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The UK Government is one of the biggest obstacles to the world's poorest countries securing debt relief, according to a coalition of aid organisations ahead of a crucial international development conference.

Christian Aid, the non-profit coalition Bond, and other campaign groups have accused the UK of blocking proposals that would help developing nations tackle their crippling debt burdens, despite promises to reset relationships with the global south.

The criticism comes as world leaders prepare for the United Nations' Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville (Spain) from 30 June. The week is set to see the most politically significant development negotiations of the decade.

On Tuesday (18th June), world leaders in in New York agreed a draft agreement ahead of the conference. But it has received heavy criticism from aid groups. "It falls far short of the ambition needed to address the worsening debt and climate crises, poverty and inequalities in the global south," according to the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).

Negotiations for it began with "ambitious language on sovereign debt architecture reform, international tax cooperation and international development cooperation, and development finance more broadly" - but it has been "significantly weakened during negotiations, with many meaningful action-oriented commitments diluted due to the policy priorities of Global North governments," a Eurodad spokesperson said.

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Jean Saldanha, Director of the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) hit out at the "lowest common denominator" agreement seemingly being pushed through.

"What began as a critical opportunity to advance essential reforms that would give Global South countries a seat at the decision-making table was ultimately derailed by sustained pressure from Global North countries, including the EU and UK, to pursue their policy agenda," she said.

The draft plan, if approved in Seville later this month, would make debt restructuring processes faster, more predictable, and development-oriented while providing developing countries with better tools and support to manage their debt burdens sustainably. Developing nations facing natural disasters would be able to pause debt repayments.

But Saldanha added: "While there is some positive language in the document, at a time when global south countries have been calling for the transformation of the international financial architecture, rich countries have once again shown their reluctance to give up their grip on the global economic system."

Crippling Debt Crisis

The forthcoming UN conference takes place against a backdrop of what campaigners call the "worst debt crisis in history" - beyond that faced at the peak of campaigning at the turn of the millennium.

According to UN data, 48 developing countries now spend more on interest payments than on education or health, a problem affecting approximately 3.3 billion people.

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Jennifer Larbie, Head of Campaigns and UK Advocacy at Christian Aid told a press conference on Tuesday: "It cannot be overstated how much the debt crisis is systematically locking low income countries in perpetual poverty….

"Africa...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

For digital and print editions, packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, features, and columns….

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Over the past decade, we have witnessed a large-scale exodus of political opposition figures and civil society activists from Russia. This is not a spontaneous migration, nor one driven by personal ambition - it is a deliberate, strategically managed policy by the Kremlin to exile, neutralise, and effectively erase alternative political life within the country. The mechanism is not limited to prison sentences (although those remain a powerful tool), but also includes a subtler, more precise form of pressure that pushes people toward emigration.

Exile has long been a tool of the Russian state in its efforts to suppress what it perceives as "dangerous" intellectual or political energy. Tsar Nicholas I sent the Decembrists to Siberia. Under Nicholas II, there was mass emigration of socialist thinkers. In the Soviet era, the state expelled so-called "enemies of the people" - dissidents, physicists, philosophers, and former elites - or forced them to conform, collaborate, and eventually be destroyed by the system under Stalin's rule.

How Russia's Fake Spirituality Became a Key Weapon in the Kremlin's Disinformation Toolbox

Under Putin, Christianity has been turned into a political tool to spread false narratives about the war in Ukraine

Morten Hammeken and Pekka Kallioniemi

Modern Russia has invented nothing new - it has simply digitised and legalised the machinery of exile. Today, the process is formalised through courts, amendments to the criminal code, and the branding of individuals as "foreign agents". Most importantly, it manufactures a constant sense of vulnerability for anyone who dares to oppose Putin's regime. The Kremlin no longer needs to eliminate an enemy immediately; it first isolates them, drives them out of the political and social landscape. Emigration becomes not an act of freedom, but a reaction to an engineered trap.

As the saying goes, Russia's rulers have, for generations, expelled those who get in the way of their lies. Rather than seeking dialogue or fostering a system that accommodates differing political views - what we might ordinarily call democracy - the Kremlin has consciously chosen to divide society into "us" and "them".

The Geography of Modern Russian Exile

According to independent estimates, hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The main waves of emigration have headed toward Georgia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, and other European states. This is not an economic migration. These people are leaving for political reasons - driven by fear for their freedom, safety, and the protection of their families.

The largest and most distinct group consists of political activists, lawyers, journalists, and human rights defenders. These are individuals whose work involves protest, exposing corruption, defending victims of political persecution, and resisting authoritarianism - even within the boundaries of the existing legal system. They have faced a stark choice: remain and face repression, accept Putin's political reality, or leave - forced into exile.

From my own experience working in the Navalny team in St. Petersburg, I saw the rise of a new, harsher system of political repression take shape. Lawyers, journalists, and activists quickly understood that even limited participation in anti-regime activity meant the end of any legal civic or political life in Russia. You would never again be allowed to run for office. You would not be permitted to register a political party. You would fail any application for civil service. And if you were already a government employee, you would soon be dismissed. And that was just the visible tip of the...

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Hundreds of councils remain on a financial cliff edge and could go bust within the next two years, despite extra relief handed to them by Keir Starmer's incoming Government, MPs on the influential Public Accounts Committee warn today.

The new Government was accused of creative accounting to mask deficits in last year's Budget and last weeks Spending Review. However, the full scale of the problem remains unclear, with MPs revealing that 75% of councils have not yet completed up to date audits of their finances.

The MPs are particularly critical of the effect of the hike in employers' national insurance, which the Treasury imposed without any published assessment on how it would affect local government finances.

The Government did provide £515 million to offset this but it has turned out that it is not enough and also is having an effect on the finances of charities and private providers who supply adult social care to councils.

Rachel Reeves Has Quietly Ended the Thatcherite Consensus and Opened the Door to the UK Becoming a Nordic-Style Economy

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Josiah Mortimer

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Conservative Chair of the Committee, said: "Our inquiry heard that the Government is concerned about local authority finances. But the lack of urgent action to come forward with a plan to address the fast-approaching cliff edge for under-pressure authorities would seem to suggest it is comfortable with the current state of affairs as normalised background noise. Alarmingly, scrutiny of council finances can now provoke a sense of déjà vu, with the same unfixed issues seen over and over. We would urge the government to use the funding announced in this spending review as a starting point for the paradigm shift required…

"To introduce major changes to national insurance without taking into account the likely effect on an already tottering local government sector is a major misstep. Similarly, aspirations for wide-ranging reforms seem to be unengaged with a reality in which local authorities do not have good and strong capacity to fundamentally change the way they work."

Local government spends £72 billion a year. However, the vast majority of the money goes on special education for children and adult social care. Overspending on the special education programme -SEND - where councils seek private provision for children and people with disabilities is expected to reach between £2.9 billion and £3.9 billion by 2027-28. The Government has introduced "a statutory override" which means the overspending is not included in council budgets but this finishes next April. The spending review seems to assume that councils will get most of their money by raising more council tax.

Hampshire County Council, in evidence to MPs, said it had reduced services to a statutory minimum because of the cost of SEND. It said it was spending £26 million a year to support 37 of its most vulnerable children.

The Ministry for Housing, Local Government and Communities has also ignored a request from MPs to reform the system this March and postponed a decision to the autumn.

The report reveals councils have had to cut back on spending on preventative social work to cope with extra workloads on late interventions in social care services.

'Britain Will Be Better off for Rachel Reeves' Spending Review'

The Chancellor's decision to prioritise growth, while investing in green energy, social housing and levelling up the country, should be welcomed, argues Simon Nixon

Simon Nixon

The report concludes: "There is significant uncertainty around how the proposed local government finance reforms and reorganisation will be implemented. Long standing plans for funding and service reforms have been delayed ...

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Reform UK's influx of newly-elected councillors are facing rising local anger in parts of the country after scrapping local preparations to deal with catastrophic man-made climate change.

Meetings to discuss contingency planning for rising global temperatures have been cancelled at a series of local authorities now controlled by Nigel Farage's party, with even committees scheduled to discuss the likelihood of increased flooding facing the axe.

At Derbyshire County Council on Monday June 16, local residents gathered outside to protest Reform UK's immediate scrapping of the authority's climate change committee and cancellation of all climate-related meetings.

Protesters claimed these actions leave communities across Derbyshire exposed to worsening climate threats.

EXCLUSIVE

Resignations, Cancelled Meetings and Culture Wars: How Reform UK Councils Are Descending Into Chaos

Nigel Farage's band of newly-elected councillors are already starting to struggle, reports Josiah Mortimer

Josiah Mortimer

Derbyshire campaigners stood and held placards and banners with images of flooding, wildfires and ruined crops outside County Hall, highlighting Reform UK's fossil fuel funding.

The protest was planned to coincide with the Regulatory Planning Committee meeting. However, the meeting was cancelled. Reform councils, most prominently Kent, are cancelling swathes of meetings as they try and get to grips with power.

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Another Reform-controlled body, Lincolnshire County Council, has scrapped its flood management scrutiny committee, saying it would save money. The opposition Labour party there described it as a "reckless" which would put residents at risk.

Residents protesting this week say they will keep returning to highlight "Reform UK's failures to protect people from climate change until they make climate action a top priority".

The local climate campaigners argue that Reform UK's "fossil fuel funding, denial of climate science, attacks on Net Zero and deliberate dismantling of climate governance" will make them culpable for climate-related hardships locals face.

Derbyshire has already experienced widespread flooding in recent years. Storm Babet in October 2023 inundated around 1,600 homes and businesses, causing millions of pounds in damage across Chesterfield and nearby towns, and many residents remain in recovery over a year later.

Derbyshire farmers have also struggled with excessively wet and warm winters leaving fields waterlogged, delaying spring sowing and damaging crops.

All over the UK, farmers have reported negative impacts from the record breaking dry spring of 2025. This year there were wildfires in the Peak District National Park due to unusually warm and dry conditions, the campaigners note.

According to a New York Times analysis of Reform's donation records, the party collected £4.75m in 2024, with 40% originating from donors who have "publicly challenged climate science or hold stakes in fossil fuel or other environmentally harmful sectors".

EXCLUSIVE

BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output

The Director General Tim Davie and other executives discussed altering BBC "story selection" in order to secure the "trust" of supporters of Nigel Farage's party

Adam Bienkov

Climate investigation outlet DeSmog found that the party has historically been even more dependent on fossil fuel interests. They found that from December 2019 to June 2024, Reform received over £2.3m from oil and gas companies, polluting industries and climate sceptics - representing 92% of their total donations during that period.

Leader Nigel Farage recently backed reopening coal mines in South Wales, despite Britain moving almost completely away from coal in recent decades. The party says it opposes any spending on Net ...

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The man accused of being responsible for holding Austin Tice - the American journalist who was abducted in Syria 2012 - has claimed that ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered his execution and that he is dead, the BBC reported.

The broadcaster, citing security sources, made the discovery as part of an upcoming BBC Radio 4 podcast about Tice's disappearance. However, authorities, along with Tice's family, are sceptical of the claims.

In a statement to the New York Times, a representative for the family said they were disappointed it had been published and doubted it was true: "Based on firsthand information, the Tice family believes this version of events is false and it is unhelpful to their efforts to locate and safely return Austin."

The reporter and former US Marine captain vanished near the Syrian capital, Damascus, just days before his 31st birthday.

'This Is the Room Where My Sister and Mother Died': The Heartbreaking Return Home for Syrians After Assad Was Overthrown

A month since al-Assad was forced from power those living in exile are returning home to find nothing left

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The fallen regime consistently denied knowing where he was, but intelligence documents uncovered by the BBC earlier this month, along with testimonies from former Syrian officials, confirmed what the US Government long suspected: Tice had been imprisoned by the Assad regime.

Major General Bassam Al Hassan, a former commander in the Republican Guards and part of Assad's inner circle, was also the Chief of Staff of the National Defence Forces (NDF), the paramilitary group the broadcaster reported was responsible for holding Tice.

Al Hassan is said to have met with US law enforcement at least three times in Lebanon earlier this year and during these conversations told investigators that Assad had ordered Tice's execution, which was later carried out.

Al Hassan is understood to have provided possible locations for the journalist's body, but the BBC reported that investigators are yet to confirm his claims. Searches of the sites are said to be planned.

Hassan was sanctioned by the US in 2014 for arms procurement and is wanted by French judges for allegedly helping coordinate sarin gas attacks in 2013. He reportedly maintained close ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Syria, the Guardian reported.

In December 2024, after rebel forces seized Damascus, Hassan fled to Iran before travelling, voluntarily, to Lebanon where US investigators have been interviewing him since April.

Who is Austin Tice

Austin Bennett Tice, born on 11 August 1981, in Houston, Texas, is the eldest of seven siblings. A lifelong writer at heart, he graduated from Georgetown University's prestigious Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2002. The former US Marine captain, who completed two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, also enrolled at Georgetown University Law Center in 2010.

In 2012, he chose to cover the Syrian civil war as a freelance journalist, becoming one of the few foreigners reporting from inside the country as it slipped into chaos. His work, published in outlets like The Washington Post, McClatchy News, and CBS, earned him the George Polk Award for War Reporting.

Tice was last seen near a checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus, in the suburb of Darayya in August 2012. Seven weeks later a 47- second video appeared online titled, 'Austin Tice Still Alive'.

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Dan Kaszeta

The footage showed him bl...

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The book Get In, about Keir Starmer's rise to power, has been sitting on my bookshelf since it was first published back in February. I had avoided reading it in part because I pretty much knew the story of how Starmer became party leader and then Prime Minister, and partly because I didn't want to be reminded about how events between 2017 and 2024 unfolded. It was painful. As ever with Labour, I was a bit part player, but that small part taught me important lessons in why and how you win power.

The central character in Get In is not of course Starmer but Morgan McSweeney, now his chief of staff, then the person who ran Labour Together, the shadowy organisation that was to change the face of the party and the country.

Between 2017 and 2020 Morgan was a regular visitor to my flat and to Compass events. I gave advice on how to set up Labour Together and I attended its strategy sessions at Warwick University and went to their private London dinners.

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Josiah Mortimer

Back then Morgan's line was this. The radical economic case of Corbynism is evidently true, what we need to do is sort out the 'stain of anti-semitism' and professionalise the project. On the surface it was to all intents and purposes 'Corbynism without Corbyn'.

I know that for some any critique of 'Saint Jeremy' is a critique too much. Of course, there were people in the Parliamentary Labour Party and the mainstream media who wanted to destroy him and would go to any length to do so. But Jeremy was an accidental 'leader'. He didn't want the post, it was just his turn to stand and wave the red flag. He wasn't ready to lead in the sense of having a strategy to govern the party let alone the country. None of that takes away from the fact that his campaign in 2017 struck a chord with so many. That's why Morgan sounded authentic when he was offering to keep the content but ditch the culture.

But that, as we now know, isn't what Morgan really had planned. Instead, he sucked up the language of the left so that he could destroy it. His well-funded polling of the party, as Get In demonstrates, showed that the vast majority of party members were idealists not ideologues. Morgan just needed a candidate who could look like continuity Corbynism but was malleable enough to be shifted as soon as the leadership was secured.

Starmer, who had little to do with Labour Together, was that candidate. He had stayed in the Shadow Cabinet and become the liberal left's darling through his demand for a second referendum. He looked and sounded prime ministerial. His name was Keir for god's sake. With his ten Corbynite pledges on public ownership, dropping tuition fees and the rest, wrapped inside an envelope that had 'integrity contained inside' printed across it - he won with ease.

And then the war on the left started. And not just the hard left but the centre left, who were seen as gatekeepers to any possible return of Corbyn style politics. This much we broadly know. But it's the implications of victory through deceit that are now important to unpick - especially for progressives.

Because the right and the far left can win on a lie. For them means are justified by ends. Theirs is the politics of the vanguard. Small cabals with big plans to seize control of the state and wield it for purposes they believe to be virtuous. Labour Together was a modern-day version of the Militant Tendency, a party within a party, masquerading as something it wasn't, lying to ...

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After the election counts finished and the camera crews headed home, Reform UK councillors - over 800 of them now, running 12 councils - had to grapple with a new question: 'What are we going to do now?'

Now that question is starting to be answered.

We've dug through local news coverage and talked to local constituents and opposition councillors on the ground to figure out what the new Reform councils have been up to. It's not been smooth sailing, to say the least.

Across England there have been stories of cancelled meetings, suspensions, resignations, and more than a few culture wars.

Here's just Reform's local councillors have been getting up to since May 1st. It's not been smooth running.

Kent County Council

Kent County Council has received the most attention of the 12 Reform-run local authorities in England, in no small part due to it being the flagbearer for Reform's 'DOGE' team of party activists and ostensible experts, sent in to audit the council's finances.

However, despite promises of newfound efficiency, it already seems to be experiencing a severe case of dysfunction.

As Byline Times first reported, all committee meetings scheduled for June were cancelled by the new administration, with some Reform members reportedly requesting that July meetings also be rearranged because they cannot attend those either.

Opposition councillors describe the council's performance under Reform decision-makers as both slow and chaotic.

A Kent resident got in touch with Byline Times to share their thoughts: "The overwhelming sense I get since the Council elections is…. silence. We've heard nothing from our elected Councillor, we've seen very little in the press other than a few bits on Kent Online…and those articles you've published.

"The huge fanfare over the "DOGE" team and that appalling letter from Reform Ltd telling staff to cooperate or else, then the resignations of half the team has been followed by….. nothing much at all.

"Cancelled Council meetings and collapsed "DOGE" but no new policies, no innovation, no massive (imaginary) savings. Nothing. Are they out of their depth?" Probably.

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The council leader responded to criticism so far by, according to opponents, going on holiday.

East Thanet Labour MP Polly Billington has been watching the council closely. She said: "Reform say they can't hold key meetings because cabinet members are being trained, but now there are reports the new council leader has gone on holiday and Reform seem reluctant to explain what is going on. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, but the people of Kent shouldn't be kept in the dark."

A Reform councillor there has already been suspended by the party over allegations that are now "with the police". So that's all going well.

As another Kent reader put it: "We'll probably be under special measures by Christmas."

A plethora of postponed and cancelled Kent Council Meetings in June:

Derbyshire County Council

One Reform council that has got to work quickly is Derbyshire County Council. Though residents would probably prefer the new leader obsessed over flags instead, in this case.

Last week the BBC reported that Reform planned to close a swathe of adult education centres.

"Learning centres such as the Eco Centre in Wirksworth, and centres in Alfreton, Ashbourne, Matlock, Shirebrook, Long Eaton and the Toolbox in Glossop will cease to offer adult education courses at the end of July," according to the BBC report of the council.

The new administration has also refused to commit to installing sprinklers in Derbyshire schools, reversing a pledge from the previous administration. "Harrington Junior...

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The man dubbed Vice President JD Vance's "philosopher king" is the UK chair of an organisation funded by a series of right-wing billionaires who have variously condemned democracy as "destructive", called for a "limited dictatorship", and urged US citizens to fight a "cold civil war" against the left, Byline Times can reveal.

Dr James Orr heads the Edmund Burke Foundation (EBF), which between 2019 and 2023, received $351,722 from the Thomas D Klingenstein Fund, according to publicly available tax returns. Klingenstein is a far right megadonor who has described American politics as a "cold civil war" between a conservative resistance and "totalitarian regime" of wokeness.

"If we are to save this great republic, Republicans must understand we are in a war. And then they must act accordingly," he wrote in 2021, adding that "we need political generals who will fight as if the choice were between liberty and death."

Reform-Led Kent Council Cancels Swathes of Meetings Amid Claims They 'Don't Know What They're Doing'

Nigel Farage's party accused of running a "decision-free" administration, after being forced to scrap a third of its upcoming scheduled meetings

Josiah Mortimer

In March 2024, the Guardian revealed that Klingenstein had funded Action Idaho, a far right website which "reserved a particular antipathy for Idaho's LGBTQ+ community". Action Idaho's efforts culminated on 15 June with the mass arrest of Patriot Front members who were attempting to disrupt a pride event in Coeur d'Alene", according to the Guardian.

In 2023 the Edmund Burke Foundation also took $25,000 from the Howdy Doody Good Times Foundation (HDGTF) in 2023. HDGTF is the foundation created by shampoo billionaire Charles Haywood to fund projects such as Society for American Civic Renewal, an invite only society whose website uses rhetoric that has been characterised by one expert on the far right as "palingenetic ultranationalism", and supposes that a national rebirth can be achieved through revolutionary upheaval. On his personal website the Worthy House, Haywood has written that "ultimately no final question can be solved without conflict, usually involving violence".

Haywood has also condemned democracy, writing in 2021 that "the new government will be a protector of the collective of society in its spiritual aspect; it will represent the nation as it should be, not reflect the general will. It could be Augustan - a limited dictatorship (and almost certainly will be to begin). It could be aristocratic, like Venice in its prime. It will not be democratic, because that system is unnatural and destructive at scale".

The Edmund Burke Foundation puts on the annual National Conservatism (NatCon) conference which gathers thinkers and politicians from radical right political movements around the world. Conservative MPs Suella Braverman and Danny Kruger appeared at the National Conservatism conference in 2023, the same year as the donation from Haywood, as did Michael Gove and Miriam Cates who were then MPs. Nigel Farage has also spoken at NatCon, attending the 2024 edition in Brussels.

Jason Wilson, a journalist and expert on the American far right, who first broke the story of Haywood's involvement with the Society for American Civic Renewal said of Haywood's blog, "I suppose if you were to ask me to characterise the blog, it's a very openly kind of neo-fascist point of view […] he's a big fan of Francisco Franco".

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Alexandra Hall Hall

Wilson added that by donating to NatCon which is "kind of successful", donors like Haywood and Klingenstein get to "have a say and shape the agen...

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No headline in May, when Israel bombed the Freedom Flotilla's aid ship in international waters off the coast of Malta. No headline last week, when the World Food Programme identified 76,000 children in Gaza as acutely malnourished. No headline on Friday, as thousands of volunteers walk aid across North Africa in a bid to break the siege on Gaza. But when 'Greta Thunberg's 'selfie yacht' stunt is brought to an end' (LBC), the Telegraph leads with 'The Greta photo that exposes the hollowness of Leftie activism'.

It is not hard to understand why activism is "hollow" when it takes a stunt to make the media do its job.

These media are not as allergic to "self-serving PR" as they claim. The "selfie yacht" and "Instagram story" jibes come directly from Israel's foreign ministry, who can also be credited with the Telegraph's leading image of Greta Thunberg being "offered a sandwich and a bottle of water" (give me a stuntier stunt that spraying a boat with chemicals and then photographing yourself handing its crew sandwiches). "That awkward moment when the Israel Defence Forces spoil your Instagram story", writes Stephen Daisley. But a news outlet that lets leaders write their own headlines is just Instagram with bylines.

'The Journalists Who Really Take Sides When Reporting on the Far-Right Are Its Cheerleaders in the Right-Wing Press'

There's a big difference between impartiality and giving the politics of hate and deception a free pass, argues Julian Petley

Julian Petley

According to Daisley, this IDF-accredited picture is "perfect" because it "exposes the hollowness of Leftie activism". Activism can be hollow, believe me. I grew cynical of celeb-fronted humanitarianism in my days distributing aid in despairing environments. But nothing makes my stomach pang like the hollowness of the coverage I have seen from these outlets, which give more airtime to male keyboard warriors bitching about women half their age than they do to plausible genocide.

Search 'Gaza' on The Telegraph. This month, the outlet has published 10 (11, if I'm generous) news reports about what is happening inside the warzone. Just one is about Israeli attacks. It tells us "Israel has admitted firing 'near' civilians in the vicinity of a Gazan aid centre". This was the third fatal shooting of Palestinians by Israeli military in three days of aid distributions under the new militarised arrangement. On the first day, the Telegraph headline was "Israel denies shooting dead dozens of civilians at Gaza aid site". Other than these contradictory press releases, there is not a single report given to the killing of 2,000 Gazans by Israeli attacks in the two weeks of June.

The Telegraph has, however, published sixteen opinion pieces regarding Gaza. opinions entirely unjustified by a balance of factual reporting to demonstrate their writers really know they're talking about. Comically, 10% of The Telegraph's total coverage of Gaza this month is about the bias of the BBC's coverage of Gaza. Over a quarter is about Greta Thunberg.

Again: over a quarter of the Telegraph's total Gaza coverage this month is about Greta Thunberg. This is absurd. The Telegraph is one of the oldest news outlets our proud nation has to offer. But it is trading in unearned opinion, not information, and I fear its readers are unaware.

On Monday, Piers Morgan interviewed the UN Special Rapporteur to the Occupied Palestinian Territories on TalkTV, and spent twenty minutes denigrating Thunberg. "All I can say for sure," said Morgan, "is that this stunt has done absolutely zero to help any of the people in Gaza".

Francesca Albanese replied: "I'm an international law expert and you call me on your program to talk...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

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Few institutions are as embedded in the British psyche as the BBC. With its global reach and reputation for impartiality, it occupies a central place in the UK's information ecosystem. Yet a new report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), a Muslim Council of Britain project, challenges that image. Covering BBC output on the Israel-Gaza conflict from October 2023 to October 2024, the CfMM claims the broadcaster has failed its duty of "due impartiality."

Instead, their report 'BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards' argues, the UK's national broadcaster has diminished Palestinian suffering, amplified Israeli perspectives, and applied double standards to reporting on the war that amounts to institutional bias.

The CfMM analysed some 3,873 online articles and 32,092 broadcast segments, to identify what it called "the marginalisation of Palestinian suffering and the amplification of Israeli narratives." Central to their claim is that despite Palestinian fatalities outnumbering Israeli ones by more than 34 to 1, coverage of Israeli deaths dominated.

For instance, the report found Israeli deaths mentioned 33 times more per fatality in online articles and 19 times more in broadcasts than Palestinian deaths. By October 2024, 42,010 Palestinians and 1,246 Israelis had been killed.

"Does the BBC find Palestinian lives and deaths less newsworthy than Israeli ones?" the CfMM report asks.

BBC Scraps Pledge to Show Gaza Medics Documentary 'As Soon as Possible'

The BBC has shelved plans to broadcast the harrowing 'Gaza: Medics Under Fire' documentary pending an "ongoing review" into its coverage of the conflict

Iain Overton

To stress-test these claims, Byline Times conducted its own analysis, on a small scale. We examined the output of BBC Special Correspondent Lucy Manning who had filed at least 27 digital reports focused on 7 October and its aftermath, profiling Israeli victims, survivors, and hostages. We compared this to Fergal Keane, another Special Correspondent, who had focused on civilians in Gaza. Keane had some 31 stories published.

While Keane may have also filed for broadcast, the editorial decision to commission a seeming digital balance between his and Manning's reporting does not - as the CfMM also claims - appear to account for the far greater scale of Palestinian casualties, nor how that disparity should influence the overall balance of coverage.

Some may argue that drawing such comparisons creates a false moral equivalence. After all, most of those murdered on October 7 were civilians, and Israel has not explicitly taken hostages. Furthermore, British journalists are not allowed into Gaza. But the question of proportionality in Gaza reporting remains urgent and unresolved and, it seems, of major concern to those working for the BBC.

One journalist who has worked closely with the BBC over Gaza reiterated the CfMM's findings to Byline Times. They said that they were "shocked at just how explicitly partial the BBC editorial policy department and BBC management are on the issue of Israel - to say they are one-sided is an understatement."

"One BBC member of staff told us that UN sources cannot be trusted," the journalist said. "Palestinian or any sources perceived to be Muslim are treated with suspicion, even when they are Western academics who happen to be Palestinian or Arab by heritage. There is a total lack of journalistic standards and ethics, especially when dealing with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) - Israeli IDF propaganda statements are treated as statements of fact. Scripts are peppered with Israeli "right to replies" without any legal or ethical basis."

The source - who asked to remain anonymous - told By...