Labour is clearly desperate in the Gorton and Denton by-election. No wonder, since it’s running a poor third according to the latest polling.

So with polls opening today, 26 June, it was clearly time for the liar-led party to break out its latest scam: make up a completely fake ‘tactical voting organisation’ that ‘says’ local people need to vote Labour. Then post leaflets with the fake company’s name on – and a fake website.

It’s almost certainly illegal, regardless what ‘imprint’ the party puts in tiny print on the edge. It’s definitely illegal if it hasn’t put one. It’s definitely lying, either way.

Labour are beyond desperate

Labour has made up – plucked from thin air or the diseased brain of some PR slimer, or perhaps Labour Together, as it would fit with that slimy outfit’s record – a supposed organisation called “Tactical Choice”. And, surprise surprise, the non-existent tactical voting organisation made up by Labour recommends that Gorton and Denton needs to – drum roll…. vote Labour:

Got this through my door in the last two hours and was actually taken aback by how far they’ve gone out of their way to make it look like a leaflet from an independent tactical voting org https://t.co/mrqkvEC2Db pic.twitter.com/QWwdJ34WHm

— RopesToInfinity (@RopesToInfinity) February 25, 2026

The fake organisation even has a fake logo – although it looks like one that Labour bought off the shelf for pennies, like Starmer did with his ‘Great British Energy’ scam. And that was definitely a scam. In fact, the party may not even have spent pennies: Google’s AI suggested that the image had been created with children’s wax crayons:

The image displays squares that closely resemble Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons. These are known for their luminous colors, flat shape, and use in Waldorf education.

And the Greens have noticed, with Green leader Zack Polanski taking Mancunian MP and Labour deputy leader personally and publicly to task for the scam:

Dear Lucy,

On the eve of the by-election, your Labour party spokesperson has admitted to the Huffington Post that a Labour party leaflet has been delivered through doors with your imprint recommending a vote for Labour by a tactical voting organisation which does not exist.

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This is deeply troubling, it is actually lying to voters. ​ Did you approve this? ​ Do you feel the Labour Party in government should be held to different standards in terms of honesty to the British public? ​

In your last letter to me you mentioned your ‘very extensive data’ and ‘having spoken to over a third of eligible voters’ which led you to an understanding that the by-election ‘was a contest between Labour and Reform’. ​ Clearly this latest development only tells voters one thing – you will employ any type of political deception (or in Urdu “Dhoka”) to win. ​

You will be very aware that all three real tactical voting organisations are recommending a vote for the Greens as the best way to stop Reform. ​ Lying to the voters, as you have been caught doing, raises the real prospect that Reform will be the beneficiaries, something you have said that you don’t want. ​

As this is such an important issue, for the sake of your own reputation, I would strongly urge you to apologise to the voters of Denton and Gorton before the polls open in the morning. ​

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Kind regards,

Zack Polanski
Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

But the leaflet isn’t all. The website it contains is also a scam. It uses an address that sounds like a general democracy website: iwillvote.org.uk. But the small print – right at the bottom where it will probably only be noticed by the sharp-eyed who know to look – shows that the website is operated by Labour:

Labour lies and it lies and it lies. Then it lies some more. Keir Starmer conned Labour members into voting for him by lying and breaking every promise he ever made. Now he’s trying to con voters in Gorton and Denton. He fully deserves the electoral kicking that the pollsters are predicting.

Featured image via the Canary

Nadiya Hussain has labelled the TV industry as “broken” in an interview with the Guardian, where she exposed the racist and sexist system, which she explains is paying Black and Brown women less than their white counterparts.

Nadiya Hussain speaks out on gaslighting

Nadiya rose to fame in 2015 when she was crowned champion of the Great British Bake Off. She quickly became a much-loved cultural fixture, publishing cookbooks and children’s books, and making TV shows.

In Summer 2025, Nadiya posted a video on Instagram saying that the BBC had decided not to commission another cookery show. Earlier that year, she published a cookery book titled ‘Rooza’. It was inspired by dishes from across the Islamic world, especially at Ramadan and Eid.

She knew it would not be attached to a TV series. However, the BBC then told her they would not be making her next book, Nadiya’s Quick Comforts, into a series, either.

The BBC then said:

After several wonderful series, we have made the difficult decision not to commission another cookery show with Nadiya Hussain at the moment.

Nadiya then discussed gaslighting in the industry on Instagram without naming the BBC. She emphasised that as a Muslim woman, she rarely felt supported and TV bosses did not allow her to fulfil her potential.

Soon after, Nadiya left her agent and manager.

Nadiya told the Guardian:

The last year has been intense, really exposing, but it has been really enlightening at the same time.

She told the Guardian that she had been feeling uncomfortable in her job for a while, along with dealing with health issues, which included an autoimmune diagnosis. She said:

I started to feel like a caricature of myself. I’d become a version of myself that was manufactured and comfortable for everybody.

I’d become this palatable version of a Muslim that could be on television, that could write cookbooks. I’d become this really comfortable version of myself that was easy to digest.

‘Overwhelming whiteness’

Nadiya has spoken publicly many times about the “overwhelming whiteness” of TV and publishing.

Over the last year, she has realised how broken the system really is, and that she can’t change a broken industry.

She added that:

It’s always been really difficult to be the only person like me in a room.

And understandably, she’s tired of people asking if things have changed or “are we doing better?”

She told the Guardian that she:

has no evidence that it was Rooza that meant some brands no longer wanted to work with her, but this is the feeling she can’t shake.

She continued:

It was really interesting, because I felt like people had just twigged, ‘Oh, she’s a Muslim’, and suddenly I wasn’t palatable any more. Suddenly I wasn’t the same Nadiya that I was before, because before I was writing cookbooks that were for everybody, and now I wrote this book that didn’t feel inclusive.”

But her faith and culture are a huge part of who she is, and she thinks that made people uncomfortable.

Nadiya realised that she had very little control over her career. She said the feeling intensified when she saw the world not embrace her new book, Rooza, as it had previous books, especially when she was so “immensely proud” of this one.

She said:

I know how many people felt seen and heard with a cookbook like that. I write something that is really close to my heart, and suddenly I’m losing brand deals and people don’t want to work with me any more.

A neat little box

Nadiya felt as if the TV and publishing industries had put her into a neat little box. But suddenly, she didn’t fit. Quite beautifully, she realised:

I have to be the most authentic version of myself.

I just softened my edges enough to fit in. Even things like I changed the way I wore my headscarf because it felt more modern to wear it a different way. I did that without even realising it. I much prefer to wear it this way [covering her neck, as opposed to wrapping only her hair], but this makes me somehow look more Muslim.

The people around her also suggested that she should not post anything political on social media, such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza. She complained many times about people making misogynistic or racist comments, but bosses always told her:

‘That’s just the way they are’, or ‘just ignore them’.

She wished she hadn’t let stuff go. However, she knew the higher-ups would see her as “difficult” if she complained. Which tells you all you need to know about the state of the industry.

She added that, as a woman of colour, she felt she should be “endlessly grateful”. Which, of course, she should not. This means she has come to expect criticism, especially on social media – she cannot escape it.

To make matters worse, the racist comments have become “noticeably worse and more frequent”.

She said:

I think people are braver and just think they can say whatever they want. The world feels like it’s on fire at the moment. It’s hideous what’s happening right now, and it feels like no amount of speaking out is doing anything. But I think we must not forget that even one voice is better than no voice at all.

It took Nadiya a long time to realise she was good at what she does – and actively silenced herself in the process of realising that. She believes:

I get paid less to do the same job as the white version of me.

Nadiya Hussain has talked at length about the racism, her mental health, and the trauma she experienced in childhood, but she told the Guardian:

One thing I’ve learned in the last year is that it’s really important to always speak your truth.

Featured image via Loose Women/YouTube

Nigel Farage at a press conference in Westminster (Alamy)

7 min read7 min

Reform UK’s foreign policy is, it is fair to say, a work in progress. While Nigel Farage recently nominated spokespeople for the economy, home affairs, business and education, the identity of the person who would serve as his foreign secretary remains unknown.

Farage likes room for manoeuvre and has trimmed and tacked his way around big foreign policy questions for decades. But, as he seeks to project his outfit as a government-in-waiting, pressure is increasing on him to define how he would lead Britain on the world stage.

The Reform leader does not start with a blank page, however. And while support for Donald Trump and Israel and opposition to the EU and China might be givens, Farage faces persistent attacks from his enemies over his past support for Vladimir Putin.

I think the ECHR is going to take up the majority of Reform’s thinking around foreign policy

In 2014, asked about the world leader he admired most, he cited the Russian President: “As an operator, but not as a human being”. A decade later, the Reform UK leader suggested to the BBC that the West had provoked the Ukraine invasion, saying it was clear that “the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, ‘They’re coming for us again,’ and to go to war”.

Farage does his best to disavow these past positions, for example, telling The House that President Trump had finally seen Putin was “not anyone you can do business with” last July. But they remain a drag on his support. Polling by More in Common found only 26 per cent think that Farage sides with Ukraine in its conflict, the lowest of any mainstream party leader.

In seeking a reset, Reform has turned to Alan Mendoza, executive director of The Henry Jackson Society, and now the party’s chief adviser on global affairs.

Speaking to The House magazine, Mendoza was keen to stress that Reform does not have an official formulated foreign policy as it develops. But his insights are a useful indicator of where the party is moving.

“The Elizabethan age gives a sense of what Britain is beyond just its immediate confines,” he says, referring to a time when Britain had an “expansive” trading relationship and presence with the outside world.

 “Now, you could say that the date we stopped doing that was the east of Suez decision in 1967 onwards,” he says, referring to Harold Wilson’s decision to cut Britain’s military presence in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Persian Gulf.

“When you ally that to entering the European Union, which brought its own complexities in terms of our foreign policy positioning, and suddenly you no longer necessarily had a global British outlook. You had more a parochial Britain as part of the European Union outlook.”

He adds: “I think it’s fair to say that sometimes what we have done in recent years is put, for example, alliance interests above necessarily strict British interests.

“And now it’s about a time of rediscovering what British interests actually are. That’s the key thing. What are British interests? What are they overseas? What should this country be doing in a post-European age?”

One early concrete step in this effort to reassert national interest over alliances would be taking the country out of the ECHR. Invoking Article 58 of the ECHR, which would start a six-month countdown to leave the convention, would require consequent changes to the UK’s trade agreement with the EU and the Good Friday Agreement.

“I think the ECHR is going to take up the majority of Reform’s thinking around foreign policy,” predicts Fred de Fossard, director of strategy at the Prosperity Institute.

The Prosperity Institute, highly rated by Reform insiders, published a paper on withdrawing from the ECHR last year, with a foreword from new recruit Suella Braverman.

“It’s what their voters will care about,” Fossard adds. “They will get credit in the bank for stopping the boats, fixing the borders, ensuring proper deportations, no longer having to pay money into the European Union.”

The United Nations has come under pressure from much of the British right, but it appears Reform UK has no plans to leave the organisation, despite raising serious concerns over the Human Rights Council (HRC) and UNRWA.

Then there is the question of the US – and a relationship with Trump that is, by turns, a help and a hindrance. “Farage’s foreign policy is probably a natural outgrowth of his personal links and issues over the years,” Jonathan Brown, an ex-foreign office diplomat and former chief operating officer of Reform UK, says. “So, that’s both with American and Europe, moderated by concern for what’s electorally popular.”

Another constant is the party’s relationship with Israel, with many of its MPs and members holding strong pro-Israel views. “Nigel Farage’s party have openly supported Israel, and we’re really grateful for it,” Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told The House in December.

“It shows quite a lot of courage and backbone to [stand] by the right side of history, talking in depth and not in slogans, not to populism and not to the surrender to very radical and loud voices.” Reform Friends of Israel has sent two delegations to the Jewish state, which have included party chairman David Bull and board member Dan Barker.

“What is there to be nuanced on the pro-Israel question? What, be pro-Hamas? That’s your nuance on that? Of course, Reform is not going to be a pro-Hamas party,” Mendoza tells The House. “Reform is going to be a party and is a party that is very supportive of a democratic state fighting Islamist terrorists.”

I’m not sure anyone wants to pay a billion dollars to [sign up to the Board of Peace]

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Despite these twin pillars – Trump and Israel – Mendoza is sceptical that Farage would join the Board of Peace, not least because of the cost. “I’m not sure anyone wants to pay a billion dollars to do that, but I suspect we might have some input because of our traditional relationships in the region.”

Mendoza faces competition for influence over foreign policy. Reform UK MP Danny Kruger and Farage’s senior adviser James Orr both met with vice-president JD Vance on his holiday to the Cotswolds in August. Although Kruger tells The House he is “not very close” with Vance, he describes himself as “a great admirer of his”.

The MP, who heads Reform’s preparing for government unit, says of the vice-president: “I know he’s not very popular among all sections of our population, but I think he is a decent, thoughtful man who – by the way – loves this country.”

The party also continues to pursue relationships with individuals from other parties around the world. Gawain Towler, a Reform UK board member, met with New Zealand First and Australia’s Liberal Party recently. He has also increased the party’s outreach and developed contacts with Danish and Hungarian embassies.

“Broadening our scope – as we must, as a responsible party that may be in government – it is essential we build those links,” Towler says. “[Farage] went to Davos to say, ‘I am here!’”

He adds: “We are not isolationists in any way; we understand that geopolitics is not going away, we can’t live in a small bubble.”

As PM, Farage might find his biggest headaches are closest to home. “I can’t imagine the UK-French relationship is going to be as close,” Ed Arnold, fellow of defence think tank Rusi, tells The House. “The UK-German relationship might be difficult; the UK-Poland relationship will also be pretty difficult.”

One of the architects of Brexit might be about to be confronted with the task of building Britain a new home in the world.

The announcement by Reform UK that they will “restore Britain’s Christian heritage” and that the nation must “uphold its Christian values” captures the contradictory essence of modern populist politics. Politicians of various faiths and none scrambling to weaponise a religious identity that the British public themselves have left behind and show no sign of wanting back.

In The Times, Zia Yusuf argues that reasserting Britain’s Christian heritage is about “respect and continuity”, framing it as a necessary anchor for social cohesion in an increasingly diverse society. He, alongside others in his party, suggests that young men in particular are experiencing a “meaning crisis” and are crying out for cultural confidence. A return to traditional Christian primacy is the only way to satisfy a growing national hunger for meaning.

This diagnosis is false and the proposed cure is a recipe for division rather than unity.

We must ground our political debate and national identity in reality: Britain is not a Christian country. This is not a radical ideological statement; it is a basic demographic fact. Successive social attitudes surveys and the most recent Census data have painted an undeniable picture. The majority of the population, and an overwhelming majority of young people, do not belong to the Christian religion. Our pews are empty, and the moral and social lives of most Britons are entirely detached from Christianity.

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