act of finding work. A survivor who takes a job doesn’t gain independence; she gains a bill. Nor does the policy even achieve its own stated aim: fewer than 15 per cent of refugees earn over £20,000 even five years after being granted asylum, meaning the scheme is unlikely to raise meaningful revenue, and may well cost more to administer than it recovers.
There is another way.
To grant the right to work to survivors would be an act not of leniency, but of leadership. It would bolster the workforce, strengthen the economy, and perhaps most importantly, uphold the principle that recovery depends on empowerment, not exclusion.
As Britain faces its seventh political leadership upheaval in a decade, and the Prime Minister apparent Andy Burnham vows to bring new and radical solutions to the table, we must ask why the government will not grant the right to work to survivors?
The government faces pressure to appear robust on migration, and fears that granting survivors the right to work would be seen as a backdoor route into the UK labour market. But this gets the causality backwards. It is the absence of the right to work, not its presence, that leaves survivors dependent on state support for years and vulnerable to being re-trafficked into the very exploitation the system exists to prevent. Modern slavery is not an immigration issue; it is a human one. People across the political spectrum agree that exploitation is a moral stain, not a partisan talking point.
Britain cannot claim to champion work while barring survivors of slavery from earning an honest living. The test of our growth agenda lies not only in GDP, but in whose futures it allows to grow.
Emily Death is CEO of the Sophie Hayes Foundation
Sam Fender has spoken out following the news that his duet with Olivia Dean is now the joint longest-running number one in UK chart history.
The pair unveiled their collaboration Rein Me In more than a year ago in June 2025.
Around eight months later, it reached number one in the UK singles chart for the first time back in February, and managed the feat a whopping 15 more times in the months that followed.
On Friday evening, it was announced that Rein Me In was number one for the 16th week, with the Official Charts Company meaning that Sam and Olivia had officially smashed a record previously held by Wet Wet Wet for more than 30 years, for their 1994 chart-topper Love Is All Around.
“It’s been ridiculous!” the People Watching singer said when his achievement was made official. “Every Friday, it’s been an excuse to party. Take that, Marti Pellow!”
Sam enthused: “Olivia putting the alternative narrative on it made the song really universal – that opened the floodgates. There’s two sides to the story.
“And, it’s a toe tapper! It’s officially a banger! I’m buzzing that Rein Me In is the longest-running British single at number one of all time!”
While Sam and Olivia’s feat means that theirs is the song by a British act that has held the most weeks at number one, they’ll have to hang on one more round to break the all-time record, which they currently share with Bryan Adams for his seminal hit (Everything I Do) I Do It For You.
However, the Canadian star will still hold the record for the most consecutive weeks at number one in the UK, even if Sam and Olivia do hold onto the top spot next week.
So far, 2026 has been another huge year for both Sam and Olivia.
As well as their chart success, they both celebrated big wins at the Brit Awards back in February.
Olivia swept the board with four wins, including Best British Single for Rein Me In, while Sam also scooped a solo award in the Alternative/Rock Act category.
The Israel lobby has gone into yet another Mamdani-related meltdown. This time, though, the emphasis is on ‘related’. Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji dared to co-host a retreat in Corsica that honoured the Virgin Mary as “a Palestinian woman who gave birth under occupation”. The event also included prayers for Palestinian mothers giving birth and trying to protect their children during Israel’s genocide.
Israel meltdown
The Murdoch-owned New York Post claimed Duwaji dodged US Independence Day celebrations, liked posts praising resistance to occupation and created artwork that criticised Israel. It also attacked attendees for wearing keffiyeh scarves and raising funds for Palestinian humanitarian groups.
Fox News ranted that the retreat took place on the ‘swank island of Corsica’. It also quoted pro-Israel Republican Joann Ariola saying that by attending the retreat, Duwaji was showing her “hatred for America”. Wonder what Jesus would make of that attitude towards his mum.
The Times accused Duwaji of ‘skipping’ US independence celebrations and quoted critics slamming her “controversial” views on Palestine and her lack of interest in chatting to a ‘Miss Israel’. Yup, opposing mass murder and ethnic cleansing is just so provocative and why would anyone snub a beauty contestant who made a video justifying Israel’s slaughter in Gaza? The very thought.
The Jewish News Syndicate devoted its space to the cost of the Corsican resort — less than €3,000 for the week, not paid from public funds. It also quoted the embassy of Israel huffing about Jesus and Mary’s Jewishness — kind of a cheek when Israel attacks and murders Palestinian and Lebanese Christians.
Liberal Zionist outlet JFeed gave space to Israel propagandist Hen Mazzig and his chorus, who:
argued the framing distorts the historical record that Jesus and his mother were Jewish, living in Judea under Roman rule at the time. Critics online echoed that point, arguing that recasting a Jewish woman living in her people’s ancestral homeland as a symbol of Palestinian occupation amounts to a rewriting of both scripture and history.
Absolutely. How dare anyone — let alone the wife of a Muslim mayor — compare the brutal Roman occupation of Palestine with the brutal and just as murderous Zionist occupation of Palestine? The nerve of it!
‘Times of trouble’
Jesus’s mother Mary is venerated by Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Christians — and by Muslims. Muslims consider her the mother of ‘Isa al-Masih’, or Jesus the Messiah, whom they regard as a great prophet.
Zionists — Jewish and gentile — typically do not. Except when they can use Mary’s Jewishness to attack a Muslim mayor’s wife, apparently.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
The post Will Farage’s Clacton gamble pay off? appeared first on spiked.
Politics
Politics Home | Police Arrest 26-Year Old Man On Suspicion Of Murder After Anne Widdecombe Found Dead
Police have launched a murder inquiry after Ann Widdecombe was found dead on Thursday (Alamy)
2 min read
A 26-year old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder on Friday after politician Anne Widdecombe was found dead in her home.
In a press conference, Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman said police were called to Widdecombe’s home in rural Devon on Thursday morning, where she was found deceased with “serious injuries”.
The murder inquiry is still in its early stages, but the incident is currently not being treated as terrorism, Longman said.
Widdecombe was a Conservative MP for Maidstone in Kent for 23 years and was a minister in the Conservative government of John Major. Later in life, she served as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament, before joining Reform UK.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the news of the circumstances surrounding Widdecombe’s death was “really shocking” and his thoughts “will be with the family and friends of Ann Widdecombe at this awful time for them.”
Starmer said he had spoken to the chief constable and said it is “really important that this is a moment where we rise above any political differences, the political divide, and say the single most important thing at the moment is that all of us and the public help the police identify the individual suspected and make sure he’s arrested as quickly as possible”,
A spokesperson for Andy Burnham, who is expected to replace Starmer as PM this month, said: “Andy’s deepest condolences and thoughts are with Ann’s family today, in incredibly distressing circumstances.
“Ann gave a lifetime of public service, and it’s absolutely right that the police put all their resources into investigating this as swiftly as possible.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said she was “stunned” by the news.
“To be honest, I’ve really struggled to find the words,” she said.
“Ann Widdecombe was a very fun and feisty woman who spoke her mind. She was 78 years old. She was an elderly woman. I don’t understand how someone could do something so horrific to an elderly person.
“It was a nasty, horrific attack. My heart is breaking for her family.”
The post The Ann Widdecombe murder investigation has shocked Britain appeared first on spiked.
We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how military-style packing can save you precious storage space, as well as why ribbons may not be the best way to identify your luggage while flying.
But if you want to protect its contents, it turns out that travel experts recommend taking an added security step just before you head off.
Luckily, it requires no added tools: your phone should do.
Take a picture of your suitcase’s contents before travelling
Christian Bennett, head of travel at Multitrip.com, said that taking a quick picture of the inside of your case before you head off might be worth your while.
“Keeping receipts, taking photos before you travel and holding on to important paperwork means you’ll have everything you need at your fingertips if you do need to make a claim,” he explained.
In other words, if something in your luggage goes missing or gets damaged, you’ll have a far stronger case with “before” pics in your camera roll.
It takes “seconds” to snap a picture, the pro stated, and means you’ll have a record to hand whenever you need it.
Redditors swear by the practice too.
“Take a photo of your luggage and contents – ESPECIALLY if you’re traveling overseas,” a site user wrote.
Take a picture of the outside of the suitcase, too
For added safety, take a picture of the exterior of your suitcase before travelling too.
Speaking to Travel + Leisure, Rob Merlin, a travel advisor at SmartFlyer, said: “We always recommend that clients photograph their luggage before a trip, including the exterior of the bag, the luggage tag, and the contents inside”.
This not only means you’re able to document any luggage damage, but it could also help airline staff to identify your suitcase from a sea of others in lost and found.
Politics
Politics Home | Burnham’s No 10 Expected To Undergo Restructuring Under Chief Of Staff James Purnell
James Purnell, then a Labour MP, pictured leaving Parliament in June 2009 (Alamy)
3 min read
The Prime Minister’s No 10 office in Downing Street is expected to undergo a significant restructuring under Andy Burnham and his chief of staff James Purnell, in addition to the founding of a new ‘No 10 North’ in Manchester, PoliticsHome understands.
Purnell, the former Blairite minister who has been picked by Burnham as his chief of staff, was a member of the expert advisory group that recently helped guide a paper on how a reformed Downing Street department would work.
Published by the Future Governance Forum (FGF) think tank in November last year, the report proposed a streamlined ‘Executive Office for the Prime Minister’.
The new set-up would see No 10 configured around four functions: a politics and strategy group; a policy and delivery group; a diplomacy and security group; and a private office. A communications team and political office would also operate across all four.
“This new Downing Street is not a new bureaucracy, adding more complexity to the centre,” the FGF paper reads.
“The entire intention is that it should be the opposite: streamlining the centre of government, with the very centre attempting to do less directly itself by setting clearer expectations of what can and should be done elsewhere in Whitehall (and what can and should be stopped altogether).”
A well-placed source described it as “nailed on” that Burnham’s No 10 would implement at least some of the FGF’s recommendations on a new structure, and insiders say Burnham will enact No 10 reform as part of his wider reset.
The politics and strategy group is the function considered by insiders as best-suited to being based out of No 10 North.
“I think they want to move a lot of senior people there. It’s real,” the same source quoted above said of the planned new encampment in Manchester.
The incoming prime minister has promised that the Manchester office will act as “the nerve-centre of a rewired Britain”. The plan is not to duplicate the work of London’s No 10 but to task No 10 North specifically with driving his “devolution and growth agenda”.
Caroline Simpson, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s chief executive who is credited with helping Burnham as mayor to deliver fast growth in the region, will lead that work and be based in No 10 North as the prime minister’s deputy chief of staff.
Burnham would like to see No 10 North located at a government hub already under construction, the Manchester Digital Campus in Ancoats, but it is not due to be completed until 2032.
Those working on the project say other sites in Greater Manchester fit the bill, however, and PoliticsHome understands that interim arrangements are being made to get the new office up and running “as quickly as possible”.
The independent Institute for Government (IfG) think tank also supports breaking up the Cabinet Office and creating a ‘Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’.
Commenting on Burnham’s plans for a ‘No 10 North’, IfG associate director Hannah Keenan said of 10 Downing Street: “It has been horribly underpowered for too long. Now, this isn’t going to fix it…
“You need to do much more fundamental reforms to the centre of government. You still have an enormous Cabinet Office that is quite amorphous and too large and unfocused and doesn’t really support the prime minister properly – what are you doing with that?
“But it is fine and good to bolster the power of No 10.”
Burnham is set to become the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade later this month after a large majority of Labour MPs nominated the former Manchester mayor to replace Keir Starmer on Thursday.
Friday Caption Contest (Andy Binman Edition)
British voters want Count Binface to beat Nigel Farage in next month’s Clacton by-election.
A new poll by Ipsos UK shows that in a head-to-head contest, 33% would back the comedy candidate, compared to just 21% who support the Reform UK leader.
But 32% said they would vote for neither of them, and 13% don’t know.
The by-election was triggered after Farage announced on Tuesday that he was resigning as Clacton’s MP amid mounting controversy over his and Reform’s finances.
Parliament’s standards commissioner is investigating a £5 million gift Farage received from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire shortly before he became an MP.
The sleaze watchdog has also been urged to probe Farage’s decision not to declare financial support he received from convicted fraudster George Cottrell.
Farage denies any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a witch-hunt.
He wants the by-election to me a “people versus the establishment” contest, but that has backfired after Labour, the Tories, the Lib Dems, Greens and Restore Britain all said they would not put up candidates.
Instead, Farage’s main rival is set to be Count Binface.
The poll also showed that 74% of voters believe the standards commissioner should be investigating whether Farage broke parliamentary rules.
And 73% say the investigation should continue even if Farage wins the by-election.
Ipsos research director Keiran Pedley said: “Of course, it is the people of Clacton that will vote in the upcoming by-election and not the public overall.
“But the fact that just one in five Britons would prefer Nigel Farage to win reflects how his personal poll ratings have fallen over the past year – even if Reform supporters remain very much behind him.
“Elsewhere in the poll we see strong support for parliamentary standards investigations continuing even if Mr Farage wins the by-election – suggesting his assumed victory will not make these issues go away.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
On 9 July, social security and disability minister Stephen Timms published his interim report on the state of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) system. The initial findings were damning, recognising that the payments were vitally necessary for disabled recipients, but ultimately “not fit for purpose”.
In large part, this failing was due to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)-managed assessment system. Participants branded those assessments as “dehumanising”, “soul destroying”, and “degrading”. The review also highlighted pressing concerns regarding:
whether the functional assessment and descriptors fully reflect real-life impacts, particularly for fluctuating, multiple, and less visible conditions, as well as about the consistency and transparency of decision-making and the role of supporting evidence.
PIP was never fit for purpose
The government first introduced PIP back in 2013, to help disabled and D/deaf people cope with the extra costs of living with disability. It replaced the previous Disability Living Allowance (DLA) scheme, and was intended to consider a broader range of impairments.
The review began back in July 2025, as the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey explained:
The Timms review was launched after the Labour government failed to cut PIP last summer. Thanks to a massive push back from disabled people and a Labour rebellion, the DWP had to take PIP cuts out of the welfare cuts bill. However, as a last ditch attempt to still get some cuts through and not look like a total failure, the minister for disabled people announced that there would be a consultation on PIP if MPs voted for the bill.
The review’s foreword, penned by its steering group, stated that:
We know this Review begins from a difficult place. We recognise there is a lack of trust in government amongst many disabled people. We also recognise that D/deaf and disabled people and those with long-term conditions face pressures from across wider society, whether that is being the centre of unfair public debate, struggling to access the services they need, or living with uncertainty about what support is available.
If this Review’s findings are to be accepted by disabled people and non-disabled people alike, the Review must be clear about what it has heard, honest about what remains unresolved, and serious about how disabled people’s experience shapes the work. That is why co-production is central to this Review.
Limited response time for PIP
However, there were major issues regarding this ‘co-production’ from the get-go. Back on 19 March, the DWP finally launched its call for evidence on PIP. The Canary’s Hannah Sharland explained:
The first thing that immediately stands out is that the call for evidence runs for only 10 weeks. Technically, since this isn’t a consultation, that’s not unlawful – unlike the previous Conservative government’s 8-week Work Capability Assessment (WCA) consultation.
Even so, ordinarily, the government will host these in line with its 12-week requirement around consultations. […]
Of course, it speaks volumes that the DWP is giving disabled people – some of whom will need more time to engage – even less time than the standard amount to do so.
However, in spite of these necessary limitations, the review received some 38,713 responses. The participants included D/deaf and disabled people themselves, along with advocacy organisations, clinicians and leading academics. The Canary will look more closely at these responses in the next section of our coverage, here.
The changing disability landscape
The report, when published in full later in the Autumn, will form the first comprehensive review of PIP since it was introduced 13 years ago. Since then, the landscape of disability in the UK has changed greatly, as the interim report explained:
Around 10 million working-age people report living with a disability – equivalent to 24% of the working-age population, compared with under 17% in 2013/14. There have been greater increases in the prevalence of disability among young people and a rise in mental health conditions. The Review must consider how PIP can remain sustainable within fixed financial limits and support future generations.
Two things are important here: that mention of “fixed financial limits”, and the changing makeup of disabilities. In particular, the latter was related to the disabling impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing levels of chronic illness, and pressures on the NHS itself.
Penny-pinching
The Timms Report’s terms of reference set out the aim to ensure that PIP can “be there to support future generations” whilst also sticking to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) “projections for future spending on PIP.”
The report itself stated that PIP spending is expected to rise from £15bn in 2020 to £41bn in 2031. However, it also emphasised that:
This has occurred alongside a reduction in expenditure on other working-age welfare benefits, when measured in percentage of GDP terms.
This linked to a 2025 Financial Times article, which held that the projected total for all welfare payments is around 11% percent of national yearly income. It noted that this was lower than the same figure during Cameron’s term as prime minister.
This focus on penny-pinching will always be a major problem, as Sharland previously explained:
Ensuring PIP is more accessible and inclusive won’t make the department savings. So whatever evidence disabled people provide, a fit-for-purpose disability benefit system won’t be the outcome.
As we react to the interim Timms Report, and await the finished version later in the year, cost-cutting cannot be the focus.
Even from these initial findings it’s clear that PIP isn’t fit for purpose. That purpose is vital and necessary for the benefit’s recipients, and it won’t be fixed by DWP bean-counting.
Featured image via the Canary
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