Charlie Alford

‘Scandal within a scandal’: DWP fails to begin Post Office convictions review

Post author:Cameron Baillie
Post published:30 July 2026
Post last modified:31 July 2026

The UK government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is still failing families affected by the potentially wrongful Post Office convictions scandal. It’s now almost 12 months since the DWP first announced its review into its infamous handling of prosecutions against Post Office staff. Yet no review has begun and still no reviewer is even appointed. The widow of a sub-postmaster told Sky News she is “extremely” frustrated at the stalling of the review. It is supposed to investigate the (mis)handled prosecutions of multiple Post Office staff. The DWP was involved in bringing prosecutions against roughly 100 Post Office staff from…

Graham blows £0.5m of members’ cash in Beckett legal fight and fails

Post author:Skwawkbox
Post published:17 July 2026
Post last modified:17 July 2026

Unite’s former legal director, Howard Beckett, will have his claims heard at a full hearing after securing an employment appeals tribunal win. Beckett is suing Unite the Union — and current general secretary, Sharon Graham, personally — for breaching his privacy. Yet again Graham’s attempts to have the case thrown out have failed, at a huge cost, as the employment appeals tribunal (EAT) has given permission for all 11 grounds to proceed to hearing. Skwawkbox has previously covered Unite’s attempts to use a technicality against the union’s ex-general secretary candidate. Unite, Howard Beckett and the media pipeline Apart from Skwawkbox and…

Watch: Labour MP asked to name a single Burnham policy — and fails

Post author:Skwawkbox
Post published:17 June 2026
Post last modified:18 June 2026

Labour’s Manchester Rusholme MP Afzal Khan is on the campaign trail for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election. Voters go to the polls tomorrow, 18 June 2026. The Canary asked him to name a policy that Burnham supports — and got a lot of waffle in return. Labour — U-Turnham? In fact, Khan seemed unable — or perhaps unwilling — to mention any policy that Burnham stands for. But he’s sure that Burnham “has views on the policies” and that “the policies will be there”. This quandary likely stems from the fact that any time Burnham has been associated with a…

Social media ban fails to tackle root causes of dangerous online misogyny

Post author:The Canary
Post published:15 June 2026
Post last modified:16 June 2026

Today the UK government has confirmed it will implement a long-anticipated ban on social media use for under-16s in the UK. As Maddison Wheeldon wrote for the Canary, this move does little for young people while letting big tech companies off the hook. And girls’ rights charity Plan International UK has added that the ban won’t keep girls safe. Because it fails to tackle the underlying causes of misogyny online. Morgan Griffith-David is senior influencing lead for UK Girls’ Rights at Plan International UK. Reacting to the confirmation of the ban on under-16s using social media in the UK, he said:…