After 14 years of Tory rule (and 40 years of neoliberalism), Keir Starmer needed to make dramatic moves to turn this country around. Instead, he tinkered around the edges then pouted when no one thanked him as their lives continued to worsen.

Starmer is on his way out, and you have to assume Rachel Reeves will follow. Given her response to the following, it’s easy to see why:

#BBCLaurak: "You were absolutely central to Keir Starmers whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why its come to an end like this?

Rachel Reeves: "I think governing is hard today" pic.twitter.com/D77acb3MrX

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— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026

Starmer — Excuses

In the above clip, Kuenssberg puts the following to Reeves:

You know, you haven’t just been the Chancellor, you’re a highly experienced politician, you’ve been on the front line, as it were, for a long time, and you were absolutely central to Keir Starmer’s whole project. What do you think, reflecting back, is the biggest reason why it’s come to an end like this?

Reeves’ response:

I think governing is hard today.

If you think governing wasn’t hard back in the day, you may be unaware of this thing we have called ‘human history’.

That aside, she’s not wrong to point out things are tough. The problem is she’s failed to call out the key culprit for Western society’s decline. Here are the problems she identified:

I was just with finance ministers from other European countries earlier this week, And governing is hard across a number of developed economies today. There have been a lot of shocks in recent years, whether that’s COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now the conflict in the Middle East, increasing barriers to trade around the world. And at the same time, those things are going on.

There have been major crises throughout history; the reason we’re increasingly unable to deal with them is because 40 years of neoliberalism stripped the state bare. We’re not expecting Burnham to change things, either, despite his protests to the contrary:

Neoliberalism is the Manchester model: it’s the essence of the Manchester Independent Economic Review girded by New Labour urbanism, and of Osbornite devolution, which created metro mayors as a brokerage system between starved local authorities and Westminster. https://t.co/XadZLrIf8t

— Richard Seymour (@leninology) July 5, 2026

Every year, private companies own more and more of the wealth and assets this country is made of. The more the rich have, the less there is for the rest of us, and the more our government is powerless to do anything besides managing our various debts and dependencies.

Events

On the issue of ‘events’, the government website notes the following:

When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what was the greatest challenge for a statesman, he replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events’.

Napoleon Bonaparte also had something to say on the topic:

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.

A great politician rises to the occasion; a failed politician complains to the BBC.

We don’t have to look far for examples of Labour politicians meeting the moment either:

Reeves: "Andy knows.. the most successful Lab govts are those that combine radical change with credible economic policies"

The most successful Lab govt nationalised 20% of the entire British economy, founded the NHS & built over 800k council houses. What have you & Starmer done? pic.twitter.com/EDjbB2BdsJ

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) July 12, 2026

Labour achieved the above in 1945, so the event they existed in the aftermath of was World War II. Clearly, then, events don’t have to be an excuse for inaction; they can also be an opportunity for greatness.

With his massive 2024 majority, Starmer could have repeated what Clement Attlee achieved in the post war years and then some. Instead, history will remember him as the PM nobody remembers. A quickly peeled plaster on the festering wound of Thatcherism.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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On 7 July, Nigel Farage resigned as the MP for Clacton. Seconds later, he announced he was running to become… the MP for Clacton.

Hours later, the other political parties said they wouldn’t be running, and that Farage could have his fun running against Count Binface.

Days later again, the public delivered their verdict:

I just like the fact that 13% of the people polled can't decide. pic.twitter.com/ghxVShMUqh

— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) July 11, 2026

FFS Farage!

If this all seems ridiculous, that’s because it is. There was no good reason for Farage to step down; our best guess as to why he did is to distract from his many ongoing scandals. It’s not worked out that way, of course, because there are more scandals than any one stunt could distract from:

Robert Jenrick has a meltdown on #C4News

He refuses to accept that there are parliamentary rules that Nigel Farage may have broken

And insists the only people who can judge Nigel Farage are the people of Clacton

– Whatever you do, please don't share this humiliating clip pic.twitter.com/ofjcF7yh9l

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) July 7, 2026

Personally, we thought the Greens should have stood to keep the focus on Reform’s establishment-friendly political platform. We’ll take Farage embarrassing himself against a guy with a bin for a head, though, and it is shaping up to be an all-time humiliation.

As you can see above, the Ipsos polling showed the following support:

• Count Binface: 33%
• Nigel Farage: 21%.
• Neither: 32%.
• Don’t know: 13%.

This is emblematic of the broader problem Reform is making for itself. Its politics of division is proving successful in terms of locking down 20-25% of voters. At the same time, it’s ensuring 75-80% of voters despise the party. This is why Farage & .co keep getting buried by tactical voting in crucial by-elections.

Space-manifesto

Ipsos also showed support for Count Binface’s manifesto:

69% support @CountBinface’s proposed policy of restoring the price of a 99 flake to 99p

Half of Brits (53%) support capping the price of croissants at £1 pic.twitter.com/2AWZNBuaKd

— Ipsos in the UK (@Ipsos_in_the_UK) July 10, 2026

“Count Binface’s manifesto”.

What the f*ck are we doing here?

It’s funny enough, sure, but this is obviously a waste of everyone’s time. The problem for Reform is that the public understand their time is being wasted because Farage wants to deflect from his alleged financial misdeeds. The right, meanwhile, are treating Binface like a serious political candidate:

The Telegraph has published a lengthy opinion piece attacking – seemingly entirely seriously – Count Binface’s economic policies https://t.co/DzVtk4c7T2

— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) July 12, 2026

We don’t think Binface can win in Clacton, but it seems like Farage is going to be the real loser by the end of this.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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Extremist Israeli settlers — is there any other kind? — detained US lawmaker Ro Khanna as he visited the occupied West Bank last week.

Khanna — one of the more critical of Israel among US politicians — was held for around 90 minutes by land-thieves armed with M4 assault rifles. He said that when Israeli troops finally turned up:

they sided with the settlers and continued our detention.

Khanna becomes the first US politician held by the apartheid colony. Surely his brown skin had nothing to do with it. The detention has been ignored by the White House and US Israel lobby. He is not, however, the first foreign politician held by Israel — mostly to either deafening silence or token expressions of disapproval from the victims’ home governments. Some have faced torture and/or sexual abuse for daring to try to take food to starving people in Gaza under Israel’s criminal siege.

Khanna was on a fact-finding visit to the West bank to examine the impact of Israeli occupation. He said:

We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” he said.

And these hoodlums come in with machine guns — M4, an American-made machine gun — and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and ​the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.

Khanna is said to be considering a bid to stand for the Democrats in the next US presidential election.

Ro Khanna vs murderous land-thieves

The euphemistic term ‘settlers’ comes nowhere near the brutal reality of the mostly-imported land thieves driving the indigenous Palestinians from their land. ‘Settlers’ burn homes with Palestinian families inside. They beat and shoot Palestinians, poison water — a tactic used since the inception of the colony — steal or destroy crops and livestock — all under the protection of the occupation military and with complete impunity.

They also hold the whip hand in Israel’s government, with fascist bigots like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich free to demand mass murder and even more brutal repression of Palestine’s colonised, rightful inhabitants.

Featured image via House.gov

By Skwawkbox

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North Carolina Republicans have a message for Washington: The cavalry needs to come.

Their Senate nominee, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley, is lagging far behind Roy Cooper, the prized Democratic recruit and popular former governor, in polls and cash.

Republicans believe Whatley still has time to turn around those steep deficits — but only if the national GOP opens its deep pockets sooner than later, according to interviews with nearly a dozen North Carolina Republicans and national strategists.

A massive infusion of cash ahead of the typical late summer and early fall spending spree, they say, would combat Whatley’s biggest problem: a lack of name ID.

In a typical midterm year, the state’s Senate race would be a marquee battle. But the Cooper-Whatley matchup has been drowned out by other more high-profile contests in Texas, Maine and Michigan, leaving some in North Carolina anxious for more money and ways to push the national party publicly further into the fight.

“He has an uphill climb,” said Tuesday Sauer, chair of the Bertie County GOP. “Even though he was the RNC chair, a lot of people who aren’t politically involved really don’t know who Michael Whatley is.”

So far the race has been sleepy, focused on bread-and-butter affordability issues that are defining contests across the country. But the low-key nature of the race is hiding just how critical North Carolina is in November. The state, which President Donald Trump carried three times, is a must-win for Democrats frothing at the possibility of flipping the Senate. And in Cooper, Democrats have found a strong candidate to give them a chance at their first Senate win in the state since 2008, thanks to his status as a household name from a political career spanning four decades.

Some Republicans think Whatley, a former state party chair and close Trump ally who is a first-time candidate in his own right, is running a generic campaign that won’t cut it given his blue-chip opponent and the tough national environment.

“Michael Whatley has to give them a reason to talk about North Carolina, and so far he hasn’t. That’s the challenge,” said one GOP state official, granted anonymity to speak freely about the race. “There’s a lot of other races right now that give solid headlines, and right now the headline in North Carolina is: ‘Republican Party plays possum.’”

Cooper raised $13.8 million to Whatley’s $5 million in the first quarter of the year, and the Democrat entered the second quarter with $18.5 million in cash on hand, while Whatley reported having more than $2.5 million in the bank. Some public polling shows Cooper with as much as a 14-point lead over Whatley.

“The strategy is simple. Remind North Carolinians that Roy Cooper is a pro-crime, pro-tax, career politician whose failed leadership made life less safe and less affordable,” Whatley campaign spokesperson DJ Griffin said in a statement. “The campaign is humming, our partners are aligned across the board, and every day from now until Election Day is about one thing: sending Roy Cooper into retirement.”

Republicans plan to continue hammering Cooper on two major issues: crime and pandemic restrictions. While serving as North Carolina’s top executive during the height of the pandemic, as the virus ripped through prisons, Cooper reached a settlement with civil rights groups to release about 3,500 inmates to reduce overcrowding and health risks. A number of those inmates went on to commit new crimes — and Republicans blame Cooper for being responsible.

Cooper’s team argues that Whatley holds blame for pushing for the prisoners to be released during the pandemic.

“Whatley and his allies have been caught lying time and again, but the truth is Roy Cooper spent his career locking up criminals while Whatley pushed for prisoners to be released during Covid,” said Cooper campaign spokesperson Kate Smart, in a statement.

The race will reveal how fresh those Covid-19 memories are in the minds of voters. Republicans remain angry at Cooper for his pandemic restrictions, like shutting down churches and restricting access to visitors of patients in hospitals.

“At the first chance during Covid, Roy Cooper shut down all the churches, that’s major, while he let the bars remain open,” said state GOP Sen. Steve Jarvis. “It’s been a while, so I think that’s being missed right now. We need to get that back in the news.”

While antsy for the cash to arrive, many Republicans are optimistic that Whatley’s relationships within the party will come in handy.

The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund has committed $71 million to the race and so far has reserved more than $36 million in broadcast ads starting in early September, according to tracking service AdImpact. North Carolina, which contains several major media markets, is one of the more expensive states to run ads.

“If Dems think they have a layup in the only swing state that President Trump is 3-0, they’re out of their minds,” said a national Republican strategist working on the race, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the landscape.

Other PACs, like Old North Action have also reserved a large chunk of ad space this fall. Americans For Prosperity has already doled out more than $8 million this spring, the bulk of which was spent on digital and streaming ads for Whatley. North Carolina Republicans are also optimistic that Whatley will be a major beneficiary of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing political parties to freely coordinate with candidates and spend without constraint, given his stint as RNC chair. Republicans have a massive cash edge over Democrats: The RNC has more than $125 million in the bank, while the DNC has more debt than cash on hand, $18.3 million to $14.8 million.

“The fall of coordinated spending limits means the NRSC can discuss spending decisions directly with our candidates and their campaigns,” said Joanna Rodriguez, communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The era of raising the curtain on strategy and press and the Democrats we’re looking to defeat is over.”

“President Trump and Republicans are united behind Michael Whatley, who will be North Carolina’s champion in the US Senate,” said RNC spokesperson Emma Hall, in a statement.

Cooper has his own national money in the pipeline, but so far it doesn’t match the Republican side. WinSenate PAC, affiliated with Schumer-backed Senate Majority PAC, has promised more than $27 million in fall reservations for him.

“The reality of all of it is that between Republican super PACs and the RNC, they just have way more money,” said Morgan Jackson, a longtime North Carolina Democratic strategist and a Cooper adviser. “There’s no white horse coming, the way that Republicans are waiting on their savior to come.”

Still, Republicans’ biggest asset — Trump’s PAC MAGA Inc. — remains tightlipped about its own plans to distribute its massive $350 million warchest.

“That money needs to be brought to North Carolina, so the people of North Carolina can be reminded of what a crappy Governor Roy Cooper was,” said GOP state Sen. Amy Galey.

“Getting his name, face recognition in 100 counties is tough, especially in North Carolina, with just plain geographics of going from Manteo to Murphy,” said GOP state Rep. Donnie Loftis, of Whatley. “It comes down to funding. That money drives your message, and if you don’t have the money, you can’t get your message out there.”

North Carolina Democrats have their own concerns about lagging investments from the national party. Some fear that Cooper’s strong current standing in the race at this juncture will cause party leaders to overlook the state in favor of other shiny objects — like Texas, where Democrat James Talarico appears competitive with Republican Ken Paxton.

“I believe in the Coach K theory,” said Democratic House Minority Leader Robert Rieves, referring to former Duke basketball coaching legend Mike Krzyzewski. “It doesn’t matter how far you are ahead, you keep playing just as hard as you did the first minute.”

Erin Doherty contributed reporting.

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Nigel Farage has speculated that Ann Widdecombe was the victim of “premeditated murder”. He’s attracting controversy for the statement; especially because he also said ‘it doesn’t pay to speculate’ at this time:

Devon and Cornwall Police: “We would ask people not to speculate about what might have happened, particularly on social media.”

Nigel Farage: “From what I can see of it, from what I can make out, this was premeditated murder.”

— Ben Kentish (@BenKentish) July 11, 2026

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Speculation

On 10 July, Joe Glenton reported the following of Widdecombe:

A 26-year-old white male suspect has been arrested after former Tory minister and Reform UK politician Ann Widdecombe was found dead. She was an MP for over two decades and was known for her far-right and homophobic views.

The police have since released the suspect. It wasn’t speculation to report on the above, though, because it was reported by the police that they’d made the arrest. The following from Farage, however, is most certainly speculation:

From what I make out, this was premeditated murder. Whether it was politically motivated, whether it was someone with a grudge. I don’t think it pays at this time to speculate

We understand the 24-hour news cycle encourages this sort of thing from media figures. Take this from Mike Graham, for instance, who was a presenter on TalkTV until they sacked him over a racist social media post:

All pointing towards a police cover-up right now… https://t.co/GvM4pwLHXJ

— Mike Graham (@Iromg) July 11, 2026

Generally, it’s understood that politicians should hold themselves to a higher standard. We’re not sure anyone would expect this from Farage, of course, given his many ongoing scandals, but still.

Farage just can’t respect the wishes of the family and the request of the police : ie not to speculate

He’s feeding speculation for his own perceived political advantage

Just like he always does https://t.co/hjtIJLZsmk

— Bruce McD (@brucemcd23) July 11, 2026

As Ben Kentish noted in a tweet:

Devon and Cornwall Police: “We have made the active decision not to release further information…Releasing such information prematurely could compromise ongoing enquiries and may prejudice future investigative opportunities.”

Nigel Farage: “The car went onto the drive at approximately 12.30pm on Wednesday.”

Farage is openly just engaging in theorising too, saying:

One theory doing the rounds is that it was a burglary gone wrong. But a car went onto the drive at approximately 12.25-12.30 on Wednesday. She had done one interview in the morning… She was due to do another one at 1pm. So if you were a burglar, would you literally drive your car onto someone’s drive?

Farage and his big mouth

Farage is making it increasingly clear that he’s not fit to hold higher office. Whether it’s the many donation scandals or his loose lips, the man simply cannot behave himself. And while we’re often in favour of a little anarchic behaviour, that’s not the case when said behaviour solely benefits billionaire backers and dodgy donors.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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Rabidly Israel-first US senator Lindsey Graham has died aged 71. His office described his death as coming after a “brief and sudden” illness.

Graham was one of the more unhinged US politicians, even among Trump supporters. Irredeemably Israel-first, he even threatened a US invasion of the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lindsey Graham — Shameless genocider

Graham was a shameless supporter of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, though he would never have admitted it is a genocide. His comments make clear he had no concern whatsoever for Israel’s hundreds of thousands of Palestinian victims:

“I am with Israel. Do whatever the hell you have to do.”

“Level the place.”

“Do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin.”

Lindsey Graham had just visited a Ukrainian killer-drone factory, where he had toured weapons the manufacturer has developed to try to protect Israel from Iranian ‘Shahed’ drones and other retaliation.

Graham’s fellow Israel-firster, 84-year-old Senate leader Mitch McConnell, is also believed to have died. However, his office appears to be delaying confirming the death, potentially for political reasons. McConnell’s sheet-covered body was reportedly rolled “without urgency” into an ambulance late last week.

Muslim humanitarian Omar Suleiman responded to news of Graham’s death by wishing him an eternity of what he helped inflict on Gaza:

Bye Lindsey. May you live an eternity in ruins for the ruins you helped create in Gaza. Ameen

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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Mainstream outlets have been shining a light on Reform UK and Nigel Farage’s finances over the past month. Last week, this saw the Times covering the criminal aristocrat ‘Posh George’ Cottrell, who was providing Farage with various benefits in the runup to the 2024 election. Now, the Times are reporting Cottrell may also have made undisclosed donations to Reform UK:

EXCL by @ManuMidolo ft me @venetiamenzies @GeorgeGreenwood

The criminal who funded Nigel Farage made undisclosed donations to Reform in apparent breach of electoral law

George Cottrell lawyers at Carter Ruck refuse to say when he became permissible donor https://t.co/yFEalCjDdr

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— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) July 12, 2026

Posh George

Farage has multiple ongoing scandals right now, including:

• Multiple investigations into a £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire.
• Accusations he’s shilling for crypto on behalf of his donors.
• Questions over three houses he seemingly failed to declare.

The controversies for Farage multiplied over the past week, with the following hitting mainstream attention:

• Failure to declare financial support from convicted fraudster Posh George in the runup to the 2024 election.
• Revelation that Posh George had Reform UK business cards despite the claim he wasn’t involved with the party.
• Police probe into a £500k donation from Posh George’s mother to Reform UK (suspected to be from Posh George himself).

There’s also this:

I've been saying for nearly a year that this was money laundering. https://t.co/mEADwybqWI

— Mr Ethical (@nw_nicholas) July 12, 2026

Oh, and this isn’t a scandal per se, but it came out that Posh George refers to Farage as ‘daddy’. Make of that what you will.

Reform UK — Undeclared

In the latest on the Posh George affair, the Times are reporting:

George Cottrell used his own money to cover office costs totalling thousands of pounds for Reform after the last election and as recently as last year, sources have told Insight.

The crypto-gambler repeatedly used his personal bank card to buy computer tools and software to be used by the party’s staff. However, none of the donations were declared to the Electoral Commission as required by legislation.

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A party can be fined for failing to disclose such support under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which stipulates that a donation includes money, goods or services given free or at a discount exceeding £500 in value.

Posh George is a convicted fraudster, and may not have been a permissible donor at the time that he made some of the above donations. This is because Cottrell is a tax resident of Montenegro; the base of the crypto-gambling platform he’s involved with. While he is on the list of registered overseas voters, he’s only been on said since last December.

Reform UK describes Cottrell as a volunteer. Contrary to this, the Times are now reporting that Cottrell has been intimately involved with the party:

However, Insight can now reveal that as well as buying office equipment for the party, Cottrell has long had personal access to Farage’s party email and had his own desk next to the leader’s private office at party headquarters at Millbank, Westminster.

Additionally:

The insiders said he sat either with Farage in his personal office at headquarters or in a quad of desks in a room directly next to it, and claim he was involved in political and fundraising matters at the very highest level.

Mainstream attention

Because of how the right of reply process works, Reform UK knew this raft of stories were coming out. As such, this may explain Farage’s big by-election stunt. It’s unclear why the Reform leader felt a need to step down from his Clacton seat only to run in the race to reclaim it. Such a move could have worked as a distraction; it’s just failing to do so because there are too many scandals to distract from.

This, then, is why Farage panicked last week. He knew it was all about to unravel. This whole stunt was a desperate attempt to get ahead of it.

Remarkable. He's literally self-destructed. https://t.co/yyvUUURpt2

— Tom Bacon (@TomABacon) July 11, 2026

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We should note we’re using phrases like ‘mainstream attention’ for a reason, and it’s that independent journalists have been covering this stuff for years. As Don McGowan of No Holds Barred Pod said:

So many people had this story for years before the Times picked it up.@BylineTimes and @carolecadwalla were writing about George Cottrell over five years ago.

The difference is that the Murdochs have made an executive decision that they've finally had enough of Farage. https://t.co/E21vc3i2G1

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— Don McGowan (@donmcgowan) July 5, 2026

Carole Cadwalladr speculated that her reporting was ignored for the following reasons:

Reported while female.

Didn’t work for a right-wing newspaper.

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Dismissed & ridiculed by men who did.

Gaslit for a decade.

Sued through the courts.

But I’m not the loser here.

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This decade of denial has caused Britain irreparable harm.

This isn’t to say the establishment media and their considerable resources aren’t unearthing new information; it’s to say this stuff would have come out years ago if the will had been there.

Reform’s undisclosed money is piling up

If Nigel Farage had a penny for every ongoing scandal, he’d have enough money to stop taking undisclosed lump sums from foreign-based crypto billionaires. Well, maybe not that much, but only because the lump sums in question have been in the millions.

Things aren’t looking good for Reform UK, anyway, as even their voters are noticing the stench of corruption:

Nigel Farage named sleaziest politician in UK in new poll – and even Reform voters think ithttps://t.co/s41LFydTs9

— Reform UK Exposed (@reformexposed) July 11, 2026

Nigel Farage's Approval Ratings Plummet Amid Row Over His Financeshttps://t.co/uWGZk9O7c6?

— Reform UK Exposed (@reformexposed) July 12, 2026

We’re not sure how much longer this can go on for, but we doubt it’s all the way to 2029 electoral success.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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A viewer watching Lionel Messi for the first time might think the Argentine captain has drifted out of the match. He avoids constant pressing and chasing.

Instead, he spends long periods walking or standing to watch his surroundings. This approach defies the high-tempo, continuous pressure demands of modern football.

But behind this image that suggests calmness lies one of the most complex tactical ideas in the game. Walking is no longer just about conserving energy.

It is now part of his philosophy for managing the game. He reads the play carefully before deciding when to act.

This economy of movement allows him to wait for the critical moment where he can make a decisive impact.

FIFA tracking data, featured in a report by The Athletic, shows that Messi walked for 64% of his time during the World Cup.

This was the highest percentage among all outfield players in the tournament. He spent roughly 25% of his time standing or moving very little.

He ran for only 8.6% of the time, compared to the 23% tournament average.

Despite these numbers, the Argentine captain was not far from impact. By the end of the Round of 16, he was a joint-top scorer with eight goals.

He created 15 clear scoring chances and ranked third in touches within the attacking third. He also received the ball 97 times between the opponent’s midfield and defensive lines.

This high rate confirms that low movement does not equate to low effectiveness.

The information gathering phase

In traditional football, walking is seen as being absent from the match events, but Messi deals with it in a completely different way.

When he appears detached from play, he is busy reading defender movements. He monitors gaps between lines to identify players out of position and spaces that will open up later.

Pep Guardiola once noted that Messi spends the match’s opening minutes observing everything. He draws a mental map of opponent movements before he begins exploiting their weaknesses.

Once the ball reaches him, he has already formed a complete picture of everyone’s locations, making the decision-making faster than the defenders’ own reactions.

This philosophy explains why he runs sparingly. He avoids wasting energy chasing the ball, saving it instead for moments when an attack becomes a genuine scoring opportunity.

Many used to explain Messi’s genius by his technical abilities or dribbling skills, but the experiences of the best defenders in the world reveal another side of his superiority.

Raphaël Varane has faced Messi over twenty times. He notes that the hardest part of marking him is not his dribbling, but his positioning where defenders are unsure who should cover him.

He moves calmly between lines into a “gray zone.” Center-backs hesitate to step out, midfielders don’t advance to mark him, and fullbacks refuse to leave their positions.

During these few seconds of hesitation, Messi has already received the ball and started the attack that is difficult to stop.

Former defender William Gallas believes man-to-man marking Messi is a gift. A defender leaving their position simply grants Messi’s teammates the space they need.

Conserving energy

At thirty-nine, Messi no longer has the explosive speed of his early Barcelona days. Instead, he manages his physical effort differently.

Tournament data shows that 71% of his sprints occur in the attacking third. Another 21% end inside the penalty area. He only runs when scoring chances are high.

Every sprint is a calculated decision rather than raw physical effort. Running has become his tool for finishing attacks, not for building them from the start.

This style imposes extra burdens on his teammates, especially during pressing and ball recovery. However, the team seems fully convinced of this trade-off.

Pablo Zabaleta, of the FIFA Technical Study Group, says teammates run more to preserve their captain’s energy. They know his genius can decide a match in a single moment.

That’s why his teammates do not see his lack of running as a burden, but rather as an investment in the player most capable of making the difference.

Messi — Redefining greatness

Modern football long associated the best player with running, pressing, and covering space. Messi presents a completely different model.

Greatness, in his case, is not measured by the number of kilometers he covers, but by the quality of the moment he chooses to move. He doesn’t win matches with a multitude of steps, but with the precision of the single step that changes everything.

Therefore, he might seem, in the eyes of many, outside the match atmosphere, while in reality, he is the player most occupied with the match.

He observes, analyzes, and redraws everyone’s positions in his mind, waiting for the moment to pounce on the appropriate space.

Lionel Messi has turned walking into a smart tactical weapon. This proves that speed of thought is more valuable than foot speed. The calmest player often has the greatest influence.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

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According to Quds News Network, sources claim the Palestinian Authority (PA) has begun providing medical treatment for members of armed groups in Gaza accused of collaborating with “Israel” — admitting them to hospitals in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Authority treats collaborators with “Israel” in its hospitals

This follows the Zionist regime’s refusal to receive wounded members of these militia groups at hospitals inside “Israel.” Instead, the Palestinian sources claim the PA coordinated the collaborators’ transfer to hospitals under its administration, where they received medical care and logistical support.

One of the wounded fighters, who is identified only by the initials “S.D.,” was reportedly admitted to a hospital in Ramallah under the alias “Ahmed.” He suffered a severe head injury, including a fractured skull. The sources say he is affiliated with the militia group led by Ghassan al-Dahini. This operates in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip. The individual is said to have been wounded during an ambush carried out by resistance security forces in Gaza. It resulted in multiple members of the group being killed or injured.

Anti-Hamas militia members use aliases in hospital but PA aware of this

A senior Palestinian Authority official is said to have coordinated the patient’s admission to the hospital. Dozens of wounded individuals linked to these anti-Hamas militias have been received by hospitals and hotels across the occupied West Bank. The sources claim that many of these have been registered under false identities rather than their legal names. And this practice has taken place with the prior knowledge of officials within the PA.

According to analysis by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), at least five “Israeli”-backed armed groups have become increasingly active since late 2025. They mainly operate from occupation-controlled areas near the “Yellow Line.”

These groups have taken part in armed confrontations with Hamas-affiliated security forces. They have also carried out targeted assassinations of Hamas police and senior security officials, and detained members of Hamas. Civilians known to have collaborated with the resistance have also been abducted and killed by these militias.

Israeli occupation supports these militias

The occupation’s wider strategy is to support local groups that can challenge Hamas. It also aims to reduce the need for Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on the ground. So “Israel” provides support for these anti-Hamas militias, by giving them weapons, intelligence, logistics, training, and operational protection.

The aim of the Zionist regime is to weaken Hamas’ control by backing rival groups. But ACLED argues “Israel’s” continued empowerment of anti-Hamas groups increases divisions among Palestinians. It also makes clashes between Palestinian groups more likely. This will make it much more difficult for a single, united Palestinian leadership to emerge in Gaza.

Featured image via leMonde

By Charlie Jaay

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