MOLLY QUELL reports on the sanctions placed on International Criminal Court officials by the Trump regime, making it increasingly difficult for the tribunal to conduct even basic tasks

LAST YEAR I pointed to a “now they tell us” feeling about the newspapers, as pundit after pundit who had backed Keir Starmer now admitted he was — as the left had said all along — an empty vessel for right-wing Labour operators who can’t win under their own name.
We are now having a second, greater rush of “now they tell us” across Fleet Street.
So Catherine Bennett in the Observer wrote a sharp column about how Starmer is becoming a Cameron-copy-PM. Bennett did the work to prove the point, especially with this paragraph: “Since it can’t be plagiarism, only shared passion can explain why Starmer and David Cameron have phrased their ambitions in identical terms, in wanting, say, a “bonfire of red tape” (Starmer 2024; Cameron 2014). Starmer thinks regulations are “suffocating” (likewise Cameron); Starmer says “we are the builders” (ditto George Osborne); Starmer wants to end “dithering” (Cameron, “cut through the dither”); Starmer declares Britain “open for business” (Cameron, same, 2012); Starmer confronts those “talking our country down” (so did Cameron, 2011).”

Labour’s pop-loving front bench have snaffled up even more music tickets worth thousands apiece, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

Secret consultation documents finally released after the Morning Star’s two-year freedom of information battle show the Home Office misrepresented public opinion, claiming support for policies that most respondents actually strongly criticised as dangerous and unfair, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war

Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES