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This month marked 100 days since Norfolk voters handed Reform UK 40 seats and put it firmly in the driving seat at county hall, promising a "laser focus on value for money" and "the best possible services".

How is that going?

In May, Reform was polling nationally at nearly 28%, with Labour a distant second at just under 20%. The results were inevitably dreadful for the governing party. Labour's county councillors were reduced from nine to one, while Reform swept in with 40 seats – mostly at the expense of the Conservatives.

I was one of those Labour winners, elected for the Hethersett division by three votes. It was the first time Labour had ever won this seat. Never let it be said that your vote doesn't count.

I entered the chamber in late May as the only Labour representative on the most right-wing Norfolk County Council I can remember.

As our first full council meeting got underway, it became clear that a few of the higher-ups in Reform wanted to make a splash.

My first motion called on the new administration to protect Norfolk's social safety net: the voluntary organisations, community services, and early interventions that stop vulnerable people from falling into crisis and often save taxpayers considerably more further down the line.

It voted it down.

Other opposition motions followed, including proposals to support households reliant on heating oil. Reform and its Restore Britain allies voted those down too, scrapped three political assistant posts, refused to extend the meeting to finish debating the remaining business, and all went home to sit in a dark room.

"They don't like change, do they?" came the response from the Reform Deputy Leader here.

But change certainly came.

Reform turned its attention to the important work of deciding which flags were permitted to fly over county hall. It withdrew the Local Member Highways Fund, taking away the pot councillors used to get small but important local schemes over the line.

It was as if somebody had let Reform loose in a rage room but accidentally handed it the council's standing orders and social media passwords instead of a sledgehammer.

Then chief executive Tom McCabe resigned.

A month into Reform's administration, one of the most senior and experienced people in Norfolk local government had somewhere, anywhere, else to be.

Then, one of Reform's own councillors resigned after just 25 days, citing ill health, and triggering a by-election costing taxpayers approximately £20,000.

Reform lost it to the Conservatives. Its 40 councillors became 39.

Electoral momentum, it turns out, has a reverse gear.

Some of what followed was considerably less funny.

On 18 June, Labour MP Terry Jermy left a Thetford Town Council meeting and was pursued through the town by a jeering group of approximately 30 protestors angry about plans to place asylum seekers in MOD Barnham. They followed him for hundreds of metres in the same week as the 10th anniversary of the murder of Jo Cox.

I called on Reform's council leader to condemn mob rule and reassert the council's commitment to free democratic debate and its opposition to political intimidation. My comments were dismissed as "unworthy".

Next came local government reorganisation.

The previous Conservative administration had already started threatening legal action against the Government's plans. Reform inherited that fight and enthusiastically picked up the baton, launching a judicial review at taxpayers' expense.

EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive: Promo material for Direct Bullion tells savers a Farage-led government could spark riots not seen since the poll tax – while paying the Reform leader hundreds of thousands of pounds

Josiah Mortimer

There is something magnificently Reform about this.

A party awash nationally with money donated by the super-rich gets elected promising taxpayers value for money, picks a political fight with a Labour Governm...

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It's a video that will leave some viewers deeply worried. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine Britain getting through the next few years without a rise in political violence."

It goes on: "If a Reform government pushes through its agenda, resistance from those ideologically opposed to that direction could severely undermine national stability."

If this doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement for Nigel Farage's party, it's not meant to be, of course. It's a promotional video to sell gold bullion. Gold-movers often benefit from fears over the state of the economy and the wider nation.

What makes this promotional material different, however, is that the firm's most high-profile ambassador is none other than Clacton MP Nigel Farage.

The video from Direct Bullion, titled '50-Year Crisis Repeating?', is riddled with grim warnings about the state of British politics. And it puts some of the blame – or perhaps, for the firm, opportunity – at the door of the right-wing party.

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Nigel Farage is a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion, and has declared four payments from the company totalling £685,500 since December 2024.

These latest revelations suggest that Farage has been paid nearly £700,000 by a company whose marketing appears to treat the political division he is associated with – and the expected disorder that would result if he became Prime Minister – as a commercial opportunity to exploit.

The video asks if "sterling can survive what's coming."

Amid a jaunty musical backdrop, it goes on: "Nigel Farage has said that if elected, his government would withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights and build migrant detention centres in areas that vote Green. When asked about the possibility of violent protest from left-wing opponents, Farage appeared undeterred."

The narrator adds: "The risk of political unrest would become far more serious" under Reform's plans – similar to the "poll tax riots of 1990".

In the minds of gold-sellers Direct Bullion, the scenario is a reason for viewers to buy physical gold.

After being alerted to the video, Byline Times put some questions to Farage and Reform UK:

Does Nigel Farage remain a paid brand ambassador for Direct Bullion, and has he received or been promised any further payments beyond the £685,500 declared?

Are any of his payments linked to Direct Bullion's sales or performance?

Was he aware of the 12 May video before publication, and did he or his representatives see or approve it?

Why does he accept payment from a firm whose promotional material tells customers that his own party taking power would raise the risk of civil unrest – and does he think that is appropriate for a serving MP and party leader?

Has he asked Direct Bullion to withdraw or amend the video? If not, why not?

How does he reconcile more than £600,000 in outside earnings, and the time this role requires, with his duty to give priority to his constituents in Clacton?

Does Reform UK have any other financial relationship with Direct Bullion or its directors?

We have not received a response.

A December 2024 payment of £189,300 from Direct Bullion to Farage was for a "maximum" of four hours' work per month, according to the MP. "It also includes payment for work undertaken prior to my election," he stated in his register of interests.

When £91,200 came in just a few weeks later, on 6 January 2025, Farage said again it was for four hours' work per month. Then when £135,000 landed in October 2025, Farage stated it was for four hours' work per month "over the cour...

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AR: I was born in Pakistan and my parents came to the UK as economic migrants. They ended up in the north-west of England, where a lot of people from our part of Pakistan, in the Punjab, were originally brought over to work in the factories and mills. We lived in Burnley, which was one of the places that was experiencing rapid deindustrialisation. It was a very white, working-class area, and I was one of the first non-white kids in my primary school. People often ask: how did you get political? And I say: I had no choice, because of the context and reality of racist violence I grew up in.

The National Front used to sell newspapers in my secondary school. Every day, there would be some form of racist abuse, some physical attack. People would pour beer on the Asian women. They would use dogs to terrorise them when their husbands went to work. The house we lived in was firebombed and constantly scrawled with swastikas. And the police weren't doing anything. In school, it was basically paki-bashing. The break-time bell rang and all the non-white kids would pretty much barricade themselves into one classroom because, if you were down the corridors or in the playground, you would be attacked. Teachers were too scared to do anything.

Racists forced me to learn more about black history because of the stuff they'd say to us. You'd get beaten up, but it would spur me on. What was going on on television screens would play out on the streets and at school. When Roots first aired [in 1977], they'd say to us: 'say your name is Kunta Kinte'. But then, when in the show [the character's grandson is] given Chicken George as his slave name, the kids would say to us: 'say your name is Chicken George' – and we'd say, 'no, it's Kunte Kinte'. Apart from that there was Mind Your Language, Love Thy Neighbour, It Ain't Half Hot Mum – popular, casual racism was on TV screens.

At 14 or 15, I organised a school strike against racist violence – we would go to school but not go in. It was a necessity just to organise. We moved to another area which had slightly more non-white people and an Asian community, because it was safer, but that area was close to the Burnley football ground – so on Saturdays, you'd get football fans come through doing a bit of paki-bashing, smashing a few windows. Every morning, all the kids going to school would get together – we'd put the younger kids in the middle, and then we'd head off – if you went by yourself, or one or two, you'd definitely be attacked. So it was organising without thinking it was organising – just for safety.

Being seven, eight, nine was different, because you felt totally powerless. An example of how random the violence could be… when I was in primary school, I was stood at the bus stop and somebody walked by with a cricket bat and smashed me right in the face. As a kid, you're thinking, 'I'm not going to go home because my parents will be more worried, I'll go to school'. We didn't want to tell our parents too much of what was happening because they then felt even more powerless. But when you got to 12 and 13, and a few more families moved in and they had kids who were 15 or 16, we suddenly became a bit more able to stand up for ourselves.

I joined the Labour Party Young Socialists, a youth wing controlled at that time by the Trotskyist Militants, and they were a whole bunch of lefties who were like 'ooh, a non-white person and lefty who wants to talk about these things'. So I found an outlet. Then one day, an Indian nurse, who had come to my house to see my mum, showed me a [leaflet for the] Asian Youth Movement around the Bradford 12 [a group of young Asian and black men, many of whom were members of the United Black Youth League, who were charged in 1981 with terrorism offences after making petrol bombs to defend against racist attacks. In 1982, they were acquitted by an all-white jury on th...

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A French parliamentary inquiry has described the UK-France border deal as "irrational, ineffective and dangerous", warning of its consequences for human rights.

The inquiry, which was published last month, is the first democratic evaluation of the UK-France border deal since the initial Le Touquet agreement, which allows UK border checks to be carried out on French soil and French checks in the UK, came into force in 2004.

The findings have highlighted the violent consequences of the policies implemented in northern France. The inquiry found current border policy to be "irrational from a democratic standpoint, dangerous for human rights, and ineffective regarding their stated objectives".

The inquiry has recommended stopping the use of tear gas against children and vulnerable people, as well as addressing the severe living conditions experienced by migrants at the border, such as insufficient access to shelter, sanitation and other fundamental rights.

Katie Hall, advocacy lead at Project Play, a charity that supports families and children in northern France, responded to the report's findings:

"The conclusions of the French inquiry confirm what we see every day – a situation of violence and inhumanity manufactured by a politics devoid of empathy, funded in no small part by UK taxpayers."

The inquiry also found that no public record had been kept of how money from the UK had been spent. This means that since 2018, there are no accounts of how £648 million of UK taxpayers' money has been spent.

Ms Hall added: "The UK Government's obsession with borders to distract attention from their failures at home is leading to taxpayers funding serious human rights abuses against men, women and children – with zero transparency about how that money is used."

Given that the UK Government is set to spend a further £660 million over the next three-year period ending in 2029, the report calls for "greater transparency of data" to ensure "democratic control".

Despite the inquiry's strong condemnation of UK-funded policy, the report has received little coverage in UK mainstream media.

Since the time of this article's publication, mainstream outlets such as BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 News, the Guardian, the Telegraph or the Times have not reported on the inquiry.

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Since the first agreement in 2004, at least 444 people have died attempting to cross the Channel, including at least 54 children.

Despite increasing investment from the UK Government into border security, the frequency of deaths in the Channel has been growing in recent years.

Since the previous deal in 2023, when then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed a £460 million pact with French President Emmanuel Macron, there have been at least 146 deaths and missing persons recorded in the Channel, according to Calais Appeal.

Figures compiled by the Centre for Sociodigital Futures at the University of Bristol and Swiss research agency Border Forensics have revealed that deaths in the Channel have risen alongside an increase in spending on border securitisation.

Travis Van Isacker, research fellow at the Centre for Sociodigital Futures, told the Independent the significance of these findings:

"These distinct but entangled border policing practices have had the cumulative effect of creating more dangerous circumstances for migrants.

"They have shown state policies to prevent small boat crossings as being a clear driver in the increased number of deaths amongst migrants in the Channel."

The research also argued that increased French policing, a result of t...

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The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. After over 260 days without a port visit, and 6 months on station off the coast of Iran, there are reports that sailors are dealing with inoperative toilets, washing machines, and showers. The "heads" (bathrooms) are covered in mildew and black mold. The food is disgusting and portion sizes suggest a starvation diet. The Lincoln and the USS Boxer have also supposedly run out of hygiene products like soap, toothpaste, shampoo, and menstrual products. Conditions are so bad that sailors have attempted suicide by throwing themselves off the ship: the 60-foot fall from the flight deck to the water has the potential to cause serious injuries.

The response of the Pentagon was to deny only the most outlandish claims, but not the ones published in the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes. President Trump when asked whether the Lincoln had been left on station for too long, responded in his inimitable way that the there were no problems, and that the deployment wasn't "nearly long enough."

There have been people on social media criticising these sailors for being "soft" or weak, but from a historical perspective what they are being subjected to is unprecedented: this is six straight months of combat operations without a port visit, while at the far end of a stretched logistics pipeline.

During the Vietnam War, individual continuous stints "on the line" at Yankee Station typically lasted around 30 to 35 days before a carrier headed to a port like Subic Bay in the Philippines for maintenance and rest. However, individual milestones were pushed further— for instance, the USS Ranger (CVA-61) set a notable historical benchmark when it spent a then-record 59 continuous days on Yankee Station in March 1965.

Prior to the USS Abraham Lincoln's modern record-breaking stretch, the longest consecutive period a US aircraft carrier had gone without a port visit was 206 days, set by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these were not combat operations. Which leads to the second part of the problem for sailors on a carrier in combat operations: which is crew rest.

The US Navy surface and submarine fleet has long had a problem with working people beyond the point of exhaustion. During an Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam (ORSE) on board the USS Augusta in 1995, I was working 36 on, 6 off, on 6-hour shifts for two weeks because I wasn't allowed to sleep during the "day" when drills were going on, and that meant that I only got to sleep every other night effectively. At the end of that time frame, I was a hollow-eyed zombie that routinely fell asleep standing up.

The Navy determined that fatigue was a major cause in the collisions at sea of the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald in two separate incidents in the 2010s. These mishaps occurred after only a few weeks' worth of time at sea and the accumulated fatigue. The crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln has been working 18-hour shifts for at least 6 months, if not longer. The fact that combat operations, general quarters, drills, threats of Iranian attack, and other disruptors mean that even this brutal schedule is likely being routinely disrupted. I cannot even begin to imagine the level of tiredness these people are facing, and neither can you: no one has ever had a deployment like this before.

Fatigue is not just a symptom of depression; severe physical and mental exhaustion can actively drive depressive states and increase suicide risk. Chronic exhaustion impairs brain function, lowers coping capacity, and makes life feel unmanageable, which deeply amplifies feelings of hopelessness and suicidal ideation. The conditions on the ship only make it worse.

Ships haven't been meant to spend 9 months away from port, even in the age of sail. When I deployed to the Gulf on ...

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A Reform council has descended into a series of resignations, email leaks and lurid allegations – as a councillor quit the party over the leader allegedly mocking mental health as "woke."

Former Reform councillor Kenny Hope – now sitting as an independent – alleges that Durham's Reform council leader Andrew Husband said "mental health is woke" during an April 2026 cabinet working group meeting, while two cabinet members are said to have opened wine and one vaped.

Another former Reform councillor – again now sitting as an independent – Cllr Kate Rowland, said a Reform meeting "includ[ed] drinking wine at 3:30 in the afternoon, vaping openly, laughing, joking, showing blatant disinterest, and belittling mental health."

"[It] showed an appalling lack of seriousness," she claimed, in council-wide emails shared with Byline Times.

Leader Cllr Andrew Husband told this outlet: "I stated Virtue Signalling about mental health in such a way is woke". He did not deny branding some of his colleagues "narcissists".

On Tuesday, emails flew around to all councillors between the Reform leader and his own councillors – and former members – concerned about the handling of complaints and the leadership's attitude to mental health issues.

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Amid a flurry of personal attacks, on Wednesday, Cllr Husband wrote to councillors: "This is a request to quit the spamming. The three amigos [former Reform councillors] have now had multiple warnings about abusing this platform. I will be reaching out to individual group leaders to put this nonsense to bed.

"I suggest training for those who don't understand how local government works."

He added: "Rest assured the Reform leak has been found so business as usual. These people can't even leak properly."

"I will be asking the council to conduct a risk assessment of this abnormal behaviour, for the benefit of members to safeguard against such levels of harassment that we are experiencing. It seems that no lessons have been learned from last month's embarrassing behaviour."

Responding to the claims at the heart of the dispute, Cllr Husband continued: "'Mental health is woke?' Random. I mean who even says that?

"What is 'woke' is weaponising the mental health card in a standards process to try and call out officer conduct and behaviour. With no powers or local government legislation to underpin this – a fruitless exercise that results in a complete episode of virtue signalling.

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"Virtue signalling in politics is woke. Google it. I stand by my advice which (previous) standards ignored."

A vote of no confidence has now been called by one of the former Reform councillors, Cllr Kenny Hope. Cllr Husband told councillors: "Good luck getting two parties to support this farce.

"Regardless, I will enjoy the challenge should it reach the chamber."

He also claimed on X Cllr Hope was a "bitter ex reform misfit who was suspended [and] now Restore wannabe nut job."

On Thursday morning, the Chief Executive also reportedly sent an email to the all-members distribution list telling councillors their behaviour was unacceptable.

The saga follows a row over how a Reform councillor (an independent at the time), Cllr Paul Sexton, was cleared over bullying and harassment claims by a panel with a Reform majority. The one non-Reform councillor on the panel is understood to have found he breached the member's code this January, following a drawn-out process going back to at least 2023.

There were four complaints about his alleged treatment of council officers in 2023. However, th...

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Unions have launched a campaign to defend the "freedom of libraries and librarians" from anti-LGBT+ political interference following a spate of clampdowns by Reform-run councils.

In recent months, Reform councillors in the Midlands counties of Staffordshire and Warwickshire have sought to reduce the visibility of LGBTQ+ books and other materials in local libraries.

In Staffordshire, library staff have reportedly been instructed not to celebrate Pride and to remove Pride-related displays, events and communications. A spokesperson for the council told this outlet a decision to "review and refocus the use of discretionary library display space" was made by the Reform Cabinet member for culture.

"Whilst the review takes place, all displays that do not promote the core library offer or wider council services have been paused or removed. This has included Pride displays but applies to all other discretionary displays too. No books or materials have been removed from library stock, and LGBTQ+ titles and resources remain available to borrow as part of the wider library offer," the spokesperson said.

In Warwickshire, the Reform council leader has criticised librarians wearing LGBT+ Pride rainbow lanyards, and displays of books he claims promote "gender ideology". He indicated that new policies for libraries and other public spaces are being developed.

It comes as a new report from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), 'LGBT+ Workers – threats to workplace equality and community inclusion', sets out the scale of political hostility to LGBT+ events on Reform-run councils – despite continued public support for diversity and LGBT+ rights.

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It finds strong public support for maintaining key workplace rights and equality protections. YouGov polling for the report, exclusively seen by Byline Times, suggests 77% of Brits support retaining provisions in the Employment Rights Act 2025 requiring employers to take "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment and introducing protections from third-party harassment, while 74% support retaining the Equality Act 2010 which enshrines LGBT+ rights in law.

"Support for these protections exceeded support for repeal across the wider public, including among Reform voters," the TUC analysis notes.

In February 2026, Reform's Deputy Leader and business spokesperson Richard Tice announced plans for a 'Great Repeal Act'. If passed, t would repeal "key legislation that provides workers with fundamental protections," the TUC says, including the Employment Rights Act 2025 and the Equality Act 2010.

The union body states: "If Reform were to enact their 'Great Repeal Act' it would remove a range of employment rights, including sick pay, bereavement leave, pregnancy protections and protections against discrimination at work. They could also allow the return of fire-and-rehire practices.

"These are not simply regulations; they are hard-won rights that help make work fairer, more secure and more equal."

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Reform has pledged to introduce a "Women and Motherhood Protection Act" to replace some lost rights, but the details so far are sparse.

The majority of LGBT+ respondents (around 300) to the YouGov poll believed that repealing the Equality Act and Human Rights Act would negatively affect LGBT+ workers and lead to "increases in discrimination, bullying, harassment and exclusion at work, alongside wider impacts on mental health, confidence, physical health and work performance."

The report notes that Reform-run councils such as Durham and Warwickshire were ...

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Successive Government clampdowns on the right to protest have had a "chilling effect", human rights campaigners have warned, as large parts of the UK remain in a state of drought, and wildfires continue to rage.

The human rights organisation Liberty argues that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023, and the Crime and Policing Act 2026 have significantly curtailed the capacity of the climate movement to participate in protest and other forms of direct action.

The Acts include various new restrictions on protest and impose much harsher sentences for people who break these laws. For instance, people found to be in breach of the Public Order Act can also face unlimited fines.

In July 2024, five Just Stop Oil activists were sentenced to four to five years for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, after discussing an M25 protest on Zoom. Following an appeal supported by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace UK, the court found the sentences "manifestly excessive" and reduced them.

Hundreds more have been arrested for taking part in climate protests.

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The most recent Home Office data on the use of protest powers was published earlier this year and found that since 2022, around 90% of the protests with police restrictions applied to them were 'environment' related.

Liberty has also raised concerns that the Crime and Policing Act 2026 was rushed through before the publication of Lord Macdonald's Independent Review of Public Order and Hate Crime Legislation, which was commissioned by Keir Starmer's Government and is expected to make key recommendations on reforming protest laws.

The campaigners argue that protest is critical to a healthy democracy and are urging the new Prime Minister to "change course" from previous governments.

A recent Ipsos poll showed that 74% of Britons are concerned about climate change following a severe heatwave summer, up from 69% before the summer.

In an interview with Byline Times, Melissa Dring, interim head of policy and campaigns at Liberty, said a spate of anti-protest laws have "layered on new restrictions, new offences and new penalties" onto protestors – from arrest and imprisonment to electronic tagging and unlimited fines in some circumstances – as well as giving police new powers to enforce the law.

"We've ended up with quite a confusing situation, both for protesters and for the police in terms of enforcing it. It's difficult for people to know how to protest in a way that is within the bounds of the law, how to do so lawfully and safely. That's why we say it has become harder and riskier for people to protest," she said.

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The recent Crime and Policing Act is now in force, giving police the power to designate an area as a mask-free zone, so that no one is allowed to wear a face covering within it.

Dring said: "There was a defence inserted for health, religious and work purposes – but it's a defence, not an exemption. That means anyone who does wear a mask, for example for health purposes, and happens to be in an area designated as a mask-free zone, can be arrested, and only then, at charging stage or even at court, can they use that defence and say, 'Well, I was wearing a mask for health reasons.'"

Other anti-protest laws – passed under both the Conservatives and Labour in recent years – mean "there's a clear line to be drawn between those new restrictions and why we're not seeing really big environmental protests," according to Liberty.

The non-...

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On Friday 31 July, Andy Burnham made history, even if he did so in his trademark style. He triggered a process that points in a genuinely radical direction. Yet its destination remains unmapped and uncertain, leaving potential supporters broadly sympathetic yet sceptical.

He was speaking in Sheffield. The occasion was the launch of his far-reaching, seven-page Cabinet Statement that proposes to decentralise power across England. It promises legislation that will empower regional mayors to raise their own income as well as having a share of tax revenues as a right. Its ambition is to "fundamentally re-wire the way our country works". The Prime Minister acknowledged that the Cabinet paper points towards "a new constitutional settlement" and "will increase the case for … a written constitution", and "a new clear set of principles about how this country should be run."

In saying this Burnham unlocked the safety-catch on the fundamental feature of British rule: that the totality of its arrangements remains uncodified and informal. A feature that ensures our government belongs to those who govern us and not to the people as citizens.

It's important to say that Burnham did not pull the trigger. But until that July day, no British prime minister when in office has ever endorsed the possibility of a "written constitution" in a positive fashion – a fact which makes this a watershed moment.

Indeed, from what I can work out, no prime minister when in office ever used the phrase 'written constitution' until 1989, when Margaret Thather was obliged to respond to a letter sent to her from the constitutional and electoral reform campaign group Charter 88. Its lead signature was Lady Ewart Biggs. I should admit that I drafted it.

Having been on Reform UK's target list as a winnable seat, Andy Burnham's new constituency is a microcosm of Brexit Britain and the failed legacies of Thatcher and Blair. Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu paid a visit ahead of its seminal by-election

Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu

Our request: "Basic rights to be entrenched in law; accountable and open government; electoral reform; regional power and a written constitution."

Thatcher replied that, "The government consider that our present constitutional arrangements continue to serve us well…" with her unmistakable sense of a Royal 'we'. She added: "the government does not feel that a written constitution in itself changes or guarantees anything: Everything depends on how constitutional guarantees, whether written or unwritten, are interpreted and applied in daily life." An important observation I will return to.

Prime Minister Burnham faces a barrel-full of major issues: economic, diplomatic, military, environmental and social. Why should he add to these by unleashing the historic process of a written constitution? What is the problem to which it is the answer?

The problem has three parts: First, how do we decentralise the British state to release and empower regional judgment and creativity? Or, to put it negatively, how do we stop what is now the husk of an Empire State throttling our democracy in the all-too-familiar way it is programmed to do? Second, how do we protect and enhance our rights and freedom as citizens? Or, to put it negatively, how do we reverse the attacks on, for example, our right to protest, to privacy on the internet, and to vote? Third, and crucially, how do we restore popular consent to how we are governed?

All constitutions, whether written or not, contain the rules for changing the rules. In so doing they establish three things:

1. Relations of power between different part of society: who can do what to whom

2. The liberty and rights of citizens

3. What kind of society the country aspires to be

The British state is undergoing a breakdown on all three fronts. Burnham seems most concerned about the first. Many activists care most abo...

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The death of Jason Arday has prompted an uncomfortable question for British journalism: when does legitimate scrutiny become something cruel and destructive?

The 41-year-old resigned from Cambridge University as Professor of Sociology of Education after allegations of plagiarism and questions about aspects of his public biography. Arday denied plagiarism, while acknowledging errors in his work.

He described "an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack", saying that the "relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love".

In the days before his death, friends described a man overwhelmed by what had happened.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre, said that Arday told him "they've destroyed my life". He said that "the personal attacks on him have been so immense".

Academic and author Kehinde Andrews said that Arday "felt that there was no way out".

Arday's family has said that a "campaign of misinformation" became too much for him.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan described what happened as "an unacceptable public hounding and campaign of abuse" – "a pernicious public shaming".

The Prime Minister called for "a moment for reflection".

In that reflection, perhaps we might contemplate the author George Eliot's comment that "cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside itself; it only requires opportunity". And there was plenty of cruelty; white hacks lining up to outdo each other in their cruelty towards Arday.

The volume and tone of the attacks on the man were quite shocking.

There is no check to fetter power when unfettered power resides in the check

Hardeep Matharu

In the fortnight before his death, the Spectator published a succession of articles in which its writers repeatedly turned Jason Arday into an object of personal ridicule.

On 31 July, Toby Young wrote that "the more I read about Jason Arday… the more convinced I am he's [Sacha Baron Cohen's] greatest creation". He later imagined him as an "Ali G-like character".

On 6 August, John Power penned a purported fact-check of Arday as a guide to the claims of "our modern-day Walter Mitty".

That same week, the Spectator's Commissioning Editor Lara Brown described Arday as a "charlatan" and wrote that "even in the world of racial grievance peddling, Arday was mediocre".

On 10 August, Owen Matthews called him "the serial fantasist poster cry-bully of our times" and dismissed his work as "twaddle". That same day, Peter Wood put Arday in the tradition of "imposters", "tricksters", and "cozeners".

On 11 August, Julie Burchill called him "daft Jason Arday" and "the nutty professor".

Together, it took on the appearance of a gang of leering, bullying faces crowded over a cowed man, each eager to be the next to weigh in, each finding clever ways to turn their anger and violence into something that might, in a London salon, sound even witty.

Clearly, it wasn't to Jason Arday.

To add injury to their insult, the Spectator published a piece after it was announced that Arday's body had been found with the headline 'The tragedy of Jason Arday.' In it, Melanie McDonagh said that "in death we all should be remembered in our humanity, even in our flawed humanity. And Jason Arday was very human; he bled". She did not note that it was the Spectator that was there doing the stabbing, the cutting, the slashing, and the gouging.

It was not just The Spectator.

In the three weeks before Jason Arday's death, the Telegraph published dozens of articles, columns, and news reports about him.

"Cambridge's diversity poster boy in plagiarism row" on 24 July.

"The Cambridge fantasist is proof that stupid intellectuals…" on 4 August.

"Jason Arday reflects a much deeper rot within universities" on 5 August.

"Jason Arday is living proof that you reap what you sow" on 6 Aug...