The use of success profiles will be scrapped under changes to civil service recruitment (Alamy)

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Exclusive: The Cabinet Secretary is planning to overhaul civil service recruitment, scrapping the use of success profiles.

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PoliticsHome understands that there will be a new model introduced that “emphasises skills and expertise”. 

The expectation is that the move will more closely align civil service recruitment with the private sector and bring in more talent, PoliticsHome understands.

Currently, the civil service recruits using so-called “success profiles”, made up of “ability”, “technical”, “behaviours”, “strengths”, and “experience”. The civil service also has a set of defined “behaviours”, which “when demonstrated, are associated with job success”.

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In an email to staff on Friday, Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo said: “We are going to start by scrapping success profiles, instead introducing a new model that emphasises skills and expertise – and will make further changes over the coming months.”

Romeo also said “to deliver for the public, my focus – and that of your Permanent Secretaries – has been to build a world-class civil service that is fit for the future.” The head of the civil service also referenced the Review into the organisation, performance and transformation of the permanent civil service”.

“The Review will define a clear vision for the civil service as a world-class organisation, delivering a onece-in-a-generation transformation.”

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Romeo was appointed as the new Cabinet Secretary in February and is the first ever woman to hold the role. She replaced Sir Chris Wormald, who was awarded a peerage by the outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this week. 

The civil service’s approach to recruitment has faced criticism in recent years for its rigidity, with the Institute for Government previously recommending the replacement of success profiles in order to test “more robustly whether applicants have the skills they say they do”.

The think tank has also criticised the current approach discouraging external candidates to apply for roles in the civil service.

The Cabinet Office has been contacted for comment. 

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In an interview with the Canary, author Matt Kennard has said that to understand geopolitics the US must be understood as the global centre of war and fascism. And he dates the current wildness of the world’s biggest terror state to the so-called ‘war on terror‘.

The Bush administration removed barriers that had prevented right-wing extremists entering the US military. Now they are running it – and at the top of both sides of US two-party politics:

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Kennard: “Extremists are at the wheel”

Kennard’s newly-updated book, Irregular Army, “shows how the ‘War on Terror’ pushed the US further into authoritarian extremism” because the US military relaxed its standards to meet elevated recruitment targets:

The War on Terror militarised American political life. It taught the public to accept permanent emergency, surveillance, secrecy, executive violence, and the idea that whole populations could be treated as enemies. That logic did not stay in Fallujah or Kandahar; it came home.

The book argues that the same wars that brutalised Iraqis and Afghans also degraded the institutions of the United States, especially the military, by turning it into an overstretched force willing to lower its standards in order to keep the imperial project going. In the new preface, this is linked directly to January 6, Trumpism, domestic extremism, and a political culture in which enemies are internal as well as external…

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…The military needed bodies for Iraq and Afghanistan. Recruitment targets were missed. Standards were loosened. Waivers expanded. Recruiters looked away. Investigators warned about gangs and white supremacists. Graffiti, tattoos, symbols, and affiliations were visible.

Yet the wars continued, and manpower came first. When an institution repeatedly absorbs extremists because its mission requires them, that is not a series of isolated anomalies. That is a system revealing its priorities…

The evidence points to a hierarchy that understood the immediate manpower crisis and chose to prioritise troop numbers over the long-term consequences… the institutional posture became: ignore it unless it becomes impossible to ignore… That is not an accident; that is policy by neglect.

And the author concludes that, against a system built on deceit and secrecy, the best weapons against it are truth and awareness:

The truth still matters. That may sound simple, but the whole structure depends on concealment: hiding what is done abroad, hiding who is recruited, hiding the damage done to soldiers, civilians, and democracy itself.

I wrote that I hoped the book would rouse anger, because anger grounded in truth can become a reckoning. The United States is sick from these wars, but I do not think it is terminal. The hope lies in whistleblowers, anti-war veterans, investigators, journalists, organisers, and ordinary people refusing to let empire speak in their name.

That is why the Canary and Skwawkbox exist, and why authors like Kennard matter. Read the Canary’s review of Irregular Army and interview with Matt Kennard here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Trump and his shambolic Board of Peace (BoP) has discarded its recovery plan for Gaza, opting instead for a “tiny pilot scheme” amid fears of a “new all-out offensive before Israeli elections,” the Guardian reported.

The so-called ceasefire hasn’t stopped Israel’s daily bombardment of Gaza. As recently as 16 July, Israeli forces were again striking Palestinians huddled inside tents.

Israel is maniacally bombing Palestinians in tattered tents again tonight. Every. Single. Day. Not a single shot from Hamas for more than 10 months & Israel has killed more than a thousand Palestinians since — including more than 200 children. pic.twitter.com/DWzA42MAyq

— Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا (@SMohyeddin) July 16, 2026

The Guardian quoted a diplomat in Jerusalem as saying that the BoP had no choice but to make the most of very limited progress, as an admission of failure would open the way for extreme factions in the Israeli government with radically different plans for Gaza.

The aim is just to keep something going, keep the ball in play, because if you stop there are others with a more extreme agenda just waiting to jump in and take over, and they are talking about wholesale population transfer and colonisation.

Concentration camps

The Guardian reported that the pilot project has been denounced by critics, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, as a “concentration camp” in the making.

The scheme envisions portable cabins for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in a camp near Rafah, set up along the ceasefire line.

Israeli troops would withdraw from the line, with security overseen by the International Stabilization Force (ISF) and a Palestinian police force yet to be trained in Egypt.

Preference would be given to former residents of the Rafah area, but BoP officials insist there will be freedom of movement in and out of the camp.

It quotes Muhammad Shehada of the European Council on Foreign Relations as cautioning that Israel would use the camp as a “Potemkin village” to lend credibility to its escalating military campaign against the rest of Gaza.

Trump’s Bored of peace

The X page of the Board of Peace shows the lack of activity.

It has a flurry of performative diplomacy masking a vacuum of actual progress.

It is busy bashing UNRWA. The BoP has made dismantling the UN relief agency a central fixation, framing it as a “complex of perpetual aid dependency” while offering little more than slogans about “peace and prosperity” in its place.

UNRWA has no place in the new Gaza. We are turning the page on the complex of perpetual aid dependency & conflict. The people of Gaza deserve better. https://t.co/MttkJqX1Np

— Board of Peace (@BoardOfPeace) July 1, 2026

Euro-Med Monitor has said that the BoP’s position is closely linked to Israeli campaigns of incitement and targeting against UNRWA.

It said:

Israel’s actions against UNRWA are part of a wider, systematic pattern of targeting Palestinians and their survival resources. This includes attacks on the Agency’s staff and facilities, which are safeguarded by international law. To date, 391 of the Agency’s employees and affiliate workers have been killed, and 312 of its facilities have been damaged or destroyed. Many of these facilities housed displaced civilians seeking refuge, who later fell victim to lethal attacks.

By The Canary

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Kris Jenner has announced that her mother, Mary Jo “MJ” Shannon, has died at the age of 91.

Paying her respects on Instagram, the reality TV matriarch and “momager” remembered her mum – the grandmother to her daughters Kourtney, Kim and Khloe Kardashian and Kendall and Kylie Jenner and son Rob Kardashian – as the “heart of our family”.

“Today, we said goodbye to my beautiful Mommy MJ,” Kris told her followers. “There are no words that could ever capture what she has meant to me or the heartbreak of having to say goodbye.

“My mom was the heart of our family. She taught me everything that truly matters… to love your family fiercely, to be kind, to show up for the people you love and to never take a single moment together for granted.

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“She taught us that family is everything. She showed us how to love unconditionally and how to find joy in the little moments. She showed me how to face life’s challenges with resilience and faith.”

Kris continued: “Mom, thank you for every sacrifice you made, every piece of wisdom you shared, and every moment you loved us so completely. I will miss our daily talks, your smile, your laughter…

“Our hearts are broken, but we find comfort knowing that love like yours never truly leaves us. Your love will live on in our family, in our traditions, in every moment we are together, and in every life you touched. When I look at my kids and my grandkids, I will forever see pieces of you in all of us. There is not a part of me that isn’t shaped by you.”

Kris’ daughters have since also posted their own tributes, with Kim writing: “You truly were the matriarch of our family, and your love is woven into all of us.”

She added: “You will always be a part of me, I love you soooooo much and I will miss you forever and ever. YOU ARE THE BEST OF US!!!

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“I know you are up in heaven, looking at all of our Instagram posts of you from your sneaky finsta account you would always use lol.”

Over the years, MJ appeared alongside her daughter and grandchildren numerous times on the reality shows Keeping Up With The Kardashians and The Kardashians.

In her lifetime, MJ married twice, first to Robert True Houghton, Kris’ father.

After they divorced in 1962, she married businessman Harry Shannon, who died in a car accident in the early 2000s.

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In her tribute, Kim wrote that it was her grandmother who introduced her to the world of business.

“You were the woman who showed me what it meant to be a hardworking businesswoman,” Kim said. “You gave me my very first job at your store in San Diego and taught me lessons about work ethic, strength, and confidence that I’ve carried with me ever since. You always believed in me, championed me, and were my safe place.”

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Inept HMRC officials got it wrong nine times out of ten when attempting to heartlessly claw back child benefit payments from north of Ireland claimants. That’s according to a new report from the Detail. They reveal that out of the 826 families the bean counters thought were on the take:

…at least 742 of these were subsequently confirmed to be eligible for Child Benefit. Only 81 were determined to have been incorrectly receiving Child Benefit, while enquiries remain open in three cases.

The Canary previously reported on this scandal last year. Back then we explained HMRC’s cock-up thusly:

The error occurred as a result of new checks in place that compare international travel data with HMRC child benefit claims. If someone is detected as being outside the United Kingdom for a period longer than that which is allowed in order to claim a particular benefit, an investigation will be triggered at the bean counters’ offices.

In the case of those based in the north of Ireland and travelling back home via Dublin Airport, the absence of border checks between the north and south of the island meant there was only a record of them entering a foreign country (the Republic of Ireland), but not one for re-entering ‘UK soil’ when they reached ‘Northern Ireland’. There is a long standing problem of Britain’s ruling class not being able to get their head around the politics of Ireland, but when even HMRC doesn’t understand, it seems we’re entering a new era of cluelessness.

Pilot scheme wrong nearly half the time, but HMRC persisted

Back in January 2026, the Detail revealed that HMRC had determined there was only a “remote” risk of error, which it described as “tolerable”. You’d hope that when potentially depriving vulnerable people of essential funds, the risk would be somewhere between “non-existent” and “zero”. However, the tax authorities proceeded:

…despite evidence from a pilot of the scheme showing travel data was wrong in 46% of cases. Of those investigated for suspected fraud, more than a third were ultimately found to be legitimate claimants.

The Detail also cite how HMRC officials relied on Home Office data, which is “often incomplete, inconsistent, or simply wrong”. We’ve previously reported on Home Office incompetence, saying:

The department fails to train its staff properly, and doesn’t have enough of them, resulting in huge backlogs on applications [on asylum claims].

The HMRC and Home Office have something in common, however – a willingness to ruthlessly pursue arbitrary targets set by the state, ignoring the human cost. This stems from successive Conservative and Labour governments’ determination to go after benefits and migrants, even if that means punishing the innocent, with devastating consequences for those involved.

Corporate sweetheart deals — two tier taxes

There’s a very different standard applied to corporations, of course. When they genuinely fiddle the figures, HMRC will step in with a sweetheart deal. After the US corporation General Electric carried out a $1 billion tax fraud, HMRC settled for receiving just £82 million.

In a separate case, tax authorities allowed multinational companies to:

…settle the use of payroll loan schemes for just 15%

Payroll loan schemes were a tax dodging scheme that allowed people and companies to receive payment for work via a loan, thereby avoiding paying the state. When HMRC closed the loophole and demanded lost taxes back, individuals were asked to pay the lot, but some companies dodged 85%. The pressure from HMRC on ordinary people, some of whom signed up to the scheme with little knowledge of what it entailed, has been linked to ten suicides.

In an interesting use of language, the National Audit Office (NAO) described His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ child benefit efforts as “innovative”. That’s a novel way to spell the word ‘clueless’. Maybe the NHS will begin employing similar “innovative” cost saving measures, like performing heart surgery with a plastic knife and fork.

Extraordinarily, the NAO say there was:

…no formal risk assessment of the implications of decisions.

In other words, the thought of ordinary people having their lives turned upside down wasn’t even considered. All the bean counters cared about was clawing back what figuratively amounted to pennies in the grand scheme of the overall tax intake.

The NAO concluded its press release on the matter by saying:

The NAO’s report recommends that HMRC understands its risk appetite for future decisions and ensures that its performance data allow it to monitor customer experience alongside compliance effectiveness. HMRC should also disseminate lessons learned and seek to share these internally and with wider fraud and error teams in government.

Sadly, while Labour continue to embrace a narrative of benefit scroungers, alongside confected panic over asylum seekers, it’s likely government departments will retain a ravenous “risk appetite” when it comes to pursuing the vulnerable

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

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Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was criticised for collaborating with reality star Gemma Collins in a social media video in May (Alamy)

3 min read1 hr

The government is training more officials to film social media content themselves on iPhones as part of a wider Whitehall push to strengthen the government’s online messaging and reach audiences beyond traditional media.

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The Department for Education is upskilling existing staff in social media and video skills, including rolling out training to private office staff so that they can make social media content themselves when accompanying ministers on visits, rather than having to hire more people onto dedicated social media teams. 

The short training includes how to shoot pieces to camera and film using iPhones. Officials in a minister’s private office do not usually directly oversee social media communications; instead, they typically manage the minister’s time, diary, official paperwork, and departmental policy flow.

A Department for Education source said that training more officials with these skills would mean the department could “reach more of the public where they are”.

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“More people are getting their news from social media than ever before,” they said.

“We’re unapologetic about reaching them in an innovative and accessible way with reliable and accurate information, whether it’s about schemes like free breakfast clubs that could ease their childcare costs, or recruitment campaigns to hire the next generation of excellent teachers. 

“We’re often criticised in the media as a government for supposedly not having effective communications. This often misses the fragmentation of audiences and the need to flood the zone on many different platforms – and often different ones to where Westminster gets its news.”

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This training is part of a wider communications shake-up across government, taking place across different Whitehall departments with support from No.10 and the Cabinet Office.

The Department for Education was the most active government Instagram account behind Downing Street last month, and also posts regular updates its YouTube channel.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson faced backlash in May when she took part in a video collaboration with TV reality personality Gemma Collins. 

The Only Way Is Essex star, who has 2.3m Instagram followers, featured in a video where she walked into the DfE offices with the background music from film The Devil Wears Prada. The video also included a conversation between Collins and Phillipson about post-16 education and vocational courses, and was criticised by campaigners advocating for changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system who argued it trivialised education during a time of “systemic failure”.

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However, Phillipson dismissed the criticism as “outright snobbery and just downright unpleasant”, and the department has continued to defend the collaboration.

The department’s Instagram views are growing, and are up by 29 per cent on the previous month. Over 80 per cent of those who viewed the Collins video in the first few days were non-followers of the DfE account, with government sources believing this shows it was effective in reaching new audiences who do not usually engage with the government’s content.

Collins was not paid for the appearance, but the department has overall shifted some of its spending towards influencer marketing, having spent over £700,000 on social media influencers since 2024. According to a government source, £1 on social media reaches many more people than £1 spent on a physical billboard or magazine advert.

PoliticsHome previously reported that the Cabinet Office’s New Media Unit was being restructured to redeploy staff and resources in order to strengthen digital capabilities and expand online messaging across departments.

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The reforms also reflect rising concern within the government about the spread of false or inflammatory far-right content on social media and the need to better combat it.

The New Media Unit’s work has included setting up new channels on social media networks such as Reddit, and inviting influencers to receptions in Downing Street and to participate in press conferences alongside traditional journalists.

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US defence secretary and far-right tattooed plonker Pete Hegseth has pledged to test the testosterone levels of US military personnel. another normal one for Pete, then. In one of his irredeemably weird X posts, the former soldier and alleged danger announced that the US military would be “a High T department”:

The High-T Department of War. pic.twitter.com/hlAUq3j2cD

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) July 15, 2026

The defence secretary wants to test soldiers over 30 to ensure:

you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.

Public health scientist and epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding said:

I used to do testosterone research—testing for T levels in troops doesn’t make sense without a medical reason—T levels is not associated with higher cognitive function. T can drop because of stress or exhaustion—but TRT doesn’t always improve physical performance—mixed at best. https://t.co/ZXnA0SC0ju

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) July 15, 2026

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Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) has become a faddish grift for the far-right manosphere. There are some occasions where doctors prescribe, but as one report on Hegseth’s comments pointed out:

Testosterone replacement therapy can help some patients with genuine deficiency, but it is not a simple fitness shortcut.

Another study pointed out:

Despite screening for low testosterone being medically unwarranted in most young men, this group is being aggressively targeted online by influencers and wellness companies promoting hormone tests and treatments as essential to being a “real man”.

Hegseth’s fake manosphere bullshit as policy

University of Copenhagen public health researcher Emma Grundtvig Gram told the Guardian in January 2026:

Men may come to perceive themselves as inherently deficient or in need of medical intervention.

Gram also said that:

This creates a sense of urgency for solutions, which in turn fuels lucrative markets for pharmaceuticals, supplements and medical devices, even in the absence of clear clinical benefit. More broadly, this contributes to the medicalisation of masculinity itself. It reinforces a narrow, idealised model of masculinity, while marginalising non-traditional or diverse expressions of gender.

Hegseth, who is a buffoon, is effectively making bro-dude pseudoscience a part of government policy. In his X video, Hegseth said:

We owe our warriors the absolute best medical care in the world, and this programme delivers on that obligation.

He added:

Taking care of your long-term health means ensuring you remain strong, resilient and capable – not just for your next deployment, but for the rest of your life, so you can thrive long after you take off the uniform.

US representative Chrissy Houlahan said the ‘T’ industry “would be thrilled” by Hegseth’s “latest culture-war obsession”:

Secretary of Defense Hegseth wants Congress to send him another $60 billion. Now he's announcing a new government-funded testosterone screening program for every service member over 30.

I'm sure the testosterone industry is thrilled. Taxpayers should ask who benefits from this… https://t.co/p3sxMvUsOH

— Chrissy Houlahan (@RepHoulahan) July 15, 2026

In a shock to nobody, the defence secretary was once a Fox News host. Hegseth thinks the US military has been turned ‘woke’. He has made it his personal mission to fix this entirely made-up issue. He once posted a video mixing scenes from the movies Gladiator, Deadpool, Mission Impossible and John Wick, himself and combat footage from the failed US war in Iran:

JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. pic.twitter.com/0502N6a3rL

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026

Hegseth may be the biggest crayon of a human being ever produced by a country that produces fools at a rate which can barely be comprehended.  God bless America and her nuclear codes. Which are in the hands of this weirdo. Great stuff.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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