Earlier this week, the anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate passed us their research into Goodwin’s fellow campaigners. They had identified five separate individuals who had been out campaigning with Goodwin who had shared racist content online or expressed support for far-right groups. In some cases, there is little grey area: Goodwin’s campaigners have expressed clear support for the far-right group Britain First, baselessly suggested that 60-70% of transgender people are paedophiles or posted online that Muslims are only in the UK because they wish to “conquer” it.

This is interesting for a few reasons, one of which is the fact that Nigel Farage has always been at pains to distance his party from known far-right groups. He’s been publicly critical of Tommy Robinson on many occasions, and as UKIP leader he banned ex-British National Party members from running for his party.

And yet Goodwin, who is striving to become Farage’s ninth MP, and whose victory would probably represent the biggest and most significant one so far for Reform, appears to have surrounded himself with exactly the kinds of characters Farage claims he keeps at a distance.

Chief among these is Adam Mitula, who is currently serving as Reform UK’s interim campaign manager in Tameside. On his Facebook page Mitula has posted photos of himself with what appears to be a small team assisting Goodwin in his bid to become MP, also including Tameside councillor Allan Hopwood (who you might remember from this Mill interview) and Rob Barrowcliffe, Tameside’s interim Reform branch chair.

Mitula is an entrepreneur who has been involved in various businesses, including in real estate, crypto and Fintech. He was born in Szczecin, Poland, and on his website he says he was raised in a traditional Catholic culture and drew inspiration from Arnold Schwarzenegger in his weightlifting pursuits.

Mitula’s output, posted on social media, includes his suggestion that “60-70%” of transgender people are paedophiles, the fact he would “never touch a Jewish woman”, and his use of the n-word. Meanwhile, discussing the number of people who died in the Holocaust in July 2024, he appears to try and play down the statistics, writing: “6 million polish [sic] people including some Jews. They always use Poles to make up the number. And on top of it they claim Poles were killing. Just sick.”

All my nudes gone.

Many trans children socially transition, such as taking on new names, pronouns, haircuts and uniforms, to better embrace their gender identity.

But new advice published yesterday says this needs to be agreed by the school and parents must be involved in the ‘majority’ of cases.

Social transition should only happen ‘very rarely’ in primary schools, stressing that decisions ‘may not be the same as a child’s wishes’.

This is a far cry from a 2023 draft produced under the Conservatives, which said youngsters should not be able to use different pronouns.

Sir Keir Starmer’s fightback against an attempted Labour leadership coup has been overshadowed by a fresh scandal involving one of his closest former aides.

Labour announced on Tuesday evening that it had suspended Sir Keir’s former communications chief Matthew Doyle, whom the prime minister elevated to the House of Lords in December, over his links to a convicted paedophile, former councillor Sean Morton.

The latest development will raise fresh questions over Sir Keir’s integrity and judgement, with echoes of the Peter Mandelson scandal, which has already cost him his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and brought his premiership to the brink of collapse.

Lord Mandelson was made ambassador to the US – the UK’s most important diplomatic role – despite the prime minister knowing of his ongoing relationship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

And now, Lord Doyle, who retains his peerage despite being stripped of the party whip, has revealed that he, too, had kept in contact with Morton, even after he was convicted.

Unomelon, the developer of Minecraft-inspired sandbox game Allumeria, says a DMCA from Microsoft, evidently related to Minecraft, got the game removed from Steam.

"The Allumeria Steam page is currently down because Microsoft has filed a false DMCA claim on it," Unomelon said on Bluesky on Tuesday. "They sent an email earlier today claiming that this screenshot infringes on their copyright. I am taking a moment to figure out what my path is going forward, will update soon."

The screenshot in question (above) is a simple wide shot of a forest filled with birch trees, what look to be oak trees with green and autumnal leaves, and a few pumpkins and weeds checkering the grassy dirt. There are definitely some similarities to Minecraft; if you told me this was a screenshot of a Minecraft mod, I'd probably believe you, but that's true of many voxel-based games, including Hytale.

Direct link to the Bluesky post (Skylib)

In February 2020, far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) travelled to Moscow and St Petersburg, giving interviews to Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT and meeting figures linked to Russian nationalist movements. Since then, questions have long swirled about his Russian connections and the sources of his funding amid mounting legal debts.

Byline Times can now reveal that years before that trip to Russia, Robinson was hired as a “goodwill ambassador” for an unregistered charity fronting a secretive Russian propaganda network that worked directly for President Vladimir Putin’s administration, and has ties to a sanctioned Russian state-linked oil giant.

The unregistered charity – the MMBF Trust – is part of a network centred around the London Post.

At first glance, the London Post resembles a local news website covering UK gambling regulations and London restaurant reviews. It has featured articles about Borough Market’s grocery ordering service, and good spots for ramen.

But sources who spoke to Byline Times described it as part of what intelligence analysts call a ‘black PR’ operation: coordinated disinformation campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion while concealing their true sponsors.

Paywall bypass

Lord Peter Mandelson leaked a sensitive UK government document to Jeffrey Epstein while he was business secretary that proposed £20bn of asset sales and revealed Labour’s tax policy plans.

The memo, dubbed “Business Issues”, was written on June 13 2009 by Nick Butler, who at the time was special adviser to the then prime minister Gordon Brown.

The confidential document, which was released by the US Department of Justice as part of a tranche of millions of files relating to Epstein, had been sent to British government officials including cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood.

The memo called for a boost to private sector investment in the wake of the financial crash via tax incentives.

“The only major device available to government is a further extension of the capital allowances announced in the Budget,” Butler argued. “We should consider raising the capital allowance on new investment to 75 per cent (or even more) for the remainder of this tax year.”

He also said Brown should authorise asset sales “of even £20bn” to relieve the debt burden, reduce borrowing costs and provide funds for new investment.

“It would also enable us to go into the election with a pledge not to make any further increase in corporate or top rate income taxes in the next parliament,” Butler wrote.

The highly sensitive document was forwarded by Mandelson to Epstein on the same day with the comment: “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.”

Epstein replied: “What salable assets?”

“Land, property I guess,” Mandelson responded.

The Labour government announced the plans for the asset sale four months later, suggesting that £16bn could be raised through the disposals.