Charlie Alford

How Media Lens forged a path for independent journalism

Post author:PHIL MILLER
Post published:12 August 2026
Post last modified:12 August 2026

We are seeing today a surge in heretical media outlets including Novara, Doubledown News, Drop Site, Byline Times, Middle East Eye – and of course Declassified UK. We have emerged thanks in part to a growing appreciation that the mainstream media is broken, cannot be trusted, and is far more likely to disseminate falsehood than tell the truth. So it is only fair to wish a happy 25th birthday to the earliest of these dissident outlets – Media Lens. Media Lens first published in July 2001. The timing was perfect, with George W Bush starting to mobilise ahead of the Iraq…

‘Huge’ cost of aircraft carriers meant ‘less scope’ for funding health and education

Post author:PHIL MILLER
Post published:13 July 2026
Post last modified:13 July 2026

“Vulnerable” aircraft carriers are about Britain “counting for something in the world” and being an “effective ally” of the US, declassified files show Tony Blair’s treasury secretary Alistair Darling told the prime minister that buying aircraft carriers was a “political” rather than a military choice and would mean less funding for social services.Declassified files from 1998, Blair’s first full year in government, contain deliberations among officials and ministers on Labour’s manifesto commitment to replace Britain’s three aircraft carriers with the two new ones the UK currently possesses.Darling wrote to Blair in June 1998 about the carriers and the aircraft to go…

Could we be about to get wealth taxes in the UK?

Post author:oscar
Post published:7 June 2026
Post last modified:13 July 2026

This is an AI-written (but human-edited) summary of Gary’s recent video: The UK is closer to wealth taxes than ever before The UK is currently closer to introducing wealth taxes than at any point in the last 40 years. In this episode Gary unpacks the current political situation in the UK, and a potential route to getting wealth taxes from it. The Political Context The Labour government in freefall. Keir Starmer, who won an electoral landslide just two years ago, is now among the most unpopular prime ministers in modern British history. Labour were routed in local elections. Living standards have…