Alan Cumming as Leo Struthers | Image: © Channel 4/Ben Blackall

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Brilliantly scripted, with standout performances, this dark new drama from the pen of Russell T Davies is a wake-up call to the erosion of LGBT+ rights and the corrosive impact of social media

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While I’m a massive fan of Russell T Davies, I’ve been putting off watching his latest drama for Channel 4, Tip Toe. Partly because I’ve not entirely recovered from the emotional onslaught that was It’s a Sin and its perfectly styled period piece exploration of the 1980s Aids epidemic. Mostly, however, because it tackles head-on some of the more disturbing social dynamics of the mid-2020s, and I know how hard his dramatic punches can land.

Tip Toe could be considered part three of an informal trilogy exploring the experiences of LGBT+ people in Manchester: Davies’ joyous celebration of Canal Street culture, Queer as Folk, and the mid-life crisis follow-on, Cucumber.

All three programmes feature different sets of characters orbiting around Canal Street’s bars. All feature people making seemingly small, if rash, choices that quickly lead to things spiralling out of control. Tip Toe speeds towards a particularly dark conclusion and, unlike the other two, doesn’t find a happy resolution for its protagonists after they reach their lowest point.

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This isn’t a spoiler. RTD uses a conceit he’s employed more than once before, notably in the era-defining Doomsday episode of Doctor Who, where a character’s eventual death is revealed in the opening scene. Only, unlike Rose Tyler, there is no sci-fi ‘MacGuffin’ to protect Alan Cumming’s character Leo Struthers from a genuinely sickening fate. 

There is a more subversive conceit to Tip Toe in that, although the lives of those inhabiting the Canal Street scene are the fabric the tale is written on, its dark heart is bar owner Leo’s straight next-door neighbour Clive Goss, played with terrifying intensity by David Morrissey. Morrissey’s performance is a standout here, one of barely concealed anger and violence. All fuelled by his frustration at his own perceived lack of success, in his terms at least, at work and with his family. Even if Clive doesn’t gain the level of respect he feels he is due through his all-too-transparent dominance manoeuvres, the drama is propelled largely by the reactions of other characters to him.

Straight next-door neighbour Clive is played with terrifying intensity by David Morrissey

Clive’s story allows Davies to expound again on a theme that he has come back to repeatedly in recent work: the corrosive impact of online interaction and social media on individuals, and on society as a whole. All the characters in Tip Toe exist fluidly in a world that can’t really be described as virtual anymore, so thoroughly is it integrated into their lives. Capturing the online experience has been a challenge to portray well on TV, as our relationship to this still-evolving technology develops. Tip Toe manages to integrate it pretty successfully into the flow of scenes throughout, and then towards the end of episode one, there is a real bravura moment when Leo, Clive and his family are all shown retreating into private time with their devices, four of them finding different versions of sexual release, while Clive doomscrolls down into a rabbit hole of extreme violence.

By contrast, for all the struggles he has been through as a gay man of his generation, Leo has a wearied naivety to him. This leads him to miss just how real a threat his neighbour Clive poses. Whatever the messiness and challenges of parts of his life, his overall financial security and social position blinds him to the danger.

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In some brilliantly scripted set-pieces, Leo and his friends Melba (Paul Rhys) and Stephanie (Elizabeth Berrington) talk about how the hard-won rights of LGBT+ people and women are being increasingly challenged – but when the crisis comes, Leo is oblivious to the key moment of risk until it is too late. I am sure that is the lesson RTD is screaming at us all to take heed of now, before things slide downhill too far for us to recover from.

Kevin McKenna is Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey

Tip Toe

Written & created by: Russell T Davies

Directed by: Peter Hoar

Broadcaster: Channel 4

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Hundreds of Pro-Palestine students walked out of Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech at Stanford University in California.

Google has backed Israel’s AI-powered genocide of Palestinians through Project Nimbus — a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing services for the Israeli government and defence establishment.

Journalist Erin Woo said that the students were heard booing, chanting “Free, free Palestine” and “shame on you” as they walked out.

Well over 100 Stanford students walked out of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech at Stanford just now, chanting “Free, free Palestine.” Google has a cloud contract with the Israeli government. Lots of boos and cries of “shame on you” as well pic.twitter.com/2dIqs1SBvi

— Erin Woo (@erinkwoo) June 14, 2026

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Students were carrying anti-Google banners like –

Genocide runs on Google

and

ICE spies with Google

Likely that the tech-overlord was embarrassed as he refused to acknowledge Lily Jamali, a BBC journalist who asked for his reaction to the walkout.

WATCH: We asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai for his reaction to 100+ Stanford grads walking out of his speech today. @BBCWorld pic.twitter.com/MqJOO9faWn

— Lily Jamali (@lilyjamali) June 14, 2026

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Graduates choosing conscience over Google

Grassroots group Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) praised graduates who walked out of the ceremony rather than listen to Pichai’s speech. They said these graduates chose conscience over comfort.

It said regarding their action and Google:

Today, Sundar Pichai was met with the sight of hundreds of students who showed they could not be allured anymore with the talk of a dollar or rapidly expanding AI. We know about the crimes of Google in collaborating with Israel, ICE, and companies like Palantir.

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A post shared by Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (@stanfordsjp)

SJP ran a parallel Stanford People’s Commencement with speakers Mahmoud Khalil and Dr. Mohammad Subeh.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mohammad Subeh (@docsubeh)

Dr. Subeh, a Palestinian American emergency room doctor who has previously graduated from Stanford, said:

It’s a shame that Stanford invited the CEO of Google to give the main commencement address to the 2026 graduating class, at a time when Google is actively partaking in the genocide and upholding of apartheid in Palestine. Proud of all the students that walked out in an act of defiance and then joined the People’s Commencement. As Mahmoud mentioned in his speech, “when the moment comes to choose between comfort and conscience, choose conscience.”

Students with conscience were the heroes of the day. As for Pichai and Google? Embarrassed into silence.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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On Monday 15 June 2026 710 migrants crossed the English Channel on eleven boats. It was the single largest number to cross in a single day this year… That comes after six days with no crossings following bad weather. Smash the gangs…

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The purpose of Pride Month is to assure LGBTQ+ people that they don’t have anything to be ashamed of. The reason this needed to be made clear is because society used to present the exact opposite message to LGBTQ+ people.

While things have improved in many ways, we shouldn’t pretend LGBTQ+ people enjoy universal acceptance now. We also need to acknowledge that things have slidden backwards in many regards, especially for the trans community.

Worryingly, there are signs this backslide will only get worse as Reform gains political power. This is manifesting right now through Reform-run councils doing everything they can to hide LGBTQ+ people from the public.

‘Straight out of Trumpland’: LGBTQ+ members fight for Pride after Essex library banhttps://t.co/BLTRqnwMvh

— Reform Party UK Exposed (@reformexposed) June 15, 2026

Reform should be ashamed of itself

To give you an example of the bigotry LGBTQ+ people still face, here’s Reform leader, Nigel Farage, describing “trans ideology” as “poisonous”.

Reform UK will ban the poisonous trans ideology in our schools.

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) June 20, 2024

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When Farage and others like him speak of “trans ideology”, what they’re talking about is the acknowledgement trans people exist. We’ve been here before with ‘Section 28’.

Section 28 of the Local Government Act was introduced by Margaret Thatcher:

On 24 May 1988, in the face of widescale protests from LGBTQ+ activists and allies, the Local Government Act was passed. Within the Act was Section 28 – a seemingly small addition to the earlier Local Government Act 1986. It prohibited local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material’ and from teaching ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’.

You’ll notice this is almost identical to the way that the right talks about trans people today. It’s unsurprising to hear it coming from Farage.

Very sad to hear of the death of Margaret Thatcher, a great patriotic lady.

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) April 8, 2013

Much like Thatcher, Farage wants to run the country. But we don’t have to wait to see what Farage in power will look like because Reform-led councils are already doing what they can to bring his vision into existence.

Divide and conquer

Earlier this month, Maddison Wheeldon reported for the Canary that the Reform-led St Helens council would not support Pride Month or Refugee Week.

It said its decision was about “ensuring public money is not used for what it describes as ‘performative celebrations of one group’”.

However, the fact remains that it has seen fit to pay a consultant £50k a year on a four-year contract to inform Reform’s newly-elected councillors, despite the council already having paid council officers who are more than able to inform on council policy and process for all who require it.

Therefore, it seems Reform is more than happy for taxpayer funds to go to the ‘performative’ benefit of one group, so long as it’s ‘theirs’.

Council leader, George Woodward, later made the following announcement:

St Helens Borough Council won’t be supporting or promoting Pride. I have instructed officers to cease engagement with all aspects of the event.

We don’t consider celebrations of sexuality, especially those with left-wing political leanings such as Pride, to be appropriate for St Helens Borough Council to dedicate valuable officer resources.

I am also deeply concerned that Pride has become affiliated with harmful transgender ideology.

As a council, we have a duty of care towards young children in the borough. Being affiliated with a movement that often results in lifelong medical harm in young impressionable children is not the direction in which I want St Helens Council to travel.

If Pride is ‘left-leaning’, it isn’t because there’s anything inherently socialist about being LGBTQ+; it’s because the right scapegoated these people for decades.

Woodward is pushing the exact same Section 28 ideology as Farage and he isn’t the only one doing so either.

Pride Month hate is spreading

Since St Helens, several other Reform councils have made moves to hide the existence of Pride Month. They include Essex, Warwickshire and Staffordshire councils.

On the latter, the BBC reported:

Reform UK-led Staffordshire County Council says it will not feature LGBTQ+ Pride displays in its libraries, explaining the decision by saying public display space will instead focus on reading, learning and council services.

Meanwhile, Warwickshire Council’s leader is facing a code of conduct complaint.

George Finch is to face another code of conduct complaint, this time from Warwickshire Pride, after he said books containing “contested gender ideology” should not be promoted in libraries in the county.

Later referencing material featuring transgender issues, he said libraries should “not seek to embolden political ideologies”, which he said were “highly charged and polarising”, saying they should not be “taught to children as pure fact”.

Reform is also banning Pride events in libraries, the Guardian wrote:

Before Reform gained control of Essex county council in the May elections, Chris Taylor and members of the Rochford LGBTQ+ community already felt they were witnessing a growing tide of political rhetoric around identity.

But they were still shocked when the county’s new leadership moved to ban Pride events in 74 libraries, scaling back events of “any particular groups or themes”, a decision they said was “straight out of Trumpland”.

Reform wants queer culture out of sight

As we can see, Reform’s strategy is to hide LGBTQ+ events and literature away from the public. This won’t be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind‘, though, because these politicians have no intention to stop obsessing over trans people.

Anti-trans rhetoric is a source of never-ending controversy for them, and these people thrive off grievance and division.

The time to fightback is now, anyway.  While we’re not back to the Section 28 days just yet, we all know this is only heading in one direction.

Featured image via Ian Forsyth/ Eamonn M. McCormack/ Getty Images

By Willem Moore

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Sophie Cartwright KC, chair of the ongoing inquiry into the infamous Manston Short-Term Holding Facility, has rebuked ex-Tory ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick over his utter failure to provide evidence on the squalid conditions at the site.

The immigrant detention centre, built on a former military base, opened its doors back in February 2022. Whilst it was intended to hold 1000-1600 people, it was holding around 4,000 people by the end of the year. The Canary‘s Sophia Purdy-Moore noted that:

The Home Office is only supposed to hold people on the site for up to 24 hours. However, a prison watchdog warned that authorities are detaining people on the site for a much longer period, without beds, proper healthcare, or access to fresh air and exercise. The watchdog noted reports of cases of contagious diseases such as scabies, diphtheria and MRSA within the centre.

The Home Office denied that detainees were catching the diseases at the centre. However, on 19 November, an Iraqi man – Hussein Haseeb Ahmed – died of diphtheria contracted at Manston.

Labour commissioned what, again?

In March 2024, the Home Office announced plans to launch a statutory inquiry into the Manston scandal. However, Jenrick has, to date, failed to provide so much as a draft statement to the investigators. A Reform UK representative for Jenrick, who now acts as the far-right party’s Treasury spokesperson, stated that:

Robert’s written statement will be with the inquiry in due course. It is telling that Labour commissioned an inquiry into the detention of illegal migrants, and not into the daily harm illegal migration is inflicting on the British people.

The ruling party at the time of the inquiry’s launch was the Conservatives, Jenrick’s own party, as he will no doubt be aware.

The announcement of the inquiry itself was the product of a lengthy legal battle. In December 2023, the High Court gave permission for former to seek a judicial review over the Home Office’s failure to hold an inquiry into conditions on the site.

However, in September 2024, newly-appointed Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper downgraded the statutory inquiry to a far weaker independent inquiry. She argued that the former would cost £26m, whereas the latter would cost just £2.6m.

Given that an independent inquiry focuses on reviewing documents, rather than compelling ministers to testify, Labour undoubtedly did Jenrick a massive favour. Again, the ex-immigration minister is likely aware of this fact.

‘The inquiry is non-statutory’

Jenrick, during his tenure, ordered that colourful childrens’ murals a Kent detention centres – including one in Manston – should be painted over. He stated that they were “too welcoming” towards the immigrant children.

The current inquiry is investigating the actions the Home Office took to alleviate the squalid conditions at the detention centre, along with its handling of Ahmed’s death.

Inquiry chair Sophie Cartwright stated that the inquiry first requested a draft statement from Jenrick back in October 2025. The Reform MP has since received several extensions on the deadline for that statement.

At the end of April 2026, Cartwright stated that:

As at the date of this update, the inquiry has not received a statement nor any update. The inquiry is non-statutory and so relies on those with relevant information and evidence cooperating by providing witness statements and oral evidence.

All thanks go to Yvette Cooper for that “non-statutory” downgrade – clearly Labour had more important places to spend its money.

‘No accountability’ from Jenrick

Seema Syeda, speaking for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, joined Cartwright her condemnation:

As former Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick was at the head of a Victorian-era system responsible for the cruel detention and death from diphtheria of Hussein Haseeb Ahmed.

Hussein, like hundreds of others, came here seeking safety, but instead was imprisoned in conditions fit for neither humans nor animals. Robert Jenrick showed no accountability for this horrific incident and now seeks to return to government, shapeshifting from Tory to Reform, but bringing the same inhumane governing record.

It stands to reason that Jenrick has refused to show accountability or remorse. In Reform UK, he has found a party even more hellbent on the demonisation of immigrants than his former home among the Tories. Likewise, the far-right party’s standard reaction to difficult questions is to hide and run for cover.

Meanwhile, Yvette Cooper has succeeded in pinching her pennies, saving Jenrick’s hide in the process.

Of course, we’re sure that Labour’s little exercise in fiscal responsibility has nothing to do with the fact that it continues to use the Manston facility to this day. The lack of real scrutiny merely happens to line up nicely with that fact that Home Office is currently looking to “reduce operating costs” on the site.

Featured image via the Canary

By Grace

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In its newest avatar, Islamophobia in India is being accelerated by using AI to produce sexualised propaganda, deepfake harassment and “digital lynching” to target Muslim women.

A recent investigation by Al Jazeera reveals that Muslim women’s bodies in India have become battlegrounds for communal dominance.

Al Jazeera spoke with multiple Muslim women who have experienced such attacks, including a freelance model named Samreen Ayoub, whose deepfake video falsely labeled her brother as her ‘pimp’.

Ayoub called it a “digital lynching”.

Most other women contacted declined to speak on the record.

This dynamic was already present, most visible in the Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai controversies, mock-auction apps that targeted Muslim women in India.

Citing researchers, Soma Basu and Sahana Udupa, the investigation shows that Basu links these apps to support from BJP officials and their digital volunteers.

At the same time, Udupa argues that right-wing digital cultures use humour, memes, and sexualised imagery to normalise abuse.

Fascism and Hindu supremacy are on the rise in India, led by Modi’s BJP, whose loyalties lie with US-backed Israel.

Muslim women face misogynist violence

In 2018, Indian Muslim journalist, Rana Ayyub, was targeted with a deepfake porn video that aimed to stifle her.

Ayyub’s crime was being a persistent critic of the Modi government and a Muslim woman.

The right wing in India frequently targets her. In 2022, the UN called on the Indian government to “stop the relentless misogynistic and sectarian attacks” against  Ayyub, including death and rape threats.

In 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists called upon Indian police to ensure her safety and take immediate action against the perpetrators.

#India: CPJ condemns the escalating harassment of journalist @RanaAyyub, who has received death and sexually-explicit threats, and was targeted by deepfake content since being recently doxxed by a right-wing account. The journalist said her social media and email passwords were… pic.twitter.com/7Us4yIAkkr

— CPJ Asia (@CPJAsia) November 16, 2024

But Ayyub is far from alone. Between 2021 and 2022, two explicitly Islamophobic mobile apps — Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai — allowed users to upload photos of Muslim women, list them for “auction” or “sale”, and add derogatory captions.

Hundreds of Muslim women, including journalists, activists, and students, found their images scraped from social media and posted on these platforms without their consent.

AI boosts sexual harassment

Last year, an investigation by India’s Quint found:

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered image generation tools in the recent past, has led to a massive proliferation of pages posting semi-pornographic images of Muslim women on the internet.

Such pages have been around for some time now on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, posting memes and crudely photoshopped images containing such fantasies. However, AI tools have made these images more sophisticated and easy to produce, thereby helping increase the volume of such content manifolds.

Similarly, the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH)’s Zenith Khan told Al Jazeera:

Generative AI has made the transformation of sexual fantasy into imagery possible at speed and at no cost. Image generators and deepfakes allow individuals to convert hostile narratives into highly realistic visual material with minimal technical expertise.

A CSOH report also quantifies this trend.

Researchers analysed 1,326 AI-generated images and videos from 297 public accounts on X, Facebook, and Instagram in India for two years, between May 2023 – 2025. The analysis found that sexualised depictions of Muslim women generated the highest engagement — more than 6.7 million interactions across the platforms.

Digital violence to real violence

The CSOH report also draws a direct line between AI-generated hate content and the potential for real-world violence.

Anti-Muslim sentiments have manifested themselves in various forms, including targeted sectarian violence, mob lynchings, inflammatory hate speeches, forced evictions of Muslims, destruction of Muslim properties and places of worship, economic exclusion and marginalization, and the normalization of conspiratorial rhetoric that depicts Muslims as outsiders, security threats, or a demographic danger to the Indian nation.

Rising mob lynching in India is alarming.

Maktoob’s editor, Aslah Kayyalakkath, calls it the cruelest form of violence, ripping the person of their faith and dignity. He shared many of Maktoob’s stories covering Indian men being lynched.

Mob lynching is one of the cruellest forms of violence because it strips a person of everything before taking their life. It begins by asking their name. Then they are forced to chant the slogans of those attacking them, words that deny their faith and dignity. Their money is… pic.twitter.com/9cR9VwllZr

— Aslah Kayyalakkath (@aslahtweets) January 16, 2026

Kayyalakkath said:

By The Canary

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Michael Grade, the former chairperson at Ofcom, has defended the media watchdog’s (lack of) handling of GB News under his leadership.

He lionised the far-right propaganda outlet as “giving voice to a strong body of opinion in this country which has been ignored for years”.

As part of an interview with the Guardian, Grade tried to argue that critics of GB News feared contrasting viewpoints.

He said:

The fact is, what people don’t like is the fact that there is a television station giving voice to a strong body of opinion in this country which has been ignored for years. They just don’t like the idea that there’s any voice or any agenda, news agenda, which is different from the kind of liberal, Islington consensus.

GB News failed impartiality rules under Grade

Former prime minister, Boris Johnson, appointed Grade, a Tory life peer, to the Ofcom role in May 2022. Grade had previously held high-ranking roles across the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. 

However, Grade’s tenure at the head of the UK’s media regulator has been dogged by accusations of his utter failure to apply impartiality rules to GB News.

The channel frequently platforms (and pays) right-wing politicians to deliver segments which cross the line between news and discussion.

The receipts on GB News

GB News launched in June 2021. From the outset, it showed clear right-wing bias, with many members of the public arguing that it violates the laws of due impartiality in UK broadcasting.

Broadcast news has a massive power to shape public opinion. As such, broadcasting regulations require that it shows no favour to one political side over another. Alongside this, the news must also maintain public trust by reporting with due accuracy.

However, in March 2026, a New World investigation found:

GB News routinely – you might almost say systematically – disregards these requirements. Asked to score the programmes on a scale of 0-5 (0 being not at all compliant with Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code and 5 being wholly compliant), the overall score from our reviewers was just 1.5. Each reviewer came up with detailed reasoning.

The channel’s reporting on the white riots in Belfast on 9 June is typical of GB News’ disregard for due accuracy in action.

Far-right agitators targeted the homes and businesses of people of colour, setting fire to vehicles and houses. However, GB News host, Bev Turner, claimed this was fiction, despite people being charged for rioting.

There was no riot. There was no riot. There was no riot. There is not a house that has been burnt down. There are no riots. The police aren’t even reporting riots.

What is ‘news’ anyway?

However, when the Guardian asked about his kid-glove treatment of GB News, Grade argued that the channel wasn’t a news channel. 

Just because it’s called GB News doesn’t mean that all their programmes are news. They’re discussion programmes, they’re political chat shows. We could argue this forever, but we’re dancing on the head of a pin. It’s irrelevant really. The real point is…you don’t get any politicians delivering the news.

Ofcom’s own code states that its approach to due impartiality may vary according to “the extent to which the content and approach is signalled to the audience”.

However, apparently putting ‘news’ in the name of the channel doesn’t qualify as signalling a news channel.

As an example of Ofcom’s arbitrary decision making in action, we might look at its treatment of the GB News show, Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, in 2023. It was presented by sitting Tory MPs, Esther McVey and Philip Davies.

The pair interviewed Jeremy Hunt, then Conservative chancellor, about the Spring Budget, and economic and fiscal policies.

However, the regulator only scolded the far-right media outlet over it not airing differing views. Ofcom failed to rule against the fact that two sitting Conservative MPs were posing as journalists interviewing a sitting Conservative minister.

Grade: We must ‘give the white majority a voice’

When Grade’s chat with the Guardian explored the topic of ethnicity, Grade’s mask truly fell and shattered.

The ex-Ofcom chief cited a recent interview with Tony Sewell. Sewell, a fellow Tory peer, penned a widely-criticised government report that claimed that the UK was not an institutionally racist country.

Grade told the Guardian:

If you want integration, which we all do, and we want everybody to live happily ever after, irrespective of their background or their race or religion or anything, [Sewell] said that you have to give the white majority a voice in that debate.

I hung on to that and I thought: ‘That is so brilliant. That’s why Reform is doing well in the polls.’ Of course it’s right.

He went on to add that the white majority “certainly hasn’t” been heard in recent years on channels like the BBC. Of course, it’s a specific subset of the “white majority” that Grade is actually talking about — white supremacists and ethnonationalists who flock to vote for Reform.

Even under that definition, the BBC has hardly been lacking in bias favouring the far-right party. But, reading Grade’s ‘voice of the white majority’ as meaning ‘racist zealots’ makes far more sense of GB News’ segments.

For example:

• The channel platformed Thomas Corbett-Dillon claiming that a genocide is being waged against white people in the UK.
• It completely failed to challenge Donald Trump in an interview last year. The US dictator made a series of wildly bigoted claims about Islam, immigration and the climate crisis. Grade merely said it “wasn’t journalism’s finest hour”.
• Presenter Carole Malone falsely claimed that Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle’s mother, had spent time in jail.
• It published an article by ex-presenter Colin Brazier complaining that there aren’t enough white people in adverts.

Well, so long as you look impartial…

Grade finished his utter car crash of an interview by stating: 

Impartiality is a state of grace to which you aspire. And as long as you’re aspiring and seem to be trying to be impartial, that’s fine. One person’s impartiality is another person’s bias.

Oh, well that’s fine then, so long as we “seem to be trying to be impartial”, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, Reform UK clearly recognises that GB News is its propaganda arm. Only last month, the party told its councillors to ignore local journalists, ordering them to speak only to GB News. 

Remind us again what ‘impartiality’ actually looks like there, Grade?

Featured image via Leon Neal/ Getty Images 

By Alex/Rose Cocker

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On 28 February, the US bombed a school in the opening stages of its unprovoked attack on Iran, killing more than 150 people, many schoolchildren.

The UN condemned the attack:

A strike on a school represents a grave assault on children, on education, and on the future of an entire community. There is no excuse for killing girls in a classroom.

Now, Sky News and Forensic Architecture prepare to debut their documentary about the tragedy that shocked the world.

Iran: Children of Minab film

The US tried to deny it had bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school at the time. US president, Donald Trump, said:

No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.

They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions.

However, the US has since admitted to the atrocity and may have used military AI to carry out the attack.

The one-hour documentary, Children of Minab, will air in July and shed light on the “devastating US missile strike”.

…on the first day of Operation Epic Fury, one of the US military’s largest civilian casualty incidents for decades.

It will examine:

The factors behind the high death toll, including the building’s collapse onto the boys’ school below and a missile strike on the area where many children were sheltering.

Death toll contested

Iran maintains that 168 people died in the attack. The national football team, which is playing in the 2026 World Cup, has renamed the team after those killed.

Iran National Football Team with the name "Minab 168" plays in the World Cup 2026 on US soil; in memory of the fallen angels of Minab School. pic.twitter.com/Er1AIlzdgP

— I. R. Iran Embassy in Serbia (@IraninSerbia) June 15, 2026

Sky News‘ data and forensics team has managed to confirm the identities of 152 victims — “the highest verified number of victims identified so far”.

This includes 120 students (73 boys and 47 girls, aged from six to 13) and 26 teachers.

Confirmation that significantly more boys were killed than girls, despite it being widely reported as a strike on a girls’ school.

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The news outlet was given “exceptional access” to Iran for the documentary.

International affairs editor, Dominic Waghorn, said:

It is incredibly important to ensure that accurate reporting on this devastating moment continues to be at the forefront of the news agenda.

He added that Sky News will “continue to demand answers and justice for the people of Minab”.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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5 min read45 min

It is time for political parties to be brave and honest. Our welfare spending is not sustainable.

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Britain’s finances are not sustainable. Our debt levels are the highest they have been for over 60 years, our taxes are at record levels, and we cannot currently find the resources necessary to protect our national security. Something has to give.

A serious analysis of the situation will conclude that we need to look again at welfare expenditure.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), total welfare spending is forecast to rise from £314.7bn in 2024-25 to £406.2bn in 2030-31. As a share of GDP, total welfare spending is forecast to increase from 10.8 per cent in 2024-25 to 11.2 per cent by 2030-31. If we look only at spending on health and disability benefits, it will rise from £76.8bn in 2024-25 to £109bn in 2030-31. This increase in health and disability benefits alone is broadly similar to the entire Home Office budget. Or, to put it another way, it is comparable with the revenue raised by 3 or 4p on the basic rate of income tax.

Pointing this out is easy, however. The hard task is identifying precisely what to do about it. In that context, Prosper UK has set out detailed proposals as to how we can control the welfare bill.

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Prosper UK is a centre-right political movement that believes in facing up to the real choices the country faces. This means accepting the trade-offs and being transparent about the tough decisions that need to be made. Labour failed to do that in opposition, and the populist right – in the shape of Reform UK – is doing that today.

So what would Prosper UK do? We have set out a series of proposals that would control public spending but still provide support for those most in need. We would tighten up access to health benefits with more face-to-face assessments and a greater focus on a “work first” approach; bring back a reformed two-child benefit cap; raise the savings cap in universal credit so that this system is not unduly harsh on those who have a relatively small amount of savings; increase the sharing of data across DWP and HMRC; and use data analytics and AI to reduce fraud and improve personalised support.

All of this can make a difference in controlling spending on working-age benefits (for example, we think we can save net £6.4bn on health and disability benefits while providing substantially more support in getting claimants back into work). But none of the political parties is brave enough to confront any aspect of the £150bn we spend on one very large part of the welfare budget – and that is the state pension. That is an approach we can no longer afford.

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In truth, our proposal is very modest. It is not to cut the state pension. Indeed, we are making the case that the state pension should not only be protected in real terms (ensuring that it always increases at least in line with inflation), but that over time it will increase in line with average earnings, which is generally higher than inflation. In other words, this is still a system for increasing the state pension that is more generous than what was in place from 1980 to 2011, when it increased merely in line with inflation.  

What could be more reasonable than that? But, at present, no party is prepared to commit to the policy because it means the end of the triple lock through which the state pension increases by the higher of inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent. It has a ratchet effect that is particularly strong in periods of economic turbulence and, since its introduction in 2010, has been far more expensive than anyone had expected. One cannot be certain how much it might cost (because it depends on what happens with inflation and earnings in future years), but the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that it might be as high as £40bn by 2050. That is additional expenditure we simply cannot afford.

Would it be politically brave to abandon the triple lock? It is all too tempting for those seeking office to go round making easy but expensive promises (just as Andy Burnham did last week, promising compensation for the entirely unmeritorious case of the WASPI women), but it is time for politicians to be brave and honest. We need to find savings, and a government with the capability and determination to do so would be rewarded by the bond market that currently prices our debt more expensively than other countries because of that failure to face up to the realities. Deliver savings in one area, and the credibility won should result in a fall in our debt interest bill as well.

All the political parties have to get serious about our public finances. That means controlling our welfare bill and, in doing that, scrapping the triple lock must be part of the plan.

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David Gauke is Vice Chair of Prosper UK and a former cabinet minister

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Mike Tapp is the Labour parliamentary under-secretary of state for migration and citizenship. On 15 June, he put out a celebratory post after a court ruled that the government was okay to brand Palestine Action a ‘terrorist’ group:

Supporting Palestine
Supporting Palestine Action

Don’t support terrorists.

— Mike Tapp MP (@MikeTappTweets) June 15, 2026

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Well, Labour – what should a terrorist look like?

As Skwawkbox reported for the Canary:

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s appeal against the High Court’s ruling that the ‘terrorism’ ban on Palestine Action was unlawful. The appeals court decided that the ban was a proportionate infringement on UK human rights and did not exceed the government’s powers.

The judge in question ruled that Palestine Action cannot be compared to the suffragettes because they caused serious damage. As Skwawkbox noted, though, the suffragettes literally used bombs – something which is markedly more extreme than anything Palestine Action did.

When Zack Polanski pointed out that the ruling will mean branding peaceful old women ‘terrorists’, scumbag Tapp asked the following:

Tell me, Zack, what should someone who is convicted of a terror related offence look like? I’m intrigued.

— Mike Tapp MP (@MikeTappTweets) June 15, 2026

To be fair, the above isn’t an unfair question. Once you have terror laws, the state gets to decide what is or is not a terror offence. And as we’ve long warned, this can lead to the sort of authoritarian creep we’re now seeing.

All that aside, I think we can agree that if we do have to have terrorism laws, then a terrorist should look like someone who just committed an act of extreme and murderous violence – not someone who was sat down holding a piece of cardboard with words written on it.

A government of cowards

It says a lot that Tapp is terrified of the older woman pictured above. Tapp is an ex-soldier, too, which explains a lot. And while we’ve nothing against cowards living full and wholesome lives, they shouldn’t be dictating government policy.

Featured image via Dan Kitwood (Getty Images)

By Willem Moore

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