Politics
Why the Labour Party loathes the pub
Oh the humanity, oh the magnanimity! Rachel Reeves has heard the cries of pain from the hospitality industry and swooped in to save us. Last week, the UK chancellor announced a whole 15 per cent – yes, 15 per cent – cut in business rates, and a freeze in real terms for the next two years. So it’s all sorted now. Pub closures will cease, and we’re all saved.
Except, there appears to be a slight problem with the inimitable Reeves’s maths. She boasts that the average pub will gain an extra £1,650 per year under her rescue package. But when combined with all the other taxes and levies we have to pay, to actually pocket that amount, publicans like me would need to increase our turnover by around £12,500.
Remember, pubs have also had to deal with the eye-watering rise in employers’ national insurance, new recycling fees, the minimum-wage bump, beer-duty rises, and much more besides. And none of that is easy to swallow in the current economic climate.
I already had to hike prices up by 20p across the board on 1 February just to stay afloat during the quietest time of the year. Hardest hit were my regulars – the lads who prop up the pub in lean patches and can least afford it. Now, with alcohol duty up 3.66 per cent as of this week, adding 38p to gin, 39p to whisky, 14p to wine, I’ll have to consider another price rise in April. That could kill my wet trade – or what’s left of it. Publicans are being slowly strangled.
It’s not just the till where there’s trouble – it’s the soul of the pub that’s under siege. Looming on the horizon is clause 20 of Labour’s Employment Rights Act, set to come into effect in October. This makes landlords liable for harassment and discrimination from ‘third parties’ on their premises, forcing them to police customer chit-chat lest someone say or do something untoward. The clause is the pettiness of the perpetually aggrieved made manifest.
As well as economic mismanagement by the chronically underqualified, there is an underlying rot in the Labour Party that leads it to loathe the pub – namely, a longstanding loathing for the white working classes’ habits, like their drinking and their smoking. It’s all rooted in the Methodist tradition of ‘bettering’ them, saving them from themselves. That nonconformist, chapel-bred disdain for ‘the demon drink’ never really left the party. It survived secularisation, survived New Labour’s champagne socialism, and it now endures in the spreadsheet puritanism of Rachel Reeves. Different vocabulary, same impulse – the English working class must be improved, disciplined, civilised.
Tony Blair tried to impose a Europe-inspired café culture on Britain with his 2003 Licensing Act. He hoped that 24-hour pub openings would lead to continental-style wine-sipping. But it ultimately backfired, simply allowing longer binge-fests. Ironically, it was Covid-era grit, outdoor setups, pop-ups, and the hospitality sector’s refusal to die that brought us closest to achieving the Blairite apparatchiks’ continental fantasies.
The pub – loud, unashamed, frequented by men with kebab-in-hand, occasionally vomiting in the taxi rank – doesn’t fit the new Britain. That’s why it terrifies Labour and its ilk. More than economic mismanagement, Labour’s assault on publicans is cultural sabotage, driven by the lanyard-wearing puritans’ abhorrence (and fear) of the plebs. ‘If only they’d live the way we want them to, everything would be fine’, they lament. But from Brexit to boozing, the ungrateful lot keep letting them down.
Pubs are central to Britain’s grand traditions of free speech and assembly, rights that were hard won over centuries. From Levellers plotting in smoky taprooms to Chartists stirring revolt over bitter, the public house is woven into our history. For centuries, it’s been our heart – a place to be, meet, laugh, sing and shake off the day’s nonsense. No one wants to be lectured about the health risks of sharing a few pints with friends. However much muesli you eat or yoga positions you contort yourself into, none of us are getting out of here alive. Maybe if the new puritans tried living a bit between birth and death, they might find a pub they enjoy, too.
With one pub closing every day in 2025 (that’s 366 shuttered for good) and even faster losses forecasted for 2026, the outlook is bleak. There will be no revival once they’re gone. We will have lost something profoundly us: something distinctly British, English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh.
In the pub’s wake will be sterile coffee shops and scrolling. Or, as our governing classes call it, ‘progress’.
Rory Hanrahan manages three village pubs with his wife in Oxfordshire.
Politics
Helen Whately: The Welfare bill is more than twice what we spend on our own defence – that can’t go on
Helen Whately is the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
That statement last week might have escaped notice — but for the fact that it was made by Lord George Robertson: former Labour Defence Secretary, Labour Peer, and Labour-appointed author of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review.
Lord Robertson is not someone you’d expect to cause trouble for our beleaguered Prime Minister. But like many of us, he has run out of patience. And as former Secretary General of NATO, he knows the consequences more than most.
Britain’s welfare spending is now undermining our ability to defend ourselves.
The state exists first and foremost to keep us safe, yet we spend only 2.4 per cent of GDP on defence. As NATO members we have pledged to reach 5% by 2035 — a level we have surpassed not on defence, but on working-age welfare. Annual working-age welfare spending is now £140bn and rising, against a mere £50bn on defence.
The comments below will say “it happened under your watch” — and indeed it did. Under Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May, because the decline in defence spending goes back to the end of the Cold War. Only when Russia invaded Ukraine did our defence spending – under Boris – seriously step up.
Meanwhile, welfare has kept growing. Working-age welfare went from 2–3 per cent of GDP in the early 1980s to 6 per cent after the 2008 crash. We brought it back to 4.5 per cent pre-Covid; it has since risen to 5.3 per cent.
The nature of welfare has also changed.
When the modern welfare state was built after WWII, support was limited and often short-term — unemployment cover for those who’d paid National Insurance, or temporary sickness relief. Old age benefits were drawn on by fewer people, for less time. Means-tested benefits were a last resort and stigmatised.
Now, the fastest-growing part of the welfare bill is health and disability. More people are assessed as unable to work and go onto benefits; few ever come off them. The welfare state is no longer a stopgap or safety net. For a growing number of people, it is a permanent alternative to work.
Part of the problem is structural. Most public spending is controlled through departmental budgets, with Ministers and Permanent Secretaries forced to balance priorities and operate within limits. Welfare is demand-led: eligibility is set, and anyone who qualifies gets it. As caseloads grow, spending rises automatically. There’s no pressure to keep to a budget, but infinite jeopardy for any Secretary of State who dares make savings.
Add shifting social attitudes. Claiming benefits used to carry a sense of shame. More common now is entitlement — ‘it’s my right’ — without any commensurate responsibility. Meanwhile, working families are going without holidays, deferring purchases, furnishing their homes from charity shops, all the while paying taxes to fund others to have things they cannot afford.
We’ve reached a tipping point. As one constituent wrote to me recently: “You work so hard — and for what?”
Unless something changes, the UK will spend £650 billion on working-age welfare by the end of the decade, against less than £300 billion on defence.
The war in the Middle East has left us exposed. “We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe” — Lord Robertson again.
We have to grip welfare spending so we can invest in defence. That’s clear to me. But to Labour?
Labour MPs have been celebrating the lifting of the two-child benefit cap at a cost of over £3 billion a year. The prospect of weaker-than-ever Starmer persuading his backbenchers to vote for welfare cuts in the months ahead is laughable.
Except this is no laughing matter. The security of our country is at stake.
Serious times need serious leadership. We cannot keep spending more on Welfare, funding millions to stay at home with anxiety and ADHD, while starving Defence.
As Kemi Badenoch has said, whether we like it or not, we are in this war. We must tell the truth. We live in a world that has become more dangerous- and we must change our priorities.
I have already identified £23 billion of welfare savings: restricting benefits to foreigners, stopping sickness benefits for anxiety and ADHD, reforming Motability, returning to face-to-face assessments. I am not stopping there.
A country where those who can work do work will be a stronger country. We have drifted from a culture of “I can because I must” to a culture of “I can’t” — stripping people of agency and turning them into victims. It is time to turn that around. To invest in the defence of the realm over the benefit state. We can, because we must.
On 18 April, in Khirbet Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, up to 100 settlers gathered at an outpost just outside the village. This was a new outpost, only established a few days previously.
Illegal colonists and Israeli occupation forces coordinate to storm the villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and al Mughayyir
Some of the settlers tried to go down the hill from the outpost to attack houses in the village, but residents gathered to protect their properties.
Shortly after this, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided several homes in Abu Falah, assaulting and detaining several residents. The settlers then spread out around several areas of the village, and also went to al Mughayyir, although no attacks were reported.
On the evening of the same day, during one of the daily IOF raids on al Mughayyir, occupation soldiers assaulted two young Palestinian children.
Seven-year-old Abdallah Abu Alia, and eight-year-old Mohammed Abu Alia, were playing in the street near their home with a group of children. When they heard the military vehicle approaching, most of the children ran away, but Abdallah and Mohammed remained where they were.
IOF intimidate and assault seven and eight year old children
The military intimidated, threatened and pushed around the two children, and then told them to stay seated on the ground while they drove away.
Shortly after this incident, 33-year-old Ghaith Abu Naim was attacked in his car. He was in Marj Saya, on the road between Abu Falah and al Mughayyir. He was driving home from work when settlers on a quad bike — supplied by the “Israeli” government — drove alongside his car and started throwing stones. They then attacked him with an iron bar, injuring his shoulder and damaging his car. A relative of Abu Naim told us he used to leave for work at 9 am but, fearing the constant attacks from the settlers and the IOF, he now leaves home two hours earlier each morning.
On the night of 18 April, Turmus Ayya — which is also in northeast Ramallah and adjacent to the villages of Abu Falah and al Mughayyir, was also attacked by settlers. Dozens of these terrorists entered the village, from the direction of the nearby outpost, and set fire to the home of a Palestinian family.
They also torched a vehicle, before being confronted by unarmed residents and forced to leave.
Threatening graffiti left by settlers
Settlers also spray-painted the words “revenge” and “Regards from Abu Falah” in Hebrew, on the wall of a building in the village.
In the past two months, three outposts have been established in the Abu Falah and al Mughayyir area. All are in Area B, on privately owned Palestinian land. One of these outposts was set up on private land in the al Khaleel valley, close to al Mughayyir, when the Abu Najer family was forcibly displaced due to settler violence. Another outpost is in a Palestinian home in Abu Falah, which settlers took by force and established on 8 March. This was the day after three Palestinians were killed in the village, by the IOF and settlers. The third and most recent outpost, mentioned at the beginning of this article, is on a hill at the edge of Abu Falah.
The attacks, from both the illegal Jewish settlers and the IOF are relentless and Palestinians have no one they can turn to for protection. Every day, somewhere in the West Bank, Palestinians have their property destroyed or stolen, or are forcibly displaced, injured or killed.
At the time of writing, on 19 April, settlers stole more than 150 sheep belonging to al Mughayyir resident Anis Mahmoud Abu Alia. Although they were confronted by villagers, the IOF protected the settlers as they left the area. Several hours later, the village was again stormed by the IOF, who beat a child and fired tear gas at residents.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
Ten years ago this week, Mark Meechan – aka Count Dankula – posted a joke video to his little-watched YouTube channel. It showed his girlfriend’s pet pug, Buddha, performing Nazi salutes and responding to the phrase, ‘Gas the Jews’. The skit went viral – and also caught the attention of the Scottish authorities, who had Dankula arrested, thrown in a police cell and eventually convicted for his ‘grossly offensive’ video. spiked’s Fraser Myers caught up with the now notorious ‘speech criminal’ to find out whether Count Dankula may have had the last laugh.
Plus: watch spiked’s classic documentary, The Curious Case of the Nazi Pug, presented by Andrew Doyle, to get the full story here.
Join us for the spiked summit, our biggest ever live event, on Saturday 27 June in Westminster, featuring Konstantin Kisin, Lionel Shriver, Katharine Birbalsingh, Toby Young, Allison Pearson, Brendan O’Neill, Tom Slater and more speakers to be announced. Get tickets here.
Kash Patel — Clearly, people who are suffering from alcoholism and poor mental health should receive support. Part of this help should be ensuring they’re not actively in charge of law enforcement agencies.
And yet:
“On multiple occasions” Kash Patel has reportedly gotten so drunk that the FBI couldn’t wake him, and at least once considered smashing down his front door to make sure he was still alive, according to this new story. https://t.co/SKrbIWYpUX pic.twitter.com/oWVeFs1VHR
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) April 17, 2026
Kash Patel has now responded to the claims made against him.
You may be unsurprised to discover his response has reassured precisely no one.
Febrile Bottle Inspector
The article from the Atlantic contained revelations like the following:
In Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”
It would later turn out that a simple technical error had locked Patel out. This was something he could have confirmed himself if he hadn’t gone all Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
I’m going to be completely real and admit that I did once react to being locked out of my work computer by freaking out and assuming I’d been fired. This, of course, is why I’m not pursuing a senior administrative position within the FBI. That and all the terrible stuff they do (more on that in a bit).
The Atlantic also reported:
The IT-lockout episode is emblematic of Patel’s tumultuous tenure as director of the FBI: He is erratic, suspicious of others, and prone to jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence, according to the more than two dozen
People are saying that “jumping to conclusions before he has necessary evidence” should rule him out of an FBI position; clearly those people are unfamiliar with the work this agency does.
The Atlantic added:
Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.
No wonder he’s paranoid if he’s got the beer fear.
Simultaneously, it’s no wonder he needs to drink if he’s anxious all the time.
It’s a vicious circle, and one which won’t find remedy as long he’s in such a high-pressure position.
Kash Patel — Response and perspective
Memo to the fake news – the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop. Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America
Many responded in turn with images of Patel celebrating with the American Winter Olympic hockey team:
Yeah whatever you say bro https://t.co/76kYNXUwlS pic.twitter.com/T0uhbKmlYE
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 18, 2026
Patel also revealed new information in responding to the claims:
Amazing https://t.co/DSQSzwu7XJ pic.twitter.com/qKBKeWCslI
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 18, 2026
The question is this: is Patel is really not good enough for the FBI?
The actual FBI
In an article titled “How the FBI Created a Terrorist”, the Intercept wrote about how the FBI targeted a Muslim man with a schizoaffective disorder:
FBI employees talked about how Osmakac didn’t have any money, how he thought the U.S. spy satellites were watching him, and how he had no concept of what weapons cost on the black market.
The source of their amusement was also their primary source of concern. Osmakac was, in the FBI’s own words, “a retarded fool” who didn’t have any capacity to plan and execute an attack on his own. That was a challenge for the FBI.
The piece additionally reported:
In constructing the sting, FBI agents were in communication with prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, the transcripts show. The prosecutors needed the FBI to show Osmakac giving Amir Jones money for the weapons. Over several conversations, the FBI agents struggled to create a situation that would allow the penniless Osmakac to hand cash to the undercover agent.
“How do we come up with enough money for them to pay for everything?” asks FBI Special Agent Taylor Reed in one recording.
“Right now, we have money issues,” Amir admits in a separate conversation.
Their advantage was that Dabus, the informant, had given Osmakac a job. If they could get Dabus to pay Osmakac, and then make sure Osmakac used his paycheck to make a payment toward the weapons, the agents could satisfy the Justice Department. “Once he gives it to him, it’s his money, whether we orchestrated it or not,” Reed says.
Reading all that, you could wonder if it’s better for the FBI to be less efficient?
The reason it probably isn’t is that they’ll still do all the same reprehensible shit; they’ll just suffer fewer consequences, because no one in charge cares anymore.
Either way, Patel needs to be given the boot ASAP.
If you think he’s paranoid now, just wait until he finds out about the X-Files.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia)
By Willem Moore
Anti-fascist campaigners have condemned Greater Manchester Police’s “despicable” and “extreme” violence against peaceful activists protesting against yesterday’s white supremacist march in Manchester.
In a statement, the Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) group and Resist Britain First slammed physical and chemical attacks on non-violent protesters by police concealing their identities and numbers — who then prevented paramedics and ambulances reaching their victims. The groups also pointed out that the force showed no apparent shortage of resource when it came to restricting and attacking anti-extremist counter-protesters — yet allowed fascist marchers to roam and attack with impunity:
Britain First March and the ‘Resist Britain First’ Counter Demonstration — Manchester City Centre, 18 April 2026
Today, the Northern Police Monitoring Project were present as Resist Britain First mobilised in significant numbers to oppose the racist and fascist group Britain First, as they marched through the centre of the city.
What we witnessed raises yet more serious and urgent concerns about the despicable conduct of Greater Manchester Police, and the many forces deployed alongside them from across the country.
AN EXTRAORDINARY DEPLOYMENT OF RESOURCE
At a time of deep and sustained austerity – when public services are being cut to the bone and communities across Greater Manchester are suffering – GMP showed no shortage of resources today. The scale of the policing was staggering.
POLICE VIOLENCE AGAINST ANTIFASCIST PROTESTERS
Officers behaved thuggishly, with consistent and serious aggression and violence -overwhelmingly directed at antifascist counter-protesters, not at the far-right fascist marchers they were facilitating. This included numerous punches, kicks and violent attempts to remove masks, in some cases causing injuries, as well as repeated use of batons and PAVA spray, and the deployment of horses against protesters.
A number of officers were observed without visible badge numbers, in clear breach of police regulations. This is not an oversight -it is a pattern with a long and troubling history in public order policing. Officers who conceal their identity while using force are officers who believe they are answerable to nobody. Today’s behaviour suggests that belief is well founded.
The use of PAVA spray was particularly alarming. A chemical irritant that was only approved for police use in 2014, PAVA causes intense burning to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract – and poses serious risks to anyone with asthma or other respiratory conditions. It is not a neutral or routine tool.
It was deployed repeatedly, in significant volume, without warning, and without lawful justification. Officers were observed spraying PAVA into the eyes of antifascist demonstrators at close range, and in a number of cases deliberately attempting to remove eyewear from protesters – apparently with the sole intention of maximising the harm caused. This is not policing. This is targeted cruelty.
NO DUTY OF CARE
As people sustained serious injuries, officers were observed actively blocking medical assistance from assisting injured protesters. GMP appeared to have no regard whatsoever for its duty of care to those in its custody or in its presence – at least not if they are antifascists. This constitutes a serious breach of GMP’s legal obligations, whilst also making, clear that they function not to protect people, but to maintain and abuse control by any means necessary.
We also observed, not for the first time, the police’s disregard and disrespect for the protected role of Legal Observers. This is a serious concern given the important role that Legal Observers play in independently documenting and witnessing police conduct on behalf of those whose rights are at risk.
ENABLING FASCISM
Let us be clear about what today was really about. GMP’s operational priority was to facilitate a racist and fascist organisation marching through the centre of our city, and to suppress and contain any opposition to that march. This was the active enabling of fascism – using public money, public officers, and significant violence against the public. While antifascists were being punched, kicked and PAVA-sprayed, far-right streamers were left free to harass and incite antifascists, and film injured protesters receiving treatment. The contrast could not have been clearer: there should be no doubt about whose side the police are on. Despite this extraordinary effort, the antifascist counter-protest vastly outnumbered Britain First. The people of Manchester made their position clear.
The statement ended with a message for complicit corporate media – and for Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has defended the police against accusations of misconduct and brutality:
MEDIA FAILURE
We are deeply concerned by the failure of local and national media to report critically on what happened today. Uncritically reproducing GMP press lines while ignoring the documented violence of officers is not journalism – it is the laundering of institutional propaganda. Equally, the failure to accurately report the scale of the antifascist mobilisation – which dwarfed Britain First in numbers – serves to falsely legitimise a movement that was comprehensively rejected by the people of Manchester today. The public deserves better.
A MESSAGE TO ANDY BURNHAM
Andy Burnham, as Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been a consistent and vocal advocate for GMP – championing ever-increasing budgets and defending the force at every turn. We ask him directly: is this what he wants to see? Officers injuring protesters, blocking medical care, and chaperoning an explicitly racist and fascist organisation through his city? He must answer for the institution he funds and champions.
POLICING AND FASCISM
Today made visible something that many already know: the line between policing and fascism is vanishingly thin. When the police protect fascists from the communities they threaten, we must name that for what it is.
WHO PROTECTS THE FASCISTS?
THE POLICE PROTECT THE FASCISTS.
The Canary’s reporters at the scene captured some appalling scenes of the police’s actions:
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In a separate statement, NPMP condemned the “extreme” police violence and said it is holding an event for victims in the city next Tuesday 21 April 2026:
NPMP Statement on the policing of the RBF counter demonstration on 18th April 2026
Solidarity with all those who came out yesterday, especially those harmed by the police
While we all saw the extreme violence used by the police, we also engaged in and witnessed may acts of community care and rapid solidarity responses. Our gratitude to each and every person who stood their ground, supported others, provided medical support, ran to get more medical supplies, helped people stay hydrated, get to safety and were holding formal medic and legal observer roles
If you were harmed by or witnessed the police violence and want/need to be in community or get some understanding around complaints processes — you are so welcome to join our community solidarity space! This Tuesday, 5.30-7.30, Windrush Centre. More info on our grid.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
On 14 April, we reported that Reform UK were running a candidate who wanted to “salt the earth” upon which the NHS stood. Surprisingly, they are apparently now investigating said candidate:
Reform investigating candidate @TheBembridge over alleged posts he 'hates NHS' and thinks nurses eat too muchhttps://t.co/R34o7HipV6
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) April 18, 2026
We don’t say ‘surprisingly’ because we agree with his comments; we say it because Reform have turned a blind eye to much worse candidates than this guy.
Reform — Death to the NHS
The candidate in question is James Bembridge — deputy editor at Country Squire magazine. The following comment is the one which has attracted the most controversy:
As it turns out, Bembridge had some other choice comments. In March 2021, he said:
I’m not sure why applause is so readily given to NHS nurses who claim to be driven to using food banks when, looking at them, they are presumably eating them out of business
The “applause” reference is because this comment was made during the pandemic.
That’s right.
While you were celebrating nurses, Bembridge was ridiculing their weight and income.
While nurses were saving lives, he was writing about being whatever the fuck a ‘country squire’ is.
If you’re wondering how his writing reads, by the way, the following is from an obituary he penned in 2022:
At 5 pm on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Isobel Weber died much as she lived: dressed in high fashion, sipping champagne and surrounded by no one.
Turn the clock back two years, and I’m sitting with her in the Kronenhalle restaurant, Zurich, struggling to make sense of what she’s saying. Her lips are moving, but they’ve just had about 5 vials of filler pumped into them.
What use, I am moved to ask myself, does a wheelchair-bound sexagenarian have for lips like those? I suppose younger women do it to swell out their CVs for the job that men’s wives no longer perform. But Isobel?
So Bembridge was pondering why the deceased had got lip filler when she presumably wasn’t angling to suck his dick.
If this is Bembridge’s job, we can say with absolute certainty that the people of Britain will never gather en masse to applaud him for performing it.
Bembridge was most recently seen campaigning with London mayoral hopeful Laila Cunningham:
Hi @policylaila, see @TheBembridge is there with you.
Any comment on these? pic.twitter.com/DLtnHUbxDc
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) April 18, 2026
Cunningham hasn’t answered the above.
This isn’t surprising, because she’s famous for not answering questions:
"If the Tories are so bad, why is Reform UK filling themselves full of them?"
Laila Cunningham: I can't answer that. pic.twitter.com/fxdPli1XKY
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) January 10, 2026
Investigation
My London report that Reform are now looking into Bembridge:
Reform UK has confirmed that it is looking into the allegations. Mr Bembridge has not yet responded to the LDRS request for comment.
They added:
At the June 2024 general elections, Reform UK pledged an extra £17 billion for the NHS. It said that the NHS needs a new funding model and that it must use the private sector to relived pressure on the over-stretched service.
In other words, Reform have pledged to give a £17bn bung to the private sector.
We doubt the Bembridge investigation will result in a suspension. After all, Reform suspended campaign manager Adam Mitula for holocaust denial, and we recently learned he’s still managing campaign business – now as an election agent.
Reform don’t keep attracting candidates like the following by accident:
- Reform activist said ‘Hitler was right’.
- Reform candidate exposed as a horny nincompoop.
- Another Reform candidate has praised Enoch Powell.
- Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
- Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.
Featured image via GB News
By Willem Moore
It’s hard to know where to start with the Sunday Mail’s lead story today.
Especially if one doesn’t want sent to prison.
So we hope you’ll forgive us if we’re extra-careful.
The article contains things even we’d never read before.
The Mail has redacted some of the names, but – well, we’re not going to say any more about that. The anonymity order protecting the complainers who made the false allegations about Salmond operates in such a way that a judge can essentially imprison anyone on a whim, with no proper legal process.
(Contempt of court is not technically a criminal offence, so all the legal protections that normally apply to those accused of a crime are thrown in the bin.)
But what leaps out from the document is how much the people in the WhatsApp group loathed the greatest leader in the SNP’s history, to the point where they wanted to see him die in prison for crimes he didn’t commit.
So much so that they were willing to completely make things up.
Once again, readers, we ask you to bear in mind what we can’t tell you. While some of these messages are shocking in their own right, if we were allowed to reveal who was saying them and what those people went on to become, the idea that there WASN’T a conspiracy against Salmond, led from the very top of the SNP, would be instantly obviously farcical.
The messages published by the Mail – and the paper holds several damning ones that it has chosen, or been advised by its lawyers, NOT to publish – show a group of people who explicitly say that they DON’T think they were victims of any crime, but who nevertheless were willing to act in concert with each other in order to have Salmond imprisoned anyway.
(There must be a shorter way to say that last sentence, you’d think.)
Three of the people whose names AREN’T redacted in the Mail’s piece and which feature prominently are Peter Murrell (then CEO of the SNP), Sue Ruddick (then Chief Operating Officer of the SNP) and Ian McCann (then Compliance Officer of the SNP). Apart from Nicola Sturgeon, they were the party’s three most senior executives at the time.
It speaks volumes for the total corruption of the Scottish establishment that Nicola Sturgeon feels sufficient impunity to continue to insist, absurdly, that the three top officers of the party she led – one of whom she also shared a home and a camper van with – would for even the briefest moment have countenanced embarking on such a momentous endeavour without, at the very least, her full knowledge and backing.
And yet nor has she spoken a single word in criticism or condemnation of any of them. Not once has she suggested any of them might have “gone rogue” or exceeded their remit, even after Salmond was cleared of every single charge the WhatsApp group managed to concoct.
On the contrary, everyone associated with the conspiracy has been defended and/or rewarded by her, even when found to have acted with the most appalling incompetence and/or malice.
Nor even would revulsion at Salmond’s (imaginary) crimes serve as an explanation for the depth of animus. Because remarkably, this week Wings was contacted by a former SNP activist with this story:
“The plot against Alex Salmond had been going on since at least 2013. I was a mature student and just prior to graduation I campaigned in the Mark McDonald by-election. I’d responded to a call from Alex stating that we needed campaigners to go to Aberdeen as the seat was crucial to maintaining the majority.
I lived in Broughty Ferry at the time and was part of that branch, and told them I was available to assist in Aberdeen for a few days if needed.
I was told that Shona Robison would pick me up. She arrived in a smallish silver 4×4 and we headed off to Aberdeen. I’d never met her before, or anyone official in the SNP. We talked about a local Labour issue that had involved my university, and we talked about the people that we both knew.
Before we had got to Tealing, she said to me “What do you think about Alex Salmond?”
It was Alex Salmond that drew me in to the SNP – I hung off his every word. Then she turned around to me and said “He’s not very well liked within the party”.
I was stunned, he’d just brought the SNP to a huge victory, I remember thinking at the time “I’ve never met you before, I could be anybody”. He was First Minister, she was Minister for Sport. I remember thinking the exchange was bizarre.
Then we got to Aberdeen, Sturgeon was there. I only saw her for about 2 mins and I think she went off with Shona to campaign. I remember we arrived at a Spar opposite some tall flats in Mastrick and met up with Shona and maybe about 8-10 other campaigners having lunch. I remember Shona ate a long egg baguette.
I’m a heavy smoker but I’m conscious of the smoke, so I stood a few metres back, they were sat on some benches opposite these flats, and then she does it again to those that were sitting with her – “What do you think of Alex Salmond?”, and then the exact same line repeated that “he’s not very well liked within the party”.
I nearly choked on that cigarette, but what I noticed was that this was obviously a well-rehearsed routine.
When Alex he talked about conspiracy, this strange encounter always comes to mind, this was 2013, the SNP were on a crest of a wave, I remember thinking that Shona was a block of wood, and did she really think that she was responsible for the SNP’s current success. I’ve always seen her as glaikit and a hanger-on that was in the right position at the right time.”
[PLEASE NOTE: To the limit of Wings’ knowledge, Shona Robison had no involvement in the criminal allegations against Alex Salmond.]
It’s an astonishing story. At the time Alex Salmond had led the SNP to its first ever election victory, then to an unprecedented Holyrood majority, and then to an independence referendum, and yet one of his own ministers – a close ally and longstanding personal friend of Salmond’s deputy, who would succeed him if he fell – was touring the country dripping poison in the ears of groups of activists even as the party tried to defend its fragile Parliamentary majority.
If that was how senior SNP figures (Robison would go on to become Deputy FM after Sturgeon’s resignation, having thrown her “dear friend” under the bus when it was politically expedient) were treating Salmond when he and the SNP were the undisputed masters of all they surveyed in Scotland, it doesn’t take a massive leap to imagine how gleefully they would seize on the opportunity to stick the knife in him a few years later.
We’re not allowed to tell you all the things that are missing from the Sunday Mail story, readers. But if you’ve got any wits about you at all, it already tells you everything you need to know about how Alex Salmond was utterly betrayed and then driven into the grave not by his political enemies, but by the people around him.
And perhaps even more painfully, so was the cause of Scottish independence.
Reap and ye shall sow. Remember all the occasions Keir Starmer urged Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to resign and take responsibilities for the failures or misdeeds of their governments? If you play holier than thou, the don’t be surprised when people hold you to the same standards as you held other people to.
Keir Starmer constantly reminds us that he was a top barrister. Top barristers know that ignorance is no defence in a court of law. It follows therefore, that it is no defence in the court of public opinion.
If it really is true – and I have my doubts – that no one in Number 10 knew that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting, then that says an awful lot about the way Keir Starmer runs his government. What you don’t know can’t hurt you seems to be maxim.
It stretches credulity to the extreme to believe that Olly Robbins didn’t feel it was worth mentioning to anyone in Number 10 that he had overruled the official vetting process. Surely, an experience civil servant like him – and remember he was a spook at one time – would have at least informed the Cabinet Secretary, who would then have been duty bound to inform the prime minister?
It may be now that Starmer’s habit of throwing people under the bus to save his own skin might catch up with him. He despatched Chris Wormald, the previous Cabinet Secretary with no notice whatsoever to give the impression he was making a new start in the running of the Number 10 operation. He’s now done the same to Olly Robbins. Neither man owes Starmer anything and it there are already rumours that Robbins is determined not to be the Fall Guy for all this. Wormald may also like to exact a little revenge.
A former No 10 Chief of Staff told me on Friday he found it inconceivable the PM would not have been informed. Another former adviser told me: “It is well documented that this PM reads all advice notes, hardly ever marking them but returning them to red box without comment. Hard to believe that the PM sat in his downing st bunker reading every bit of advice bar this one. And if it was not sent to him, it is difficult to believe that he runs Whitehall so badly that they only send him notes with good news. He can’t be reading much at the moment if that’s the case.” Ouch.
If the system really does allow a senior civil servant to overrule security vetting, the system stinks. And if Olly Robbins defence really is that it would have been inappropriate to tell the Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister he had done so, we have a civil service that has gone rogue.
In the end the buck stops with the man at the top. Starmer will do his best to wriggle out of this on some kind of technicality, but the trouble is that the whole country knows the hole think stinks. We see you, Prime Minister.
He has undoubtedly misled Parliament. It doesn’t matter that it may not have been deliberate. He failed to check his facts at the time and ask any questions about the vetting process. When he was informed what had happened on Tuesday evening, he didn’t rush to Parliament and clarify and correct what he had said. If The Guardian hadn’t got the scoop, none of us would be any the wiser. By not going to Parliament on Wednesday morning, that in itself is a breach of the Ministerial Code and would require his resignation. Boris Johnson resigned over something far less serious, when he misled Parliament over Partygate. Starmer’s problem is that this involves national security, not eating cake.
What may save Starmer’s skin in the short term is the lack of any other obvious leader to take over. Burnham is not in Parliament, Angela Rayner is still under investigation by HMRC and Wes Streeting’s opponents are trying to smear him, depicting him as Mandelson’s protégé. Shabana Mahmood may be popular in Parliament, but Labour Party members won’t vote for something they see as more right- wing than Wes Streeting.
What a pickle.
And he’s only got himself to blame. We were told in July 2024 that the adults were back in the room.
Oh how we now laugh.
Starmer — On 17 April, it emerged that Peter Mandelson had failed vetting for the ambassador to the US position.
In one sense, this was unsurprising, because he was Peter Mandelson, and he literally should have failed the vetting process as soon as he entered his name.
On the other, it was really quite shocking, because it meant Starmer’s government was seemingly more lazy and corrupt than the Tories.
Since then, Starmer and his few remaining allies have tried to convince us that actually Number 10 knew nothing, and this whole affair is merely the grossest incompetence imaginable.
The problem is that this line of defence has failed to hold up to scrutiny, and now ministers are squirming on the telly when asked about it:
Liz Kendall is asked about David Maddox asking Number 10 about Mandelson failing the vetting months ago, despite the PM saying he only found out last week.
Kendall refuses to comment, saying she can't speak on behalf of number tens director of communications. https://t.co/DzX9KJxMMW pic.twitter.com/pDW1k0ytsc
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 19, 2026
Truth economics
In the clip above, host Trevor Phillips says to Kendall:
All right, on September the 11th last year, a journalist called David Maddox wrote to the director of communications at Number 10, Tim Allan, saying that he’d been told by two sources that Mandelson had not cleared vetting, asking for a comment. Here’s Allan’s reply. Basically, he says, vetting was done by the Foreign Office in a normal way. Was Allan being, as they say, economical with the truth, or did he just not know that there had been a problem with the vetting?
Kendall responded:
You will have to ask those questions to Tim Allan yourself. I’m not going to speak on behalf of him and I don’t think that’s fair that I do.
She’s literally doing the media round on the week of what may be Starmer’s biggest scandal; surely she could have come prepared? This is especially true given that Allan isn’t even in government anymore, so he probably won’t be answering any questions himself.
Phillips continued:
He was responding for the Prime Minister to a journalist. The Prime Minister is now saying he didn’t know anything about this vetting.
A somewhat panicked Kendall responded:
Let me go back to what I said. All ministers were told that he had got developed vetting status. We were not told… that the Foreign Office took that decision, whereas the UK security… advised against. We were not told that. We’re just coming back to the same issue here, Trevor.
And if we had known that, he wouldn’t have been appointed in the first place.
The problem, Liz, is that Starmer saw fit to appoint Mandelson before the vetting was even complete. So he would have been appointed. And this makes it look like Starmer wanted him in the role regardless of how the vetting process shook out.
It’s a problem other ministers have struggled to explain:
So we're being asked to believe that Starmer announced the appointment of Mandelson before the security vetting had been completed and didn't then enquire about the vetting at any point subsequently, and according to Darren Jones this means due process was followed at all times pic.twitter.com/WckCGE8rbC
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 17, 2026
It’s also a problem we knew before now, begging the question: why didn’t Starmer confirm if Mandelson was even vetted?
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 11, 2026
NEW: Peter Mandelson was given access to highly-classified Government briefings before he had completed formal vetting pic.twitter.com/M11hCPrjpm
Starmer in deeper
This problem goes back further than Maddox too:
Starmer's team were warned in 2023 that Peter Mandelson was a major security and vetting risk.https://t.co/4Ztk2ue5Tp
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) April 19, 2026
Starmer had every reason to suspect that Mandelson wouldn’t pass vetting.
Now, we’re supposed to believe Mandelson was vetted, and no one even bothered to confirm if he’d passed?
As Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, wrote:
So Starmer’s team were briefed by ACTUAL security services about Mandelson risks in 2023/24, which they ignore. Simultaneously, Labour Together, (“provisional wing of Starmerism”) got private firms to investigate journalists and treat THOSE lunatic conspiracies seriously?
If accurate, looks like sec services pointed out potential concerns about Russia and Mandelson. That are ignored. But the mad inventions linking me and other legit investigate journalists to “pro-Kremlin” networks are treated to so seriously they’re reported to GCHQ.
So we know Starmer’s people were spying on journalists and also that they did a piss poor job vetting Mandelson (at the very least).
As such, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the Starmer operation is a recklessly criminal enterprise.
We’re sure no one will face consequences, but clearly these things must be crimes, or the rule of law is a joke.
And this is how ridiculous the government looks when it tries to defend all this:
Liz Kendall denies that giving a top govt job to a man sacked from the cabinet twice, who was best pal with a billionaire paedophile, in any way put the UKs national security at risk. pic.twitter.com/U8zYjZ1bhQ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 19, 2026
There’s more
As Saul Staniforth documented, Kendall had more shameless moments too:
Liz Kendall says Epsteins victims are being ignored in all of this
So #trevorphillips calls out Starmers hypocrisy – if the victims should be front & centre why did the PM appoint Mandelson originally?
Kendall tells us Starmer cares so much about violence against women & girls pic.twitter.com/HRsxTIoLN7
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 19, 2026
This is like saying we need to think about Jerry as you’re feeding him to Tom.
To end with some levity, Kendall also said:
Liz Kendall says Keir Starmer is a man of honesty and integrity. https://t.co/10b0kEIKss pic.twitter.com/sULBhDjaxO
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) April 19, 2026
What do you mean she wasn’t joking?
Featured image via BBC
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