Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

For my entire time as the climate columnist for The Independent, I was allowed complete editorial freedom to cover the issues I thought most important, except for the one key issue that I thought was the most important.

I was constantly blocked from mentioning the visceral opposition or complacency of the powerful UK and global billionaire-owned media to the urgent climate action that is required.

Any time I tried to mention this in a column, it was immediately censored. After all, The Independent itself is owned by the Russian billionaire Lebedev family and at the time its offices were co-located in the Derry Street headquarters of the climate action-trashing Daily Mail Group, owned by the billionaire Lord Rothermere.

This Wednesday, a coalition of UK and international civil society groups, under the banner Media Revolution, are launching the first Media Liberation Day, to highlight the negative impacts on society and democracy by the domination of our media by the billionaire and corporate 0.1%.

I first became aware of how the UK's political system was imprisoned by the billionaire media, when back in 1998 I was on the Liberal Democrats' Federal Executive. I was frustrated that in previous EU elections, the party had not campaigned on any European issues but just on national issues. So, when the Executive discussed the upcoming 1999 European elections, I requested that we should campaign on European issues in the election.

The Real Energy Scandal The Media Won't Tell You About

Fossil fuel interests are colluding with billionaire-owned media companies to block the UK's transition towards a cheaper and greener future, argues Donnachadh McCarthy

Donnachadh McCarthy

But when I did so I was told by a senior figure on the executive that would be impossible. I asked why? His response stunned me. He said if we did so, Murdoch would destroy us.

I said then, that if even the most pro-European political party, was too scared to campaign on European issues, even during European elections, then if the UK ever had a referendum on EU membership, we had already lost. Sadly, 17 years later, I was proved right in the Brexit referendum.

But it is not just the existential climate and nature crises that the billionaire media squashes debate.

On almost every aspect of politics, the billionaire media seeks to divide and demonise those working for a better world. These include the disabled, people of colour, refugees, climate and nature campaigners, Palestinian activists, NHS, local councils, Liberal Democrat, Labour, SNP & Green politicians, nurses, the BBC, gay people, gypsies, middle class people, actors, working class, trade unionists, plant-based diet advocates, cyclists, or Muslims.

There is hardly any section of society that they will not demonise, when and if they chose to do so, in order to pursue their agenda.

The aim of Media Liberation Day is to raise awareness of this billionaire capture of our media. They are asking people to print off a "Cover Story" A4 sheet from their website and place it on top of the piles of billionaire newspapers in supermarkets and also urging people to unsubscribe from billionaire online news outlets and to follow independently owned media, instead.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

It is crucial that we address this existential flaw in our democracies.

It is impossible to have a free society if the media is almost all in the hands of the 0.001% billio...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Geert Wilders' PVV may have lost ground in this week's Dutch parliamentary elections, but the truth is that, contrary to all the talk in the international media, this modest European nation has not suddenly discovered how to defeat the extreme right.

In reality, these elections merely confirm that politics in the Netherlands remains inward-looking, hostile to strangers and politically clueless.

It's fair to say that Wilders himself may be nearing his expiration date. But his one-man party, with its backbenchers recently exposed for fabricating widely-circulated AI images of brown-skinned men harassing a young blond woman and left-wing leader Frans Timmermans being led away in chains by the police, still managed to secure 26 seats in parliament, their second best score ever.

Combined with the like-minded parties JA21, BBB and FvD (whose new leader seriously considers that the Aboriginals might have discovered fire just 50 years ago), the extreme right still command 46 seats in parliament, out of a total of 150, just two down from the previous elections.

Compared to these, the Dutch centrist Libersals Democrats 66, whose leader and possible new prime minister, Rob Jetten, looks like a beacon of reason. The only problem is that over the past decades, D66 representatives taking part in governments, national and local, have barely developed any real distinctive policy. They are like that guy who always shows up at parties: perfectly agreeable, but no one knows who invited him, and when you ask him what he would prefer, beer, wine or juice, he'll just smile and say: sure!

Reform UK Just Won Britain's Least-Prestigious Award - For 'Promoting Pseudoscience'

Nigel Farage's party was recognised for "widespread embrace of climate change denialism and antivaccine misinformation"

Josiah Mortimer

Before this election, D66 was regarded as being slightly left of centre due to their position on issues like trans rights, although they are often hard to pin down. However, during the campaign Jetten shifted course somewhat, forgetting about his green goals, changing his mind about refugees (who he said should now only apply at the European borders, and not on our soil) and was welcomed by a sea of Dutch flags on his triumphant election night. In short, it's impossible to predict exactly which direction Jetten wants to take this country.

He will need his apparent optimism once he starts building a ruling coalition, however. In a parliament with 15 political parties and no clear majority, any Government will always have to be a coalition. That's why the result would have been largely the same had Wilders' PVV won the elections. Wilders would then have spent two weeks or months trying to get others aboard, but all the large parties have ruled out stepping into a coalition with him, after he spent a year sabotaging his own Government before deserting it in June. Once Wilders gave up, it would be the turn of Jetten's D66, as it will be now. And his only option to build a majority coalition is to gather the four traditional parties left and right of centre.

This would be the equivalent of a new UK Government consisting of Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - obliged to join forces in order to keep Reform out of power. It would bring together parties who all have their old suspicions and animosities towards each other, on top of their irreconcilable political differences. Just take Gaza, which was barely mentioned during the campaign, one of the reasons why so many voters didn't show up at all. VVD is a strong supporter of the Netanyahu government, CDA deeply believes that Judeo-Christian culture built Europe, GroenLinks-PvdA has chosen to cease all arms trade with Israel - and D66, well, it would welcome a cease-fire.

This coalition will be impossible to form. It will also be impossi...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Keir Starmer's planned reforms to elections in the UK will still leave gaping loopholes threatening to allow continued foreign interference in British politics, an influential Labour MP has warned.

Cat Smith, who was the party's former Shadow Democracy Minister warned that the proposed measures in the Labour Government's planned Elections and Democracy Bill, were "the bare minimum", "too timid" and represented only a "few welcome crumbs" towards tackling the democratic threats to UK democracy.

The Bill is set to introduce votes at 16 for Westminster elections, a move towards automatic voter registration, and limits to the potential for foreign influence of UK elections through donations.

Asked whether the changes go far enough, when speaking at an event of the UCL's Constitution Unit, Smith said: "Regrettably, a pretty emphatic no."

"The reforms proposed and indeed some of the ones already enacted I think are too timid. they're long overdue measures that the Government has [introduced]."

"I'm certainly not knocking them, but just to be really clear, I don't think they represent brave reform. I think they represent the bare minimum that we need to drag the UK electoral system into the 21st century," she told the panel.

The MP, who is on the left of the party, added: "The true test of a Government's commitment to electoral integrity lies not in the small palatable concessions it makes, but I think its willingness to reinforce the foundational pillars of trust and independence. And this test I'm afraid the Government has yet to pass."

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

Under particular fire - from Smith and the independent Electoral Commission itself - is the last Conservative Government's move to introduce a 'strategy and policy statement' to influence the previously-independent elections watchdog.

Labour has opted not to scrap that decision. Cat Smith said: "Creating [the] power for a partisan sitting Government… to issue policy guidance to the neutral body responsible for enforcing electoral law, [is] fundamentally corrosive to public trust. And I think it is the ultimate conflict of interest."

Smith helped lead the opposition to the Conservatives' Elections Bill - now Act - which introduced that change. She said: "I remember saying to Conservative ministers, you will not be in Government forever…You're setting up a system for any sitting Government to influence policy.

"And I say that today to my Labour colleagues who are the ministers responsible for the strategy and policy statement…It might be very nice when you're in Government and you think you can influence it, but it's not fair and it's not right."

Smith warned: "Every Government should remember that you're only in Government today and there's no guarantees for tomorrow…I will not be satisfied until I see the strategy and policy statement taken out of the law but given the Electoral Commission back its independence."

On big donations fuelling British politics, the Labour backbencher said the Government's reforms were "largely ignoring" the "deep structural overhaul of political finance" that was needed. She noted that threats from Elon Musk to donate huge sums to Reform UK, has "completely changed my approach" on the idea of implementing a cap on political donations, something the Government has also appeared to reject.

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

Tom Hawthorne, head of policy at the Electoral Com...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Boris Johnson's former Chief of Staff Dominic Cummings lobbied Government officials to hand Covid 'Test and Trace' tech contracts to a firm run by a Trump-supporting billionaire, after he held a secret meeting with its founder, alongside the Prime Minister.

A recent Guardian investigation revealed that Cummings and Johnson held an undeclared meeting with Palantir founder Peter Thiel in August 2019. According to the report, the meeting was marked "private in a log of Johnson's activities that day and was not subsequently disclosed on the government's public log of meetings".

Now new emails released to Byline Times, following a freedom of information request, reveal the true extent of Dominic Cummings' subsequent involvement in lobbying senior officials to hand over huge Covid contracts to Thiel's company, and another one run by his fellow Trump-supporting billionaire Larry Ellison.

In September 2020, Cummings sent an email to Dido Harding - the Conservative peer appointed by former PM Boris Johnson to oversee the previous Government's £37 billion, flagship Test and Trace Programme.

In an email carrying the subject header "testing fundamentals", Cummings instructed Harding to ignore Cabinet Office procedures, claiming that if the programme needed to spend "100m quid" procuring goods to support the Coving Testing rollout then they shouldn't "worry about the CABOFF [Cabinet Office] paperwork". Crucially, the former advisor also insisted that officials should have "NO MINISTERS ON THESE CALLS".

Cummings demanded that officials should bypass the NHS when building the software to power the Test and Trace programme and instead look towards controversial US tech firm Palantir as well as IT firm Oracle, owned by Larry Ellison.

EXCLUSIVE

Michael Gove Lobbied Government Officials to Hand Conservative Donor Multimillion Pound Covid Contract

Private correspondence seen by Byline Times reveals that Ciga Healthcare's Brexit-supporting owner had pushed Gove to "take control" of the process

Russell Scott

Cummings said: "We need a cloud solution for the huge data needs - forget NHSX doing it, we need to get someone like Palantir or Oracle (Larry Ellison is offering free) to do this, but we need someone who really knows what theyre talking about to navigate this.

"Marc Warner/Faculty handled Palantir for the NHS in Feb-May - this was NOT done by NHSx and if left to NHS wd never have happened… this is incredibly urgent as the data infrastructure for millions of tests per day is highly non-trivial and we wont be able to do it in a fortnight, we need to get it going NOW for it to work in November".

In the next paragraph of the email Cummings claimed that the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, who had been CC'd in the message, had advised officials "that all normal processes are binned for testing" and that they could "hire exactly who they want from inside or outside civil service without need to wait even an hour for approval" before claiming that officials will be "absolved from legal blame if JRs [judicial reviews]" against procurement processes arose in the future.

Both Oracle and Palantir went on to secure covid contracts from Johnson's Government during the pandemic.

In 2023, The US firm landed the £330m Federated Data Platform contract from the NHS to Palantir.

As Byline Times previously reported Thiel had likened the UK's commitment to the NHS to "Stockholm syndrome" and backed a complete overhaul of the institution. In a clip still available online, Thiel said of the health service: "Rip the whole thing from the ground and start over".

Speaking at a Q&A event at the Oxford Union, the Thiel spoke of the need to fix the health service with "market mechanisms".

The first step to fixing the Health Service, Thiel said, was to break the public away from the idea that it is "the most wonderf...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper has launched a full-throttled campaign against higher taxes on gambling in the run up to the Chancellor's budget.

The paper's new 'Save Our Bets' campaign was given star billing on its front page on Wednesday, demanding of the Chancellor to: "Leave betting alone," and hitting out at a potential "budget tax grab" that would supposedly "hit thousands of jobs." The editorial and subsequent raft of articles echo gambling industry talking points that taxes would push "more punters…into the illegal black market."

On Thursday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also threw his weight behind the tabloid's activism, writing in the paper that: "Labour's pleasure police have ruined pubs and now they're coming after your innocent flutter…[It's] time, in the inimitable words of The Sun's ­headline, to stick up for your punter" against a mooted "tax blitz."

The tabloid has also roped in 'Blue Labour' peer Lord Maurice Glasman, who claimed to "have a flutter is one of the joys of life, so leave it alone", while Labour MP Gareth Snell claimed higher taxes could cost Bet365 jobs in his seat, a warning echoed by one of Labour's most conservative MPs, Graham Stringer.

The Conservatives have also officially backed the campaign, which comes as the Labour Chancellor is trying to find billions to fix public services and create more "fiscal headroom" in the face of economic pressures.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

However, the stories and editorials have almost entirely failed to mention that The Sun is itself a gambling company - making millions of pounds a year from its Sun Vegas and Sun Bingo arms, and therefore stands to lose out financially by any so-called 'sin taxes' on the sector.

The paper also has extensive commercial advertising and referral partnerships with companies like Paddy Power, even employing senior, dedicated betting staff to further the relationships.

The paper's editorial on Tuesday night (28 October) had just one mention of this potential conflict, towards the end of the article, saying: "Both the Social Market Foundation and IPPR think-tanks want a tax rate of 50 PER CENT on online gaming, which includes our own Sun Bingo and Sun Vegas. The current rate is 21 per cent."

The editorial, and subsequent articles, do not refer to the paper's extensive advertising and referral deals with other betting firms, including BetFred, which is quoted in the article launching the campaign. The publication has often criticised politicians' alleged conflicts of interest.

The official page for the 'Save Our Bets' campaign is tagged, among other topics, alongside: "Betting offers for horse racing," "Betting on the go," and "Bookie offers for football."

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and progressive think tanks like the IPPR are among those calling for the Chancellor to raise taxes on gambling in order to fund public services and reduce social harm caused by gambling addiction.

The Sun's owner, News Group Newspapers, latest accounts published in March made clear that betting was a commercial priority for the Murdoch titles: "Throughout the year, there has been a strong improvement in the Betting and Gaming division which has helped drive improved revenues.

"Product enhancements and targeted marketing in the Bingo and Vegas proposition have driven strong monthly active users. Following the success of Sun V...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Reform UK has received an award for being the organisation that engaged in the "most prolific promotion of pseudoscience" during 2025.

Each year the UK's long-running publication for analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal, The Skeptic magazine, names their pseudoscientist of the year, and awards them the Rusty Razor prize.

The Rusty Razor this year went to Reform UK in recognition of "their widespread embrace of climate change denialism and antivaccine misinformation."

The award was announced in front of an audience of around 700 people at the QED science and skepticism conference in Manchester on Saturday night.

In the Rusty Razor Award category, Nigel Farage's party was recognised for 'promoting pseudoscientific claims'.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

Climate Change Denial

Reform UK has publicly opposed Net Zero and climate change mitigation policies, despite the international scientific consensus on the need to reduce the scale of catastrophic global warming already contributing to natural disasters. Leading Reform UK figures have wrongly claimed that human-produced CO₂ does not contribute to climate change.

Deputy leader Richard Tice MP has made explicit claims denying human contribution to climate change, while Andrea Jenkyns (Greater Lincolnshire Mayor) has called climate change a "money-making racket" and claimed it does not exist.

Senior Reform councillors have described climate change as a hoax, with now Lincolnshire council leader Sean Matthews writing on X last year: "There is no climate crisis".

The Skeptic magazine also cites Reform's opposition to Net Zero policies and its proposed cuts to all renewable energy subsidies as reasons for this year's award.

Research from climate change outlet DeSmog found that since December 2019, Reform UK has received £2.3 million in donations from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers - representing 92% of the party's donations.

Significant donors include Terence Mordaunt, a trustee and donor to the climate change denialist charity the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

Covid-19 Vaccine Misinformation

At Reform UK's party conference last month, controversial doctor Aseem Malhotra gave a speech claiming "mRNA jabs have likely killed or seriously harmed millions of people", the World Health Organisation had been "captured" by Bill Gates, and - most infamously, and roundly-mocked - that Covid vaccines were "highly likely" a significant factor in cancer diagnoses amongst members of the royal family.

The year before, Richard Tice called for a full inquiry into the "serious problem" of thousands of people dying from Covid vaccine side-effects, a claim which is unfounded in the UK.

The UK's Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says that for all Covid-19 vaccines, the overwhelming majority of [adverse side effect] reports relate to injection-site reactions (sore arm for example) and generalised symptoms such as 'flu-like' illness… Generally, these happen shortly after the vaccination and are not associated with more serious or lasting illness." Vaccination remains the single most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from Covid and many other diseases.

Other False Claims

In a September LBC interview, Nigel Farage picked up comments from Donald Trump and made "bogus" claims, linking auti...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Politicians should "feel empowered" to leave platforms like X - formerly Twitter - if they believe it presents a greater risk than benefit to their work, according to a damning new report from the House of Commons' speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle.

The report includes the strongest nudge yet for politicians to consider leaving X or Facebook altogether.

The official House of Commons report from the Speaker's Conference on abuse of politicians is damning about X, formerly Twitter, where toxic content appears to have got far worse since far-right billionaire Elon Musk took over in 2022.

While a spokesperson for X told the inquiry: "It is very important that people who use the platform are not victims of abuse" and that they take the issue seriously, the Speaker-led probe found that X was failing in its legal duties to remove threats of violence against politicians.

And the special conference from Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said X's written evidence was "often more evasive than it was informative". For example it noted that "when asked for the percentage of requests for information from the police they had denied due to insufficient evidence to support the request, X declined to say."

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

But the Commons body did extract important information from the social media platform, long seen as a "public square" for political debate in the UK and beyond.

X has "only 1,486 human reviewers working in English" despite receiving "more than 85,000 posts that breach their terms of service every day" according to the platform's own data.

It also found that X "shared information with the police in less than half of the instances when it was requested formally, and in only 30% of instances when it was requested informally" - compared to Meta's 85% compliance rate.

Both Meta - which owns Facebook and Instagram - and X had a higher bar for removing abuse when it concerned politicians.

The report notes that Meta only removes "violent threats against public figures, such as MPs and candidates if they are found to be 'credible'" - using a "high bar" including looking for "specific locations and timing of a potential attack". Meanwhile, X's enforcement considers whether content "may be a topic of legitimate public interest" - in other words, attacks on politicians are viewed as more acceptable than ordinary members of the public.

The critical assessment from the Speaker's Conference concluded: "We have no faith that Meta and X will resolve these issues unless they are legally obliged to do so. There is therefore no point in us recommending wholesale change of policies or modus operandi."

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

Key concerns from the report found a general "unwillingness to remove abuse against MPs, candidates and other public figures", and indications that X and Meta's algorithmic recommendation systems actually give preference to incendiary and threatening content - because it boosts engagement on the platform.

Meta and X were also condemned for choosing to send "relatively junior witnesses" to the inquiry, suggesting a lack of respect for the process.

The report went on to question "their sincerity" - adding that the platforms do not appear to "understand the damaging impact they are having on democracy in the UK."

The Commons inquiry noted that having higher bars for removing threats against politicians than other individuals "normalises the idea that MPs...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Byline Times first reported on Russia's "human safari" attacks on Ukrainians back in July 2024. At the time, Putin's drones attacks on civilians in Kherson City seemed to be a series of isolated atrocities, too brutal to form a pattern. However, more than a year later, the "human safari" has been officially recognised not only as a war crime and a crime against humanity but also as part of a coordinated strategy to drive Ukrainians from their homes.

On 27 October 2025, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine presented new findings to the 80th United Nations General Assembly, documenting a systematic campaign to depopulate southern Ukraine. This is the third report by the Commission and it builds upon previous findings. A conference room paper in May 2025 first documented drone attacks along a hundred-kilometre stretch around Kherson.

The new report expands the investigation to 300 kilometres, from Dnipropetrovsk through Kherson to Mykolaiv, and incorporates deportations and transfers into a broader picture of Russia's state-directed policy against civilians.

Drones as Instruments of Forced Displacement

The Commission confirmed that Russian forces committed the crimes against humanity of murder and forcible transfer of population through recurrent drone strikes across southern Ukraine. These attacks were coordinated and directed at civilians, homes, humanitarian distribution points, and critical energy infrastructure. First responders such as ambulances and fire brigades were also targeted, in defiance of their protected status under international law. The strikes rendered entire areas uninhabitable.

The Commission concluded that the use of drones was not random but part of a deliberate policy to depopulate Ukrainian territories, spreading terror and coercing civilians into flight. In Kherson, this pattern is clear. According to local authorities, since July 2024, over 200 civilians have been killed and over 2,000 civilians were injured in such attacks in the three oblasts. Almost 3,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed, also by drones.

Is Russia Losing the Great Game in Central Asia?

Iain Overton travelled to Tashkent, where cranes rise over Soviet relics and Chinese cars fill the streets, to see how Uzbekistan has become the lodestar of Central Asia's quiet pivot away from Moscow

Iain Overton

The Road of Death

Elvina Osmanova, a municipal services staffer in her early twenties, forgot her purse at home in Kherson as she set out on a business trip to Mykolaiv, a city 67 miles away. Before the Russian invasion, the drive took about an hour along a flat road lined with sunflower fields and southern steppes.

In August 2025, the road had turned into a surreal landscape. Elvina drove at a mad speed under fishing nets stretched high over wooden poles, forming a long, transparent tunnel. Her car twisted and turned around charred cars; black-and-red flames raged right next to her. The stench of burning fields and gasoline became suffocating. The fire was so close, and the heat so intense, that her windows began to crack. Was she trapped inside the anti-drone tunnel? Would a Russian FPV drone target her next? She saw the fishing nets melting and pressed harder on the gas. At a checkpoint, though, all traffic was stopped: swarms of Russian drones of different sizes and types attacked the M14 highway. Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) units fought back, but the wait took what seemed to be forever.

Elvina made it back home only after curfew and had to stay and catch some sleep to the sounds of nonstop artillery fire. Before sunrise, now with her purse, she set out again - and soon a Russian drone dropped explosives 30 feet from her car. She saw people jumping out of burning vehicles and heard another explosion, but kept driving. She didn't know if she ...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

A whole heap of important legislation will become law this week. But with most of the media focusing on rows over Chinese espionage and one asylum seeker's release, they're likely to be largely missed.

Away from the newspaper front pages, the Labour Government has been busy with some pretty major reforms, as well as some smaller initiatives that could significantly affect people's lives.

So here's a collection of some recent news from Westminster and Whitehall you may have missed, as part of an occasional series looking at what the Government is really getting up to.

Here's our usual caveat: This list is by no means conclusive, and it is up to you whether you think the news is either good or bad. Mostly, as you'd imagine, they are things the Government sees as positive developments - as we've picked out announcements which haven't been extensively reported on.

However, the examples do offer a flavour of some of the things that we could, but aren't, talking about thanks largely to the priorities of the British press, or if you prefer, due to a maddening failure of communication by No 10.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR

PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH

MORE OPTIONS

We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

1. London-Style Buses

The boringly-named Bus Services (No. 2) Bill became law on Monday night (27th October), enabling local transport authorities to implement franchising schemes for bus services in England - potentially reversing the decades-old deregulation of buses which opponents say has contributed to spiralling prices and worsening, reduced services while transport firms pay millions to shareholders.

But it will also end the (surprisingly recent) Conservative ban on councils setting up their own bus companies to directly compete with private firms.

Buses are the most frequently used form of public transport and are relied on by millions of people - disproportionately lower-income workers, young people, retirees and more.

Greater Manchester took up the opportunity of regulating buses by setting up the 'Bee Network', but the legal framework mayor Andy Burnham had to use to do it took years to utilise, and faced relentless challenge from transport firms. The new process is set to massively streamline it.

This bill won't make the front pages, but if councils take up the opportunity, it could revolutionise this vital form of transport in England.

Cat Hobbs, director of pro-public ownership campaign We Own It, told Byline Times: "After 40 years of bus deregulation and privatisation, it's fantastic that this government is making it easier to take back control of our buses," though she also called for the ambition to be matched with extra funding to help make this a success.

Hobbs added: "It's excellent news that the absurd ideological ban on new publicly owned bus companies, introduced under the last government, has now been reversed. Publicly owned bus companies like Lothian Buses and Reading Buses consistently win awards for their brilliant services."

Transport for London-style transport in Cornwall, Leeds, and Newcastle, here we come?

Don't miss a story

SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES

2. Awaab's Law

Millions of social housing tenants in England are set to benefit from safer homes due to new rules coming into force in England this week, the Government says.

The first phase of 'Awaab's Law' will force social landlords (including councils and housing associations) to take urgent action to fix dangerous homes or face the full force of the law.

New legal duties w...

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Nigel Farage's Reform UK claims to represent a people's revolt against the political elite. But documents reviewed by Byline Times, alongside corporate and regulatory filings in London and the United States, reveal that the party's own Treasurer was recently invested with the same Silicon Valley donor bloc - including Elon Musk - that powered Donald Trump's return.

The relationship highlights how the party's finances have been linked to the fortunes of America's pro-Trump elite, as Reform mirrors their pro-fossil fuel agenda and attacks on Net Zero.

Reform UK's Treasurer and property billionaire Nick Candy, is now the single biggest donor to the party, having given a total of £1 million. But until January 2024, Candy was also limited-partner investor in ACME Capital - a California venture fund specialising in early-stage technology companies. Its star portfolio contains SpaceX, the most valuable private startup in the world. SpaceX's eponymous founder and owner is Elon Musk, by far the biggest funder of Trump's return to power - who is now also funding the criminal defence of far-right convicted fraudster Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who calls himself 'Tommy Robinson'.

Musk's is not the only company linked to ACME Capital in Trump's donor network. Other major ventures which were kickstarted with support from ACME include Uber, Airbnb, Robinhood and OpenGov - companies whose founders and executives have collectively poured millions of dollars into Trump's super PACs, inaugural committees and Republican politicians.

Byline Times can reveal that Nick Candy's investment in this Silicon Valley venture fund, from which he exited in 2024, was made through an offshore entity based in Guernsey.

As Reform UK pledges to scrap Britain's net zero targets and "unlock" new oil and gas drilling, its policies mirror the fossil fuel revival now unfolding under Trump's second-term agenda - an agenda financed by the same tech billionaires linked to Candy.

Nick Candy's Silicon Valley Connection

When Candy poured money into the venture firm ACME Capital, he wasn't simply buying into start-ups. He was buying into Silicon Valley's most powerful new political constituency - what would soon become a billion-dollar network helping bankroll Donald Trump's return to the White House.

Candy Ventures Ltd was first set up by Nick Candy in 2015. By the end of 2023, the firm had a gross book value of £145 million and a net value of £60 million, with 17 portfolio companies. However, the total 'mark-to-market' value of its investments was reportedly around £350 million. Today, its website says that it has funded some 25 companies in total. One of the companies listed as part of the Candy Ventures portfolio on its website is ACME Capital.

ACME Capital's story begins in Silicon Valley's boom years, when its predecessor Sherpa Capital made some of the most lucrative early bets of the 2010s. In 2011, Sherpa's co-founders invested in Uber, helping turn a fledgling ride-share startup into a global disruptor. Around the same time, Sherpa took early stakes in Airbnb, then a scrappy home-letting platform, and Robinhood, a commission-free trading app pitched as "finance for the people." By mid-decade, the firm had added SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, to its late-stage portfolio - a mark of its growing clout among elite venture investors - and joined the 2015 funding round for OpenGov, a civic-data company promising transparency in public finance.

When Sherpa's operations re-emerged as ACME Capital in 2018, those holdings formed the backbone of its first funds. It is not clear when or how much Nick Candy first invested in ACME Capital. In 2020, Candy Ventures first listed ACME Capital on its website, with the description "investing in breakthrough technologies including Cue, Airbnb and Uber." That was the year outg...