As Guido has long predicted, the BBC’s declining audience share meant that YouTube overtook the state broadcaster as the most-watched outlet by Brits earlier this year. YouTube is bigger than the BBC…
Now regulators are running to catch up. New ‘prominence’ rules being considered by Starmer after his ill-advised reset with the EU, the BBC could be given special treatment as an organisation hand-picked by ministers. Attempts are being made to ask social media platforms to change their display algorithms to give more ‘prominence’ to this content. In other words, some want to try to force YouTube and other video sites to give ‘prominence’ to the BBC over every other creator…
That’s ironic as the video sites themselves are massive net givers to the creative economy: YouTube alone contributed 7 billion Euros to the EU’s otherwise faltering media market in 2024. In the UK, that platform alone has added more than £2 billion to GBP…
State regulation of poplar platforms never works. Starmer’s internet crackdown is reaching insane new levels…
Today Water Minister Emma Hardy said she is considering banning over-the-counter flea medication for pets to crack down on ‘environmental contamination’. War has broken out in the Middle East, the country is flat broke, and we have no Navy. The government has no answers to the real problems, so instead it makes itself feel better by banning things. Below is an exhaustive list of all the things they’ve outlawed already, and what they’re considering banning in future. Guido will update the list as it inevitably grows…
Thirty-eight candidates are jostling for seats on Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), with ballots opening in July. If May 7th delivers the wipeout the polls predict, these elections become the first internal mechanism through which members can pass judgement on Starmer’s leadership. Andy Burnham is watching with close interest…
The left is running three separate slates. Momentum’s Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance is standing on a platform that reads like a direct attack on Starmer, with suspending arms sales to Israel and a second Employment Rights Bill “that goes beyond the current diluted version” on the menu. A new group called ‘Restoration’, offering up five candidates, wants to “make Labour working class again”. Good luck with that.
The Burnhamite Mainstream is standing three candidates. That is eleven left-wing candidates splitting the vote across nine CLP seats, which in theory benefits the right-of-party Labour to Win slate running four.
Jonathan Ashworth has put his name forward after losing his seat in 2024. The race is on…
Labour’s Treasurer Mike Payne admitted at the latest NEC meeting that Unite’s disaffiliation is draining the party’s coffers, and it will run a deficit in 2026. Admittedly Labour should be used to running high deficits by now…
According to NEC member Cat Arnold’s minutes:
“Treasurer Mike Payne said he has seen the annual accounts and they await the internal audit. Discipline will hold us in good stead for 2026, but we will not have a balanced budget but be in deficit. The Unite disaffiliation has had an impact and will have consequences.”
Unite has long been Labour’s biggest union donor. The party is clearly terrified of what happens next. As Arnold herself puts it, other unions are “considering their options”. Time to tighten the belts…
The King’s Speech will be delivered on 13th May, just six days after the local elections. Labour is expecting a bloodbath. Number 10 hoping this will make it harder for any ambitious Cabinet minister to immediately call for Starmer’s head…
Ed Miliband scores the cover interview for this week’s New Statesman. He finally joins the ever-growing list of Labour MPs who have, by pure coincidence, decided now is the time for a puff piece in which they pontificate about Labour’s problems, speak wistfully about their childhoods, and pose for weird pictures. If you want a job in the real world, you usually submit a CV. In Labour, you give a War and Peace-length interview to the New Statesman…
Miliband is careful not to mention his personal ambitions specifically. Luckily the New Statesman does it for him:
“Some of those who know Miliband are clear he has his eyes on becoming chancellor. Nigel Farage has told friends privately in recent weeks that he expects Miliband to become prime minister by 2027.”
Oh no, don’t put that in there…
He does at least admit he wants to smash the ming vase to pieces:
“We won on a modest, relatively safe platform,” Miliband went on. “That’s not meant as a criticism. It’s just a description of the facts.” Miliband mounts a defence of the government. Good things are happening, he promises.”
Most notable, however:
“Should Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner become the leader of Labour this year, they will not deviate from the script that Miliband has written.”
In other words: don’t forget who’s really running the show. He is even described as having “liquid charm“. The only line he might take issue with is his “remarkably enormous oblong of a head”…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”