Was Dr. Roberts the school board’s ‘Magical Negro’?

When news broke that the head of Iowa’s largest school district was in ICE custody as an alleged illegal alien, the response from all quarters was disbelief. A school superintendent undergoes intense vetting, and every rung on the career ladder requires background checks. How could such a man possibly have slipped through?

Anyone hoping the full story might provide a sensible explanation was quickly disappointed. The more you dig, the more absurd it becomes. Although we don’t yet know the full truth about his immigration status, there is already plenty in his record that raises red flags about the biographies he’s offered. Ian Andre Roberts’ life reads less like a CV than a pitch for a Hollywood script in the classic tradition of the charming conman.

Roberts worked hard at his presentation. He cultivated a flamboyant look – tight suits in loud colors and patterns, topped with his signature cloth flower in the lapel and flashy sneakers. His social media feeds feature professional portraits, sometimes shirtless, sometimes in trousers so tight they left little to the imagination. He spoke in smooth clichés, delivered with a Caribbean accent that lent a whiff of exoticism to Iowan ears.

And then there is his “life story” – or rather, his competing life stories. All reliable evidence points to Guyana as his birthplace, where he was schooled until the early 1990s. Yet in interviews he sometimes claimed to have been born and raised in Brooklyn, the child of a single mother. That contradicts his own statement that she immigrated only in the 2000s, by which time he was already in his 30s. Even his age shifts – legal records say 1970, while Roberts himself has variously given 1973 or 1978.

Ironically, the most colorful elements of his tale appear to be true. A retired police commissioner in Guyana confirmed that Roberts graduated from officer training and joined the country’s police force. He was a standout runner in college in the United States and even represented Guyana in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. But once you reach other aspects of his life – degrees, awards, academic achievements – the truth grows hazier.

On LinkedIn he lists seven universities, but curiously omits mention of any degrees. Elsewhere, he claimed several master’s degrees and a doctorate in education from Morgan State University in 2007. He began styling himself “Dr.” as early as 2012, yet records show he did not actually receive an Ed.D. until 2021, from an online institution widely regarded as a diploma mill. His official Des Moines biography boasted of being named “Principal of the Year” by George Washington University – an award the university says it has never given. And this is only a sampling of the inconsistencies.

Why did no one bother to check before offering him a $300,000-a-year post? Why did no one even question the contradictions? The honest answer is race and ideology. In the current climate, pressing a man with a Caribbean lilt about where he was born is deemed a “microaggression.” Anyone schooled in the catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion knows better than to question the “lived experience” of someone like Roberts.

And Roberts, to his credit as a conman, gave them exactly what they craved. He embodied the DEI narrative: a black immigrant who rose from poverty to academic brilliance, to Olympic heights, to leadership in education. In Iowa – one of the whitest states in America – the all-female school board glowed with pride when they announced his appointment in 2023.

Spike Lee coined the phrase “Magical Negro” to mock Hollywood’s fondness for the saintly black character who redeems white protagonists. Roberts filled that role in real life. He promised not only to raise test scores but to cleanse Des Moines of its original sin of racism. He was their redemption, offered with a winning smile and a résumé that, if partially fictional, was at least inspirational.

And now, exposed, he is still defended. Rather than express outrage at being deceived, his supporters rally. Some protests bear the fingerprints of unions and activists, but much of the outcry looks organic. People insist he was kind, inspiring, a role model. But the essence of a successful con is that people fall for the charismatic conman and cling to the illusion. Mark Twain’s old adage still holds true – it is easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.

The broader lesson is not merely that one smooth talker tricked his way into a prestigious office. It is that our institutions have made themselves especially easy prey. DEI ideology discourages skepticism, instructs people to rank themselves by race, and warns the “privileged” against questioning the “oppressed.” That ideology creates a golden opportunity for a resourceful grifter.

The officials who hired Roberts failed in their basic duty to fact-check his résumé. They failed because their ideology told them not to ask questions. They preferred the fairy tale. But in the real world, when you believe in fairy tales, no wand appears at the end to make the story come true. You are left with failing schools, squandered money and the humiliation of realizing that the man hired to redeem you was simply playing the oldest role in the book – the conman who knew exactly what his audience wanted to hear.

Labour conference is a triumph of anti-talent

In German they have a concept whose equivalent is sorely needed in discussion of British politics: ‘anti-talent’. It means exactly what it sounds like – the opposite of talent, something any given person is uniquely ill-suited to doing. 

Labour has an innate ability to recognise and reward anti-talent, by putting the very people least suited to run departments in charge of them. While Yvette Cooper is in charge of charming our foreign allies, Rachel Reeves, who is increasingly becoming the Florence Foster Jenkins of gilt yields, runs the Treasury. Today both spoke at the Labour conference, an anti-talent double header in Liverpool. Cilla and Charybdis.

As almost all Labour foreign policy is toxic to both the electorate and common sense, Cooper’s speech majored on ‘patriotism’. She has clearly decided that a convenient attack line against Reform is to suggest that ‘real’ patriotism is about Labour’s values. Again and again we are given haunting visions of what members of the cabinet love about Britain. I can imagine the sort of things which make these people proud: ‘real’ patriotism is not assuming your pet’s gender, ‘real patriotism’ is clapping for our brave Covid marshals on the anniversary of lockdown, ‘real patriotism’ is thanking the person who stabs you on the tube for being part of what makes Britain strong. 

Cooper feels particularly unqualified to the task of sounding authentically patriotic. She recently told the BBC that she owns and displays in her home ‘Union Jack bunting, St George’s flags, St George’s bunting, Yorkshire rose bunting, Union Jack flags and tablecloths’, which made it sound like she lived in one of those souvenir shops near Buckingham Palace called something like Ye Olde English, while Ed Balls no doubt sleeps in a Big Ben snow globe. 

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Today, in the midst of her cod-Churchillian codswallop, the anti-talent struck once again, and Cooper mangled her attempt to call Reform ‘plastic patriots’, making it sound like she’d used a slur for disabled people. Sometimes it’s best just to give government ministers endless supplies of rope.

‘We know what our flag really means’ Cooper continued, scarcely making more sense than when she was accidentally using the old name for the charity Scope. Well, what the flag has come to mean internationally is inexplicable handouts of cash and sovereign territory for Chinese puppet states and a foreign policy seemingly designed to cause maximum damage to British interests.

The second part of this amphisbaena of incompetence was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She gave what she doubtless thought was an inspiring sermon, urging delegates to ‘have faith’. She reminded me of a Deep South preacher having to explain two days after the announced date why the Rapture they’d promised hadn’t happened. Though, looking at some of the delegates who watched her describing a fantasy economy on the uppers, you got the impression that some wished it would. 

There were rumours that the Labour whips had manipulated the seating ballot so that the MPs with the least backbone ended up closest to the stage to indulge in a bit of North Korean-style emotional support for our previously teary Chancellor. The rest of the MPs were relegated to some terrible seats at the back, where they sat alongside the press pack. Many looked unenthused; however, a few had clearly surmised that the best way to escape this Whip-induced purgatory was to abandon what shreds of dignity they had left. Consequently, at random intervals during Reeves’s speech, members of this unhappy band would stand up and scream and shout, like teenage Beatles fans circa 1964. It was odd seeing the Chancellor receiving repeated, Pavarotti-esque standing ovations shortly after saying blobular soundbites like ‘a renewed economy for a renewed Britain’ and ‘I call this approach “securonomics”’. 

The Chancellor criticised ‘the nagging voices of decline’, which, when you’re standing a matter of inches away from Sir Keir Starmer, is either very brave or very stupid. Indeed, it was fairly rich from Ms Reeves herself. I suspect if you picked 100 members of the public at random and asked them to draw whatever came into their head when they heard the phrase ‘nagging voice of decline,’ the distinct Playmobil-headed visage of our dear Chancellor would emerge in a majority of sketches.

‘I’ll tell you about my patriotism’, she said, adopting a chummy tone. ‘It’s not just about flags.’ Apparently, it was also about ‘the security of our borders’. Ah yes, borders, that infamous Labour success story.

At one point Reeves’s voice suddenly took upon the texture of gravel and she growled, triumphantly, ‘never let anyone tell you that there is no difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government.’ The fact that the latter almost looks like a period of competence and stability for the economy shows that Reeves is right, just not in the way she imagines. 

Inevitably, a man who looked like a testicle with a goatee stood up and began ranting about that favourite topic of Labour conference – Palestine. One thing that can be said for Reeves is that, never having had a thread to her speech, it was impossible for her to be thrown off it. Instead, she repeated the ‘sensibilist’ mantra which Labour have been using to justify their leader to the public for years: ‘We are now a party in government, not a party of protest.’ The preposition was an interesting one. Doubtless they are in government, but of all the things one can sling at Labour after a year and a bit, few could accuse them of actually governing.

Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

Donald Trump is perhaps one of the world’s most gifted salesman. But as he was speaking at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, even he had trouble selling his 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.

This wasn’t for a lack of trying. “Today is an historic day for peace,” Trump told the assembled press corps. Calling today “a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” Trump went on to outline in broad strokes his diplomatic initiative, which aimed to thread the needle between Netanyahu’s vocal objections to a Palestinian state and the Arab world’s demand that any plan put forth provide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with an opportunity to take control of their own future. Trump earned Netanyahu’s support and received buy-in from the Arab states, but the positions of those two actors will eventually clash. And that even assumes Hamas, which wasn’t given a copy of the White House’s draft agreement and is now only digesting the material, agrees to play along.

There is some good in Trump’s 20-point plan. For instance, it stresses that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will pull out of Gaza in a staged fashion as Palestinian police officers and their international supporters, presumably led by the Arab states, stabilize the enclave. Hamas will demilitarize and hand over its weapons, and those who renounce violence will be allowed to leave Gaza for a third-country. The hostages still in Hamas’s grasp will be released 72 hours after the accord comes into force, and humanitarian supplies will surge into the territory. Gaza, meanwhile, won’t be annexed by Israel; instead, it will be ruled by a consortium of Palestinian technocrats and international figures, where they will preside over a reconstruction and rehabilitation process until a reformed Palestinian Authority is up to the task.

But even if Hamas agrees to such a scheme – and given the plan’s call for what is in effect Hamas’s complete and total surrender, it’s hard to picture the militant group doing so – the implementation problems will be gargantuan. The plan is loose on timelines and execution mechanisms. Although the so-called International Stabilization Force will cooperate with vetted Palestinian police officers to dismantle the tunnels and terrorist infrastructure that still exist in the enclave, the criteria for what is considered adequate demilitarization – and which party determines whether demilitarization has succeeded or failed – is a big red flag. If Netanyahu holds veto power over this decision, then the phased troop withdrawals the Israeli military signed onto will be delayed for as long as possible. We can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty because Netanyahu was very reticent to pull the Israeli military back during the January truce. The reticence has thinned out with age.

Trump doesn’t want Israel to annex Gaza, and he made that position clear in his plan. Commentators will refer to this item as a big deal. In reality it’s the definition of low-hanging fruit. First, rejecting Israeli annexation is simply a reiteration of decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Second, Trump has a personal interest in kicking the annexation can down the road because whatever hopes he may have of expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords will be extinguished the moment Israel goes down that path. He can kiss an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement goodbye in such a scenario, and you can bet that somebody in the president’s orbit – perhaps his son-in-law Jared Kushner – brought this to Trump’s attention.

Netanyahu, however, isn’t following Trump’s schedule. As important as retaining Trump’s support is, it’s not the be-all, end-all in the Israeli premier’s calculations. The people who hold this honor continue to be the hardliners, nationalists and extremists in the Israeli cabinet, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz, who could destroy Netanyahu’s career by imploding his government. The first two men continue to harbor the dream of kicking out all of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians, formally annexing it into the State of Israel and rebuilding – and expanding – the very Jewish settlements that were torn down back in 2005. Yes, Netanyahu accepted Trump’s plan and everything in it, but he’s a canny political operator and knows how to throw wrenches into a diplomatic process. It’s likely Netanyahu will play a similar game, as he’s done repeatedly when other Gaza peace negotiations were nearing the finish line.

The biggest error in Trump’s scheme, however, was something that wasn’t even written into the plan. In essence, Netanyahu was gifted an escape clause. Trump stressed that Israel would have Washington’s full support for continuing the war if Hamas rejected the agreement.

Many won’t find this comment objectionable. Yet for a guy who is supposedly a master negotiator and understands the power of leverage, Trump effectively killed whatever leverage he held over Netanyahu by giving the Israeli premier an incentive to do anything in his power to push Hamas into saying “no.” Even if Hamas accepts the deal with reservations, Netanyahu can now claim to Trump that the terrorist group is an intransigent party that can’t be reasoned with. The only alternative, the logic goes, is a resumption of the war.

Sharing a stage with Trump in Washington, DC, Netanyahu laid it on thick and claimed that peace was just around the corner. But mark these words: once he lands back in Israel, Netanyahu will tell his coalition allies that the deal he agreed to is merely a general framework whose details are still to be negotiated. Trump will then have a decision to make: tether the United States even closer to Israel’s war in Gaza, try diplomacy again or wash his hands of the conflict.

Ukraine is determined to give Russia a taste of its own medicine

Russians living in the Belgorod region of Russia got a taste of what Ukrainians have been enduring for over three years of war last night, after they spent it without power, hot water or internet. Ukrainian forces set the Belgorod power plant ablaze with US-made Himars missiles after the Trump administration reportedly gave Kyiv the green light to target Russia’s energy grid with American weapons during the UN summit last week. With winter closing in, Russians once untouched by the war now dread that they will be forced to live just like Ukrainians, suffering from daily bombardments and power outages.

The strike came after Moscow unleashed nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles against Ukraine on Sunday morning. The main targets were Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, where more than 80 people were injured and four killed. Among the dead were a 12-year-old girl pulled from the rubble of an apartment block, a nurse and patient at Kyiv’s Institute of Cardiology and a 52-year-old woman who died from a heart attack while hiding in a bomb shelter.

Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly vowed that every Russian mass attack will be answered in kind. He said last week that if the Kremlin threatens blackouts in Ukraine, it should be ready to face the same on home soil. In recent months, as Moscow rained record numbers of drones and missiles on Ukrainian cities, Ukrainians retaliated with swarms of drones that lit up oil refineries and weapons plants more than 600 miles deep inside Russia.

Homemade missiles have also been put to use as Kyiv accelerated production of its own long-range arms after growing tired of the unpredictable bans and reversals on the use of American weapons under Joe Biden and then Trump. At the same time as American Himars struck the Belgorod power plant yesterday, a Ukrainian-made Neptune missile hit the Karachev Electrodetal plant – which produced electrical connectors for military equipment – in Russia’s Bryansk region.

Since August, Ukraine has struck at least 16 of Russia’s 38 oil refineries, some of them multiple times. Oil and gas make up roughly a quarter of Russia’s GDP, and the attacks have already knocked out 17 per cent of its refining capacity. The strikes triggered petrol shortages across twenty Russian regions and occupied Crimea, with restrictions on fuel sales of 10 or 20 litres per person, depending on the location. Russia’s gasoline output has fallen by 10 per cent, exports have been banned and at least 360 gas stations have been shut down. The gasoline prices have jumped up to 50 per cent, hitting record highs: the cost of AI-92 gasoline reached 73,200 rubles (£650) per tonne on the St. Petersburg exchange earlier this month.

There is far more that Ukraine could achieve if Trump were to approve Zelensky’s long-time request – reiterated at last week’s UN summit – for long-range Tomahawk missiles. Until then, Kyiv will keep using its arsenal to make the war more costly for the Kremlin and attempt to motivate Putin to stop mass air attacks on Ukrainian cities.

While Zelensky does not plan to sink to Putin’s level and bomb civilians in their beds, Russians should expect retaliatory strikes not only on oil refineries, military bases and airfields but also on the critical infrastructure which makes their lives comfortable. Perhaps one day, when they can’t find petrol to power their generators during winter blackouts, Russians will begin to ask themselves – and their government – why they are still waging this war.

Labour members back Burnham

Labour mayors are stealing the limelight at Labour conference. As Sir Keir Starmer continues to struggle with staffing issues, policy positions and a prevailing surge in support for Reform UK, new polling for Sky News has revealed that six in ten Labour members would back Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to be leader, with fewer than half of that proportion backing Starmer. When it comes to the deputy leadership position, No. 10’s favourite pick – Bridget Phillipson – also comes in second place with the membership, as more than a third would prefer ex-cabinet minister Lucy Powell.

Burnham is significantly ahead of elected Labour MPs among the membership. He was the top pick of 54 per cent of members to be the next party leader, with Angela Rayner – one-time deputy prime minister before she resigned over her tax affairs – a distant spot behind him, with just 10 per cent backing the Ashton-under-Lyne MP. Wes Streeting is third, on 7 per cent, despite his punchy rebuttal to Donald Trump’s paracetamol and autism claims last week. Labour veterans Ed Miliband and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper are tied on 6 per cent.

Sadiq Khan has been enjoying the spotlight of late too. One politician in particular has taken an interest in him, with Donald Trump fuming last week that Khan is a ‘terrible, terrible mayor’. The President (incorrectly) claimed the Labour politician is planning a move to impose sharia law in the capital. ‘I’m slightly concerned he might send me an invoice,’ Khan laughed during an event at Labour’s Liverpool conference this afternoon. ‘I’ve been living rent-free in the head of President Trump. I hope I’ve got squatter’s rights.’

But it’s not all sunshines and rainbows for Khan – who insists that ‘it’s a badge of pride that bad people hate London’. The Labour mayor wasn’t shy about admitting how poorly his party is being received by voters at present, as the polls consistently show Reform UK outdoing Labour. He compared his party’s situation to a football match: ‘If this is a game of football, what I’d say is it’s a 90 minute game. We’ve played almost 20 minutes and we’re two nil down and we’ve got to make sure that we use the rest of the time in this game – three and a half years – to turn it around.’

Despite the analogies, it is the act of storytelling that Labour is falling so very far behind on. As one audience member piped up during Khan’s interview: ‘Reform is winning that competition.’ Indeed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s announcement this afternoon that Labour will toughen its stance on immigration – on indefinite leave to remain, on English fluency and on the backgrounds of those wanting to relocate to the UK – comes a week after Farage revealed that Reform policy will be to scrap indefinite leave to remain altogether (a move Keir Starmer dubbed ‘racist’ on Sunday) and make foreign nationals ineligible to claim benefits. Reform UK may have misjudged the public mood on the former point – and there is an opportunity for Labour to take a firm but fairer stance on the issue. But it doesn’t change the fact that, once again, Reform got there first. 

This Labour conference may not feel quite as flat as last year but, as James Heale pointed out on today’s Coffee House Shots, it has provided a short break from reality for many of the party’s politicians. Labour politicians are conscious about the omnipresent threat of Reform and every main speech so far has contained a Farage-bashing element. Not that the Reform leader is alone there: the Greater Manchester mayor has also found himself in the firing line – despite insisting today that he would have to be ‘wrenched’ out of Manchester.

However the fact that Burnham is generally assumed to have overplayed his hand last week has, rather bizarrely, perhaps made this conference an easier one to endure for Starmer. While even his own ministers are highly sceptical of the PM’s decision-making abilities and the direction of government, regicide is not – currently – a favoured position within the party. The challenge will be trying to inject some energy into a clearly deflated parliamentary party and membership ahead of Welsh, Scottish and local elections in just under eight months. The countdown is on…

Why is Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl?

The NFL announced on Sunday that Bad Bunny, the musician who just wrapped a residency in Puerto Rico, is now a hop, skip and step away from performing on the largest stage in America: the Super Bowl LX halftime show.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself. It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history,” Bad Bunny said in an NFL statement announcing the halftime show.

Okay, but Americans are the ones in large part watching the Super Bowl – the same culture and country Bad Bunny chose to boycott when his world tour kicks off in November because of fear that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would raid the concert venues. As ICE operations have ramped up under President Donald Trump, Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, has shown his contempt for it and the White House Administration. In June, he posted an Instagram video that expressed his discontent and anger for not “leaving these people working here alone,” in Puerto Rico. 

“People from the US could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world,” he told i-D magazine. “But there was the issue that… ICE could be outside (my concert venue). And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

It seems like quite a jump to go from keyboard warrior and boycotter of the United States to pandering for its premier sporting event. It seems that for Bad Bunny performing in the United States is a cardinal sin… unless you’re a featured solo artist. According to the NFL, this past year’s Super Bowl recorded the largest viewing audience ever with 127 million people watching across all platforms.

Why was Bad Bunny even chosen in the first place? Musicians of all backgrounds vie for the opportunity to perform at a Super Bowl. Gone are the days of recognizable names with long careers – Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson. Now, the NFL is chasing fads. And most Americans won’t even be able to sing along to this fad’s music.

Bad Bunny will no doubt use the platform to advance some political point. It won’t be the first time in recent years the stage has been co-opted for this. At his Super Bowl performance earlier this year, Kendrick Lamar made subtle references to 40 acres and a mule, the unfulfilled promise of land and resources to freed slaves after the Civil War. Jennifer Lopez received flack after her 2020 halftime show for wanting to show the Puerto Rican flag and kids in cages, another dig at America’s immigration policies.

Gone are the days of Americans simply enjoying a good show. Once upon a not-so-long-ago time, audiences could enjoy incredible musical acts rather than being force fed a woke history lesson. Who’s to blame? Jay Z. In 2019, the NFL signed his Roc Nation label to produce halftime shows. He’s been predictably one-note, and that one note is woke.

The NFL shoulders some of the blame, of course. The league desperately wants to become an international sport (there are seven international games this year). Bringing in Bad Bunny is a ploy to grab the attention of a Spanish-speaking audience, which is being prioritized above the stereotypical burger-eating, beer-drinking bro culture that’s long been the sport’s audience.

Make no mistake, the opinions of fans who made the sport into the Goliath it is today are no longer top priority. Globalization is here for America’s most popular sport, fan dissent or confusion be damned.

Only EU membership will secure Moldova’s future

‘The European path of Moldova must go on,’ a young Moldovan politician texted me as their parliamentary election results began to roll in yesterday. His party PAS, the pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity, won. The race was not as close as some supporters feared, with PAS receiving about 50 per cent of the vote. The main opposition, Patriotic Electoral Bloc – an alliance of pro-Russian socialist and communist parties – received around 25 per cent.

This is a remarkable moment for Moldova. Just three weeks ago President Maia Sandu, the founder of PAS, addressed the European parliament in Strasbourg, warning of Russian interference. Calling the election a ‘battlefield’, Sandu declared that joining the European Union was a ‘matter of survival’ for Moldova. She has set 2030 as a deadline for the country to join the bloc. Pro-Europeans see this as just another battle in a long war against Russian electoral interference, following the close presidential elections in Moldova in 2024, and the annulled Romanian presidential elections held just a few weeks later. 

There were a number of dramatic developments in the last few days of the election last week: two smaller pro-Russian parties were barred from standing over allegations of illegal financing; the pro-Kremlin billionaire Vladimir Plahotniuc, wanted on charges of money laundering – which he strongly denies, was extradited by Greece in a win for corruption campaigners; and there were reports of bomb threats at polling stations across Europe, widely seen as an attempt to suppress the pro-European diaspora vote. 

Moldova’s history is complicated. The Ottomans and the Russians competed for influence and over time the region was split, with the western part absorbed into Romania. This region ended up annexed by the Soviets during the second world war, alongside the eastern part that had been briefly independent. They created a separate socialist republic out of this territory, alongside a small Moldovan autonomous soviet region (now known as Transnistria), which had been created decades earlier. This history has meant that while many Moldovans identify as ethnically Romanian, and share a language with them, a separate Moldovan identity emerged.

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Transnistria, literally ‘beyond the Dniester’ river, is a sliver of territory on the border with Ukraine and is one reason why Russia’s interest in Moldova isn’t just historical. The region refused to accept independence in 1991, fought a war with the Moldovan state and now amounts to a frozen conflict. Home to 350,000 people and about the size of Cornwall, its border with Ukraine has been shut ever since the Russian-Ukrainian war began. Visiting Transnistria is like travelling thirty years back to the USSR. There are images of hammers and sickles everywhere, statues of Lenin dominate the boulevards, and streets are littered with Lada cars; Russian guards man the border.

Russia appears to be embarking on a strategy of chaos. Despite the electoral result, political distrust seems to be rising and many PAS supporters fear post-election protests whipped up by the pro-Russian parties. Transnistria makes the threat from Moscow more tangible; Russia maintains a military presence in the region. Residents in Transnistria were eligible to vote in the parliamentary elections, but they had to travel out of their territory to do so.  

Moldovan democracy is fragile. Freedom House classifies Moldova as ‘partly free’ and the Economist Democracy Index puts the country at 71 out of the 167 countries it ranks. President Sandu talks proudly of being part of the ‘Twitter revolution’ – protests that took place following the 2009 parliamentary elections which saw allegations of vote-rigging by the ruling communist party. President since 2020, she took over from Igor Dodon, who is now the leader of the pro-Russian parliamentary bloc. The split between the parties used to align with age; around 10 per cent of the population are Russophone and older voters tended to vote for pro-Russian parties. With a cost-of-living crisis, it is harder to generalise; the main topics for this election have been energy prices, inflation and corruption, and the benefits of EU membership feel far away.

European politicians rallied to Sandu’s cause in the last few weeks of the election. Donald Tusk, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz visited the country to mark Moldova’s ‘national day’ in August, which celebrates independence from the Soviet Union. Speaking in Romanian, the French president condemned the ‘lies’ and ‘propaganda’ of the Russian government. Many in Maia Sandu’s party speak of the threat they face as a pan-European problem. What signal would be sent to politicians like Viktor Orban if the pro-Russian side were to win, they ask? The conflict in Ukraine, on Moldova’s doorstep, has meant the threat of war feels very real for ordinary citizens, and the country harbours over 120,000 Ukrainian refugees. 

For now, it appears the pro-Europeans have won the battle that Sandu spoke about earlier this month. Yet the election, against a backdrop of Russian air incursions across Nato territories, is just a reminder of the hybrid warfare that the Kremlin seems determined to conduct. Pro-Europeans will be happy Moldova’s path to joining the EU continues. But as long as Moldova remains outside the EU, they will fear the war for its future is not truly over. 

Grow a pair, Euro cry-bullies

After a weekend of bloodlust at Bethpage, the European team pulled off a stunning victory to take home the Ryder Cup. So why are they so sore about it?

Golf is known as a gentleman’s game, with countless unwritten rules of etiquette. The Ryder Cup is a rare exception, where the 12 best golfers from Europe and America duke it out not for money, but for glory, and rowdy fans bring their national pride to bear.

The American fury picked up as the Europeans sprinted ahead on Saturday, leading to an overall air of chaos. Forget the “golf clap” – heckling, shouting and four-letter cursing became the standard behavior as European players walked past the grandstands or lined up their shots.

Conduct became so bad that Irishman Rory McIlroy, typically a fan favorite in America, went viral for telling a fan to “shut the fuck up” on the 15th hole. He then refused to play until course officials could calm down the crowd. Then someone even lobbed a beer can at his wife as the gallery turned into a mosh pit.

Sure, it’s probably not the best look for the master of ceremonies, American comedian Heather McMahan, to start a “fuck you, Rory” chant into a live mic. And manners matter, no matter which side of the pond you’re on. But if this were any other sport, no one would bat an eye. And the European whining here seems to massively overstate a bit of rowdy banter.

Is McIlroy really such a baby that he can’t play through a little heckling? He’s from Northern Ireland, one would think he’s made of tougher stuff.

Does a comedian really deserve to lose her job for getting into the atmosphere and firing off a poor taste quip? Maybe, probably. But she apologized and stepped down from her MC role – we don’t need the whole media struggle session to boot.

Yet that’s exactly what the media ran with over the weekend, quoting endless Europeans tut-tuting American sportsmanship. The story wasn’t the Cup itself, despite a better-than-usual tournament – but how tacky and awful the Americans are.

“What I consider crossing the line is personal insults,” Luke Donald, the European captain, said at a news conference Saturday night.

“Nothing was going to happen, there wasn’t going to be a physical altercation, but there was a lot of language that was unacceptable and abusive,” McIlroy said.

“They kept talking about [McIlroy’s] wife, and I thought that was disrespectful. That’s apparently what New York does,” one self-righteous Irishman told CNN Sports.

What New York (and America) most certainly doesn’t do is jail sports fans for “unacceptable language” that hurts no one. These Euro cry-bullies should take note for their own, much rowdier, soccer hooligans rotting in jail.

Yet a certain kind of American liberal, particularly those in the media, still loves to scoff at the spectacle. “Look at our unsophisticated countrymen,” they sneer, seeking the European seal of approval that every would-be cosmopolitan craves.

But they should remember that brutality is the norm when Western powers clash, and goes far beyond a few naughty words. Sport – no longer war – is the civilized man’s version of barbarity, a place for him to take out his violent proclivities within some clearly delineated boundaries. You can’t blame him for stepping ever so slightly out of line once his blood is hot.

And a little excess rowdiness is a good thing. In America, we’ve all become a little too accustomed to therapy-speak. We lean on euphemisms and platitudes, not only in sport, but in politics and business and every place where candor is key. So we swallow outrages with approved terms like “feelings” and “harm” and “impact,” all too concerned with sensitives and perceptions, and then wonder why the temperature keeps rising.

If you want to make a difference – and let out a little steam – some unbridled hostility goes a long way. The American Founders, after all, were more than happy to throw a few punches in the midst of otherwise polite society.

What matters is that we can all shake hands at the end of the day, putting sportsmanship back to their rightful place without ever holding a grudge. And here, it’s the Europeans – not the Americans – who are failing to mind their manners.

When will Rachel Reeves deliver on her promises?

Security, security, security was the message from Chancellor Rachel Reeves as she addressed the Labour party today in Liverpool. A Labour government, she said, would stand for a British economy first. An economy that would put the British worker above all else.

That, Reeves proclaimed, was the key difference between a Labour government and a Tory one. In fact, the line ‘don’t let anyone tell you there is no difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government’ was delivered so many times that by the fifth or sixth iteration it received only limp applause.

The Conservatives were the main target of Reeves’s speech; they mismanaged the economy and allowed growth to stagnate for 14 years. This seemed an attack from an age we no longer live in. She only turned on Reform half-an-hour into the speech.

Securonomics is first a national project, Reeves told attendees. ‘Where things are made and who makes them does matter’, she said. She declared that she was ‘putting Britain first’, and eulogised the importance of ‘British ships and British forged steal’.

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But the Chancellor also said that it her vision of a ‘secure’ economy will see individual workers benefit too. They will be employed in ‘good unionised jobs’ in a country ‘founded on contribution and opportunity’, where ‘hard work is matched by fair reward’.

Anyone who cares about economic prosperity would struggle to pick holes in that message. In a world turning towards Trumpian protectionism and away from free markets, her words were exactly on brand. The trouble is that it’s hard to point to concrete actions the Chancellor has taken in the past 12 months that could build a secure, ‘British first’, economy.

Still, Reeves delivered her message with confidence. She dispatched a pro-Gaza heckler early on with an impromptu, Morgan McSweeney-esque response on the importance of power over protest. Labour is the ‘party of government, not a party of protest’, the Chancellor said.

Reeves also spoke of the importance of controlling inflation and tackling the cost of living crisis. To do that, Labour must be firm on those – the mayor of Manchester – who say we can do away with fiscal prudence and drown ourselves in even more debt. Great. But the policies Reeves delivered in her first Budget last autumn are now widely considered to have been the cause of that cost-of-living crisis. Her £25 billion raid on employer national insurance, coupled with the increase in the minimum wage is what have piled costs on retailers and sent food inflation skywards past 5 per cent. 

Those same policies, and the upcoming workers rights bill, are also what have caused nearly 150,000 payrolled jobs to disappear over the course of a year. Reeves is perhaps finding that delivering policies aimed at propping up the worker, increasing their pay and improving their – already generous – rights are not compatible with building an economy ‘secure’ for all.

On growth, the Chancellor pointed to the India and US trade deals, but with the Indian deal worth only 0.1 per cent of GDP she has much further to go. 

Rachel Reeves has talked the talk on fiscal prudence, job creation and creating a secure economy. But if she is serious about delivering on her promises, she has to re-evaluate her actions in power.

Hear Michael’s analysis on today’s Coffee House Shots podcast:

Rachel Reeves takes the fight to Reform

The Chancellor has just finished her speech at the Labour party conference. It has been a pretty torrid 12 months since Rachel Reeves’ last appearance in Liverpool. Since then, the Budget and borrowing costs have left her precariously exposed, in both Westminster and the City. But Reeves – a Labour tribalist to her core – seemed to draw heart from the conference floor. In a solid, if unspectacular performance, her peroration contained some red meat for the party to cheer: the abolition of long-term youth unemployment, new libraries and plans for an EU youth mobility scheme. Yet it was the first half of Reeves’ speech which highlighted the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future that she must slay to win re-election in 2029.

The first was Liz Truss and the Tories. Reeves has been scathing about her fiscal inheritance over the last 14 months. Today, she tried something different. Rather than talk of the infamous £22 billion ‘black hole’ which loomed so large over last year’s conference, she instead spoke in the language of priorities.

‘Don’t let anybody tell you there’s no difference between a Tory government and a Labour government’, she said, repeatedly. At times, there was a risk that such attacks had shades of generals fighting the last war. In Reeves’s own words, Truss’s mini-Budget had consigned the Tories to ‘utter irrelevance’. How then could she dedicate so much of her speech to savaging yesterday’s men? Reeves resolved this by using the comparison to speak to tensions that hang over today’s conference. Rather than warn of the Tories’ plans in 2029, she referred to them in past terms to defend the choices she has made to date.

That spoke to the second target of her speech: Andy Burnham. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is very much the ghost of Christmas present at this conference. Reeves’ allies were furious at his comments last week in which he suggested that ministers were too ‘in hock to the bond markets’.

In the most politically contentious passage of her speech, Reeves chose to issue a not-so-subtle warning to those urging her to tear up her fiscal rules. ‘There are still people who peddle the idea that we can cast off restraints on spending,’ she told members. ‘They’re wrong – dangerously so.’ In moving seamlessly from talking about the past failure of the mini Budget to the present debate on borrowing costs, Reeves was linking her critics inside the party with those outside it too.

That then took us on to the third and final target of her speech: Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Having compared her choices to those of the Tories, Reeves used the same device to attack Farage’s forces. She took aim at a ‘party in bed with Vladimir Putin… who cheered on the Liz Truss mini-Budget… who wants to talk Britain down and cut us off from the rest of the world… opposed to the very principle of a health system free at the point of use.’

Much of this is par for the course: similar speeches will be made over the next two days attacking Reform’s record on the NHS and Ukraine. But what was striking about Reeves’s speech was how much she lent into the themes of security and the economy as a way of attacking Reform. For decades, these were traditionally the Tories’ areas of strength: now she clearly thinks that framing Reform as an expensive risk will yield dividends come 2029.

Hear James’s analysis on today’s Coffee House Shots podcast:

Scottish Labour rule out deal with Reform

At the last Labour conference before the 2026 Holyrood election, Scottish Labour is enjoying the limelight. With less than eight months to go until the Scottish parliament election, the party is trying to prove that – despite its rather dire polling – it can win. But in an increasingly fractured political world, Labour may have to rely on another political party to prop itself up if it is to have any hope of governing in Scotland. And given Nigel Farage’s tartan outfit is doing pretty well north of the border, a Labour-Reform pact – informal or not – could be one solution. But would Anas Sarwar do a deal with Reform?

Responding to Politico’s Andrew McDonald in Liverpool about whether he was prepared to rule out that his party would do any deal with Reform, Sarwar responded promptly: ‘Yes.’ He went on:

Nigel Farage thinks that I’m someone that’s not loyal to my country. He wants to question my identity. He probably would question whether I even put my country – Scotland – first. That’s what they did in the by- election. They said that my priority would be to prioritise Pakistan more than it would be to prioritise Scotland. I was born in Scotland. My kids are brought up in Scotland. I’m as Scottish as anybody else. I’ll always obviously be more Scottish than Nigel Farage will ever be. But I’ll tell you what, I am more representative of British values as well than Nigel Farage will ever be. And that’s why Scotland rejected him. Scotland rejected next year and I’m confident that the UK will reject him come the next general election as well. 

Punchy stuff!

He went on to back Sir Keir Starmer’s allegation that Farage’s policy to scrap indefinite leave to remain was racist. Sarwar noted:

We’ve got to call things out for what they are and we’re going to be and we’ve got to be. Well, yes, I mean, talking about mass deporting people who have made their life And and their livelihoods and their homes here is utterly ridiculous. Do we need to have controls on migration? Absolutely. Do we need to limit and stop illegal migration? Absolutely. But if we’re suggesting that 432,000 of our fellow citizens who are contributing to our economy should somehow be bundled into planes and deported to other parts of the world, then that is not a serious approach and someone who just wants to divide us. And I think I call Nigel Farage yesterday a pathetic, poisonous little man. I think I’m being kind, to be honest.

Shots fired! But when quizzed on his own party policy put forward by Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary – which has been labelled a deportation policy by some – Sarwar was clear that this was, er, a different approach.

I think we’ve got to be really clear about what Nigel Farage is proposing and what a UK Labour government is trying to do to fix our immigration system. What Nigel Farage is proposing is a mass deportation scheme that is designed to break up communities, break up families and actually, he knows won’t work, but is deliberately using it as a way of, again, creating that difference and trying to pit community against community. On the other hand, what a UK Labour government is trying to do is to fix a broken immigration system.

‘Trying’ is the key word there, eh?

Has the history of human evolution been rewritten?

A new report from the field of human origins had sub-editors reaching for their hyperboles. A million-year-old skull, we have learnt, has rewritten humanity’s story. The finality of this is misleading, but there is nonetheless something going on here.

For decades, Chinese archaeologists have been investigating a site known as Yunxian, beside a tributary of the Yangtze river. The researchers have been rewarded with human fossils – to date, three skulls around a million years old. These bones have been preserved well but the skulls have been crushed. As a result, comparing them with other fossils, and therefore finding exactly which species they might represent, has been a challenge.

The skulls are broken, but not distorted: most of the right bits are in the right shape, just not in the right places. In a new study, published in the journal Science, a dozen Chinese archaeologists and scientists joined by Chris Stringer of London’s Natural History Museum, claim to have overcome this difficulty using cutting edge digital imaging and computer modelling to put them back together again. After doing so, they have revealed that a nearly complete skull found in 1990 is something no one had predicted: a creature that suggests our own family tree, made up of Homo Sapiens, is twice as old as previously thought. What’s more, this early ancestor of ours was walking around Asia, but apparently not Africa. How did we get here? And what does it tell us about ourselves?

It has long been agreed that humanity’s deep origins lie in Africa. A major genetic study released earlier this year found that humans and our chimpanzee ancestors separated from each other a little over five or six million years ago. What happened next on our side has become complex, if not downright confusing. The number of apparent species, and which parts of Africa, Europe or Asia they occupied and when, has come under constant scrutiny.

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The first close human lookalike appeared in Africa around two million years ago in the form of Homo erectus. Humans soon spread into – or appeared as related species in – parts of Europe and much of Asia. Making sense of the rare and fragmentary fossil evidence has been helped by genetic studies, which have confirmed the later and simultaneous presence of three species across Eurasia by around half a million years ago: Neanderthals – Homo neanderthalensis – in the west, Denisovans in the east, and the more widespread Homo sapiens occasionally breeding with the others. Ancient DNA and proteins recently identified a Chinese skull known as Dragon man as the first known Denisovan face, and Denisovans have been described, somewhat controversially, as a species known as Homo longi.

The new study extends this picture with further complexities and a longer history. The Yunxian skull, say the scientists, has a mix of ancient and newly acquired features. Parts recall erectus fossils, while its brain is larger, and the cranium’s face and lower back instead compare favourably to Dragon man – or even, says Stringer, Homo sapiens. The skull’s age, however, independently shown by geology and the particular ecosystem of mammals in the site’s well-preserved remains, suggests it comes from the erectus era.

The team resolves these apparent contradictions by rethinking the historic human landscape. In this new view, ancestral Neanderthals, Denisovans and sapiens separated a little over a million years ago, rather than around 500,000 years ago.The theory posits that Neanderthals, Denisovans and sapiens were alive at the same time as Homo heidelbergensis (traditionally thought of as the common ancestor of Neanderthals and sapiens) and later Asian Homo erectus. In other words, for hundreds of thousands of years our planet hosted five highly intelligent, large-brained types of human. In the long run, only one survived: us.

What does this mean for other human fossils we have found? Homo antecessor, for example, a species identified from remains in a Spanish cave at Atapuerca, has been proposed as an ancestor to heidelbergensis; this would put it at the root of the group that includes us and Neanderthals. That has always been controversial (it’s the excavators’ idea), and in the new analysis, the antecessor species is said to belong to the Denisovan group – and so, ultimately, doomed to extinction. Genetic studies have suggested different relationships, separating Dragon man from its African ancestors a relatively recent 700,000 years ago.

And then there are the fossils we don’t have. If Neanderthals, Denisovans and sapiens evolved away from each other a million years ago, there must have been earlier human forms not yet seen. The placing of their common ancestor among the intertwined branches of early human trees is unknown. It all opens up a quest for previously unsuspected types of fossils.

It’s the bigger picture here which is particularly exciting. Only archaeology can help us understand the nature of all these creatures: how they behaved and thought. Thirty years ago, archaeologists talked of a revolution marked by the sudden appearance of sophisticated art in Europe – indication, it was said, of the arrival of the modern human mind a mere 30 or 40,000 years ago. Evidence from the ground has since shown such developments also occurred far beyond Europe, and over a longer time span.

If early Homo sapiens evolved a million years ago, as this study suggets, when did individuals start to make art? At what point did they become ‘modern’ – and why? Could this have happened first in Asia, rather than Europe or Africa, and again, if so, why? Sooner or later we’ll get to answer such questions. Doing so will take us into a new, deeper understanding of who we really are.

Is it too early to tell Rachel Reeves ‘I told you so’?

‘I told you so’ – the most irritating four words in the English language, dripping with self-satisfaction and schadenfreude. So, forgive me. A year ago I – or rather, ‘we’, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee of which I was chair – told you, the great British public, that the UK risked economic catastrophe. A cross-party group including Corbynites and Thatcherites, we came to one crushing conclusion: unless this government took tough decisions this Parliament, the UK’s sky-high debt might well become unsustainable. 

A year on, what had been the subject of intense but largely ignored scrutiny in Lords’ Committee Room 2A has, at last, become the dominating issue. Being interviewed at Labour conference this morning, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has dared the country to ‘judge me on my record’. But as the red ink continues to rise and the drip of bad economic statistics turns into a flood, our Nostradamus forecast is sadly becoming more likely by the day. You cannot escape depressing articles about OBR forecasts, fiscal rules, and debt measures. Do you know your PSND from your PSNFL?

So let’s blow away the statistical, acronym-filled fog and focus on just two numbers. The first is 156: the government’s mammoth working majority. That figure, however, gives only the illusion of power. Keir Starmer is not master of his own ship. The Prime Minister lost control over his economic policy when his MPs forced him to drop plans to cut welfare spending earlier this year.

That revolt was just the start. Mainstream Labour wants to spend more – especially on welfare, by abolishing the two-child benefit limit – and pay for it by whacking up taxes even higher. Far from worrying about the rising tide of debt, their cheerleader Andy Burnham thinks ‘we’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets’. 

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That brings us to the second number: £111 billion – the forecast cost of servicing the UK debt in 2025, which Burnham thinks higher taxes and spending will ‘get beyond’. But bond traders think otherwise. Putting up taxes even higher will suffocate the growth the UK so badly needs to service its debt, let alone pay for increased defence spending, an ageing population or a creaking NHS. Instead of higher spending, they want the bloody stumps of tough spending cuts. 

So this is war. Spenders versus cutters, Burnhamites versus the Bond market, 156 versus £111 billion. Who will win?

November’s budget will be the next battle. The Burnhamites will win, rejoicing at higher taxes on banks, gambling and the so-called wealthy. The bond markets will not react violently – they are already in the brace position, ready for bad news. But as each week passes, the cost of servicing our debt will notch up as the denizens of the City and Wall Street see growing risks in the UK economy. And suddenly, something we have not factored in – a cyber attack, an oil shock, ‘events, dear boy, events’ – will bring everything to a juddering halt. 

So unlike the market blowout that followed Liz Truss’s budget, this Budget will be a slow puncture. But the ending will be the same. The cost of servicing our debt will rocket, leaving the Chancellor with no choice but to scuttle back to parliament, teary-eyed, cleaver in hand, to announce a raft of spending cuts. 

And what will happen then? The Labour left won’t vote en bloc against the painful necessity of cuts. Nor will they vote with the opposition parties in the inevitable vote of confidence and bring down their government. Why? A hardened Conservative whip once told me about what he called the ‘brown box moment’. When confronted with the prospect of a general election in which rebellious government MPs face certain electoral oblivion, the thought of having to pack up their Westminster offices means they quickly forget all those ‘values that brought me into politics’. How much better to swallow one’s principles, vote for the unthinkable, pocket a few months’ more salary and postpone the inevitable kick in the ballots. 

So get ready for years of economic and political agony, during which we will have to suffer and pay for a government twisting in the wind, unable and unwilling to do what is required to address the mess we are in: to rewrite fundamentally the role and responsibilities of the state versus that of the individual. Power will lie not in the City of Westminster but the City of London: the winner of this war will be that ‘thing’ called the bond market. The government, cutting just enough to satisfy the traders, will stagger on until it is put out of its misery at the next general election.

In that election, my money – if Reeves has not taxed it away – is on the electorate blowing the doors off the political consensus that has lasted for a generation. Radical reform – of welfare, immigration, how we pay for the NHS and education – will no longer be off limits but will become mainstream opinion, as people realise we can’t go on increasing taxes to pay for ever higher spending. People will vote for the party that understands Britain isn’t working at any level and has a clear, honest, bold plan to address it.

Maybe Reeves will surprise us all, and in some Clark Kent moment will become the brave, reforming Chancellor that Britain so badly needs, using Labour’s massive majority to restructure welfare and bring spending under control. We might then just avoid the gathering storm – and, in a year or so’s time, I will not be writing ‘I told you so…’ 

Why Chicago Teachers Union lionized a terrorist

When I first saw the Chicago Teachers Union’s post honoring Assata Shakur, I thought it was a headline from the Babylon Bee. But no, this one was real, and beyond parody.

The union, entrusted with educating Chicago’s children, used its official social media account to mourn the death of a convicted cop killer, calling her a “revolutionary fighter” and “leader of freedom.”

Shakur was found guilty of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973 and later escaped prison, landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List with a $2 million bounty. To make matters worse, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter doubled down, declaring on X that “Assata was a freedom fighter!”

The tone-deaf post is a glaring sign that the CTU can’t be trusted to educate children. While the union wastes time lionizing a terrorist, Chicago Public Schools are failing spectacularly. In 55 schools, not a single child is proficient in math. Taxpayers shell out about $30,000 per student annually, yet the system squanders that money on everything but effective teaching. It’s almost as if the CTU is competing for the title of most unhinged organization on Earth, alienating reasonable members in the process.

This post should serve as a wake-up call for Chicago teachers who don’t share these extreme views. If your values aren’t reflected in honoring a murderer, why keep funding the radicals at the top?

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, unions can no longer force public school teachers to pay dues, as it violates their First Amendment rights. Rational educators who simply want to teach can opt out and stop handing over their hard-earned paychecks to bosses like CTU President Stacy Davis Gates.

Teachers can now get free personal liability insurance through the Teacher Freedom Alliance. That way, they keep more of their own money, stay protected, and cut off support for this insanity.

Their post isn’t a one-off mistake. Stacy Davis Gates declared earlier this year at the City Club of Chicago that children in public schools belong to her union. Her X bio even proclaims, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe.” But if kids truly belonged to the union, their leadership would be in jail for child abuse, given the horrifying academic outcomes.

Remember 2022, when the CTU voted to strike and keep schools closed long after it was clear reopenings were safe? Those closures harmed children academically and emotionally. The union deleted a post claiming the push to reopen was “rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.” Meanwhile, CTU board member Sarah Chambers was caught vacationing in Puerto Rico, thousands of miles away, while railing against returning to work.

Stacy Davis Gates labeled school choice “racist,” yet she sends her own son to a private school. The CTU also reposted a video of a mock guillotine outside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s house, stating they were “completely frightened by, completely impressed by and completely in support of wherever this is headed.”

As an affiliate of Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers, the CTU mirrors national union extremism. Chicago Public Schools have morphed into a jobs program for adults rather than an education system for kids. Staffing has ballooned 20 percent since 2019, even as enrollment dropped 10 percent.

The CTU operates more like a political machine than an educational advocate. It poured $2.4 million into electing former organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor. Now, Johnson holds the highest unfavorable rating in Chicago mayoral history, with nearly 80 percent viewing him negatively.

Teachers deserve better representation. Parents deserve schools that prioritize learning over ideology. And children deserve a chance to succeed, not a union that honors killers while failing them in the classroom. It’s time for teachers to hold the union cartel accountable by opting out and starving the beast from the inside.

Why Trump wants Blair to run Gaza

Tony Blair is a man for all seasons, a political operator who knows precisely on which side his bread is buttered, the side of the super-rich oil and gas sheikhs and the well-connected elites of the Middle East. It is no coincidence, then, that his name has emerged as a potential candidate for a role envisioned by President Donald Trump’s administration: effectively serving as governor of Gaza if, and when, the ongoing war there comes to an end.

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Driving his candidacy is Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who continues to accumulate vast wealth from investments backed by Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati funds. Kushner is once again returning to mediation in the Israeli–Palestinian–Arab arena, though unlike during Trump’s first term – when he acted as an official advisor and diplomatic envoy – he now operates largely behind the scenes, wielding influence in a more informal but potent capacity.

Alongside them, Steve Witkoff serves officially as the Trump administration’s envoy to the Middle East and other global conflicts, including the Ukraine–Russia confrontation. Collectively, this group – Trump, his sons, Kushner, Witkoff and Blair – shares a common thread in their extensive, interwoven networks. They operate in the twilight zone between the formal and the hidden, between the visible and the opaque. Their potential conflicts of interest are glaring.

Their agenda is ambitious: to end the war in Gaza and establish a regional framework linking Israel with the Arab states, supported by Qatar, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, their companies, foundations, and investment funds continue to receive vast sums from these very same states.

In Israel, there is notable support for appointing Blair to head the transitional administration that would govern Gaza’s more than two million residents, 70 per cent of whom have lost their homes in Israeli bombings and are displaced, cramped into tented camps. This administration is intended to replace the Hamas government.

Should Trump succeed in compelling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept his 25-point plan for ending the Gaza conflict, and Blair – keen for the post – is appointed, the role will undoubtedly extend over many years, until the Gaza Strip is stabilised and rendered liveable.

‘Tony is a worthy candidate,’ Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to Washington and deputy foreign minister, told me. ‘He knows the Middle East intimately from his time as prime minister and from the other roles he has held since. He is acceptable both to Netanyahu and Trump and to leaders across the Arab world.’

Even more enthusiastic about the idea of Tony Blair heading a kind of international management and oversight body is Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister and defence minister. ‘I know him well and remained in contact with him even after our official roles ended. Although I haven’t met with him in the past year,’ he told me. ‘This is a good idea that will allow Arab states, including Egypt, to create a kind of buffer between themselves and Israel. If a year ago Trump’s plan was to save Gaza and its people, now, after the destruction, Trump’s plan is in effect an attempt to save Israel from the quagmire – without the Arabs being criticised at home for essentially coming to Israel’s aid.’

Barak added: ‘Tony maintains informal ties with the key players in the Middle East, and he knows how to use them as political and economic levers to promote stability and arrangements.’

Yet not all in Israel welcome his potential appointment. Far-right circles remember his long-standing support for a two-state solution and fear that Blair will implement Trump’s plan, which envisions the Palestinian Authority – led by Abu Mazen, whom they view as a thorn in their side – as part of Gaza’s transitional administration. Meanwhile, extremist Jewish settlers continue to push for the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, annexation of the West Bank, the expansion of settlements and the displacement of its three million Palestinian residents to Jordan.

The Palestinian perspective is decidedly cooler still. Many see Blair as a staunch friend of Israel. ‘Tony is clearly pro-Israel,’ a senior Palestinian Authority official told me, ‘but we have few alternatives. If Trump succeeds in ending the war and channeling Arab funds into the rehabilitation of the Palestinian people, Blair is certainly a reasonable default choice.’

The central question remains whether Blair is suited to this nearly impossible task. It should not be forgotten that he faced a similar task in the past – and did not succeed.

Upon leaving Downing Street in 2007, Blair accepted the position of special representative for the Middle East on behalf of the Quartet (US, EU, Russia, UN), a post he held until 2015. His mandate focused primarily on Palestinian economic development and institution-building rather than political negotiations, and his tenure sparked debate over its effectiveness.

Through the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), Blair has advised Palestinian institutions and Arab governments on governance, public administration and economic reform. TBI’s involvement in Palestinian projects, and its commercial links, have been a recurring source of controversy. Blair consistently emphasised the importance of building Palestinian institutions and economies as prerequisites for progress, at times prioritising these over a visible push for immediate political settlements.

In 2010, the Daily Mail published an investigative report connecting Blair to Wataniya, a Palestinian mobile telecommunications company launched in 2009 as a joint venture between the Palestine Investment Fund and Wataniya International (a subsidiary of Qatar Telecom, with JP Morgan involvement). The report suggested that Abu Mazen and his sons benefited financially from the company, and alleged that Blair had used his official position to serve the interests of one of his employers.

At the time, Blair’s spokesman said: ‘Tony Blair raised Wataniya at the request of the Palestinian Authority in his role as Quartet Representative. He has no knowledge of any connection between QTel [Qatar Telecom] and JP Morgan and has never discussed the issue with JP Morgan nor have they ever raised it with him. Any suggestion that he raised it for any reason other than the one stated to help the Palestinians or that in some way he has benefited from Wataniya is untrue and defamatory.’

The longevity of Blair’s mission stands as a stark indicator of the stagnation and bankruptcy of what is commonly referred to as the ‘peace process’.

Yet for Blair to assume another complex, long-term role, he must clear the ultimate hurdle. Trump, his son-in-law and Witkoff must bend Netanyahu’s will, as the Israeli prime minister fears that any agreement ending the war could also mark the end of his own time in office.

Reform has changed the conversation on immigration

Last week, Reform UK announced the most radical proposal on overhauling immigration by a mainstream political party in a generation. Under their new plans, migrants in the UK with indefinite leave to remain (ILR) would have to reapply for residency and would lose access to welfare benefits, unless they qualify to become British citizens.

This is a British-preference immigration and welfare policy, the likes of which we have not seen since at least 1997. It is intended to avert the fiscal and social implications of giving permanent welfare access to the wave of migrants who entered the country after 2021 – the infamous ‘Boriswave’ – which saw net migration surpass 900,000 in 2023. But the policy may also affect those who arrived before then.

The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has called this proposal ‘toxic’ and ‘racist’ in advance of Labour’s annual conference. Rachel Reeves, meanwhile, has stated her preference for even more immigration via the planned calamitous ‘reset’ with the EU, believing that 50,000 migrants a year from Europe is just what the economy and the public finances need.

So far, much of the discussion has focused on residency and whether it will lead to the automatic deportation of some legal migrants. Those with ILR will be asked to reapply for the new scheme and present a record of their contributions to the country. Some have criticised this for supposedly pulling the rug from underneath those who arrived in this country legally. ILR is not the same as permanent settlement; it is a lesser status than British citizenship. There have always been conditions under which it can be revoked, as outlined in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Reform’s proposals would, however, expand those conditions significantly.

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While the Prime Minister is attacking Reform as ‘racist’ for this policy, both Labour and the Conservatives have committed to variants of the same thing, such as extending the qualification period for ILR from five to ten years. These amount to a similar policy of retrospective changes to eligibility for residence and welfare benefits. Despite Keir Starmer’s protestations over the weekend, his Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, remains committed to reforming ILR as well. The centre ground has shifted significantly.

It should be considered normal and legitimate for any nation to review the visa status of migrants, as border control is one of the few fundamental responsibilities of any nation. In a democracy, the public should also be able to decide who has a right to enter and reside in their own country. That should be the case even if this review takes place retrospectively, as ILR has always been conditional.   

Where Reform’s policy does become more radical, however, is access to welfare. By ending entitlement to welfare benefits for anyone who is not a British citizen, this proposal changes the relationship between the British state and those who have come here from overseas.

The effects of this could be vast. For example, a significant proportion of social housing tenants were born outside the UK and many of them are not British citizens. Around 10 per cent of social housing tenants across the country, excluding migrants who have subsequently naturalised, were born overseas, and in 2023-24, 13 per cent of new social settings went to foreign nationals. This means potentially hundreds of thousands of households, disproportionately in London’s expensive postcodes, could become free for British citizens, either socially or on the open market.

Earlier this year it was reported that around £1 billion was spent on Universal Credit for households of non-British citizens in March this year alone, a 30 per cent increase since 2022.While exact figures of the amount of housing benefit spent on non-British citizens are not known, if the proportion of housing benefit claimants who are migrants is similar to social housing tenants, that equates to around £1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money per year.

Considering the high rates of economic inactivity among social housing tenants in London, and the high rates of social housing occupation by foreign nations in the capital, these changes do not just present the opportunity for fiscal savings; they could also transform the economy of the capital for the better. In some boroughs of London, social housing makes up over 40 per cent of all households. In such expensive areas, where homeowners and private renters spend near-record sums to live and work in the nation’s capital, the knock-on effects of this policy could alleviate significant pressure on the housing supply, as those who cannot afford to live in the city without subsidy leave.

In this respect, Reform’s proposal would be the most significant change to immigration and welfare policy in years, arguably more radical than the recent announcement by Donald Trump that a $100,000 (£75,000) fee would be attached to H1-B visas, although this appears to only affect future visa claims. However, despite this radicalism, restrictions on access to welfare have been popular with the British public for a long time: voters regularly cite cutting immigration as the most important issue facing the country, as well as reporting growing dissatisfaction with migration in general.

Some exemptions and refinements to this policy may emerge. Reform UK states they will not threaten the settled status of EU nationals in the UK, but will seek to negotiate how they access benefits with Brussels. This would be a welcome move, considering that over 700,000 EU nationals are claiming Universal Credit currently, more than the total number of British people living in France and Spain combined. Britain has a strong hand to play with Europe, considering the asymmetric nature of migration: many more Europeans want access to Britain than vice versa. Thanks to Reform, the Overton window on migration and welfare has permanently moved in Britain, and a new consensus that British immigration and welfare policy should prioritise the British people and the British interest has formed.

Is Slow Horses slowing down?

Since it launched in 2022, Slow Horses has been one of the most reliable television treats for all its four seasons. Based on the excellent novels by Mick Herron, it has focused on a group of “misfits and losers,” as none other than Mick Jagger sings over the credits, who have all been semi-exiled from MI5 for various misdeeds. They have ended up in the purgatory of Slough House, where they are stuck doing various soul-destroying administrative tasks until they quit. The joke is that most of them are good at their jobs (although not without some seriously challenging interpersonal issues), led by Gary Oldman’s superspy Jackson Lamb, whose belching, flatulent and deeply unhygienic exterior belies a razor-sharp mind and a keen grasp of human nature.

The last season saw the James Bond manqué River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) find a father, and the Slough House team a nemesis, in the form of ex-CIA operative Frank Harkness. It raised the stakes to new and giddy levels, and in the casting of veteran baddie Hugo Weaving seemed to introduce a Moriarty-esque antagonist for the ages, which is why it’s relatively disappointing that season five begins with a return to familiar territory. There’s an apparently motiveless massacre been committed by a lone shooter who swiftly gets a sniper’s bullet in the head, two men (one Asian and liberal, one white and right-wing) running to be the new mayor of London, and the various spooks are struggling to cope after the death of one of their number in the last series. Oh, and irritating tech support Roddy Ho has an unfeasibly attractive girlfriend. How does all this tie together?

The appeal in previous seasons of Slow Horses has been half in the deliciously convoluted plotting, playing with tropes of espionage established by John le Carré and Ian Fleming and subverting them for all it’s worth, and half in the interaction between its characters, which at its best has the tight scripting of a great sitcom. This season will be the last from showrunner Will Smith, which on previous form would be a tragedy, but judged by the opening episode, something here is not quite right. The dialogue too often mistakes swearing for wit – one conversation between Lowden and the fiery Shirley Dander (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) simply consists of the two saying “Fuck off!” “Fuck you!” to one another. And one’s heart sinks at yet another show that looks as if it’s going to revolve around the far right and men’s activists as villains.

Still, it’s too early to write things off yet. Oldman has increasingly described Lamb as his signature role, and he gets all the best lines and situations, reveling in the chance to play a character who doesn’t ask to be liked but ends up being the center of gravity anyway, and there are hints that the rich comic elements of earlier series might yet reappear. I enjoyed Ted Lasso actor Nick Mohammed’s brief appearance as the platitudinous mayoral candidate Zafar Jaffrey, speaking in his special official voice even when there are only a handful of people in the room, and Christopher Chung excels at conveying Ho’s odd mixture of smugness and childishness.

But for all its surface pleasures, I am concerned that the show is being written and produced at such a clip – five seasons in three years is a lot – that nobody is taking the time to reflect on why it’s built up such a persistent cult following that is always threatening to turn it into a big mainstream hit. Two more seasons are already commissioned, but I am beginning to wonder, for the first time, whether the Slow Horses might yet need to be put out to pasture on a rather permanent basis before outstaying their welcome.

No, Keir Starmer: Reform’s migrant plans aren’t racist

Keir Starmer’s behaviour, demeanour and language has taken a rapid and strange turn of recent. Unable to do anything meaningful about this country’s economic woes or the chronic immigration crisis, the Prime Minister now resorts to words in preference to actions. He relies increasingly on alarmist rhetoric and hollow gestures in order to make us believe that he is a competent and purposeful leader.

The decision to officially recognise Palestine, a country with no borders, no capital city and no meaningful government, was merely one indication of this lurch. His endless pronouncements on his determination to ‘smash the gangs’, rather than do anything hard-nosed about the small boats debacle, and his new eagerness to repeat on a loop that Labour is the ‘party of patriotism’, represent a faith in performative utterances: the idea that if you say something constantly and with sufficient vehemence such words will translate into reality, or that cynical, feverish invective can effect a desired outcome.

Starmer’s latest ruse in this regard has been to denounce Reform UK’s policy on indefinite leave to remain, damning it yesterday as ‘immoral’ and ‘racist’. This marks a new low. That latter word is traditionally deployed by far-left types prone to Manichean thinking, by those who believe ‘racist’ will act as a magical incantation that will diabolise their enemies and forewarn all those lured by their promises. It’s the customary response of low-intelligence fringe-leftists who, as the recent fiasco within Your Party has reminded us, can’t even be trusted to run a tiny political organisation, let alone a country. It reflects badly on our Prime Minister that he has taken recourse to such desperate language.

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Reform’s plans aren’t literally racist. They may pertain to those mainly of Asian origin, to those who were originally allowed in under measures enacted in the wake of Britain’s departure from the European Union – the last Conservative government having consequently lowered qualification criteria from immigrants outside the EU. What Reform proposes is merely a return to some form status quo ante, and if this happens to apply to Asians, that’s because the scheme was aimed at them in the first place.

Reform’s plan, to strip indefinite leave to remain status from hundreds of thousands of settled non-EU citizens and force them to reapply for visas under stricter standards, may correctly be called immoral, or just unfair. But with that second accusation, Starmer crossed the line. Furthermore, it’s likely to backfire. Those inclined to vote Reform have long come to associate the mechanical slur ‘racist’ with people unable or unwilling to engage with their sincere and honest concerns.

Still, our Prime Minister’s descent into hyperbole and apocalyptic forebodings mirrors a panicked predicament. Only on Friday, speaking at the ‘Global Progress Action Summit’, Starmer let loose the language of Armageddon.

‘The next election,’ he said, ‘will be a battle for the soul of this country. This is bigger than Labour, it becomes about patriotism’. Directing his ire at Reform UK itself, he concluded: ‘At its heart, its most poisonous belief is that there is a coming struggle, a defining struggle, a violent struggle for the nation.’ Yet in the Guardian on Saturday, without irony, he accused Reform UK of being an ‘enemy’ hiding in ‘plain sight’. For a Prime Minister who claims to be against ‘the politics of division’, this was all pretty divisive stuff.

But what’s a Prime Minister do when he has been reduced to a state of impotence? He can’t fix our country’s finances. If Labour raises spending, taxes and the welfare bill, it will send the economy into a deeper, potentially fatal doom spiral. If he doesn’t do these things, he will face a backbench rebellion and the threat of being ousted by someone who promises that he will: Andy Burnham.

Likewise, he can’t do anything about legal or illegal migration because he knows the already schismatic left in his party will not tolerate anything that might appear ‘uncaring’ to any ethnic minorities. This is why Starmer has deflected and dissembled ad nauseum with his nebulous desire to ‘smash the gangs’, another verbal tic that belies an unwillingness to tackle reality with actions, as opposed to spewing big words that come to nothing.

In contrast to our Prime Minister, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood did yesterday display some mettle on this matter, announcing plans to make it harder for new migrants to qualify for indefinite leave to remain. But these are early days for Mahmood, a robust player whose connection with reality marks her out as a decided outlier in her party.

If Starmer were serious about fending off the threat from Reform, rather than resorting to abuse, or empty threats about ‘smashing the gangs’, he would instead talk of the prosaic and ugly imperative to ‘stop the boats’. But these words would entail plain, unsentimental, actual deeds.

Will Labour MPs stand for Rachel Reeves’ benefits crackdown?

When Rachel Reeves speaks at Labour party conference today, she has a tough message to deliver. The Chancellor will announce her plans to ‘abolish youth unemployment’ by forcing Britain’s jobless youth into work.

The ‘youth guarantee’ scheme will offer the carrot of a guaranteed work placement once unemployed 18 to 21-year-olds have spent 18 months out of the workforce. Those who turn down job offers or training places, however, will face the stick via sanctions such as having their benefits docked.

With nearly one million 16 to 24-year-olds classified as not in education, employment or training – so called ‘Neets’ – this is a problem that is costing our economy billions. Tackling youth unemployment not only makes economic sense but feeds into one of the key themes that Labour want to get out of this conference: the idea that ‘Britain is founded on contribution’.

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Economists, though, will be watching for any clues on what Reeves is planning for employment taxes in the upcoming Budget. Whilst many have blamed the graduate jobs slump on AI, the reality is that the £25 billion raid on employers’ national insurance at last year’s Budget has caused hiring managers to shut up shop. If the Chancellor is serious about stopping a new workless generation, she must tackle the tax environment she herself created for employers last year.

But to look at our welfare problems and rising youth unemployment through a solely fiscal lens misses another key point: this is a human tragedy, too. Thousands of young people go straight from school, college or university on to long-term sickness benefits and many of them never come off of them. That is a moral outrage that must be tackled.

Society doesn’t work if its people don’t. Joblessness breeds depression and anxiety, which makes the idea of getting back to work too difficult for many to comprehend. But, for too long, we have seen that as acceptable and, in turn, the problem has exploded. Allowing thousands of young people to enter lives of dependency and despair in the name of mental health is not compassionate at all.

Politically, an argument like that above is much more convincing than a purely economic one. When Liz Kendall tried to cut £5 billion off a soon-to-be £100 billion-a-year sickness benefits bill, Labour MPs would not accept it. They will not wear benefit sanctions on the young if it is made in purely economic or fiscal terms, either. There’s a moral case to be made for welfare reform. If she is to stand any hope of getting her plan through the party, Reeves must make it today.

Starmer’s ‘racist’ Reform remark is his ‘deplorables’ moment

Reform’s proposal to scrap indefinite leave to remain for foreigners is racist, according to Keir Starmer. ‘I do think it’s a racist policy,’ the Prime Minister told the BBC yesterday. ‘I do think it’s immoral – it needs to be called out for what it is.’ Removing people who were here legally, he said, was wrong. That’s a reasonable stance for a lawyer, but odd for a PM, whose role isn’t compliance with the law but deciding what new laws should say.

Supporters of Reform are not themselves racist, Starmer was quick to say – merely ‘frustrated’ by 14 years of ‘Tory failure’. But the Prime Minister could soon regret his remarks.

Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump supporters a ‘basket of deplorables’ during her 2016 election campaign – an election she went on to lose. A close ally of David Cameron described Tory activists as ‘mad, swivel-eyed loons’ in 2013, opening a chasm between the then prime minister and his party’s grassroots. Starmer has been more careful with his language, but his thinking appears to be the same. By calling Reform’s plan ‘racist’ and brushing off voters’ concerns as mere frustration, he’s making his own statement about the British people being deplorable, swivel-eyed loons.

With his suggestion, Starmer is wrong about Britain. We live not only at the least racist point in history, but in one of the least racist countries in the world. Those points are too valuable to be cheapened by neglect. Our country can be unfair, cruel, fretted with ignorance and misery – but it is kinder, fairer, and more tolerant than ever before. Racism deserves to be taken seriously, which means taking our progress seriously.

France is more racist than Britain. Italy is too, as are Germany and Spain. I have no knowledge of Ireland beyond its current ghoulish anti-Semitism. Scandinavia appears worse than we are, although I judge from a distance. Russia is horrifically racist, and China and Japan not much better. I have worked in several African countries and each has been a world worse than ours when it comes to judging people by their skin or their ethnicity.

North American racism makes ours look tame, and while I have no direct experience of Central and South America, I see no reason to suspect either of being an oasis of open mindedness.

About the Middle East it is better not to think. But we don’t need to rely on impressions alone. The World Values Survey asks people if they would object to having a neighbour of a different race. In Britain, the number consistently falls below 3 per cent. Figures are often two or three times higher in Western Europe, higher still across Eastern Europe and Asia. A comprehensive 2023 study by King’s College London confirmed this, ranking Britain as one of the most tolerant societies in Europe on a key metric of racial acceptance. From North America to the Far East, few nations demonstrate such a high level of stated public tolerance. Britain has become a better place because brave people have fought to make it so and because kindnesses have accumulated. It is distasteful, in the extreme, to minimise such achievements.

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We’re not just amongst the least racist nations, we’re also not stupid – and any politician who presumes voters are is on the road to either authoritarianism or failure. When I was born, 6 per cent of those in Britain had been born elsewhere. The figure was 4 per cent when my parents were born. When their parents came into the world, it was 2 per cent. Today, it is 17 per cent and rising. Worrying about this figure is not stupid. Who are the people who are coming to our country? What are their values? What will they do to our culture, our economy? These are not contemptible concerns. Writing them off as racist or stupid is insulting. Proposing that the reasonable response is the introduction of mandatory ID cards for all is unhinged.

I don’t deny that scrapping indefinite leave to remain would cause profound harm to many people, including a large number of residents who enrich our country. The real question is whether the policy will do more good than harm – and that depends on whether its consequences are worked through intelligently and humanely. In our own interests, we would want to maximise the immigration that helps our country. In the interests of decency, we would wish to reduce the number of lives any change destroyed.

Our progress has been real and it remains fragile. We did not always have an innate sense that signs reading ‘no Irish, no blacks’ were so unthinkably foul as to be both criminal and un-British. There was a lot of hard graft to make progress, and conservatism did not lead the way. But when the progressive left ignores people’s reasonable concerns – or, worse, dismisses them as racist or stupid – they breathe life into the far right they so eagerly hallucinate.

There are serious issues to discuss here, but they merit a serious response. When Starmer insists on treating immigration anxiety as racism, he mistakes Britain. People are not deplorables, nor loons, nor fools. They are citizens of one of the most tolerant nations on earth, and they want their leaders to take them seriously. Politicians who misjudge them not only insult their electorate; they obscure one of Britain’s quietest but greatest achievements – that here, more than in most places, racism has steadily lost.