Andy Burnham is sworn in as the MP for Makerfield hours after Keir Starmer announces his resignation as Labour Party leader
Archiv: unavoidable exceptions to the boycott of British-based media / boycott due to Five Eyes Standard „Online Safety Bill“
Palestine Action ban is lawful, Court of Appeal rules
(today)
The government‘s proscription of Palestine Action as a terror organisation is lawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
In one of the most significant rulings on national security in recent years, five of the most senior judges in the country overturned an earlier decision from the High Court that the ban had breached the right to protest and had been incorrectly taken by ministers.
But five Court of Appeal judges concluded in a hearing on Monday that the ban had been „justified and proportionate“.
Pro-Palestine activists sentenced as terrorists over damage at Israeli arms factory in UK
(June 12, 2026)
A report relied on by the prosecution at Friday’s sentencing hearing said the raid on the factory had caused £1.2m of damage, including to 41 military assets. The report referred to £395,056 of damage to six units in an unnamed drone system as well as damage to other unmanned aerial vehicles.
Mr Justice Johnson told the four they had participated in a “carefully planned and highly sophisticated attack”, adding: “The fact that you were trying to shut down a company that you thought was acting unlawfully does not reduce the seriousness of the offence.”
‘Embarrassing’: pressure on Merz after Germany’s failure to win UN security council seat
In an awkward rivalry among EU partners, Portugal took 134 votes and Austria 131 while Germany garnered just 104, significantly below the required 127 votes despite Berlin’s expressed confidence just hours before that it would prevail.
Both winners were seen to represent the interests of smaller countries, while Austria could benefit from its perceived neutrality as a non-Nato member and Portugal touted its strong ties in Africa and Latin America.
‚I could not stay silent‘, says activist who shouted at Ben-Gvir
Catriona Graham was one of hundreds of activists who were detained by Israel this week while trying to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza by boat.
Israel‘s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir later posted a video showing himself taunting the activists as they kneeled with their hands tied behind their backs.
Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
(October 15, 2024)
Over the past year, Israel has launched attacks on multiple countries and occupied territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
Yet countries and territories aside, Israel has also targeted one specific organization with a series of unprecedented rhetorical and violent attacks.
Yes, the United Nations. We have all witnessed Israel, in effect, declare war on the UN.
Beyond Westminster’s chaos, a new grassroots left is taking shape
A flavour of what may be its future was seen in a Your Party meeting I attended in Dewsbury, in West Yorkshire, three weeks ago. As Your Party-leaning candidates reported on their experience and intentions, one theme emerged clearly: the centrality of community-level organising and support, like that Corbyn’s community-skills programme advocated for seven years ago.
Could this grow into something substantial? Ordinarily, maybe not, but there are three years to the next general election, and it is obvious that Your Party is playing it long. The Labour Party is unlikely to seriously challenge neoliberal economics within that time, but Your Party most certainly will.
Starmer under pressure, as Labour suffers heavy elections losses
The results in England, Scotland and Wales have piled pressure on Sir Keir, with some Labour MPs calling for him to set a timetable for his departure, although his cabinet allies have backed him for now.
Labour has lost power in Wales, ending its 27 year-long rule, while the SNP appears likely to remain the largest party in Scotland.
Reform UK has been the big winner in England, picking up more than 1,400 seats and taking control of councils in areas where Labour and the Conservatives have been historically dominant.
After Beirut strike, Netanyahu says ‚no immunity‘ for militants
(May 7, 2026)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday there was no „immunity“ for Israel‘s enemies, a day after the Israeli military targeted a Hezbollah commander in its first strike on Beirut‘s southern suburbs since a ceasefire declared last month.
Israeli attacks kill dozens within days in Lebanon despite ceasefire
(May 4, 2026)
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed 17 people on Monday, Lebanon‘s health ministry says – marking one of the deadliest few days there since a ceasefire began just over two weeks ago.
It brings the number of those killed since Thursday to 110 , according to the ministry.
Arms dealer says Clinton and Obama accidentally gave guns to ISIS, Al Qaeda and Benghazi attackers – then tried to scapegoat him for their screw-up with failed $10m felony case
(October 12, 2016)
– Marc Turi ‚had plan to get arms to Libyan rebels in 2011 despite UN ban‘
– But he says Clinton stole the idea and she and CIA did it without him
– However the guns ‚then went to Al Qaeda, ISIS and Benghazi attackers‘
– They tried to scapegoat him by saying he sold the arms illegally, he says
– But he claims that he never sold anything in Libya
– The five-year, $10m case was dropped last week by prosecutors
– He says they didn‘t want to press on because it would compromise Clinton
– The trial would have started on November 8 – which is Election Day
– Turi also hinted at information on weapons that disappeared in Benghazi
Jihadists appear caught offguard by release of Steven Sotloff video
(September 2, 2014)
The video of Steven Sotloff‘s apparent murder appears to have been found by a private US intelligence firm before it could be released by the Islamic State.
News of Mr Sotloff‘s death was broken by the SITE Intelligence group, a private company that monitors jihadist activity and has close ties to the American intelligence community.
The group‘s analysts found the video on what a spokesman described as „a file-sharing site“ and send it out to its subscriber list. SITE‘s subscribers include government officials, journalists and academics involved in analysing terrorism.
When Mandelson could bring down Starmer
(March 14, 2026)
As my big piece on Starmer last month revealed, even after Mandelson was appointed, Starmer never quizzed him about how to deal with Trump. All this exposes a Prime Minister with Olympic levels of detachment. It has been known for a while that he has little interest in politics but those who have worked with him have been genuinely surprised at his lack of interest in the detail of governing.
(…)
The book also reveals that the decision to sack Mandelson was taken by McSweeney, not Starmer. On the day the PM defended Mandelson in the Commons, McSweeney was in a secure basement conference room without his phone when two of Starmer’s closest aides – Paul Ovenden and Stuart Ingham – came to find him. Ingham told him: ‘We just can’t answer these questions.’
McSweeney’s response – ‘It’s unsustainable’ – was the moment the decision was effectively made.
Oiling the machine – inside the Number 10 policy unit
(November 20, 2024)
Though it has grown over the past fifty years, the Policy Unit today still comprises fewer than thirty special advisers and junior Whitehall officials. This little platoon tends to be most effective when it acts as both the prime minister’s “eyes and ears”, to borrow Wilson’s phrase, and what Sarah Hogg, John Major’s policy chief, termed “the grit and oil in the government machine.” In other words, the Policy Unit works best by offering the prime minister unvarnished intelligence and advice about the direction of departmental policy, while giving Whitehall strategic clarity about what the prime minister wants or doesn’t want.
No 10 bid for SECOND paedo-linked Labour ally to get ambassador role
He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).
Robbins said: “I don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.
“It was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.”
Olly Robbins: I was asked to find job for Starmer aide and not tell David Lammy
Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.
Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.
Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson: Who are Starmer’s new joint chiefs of staff?
(February 8, 2026)
With Morgan McSweeney’s enforced departure over the Mandelson scandal, his former deputies Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson have both been promoted to replace him as joints chiefs of staff
Olly Robbins says he faced ‘constant pressure’ to get Mandelson in post
Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime minister’s private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: “I think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.”
After the latest Mandelson revelations, Starmer needs to get a good lawyer. Wasn’t he supposed to be one?
During the opposition years, his defenders countered that a stolid technocrat was exactly what the country needed. They sold the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service as the polar opposite of Boris Johnson, who was driven from Downing Street in part by Starmer’s own forensic questioning. If only Starmer had lived up to the billing of his detractors, reluctantly conceded by his allies, he wouldn’t be in the hole he finds himself this weekend.
Instead, he now has to rely on a defence that is lawyerly in the worst sense of that word. To have knowingly misled parliament is, in political terms, a capital crime. So the PM has to proceed on two tracks, one for “knowingly” the other for “misled”.
Starmer sacks top Foreign Office official after Mandelson vetting revelations
The BBC understands Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper lost confidence in Sir Olly Robbins and was effectively sacked after a Guardian investigation revealed Mandelson had not been security cleared.
The PM is facing calls to resign amid claims he misled MPs when he told them „full due process“ had been followed.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Sir Keir had not been told of the vetting recommendation until Tuesday this week, had not misled MPs and would not be resigning.
Revealed: Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision
(Thu 16 Apr 2026 19.16 CEST)
In September, in a letter co-signed with foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, Robbins told MPs that “conducted to the usual standard set for developed vetting.
The Guardian understands that Robbins was told he had to resign after Starmer and Cooper lost confidence in the civil servant.
Mandelson’s failure to secure vetting approval has not previously been publicly revealed, despite intense scrutiny over his appointment and the release by the government of 147 pages of documents supposed to shed light on the case.
Lebanon: Joint Foreign Ministers‘ Statement, 14 April 2026
We condemn in the strongest terms the attacks of Hezbollah against Israel which must cease immediately. We also condemn in the strongest terms the massive Israeli strikes on Lebanon conducted on 8 April which, according to the latest information shared by the Lebanese authorities, resulted in the death of more than 350 persons and wounded more than 1000. Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law.
We also condemn in the strongest terms the attacks against UNIFIL and we reiterate that the safety and security of UN peacekeepers must be ensured at all times.
We express our full solidarity and our steadfast support for the Lebanese people and authorities. We stand ready to provide emergency assistance to the more than one million displaced persons in Lebanon, in coordination with the Lebanese government.
We reaffirm the importance of respecting for Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and for the full implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 (2006). We will continue to support the Lebanese state to exercise its full sovereignty over the whole Lebanese territory. In this context, we commend the decision of the Lebanese government to ban Hezbollah’s military activities, as well as its decision to reinforce the full imposition of state authority over Beirut and to have the sole monopoly on weapons, and we encourage full and swift implementation.
Starmer says UK will not join Trump‘s blockade of Iran‘s ports
The US announced its blockade after talks with Iran failed to secure a lasting peace deal to end hostilities in the Middle East.
Following a meeting between US and Iran negotiators in Pakistan‘s capital Islamabad, President Donald Trump said the US would start „BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz“.
The US Central Command (Centcom) later confirmed its forces would enforce the blockade „impartially“ on vessels leaving and entering Iranian ports, including those located in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
British Voters‘ Trust In America Plummets Amid Trump‘s Iran War
The Public First research for Politico found that more than half (53%) of the UK public now view America as a negative force globally, up from 35% in December.
At the same time, the proportion of voters who think the States plays a positive role in the world has slumped from 41% to 29%.
The poll of 2,000 people was carried out between April 3 and 7, around five weeks into the US and Israel’s bombing campaign in Iran.