Author: Rachael Swindon

This author has written 5 articles

Don’t worry: we get that sinking feeling too when Andy Burnham opens his mouth

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  • Post last modified:21 July 2026
Don’t worry: we get that sinking feeling too when Andy Burnham opens his mouth

If you’ve ever watched a politician promise you a three-course meal only to hand you a single stale budget-brand biscuit, you will recognise that exact sinking feeling I get whenever Andy Burnham opens his mouth. Andy Burnham: not sensible For years now, he’s been held up as Labour’s great sensible left hope – the man who stood up for the north, who’d take on the Westminster machine, who might just drag the party back to its working-class roots without scaring off anyone who owns more than one house. It’s a great story. It’s also about as believable as a government minister…

Continue ReadingDon’t worry: we get that sinking feeling too when Andy Burnham opens his mouth

The de-banking of the Canary is a warning. If they can silence us, they can silence anyone.

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  • Post last modified:6 July 2026
The de-banking of the Canary is a warning. If they can silence us, they can silence anyone.

For more than a decade, I have wholeheartedly backed the man who helped build Canary from nothing but a belief that media should serve the many, not the few. I have watched him pour his energy and unshakeable principle into creating an independent voice — one that challenges power, holds elites to account, and amplifies those the mainstream ignores. So when Lloyds Bank suddenly terminated Canary’s business banking facility without a clear explanation, this wasn’t just some sort of bureaucratic inconvenience. It was a direct, calculated assault on press freedom, political dissent, and the very idea of a democratic public sphere.…

Continue ReadingThe de-banking of the Canary is a warning. If they can silence us, they can silence anyone.

Starmer has never put the country first – not even in his final, insipid act

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  • Post last modified:23 June 2026
Starmer has never put the country first – not even in his final, insipid act

It has finally happened. Keir Starmer, the man who promised to deliver “change” with all the revolutionary fervour of a Lib Dem focus group, has slithered out of Downing Street like a deflated balloon animal after a kids’ party gone wrong. Two years. That’s all it took for the great anti-Tory Labour landslide of 2024 to collapse into a humiliating pile of U-turns, scandals, and moral cowardice. Today, as he stood outside No. 10 delivering his resignation speech – all misty-eyed about his fantastic wife and being the best dad to his kids – I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.…

Continue ReadingStarmer has never put the country first – not even in his final, insipid act

The false narrative white supremacists have pushed about their own white riots

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  • Post last modified:20 June 2026
The false narrative white supremacists have pushed about their own white riots

When the racist white riots broke out in Belfast, you’d have thought the sky had fallen in — or at least that a small army of migrants had turned up unannounced and started stealing everyone’s jobs, houses, and sense of “identity”, whatever that means. That’s the story the pernicious far-right and their cheerleaders in certain corners of the corporate media were peddling, anyway. It’s a narrative as old as it is ridiculous. Whenever things feel tough, blame the person who just arrived, the one who has less, the one who’s already vulnerable. Let’s be absolutely clear from the start: these were…

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Burnham’s no ‘King of the North – he’s the Menace from Manchester for the left

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  • Post last modified:9 June 2026
Burnham’s no ‘King of the North – he’s the Menace from Manchester for the left

In these quite frankly desperate times for British progressivism, with Keir Starmer’s deeply unpopular government crumbling under the weight of its own timid orthodoxy, many on the left are (still) casting about for a saviour. Enter Andy Burnham, the apparent “King of the North”, Greater Manchester Mayor, and newly energised contender for the Labour leadership. Polls show Burnham is outpacing Starmer among Labour members, which really shouldn’t be too difficult. Burnham’s folksy charm and occasional rhetorical flourishes about public control of essential utilities play rather well in working-class heartlands. So let’s be absolutely clear from the word go. Andy Burnham is…

Continue ReadingBurnham’s no ‘King of the North – he’s the Menace from Manchester for the left