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The Cato Institute has just published a long paper arguing that public concern around misinformation is overblown, politicised, and harmful to free speech. It's slick, readable - and fundamentally misleading.

Here's why.

One of the author's central complaints is that no one agrees on what "misinformation" actually means. And he's right - there is confusion. So let's be precise.

Media scholar Clare Wardle and colleagues have developed a helpful typology:

Disinformation: false or misleading information spread deliberately to deceive or manipulate

Misinformation: false or misleading information shared by people who believe it is true

Malinformation: true information used in misleading or harmful ways

These categories help us move beyond vague fears and examine the different forms that harmful information can take.

But even this isn't the full picture. The real danger comes when such material forms 'disordered discourse' - systems of belief that reinforce themselves, reject correction, and disconnect people from any shared standard of reality.

The Cato paper treats harmful information as a few false claims floating around online. It argues that people rarely fall for such claims, the damage is minor, and the real problem is elite overreaction.

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Peter Jukes

This radically understates the scale and nature of the issue.

The danger isn't just that people believe lies. It's that entire communities can become locked into belief systems that cannot be challenged - where loyalty replaces evidence, and disagreement feels like betrayal. That doesn't merely distort truth; it breaks trust.

When this happens at scale, it isn't just bad information - it is a breakdown in how society makes decisions. We lose the ability to deliberate, to find common ground, to hold anyone accountable.

That's what disordered discourse really is: a collapse in collective reasoning.

And when debate collapses, power doesn't disappear - it just becomes unaccountable. Truth becomes tribal. Institutions become hollow. People are left shouting across a void, each group convinced the others are insane or evil.

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That isn't freedom. It's fragmentation.

We have seen this repeatedly: QAnon, COVID denial, election lies, war crimes denial. In every case, the issue was not merely what people believed - it was how those beliefs hardened into identity, making correction impossible.

The Cato paper ignores this entirely. Instead, it clings to a comforting idea - that "more speech" will fix everything. That if everyone is free to speak, the truth will naturally rise to the top.

That was never quite true. Today, it is a fantasy.

We no longer live in a neutral marketplace of ideas. We live in an attention economy shaped by algorithms, tribal identity, outrage incentives, and profit models that reward engagement over accuracy.

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Iain Overton

Cato argues that freedom means letting all ideas compete without interference. But this rests on a narrow definition of liberty - what philosopher Isaiah Berlin called 'negative liberty', or freedom from interference.

Berlin also describ...

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A wealthy heir to a major German chemicals manufacturer has detailed just how heartless the super-rich can be in prioritising the pursuit of profits over all other considerations.

Marlene Engelhorn, who convened a citizens assembly in Austria to decide how to redistribute €25 million of her inheritance, told the Excessive Wealth Concentration and Democracy conference in Budapest on 23-24 June that "our comfort is always at the centre of what we are trying to protect and this has a direct effect on you because we will burn the planet to protect our comfort zone".

She continued:

We will literally look sideways as people die in the very supply chains of our businesses that we are proud of. You must understand this

Marlene Engelhorn

The annual conference at the Central European University campus focussed on three central questions: how does excessive wealth harm democracy, can hyper-wealth produce public goods, and how can we contain excessive wealth?

The keynote address was given by Katharina Pistor, a law professor at Columbia University and author of The Code of Capital: How the Law and Wealth Create Inequality, on 'Transforming the Law of Capitalism'. Engelhorn - whose inheritance will go to 77 NGOs and organisations over the next five years - concluded the conference with a talk titled, 'Inside the Bubble: How the Hyper-Rich View the World'.

Englehorn told the conference that she was "furious" when she learned of her inheritance despite knowing, "I should be grateful and demure, and be like, 'oh thank you'."

She continued: "I was furious. I was angry. And I was angry because I knew it wasn't justice. Nobody should be born and then just get money for it. That is a reflection of a feudal system that stands in stark contradiction to democracy. So, I should have never gotten this wealth to begin with, it shouldn't have been mine."

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Christian Christensen

Englehorn went on to explain that the rich believe that they deserve their wealth, and therefore think, those who aren't deserve it, before saying: "If you think some people are worth more and some are worth less, politically what this means is that you are more prone to believe in a feudal structure, or a fascist structure, than a democratic one, because democracy in essence believes that everyone is worth the same."

Engelhorn told Byline Times that she participated in the conference, "because I see the ever-growing accumulation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest 1% as one of the biggest threats to our democracies, worldwide. And it's important to analyse this properly in order to be able to create structures that will eventually correct inequality and all the crises it fuels."

In her speech, Pistol spoke about the rise of the shadow-banking system which is being used to subvert regulations - drawn up after the 2008 financial crash - by firms, such as hedge funds or private equity funds. She explained that while these firms operate like banks, by not naming themselves as such, they can escape regulations designed to reign in bankers.

Pistor said: "It's like we're playing soccer, and we would usually assume that the soccer players have to abide by the rules of the game. But they're actually actively changing the rules of the game as the game is in motion. And the [referee] basically is wobbling around and thinking about which rules they now have to enforce."

Another spe...

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Reform councillors appear to be missing out some fairly basic information from their public registers of interest.

In Reform-controlled Durham County Council, three of ten council cabinet members in Durham do not declare they are members of any political or professional organisations…including Reform UK. In addition, Adult and Health Services chief Cllr Howard Brown declares he is a paid official for the National Education Union but not a member of Reform.

The council's Deputy Leader Darren Grimes, who rose to prominence during the EU referendum over £675,315.18 landing in his bank account as donations from Vote Leave (he was cleared of any wrongdoing), also does not list being a member of any political organisations.

That's despite Grimes proudly declaring on X that he is a member of the right-wing Free Speech Union last August - and of course, being a member of Reform.

The interest form, a legal requirement for local authorities, asks councillors to declare: "I am a member…of the following body/ies, one of whose principal purposes include the influence of public opinion or policy (including any political party)."

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Byline Times asked Darren Grimes if any memberships were missing - and if so, was this an oversight. We have not received a response.

In Warwickshire, 18-year-old Reform councillor George Finch has become council leader after the Reform leader of just six weeks stood down over "ill health".

Cllr Finch is listed as an online tutor with the company 'Superprof', charging £15 an hour for his education services. "I'm 18 turning 19, I have just finished A-Level and I know what you need to pass your exams, the Knowledge is [sic] the most important area of A-Level or GCSE's."

"[I] specialise in Tudor History, Cold War, USA politics, UK politics and many other areas in history too," the profile adds.

The work is not listed on his council declaration of interests. It is possible he hasn't earned any money from it. If he has however, he may have broken the rules on failing to declare financial interests. (This outlet put the tutoring questions to Cllr Finch but has not yet received a reply).

Byline Times understands that Cllr Finch plans - or had planned - to return to university in the East Midlands in September for his second year of studies.

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Meanwhile, Byline Times can reveal that the council have rejected a complaint against Cllr Darren Grimes over a 'joke' he made on Facebook at the weekend (22nd June) about grooming gangs. The post said: "Hey it's humid, mind. I'm sweating like a Labour-ran council in a rape gang inquiry."

One local voter who complained about the comments, Andy P, told Byline Times: "Using victims of sexual abuse like Grimes did bother[s] me, and it would regardless of whatever party such an individual represented. He represents Durham County Council and his sick 'joke' casts a bad light on both the local authority and local area."

The council responded to the complaint, quickly rejecting it: "[The post] was apparently made under the name "Darren Grimes" rather than "Councillor Darren Grimes", and..the post makes no reference to him being a Durham County Councillor.

"We also note that there is no reference to Durham or to Durham County Council. For these reasons, we do not think a reasonable member of the public who read this post would have assumed that Cllr Grimes was ...

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Campaigners have called for a legal loophole to be closed which potentially allows foreign donations to flow into UK parties via cryptocurrencies.

In a new warning from the non-profit watchdog Spotlight on Corruption, researchers note that the risk of funds of criminal origin, or from hostile foreign actors entering UK politics has increased in the age of untraceable cryptocurrencies - with Reform becoming the first this May to accept donations in crypto.

The risk is that crypto donations are used to avoid already-weak laws limiting foreign interference in UK politics.

Dr Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, told Byline Times crypto donations to parties "poses unique risks".

"Under the current rules, I would say all the donations in crypto that happen between now and the new elections bill are going to be extremely high risk. The Government clearly needs to tighten the rules."

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And although Reform's donations page for crypto requires donors to prove their identity through a third party verification service, Hawley notes that it's not currently illegal for "gifting" to take place. "For instance, as long as the donation comes from a permissible donor, it doesn't matter who gave that permissible donor the money. And the permissible donor route is now so wide, given that it includes overseas voters as well."

The last Conservative Government scrapped the previous 15-year limit on how long a Brit could live abroad before they could no longer vote or donate to parties from overseas.

Hawley added: "Under the current regime, it seems to me that just having the identity of the last handler of the crypto, so to speak, is not really much protection for British democracy."

A report released by the Centre for Information Resilience in June 2025 identified that the new A7A5 cryptocurrency, which Spotlight on Corruption says has been used in sanctions evasion, was "used in electoral interference in Moldova and may play a role in future political interference schemes." However, there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies, many of which boast about users' anonymity and un-traceability.

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"Some crypto currencies, such as Monero or Zcash, are designed to obscure the identity and location of an individual or entity, making it extremely unlikely parties will be able to verify the true source of their funds," Spotlight says, adding that this poses "distinct transparency and enforcement challenges."

"It is particularly easy for a single actor to donate using multiple crypto wallets with different addresses, fragmenting large donations into smaller amounts to bypass the reporting threshold," a new briefing from the group says.

"Because digital currencies are inherently borderless and bypass banks and central oversight - and many countries lack adequate regulation - these transactions often avoid any anti-money laundering scrutiny," the briefing adds.

Spotlight is calling for the Government to look at prohibiting cryptocurrency donations altogether, as Ireland and Brazil have recently done, to "prevent political interference and ensure full transparency of political donations."

"At the very least, consideration must be given to banning donations using cryptocurrencies that are designed to enable anonymity and mixing of legitimate and illicit funds, and those without a public or open ledger [record], and...

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Successive UK Governments have dismantled British safeguards against wrongful immigration decisions - forcing claimants to rely solely on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Amnesty International argues.

It comes as the Labour Home Secretary reviews the human rights framework Britain helped establish.

The Government has confirmed a review of how the European Convention on Human Rights is applied to UK immigration law, following a number of high-profile cases of non-British criminals successfully 'avoiding' deportation.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's review will look at how the courts are applying the law on a 'right to a family life' for people who enter the UK irregularly.

She seems set to restrict the powers of judges to grant asylum under the European Convention on Human Rights. Yvette Cooper told MPs the Government would draw up a "clear framework" for judges to ensure decisions fit "what I think the public would want to see".

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Last week, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood also said Britain will pursue reform of the European convention itself, as "public confidence in the rule of law is fraying", following growing right-wing hostility to the ECHR.

Her claims came in a speech to the Council of Europe, which oversees the convention.

The Government has ruled out leaving the ECHR, but Reform UK - which is leading in the polls - is committed to leaving, and the Conservatives are widely expected to announce their own commitment to doing so later this. Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has launched a review into potentially quitting the ECHR, which would see the UK joining the likes of Russia and Belarus.

But in briefings published this week, Amnesty details how "political decisions and media distortions" have misled the public about the role of Article 8 - the section of the ECHR which protects everyone in Britain's right to a private and family life.

Amnesty argues this has "stoked hostility, undermined justice, and paved the way for damaging legal reforms" in the face of right-wing hostility.

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The briefings explain how post-2006 changes - including the removal of key protections over deportation decisions and, in 2014, a restriction of deportation appeals to human rights grounds only - have made Article 8, the right to private and family life, the sole legal safeguard for many facing removal, even those with deep roots in the UK.

Under current law, most immigration appeals - except those for asylum cases - can only be made on human rights grounds. Automatic deportation applies to non-British people sentenced to 12+ months in prison, unless it breaches their human rights. And deportation powers can be used even against people born in the UK or with decades of lawful residence.

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These strict laws create a high-bar for people being wrongly deported to overcome by relying on the European Convention.

Catch-22

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty UK's Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme Director, said: "This is a classic Catch-22: Governments dismantled their own safeguards, forcing people to rely on Article 8 and then blamed Article 8 for simply doing the job they requ...

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It's hard in modern politics not to think constantly about leadership. It's little wonder. Traditional politics feels incapable of dealing with the complexities and the sheer scale of the challenges we face. So, we look to roll the dice, again and again, to find a leader capable of leading us. What we don't do is stop and reconceptualise the nature of leadership in the 21st century.

I was reminded of this while reading Tom McTague's recent profile of Keir Starmer, in his first outing as editor of the New Statesman.

I came away feeling slightly more sympathetic to Starmer but not really in a good way, more sorrow and sadness than warmth or regard. Starmer, as his handling of the welfare rebellion inside Labour has shown, is simply out of his depth, trying to fix our fiendishly complex problems for us.

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Clementine Boucher and Luke Hurst

In the interviews for the profile, Starmer talks about the responsibility he feels to always step up and organise those around him. At one level such a trait is admirable, the sense of public service in Starmer feels almost profound.

But it's the sense of his own uniqueness to lead, the duty and responsibility on him and him alone which is the worry. This is a common trait in old school leadership. Leaders who believe too much in themselves and not enough in others. People who believe it is uniquely them who were 'born to rule'.

In an older, more linear and predictable world, a world that was more machine like, this kind of all-seeing and all-knowing leadership was at least feasible. But in a more fragmented and chaotic world a different style of leadership is needed.

We're still between the old and the new and morbid symptoms are obviously appearing. As leaders inevitably fail to fix the complex chaotic and fast-moving world around them, trust in politics diminishes. Traditional political leaders respond by promising to deliver even more onerous targets. It is a doom-loop.

But instead of going forward to more plural and open forms of leadership, we seem to be going backwards from paternalistic politicians to more authoritarian ones.

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Instead of an adult-to-adult relationship, we are reverting to the relationship we know and understand best, that of the parent and child. This is the battle to come, between the strongman, the heroic CEO, the warrior leader and a more humble, relational and realistic form of leadership. As such this is a battle for our souls, to retreat into a false comfort that someone will run our lives for us or to step up and grow up?

In this convulsive moment I've been reading The Accountability Machine: why big systems make terrible decisions by Dan Davies. It's a book about bureaucracy and accountability and reacquainted me with the work of the cyberneticist William Ross Ashby.

Ashby devised the rather wonderful Law of Requisite Variety, which simply states that any regulator of a system, such as a government, needs to have at least as much variety as that system.

Davis explains the law in terms of how you might steer various kinds of vehicles, writing: "A train can really only go forward and backwards, so only needs a single handle. A car can make turns, so its control system requires a steering wheel to represent the added dimension. And an aeroplane needs a joystick rather than a steering wheel, because it can make two kinds of turns". Yo...

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The National Centre for Social Research has today published findings that should give pause to anyone concerned with the health of British democracy. Their latest British Social Attitudes survey, based on responses from over 3,000 UK adults, reveals a political system struggling to maintain public confidence and legitimacy in an era of fragmented voting and declining institutional trust.

The data presents a stark picture with just 12% of respondents saying they trust the Government to put national interest before party interest "just about always" or "most of the time". That's the lowest figure recorded in the survey's history. This represents not merely dissatisfaction with particular policies or politicians, but a fundamental erosion of faith in the democratic process.

When nine out of ten citizens believe their Government prioritises partisan advantage over national welfare, it's clear we have a crisis of legitimacy that transcends normal political discourse.

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This collapse in trust coincides with electoral outcomes that raise serious questions about democratic representation.

Labour's victory last year came with just 33.7% of the popular vote, the lowest share ever recorded for a majority Government in British history. The Conservative Party managed only 23.7%, meaning that together, our two traditionally dominant parties secured the support of barely half the electorate.

Such results would be unremarkable in a proportional system designed to encourage coalition-building and compromise. But under first-past-the-post they produce Governments with overwhelming parliamentary power based on minority public support, a sure-fire recipe for more public distrust.

Today's report shows that the public has noticed this disconnect. A record 60% of respondents now favour replacing the current electoral system with one that gives smaller parties fairer representation in parliament.

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Neal Lawson

This sentiment crosses traditional party lines, with a majority of Conservative supporters backing electoral reform for the first time in the survey's history. The appetite for change is no longer confined to traditional advocates of proportional representation but has become a mainstream concern spanning the political spectrum.

The consequences of continued inaction are predictable. Countries with low institutional trust and weak democratic legitimacy typically experience declining civic engagement, increasing political volatility, and growing susceptibility to authoritarian government.

While Britain isn't there quite yet, the trajectory is concerning enough to warrant urgent attention from policymakers across party lines.

The report underscores the importance of the work currently being done by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections inside parliament and by Open Britain, Make Votes Matter and others in the democracy sector outside.

At the core of that work, are three key objectives: replacing first-past-the-post with a proportional voting system, eliminating 'dark money' from politics, and combating disinformation in public debate. These three reforms would go a long way towards revitalising our democracy and rebuilding public trust in politics.

An Island of Neighbours: Rebuilding Labour from the Ground-Up

Clementine Boucher and Luke Hurst, of the cross-party think tank Compass, share practical insights from its conference in London in May, fo...

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A senior Reform figure, leading the party's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) unit, set up to mirror billionaire ex-Trump adviser Elon Musk's US initiative, has been accused of politicising non-political staff, after sharing images of his team posing with a council chief executive.

Un-resigned Reform bigwig Zia Yusuf, now back in the upper echelons of the party, was part of the team which visited West Northamptonshire council earlier this month where they met with Reform councillors - and apolitical council officials, as part of their supposed audit of council 'waste'.

Senior council staff - public servants who remain regardless of which party is in power - are typically instructed to steer clear of party politics.

So eyebrows were raised locally following a post from Zia Yusuf on 13th June saying: "Great DOGE trip to Reform-controlled West Northamptonshire council. We have an outstanding leadership team there, who have already started saving taxpayers big money."

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What savings he was referring to are very much unclear - so far Reform councils can point to very few given that successive Government cuts have left them often with budgets 40% smaller in real terms than a decade ago, and the fact that legally-required adult and children's care services account for over 70% of many of their budgets.

But the really odd part was who was in the photo attached to it: Anna Earnshaw, who serves as both the Chief Executive of the council, and who was the Returning Officer for the May elections that brought Reform to power. And here she is, in what looks like a party-political propaganda shot.

The Local Government Association, in its advice for Chief Executives, puts it like this: "You - and your officers - need to be politically astute, but not political."

This photo was used in a political context.

Just a few posts later Yusuf was claiming: "Rachel Reeves is destroying the British economy" and: "It's incredible how little of a council's time and money is being spent on doing things working people expect it to do."

Another in the same week, another hyper-political post: "The Westminster elite sends taxpayer money in foreign aid to Vietnam and Turkey" despite their relatively good education systems, calling it a: "Total betrayal."

Byline Times asked the council if it was appropriate for non-political officials - particularly election staff - to pose with Reform politicians, given the potential conflicts of interest and the risk for voters' trust in the process.

This is where it gets interesting. A council spokesperson told Byline Times the photo was "spontaneous" following a meeting between council officials and DOGE partisans.

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The spokesperson said: "It was not clear that this photo would be used by Reform HQ and when we were alerted to it, we asked they stop using the photos with the chief executive."

The photo, of course, remains live on various social media channels.

The spokesperson added: "The meeting with the reform HQ representatives took place on 13 June when they were guests of the Leader. The Leader and his cabinet spent time together. The Chief Executive and some directors later joined the discussion to hear more about the efficiency review and its aims, as well as discuss the legal and other limitations of any such review.

"At the end of the meeting, cabinet asked for a photo...

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Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, domestic repression in Russia has reached unprecedented levels.

However, few realise that behind these internal crackdowns lies another front - transnational persecution targeting exiled opposition figures, journalists, human rights defenders, and activists.

This new form of pressure - hybrid, multilayered, and psychologically exhausting - has become one of the Kremlin's key instruments in combating political dissent beyond its own borders.

Over the past two years, dozens, if not hundreds, of activists have faced attempts at physical, legal, digital, and moral intimidation far outside Russian territory. A term has emerged - "repression without borders" - to describe this unique phenomenon of the Putin era: the export of the state's repressive machinery into the global sphere.

The Concept of the 'External Enemy' as the Foundation of New Policy

The Russian political system, as the successor of the Soviet model, has historically relied on the image of an enemy. In the early 2000s, these were Chechen terrorists; later, Ukrainian "nationalists" and so-called "internal enemies" - members of civil society and independent media.

As Putin has repeatedly said, they "constantly rock the boat." But with the wave of mass emigration after 2022, a fundamental shift occurred: the threat became "exportable," and these so-called "enemies" - geographically elusive.

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Denis Mikhailov

"They left - but continue to harm the country." This formula is now actively promoted by Russian state propaganda. It is a constructed narrative aimed at demonising those who fled Russia: opposition politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, and even ordinary critics of the regime.

The narrative gained particular traction after the invasion of Ukraine, when tens of thousands of Russians left the country for political reasons. This framing lays the groundwork for the moral and political justification of using state resources to persecute its own citizens - even when they are now under the legal protection of other jurisdictions.

Key Instruments of Transnational Repression

Legal Tools and Interpol

The Russian authorities continue to actively exploit international legal mechanisms - particularly Interpol - despite official claims of their political neutrality.

Well before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was already evident that Russia had been abusing Interpol's 'Red Notice' system to pursue political opponents and restrict freedom of expression. Red Notices, arrest warrants, and extradition requests have increasingly become tools of pressure and control.

Examples:

Artur Zaripov, an activist from Bashkortostan, was detained in Poland at Russia's request through Interpol. He was later released after it became clear that the charges against him were politically motivated and lacked legal substance.

Bill Browder, a well-known critic of the Kremlin and advocate for the Magnitsky Act, has been subject to repeated attempts by Russia to detain him through Interpol. On several occasions, he was briefly detained in various countries until the Secretary General of Interpol in Lyon intervened, confirming that "no Red Notice exists, nor has ever existed" against him.

Bi-2, a prominent Russian rock band that has openly criticised the war in Ukraine, faced a politically charged incident in January 2024. Band members were detained in Thailand after a concert, officially due to visa violations. However, the situation quickly took a political turn. Russian diplomats reportedly pushed for their deportation to Russia - raising ...

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MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee have severely criticised the UK Government for its "dangerously flatfooted approach" in failing to recover nearly £2 billion in suspected fraudulent business loans lent by the last Conservative government five years ago.

The money handed out at the height of the Covid pandemic was aimed to keep businesses afloat during lockdown.

Now five years later only £130 million of £1.9 billion suspected fraud has been recovered and the ministry is unable to explain how much of this was fraudulently claimed. Banks who lent the money have no incentive to press firms to hand it back because the last government indemnified them from having to pay them back if the money was never returned.

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Russell Scott

Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown, Conservative chair of the committee, said "We found a passivity in Government's approach to recovering the almost £2bn of pounds in taxpayers' money lost to Bounce Back loan fraud during the pandemic. DBT were unable to tell us if even the tiny fraction of that sum recovered was in fact even related to fraud. Indeed, relying on government-backed lenders to recover losses, who thus lack any incentive to pursue lost funds, has been a dangerously flatfooted approach. Now that the Insolvency Service has taken over responsibility for viable cases, we look forward to hearing how it fares where others have failed."

The report says "The Bounce Back Loan Scheme was open for applications from 4 May 2020 to 31 March 2021, and in that time 1.5 million loans were issued, to a total value of £47.4 billion.

"The BBLS was designed to reduce the time taken to pay out the loans, in part by reducing the checks which lenders were required to do. This included removing credit and affordability checks, and accepting self-certification by borrowers, rather than requiring any verification of application information. This resulted in increased risk to the taxpayer, which was acknowledged at the time.

"As at 31 March 2024, there remained 1.03 million loans outstanding, to a value of £17.8 billion. The Department estimates that total losses to the taxpayer due to fraud in the scheme will be at least £1.9 billion over its lifetime. "

The highest risk fraud cases were being passed to the National Investigation Service (NATIS) to investigate, but recoveries by NATIS have totalled just £8.6m.

Post Office Compensation

The report is also critical of the ministry and the Post Office's handling of compensation cases due to sub postmasters following the Horizon computer scandal. This year the Post Office sent out 18,500 letters to people they suspected were still unaware they could claim compensation. Only 21 per cent replied and the ministry has decided not to pursue this any further beyond sending another 5000 letters.

The report says not all compensation for people who had their jail sentences quashed has been paid. So far 339 people have accepted a fixed £600,000 payment but people who wanted a detailed analysis of their losses are still waiting for a final agreement which is not expected unbtil next year. They have been given interim payments.

The uncertainty over the compensation payments led the National Audit Office to qualify the ministry's accounts for last year.

UPDATE

Company That Supplied Hundreds of Millions of Pounds of Unusable COVID Tests Saw Profits Skyrocket to £178 Million After Lobbying Conservative Peer for Contract

Primer Design's turnover jumped by 4,800% after supplying tests that were later deemed "unfit for public use"

Russell Scott

Sir Geoffrey Clifton B...