Britain’s embattled statistics authority spent £400,000 in taxpayer cash on branded notepads. It’s the hottest merch in town…
Shadow Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart asked what branded items the ONS had spent money on, chief executive Darren Tierney responded:
“In line with the guidance permitting merchandise for essential government delivery, the ONS has produced branded items to encourage citizen participation in our social surveys. This incentivisation is a well-established and effective approach, enabling the ONS to produce critical statistics that inform the country.
As part of this approach, since April 2025, the ONS has spent £400k on ONS note pads. The use of incentives is cost effective when compared with alternative approaches for achieving increases in response.”
The Starmer government tried to ban branded merch and away days last year. Always a loophole…
Bridget Phillipson has told the Guardian: “Being education secretary was amazing … and I’m really proud of what we achieved in that time.” She said she resonated with Starmerites:
“I know how people will feel, those who’ve lost out – I know it hurts. It hurts to lose a job that you have loved and put heart and soul into. But I know that however people feel at the moment, they want to win the next election as much as I do, and they know how high the stakes are.”
It must be especially hurtful seeing as Burnham offered the education job to Reeves first. Reshuffle mayhem…
As the new Women and Equalities minister (a brief she already held) Phillipson also attacked Farage for focusing on Pakistani rape gangs and foreign national offenders, saying:
“We should go after whoever commits violence against women and girls, whatever their background, whatever their ethnicity.”
Labour trying its hardest to forget the Casey report which said the ethnicity of rape gangs had been wilfully “shied away from.” Embarrassed established politicians and media have carefully slotted that one away…
Only 33% of adults questioned by Ofcom described the BBC as impartial. They’re catching up…
Ofcom released its Media Nations report overnight which showed continued dominance of Netflix on TV screens. It also released results from the regulator’s Public Service Media tracker, which asked British adults to pick the media brands which corresponded to certain criteria. Between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, NOW, and Disney+…
For “Is impartial (not favouring one side over another),” only 33% of respondents selected the BBC. The state broadcaster ranked the highest and was followed close behind by Netflix and ITV on 27%. It looks like trust in the L
Last year 41% of people ranked the BBC highly for impartiality. That’s a sharp drop-off – is declining trust in the broadcaster responsible for the number of licence fee payers dropping by a whopping 500,000 last year?
GB News’ Mark White reveals 500 small boat migrants have made it to England so far, with “hundreds more” still in the waters. The smuggling gangs have launched at least ten boats across multiple French beaches today. A coordinated campaign – more will follow…
The Times is reporting that hackers took more than 607,000 records from the Department for Education in an attack last week. Compromised data covers full names, job titles, phone numbers and email addresses of government officials, head teachers, and university staff…
The DfE help desk and Turing Scheme records were hit. Hackers calling themselves ExfilSquad claimed responsibility in dark web posts. DfE has self-referred to the Information Commissioner and the NCA…
We have yet to see how the new Education Secretary Lucy Powell will deal with this. She was on holiday last week – just after filling the post – and over the weekend, as the hacking and publication of records occurred…
Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers has demanded an initial £9,950,624.37 from Prince Harry and six other claimants after a High Court judge threw out all 97 privacy claims against the publisher this month. Good job Harry’s Netflix cheques were hefty…
Harry, Elton John, Liz Hurley and Baroness Lawrence had sued over alleged phone hacking and unlawful story gathering. The judge found no sufficient evidence, and Paul Dacre gave the Sussexes a world class public smackdown after the verdict…
Associated Newspapers now wants indemnity costs, which could mean the judge forces the claimants to pay the full legal costs for both sides. The court heart that Associated Newspapers’ total costs were around a whopping £34 million. The hearing began today and could continue into tomorrow. Dacre’s revenge…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”