Politics

Another day, another BBC slip-up. This time the much-lauded public service broadcaster has been dragged back into the spotlight after an independent review found it hadn’t been reporting fully on immigration — because it feared being labelled either ‘racist’ or ‘woke’. Oh dear… The 75-page report, carried out by Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory with Samir Shah before he became BBC chairman, revealed that journalists had been ‘anxious’ about covering issues that might appear anti-immigration. What complexities might these stories involve? Concerns from local residents about an influx of migrants to their hometowns or immigration fraud which is, er, a crime. So much for impartial journalism…  One BBC insider

Conventional wisdom has it that Britain faces an awkward dilemma on legal immigration: either we cut migrant numbers to keep faith with voters (more than 60 per cent of whom say immigration has been too high over the last decade), or we keep the economy growing by allowing net migration to continue at levels well beyond anything the country has ever seen. But this is a false dichotomy. The government is not facing a choice of either/or.  If we are more selective in our migration policy, we can cut overall numbers Let’s start with a bit of historical perspective. For centuries, Britain was a country of net emigration, not immigration. Annual

Much has been made in recent weeks, and especially in recent days, about the degrees of ignorance often displayed by those protesting for the people of Gaza and Palestine. To put it pithily, many don’t seem to know from which river and to which sea they chant about with such passion. Such ignorance has prompted some to conclude that these protests are less about showing solidarity with beleaguered Palestinians and more an excuse to vent incoherent anti-Western sentiment, or, more sinisterly, old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Some of the protestors have been replicating what they believe to be the conditions in Gaza Similarly, the cosplay in evidence at university campuses in the USA

A grassroots campaign group called ‘The Muslim Vote’ is aiming to capitalise on the success of pro-Gaza candidates at the local election by issuing a set of 18 ‘demands’ of Keir Starmer. The organisation seeks to ‘punish’ MPs who fail to back a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It says that Labour must ‘return the Zionist money’, bin the government’s new extremism definition and slap a travel ban on pro-war Israeli politicians. The group says its members will turn to other parties if Starmer doesn’t listen up. Not all the demands made by ‘The Muslim Vote’ relate to Gaza On the question of Gaza, Labour is in an almighty pickle.

Amidst the golden splendour of the Kremlin’s Hall of the Order of St Andrew, Vladimir Putin was once again inaugurated as president of Russia this morning. But while today’s event was in many ways a carbon copy of the ceremony that has taken place five times now since 2000, it marks a significant watershed in the history of Putin’s rule: for the first time since assuming power 24 years ago, his leadership can no longer be considered constitutionally legal. Technicalities such as this, though, matter little to Putin. Taking to the podium in the hall that once served as the throne room to the Tsars of Russia, Putin placed his hand on a specially-bound

UK university courses on race and colonialism are facing the axe due to cuts. ‘There’s not very much about race and colonialism on the curriculum to start with,’ fumed Professor Hakim Adi at the report, which revealed that Kent university’s anthropology course and a music programme at Oxford Brookes is under threat. Adi, a former leader of Chichester university’s history of Africa programme, told the Observer: ‘It sends a signal from those in power that these types of subjects are not desired…they just won’t be taught in higher education, if this trend continues’. This empire obsession is very strange and unfair To which one is tempted to reply, in the