Author: Miles Donavan

Reform campaigned on a promise to cut wasteful spending and save taxpayers’ money before the local elections Reform UK’s ‘flagship’ local authority, Kent County Council, is under fire for pushing through plans to hire political assistants, which could cost taxpayers nearly £100,000 a year. Reform put forward the motion, which passed, on Thursday last week. There is a projected £60 million gap in Kent County Council’s finances for 2026/27, even with a planned 5% council tax increase. In addition, Reform was voted in on a pledge to cut wasteful spending and save money for taxpayers, yet are now appointing political…

Place your bets now. In 2026, don’t be surprised if we’re reading headlines about “woke” fonts being purged from Reform-run councils altogether. Concluding ‘woke-bashing of the week 2025’ with an especially bizarre tale, we head, inevitably, to the United States, and specifically to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has dragged typefaces into the right’s war on woke. Rubio has ordered a halt to the State Department’s official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that he dismisses as a “wasteful” sop to diversity. The new instruction, sent to all diplomats and effective immediately, is the latest move by…

This familiar trope persists in the right-wing media – reduce climate policy to sneering attacks on Ed Miliband and avoid engaging with the substance of the argument. They couldn’t let the year end without one last swing at Ed Miliband. “Ed Miliband plan is so stupid no sane country would consider it – and now the truth is out,” splashed the Daily Express this week. The newspaper’s personal finance editor, Harvey Jones, branded the energy secretary a “total liability” who “shouldn’t be in government,” accusing him of pursuing a “lunatic net zero charge” that is “destroying jobs and businesses.” The criticism quickly…

Britain’s train operators charge fares more than twice the European Union average for routes of comparable length. Spain’s socialist-led government has announced the launch a national public transport pass, offering unlimited travel across the country by train and bus for a monthly fee of €60 (around £52.50). The pass will come into effect in the second half of January, with a discounted rate of €30 for passengers under the age of 26. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the scheme could reduce monthly travel costs for some workers by as much as 60%. “We’re talking about 2 million people who will…

To present a frozen £10 payment, worth a fraction of its original value, as indulgence is another example of grievance-mongering dressed up as journalism. The Telegraph faced another round of mockery this week, for an article entitled: ‘Labour’s Christmas bonus. It’s for welfare claimants of course.’ Since December 1, a £10 Christmas ‘bonus’ has been paid into the bank accounts of people receiving certain benefits. The payment is not new, nor is it a Labour initiative. It was introduced in 1972 by Edward Heath’s Conservative government under the Pensioners’ and Family Income Supplement Payments Act, at a time of high…

From Trump to Fox News, Johnson to Fleet Street, misinformation is not a series of isolated failures. It’s a business model, one that rewards outrage, punishes accuracy and treats the public not as citizens to be informed, but as audiences to be manipulated. In what is the last RWW of the year (we’ll be back on January 10), takes us President Trump – no less – who has long styled himself as the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes ‘fake news.’ In January 2017, reacting to media scrutiny of an executive order, he declared: “The FAKE NEWS media … is not my enemy,…

Even readers of the Express, often dubbed the Brexpress, were not entirely convinced by their paper’s fury. Erasmus is back. And right on cue, so is the Brexiteer meltdown. Six years after the UK withdrew from the EU’s flagship student exchange scheme under Boris Johnson’s government, on the grounds of cost, the UK has announced plans to rejoin Erasmus in 2027. The decision marks a welcoming shift in UK–EU relations, and a long-awaited restoration of opportunities for young people whose horizons have been painfully narrowed by Brexit. The government has secured a 30 percent discount on membership fees, with an…

The Reform mayoral candidate made the comments about Sadiq Khan, Zarah Sultana, Dawn Butler and others The scandal surrounding Chris Parry – the Reform candidate for the Hampshire and the Solent mayoral election in May 2026 – continues to get worse and worse. First, he was found to have told justice secretary David Lammy to ‘go home’ to the Caribbean, saying this is where his ‘loyalties lie’. Then, he refused to apologies for those comments. Now, new revelations have found a pattern of behaviour surrounding comments of this nature. According to a report in the Guardian, Parry has suggested that…

Who’s up and who’s down? Thursday 18 December marked the final council by-elections in 2025. More by-elections are scheduled, but all of these will now take place in 2026. Election Maps UK keeps a running tally of the results of all council by-elections. According to their records, there are a number of pretty clear trends since the local elections which took place in May 2025. Reform have won 68 council seats in by-elections since May, and 58 net gains. A gain is classified as an instance where the winning party did not hold the seat prior to the election and…

Alexi Dimond makes the case for councillors pushing to ensure their councils aren’t complicit in Israel’s crimes Alexi Dimond is a Green Party councillor in Sheffield and member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Greens for Palestine Sheffield has many proud legacies, but perhaps the one that makes me most proud to be a Sheffield city councillor is our tradition of internationalism.  In 1981, the city was the first in Britain to declare itself an “apartheid free zone”, pledging to end ties with apartheid South Africa, including boycotting goods, divesting pension funds, and banning sports teams. Two years later, Sheffield was…