Thursday, May 21, 2026
A failure of transparency and accountability
The paper says that one of Keir Starmer's top aides was confronted by senior MPs who accused the Government of changing the goalposts over which documents it plans to release. This is despite the fact that the PM has committed to releasing all relevant files and messages around the decision to name Mandelson as ambassador to the US:
Thousands of pages of documents will be published after the next Parliamentary recess, which ends on June 1. But ministers face calls to explain why some files have been redacted or withheld.
Darren Jones, the PM's chief secretary, told the Commons that details such as junior officials' names, emails, and phone numbers - and data about third parties - were rightly being removed. And he said raw data around vetting, such as bank account and relationship details, would never be released as this would undermine the process.
But Tory Sir Jeremy Wright, a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) - which is overseeing the release of documents - accused the Government of finding new reasons for withholding information. He said that while ministers agreed documents would be redacted to avoid compromising national security or international relations, other reasons are now being used to do so.
He said: "We cannot accept that the government is entitled to ignore or to unilaterally alter the terms of the humble address (the Parliamentary motion demanding the documents are released)."
The Government is under intense pressure after it emerged UK Security Vetting (UKSV) had not recommended giving Mandelson security clearance before he was sent to Washington. This was overruled by the Foreign Office without the PM or his team being told.
Mandelson was sacked as the UK's 'Trump whisperer' in September last year as new details emerged about his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. He was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office following claims he shared senstive information with Epstein. This is alleged to have included details of an EU bailout following the 2008 economic crash. He denies wrongdoing.
Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, told MPs: "I am disappointed at the answers that the Government has given.
"It seems to me that one of the questions in relation to the Mandelson appointment is why it is that when the UKSV document had two red boxes ticked - which included this man should not be appointed - that somehow or other that was translated into he should be appointed.
"And it is very important that the public know and understand that we are learning from the mistakes that were clearly made, and we cannot know that those lessons have been learned unless they are checked.
"And the committees in this House, my committee and the ISC are trying our best to get to the truth of this, and we are having obstacles put in our way."
This is not a good look for Keir Starmer's government nor will it help to win back public confidence.
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
A train fare too far?
The paper adds that the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the truncated railway would not be entirely completed until as late as 2043:
The figure is the first official estimate of HS2’s budget in 2026 prices. Alexander said the total cost would range between £87.7bn and £102.7bn, with only a third of the rise resulting from inflation.
The first trains between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street will now start running between 2036 and 2039, with the full railway running from London Euston to join the west coast mainline in Staffordshire scheduled to be completed between 2040 and 2043.
Alexander said the forecasts were “built on solid foundations with credible estimates as ranges”, after a 15-month review conducted by HS2 Ltd’s chief executive, Mark Wild, on taking up the post.
She blamed the Conservative government for standing by and watching “the world’s most expensive slow-motion car crash”, saying that Labour had inherited a “litany of failure”.
While inflation played a part, Alexander said two-thirds of the budget increase was due to works being missed from the scope of the original plans, underestimates and inefficient delivery.
She added: “I can confirm that the previous government spent most of HS2’s budget without laying a single mile of track. That is the shocking legacy … If it seems like an obscene increase in times and costs, that is because it is. And if it seems like I’m angry, I am.”
She said the government had considered cancelling the entire project, but that “it could cost almost as much to cancel the line as finish it”.
Alexander promised: “We will deliver HS2 to completion.”
However, she said trains would be operated at lower speeds, to save about £2.5bn, reducing the top speed from about 225mph to about nearly 200mph (360km/h to 320km/h) , in line with most international standards. The original design, she said, had been “a massively overspecced folly … If we were a country the size of China I could understand it”.
The change reduces the cost and time needed for testing new trains, as well as cutting the specifications of the control and signalling system. Plans to build the line with automatic train operation – a guidance system normally only used on the busiest urban rail lines with high-frequency services – are expected to be dropped.
She said Wild and HS2 Ltd’s chair, Mike Brown, “have an almost impossible task on their hands” to turn the project around, but would be managing contracts properly with improved oversight.
How this project got so out of hand is difficult to believe. Government capital schemes have a history of running late and over-budget, but this really takes the biscuit.
Meanwhile, as the cost rises the Barnett conssequential that Wales should be receiving on this project is going up as well. Perhaps the new Welsh Government will make that point to the Prime Minister and Chancellor.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
The saga of Farage's £1.4m house
The paper says that accounts for the Reform leader’s personal media company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, suggest that money was not withdrawn from the firm at the time of the house purchase:
The apparent discrepancy raises fresh questions about Farage’s transparency with regard to his finances. He is currently being investigated by the parliamentary standards commissioner over his failure to declare a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, as revealed by the Guardian.
He claims that the gift was made to fund his security. But Farage bought his house in Surrey on 10 May 2024, only weeks after receiving the money from Harborne, a billionaire who has lived in Thailand for two decades.
Farage’s spokesperson had told the BBC last week that he paid for the Surrey property purchase with his £1.5m fee for participating in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in late 2023.
An analysis by the Financial Times raises questions about that claim.
Farage has previously said that his earnings from the reality show were paid to Thorn in the Side Ltd.
Accounts for the company show its cash position increased from £300,000 on 31 May 2023 to £1.7m on 31 May 2024.
The accounts suggest that no dividend was paid out in the period and its cash position increased from £1.7m to £2m between May 2024 and May 2025.
Farage, rather than Thorn in the Side, bought the Surrey home and there is no mortgage on the property.
A Reform spokesperson said the house was not bought with Harborne’s gift.
The spokesperson suggested that this was proved by the fact that anti-money laundering checks relating to the purchase were carried out before the gift was made.
The spokesperson said: “Nigel has multiple sources of income, as you can see from his parliamentary register.”
He did not respond to the question of whether the Reform leader stood by his claim that the money from the reality show was used to buy his home.
Farage did not register Harborne’s gift, which was made within 12 months of his election as the MP for Clacton, in his register of interests. He claims that this was not necessary as it was a personal donation.
The parliamentary standards commissioner has announced an investigation into the Reform UK leader’s failure to declare the gift.
Nimesh Shah, a tax expert at accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, reviewed the company accounts for the FT and said they suggested money from Farage’s reality TV show appearance was not used to purchase the house.
There needs to be a lot more scrutiny on Farage's finances, so it is refreshing to that somebody has made a start.
Monday, May 18, 2026
Labour split on the European Union
The paper says that Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last week in protest at Keir Starmer’s leadership, kicked off a war of words after he argued on Saturday that Britain’s future lay back in the EU:
After the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, dismissed his comments as odd, Streeting’s allies hit back, saying the government’s lack of willingness to discuss the issue was symptomatic of why it is so unpopular.
The row is an indication of the divisions within Labour as the party heads into a byelection in Makerfield that could determine the fate of the entire government.
It began when Streeting said: “In 2026, the British people increasingly see that in a dangerous world we must club together, both to rebuild our economy and trade, and improve our defence against the shared threats from Russian aggression and America First.
“The biggest economic opportunity we have is on our doorstep. We need a new special relationship with the EU, because Britain’s future lies with Europe – and one day back in the European Union.”
He also said he intended to stand in a leadership contest if one was triggered, as is likely if the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, wins in Makerfield and then challenges the prime minister.
Nandy, however, criticised Streeting’s comments on Sunday. She told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “I actually think this is just a bit odd. I listened to what Wes had to say very carefully yesterday, and I know that he’s got a strong view about this, and always has had, that we shouldn’t have left the European Union.
“Frankly, that’s one that I share. I campaigned for remain, I think it [Brexit] was a mistake, and I think the Brexit deal has been a real problem for us. But I don’t really understand why the sudden focus on Europe.
“We’re already, as a government, trying to repair in a pragmatic way the needless damage that was done by that poor Brexit deal to people’s living standards in towns like mine, without reopening the circular arguments that we ended up in as a country.”
Streeting allies promptly hit back, saying Nandy’s unwillingness to talk about EU membership was a symptom of a wider reluctance to take political risks, which they argue is one of the reasons Starmer is so unpopular and may face a leadership battle within weeks.
“There is no point in trying not to upset anybody, that’s what got us into this problem,” said one. “Sometimes you have to be willing to upset people to get things done.”
The timing of this row is interesting. With Andy Burnham set to contest the Makerfield by-election, an area that voted overwhelmingly for Reform, anything that suggests leading Labour figures want to unravel Brexit could well impact on his campaign. I'm sure Wes Streeting had no intention of that happening.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Promises, promises
They add that Plaid Cymru's Heledd Fychan told them that the arts, culture and heritage sector did not get adequate support from the previous Labour Welsh government.She is promising to reverse that trend and that this is "clearly a priority" for new First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, with her being given a seat around the cabinet table to represent it:
"We can't promise huge investment overnight, but I will clearly put together a plan where we can see that increased investment year-on-year," she told Radio Wales Breakfast.
Fychan said she would put together a plan, over the next 100 days, to support a sector which she said had been "siloed and under-funded" by Labour.
She said her portfolio, which also includes sport, had a significant role to play in the well-being of people.
Heledd Fychan had a senior job at Museum Wales before becoming a Senedd member in 2021
Last year, a Senedd report, external found Wales had the second lowest spending per person on cultural services in Europe and the third lowest on recreation and sports.
The Labour Welsh government's budget for 2025-26 saw funding for culture, the arts and sport restored to 2023-24 levels.
However, that follows a period of cuts to the sector as the government prioritised frontline services including the NHS.
This is highly commendable and fully in line with what I would expect. If Fychan can achieve this ambition then she has my full support. The cynic in me, however, says that year-on-year increases in fundings for the arts is not going to be as simple as she suggests.
Plaid has only been in government for a matter of days, they haven't had time to get to grips with the nation's finances, and we are aware that things are going to be tight over the next few years. With other promises to fulfil around childcare, health and many other issues, they really are going to have to find a magic money tree.
Saturday, May 16, 2026
The world's first passenger railway
As Wikipedia recalls, originally built under an act of Parliament, the Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad Act 1804, to move limestone from the quarries of Mumbles to Swansea and to the markets beyond, it carried the world's first fare-paying railway passengers under an agreement effective from 25 March 1807.
They add that the train later moved from horse power to steam locomotion, and was finally converted to electric power, using the largest tram cars ever built for service in Britain, before closing in January 1960, in favour of motor buses:
In 1958, the South Wales Transport Company (the principal operator of motor bus services in the Swansea town area and predecessor of the modern-day First Cymru company) purchased the railway from the old owning companies (the Swansea and Mumbles Railway Limited, and the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company), having previously been the lessee in succession to the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company since the 1930s, and the following year went to Parliament with an abandonment bill. Despite vociferous local opposition, the bill became law as the South Wales Transport Act 1959.
One car (no. 2) was saved for preservation by members of Leeds University in Yorkshire and stored for a while at the Middleton Railway in that city, but it was heavily vandalised and eventually destroyed by fire. The front end of car no. 7 was also saved for preservation at Swansea Museum; following many years of neglect it was initially restored in the early 1970s by members of the Railway Club of Wales and is now on display in the Tram Shed alongside the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea's Maritime Quarter.
A Mumbles Railway Society was formed in 1975 to formally archive material and to maintain the hope that one day the line would re-open. The Story of Mumbles website reports that the largest trams seated 106 passengers, and ran on the Swansea & Mumbles Railway from 1929 to 1960. Unusual in having no doors on one side (facing seawards), the 13 cars in the fleet were all built by Brush at Loughborough.
Labels: lochist
Friday, May 15, 2026
The first thing to fix if Starmer is to survive
There is an opportunity to make a start on this reset with the news that the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign has announced it is going ahead with a High Court challenge against the decision to deny millions of 1950s-born women compensation.
The Mirror says that new analysis for the campaign found WASPI women outnumber the majorities of sitting MPs in 302 constituencies - including 142 Labour-held seats:
Neither the Tories nor Reform have pledged to overrule the decision not to award compensation. Angela Madden, chair of the WASPI campaign, said: “The Government has had every opportunity to do the right thing for WASPI women.
"Instead, they have made a political choice that risks alienating voters in hundreds of marginal seats across the country. Labour MPs have seen the electoral data.
"They know WASPI women have the numbers to unseat them. Yet ministers continue to ignore the independent Ombudsman, their own backbenchers, and millions of voters.”
And she added: "We will not be ignored, and we will not give up this fight." In 2024 the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) found the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was guilty of maladministration for failing to properly communicate changes to the state pension age.
This meant they were unable to plan for their future, the watchdog said, urging compensation of £1,000 to £2,950. This would cost up to £10billion, a bill the Government said it was not prepared to pay.
In January, affected women were told for a second time they would not receive compensation. The WASPI campaign is now seeking a fresh High Court challenge, and is in the early stages of preparing it.
Between April 2010 and November 2018 the State Pension age for women gradually increased from 60 to 65. It went up again to 66 in October 2020, and is due to go up to 67 by 2028.
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said in March: "The Secretary of State set out the Government's position in his oral statement to Parliament, including acceptance of maladministration and apology to the women affected.
"Our focus now is on delivering an action plan to implement lessons learned in how DWP communicates state pension matters going forward."
This was an issue that Labour MPs, including Keir Starmer campaigned on prior to the general election, only to jettison it as soon as they got in power. It is one od several broken promises that has led to Labour's appalling poll ratings and election losses.
If the Prime Minister carries out another u-turn and agrees to the compensation now, then that will show that his speech about putting things right had some substance to it after all. I won't hold my breath.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Farage under investigation
The paper says that Farage, who received the money weeks before announcing he would stand as a candidate in the 2024 general election, has said the gift was intended to cover his personal security costs and therefore did not need to be declared.
However, other parties argue that the money from the Thailand-based businessman falls within rules requiring MPs to declare any potentially relevant gifts or donations received in the 12 months before entering parliament:
Daniel Greenbergh, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is understood to have begun an investigation under rule 5 of the code of conduct obliging MPs to “fulfil conscientiously” requirements relating to their registration of interests.
It states that new MPs must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election. This must be done within one month of their election, and they must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days.
If the investigation finds Farage committed a particularly serious breach of parliamentary declaration rules, he could be suspended from the Commons. A suspension of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition, potentially forcing him to fight again for his Clacton seat.
There is no fixed timetable for investigations by the commissioner as individual cases vary in complexity.
A speech Farage was to give on Thursday evening to supporters in Sunderland, a key target for Reform, was “temporarily postponed” by the party after the investigation was announced.
Reform said the reason for the postponement was “the chaos in government and an impending Labour leadership race”. However, news of the investigation has overshadowed attempts by the party to capitalise on its historic breakthrough in the elections last week.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Mr Farage’s office is in communications with the parliamentary commissioner for standards. He has always been clear that this was a personal, unconditional gift and no rules were broken. We look forward to this being put to bed once and for all.”
Farage also faces the prospect of a second inquiry after the Electoral Commission – the independent body that oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK – received a complaint from the Conservatives over the £5m from Harborne.
The elections watchdog has told the Tories it is considering the complaint and will respond by the end of the week. It had said earlier that it would respond to the Conservatives by 12 May, after the elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England.
The outcome of these investigations will be awaited with bated breath,
Daniel Greenbergh, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is understood to have begun an investigation under rule 5 of the code of conduct obliging MPs to “fulfil conscientiously” requirements relating to their registration of interests.
It states that new MPs must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election. This must be done within one month of their election, and they must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days.
If the investigation finds Farage committed a particularly serious breach of parliamentary declaration rules, he could be suspended from the Commons. A suspension of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition, potentially forcing him to fight again for his Clacton seat.
There is no fixed timetable for investigations by the commissioner as individual cases vary in complexity.
A speech Farage was to give on Thursday evening to supporters in Sunderland, a key target for Reform, was “temporarily postponed” by the party after the investigation was announced.
Reform said the reason for the postponement was “the chaos in government and an impending Labour leadership race”. However, news of the investigation has overshadowed attempts by the party to capitalise on its historic breakthrough in the elections last week.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Mr Farage’s office is in communications with the parliamentary commissioner for standards. He has always been clear that this was a personal, unconditional gift and no rules were broken. We look forward to this being put to bed once and for all.”
Farage also faces the prospect of a second inquiry after the Electoral Commission – the independent body that oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK – received a complaint from the Conservatives over the £5m from Harborne.
The elections watchdog has told the Tories it is considering the complaint and will respond by the end of the week. It had said earlier that it would respond to the Conservatives by 12 May, after the elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England.
The outcome of these investigations will be awaited with bated breath,
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Will replacing Starmer make a difference?
The Independent reports on the views of one Labour MP, who believes that replacing Starmer as prime minister will solve none of the country’s problems:
Southport Labour MP Patrick Hurley issued a powerful appeal to his party to “stick with Starmer”.
Far from making things better, removing Sir Keir could result in “destabilising” the government and lead to even greater economic difficulties.
Labour was in danger of making the same mistake as the last Conservative administration, which “did no good for the country” by replacing one prime minister after another.
In an interview with the BBC, the MP said: “The fundamentals will not change no matter who the prime minister is.
“We have got two globally significant wars raging that are impacting defence spending, public services… energy security and climate change.
“We have got levels of economic growth that have not been sufficiently high for well over 15 years. None of this is going to change if we change the person at the top of the tree. None of this is going to change just by having a new leader and prime minister.
“In fact, it is probably going to get worse because destabilising your own government tends to drive bond yields even higher. No prime minister is going to be able to change that. We should stick with Keir Starmer.”
He also issued a warning to fellow Labour MPs plotting to replace him.
“These leadership people touting names around should be careful what they wish for.
“The domestic problems this country has got right now are more challenging than in the last 100 years – and things may only get worse if there is a change at the top.”
He continued: “The [financial] markets are going to look at the stability of the government... the ability to repay borrowing we have already incurred, excessive amounts of borrowing under the previous government due to Covid and other issues.
“If we start making changes now, the rates those markets charge us will be even higher. There will be even less room to manoeuvre to improve our public services.
“The one challenge we have got as a government is to get our economic performance back up to a decent standard in order to better fund our public services and do all the good Labour things we want to do.
“And we won’t be able to do that if we continue with the destabilisation we saw with Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak and a whole litany of Conservative prime ministers who came and went and did no good for the country.
“The last thing we should do is tear a leaf out of their book.”
Hurley has a point. Do any of those seeking to succed Starmer have an alternative that can deal with these issues, can they offer an economic miracle?
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Welsh Labour in denial
Nation Cymru reports that Jo Stevens has been strongly criticised for refusing to admit that the unpopularity of Keir Starmer was a major factor in Welsh Labour’s Senedd election defeat.
Instead, she used an article published in WalesOnline to put the blame for the defeat on the outgoing Welsh Labour government:
Echoing campaign positions taken by Reform UK, Ms Stevens criticised policies like the 20mph default speed limit in urban areas, which is saving lives, and the planting of trees in Africa as part of a modest aid programme.
In her article, Ms Stevens stated: “We have a long list of proud achievements – protecting public services, introducing breakfast clubs, building new schools, and making prescriptions free. These are tangible changes that made real differences to the lives of people across Wales.
“Frustration about Welsh Government’s delivery has, though, been growing for many years. Before the pandemic, it was clear that people were running out of patience with our record on health. It felt like we were about to reach a tipping point. Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething’s mature handling of the pandemic, in contrast to Boris Johnson’s partygate scandals, afforded Welsh Labour the benefit of the doubt.
“But goodwill has a sell-by date if it isn’t backed up by delivery – and we cannot simply rely on the achievements of the past to carry us through.
“Ultimately, despite record investment, standards in our schools and the performance of our NHS just aren’t good enough. We could not convince voters that we had a credible plan to improve public services.
There is no doubt that the failure of Welsh Labour to deliver was a major complaint, but as one party source said, the number one issue on the doorstep during the Senedd election campaign was Starmer himself. By not acknowledging that, Jo Stevens becomes part of the problem.
Monday, May 11, 2026
‘Extremist’ Reform candidates elected to councils across the country
The paper says that social media posts logged by the campaign organisation ranged from the use of neo-Nazi symbols to antisemitic conspiracy tropes and references to Muslims as “rats”:
Among them was Stuart Prior, who won two seats; one on Rochford district council and one on Essex county council. He won despite media coverage exposing extremist activity on a social media account that posted pictures from his home. Prior allegedly described white people as “the master race”, said black people should be “segregated” and called Muslims “rats” who could never suffer a genocide. Confronted by the Daily Mirror recently, Prior initially denied the account was his before saying: “I don’t recall that at all, blimey.”
In Bolton, Derek Bullock was elected to the seat for Hulton. Bullock was twice expelled from the Conservative party for allegedly posting anti-Muslim hatred, including reacting to the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 with the words: “Shoot the Pakis on the spot.” Last week, he said he believed a screenshot of the post was fake.
Trevor Jones of Reform won in the ward of Tonge with the Haulgh in Bolton from the Labour council leader, Nick Peel. Jones once posted that, if you vote Labour, you “get sharia”, referring to Islamic law.
Another newly elected councillor, Andrew Mahon in Blackburn South East, once posted on Facebook that the British blackshirt leader Oswald Mosley “was 100% right” and calling for an “educational correction” in the UK. He also said that racist firebrand Enoch Powell was “correct”.
Caley Ashman, who won the seat for Cradley North and Wollescote ward in Dudley, once referred to “goyslop” in a post – a reference to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy to distract non-Jewish people using fake news.
Ben Rowe, who was elected in the Ham ward in Plymouth, has posted that Keir Starmer is under the control of a “Globalist zion [sic] cult”. Rowe, who has accused “the Jews” of “creating division by forcing other races on our societies” and said immigrants are "breeding like rats", has said that his posts were “taken out of context”.
A dossier alleging antisemitism against more than 30 Green party candidates emerged last week and about a dozen were either withdrawn or suspended by the party. Two were arrested by the Metropolitan police on suspicion of stirring racial hatred over posts on social media, but none appear to have won their seats.
There were indications that a number of “paper candidates”, who had no intention of winning, were elected. Among them was Daniel Devaney, a Reform candidate in Bradford’s Clayton and Fairweather Green ward, who posted “blast them all off the face of the earth” about Muslims. Devaney, who apologised for the post, said he had withdrawn prior to polling day but appeared on the ballot and won. A byelection will be triggered if he does not take up the seat.
The Islington Tribune reported that two candidates in Finsbury Park, north London, had to be consoled after accidentally winning election to the council. Local party members promised to support the women.
Reform has said it is investigating a number of candidates, including those named by HNH, almost all of whom were reported for their extremist activities prior to the local elections last Thursday.
Is this just the start of the revelations?
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Which party has the biggest problem with antisemitism?
The paper says that when asked which of the main five parties has an antisemitism problem, Labour and Reform were identified most frequently in a new YouGov poll, with both at 33 per cent, a quarter said the same of the Greens, while the Conservatives and Lib Dems registered 16 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.:
The survey, conducted in the aftermath of the attack, showed almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of Britons believe prejudice against Jews is a major or significant concern, with the views of Green voters broadly in line with supporters of other parties and voters overall.
The findings come after Mr Polanski – who is the only current Jewish leader of a major political party in the UK – sparked outrage for sharing criticism of the police on social media after footage showed two officers repeatedly kicking the alleged Golders Green attacker in the head after he had been tasered.
Mr Polanski apologised for sharing the post in haste, but he insisted the police should not be above scrutiny.
The Greens are also facing accusations of antisemitism after Labour said it would release a document which they say exposes 25 Green Party local election candidates for having “disturbing views”.
The candidates have been accused of “a raft of harrowing antisemitism, dangerous conspiracy theories and appalling comments supporting Hamas and Russia”.
Two people identified have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred towards Jews, according to Labour.
The polling also found Green Party supporters are as likely as Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters to view antisemitism as a substantial problem, with about 70 per cent of all these voters taking that view.
Reform UK voters are the least likely to say so, at 63 per cent, but this is in line with the views of the wider public.
These results are disturbing and have provoked a political war of accusation and counter-accusation.
Saturday, May 09, 2026
The Mumbles oyster industry
The story of Mumbles website picks up on the history of the now defuunct oyster trade there. They say that the Horsepool was a natural harbour encompassed on most of its seaward side by a sandbank, bordered by the roadside on the other and stretching from near the White Rose Public House, as far along as The George Hotel:
On a normal high tide, the sea would rise up over the sand-bank, across the Horsepool and reach as far as the side of the road. From this haven the Oyster Men and their skiffs would set sail to dredge for oysters, way out in Swansea Bay and down the Bristol Channel.
The Mumbles oyster trade had been in existence for many hundreds of years and was indeed, one of the mainstays of the village. The Romans are believed to have made use of the local supply, during their stay. In the 17 C, Isaac Harmon, while in Oystermouth assisting Edward Lhuyd in his ‘View of Gower, 1690,’ found that with a population of approximately 500, ‘here are boates imployed in & about ye takeing of oysters every year . . .’
In the early days, they used open rowing boats, but around the mid nineteenth century, they began to use vessels rigged with a mast, a mainsail, a forestaysail and a jib, which were known as Skiffs.
Over the years, the Oyster Beds were given colourful names which include: The Hen and Chickens, Musselly Haul, Itchy Poll, Trashy Ground, Robin’s Patch, Middle Drift and Duck Haul. California, Red Hole and East India, which were sited in Swansea Bay, with others further afield. The Oystermen navigated by using conspicuous objects ashore and between Port Eynon and Mumbles there were some eleven of these markers. However, since they were often closely guarded secrets, their locations were sometimes lost when their users died.
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The season was from September until May and in Victorian times, would be commenced with an Oyster fair, when at the skiff‑owners’ expense; the oyster dredgers would be given a meal of bread, cheese and beer followed by sports such as donkey‑racing, climbing the greasy pole and sack‑racing.
In the later years of the nineteenth century and in Edwardian times, it became the custom for the wives of those remaining in the trade, to sell the oysters from stalls set up on the Promenade or from ‘saloons’ situated along the roadside. The children made use of the discarded shells, by constructing beautiful little oyster‑shell houses, some even lit from within by candles, for visitors to admire and, perhaps, to reward with a penny or two.
Undoubtedly, the hey-day of the industry was from 1850 until 1873. By 1863, there were 70‑80 local craft, with 250 men employed during the season. The oyster’s price was by now 9 shillings per 1000 to the wholesalers who then sold on for 6d‑8d per score.
20,000 oysters was not an uncommon catch for a single boat and each boat could make two journeys a day. At its height, around 560 men were employed in 188 skiffs, three in each one, with a quarter of the proceeds going to the boat and a quarter to each man. Each man could earn as much as £6 a week and consequently, oysters were an everyday food for the locals, often eaten in an omelette, or coated in bread-crumbs or in a ‘carpet-bag’— a grilled steak filled with oysters.
Unfortunately, there was a rapid decline in the numbers of Oysters dredged due to pollution of the sea from the River Tawe, the primitive sewerage system at Southend and over-fishing. In 1920, a deadly virus finished the industry in Mumbles completely.
Labels: lochist
Friday, May 08, 2026
The systematic abuse of the democratic process
The paper says that politicians from a range of parties have reported abuse and harassment in the lead-up to the elections in England, Scotland and Wales, with the Green party describing this year’s campaign as the worst in memory:
Labour’s Dan Jarvis, the security minister, condemned “the rising tide of vile abuse, harassment and intimidation aimed towards elected officials and candidates” online and in person. “Anyone engaging in this sort of behaviour is directly attacking our democracy and we all must do more to stop it becoming normalised,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Green party said some candidates had received death threats or been “yelled at or chased down the street”, and some had withdrawn from campaigning in certain areas due to harassment.
“Anecdotally, this has been the worst year in memory,” the spokesperson said. They said the party had been “a focus at this election more than ever before”, with “some wildly false claims being made about the party and its representatives, which some members of the public have accepted on face value”.
It is unknown how widespread abuse and harassment has been on the campaign trail this year. The Electoral Commission will publish its report on the 2026 elections, including its findings on abuse and intimidation, in the autumn.
Before the elections, the Electoral Commission said: “Candidates at elections have been subject to unacceptable abuse while campaigning in recent years.”
Its most recent candidate research found that 61% of respondents, who were candidates in the 2025 local elections in England, experienced harassment or security threats during the campaign and 71% said they avoided some campaign activity because of fear of abuse.
The abuse has occurred across political divides. The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, criticised Elon Musk in April after detailing how his party’s candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds were being subjected to “utterly appalling abuse” on X, which Musk owns.
This week the Labour mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, told the BBC he had been threatened and followed while campaigning in Coventry.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress released a statement on Tuesday condemning “reports of increased racial and Islamophobic harassment of candidates in the run-up to the Scottish parliament elections”, while a spokesperson for Plaid Cymru said online discourse had “become increasingly toxic”.
In two separate incidents in April in Birmingham, a Green party candidate said he was accosted by campaigners supporting an independent group of candidates.
Hanooshi Hassan, who was leafleting at a mosque at the time, said he was threatened by one individual and was repeatedly told by the group that the Green party was the “gay party”. “There was homophobia immediately,” he said. “They were being very loud and boisterous, calling us the gay party and saying that we want to turn their kids gay.”
He added: “One of the men … threatened to beat me up.” West Midlands police confirmed they had received two reports of alleged harassment on 17 and 24 April on Dudley Road and said inquiries were continuing.
Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, who is running as an independent candidate in Birmingham and is not aligned with the group involved in the incident with Hassan, said he had received sustained racial abuse, mainly online, during the campaign.
In one incident after Jaddoo distributed leaflets on Monday, he said he was told by an unknown caller: “Listen you black bastard, do not put anything else through my letterbox. I’m voting Reform.”
Jaddoo said much of the abuse he received online was “fuelled by rightwing rhetoric”. “I think the way political parties are speaking, they are stoking racial discrimination and they are damaging race relations in this country,” he said.
Democracy cannot survive a toxic atmosphere like this for long. much of it originating from the sort of vile and racist language coming from Reform.
Thursday, May 07, 2026
The battle over energy bills
The paper quotes Ami McCarthy, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, who says: “With people’s bills and prices soaring from yet another fossil fuel crisis, these local elections have a global context – driven by the Iran war. Getting the UK out of the fossil fuel doom loop and on to renewables would secure a stable and affordable supply of energy. Voters face a choice between parties that want to keep us hooked on expensive, imported oil and gas, and those that offer a way out of this cycle of insecurity.”
The stakes are high with Reform taking an anti-climate stance, vowing to encourage fracking, impose punitive taxes on renewable energy generation, and block solar and windfarms, while the Conservatives have also embraced more drilling in the North Sea and played down the climate crisis, without explicitly denying it:
Yet the world’s leading energy economist and the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said new oil and gasfields would do little to improve the UK’s energy security or ease high prices.
Instead, opting to boost renewable energy generation offers a better way out of the crisis, as solar and wind energy are cheaper than oil, more secure, and are not subject to stranglehold by hostile forces, argues Mike Childs, the head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth. “Most people in Britain back strong climate action. When the same solutions will bring down bills, restore nature, boost the economy and make our local areas nicer places to live, voters deserve candidates who will act in their interests – not on behalf of polluters or the super-rich.”
Energy is not the only issue. “The need for cheaper bills, better quality housing, access to green space and more frequent bus services are among the top concerns voters care about,” said Childs, after listening exercises carried out by Friends of the Earth groups around the UK.
Water and air pollution were also big concerns, said Ed Matthew, the UK director for the E3G thinktank. “Local people want the pollution blighting their lives to end.”
We need to make the case to voters about the dangers of climate change and the need to bring in policiies to deal with it. The results today, will show how effective that argument is.
Wednesday, May 06, 2026
Who paid for Farage's house in Clacton?
The paper says that in an interview with French publication Le Monde, Ferrari was questioned over revelations in the Guardian that she had purchased a house in her name in Clacton after Farage had claimed to be the buyer.
They add that Farage initially said the arrangement was for “security” reasons but some months later, he told reporters that Ferrari came from “a very wealthy French family and can afford it” – although a subsequent BBC investigation raised further questions about the size of her family’s alleged wealth:
Quizzed by Le Monde on the issue, the publication said she “dodged” the question. When asked if she bought the property thanks to a family inheritance, she said: “Yes and no, that would be a very large inheritance … There’s more than one way to pay for a house.”
“I can’t say how much my grandmother gave, that’s my business,” Ferrari added. “The main thing is that I paid all the taxes, there was no tax evasion, and the house is in my name.”
Following the interview, Labour called on Farage to clarify how the purchase of the property he uses is Clacton was funded.
“Last week we discovered that Nigel Farage failed to declare a £5 million donation from a crypto-billionaire and this week we discover that Farage’s partner might not have paid for all of his house in Clacton after all,” they said.
“The leader of Reform needs to stop dodging scrutiny and urgently answer questions about this purchase … Farage has failed to be straight with the public over the full facts.”
The Guardian first reported last year that the house in Clacton, which Farage initially said he had bought himself, was in fact wholly owned by Ferrari.
While Farage said the ownership structure was for security reasons, Ferrari purchasing the house would have saved the Reform UK leader an estimated £44,000 in the higher rate of stamp duty to which he would have been liable, given he already owns other properties.
He also denied lending or giving his partner money towards the £885,000 price of the property in Frinton-on-Sea, saying last September: “I haven’t lent money to anybody. I didn’t give her money. She comes from a very successful French family and she can afford it herself. It’s convenient, it works, and she loves it there.”
The BBC investigation found Ferrari’s father’s haulage business in Strasbourg was liquidated in 2020, and her parents were living in a flat in a suburb of the French city worth about £300,000, co-owned by the couple and their two daughters.
The BBC team said the family also owned the former premises of the haulage company, which is rented out for an estimated €8,000-€9,000 (£7,000-£7,800) a month.
THe mystery continues.
Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Reform playing the race card
The paper says that James Evans, a candidate for Reform, has now become the first party figure to brand comments by key Reform supporter, Arron Banks as racist after the Brexit bankroller prompted a furious reaction from opponents after writing "Welsh lad?" in response to a clip posted on X featuring a Black activist campaigning for Plaid Cymru on Monday.
This row though pales in comparison to the new policy announced by Reform yesterday. The party has announced a plan to site migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas.
The proposal to prioritise places that vote for Green councils or MPs when it sets up detention centres for migrants facing deportation has been denounced as “abhorrent” from opponents across the political spectrum.
Reform says it would deport “all illegal migrants” and, to make this possible, it has announced plans for deportation centres holding up to 24,000 people.
The Guardian reports that in a post on social media, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, said that these would be located in Green-voting areas. He explained:
So here’s our promise:
A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.
Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.
And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.
Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you.
If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.
This is an important exercise in democratic consent, not just for our mass deportation policy, but for where the detention centres are placed.
Given @ZackPolanski openly advocates for open borders, I look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.
Yusuf also promoted the slogan “Vote Green, Get Illegals” on his post.
In an interview with Sky News, Yusuf said that Reform accepted that deportating migrants on the scale proposed by his party would be unprecedented for the UK, although he said it had been done in other countries. He said this policy was about ensuring there was “democratic consent” for the policy.
Responding to the announcement, Mothin Ali, the Green party’s co-deputy leader, said:
Reform keep making abhorrent announcements to distract voters from they fact they want to privatise the NHS. Greens are focused on building council housing, fixing our public services and bringing down the cost of living.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:
This grotesque policy reveals Reform’s contempt for all voters – including their own. Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Nigel Farage has sunk to a new low: he is clearly more interested in stoking division and anger than in serving the whole country.
The promotion of a potentially illegal policy in this way is blatant race-baiting.
Monday, May 04, 2026
Who is watching Big Brother?
The paper says that with the Metropolitan police almost doubling the number of faces they scan in London over the past 12 months and a rising use of the technology by retailers in the UK, Professor William Webster, the biometrics commissioner for England and Wales, said that the “slow pace of legislation was trying to catch up with the real world” and “the horse had gone before the cart”:
Dr Brian Plastow, who holds the same role in Scotland, warned the technology was “nowhere near as effective as the police claim it is” and said there was a “patchwork legal framework” throughout the UK. He said in England and Wales, police were “really just marking their own homework”.
The watchdogs said new laws were needed to govern when and how police forces used live facial recognition technology, with a new regulator to clamp down on misuse.
Several bodies have oversight of the technology, including the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The Home Office is considering a new legal framework for the technology as it also plans to introduce nationally what it calls “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching”.
Members of the public wrongly labelled as suspected criminals by shops using AI cameras said there was no accountability or recourse to complain. They said the system had left them feeling “guilty until proven innocent”.
They described the ICO, which is responsible for monitoring facial recognition tech and the biometric data it uses, as “toothless” and unresponsive.
British police forces and high street retailers claim the technology makes streets safer, but others criticise it as Big Brother-style mass surveillance, with risks for civil liberties and data privacy.
So far this year the Met has scanned more than 1.7 million faces in London hunting for suspects on watchlists, up 87% on the same period in 2025.
It has also emerged:
* An independent audit of the Met’s use of facial recognition technology (FRT) has been indefinitely postponed after the police requested delays.
* Polling shows 57% of people believe the systems are “another step towards turning the UK into a surveillance society”.
* A whistleblower claimed shop-based face-scanning systems had sometimes been misused by shop or security staff “maliciously” adding members of the public to watchlists.
Webster said: “We could be talking three years, at a minimum, before regulation is in place and active. And we already have a rollout of live face recognition in a dozen different police forces.
“The technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and in time we will see it everywhere, including in the static surveillance camera network.”
The government really needs to step up on this issue. Allowing the unregulated growth of surveillance and facial recognition in this way is a direct threat to civil rights and our democracy.
Sunday, May 03, 2026
Reform blazenly promoting a major donor
The paper says that several Reform politicians including Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro machine:
At a rally last year in Birmingham, Farage entered the stage on one of the repair vehicles and suggested it would be used in Reform-run councils when the party had taken control at local elections.
Describing JCB as “one of the most incredible companies in the world” in March 2025, he said: “This machine can mend potholes at half the cost that currently is being charged by other commercial operators, and aren’t potholes just the perfect symbol of broken Britain?
“So I thought I’d come in on a JCB, with a machine that actually works, and that county council should use, if they weren’t tied in, to five and 10-year contracts with inferior providers. But we’ll fix that, won’t we, when we control those county councils?”
After Farage lavished praise on the business, JCB gave a donation of £200,000 to Reform in November last year. The donation came after years of the family-owned company giving money to the Conservatives, with its chairman, Anthony Bamford, having sat as a Tory peer until 2024.
Now at least two Reform-run councils have adopted the machines through their contractor. They said this had been done through the proper procurement channels and not cost them any more money.
Councils run by other parties, including the Tories and Labour, also make use of the PotHole Pro. Lilian Greenwood, the Labour party’s roads minister, has described it as “one of the many great examples of using new technology to repair potholes faster and demonstrates how companies are harnessing new technology to repair potholes faster.”
Farage arrives on the side of a JCB digger during Reform UK’s local and mayoral election campaign launch in Birmingham. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Alamy However, favourable mentions of the machine appear most concentrated among Reform politicians.
A month ago, Anderson posted a video of a PotHole Pro at Nottinghamshire county council, saying: “Have a look at this, you’ve got to be impressed.”
Jenrick visited a JCB factory with Nottinghamshire council in February claiming the machine could fix potholes six times faster, while Tice recorded a video on one ata Reform conference last autumn saying he was “excited to see this fantastic machine working”.
Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, also accused councils of using “iron age technology” of pickaxes rather than “cutting edge tech like the JCB Pothole Pro” in May last year.
Reform are even promoting the JCB equipment on some local election leaflets, with Byline Times identifying two flyers in Barnet and Kirklees, where the machine is named as the answer to public frustration with degraded road surfaces.
It is little wonder that the Liberal Democrats have sent a complaint to the Electoral Commission and are calling for an investigation.
Saturday, May 02, 2026
When Swansea had its own racecourse
There are two notable restrictive covenants that apply to the estate. One of these is that any alterations to people's homes need to get the consent of the estate agent, the second is that there should be no pubs within the estate boundaries. Despite this latter prohibition there is one pub, just up the road from me, but the Manselton Hotel was not built for that purpose. It was opened as an actual hotel to service the nearby racecourse.
There is a large area of open ground above Manselton, which I have edged in red on the map below. This land is known locally as the racecourse, because in the nineteenth century it actually accommodated a raceourse. The land itself, now contains a disused quarry, shows evidence of mining activity and has a number of underground streams. To its west there is a straight footpath, the incline path, leading from Brynhyfryd Square at the bottom to Penderry Road at the top. This used to contain the track for a mineral railway.
Today Manselton is a suburban area of the city of Swansea, but back in the latter part of the 19th century it was a town in its own right. Swansea had its own popular, flourishing racecourse, but such was the desire for another successful, sustainable meeting in the Swansea area that businessmen planned a super meeting for Easter Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th April 1887. This was a meeting to be held under National Hunt rules, situated on a closed course at Manselton with races over 2 miles plus.
The course was financed by a rather gullible Richard Mansel Mansel, but was the brainchild of his financial agent Arthur Burr. Richard had inherited a fortune when his father died in 1878, but in the will he was granted ‘tenancy for life’ which meant he could benefit from the estate but not sell it. Burr saw that the best way of maximising this predicament was to build a hotel and enclosed racecourse, modelling it on the Park courses of England like Kempton and Sandown, so benefitting from the potential profit that each of the ventures would make.
The racecourse, a mile and a half around, was enclosed with 32 turnstiles to welcome paying punters through the gates. It was planned to be a huge inaugural meeting with well over 50000 people expected to attend. A brand new grandstand was erected to hold over 2000 people. The first meeting opened with the South Wales Selling Chase which was won by Ulster Chief owned by Mr Owen, while the Hunters’ Steeplechase went to Tom King owned by Mr Olive. The management were forward thinking, offering to return rail fares and Irish Boat fares to all owners of horses entered in the races; offering stabling for up to 50 horses, and ensuring that a working telegraph office operated in the grandstand on race days.
For all the hype proclaiming the 'super meeting', and the success of the first meeting, the momentum could not be sustained. Whilst a further meeting took place on August Bank holiday 1887, the writing started to appear on the wall by Christmas of that first year. Further meetings were held on Monday 1st August and Monday 26th December 1887, when the crowd was disappointing, the gate take low and the associated Swansea Race Ball had to be cancelled. The venture proved too costly despite the gate receipts and revenue from stallholders. The final meeting took place on Thursday 18th October 1888.
Labels: lochist
Friday, May 01, 2026
Now the Green Party struggles with an anti-semitism scandal
The paper says that the Metropolitan Police arrested two women under the Public Order Act, one confirmed as one of the party’s candidates, on Thursday morning:
The posts, seen by The Telegraph, are alleged to have included comments from one of the women such as: “ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s revenge.”
A now-deleted post from one of the women also claimed the government was overrepresented with “Zionist Jews”, and another allegedly included a picture of a serpent marked with the Star of David choking the world.
The Met Police said: “Police have arrested two women, aged 57 and 54, on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, an offence under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986.
“They remain in police custody. The arrests follow an investigation launched after concerns were reported to police on Tuesday, 21 April about antisemitic material that had been posted online.”
A Green Party spokesperson said: “This is now a police matter. We won't be commenting at this stage."
The arrests came hours after two Jewish men were stabbed in an alleged terror attack in Golders Green.
The stabbings are the latest in a series of attacks on the Jewish community in north-west London in recent weeks and have prompted calls for urgent action, as well as accusations the government has not done enough to tackle antisemitism.
Anti-semitism was a huge problem for Labour under Corbyn, let's hope that the problem hasn't spread to the Green Party.
