Uncensored Free Speech Platform

Mel Stride: For successful economic reform, the sums need to add up and Reform’s economics don’t
Why resist verification?

Sir Mel Stride is the Shadow Chancellor and MP for Central Devon.

They say the first rule of politics is to learn how to count.

That advice does not seem to have been taken up by Reform UK. Every time they announce a new policy, their sums just do not add up.

Last week Farage announced a new plan to help the hospitality sector. What he failed to mention is the pledges he made would blow a £10 billion hole in the public finances – on top of the vast unfunded promises Reform have already made. He claimed the plan would cost £3bn.

It would actually cost around £13bn. That is not a rounding error. It is the equivalent of putting 2p on the basic rate of income tax. And it exposes a deeper truth. Reform are not offering a serious economic plan, but fantasy economics.

Take VAT. Reform claim they can cut VAT for hospitality to 10 per cent at a cost of £1.9 billion. But official estimates published just weeks ago put the cost at £10.5 billion this year alone, which would rise to nearly £12 billion in the years ahead. That is six times what Reform claim.

Or take their pledge to “reverse” Labour’s jobs tax for hospitality.

In their own documents they acknowledge the tax costs £1 billion for the sector. Yet somehow, in their costings, reversing it magically costs just £100 million. The small print reveals the trick. They would not reverse the tax at all, only partially change it. Even then, the true cost of what they are proposing would be at least five times higher than they admit.

This pattern repeats itself again and again.

Numbers plucked from thin air. Costs buried or disguised. Headlines first, arithmetic later.

Most incredibly of all, Reform claim they would fund this spending spree by reinstating the two-child benefit cap – a policy Nigel Farage himself pledged to scrap just last year. Given Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman voted to lift the cap this week, it doesn’t sound like the Reform team got the memo.

When anyone tries to question them about how much their policies would cost and how they would pay for them, they have no answers.

Lee Anderson was asked about Reform’s costings in a BBC interview. He was asked where their numbers came from and why they were only a fraction of what the official data shows. His response? “I’m not interested in the numbers.” And when I tried to ask him about it on social media? “We answer to the voters. Not you.” These people want to run the country, yet they cannot answer the most basic of questions about their own policies.

What makes this more troubling is the scale of what remains unanswered. Nigel Farage has never explained which of the £140 billion of unfunded commitments Reform made at the last election are still party policy. Voters are left guessing which promises are real, which are …

Alexander Bowen: In Britain our Higher Education could do with some ‘rationing’ – or be made to
How is this acceptable?

Alexander Bowen is a trainee economist based in Belgium, specialising in public policy assessment, and a policy fellow at a British think tank.

I have for some time, pretty rigorously, refused to watch Question Time.

Its format of a squirmy Labour MP doing what they no doubt think is an exceptional own, that is to say screeching “you were in government!!!” at one of the two remaining Tory MPs, whilst a non-entity MP and some obnoxious post-modern poet talk about needing to all get along coupled with some Reformer grinning like the Cheshire Cat in the background, makes for remarkably dull television.

Last Thursday was however an exception to my rule and largely a result of one clip.

In it, Oli Dugmore, left-ish populist-ish New Statesman writer, the person that is intended to serve as our post-modern poet, delivered a brilliant-ish takedown of the higher education system.

It was going so well – ‘The government likes RPI apart from when it takes my money’ is a genuine banger – until the very end when, rant over tuition fees over, Fiona Bruce meekly pipes up to ask, “How else are we going to pay for it?”. Dugmore’s “Uh… well”, followed by ‘the state – uhm’, ruined it all by exposing a simple reality – nobody is willing to talk about what an alternative to tuition fees actually means.

As someone who has, at one point or another, been enrolled in four different higher education systems, I’ll present these options and their trade-offs, and in the spirit of Question Time’s audience engagement schtick, you can decide what you like best.

Among European countries today, and they really are the useful comparator here rather than fantasies of 1950s Higher Ed, there are essentially three models for what higher education looks like – the Nordic, the Germanic, & the Mediterranean. Denmark, Switzerland, and France typifying each model best.

Every system, and I mean every system, has some rationing element. A good provided for free can never go unrationed, demand will always outstrip supply, and any conception of a ‘public good’ rather starts to break down when the return on education investment, both private and public, collapses.

Let’s start then with the Mediterranean and French model – the system I was enrolled in for the longest time. The Mediterranean option is defined by its open access – you pass your A-Level equivalent and, with a few limitations for medicine or dentistry, you can enrol in any subject at any public university for just about free, which unfortunately everyone does.

Courses are genuinely gigantic, teaching quality is poor at best, students don’t like their studies, academic excellence is shall-we-say-lacking, and degrees take far-longer than anyone believes is reasonable.

France in particular, and Italy to an extent, fix these …

SpaceX to focus efforts on building a ‘self-growing’ city on the Moon, Musk says
This framing isn't accidental.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has his sights on the Moon, specifically building a city there. He announced that his company, SpaceX, has prioritized building a habitable settlement on the Moon, aiming for a time frame of less than ten years. Musk announced in a post on X on Sunday night.

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.

The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” Musk said in his post. “The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars.” 

Musk has regularly expressed his ambitions in space travel, previously suggesting colonizing Mars. He explained human civilization’s potential need to do so during a 2023 virtual press conference on the topic. He said it could be a matter of survival for the human race.

“If there’s something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole,” Musk said. “Then, there’s the kind of excitement and adventure.”

However, it appears he pivoted away from that objective, explaining in a Sunday social media post that the technical and logistical challenges would make Mars colonization extremely difficult to achieve.

“It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time),” said Musk. “This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city.”

Then, as Musk has been prone to do, the former presidential adviser disregarded much of his previous explanation and said that building a civilization on Mars was still an option, just that building on the Moon is SpaceX’s current priority.

“SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” Musk added.

In Sept. 2025, Musk appeared much more resolute and confident about the prospect of humans living on the Red Planet. He predicted that humans would have a settlement on Mars by 2055.

“I …

Newslinks for Monday 9th February 2026
This deserves loud pushback.

How long can Starmer cling on after chief of staff quits?

“Keir Starmer’s premiership was in freefall on Sunday after his right-hand man walked the plank over the Mandelson scandal. Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quit over his part in the disastrous appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. Mr McSweeney said he took ‘full responsibility’ for the decision to send the disgraced peer to Washington, despite knowing he had stood by Jeffrey Epstein after the depraved financier was jailed for child-sex offences. But Labour MPs are openly speculating about how long Sir Keir can continue without the man who masterminded his rise to power and who was seen as ‘the PM’s brain’. Left-wingers called for the PM to resign, with former campaigns chief Jon Trickett warning: ‘The buck stops at the top.’… Kemi Badenoch welcomed Mr McSweeney’s resignation, saying it was ‘about time’. But the Tory leader said the PM ultimately had to ‘take responsibility’ for agreeing an appointment that has triggered a wave of public revulsion. In a post on X, she said: ‘Once again with this PM it’s somebody else’s fault: “Mandelson lied to me” or “Morgan advised me”. Keir Starmer has to take responsibility for his own terrible decisions. But he never does.’ Mr McSweeney is the second chief of staff to depart during Sir Keir’s turbulent reign, following the sacking of Sue Gray just months after the 2024 election.” – Daily Mail

Morgan McSweeney resigns as Starmer’s chief of staff — as it happened – The Times

Morgan McSweeney resignation ignites Labour civil war as furious allies say aide was made scapegoat in bid to save PM – The Sun

After McSweeney quits, his allies point finger at Powell – Daily Telegraph

‘Dead man walking’: No 10 chief’s resignation may be too late to save Starmer – The i

Comment:

The fall of the house of Blair is now almost complete – Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph

Morgan McSweeney’s resignation won’t save Starmer – Anne McElvoy, The i

Keir Starmer left in purgatory by Morgan McSweeney’s exit – Trevor Phillips, The Times

If McSweeney had to go over Mandelson, so too must Starmer – Tom Harris, Daily Telegraph

What links Jeffrey Epstein and Keir Starmer’s government? A thick seam of contempt – Nesrine Malik, The Guardian

> Yesterday:

Lies, betrayal, scandal and civil war – but can the Conservatives benefit now it’s not them going through it

“I think the Prime Minister’s position is untenable” – Burghart

“It’s not working at the moment, is it?” – Allin-Khan

Jockeying for Labour leadership steps up a gear with Streeting and Rayner

“MPs are secretly planning to lend staff to work on a leadership campaign by Wes Streeting in anticipation of a formal move to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister. Allies of the health secretary …

However bad this government is, its post-Starmer iteration will be worse
Am I the only one tired of this?

Has sacrificing the critical advisors ever worked? It depends, I suppose, on how one defines ‘worked’. Theresa May managed to limp on for a couple of years after the departure of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, but her authority was broken. Does that count?

Perhaps Sir Keir Starmer will cling on following Morgan McSweeney’s exit (and, it is sincerely to be hoped, that of Jonathan Powell). As in May’s case, one might argue that this would simply be an exercise in prolonging his misery. But the circumstances aren’t entirely similar; whereas May at least started out with a distinct vision for her premiership, Starmer did not.

Certainly, Conservatives hoping for – or trying to precipitate – the Prime Minister’s resignation should be clear-eyed about the potential consequences. Not because any of the hopefuls out on manoeuvres in the press would deliver any lasting revival of Labour’s fortunes, but the opposite: a change of leadership is likely to see the party retreat even further into its castle in the sky, indulging the whims of backbenchers even as reality closes in around it.

To put it another way, the status quo is about as right-wing as any Labour government in the current parliament is going to get. Even if the Parliamentary Labour Party were more disciplined and less self-indulgent, the fact that the final choice of the leader rests with the party membership militates against any candidate prepared to tell hard truths or try to sell difficult choices. There seems little prospect of Shabana Mahmood’s bare-minimum changes to indefinite leave to remain surviving a leadership contest, let alone a victor emerging with the will or means to combat the unsustainable trajectory of this country’s public spending.

There is some little irony in Starmer’s outriders warning that the markets would react very badly to his ousting; everyone hates being in hoc to the bond vigilantes until they’re the reason you can’t be sacked. But the warning is not wrong. However bad this Government is proving – and that is very bad indeed – it is by no means the worst we could get.

Nor is there likely to be a general election. Constitutionally none is required, and politically it just seems highly unlikely that any new prime minister would choose to go to the polls when hundreds of Labour MPs are sitting on slender majorities and Reform UK is still in first place. (The Conservatives, at least if they think Kemi Badenoch’s recent rally in the polls has legs, might quietly welcome this, although they wouldn’t say so.)

Perhaps a new leader in those circumstances would accelerate the collapse in Labour’s position, making life easier for the Right at the eventual 2029 general election. But the trade-off would be that the scale of the problems facing the country – and thus, the …

Trump administration faces court test over Venezuelans flown to El Salvador
Who's accountable for the results?

The Trump administration will confront a federal judge on Monday who is poised to press government attorneys on whether and how it can provide due process to more than 100 illegal Venezuelan immigrants deported under an 18th-century wartime law and later transferred beyond U.S. custody.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is scheduled to hold a 10 a.m. ET hearing in J.G.G. v. Trump, a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan nationals accused of gang ties.

The case centers on 137 Venezuelan men who were unlawfully in the United States and flown overnight on March 15 to El Salvador’s terrorism confinement center, CECOT, without advance notice or court hearings. The men were later transferred from El Salvador to Venezuela as part of a July prisoner swap involving more than 200 migrants.

In a December 2025 ruling, Boasberg found the removals violated due process and ordered the administration to either facilitate the men’s return to the U.S. or provide constitutionally adequate hearings abroad. He said the migrants were expelled “with virtually no notice and no opportunity to contest the bases of their removal.”

The hearing will focus on whether the administration can comply with that order, a question the Justice Department now says has no workable answer.

In a Feb. 2 filing, DOJ lawyers flatly rejected all remedies proposed by the court, arguing that remote habeas hearings from Venezuela or third countries are “legally and practically impossible” because the men are no longer in U.S. custody and federal courts therefore lack jurisdiction over new habeas petitions.

The filing argues that custody is a nonwaivable jurisdictional requirement and that remote court proceedings would raise insurmountable problems, including the inability to verify identities, enforce perjury laws, or protect classified information. DOJ attorneys also warned that conducting U.S. judicial proceedings abroad, even at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate, would infringe on foreign sovereignty without explicit consent.

The administration also rejected proposals to facilitate the men’s return to the U.S. for hearings, including issuing boarding letters or granting parole at ports of entry. DOJ said any effort to retrieve the men would require delicate diplomacy with Venezuela’s new leadership and risk undermining broader U.S. foreign policy goals.

Those diplomatic concerns were …

Lord Ashcroft: Will she be Prime Minister soon? How we might yet see the reign of Rayner
Why resist verification?

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit

“My daughter will be running this country in a few years’ time…she’ll be the prime minister soon.”

When Angela Rayner’s mother, Lynne, uttered these words during an ITV interview in 2020, even Rayner sniggered. But as the Bob Monkhouse quip has it, she’s not laughing now. The self-styled Queen of the North, who left school aged 16 with no qualifications and a baby on the way, really could follow in the footsteps of Churchill, Attlee, Thatcher and Blair.

This possibility will delight some voters and it will horrify others.

But who is Angela Rayner and is she suited to high office?

I first thought of writing her biography in the summer of 2022 after she gave an interview at the Edinburgh Festival. It was hard not to be interested in this direct politician who spoke so openly about her tough childhood and tricky path to Westminster.

By then, she was Labour’s deputy leader, and often courted controversy. Whether calling Tories “scum” or describing Jeremy Corbyn as “a thoroughly decent man” after the Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded anti-Semitism in Labour had thrived under his leadership, she had an undeniable presence.

Yet little independent research into her background had been done. In the autumn of 2023, when the Conservative government was on thin ice and Rayner had just been promoted to shadow deputy prime minister, I began work.

It was soon clear that what she lacked in academic credentials she made up for in ambition, though I found her a more brittle personality than some might assume.

She was born in Stockport in March 1980, the second of three siblings. Her childhood was materially deprived and emotionally fractured. Her mother suffered from bipolar disorder and Rayner helped to look after her; her father, Martyn, had no steady profession. The family settled on a crime-ridden housing estate and were supported by Giro cheques. Her grandmother, Jean, was a strong influence and Rayner was an enthusiastic Girl Guide. But she was bullied at school and by 13 was nightclubbing in Manchester and, in her words, “getting into scrapes”.

After giving birth she moved to her own council flat and made ends meet selling flowers in pubs, then at 18 became a private Home Help for six months. From 2000, she did the same job for Stockport Council. I remain amazed by her claim she was a Samaritan between the ages of 17 and 20.

She once said she had been a carer “for almost a decade”. In fact, she did the job for a maximum of five years. At Stockport council she joined the trade union UNISON and by 2005 was working for it full time. She bought a house in 2007 and met UNISON’s assistant branch …

Democrats reject anti-woke rebrand in favor of message to ‘fight’ for progressive ideals
Confidence requires clarity.

Democratic voters are rejecting the party’s attempt to rebrand as anti-woke, instead favoring candidates who say they wish to “fight” for progressive ideals on behalf of everyone, according to a new survey.

The Blueprint strategy group, which seeks to inform Democratic candidates on how best to represent their voters’ ideals, shows fighting language performing well among Democrats and independents, whereas an attack on “performative woke politics” fails to capture both demographics.

“What we see at the bottom of the list is relitigating old fights, complaining about the party’s misfortunes, and elected officials trying to sound like strategists — and no voter is interested in any of that right now,” pollster Evan Roth Smith told the Washington Examiner.

In contrast, he said, candidates resonate better with voters if they “talk from the heart and deliver that message directly.”

Former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke had the best-performing message among overall voters in the survey when he opposed President Donald Trump‘s push to redraw Texas’s congressional map through redistricting last year.

“Imagine a Democratic Party that fights — really fights — for all of us. No rolling over, no bending over, no big money and corporate politics,” O’Rourke said. “A message defined by people in every state, not consultants and posters. No matter who you are, we’re here to listen, learn, and work with you.”

Meanwhile, political consultant James Carville had the worst-performing message among Democrats.

“Performative woke politics stained the Democratic brand. ‘Latinx,’ ‘BIPOC,’ and ‘defund the police’ were terrible,” Carville said. “Many Americans think Democrats are out of touch and focused on social issues. We can’t be morally absolutist. Democrats must pivot to economic rage.”

The shift in messaging comes just in time for the midterm elections, which Democratic candidates across the country aim to win on the affordability issue.

This year’s election cycle is different from the 2024 election in that economic concerns are top of mind for voters instead of cultural battles, as was the case two years ago.

Trump won the election partly due to his ads targeting former Vice President Kamala Harris‘s transgender policies with a memorable phrase: “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.” It was one of Trump’s most effective attack ads, shifting the race by 2.7 points in his favor.

Now, Trump and Republicans are trying to refocus their attention on practical …

The Conservative Researcher Being Linked to the FBI’s Seizure of Election Records in Georgia
Ask who never gets charged.

A conservative researcher whose theories have often been rejected by Georgia election overseers and who once pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of voyeurism is emerging as a central figure in the investigation that culminated in the FBI’s shocking seizure of 2020 election records from Fulton County, Georgia, in late January.

The researcher, Kevin Moncla, has tried repeatedly to prove that the 2020 vote in Fulton County was tainted by fraud. Although many of his claims have been discredited or debunked, they’ve continued to be cited by President Donald Trump and those connected to Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election and publicly pressed his administration to reinvestigate it.

Last week, Moncla told ProPublica he’d been interviewed twice by “investigators, attorneys of various offices, who work on behalf of the U.S. government” regarding his claims that proof of fraud could be found in Fulton County’s 2020 voting records. He said he provided them with data backing complaints he’s filed to Georgia’s State Election Board.

Other conservative activists linked to Mitchell have also claimed that Moncla’s work helped fuel government investigations related to Fulton County. 

According to a recording of a December video conference call obtained by ProPublica, two activists associated with Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network alleged that the Justice Department had used files and exhibits from Moncla’s research in suing Fulton County for the same records seized by the FBI. The DOJ filed the suit the day after purportedly soliciting Moncla’s materials, the activists said. 

“They went to Kevin Moncla for that information,” Garland Favorito, a leader in the Election Integrity Network, said on the call. (Moncla denied speaking with Justice Department officials but wouldn’t say which agency he dealt with.) Favorito also claimed to have sent information to the DOJ himself.

“The DOJ knows who to call to get the information that they need,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you, they rely on a lot of our stuff.”

A spokesperson for the DOJ declined to answer questions related to the claims by Moncla, Favorito and Mitchell, instead referring ProPublica to televised comments from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in which he said that the Trump administration is “investigating issues around elections to make sure we have completely fair and appropriate elections.” Blanche also said he could not comment on criminal investigations.

Mitchell didn’t respond to a request for comment from ProPublica, but on the day of the FBI raid, she pointed to information in a report authored by Moncla as the basis for the action.

Screenshot via X

“This is THE answer to everyone’s question, ‘why did the FBI raid Fulton County’s election warehouse?’” Mitchell wrote on the social media platform X, linking to Moncla’s report.

Favorito declined to answer specific questions, saying that he’d “had no contact with the FBI.”

It is not known what evidence the federal government used to show probable cause for the raid because the underlying affidavit was sealed. 

Last week, Fulton County commissioners sued to unseal the affidavit, …

“I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility
This affects the entire country.

A rainbow, a family portrait, a heart. These are the drawings found in handwritten letters from children detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas.

In early February there were more than 750 families, nearly half of them including children, as well as some 370 single adult women being held at this facility. It is just one of many immigration centers across the country, but the only one holding families. Since the start of the Trump administration, the number of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention has skyrocketed, increasing sixfold. 

ProPublica received letters in mid-January from several children at Dilley. All but two of them had been living in the United States when they were detained. In their words and drawings, they convey how much they ache for creature comforts and describe the anguish of being trapped. They write about missing their friends and teachers, falling behind at school, having unreliable access to medical care when they’re sick — some say they’re sick a lot — and feeling scared about what comes next.

Read More

The Children of Dilley

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement that all detainees at Dilley are “being provided with proper medical care.” DHS did not respond to questions about individual detainees but said all “are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries” and that “certified dieticians evaluate meals.” DHS also said “children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling.” Detained parents are given the option for their families to be deported together, or they can have their children placed with another caregiver, the statement said. CoreCivic, which operates the facility, said it is subject to multiple layers of oversight and that health and safety are a top priority.

The public is rarely given an opportunity to glimpse inside Dilley and get a look at how the kids there are doing. Here, we let the children speak for themselves.

Susej F
A 9-year-old from Venezuela who was living in Houston, Texas 
Detained for 50 days

Letter transcript:

Read the full transcript
“Hello, my name is Susej F and I’am 9 years old. I’am from Venezuela. I have been 50 days in Dilley Immigration Processing Center. And I want to go to my Country. But I miss my school and my friends I feel bad since when I came here to this Place, because I have been here too long. I have been 2 years and 6 months in united states, and I was happy with my friends in The school but now I need to leave. I miss my family in my country so now I want To go to Venezuela. But my mom do not want to leave because she wants a better future for me. Seen how people like me, immigrants are been treated changes my perspective about the U.S. My mom and I came to The U.S looking for a good and safe place to live, and my mom was looking for a Good job.”

Listen to Ariana read her letter

Ariana V. V.
A 14-year-old from Honduras who was living in Hicksville, New York
Detained for 45 days

Letter transcript:

Read the full transcript
“Hello, my name is Ariana V.V. im 14 years old and im …