Author: James Carter

Andy Burnham could be gifted his path back to Westminster by Restore Britain’s decision to stand in Makerfield — with Reform UK warning that Rupert Lowe’s splinter party is fracturing the right-wing vote at precisely the moment it matters most. The first Survation poll of the 18 June by-election, published in The Sunday Times, puts Burnham on 43 per cent against Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon on 40 per cent — a gap of just three points. Restore Britain, the new party founded by former Reform MP Lowe, takes seven per cent. Simple arithmetic tells the story: if even half of…

Donald Trump embarked on a flurry of posts on Truth Social on Sunday morning, uploading a series of AI-generated images targeting his political rivals, celebrating his visit to China and depicting a drone strike on Iranian ships — capping a weekend of social media activity that also included a video showing him throwing a television comedian into a dumpster. The barrage opened with an AI-generated parody of the 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch, which Trump relabelled “The Shady Bunch.” The image depicted former president Barack Obama, former FBI director James Comey, former CIA director John Brennan, Susan Rice, Samantha Power,…

Reform UK’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election is facing calls to explain a series of now-deleted social media posts in which he allegedly shared transphobic slurs, Covid misinformation and sexually objectifying comments about women — as the party insisted it “fully backed” him and dismissed critics as the “Westminster wokerati.” Robert Kenyon, a self-employed plumber from the constituency who is running as Nigel Farage’s candidate in the high-stakes contest against Labour’s Andy Burnham, is at the centre of the row after campaign group Hope Not Hate shared posts attributed to the now-deleted X account @robkenyon1, made between 2020 and 2022.…

The Canadian province of Alberta is to hold a referendum on independence from Canada in October, its Premier has confirmed — in a development that could trigger the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced in three decades. Premier Danielle Smith announced in a television address that Albertans will go to the polls on 19 October to answer the question: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?” The vote…

Kemi Badenoch has triggered a heated dispute on the British right after asserting that Britishness is defined by shared values and loyalty to the country rather than ethnic heritage — a position that has drawn swift and pointed criticism from identitarian commentators who argue that national identity is inseparable from ancestry and bloodline. The Conservative leader made the remarks during a discussion with podcaster Elliot Bewick at Oxford University, where she said ethnicity played no part in being British. What mattered, she argued, was “buying into that identity” — loving the United Kingdom, wanting it to succeed, abiding by its…

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is preparing to file confidential IPO paperwork with regulators as soon as this week, according to the Wall Street Journal — in what could become the largest stock market listing in American history and a defining moment for the artificial intelligence industry. The ChatGPT maker is working with bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on a draft IPO prospectus that it plans to file confidentially with regulators soon, possibly as early as Friday. OpenAI is targeting a public debut as early as September, and is racing against rival Anthropic to become the first major…

Andy Burnham’s team is already drawing up plans for his first 100 days in Downing Street — despite the Greater Manchester Mayor not yet holding a seat in Parliament. According to Politico, three insiders who have worked with Mr Burnham confirmed the plans are in their early stages, with proposals expected to cover social care reform and measures to lower energy costs for UK households. The ambition of the exercise reflects the confidence among his allies that he will become the next Labour leader — and ultimately Prime Minister. The speed of that thinking has been accelerated by events. Labour’s…

Former Neighbours star Holly Valance has called on Australians to stop being “embarrassed” about patriotism and doubled down on her support for far-right One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, after marching alongside Tommy Robinson at a rally in London on Saturday. Valance, 43, who holds dual Australian and British citizenship, was interviewed at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally — which took place at the same time as a rival pro-Palestinian demonstration in the capital. Speaking to Adelaide Now, she delivered a direct message to her fellow Australians: “Don’t be embarrassed and don’t be too scared to stand up for your country…

Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks — two of America’s most prominent rappers who have spent years locked in a bitter public feud — have found unlikely common ground in backing Kemi Badenoch as Britain’s next Prime Minister, as Labour’s leadership crisis deepens and the political landscape shifts. Minaj, the Trinidad and Tobago-born rapper behind global hits including Anaconda and Super Freaky Girl, took to X to compare Badenoch to Margaret Thatcher. “The UK is truly one of a kind,” she wrote. “They will portray her in film and TV one day — just like they did with Margaret Thatcher.” Minaj,…

Andy Burnham has been handed a direct route back into Parliament after Josh Simons announced his resignation as MP for Makerfield in Greater Manchester, explicitly standing aside to allow the Manchester Mayor to contest the seat and mount a Labour leadership challenge. Simons, a former minister, made the announcement on Thursday in a statement that amounted to a full-throated endorsement of Burnham and a stinging verdict on the state of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer. “For decades, Westminster has overseen the managed decline of towns like mine,” he said. “We have talked big, then acted small, stuck in a…