Author: Miles Donavan

Surely, media scrutiny should be consistent, not weaponised selectively. The Telegraph – the perpetuator of last week’s BBC’s ‘crisis’ over alleged left-wing bias – has, once again, hit its own crisis. Yet when it comes to the Telegraph’s very prolonged crisis, the paper and its ideological allies, it seems, suddenly lose their voice. This week, with barely a murmur from the right-wing press, the Telegraph’s long-running ownership saga collapsed yet again. Earlier this week, Sky News reported that RedBird Capital Partners had abandoned its proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph Media Group. RedBird, alongside Abu Dhabi-based International Media Investments (IMI), formally withdrew its offer, confirming: “RedBird…

“Well at least the Telegraph was warning us Brexit would be a terrible idea.” The Telegraph, a paper whose Eurosceptic editorial line has been a fixture since the early 1990s, and which championed the Leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum, found itself mocked this week after publishing a story about tumble dryers disappearing from the Northern Irish market – because of Brexit. The article, headlined: “Brexit forces tumble dryers off the market in Northern Ireland,” reports that some popular models sold in Great Britain are no longer available in Northern Ireland because of new EU rules. According to the…

“People like me should pay more, it’s as simple as that.” Green industrialist and major Labour Party donor Dale Vince has renewed calls for the chancellor to raise taxes on the “super rich” in the upcoming Budget. Vince, who says he ranks among the “top 100 tax payers in Britain,” argues he should be paying more. The founder of the renewable energy company Ecotricity is joined by lawyer Stephen Kinsella, a fellow member of the campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK. The group is urging for a 2 percent levy on wealth above £10 million. Kinsella said he joined because “most…

Attitudes towards Israel have become hopelessly entangled with attitudes toward Jews, so entangled that many appear genuinely unaware that it is possible, indeed essential, to do two things at once: abhor antisemitism and condemn the devastation in Gaza. Accusations of antisemitism have long hovered around parts of the British right. Nigel Farage, who just this week was accused of antisemitic bullying as a schoolboy, has previously been criticised by Jewish community groups for invoking conspiracy tropes reminiscent of far-right narratives. In 2020, the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticised Farage for agreeing to interviews with openly antisemitic US media personalities, and…

“So how’s all that banning bonuses, sending executives to jail bulls*t working out I wonder?” Storm Claudia swept across the UK this week, causing widely reported floods across Wales, Gloucestershire and Derbyshire. But one quieter casualty lay in Buckinghamshire, where two rare chalk streams, the River Misbourne in Gerrards Cross and the River Chess in Chesham, endured hours of sewage discharges under the label of ‘storm release.’ These rivers, fed by groundwater filtered through chalk bedrock and home to diverse wildlife, saw more than 24 hours of sewage pumped into them by Thames Water in the space of a week.…

“Even if Keir Starmer had a radical change of direction, I don’t think people would believe him” Left wing Labour MP Nadia Whittome has called for the prime minister Keir Starmer to be replaced and a new party leader to be chosen. Whittome made the comments while appearing on Ali Milani’s podcast. On the podcast, Milani asked Whittome whether there needed to be ‘new leadership’. She responded by saying: “Yeah, I do. For a long time I said that we need a complete in direction in the party, and that doesn’t necessarily have to mean a new leader, as long…

Labour says Farage must “give the public a cast iron guarantee that any remaining pro-Russian links have been removed from his Party”. Ex-Reform leader in Wales and Nathan Gill has been sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for accepting bribes in exchange for making pro-Russia speeches in the European Parliament in 2018 and 2019. Reform leader Nigel Farage is now facing calls from Labour to launch a “forensic” investigation into his party to guarantee any further pro-Russia links are rooted out.  Gill was a close ally of Farage’s in the European Parliament from 2014, when he was…

The chancellor has a opportunity to boost the public purpose and deliver redistribution Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward. On 26 November the UK’s Labour Government led by Sir Keir Starmer will present its second budget since the July 2024 general election. What might it do or not do? A priority is probably to restore the government’s flagging fortunes. In seventeen turbulent months in office it has made poor policy choices. It antagonised…

Councillor Martin Abrams left Labour for the Green Party over a key issue: the ‘catastrophic failure’ of Thames Water I was a Labour Party member for almost 20 years but a few months ago I resigned my membership and joined the Greens. I didn’t leave the Labour Party lightly. For years, I pounded the streets under successive Labour Party leaders, knocking on doors, delivering leaflets, as a CLP Officer and then a local Councillor because I believed Labour, despite its many flaws, was still the best vehicle for change. But under Keir Starmer’s duplicitous leadership, culminating in dozens of broken…

‘If the Government thinks this week’s hard-line immigration shift will help halt the nosedive in its support, they’re wrong.’ Labour MPs have criticised the Home Secretary’s announcements on immigration this week, calling them “desperate political posturing” and “regressive”.  On Monday, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that refugee status will become temporary and be reviewed every 30 months. Refugees could then be returned to their home nation if it is deemed safe. In addition, refugees will have to wait 20 years to permanently settle in the UK, instead of the current five. Yesterday, Mahmood made some further hardline announcements on…