Thursday, December 25, 2025
Merry Christmas everyone
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Reform under fire on special needs education
The paper says that the schools standards minister Georgia Gould has slapped down comments from Reform party figures, which have included claims of children being “naughty”, bad parenting and an overdiagnosis of SEND issues:
She fiercely rejected the idea of parents doing something wrong and warned such claims impact children’s sense of identity and belonging at school.
Asked about Reform, Ms Gould told The Mirror : “I've seen comments about over diagnosis, comments about parents being the issue, about these being just naughty children.
“I think that when I speak to parents and young people, those comments have a real world impact for how they feel about themselves and their communities, how children feel with their sense of identity and belonging at school. I completely reject the idea that this is something that parents are doing wrong.
“Any parent - I would do the same - would want to get what's best for their child and I think we should be working alongside parents, listening to them and changing things together, not blaming them for the system failures we're seeing.”
In recent months, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has spoken out multiple times about the SEND system. He has claimed there has been an “over-diagnosis” of kids with SEND and said it was “insane” to see children wearing ear defenders in classrooms.
The Boston and Skegness MP also suggested some parents were trying to make money through the SEND system. He said middle class families were “playing the game” by allegedly trying to save VAT on private school fees by getting an exemption through the SEND system.
Earlier this year, Nigel Farage similarly claimed there is an overdiagnosis of mental illness and other general behavioural disabilities within children that is “creating a class of victims”.
Dr David Bull, Reform's chairman, was later criticised by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for claiming that “many of these kids are naughty kids, bad parenting”.
Day after day, Reform demonstrate just how unfit for government they really are.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Has Starmer declared war on the lobby?
Heale explains that Downing Street has announced a major overhaul of the ‘lobby’ briefing system:
Currently, accredited political reporters are invited to twice-daily briefings with No. 10 spokesmen. But Tim Allan – the newly-appointed executive communications director – wants to change all that. He plans to scrap afternoon briefings and host ‘occasional’ morning press conferences in place of morning briefings. ‘Content creators’ are to be invited along too. Allan claims these changes will ‘better serve journalists and to better inform the public about government policies.’
Naturally, most lobby journalists disagree.The current and outgoing chairmen of the parliamentary press gallery have declared that they are ‘furious’ at the changes, unceremoniously announced, without consultation, just before the Christmas recess. In a statement, David Hughes and Lizzy Buchan pointed out that ‘Downing Street has promised more ministerial press conferences – but they will obviously control the timetable for those and will no doubt seek to choose who they take questions from.’ Such questioners are usually chosen well in advance, in contrast to lobby briefings which offer every journalist an equal chance to probe No. 10.
So, what is Keir Starmer’s team thinking? They are concerned that their message to the public is not currently being heard. Allan is one of those who has been pushing the ever-expanding New Media Unit, which aims to meet voters where they are in 2025: increasingly, online. It follows that briefings should therefore be opened up to influencers who can help ‘micro-target’ government messaging. The lobby, by extension, is regarded as less of an influence than it once was. Some of Starmer’s allies regard it with disdain, complaining that journalists are obsessed by gossip and hounding ministers from office. Curbing opportunities for interrogation therefore makes sense.
Complaints about political journalists are nothing new in Whitehall. The last time that Downing Street declared ‘war on the lobby’ was under Boris Johnson in early 2020, when selected journalists were banned from briefings. Back then, Labour was happy to pose as the champions of press freedom. ‘Those gaining access to such important information should not be cherry-picked by No 10’, said Tracy Brabin, the-then Shadow Culture Secretary. Eighteen months into this embattled government, the mood has clearly changed. It fits with a wider authoritarian bent too, with military chiefs now gagged, ID cards adopted and jury trials scrapped.
Some of what Allan is proposing seems sensible. He is right to call for more specialist reporters and offer them additional background briefings. The expansion of new media means there is a decent case for content creators to attend lobby briefings, with the likes of Guido Fawkes and GB News obtaining their own accreditation in recent years. But pretending that a hand-picked ministerial press conference offers the same level of transparency as the existing set-up is clearly disingenuous.
Were today’s changes to be announced at the beginning of an administration, they might have been seen as a sign of strength and wisdom. Yet with Starmer’s polling at record lows, they smack of deflection and shooting the messenger. The government’s communications might be poor – but much of their policy offer has been equally unsound. Curbing access for political journalists is unlikely to end Starmer’s woes – nor win back a public clearly souring on him either.
Once a government adopts a siege mentality like this then we know it is in trouble.
Monday, December 22, 2025
No more political appointees after Trump sues BBC
The paper says that she has told them that "political appointments to the board have undermined the sense of independence and trust from the public":
Nandy herself has previously been accused of leaning on the BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, to get rid of director general Tim Davie over the Bob Vylan Glastonbury episode, a move she denies. She insists “my job is to make sure that the BBC remains independent, remains free from political interference, but is far more accountable to the public that it belongs to”.
The charter review green paper – which is open for public discussion and will set out the terms for the next 10 years of the BBC’s future – was released on the day news broke that Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10bn. The US president is claiming damages over a 2024 episode of Panorama in which his 6 January speech was edited in a way that, according to the BBC’s subsequent apology, gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
The edit sparked uproar only recently, following the leak of a critical memo sent to the BBC board by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the corporation’s standards committee. This in turn prompted a row over political board appointments, as Robbie Gibb, a BBC board member with links to the Conservative party, amplified the report, leading to the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness.
“The BBC has consulted lawyers. They’ve been very clear that there is no basis for a successful claim. They’ve made clear today that they intend to contest this,” Nandy said, giving the government’s firmest backing yet to the corporation’s response to the Trump lawsuit.
The 33-page suit has been filed in Florida, where the courts’ jurisdiction will be contested, not least because the Panorama film in question was never broadcast there in the US and was viewable online only with the help of a virtual private network (VPN).
Trump has sued two major US networks so far this year for what he claimed was unfair reporting. Both CBS and ABC paid his foundation multimillion-dollar settlements rather than fight the White House, even though legal experts said both cases were without merit.
“We’ve been absolutely crystal clear that although the BBC has made mistakes in a number of areas over recent years, it remains one of the most important institutions in our country, alongside the National Health Service,” Nandy told The Observer. “Any legal action that the BBC faces will not affect decisions that we make about the future of our national broadcaster.”
Doing away with political appointees must be the bare minimum in ensuring that the public retain confidence in the corporation. Further work is needed however to help their news and current affairs department understand the concept of balance, something that has been lacking in their headlong rush to promote Farage and Reform.
Sunday, December 21, 2025
A long overdue inquiry
The BBC report that the review will be led by former senior civil Philip Rycroft and will report back in March:
Speaking in the House of Commons, [Communities Secretary Steve] Reed said: "The facts are clear. A British politician took bribes to further the interests of the Russian regime, a regime which forcefully deported vulnerable Ukrainian children and killed a British citizen on British soil using a deadly nerve agent.
"This conduct is a stain on our democracy. The independent review will work to remove that stain."
Earlier this year the government published its strategy, external for "modern and secure elections", which Reed said "will close loopholes that should have been closed long before we entered office".
"However, in the time since that strategy was published, events have shown that we need to consider whether our firewall is enough," he added.
He said the findings of the review would inform the government's Election and Democracy Bill, which it plans to publish next year.
The government said the review would conduct an "in-depth assessment of the current financial rules and safeguards and offer recommendations to further mitigate risks from foreign political interference".
It will also examine whether rules are in place to "protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptocurrencies".
The government described the review as "a response to the evolving threat posed by political interference to British democracy, including the shocking cases of former MEP Nathan Gill and Christine Lee".
In 2022, MI5 issued a rare warning alleging that Ms Lee was a Chinese agent who infiltrated Parliament and made donations to politicians.
Ms Lee has previously said the MI5 alert "wrongly accused her of knowingly engaging in political interference" on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Last month, Gill became the first politician to be jailed under the Bribery Act.
He is thought to have received up to £40,000 to help pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.
He was an MEP when he accepted money from Oleg Voloshyn, a man once described by the US government as a "pawn" of Russian secret services.
However, Liberal Democrat spokesperson Zöe Franklin is also right in calling for the government to introduce a cap on political donations because "a small number of extremely wealthy individuals now wield disproportionate influence over British politics - that includes overseas donors".
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Alcock and Brown and the first transatlantic flight
The RAF commemorated the occasion with an exhibition in Swansea Museum and a very swanky dinner, which I wrote about on my Mayoral blog, here.
As Wikipedia recalls, together with John Alcock, Arthur Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. The two men flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.
The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by aeroplane in "less than 72 consecutive hours". A small amount of mail was carried on the flight, making it the first transatlantic airmail flight. The two aviators were awarded the honour of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) a week later by King George V at Windsor Castle.
The original plane is housed in the British Science Museum, hanging from a ceiling. The picture is of a replica produced for the exhibition.
The Swansea link comes from the fact that Sir Arthur Whitten Brown lived here for most of his adult life, working at the Vickers office in the town centre. There is though, no official blue plaque on Belgrave Court, as this letter to the Guardian in 2019 makes clear:
Jan Wiczkowski (Letters, 16 June) claims Arthur Whitten Brown as a Manchester man, although Brown was originally from Glasgow and died in Swansea in 1948. However, it is certainly true that he, John Alcock and their pioneering flight are largely ignored these days.
My mother was a neighbour of Whitten Brown when he lived in Belgrave Court in the Uplands district of Swansea. From what he seems to have told her the historic flight was at times terrifying, yet this was a man who would not go to the air raid shelter during the three-night blitz on Swansea in February 1941.
Your correspondent is right: “courage tempered with a little wild and optimistic madness” deserves to be remembered and celebrated, yet there is only a small, inconspicuous memorial on Belgrave Court. If anyone deserves a proper blue plaque, it is Whitten Brown.
Rev Dr Peter Phillips, Swansea
Time for that to be put right.
Friday, December 19, 2025
Keir Starmer's democratic deficit
They are in the process of restricting the right of people to demonstrate, proscribing protest groups like Palestine Action, proposing a crackdown on what demonstrators can chant, ramping up the use of facial recognition, introducing compulsory ID cards, and doing away with jury trials.
Now, as the BBC reports, elections in some local councils are facing further delays, amid an escalating blame game over Labour's planned overhaul of local government in England.
The BBC website says that ministers have indicated they will agree to postpone elections due next May until 2027, if authorities request it by mid-January. Polls in nine such areas have already been postponed once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025:
The government plans to get rid of the two-tier system of district and county councils, creating a swathe of new authorities that will be responsible for delivering all local services in their areas from 2028.
Ministers have now asked all 63 councils affected by the reorganisation that are due to hold elections in May to say whether they require a delay.
In a statement, Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said "multiple" authorities had asked for a postponement, after expressing concerns about their ability to run "resource-intensive" elections alongside the transition.
Others had questioned the cost to taxpayers of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished, she added.
Speaking in the Commons, she added that those seeking a suspension were only a "minority" of affected councils, without offering further details.
The announcement of further potential delays, made on the last day before Parliament's Christmas break, comes just two days after Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told MPs scheduled elections "will go ahead".
Conservative shadow local government minister Paul Holmes said local leaders should not be blamed for further delays, adding that Labour's reorganisation had been "rushed and deeply flawed".
He accused Labour of "pausing the democratic process to serve their own political interests".
Whilst there is a precedent for cancelling elections to councils that are about to be replaced, the slow progress of the reorganisation has seen Labour face accusations it is acting undemocratically.
Local polls in nine areas, including Suffolk, East and West Sussex, and Essex, have already been put back once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025.
If elections are delayed again in any of these areas, it will mean some councillors will have sat for seven years without facing local voters.
Elections for new mayors in Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton have also ready been delayed two years until until May 2028, it was confirmed earlier this month.
The question is, have they delayed these elections as stated, because of administrative reasons or because they are running scared of losing thousands more seats? I was a member of a transitional authority in 1995, and there were no problems in accommodating elections as part of the reorganisation process.
Why are Labour always taking the policy route favoured by dictators rather than that preferred by democrats?
Now, as the BBC reports, elections in some local councils are facing further delays, amid an escalating blame game over Labour's planned overhaul of local government in England.
The BBC website says that ministers have indicated they will agree to postpone elections due next May until 2027, if authorities request it by mid-January. Polls in nine such areas have already been postponed once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025:
The government plans to get rid of the two-tier system of district and county councils, creating a swathe of new authorities that will be responsible for delivering all local services in their areas from 2028.
Ministers have now asked all 63 councils affected by the reorganisation that are due to hold elections in May to say whether they require a delay.
In a statement, Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said "multiple" authorities had asked for a postponement, after expressing concerns about their ability to run "resource-intensive" elections alongside the transition.
Others had questioned the cost to taxpayers of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished, she added.
Speaking in the Commons, she added that those seeking a suspension were only a "minority" of affected councils, without offering further details.
The announcement of further potential delays, made on the last day before Parliament's Christmas break, comes just two days after Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told MPs scheduled elections "will go ahead".
Conservative shadow local government minister Paul Holmes said local leaders should not be blamed for further delays, adding that Labour's reorganisation had been "rushed and deeply flawed".
He accused Labour of "pausing the democratic process to serve their own political interests".
Whilst there is a precedent for cancelling elections to councils that are about to be replaced, the slow progress of the reorganisation has seen Labour face accusations it is acting undemocratically.
Local polls in nine areas, including Suffolk, East and West Sussex, and Essex, have already been put back once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025.
If elections are delayed again in any of these areas, it will mean some councillors will have sat for seven years without facing local voters.
Elections for new mayors in Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton have also ready been delayed two years until until May 2028, it was confirmed earlier this month.
The question is, have they delayed these elections as stated, because of administrative reasons or because they are running scared of losing thousands more seats? I was a member of a transitional authority in 1995, and there were no problems in accommodating elections as part of the reorganisation process.
Why are Labour always taking the policy route favoured by dictators rather than that preferred by democrats?
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Farage under pressure to apologise
The paper says that some 25 former pupils and one ex-teacher have come together for the first time to express "dismay and anger" at the Reform UK leader's reaction to the allegations in recent weeks:
Mr Farage has been facing increasing pressure to apologise after his former peers alleged he made racist and antisemitic remarks at school. Claims include Mr Farage saying “Hitler was right” and making references to Nazi gas chambers at his private secondary school Dulwich College.
Mr Farage has repeatedly denied the allegations, with Reform UK suggesting the claims are part of a smear campaign against him.
In a powerful letter, the 26 signatories said it is "false" to suggest their allegations are politically motivated, as they "represent a broad swathe of professional backgrounds and political opinions".
They added: "Most of us have had no contact since we left Dulwich. Until writing this letter, we have not acted as a group. We have neither plotted nor conspired. All we have in common is that we either directly experienced or witnessed your racist and antisemitic behaviour."
The signatories also said it was "not true" they had only come forward since Reform began leading in the polls, pointing to previous reporting from as far back as 2013 in which similar allegations were made.
Elsewhere, they said Mr Farage's recent denial "disturbs us" and said it is important people seeking high office "own their past". The letter continued: “While we agree that no one should be judged in later life on the basis of what they have said or done in their youth, those seeking high office need to own their past and demonstrate honesty.
“Your denials have caused dismay and anger, and compelled us to come forward. None of us has taken lightly the decision to speak up. It has been deeply troubling to revisit our memories, let alone to share them with journalists and the broader public.
“However, what disturbs us is less what happened years ago, hurtful as it was, but rather your refusal to acknowledge your past behaviour or apologise for it.”
The group also countered Mr Farage's suggestions "that the kind of language we recall you saying was typical of the cultural climate of Britain at the time".
While they said there was "some truth to this", they added: "However, these personalities did not make direct or personal remarks. They did not intimidate Jewish boys with references to perishing in gas chambers, as you did. They did not order a Black child of nine to ten years of age to go back to Africa, as you did. They did not chant vile racist ditties, as you did. Your behaviour was exceptional, even for those times."
However much the Reform leader wants it to, this issue is not going to easily go away.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Another slippery slope?
His stance comes following the appalling attack by two gunmen on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on Sunday, killing 15 people and injuring a further twenty-seven:
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said that while “free speech is an important right in this country, that can’t extend to inciting hatred or harassing others”, saying the police will use their powers “more robustly” to tackle the proliferation of antisemitism.
Starmer and the Chief Rabbi are, of course, absolutely correct that hate speech has often led to unacceptable and horrendous atrocities against Jews, but also against other minorities, and where there is a clear causality then the police need to act.
But at the same time, in enforcing any new rules, care must be taken to distinguish between, for example, rhetoric criticising the actions of the state of Israel, which is not anti-semitic, and language that is clearly discriminatory.
There are inherent risks in asking the authorities to police what people can and cannot say when demonstrating. The ban on supporting Palestine Action for example, has led to hundreds of unnecessary arrests and overreach on the part of the police, with some people being arrested for displaying perfectly legal wording on placards.
The police already have powers to deal with hate speech and incitement. A new directive in which officers are asked to make a judgement call on what is anti-semitic and what is not, could well act as a severe restraint on people's basic democratic rights and lead to more confusion and inconsistencies in the way that peaceful protest is policed.
It would be a further step down a very slippery slope and one that should be considered very very carefully before it is taken.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
TUC brand Reform as a threat to Welsh industry
The paper says that the TUC believe that thousands of jobs in Wales are at risk under Reform and Tory policies that could revive Margaret Thatcher's "industrial destruction":
Ahead of crunch Senedd elections next year, analysis for the TUC found Nigel Farage's party poses the biggest threat to Welsh industry. Reform has vowed to scrap net zero and proposed cutting renewable subsidies, which risks making clean industrial upgrades unviable.
Analysis found this could starve Welsh industry of investment and deny factories vital investment, threatening 39,873 industrial jobs. Reducing investment in home-grown clean power will also make the UK more reliant on imported gas, which means bills can be hit by global shocks like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It comes after years of Tory neglect pushed factories, car plants and manufacturing sites in Wales to the brink. Last year, thousands of steel workers in Port Talbot lost their jobs when Tata closed its blast furnaces.
The Conservatives would threaten similar numbers of jobs, but researchers said the likelihood of the party enacting their policies was less likely. By comparison, Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Lib Dems have all made stronger commitments to retaining or expanding clean industrial upgrades.
Flintshire, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire are the local authorities most at risk from job losses, with over 2,000 industrial jobs at risk in each, the analysis found. 7,765 auto workers are threatened, as are 7,544 metals workers and 5,813 plastics and rubber workers, both directly and indirectly in the supply chain.
TUC Cymru President Tom Hoyles said: “Welsh industry needs urgent action from all parties to survive and thrive in the 21st century. Policies which seek to turn back the clock and revive Thatcher’s industrial destruction would put thousands of Welsh jobs at risk.“
Industrial workers and the TUC are launching the “Save Welsh Industry – No More Site Closures” campaign this week. They are calling on politicians in Westminster and Cardiff Bay to bring forward measures to slash industrial electricity costs and to accelerate clean energy investment.
The campaign also demands work to prevent offshoring of jobs and emissions and to promote domestic industry, as well as a commitment to buy Welsh-made steel, cement and materials for big infrastructure projects.
It is about time the consequences of Reform's policies were spelt out in this way.
