Byline Times Audio Articles

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….

SUBSCRIBE

Nigel Farage's party faces embarrassment today as new figures appear to discredit Reform UK's claims about 'wasteful' public sector spending on diversity schemes.

Farage's party has repeatedly claimed that it could save £7 billion a year by scrapping Government spending on 'DEI' programmes - representing diversity, equality and inclusion schemes designed to reduce discrimination and create more welcoming, representative workplaces.

But new Government figures - which have yet to be refuted by the far-right party - show that just £27 million was actually spent on so-called DEI measures in 2022-23 by the civil service - suggesting leader Nigel Farage's claims are off by a factor of about 250.

The civil service spend amounts to less than a penny a week per person living in Britain.

A spokesman for Reform UK told the Times today that the £7 billion figure was from a review of total public sector spending by the right-wing Conservative Way Forward group, 'which included councils, school boards, universities and government grants to charities among other areas.' Universities are largely funded through tuition fees, not the Government.

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 it is hard to see how anywhere near Reform's £7bn figure could be met even taking into account wider Government spending.

Over 500,000 people work for the civil service in the UK. Wider public sector employment is about 12 times larger, at just over six million people, according to the Office for National Statistics. Yet the £27m civil service EDI spending is just 0.4% of Reform UK's claimed total public sector DEI spend per year. 'DEI' as a term is a direct import by Reform UK from the US: in the UK it is typically referred to as EDI.

And the new official review of equality spending by Government departments and so-called quangos shows there are 380 'equality, diversity and inclusion' staff working full-time in the civil service - out of more than half a million people.

Civil service union FDA's Assistant General Secretary Lucille Thirlby told this newspaper: that across an organisation of more than 500,000 staff, "these couple of hundred EDI staff represent a small cost of the overall salary bill."

"Scaling back EDI staff would likely leave departments exposed to challenges around discrimination - be that individual cases or structural issues like equal pay and failure to apply reasonable adjustments - eroding any potential cost savings while making the civil service a much worse place to work."

And the Institute for Government's senior researcher Jack Worlidge added that EDI initiatives are a "common feature of many workplaces, including the civil service."

"The [new] figures show that savings from scrapping such initiatives would not be significant in the context of overall government spending. Between July 2022 and 2023, the equivalent of ~0.07% of the civil service workforce was devoted to EDI initiatives, costing…about 0.1% of the civil service pay bill."

The UK Government spends around £1.2 trillion a year in total, on services from the NHS to schools and roads - thousands of times more than spent on civil service DEI schemes.

The Conservative-party backing CWF's central mission is to lobby for "less government, [a] smaller state and lower taxes" with Margaret Tha...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

Let's talk about how the media is fuelling the rise of Reform. This is not a new topic. We have seen and heard mainstream journalists, editors and broadcasters asking each other: Are we responsible for the rise of Reform? But after a cursory moment of introspection, they generally reaffirm their journalistic decision-making, and deflect culpability onto other pied pipers.

When The News Agents were asked this question by a listener, they decided it was a "lefty cop-out" to blame the media. Yet I have seen nothing but media cop-outs, and most offensively, a media continuing unchanged. The truth is our media did not just fuel the rise of Reform, they cashed in on it.

Of course, there is no straightforward channel of blame (and I say 'blame' to condemn not the rise of a new party, but the fact that the party rising was one founded on hatred).

How the Media and Musk Are Boosting Nigel Farage's Reform UK Well Beyond Its Size

Analysis of media mentions on Elon Musk's X reveals that established news organisations are helping to boost Nigel Farage's party well out of proportion to its number of MPs

Don McGowan

On the one hand, yes, UK outlets are guilty of giving Reform disproportionate coverage with a disproportionately singular focus on frontman Nigel Farage. And yes, politics pages have long been locked in a two-party matrix that fails to cater to those pouring out of its rusty crevices.

On the other hand, no, this is no longer the newspaper era when Rupert Murdoch made the man in charge - there's a myriad of social and alternative media (some fronted by Farage) with whom the mainstream must compete.

And no, the mainstreaming of far-right ideas is not an exclusively British phenomenon. Also, no, there are not many inspiring alternative parties willing to break from the broken status quo.

But to set the parameters of this debate around Reform is to entirely miss the point. The key way in which our media has failed us is by making the most clickable politics the most successful.

How a 'Populist' Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right

Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent 'public opinion' - they simply reflect the radical right views of those 'who own and run them', argues Julian Petley

Julian Petley

With one hand, our media has shunned Reform as unserious (thereby playing into their anti-establishment narrative), while fanning with the other the flames of culture warfare and Us versus Them identity-making (on the right and the left alike), that give Reform such an easy route forward without requiring them to offer root-cause solutions.

"In many ways, our media repeatedly falls into the trap that extremists lay out for us," radicalisation researcher Dr Rajan Basra told Media Storm.

This was in 2022, when we were investigating a far-right attack on an asylum centre in Dover, which occurred amid headlines of an "invasion" on our border - headlines that quoted then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman in her carefully clickable wording. This trap, Basra calls "destroying the grayzone".

Whether it's ISIS or someone from the far-right, extremists want to destroy the nuance, the moderate view, the understanding that could bridge divides. They want us to think in Us vs. Them

Dr Rajan Basra, radicalisation researcher

"I don't know if it's just how the media's structured," Basra lamented.

The sad truth is, it largely is.

Ad-funded media quite literally live off clicks, and even editors at other outlets pour over 'most-read' leaderboards and pressure reporters to compete accordingly.

It's therefore easy for politicians, especially former media personalities like Farage and Donald Trump, to say things they know the media will repeat - even if ...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

The United Nations has confirmed what residents of Kherson - and Byline Times - revealed nearly a year ago: Russia's drone attacks on civilians were systematic, premeditated and intended to instil terror and forcibly displace the population.

"In the port city of Kherson, drones patrol the skies, hovering over devastated coastal suburbs and villages, searching for an old lady with a bucket here or a teenager on a bicycle there - to eliminate by dropping explosives," Byline Times reported on 29 July 2024, the first international publication to identify the use of drones in this way as a potential war crime.

"It's a human safari," said Tatiana, a resident of the Vostochny district.

#Kherson BREAKING.

Drones hunt civilians in #Kherson

Spike in #Russian drone attacks.

Dozens injured and killed.

"5-6 attacks a day."

Exclusive interviews from the coastal areas.

An article with an analysis is forthcoming tomorrow.#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/9XllQzrMU9 - Zarina Zabrisky (@ZarinaZabrisky) July 28, 2024

Eyewitnesses such as Tamara and her neighbours described drones circling overhead and dropping grenades on pedestrians. Their testimonies, gathered by Byline Times, were the first to document these attacks as part of a broader campaign of terror.

Now, following three months of investigation between March and May 2025, the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has concluded that the Russian military committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Kherson region. The Commission found that Russian forces carried out attacks "with the primary purpose to spread terror among the civilian population, in violation of international humanitarian law".

A senior practitioner at a Kherson hospital is quoted in the report:

"Russian Federation soldiers behave like this is a safari […]; they are simply chasing and hunting civilians who are on their way to work or walking their dogs. They drop explosives from drones like it is a video game."

Russian Drones are Hunting Civilians in Kherson: 'They see you and They Target you'

Estimates suggest that 50 people have been killed or injured in targeted drone attacks in the last two months, and left Kherson residents scared to leave their homes

Zarina Zabrisky

Russian Telegram channels frequently post video footage from drone operators showing civilians being tracked, attacked and killed. One channel even boasts in its description: "We instil fear in the Kherson direction." These videos - some with thousands of views - not only depict the crimes but are also accompanied by threats of further attacks.

The Commission determined that the use of drones to target civilians and civilian infrastructure represents a clear violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on anything other than military objectives. The evidence leaves no ambiguity as to the intent of the perpetrators. Russian forces, the report states, committed the war crime of deliberately directing attacks against civilians in Kherson province.

The Commission further concluded that posting videos of such attacks amounts to the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity. More than 120 videos have already been geolocated and verified by investigative teams, offering undeniable proof of deliberate targeting.

This marks the first official confirmation of Russia's use of low-cost civilian drones - such as FPV and Mavic models - in a campaign to terrorise and depopulate areas. The attacks are described as "systematic", "planned and organised", and reflective of "organisational policy".

The Commission also found that these actions may amount to the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of popula...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

Keir Starmer's Government risks a voter backlash if it goes ahead with mooted plans to cut funding for insulating homes in the upcoming Spending Review, new polling suggests.

The polling, conducted by pollsters Opinium, found that nearly half (46%) of Labour voters surveyed, believes that any retreat from Labour's manifesto commitment to invest in insulation for the UK's low-quality housing stock would further reduce trust in Starmer's Government.

The polling also revealed that among those who voted for Labour in the last general election, but aren't currently planning on voting for them again, over half (56%) say it would reduce their trust in the party.

Ed Matthew, UK Director for the climate change think tank E3G said "cutting a programme that will make immediate and direct improvements to people's lives would backfire. The public is sick of wasting money trying to heat cold, leaky houses and want this government to honour its manifesto pledge. If they fail to do so it would demonstrate that Labour have not learned from the winter fuel debacle at all."

Labour promised to invest £13.2bn in a Warm Homes Plan to help improve leaky and badly insulated housing, which data suggests is making the population sick. A recent Medact survey of 2000 health workers found that 70% of health workers regularly see mental health problems linked to housing, 67% see respiratory issues in children caused by damp and mould and 66% treat disabled people in housing conditions making them sick, at least once a month.

The research is published on the same day that health workers will deliver an open letter to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting, endorsed by several royal colleges. The letter urges the Government to honour its election promise to reduce energy bills and allocate at least £13.2 billion to a nationwide insulation programme in the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review.

Maria Carvalho, spokesperson for Medact, commented "it's simple. All we want is what was promised in the election campaign. That means a fully funded Warm Homes Plan, investment in green jobs, skills, and training, stronger protections for renters after upgrades are completed and delivery of high-quality home retrofits."

Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said "The Labour Manifesto said the promised funding will offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills. Either they back a Warm Homes Plan to the full extent promised in the manifesto, or they will be punished at the ballot box. The Chancellor must not be able to engineer another 'Winter Fuel Payment' disaster by refusing to help tackle fuel poverty and MPs should make that clear."

Health workers and campaign groups are not alone in trying to prevent the government rolling back the spending commitment. Last week the Financial Times reported that more than 50 companies and trade bodies warned that there would be thousands of job losses if the government were to go ahead with the rumoured cuts to insulation funding.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: "The energy shocks of recent years have shown the need to go further and faster to upgrade British homes, making them warmer and more efficient, while bringing down bills. Up to 300,000 households will benefit from upgrades through our Warm Homes Plan this year, rolling out measures like insulation, double glazing, solar and heat pumps".

They added "last year's initial settlement of £3.4bn was a first step - and puts us on a pathway to fixing leaky homes and saving families money."

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….

SUBSCRIBE

"The victory of ideas needs organising". These are the wise words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Some might, with some justification, argue that Lenin and the Bolsheviks took their own dictum too much to heart. But it's obviously the case that while ideas are necessary, they are insufficient on their own - they need to be battled for and fought for and that requires organisation. As Karl Marx said "'The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it".

Let's assume that progressives have some good ideas: wealth taxes, media reform, proportional representation, a four-day week, universal basic income and services, social ownership of water, investment in good public services and mass social home building, would be top of most people's wish lists of the politically desirable. So why does it feel like everything is going backwards?

A big answer is that we're not very good at organisation. And until we are the national populists are going to keep winning. Here are seven problems progressive face when it comes to effective organisation, and by implication how we might start to address them.

A Lack of Vision

First, a lack of vision: progressives have lost their way. In the absence of a unifying theory of change, which Marxism offered, and in the evidential crisis of social democracy, there is no ideological loadstar for progressives, no clear idea of what the good society or the good life might be, just rather bloodless and technocratic small scale reforms to alleviate the screaming reality of another famous dictum, this time from Mrs. Thatcher that "there is no alternative" or TINA as it became known.

If you don't know what you're organising for when you start, well that's a bit of a problem to say the least. Meanwhile the national populists offer rough and ready answers around culture and geography that may lack coherence but speak powerfully to people's sense of loss, grievance and resentment. Neither the opportunities of the 2008 global crash nor COVID created a sufficient opportunity for progressives to reassert a different vision of how the world should be - to build back better. This is by far and away the biggest problem progressive organisation faces.

'The Draconian Anti-Protest Laws That Are the Real Threat to Free Speech in the UK'

A new report calls on the Government to 'look again' at repealing laws passed under the last Conservative Government

Rowan Popplewell

Lack of Long Term Thinking

Second, playing the long game: without a vision it's impossible to play the long game. Instead, we just go for short term managerial reforms which might be good in their own right but don't add up to anything transformative or long term. The new right meanwhile are not just both bold and ambitious but farsighted, seeking to challenge and change the big institutions which once favoured progressives but are now in play, such as universities, the public media and the judiciary. This then chimes with the third problem.

Lack of Resilience

Persistence: "great deeds are not done by brute strength but by perseverance" Samuel Johnson told us. In this I'm reminded of the dogged determination and tenacity of the new right who in the midst with the triumph of the New Deal and the high point Keynesian welfarism in the mid 1940s, committed themselves to winning the battle of ideas for their free market nostrums. It must have felt like an impossible task, but they persisted. It took them three decades to get there but they never once gave up and never stop shooting for the moon. Progressives can learn much from this tenacity.

A Distaste for Popularity

Fourth, the need to be right, not popular: progressives str...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

Beneath the soil of anonymous plots known only by numbers, behind locked morgue doors in sub-zero temperatures, the walls of detention centres, and in secret cemeteries across Israel, bodies lie in limbo - unreturned, unnamed, and unseen.

Some have been held incommunicado for decades, slowly lost to history. Many have joined them in the past eighteen months - fresh casualties in an unceasing war, a chilling reminder to Palestinians of the Israeli state's attempt to control not only life, but death itself in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Gaza's destruction since 7 October 2023 has been extensively documented. For nearly two years, a livestream of images and videos of bombardment, mass starvation, evidence of torture, incidences of sexual violence, mass incarceration, and even the discovery of mass graves has sent shockwaves around the world.

Largely invisible is the Israeli army's protracted war on the dead, now accelerating rapidly.

"The numbers are far higher now," said Charlotte Kates, co-founder of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. "[Before October 7], bodies being held by the Israeli authorities were mainly from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, there is also a growing number from Gaza."

The practice of withholding bodies during or after armed conflict is not unique to Israel and Russia, but they are the only two known states with explicit laws authorising it as a state policy. This practice contravenes international humanitarian law, which mandates the respectful return of remains to families, and is not sanctioned by most other countries.

Collateral Genocide: Inside Israel's Official 'Legalisation' of Mass Civilian Killings

Israel's key defence is that it is not intending to destroy Gazans, but to destroy Hamas - so whatever happens is therefore not intentional

Nafeez Ahmed

Israel's policies on the issue date back to Britain's imperial policies rolled out during the Palestinian Mandate. As early as 1930, British security forces buried the bodies of militants in graves far from their homes after their execution.

These informal practices were soon codified under Article 133 (iii) of the 1945 Emergency Regulations, granting military commanders sweeping authority to dictate the burial of executed individuals, including time, place, and who may attend.

This was subsequently amended in 1948, with provisions introduced to make "lawful for the Military Commander to order that the dead body of any person shall be buried in such a place as the Military Commander may direct," and, "may, by such order, direct by whom and at what hour the said body shall be buried".

This emergency law still remains in place.

After the British departed, the morbid counterinsurgency tool was incorporated by the army that same year, following the mass expulsion of the Palestinians and the close of the first Arab-Israeli war. But they also refined and expanded the measure, deploying it against Palestinian militants and civilians and Israel's enemies across the Middle East.

'Investigation into Israeli Soldiers' Sexual Assault of Palestinian Detainee is the Tip of the Iceberg'

CCTV footage has emerged allegedly showing Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee. Human rights groups say the abuse has been 'going on for decades'

Mel Frykberg

Described by Israelis as "cemeteries for enemy combatants" and by Palestinians as the "cemeteries of numbers," the graves are notorious for their shared characteristic of numbered placards meant to mark each corpse.

The policy went into high gear with the expansion of the occupation in 1967, going through various phases and becoming more widespread durin...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

Here's something to consider for future clergymen about to finish their theologian studies: How about a trip to the frontline? To most future priests, such an offer might sound strange and not the least bit tempting.

For Russian ordinands, it is merely the latest example of the fusion between the Orthodox Church of Russia (UOC-MP) and the Putin regime's wars of conquest. Last week, Patriarch Kirill unveiled a new master's program called "Training and Interaction of Military Clergy With the Armed Forces". The courses are set to train 'military clergy' in Rostov-on-Don close to the fighting in Ukraine.

While the Orthodox Church in Russia retains a formal independence, it is de facto subservient to the whims of the state, and in the current totalitarian climate, Vladimir Putin is the state, to paraphrase Louis XIV.

For Putin, it is imperative that his invasion of Ukraine is framed as a spiritual war in defence of Russo-Christian values. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Church's supreme leader gave his blessing to the war, which he has labelled "a holy war".

On the frontlines, orthodox priests bless Russian tanks and missiles while Maria Zakharova, Putin's chief propagandist at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adds to the Christian fervour by describing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "satanic".

The Resurrection of an Old Alliance

The merging of church and state power is nothing new in Russia, but should rather be seen as the resurrection of a dormant alliance. The Orthodox Church has historically nurtured strong ties to the central rulers, not least during the final decades of the House of Romanov, where the deeply religious Nicholas II erected more than 10,000 new churches and joined a pilgrimage during the canonisation of Saint Seraphim of Sarov in 1903.

Following decades of suppression in the Soviet era, Orthodox Christianity saw a revival in the wake of its collapse. This also meant that the concept of Russkiy Mir - a term containing a double meaning of both 'Russian peace' and 'the Russian world' - was redefined. While the concept had been popularised as a geopolitical tool during the Soviet era, it gradually developed a spiritual dimension as well.

This recoupling of the political and the religious was largely overseen by Kirill, who served as Patriarch Alexy II's right-hand man in the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate until 2008.

'How Trump Fumbled the Ukraine Peace Talks in Istanbul and Emboldened Putin - Yet Again'

The Kremlin is now so emboldened by the Trump administration's position that it's as if three years of Ukrainian resistance, backed by the West, never even happened, writes Chris York from Kyiv

Chris York

Following Alexy's death that same year, Kirill was enthroned as primate of the Church. From his undisputed power position, he reaffirmed the relationship between the Kremlin and the Church by describing Putin as "a miracle from God" ahead of the secular ruler's reascension to the presidency in 2012. His direct involvement with Russian politics was cemented during the large anti-government protests known as the Snow Revolution (2011-2013), which Kirill likened to "ear-piercing shrieks".

While aiding Putin domestically, the direct politicisation of the Russian Church has also redefined its message abroad, where Kirill has thrown his weight behind Putin's neo-imperialism.

His sermons on the "sacred Russian land" are informed by a revanchist ambition to reintegrate the Russian territories into the Patriarchate of old, including Ukraine.

Fearing a weakened authority in Ukraine, the Church was initially sceptical of the annexation of Crimea and even boycotted a ce...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

An independent 'people's tribunal' established by scholars and experts on genocide and international law from around the world held its first public session on Monday in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the aim of investigating Israel's' alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Led by Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International law at Princeton University and former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, the four day Gaza Tribunal tribunal will hear from scholars, lawyers, journalists, UN special rapporteurs and eyewitnesses to the horrors of Gaza.

Opening the public session Richard Falk said: "The Gaza tribunal is devoted to bearing witness to Israel's crimes against the peoples of Gaza. Beyond this the purpose of the tribunal is to add whatever it can to the torment and outrage of peoples around the world to bring the Gaza ordeal of death and destruction to a rapid end by urging action to be taken in the name of our common humanity."

Although it has no formal legal status, the tribunal hopes to catalyse opposition to Israel's genocide in Gaza and to urge states to act where they previously have not, to meaningfully sanction Israel in an attempt to bring an end to the violence.

People's tribunals first began during the Vietnam war when philosopher Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre hosted a similar project, in an attempt to hold the US to account over war crimes.

Prof Falk added that the Gaza Tribunal was also inspired by a similar civil-society led exercise during the Iraq War, prompted by the 'regime-changing aggression that brought chaos and misery to the Iraqi people.'

"This legacy of earlier people's tribunals has a common feature that defines the mission of the Gaza tribunal. It is the failure of organised international society to enforce international law and hold the perpetrators accountable. In short these tribunals arise only when governments and their institutions fail or refuse to address severe injustices, especially bearing upon war and peace."

On Monday, the tribunal heard from Dr Nimer Sultany, a reader in Public Law at SOAS, who told attendees: "Palestine is a clear case in which the naming of the colonial condition has been delayed, or avoided, for so long. For too long.

"This lack of naming exposes an uneven application of principles and human rights. This lack of naming prolongs injustice and delays the application of human rights standards. We are here today to name the genocide."

UK Sanctions on Israeli Settlers are 'Wholly Insufficient' - the Violence Should be 'Treated as Terrorism Rather Than Criminality'

The Foreign Secretary David Lammy is being urged to go much further in response to violence by Israeli settlers

Byline Times Team

He added: "We need to be careful of the recent revisionism which seeks to justify the prolonged silence of so many, in the face of the most barbaric crime of our lifetime, [and] definitely of this century."

Commenting on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's recent statement that "within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed," Sultany said: "These revisionists are pretending that there is something new in Smotrich's recent statement.

"[They pretend] that Smotrich and Ben Ghivir [the far right Israeli National Security Minister] are not members of the security cabinet, which is constitutionally responsible for the war policy…and that Netanyhu's political survival did not depend on them in October 2023 as much as now."

Sultany's remarks come as there is an increasing scrutiny of Israel in Europe. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz argued on Monday that "to cause such...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

In March, the COVID Inquiry completed four weeks of hearings centred on the controversial procurement decisions made by Boris Johnson's Government during the pandemic.

Of particular interest was the use of a VIP lane by the Cabinet Office and Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) to procure PPE - a system that fast tracked offers from politically connected companies, many of whom had never previously supplied PPE to the NHS.

The previous Conservative Government was forced by the Good Law Project to reveal the names of the suppliers who benefited from the VIP Lane, and in November 2021, published the list of 51 names following a long-running battle.

Private Correspondence Reveals How David Cameron Helped Old Etonian School Friend Fast-Track COVID Testing Firm

Emails released to Byline Times reveal the close connections between senior Conservatives and those prioritised for multimillion pound COVID contracts

Russell Scott

However, those 51 suppliers declared by the DHSC may just be the tip of the iceberg - new evidence published by the COVID Inquiry and analysed by the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition (UKACC) suggests "20 other suppliers who received 48 contracts worth £1 billion" Via the VIP route. So, half a decade on we still don't know the scale of the VIP lane operation.

However, new documents published by the COVID Inquiry and additional documents obtained by Byline Times via Freedom of Information requests have shed new light on the political interference involved in the VIP lane and alarming evidence that suggests the public may never know the VIP lane's true extent.

Byline Times can now reveal:

Gareth Rhys Williams, the Government's Chief Commercial Officer during the pandemic has confessed in his witness statement to the inquiry that the true scale of the VIP lane remains unknown.

Williams, in his statement to the inquiry confirmed that "approximately 450 companies and individuals made offers" that were fast-tracked into the VIP lane - "leading to the award of contracts to 52 currently identified suppliers". However, in the footnote of the statement an alarming admission was included…

Williams claims: "The use of spreadsheets to record the actions of the PPE Buy Cell before 16 April 2020 means that there may be some offers/contracts which went through the HPL but which have not been recorded or subsequently identified as having done so."

Max Cairnduff, a senior civil servant working within the VIP lane has confirmed in his witness statement to the Inquiry that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, along with Conservative Party Peers Lord Feldman, Lord Deighton and Lord Agnew were responsible for referring 60 suppliers onto the high priority lane.

Byline Times has tried to uncover the names of the suppliers referred by the quartet of senior Conservatives, but our freedom of information request was rejected. The Cabinet Office claim releasing the names would not be in the "public interest" and suggest handing over the details would have a "detrimental effect on the ongoing UK COVID-19 Inquiry" and would "create potentially misleading assumptions and public understanding". Byline Times intends to challenge this decision.

Byline Times previously revealed that Lord Feldman, was working as a "fixer" for DHSC ministers during the pandemic and had referred 18 of the 60 suppliers and Hancock intervened to help a Conservative donor's Pizza firm land a VIP lane PPE Contract.

Last month Democracy for Sale revealed that Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy's firm was put in the COVID 'VIP lane'. But, prior to being fast racked, documents released to Byline Times, show that representatives from Candy Capital lobbied Conservative Party pee...

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….

SUBSCRIBE

More than 20 groups that campaign for democratic reform or minority rights have urged Keir Starmer and Rushanara Ali, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Democracy, to include automatic voter registration (AVR) in the forthcoming Elections Bill.

AVR is the automatic registration on the electoral roll of eligible citizens when they interact with public services such as the DWP, the Passport Office, or the DVLA.

The letter, signed by 23 groups including Unlock Democracy, Electoral Reform Society, Operation Black Vote, Generation Rent and Traveller Movement, argues that lowering the voting age to 16 - a proposal that the Government is reportedly considering - " will only be a success if 16 and 17 year olds are actually registered to vote".

The pro-AVR groups state that "millions more could be enfranchised with no additional burden on individuals or extra cost".

Their intervention comes as new estimates from NGO, Unlock Democracy, show that more than six million voters in England and Wales remain missing from the electoral register despite voter registration drives in the run up to the 2024 General Election.

According to the data, an average of 12.8% of eligible voters per constituency are not registered to vote. The figures are higher in big cities; nearly one fifth of voters in constituencies like Birmingham Ladywood and Brent East are not registered.

Recent research from the University of Manchester found that the UK is a "real outlier" among liberal democracies in terms of the difficulty of the voter registration process. Automatic voter registration systems are in place in Canada, Germany, Australia and Denmark.

Keir Starmer Urged to Seize a 'Once in a Generation' Opportunity for Real House of Lords Reform

The Prime Minister previously watered down his commitment to "abolish" Parliament's unelected second chamber

Olly Haynes

A 2025 study from the University of East Anglia found that Finland has the highest quality system for electoral registration according to electoral integrity indexes. Its electoral register is compiled by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency using information from the Population Information System. This data is then displayed publicly and each voter is notified of their right to vote ahead of elections.

The signatories of the letter to Starmer and Ali argued "the Electoral Commission has highlighted the failings of our Victorian-era voter registration system that leaves more than 6 million eligible UK citizens not registered to vote. Worst affected are young people, private renters and ethnic minority voters. The system isn't working for many people with disabilities either."

UK Election Officials Are Not Keeping Any Records of How Many Overseas Donors Are Bankrolling UK Politics

Democracy campaigners are calling for urgent reform of UK electoral laws, as Nigel Farage's party launches a fundraising drive among voters living in overseas tax havens

Olly Haynes and Josiah Mortimer

At the last election there was a 19% turnout gap between homeowners and renters according to research from the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Before the 2024 election, The Guardian reported that Labour officials had drawn up plans to introduce automatic registration, although the policy was not included in the manifesto.

The letter follows new polling which shows that 60% of the public support AVR; 26% oppose it. The proposal has majority support among the backers of all major political parties, though it is lowest among supporters of the Conservative Party , 55%, and highest, among Greens, at 73%.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless...