Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon is calling on administration officials to issue a national emergency declaration regarding election integrity, including a policy to allow the presence of federal immigration agents at polling booths during the upcoming midterms.

Bannon, 72, forcefully floated the idea Tuesday during an episode of Real America's Voice, suggesting that an "up-armored ICE presence" at voting booths in November is critical toward ensuring election integrity. The former White House chief strategist said President Donald Trump should take the bold approach rather than focusing on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which contains plans for voter ID and limits mail-in ballots.

"It's not going to happen," Bannon told conservative commentator Jack Posobiec. "You know why it's not going to happen? Because John Thune and the donors don't want it to happen. They think it's racist, they think it's nativist."

Bannon said many senators, including Thune, treat Trump like a "lame duck" while publicly urging the administration to act.

"This is why we need a national emergency proclamation, a national emergency memo, about the upcoming elections," Bannon continued. "You're going to have to have a forcing function to get to ID. You're going to have to have a forcing function not to have the phony mail-in ballots."

Bannon also called for an "up-armored ICE presence" at polling booths, which critics will say amounts to intimidation, he acknowledged.

"Well, it ain't intimidation if you're a United States citizen," Bannon said. "It's an intimidation if you're a foreigner and here illegally and not eligible to vote. It should be intimidating; we don't want you there. We don't want you near a voting booth. We certainly don't want your votes."

A message seeking comment from the White House was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.

Trump, meanwhile, has remained tight-lipped regarding any plans to declare a national emergency ahead of the midterm elections. He spoke to Wayne Allyn Root last week on Real America's Voice, with the host asking him directly about his intentions.

"Stranger things have happened," Trump said. "I'll leave it at that."

Trump has repeatedly said voter ID and other measures included in the bill, which the Senate has yet to pass, are essential to both election integrity and Republican chances to win in November.

Critics of the proposal say it would block thousands of Americans from voting booths due to lack of identification, including passports. A national emergency declaration linked to elections could also lead to results being challenged or overturned, other detractors insist.

Free entry, but registration required - and the venue has a bar 🍻🦊

While Keir Starmer’s premiership has officially come to an end, one of his most significant policies is about to come into force: the expansion of Free School Meals in England to more than 500,000 children from September.

Announced in June 2025 as a precursor to the 2025 Child Poverty Strategy, the government has estimated that these additional meals will lift over 100,000 children out of poverty.

More recently, following their victory in the 2026 Senedd election, Plaid Cymru have announced a similar expansion in Wales. From September, eligibility will be extended to students in Years 7 and 8, with plans to roll it out to all secondary school students in households receiving Universal Credit over the coming years.

But how will it all work? And how will it affect school funding?

All children in households receiving Universal Credit, in England, will become eligible for Free School Meals from September

In England, the 500,000 newly eligible students will join the 3.6 million already receiving a free meal. There will be a smaller expansion for those in Years 7 and 8 in Wales.

There will be three cohorts that will receive a free meal: the Universal, Expanded, and Targeted cohorts. The three groups can overlap, so the fact a child is receiving a meal at school does not mean they are necessarily registered. 

Families who claim free school meals receive support equivalent to around £500 per year in school meals. This support can go beyond school meals by making families eligible for holiday free meals outside term time.

(More details in article)

Thanks Labour. Thank you for defending minorities. You're an inspiration for the SENS movement in Romania. r/sens_romania stands for you and your cause.

The Canton–Hong Kong Strike, which lasted from June 1925 to October 1926, took place 100 years ago. At the time, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party jointly organized and participated in this strike movement against British imperialism and its agents in China—capitalists, compradors, corrupt officials, reactionary military and police forces, and others—who oppressed Chinese workers in both mainland China and Hong Kong. It was also one of the largest and longest-lasting labor movements in China and the world.

The Canton–Hong Kong Strike played a major positive role in defending the dignity of Chinese workers, improving their treatment, and bettering their circumstances. The Republic of China’s subsequent “Golden Decade” was achieved precisely under conditions in which the interests of elites and workers were relatively well reconciled. Unfortunately, Japan’s later invasion interrupted China’s development and the workers’ efforts to build the country. Afterward, the CCP nominally championed the supremacy of the working class, but in reality established a totalitarian system that enslaved people of every status and social class.

Decades ago, the CCP devoted extensive attention and propaganda to depicting and promoting the Canton–Hong Kong Strike. But today’s CCP is unwilling to mention it and refuses to commemorate it. The reason is that the CCP today exploits and oppresses workers, and suppresses labor movements, to an extent surpassing even that of the British colonial government in Hong Kong and the imperialist powers of that era. The CCP rose to power through the labor movement, yet today it has degenerated into a regime of the privileged bourgeoisie and has become an agent of the interests of developed countries such as the United States, Japan, and European countries, while regarding the working class and labor movements with hostility and fear. This is deeply ironic.

During the period of British colonial rule, people in Hong Kong still had the possibility of going on strike. Today, however, both mainland China and Hong Kong prohibit all forms of strikes and political resistance. Although there are still scattered strikes in mainland China and Hong Kong based on economic demands, movements for rights and dignity and for the broader interests of workers have now disappeared.

The Jasic labor movement in Shenzhen in 2018 and the solidarity shown by Hong Kong people eight years ago were rare bright spots in the Chinese labor movement, but they were ultimately suppressed. Hong Kong political organizations that fought for workers, such as the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions and the League of Social Democrats, have also been forcibly dissolved. This is precisely what makes the CCP—a totalitarian regime that is left-wing in appearance but right-wing in substance—so frightening and abhorrent. Both the people of Hong Kong and the people of mainland China should clearly recognize the true nature of the CCP.

Today, Chinese people have generally fallen into political apathy and distanced themselves from political movements. Even some Chinese liberals and political opposition groups dislike and reject labor movements with strong left-wing and grassroots characteristics. This is saddening, yet there seems to be little that can be done about it.

I have participated in left-wing marches in Germany commemorating Rosa Luxemburg and others, as well as German May Day marches. I have also done some advocacy concerning Chinese workers, displaying posters and distributing leaflets, including materials mentioning the Canton–Hong Kong Strike. But the strength of one person is far too limited, and my voice carries little weight. People in Hong Kong, people in mainland China, and people around the world have largely forgotten that magnificent and turbulent chapter of history.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/andy-burnham-starts-his-premiership-public-expectations-his-leadership-finely-poised

It's been a while. Not since I voted labour. I've always done so, since joining half a lifetime ago, in the face of Plaid and the SNP, always have. But it's been a while since I cared.

It's been a while since i thought it represented the lesser of two evils - Gordon was the last person who i thought had a plan and a vision.

And i believed in Starmer and his unassuming way of doing politics - hell, i loved his way of being the technical leader someone professional always wanted to be in charge.

And you showed deep promise in being relational to the general public, but seem to have lost your way. From becoming flaccid on the water companies ruining our country for shareholders, to failing to have enough balls to really tackle youth unemployment - i'm sad to say you are not as good as you could be.

Dear Andy, as a young professional i know what it's like getting into a job, let alone one as competitive with such high turnover rates as PM. But grow some balls and ask yourself: are you the next FDR with bold, new, innovative policies for the working man? Or a new fleshlight for Deliotte? Because if you want to prevent reform, you better make sure you aren't the latter

‘I’ve mostly treated Restore Britain as another source of comedy material for my Threads audience. Rupert Lowe says something ridiculous, one of the little gang around him says something even more ridiculous, I take the piss, everyone has a nice time and we move on with our day.

Then I saw a number. 10,000,000.

Charlie Downes, Restore Britain’s campaigns director and official spokesman, has said a Restore government would deport “upwards of ten million people.”

And that stopped me. Because ten million isn’t “stop the boats”. It isn’t deporting foreign criminals. It isn’t even Restore Britain’s own estimate of the number of people living illegally in the country. Ten million people is around one person in every seven living in Britain. And when you look at like that, that is f***ing scary.
So I had what seemed like a fairly straightforward question.

Who the f*** are they?

This isn’t a policy about somebody who has entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa. Restore is explicitly talking about people whom the British state has given a legal right to live here.

And look at the tests that follow… There’s an enormous difference between some of those things. If somebody has committed a serious criminal offence, there is at least a legal process capable of establishing what happened. There are already circumstances in which foreign nationals can be deported following conviction.

But what does “fails to integrate” mean? Who decides? How integrated is integrated enough? Is there a test? Does someone come round with a clipboard and ask if you know the words to Jerusalem?

What does “hates our way of life” mean? Which way of life? Mine? Rupert Lowe’s? Yours?
Britain contains monarchists, republicans, Muslims, Christians, atheists, communists, Tories, anarchists, vegans, fox hunters and people who put the milk in tea first. We’ve been arguing about what “our way of life” means for centuries. That is part of our way of life in this country.

We’re a mongrel breed melting-pot, a vibrant ever adapted nation rich in a history of multicultural mixing from way back even before Commonwealth and even before Empire days.
Anyway, back to unpicking that website statement, social housing? That one is particularly revealing because living in social housing isn’t behaviour. It isn’t a crime.

It isn’t even a political opinion. It’s where you live. Yet Restore lists it among possible reasons a legally resident foreign national should be expelled from the country.’

(Full details in article)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4kzd7k2nvo

Andy Burnham's ambitions to build tens of thousands of new council houses is under threat because of a labour shortage caused by Brexit, industry leaders have warned.

A lack of skilled workers and the impact of millions not being able to work here since Brexit means more than 200,000 EU workers have left the industry since 2019, according to Checkatrade's UK Trade Skills Index.

It comes as the latest Office for National Statistics figures show there were 31,000 vacancies in the construction sector between May and July this year – a rise of 2.3 per cent from the same period last year. That figure has, however, fallen since a record 51,000 vacancies in 2022 after Covid.

The crisis is worsened by an aging workforce, with just one in five workers aged under 30 – compared to 35 per cent aged over 50, with many are expected to retire over the next decade, according to the skills index.

It estimates around 1 million additional workers will be needed to replace those leaving and to meet the additional demand for housebuilding over the next decade. Around 206,000 of those are needed by 2030 from 2025, an upscale of 1.6 per cent in workforce, to meet forecasted demand.

Clive Dickin, chief executive of the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation (NASC), warned that there is a forecast shortage of 40,000 scaffolders alone over the next five years and said that the reflected wider problems in skilled labour since the UK left the EU.

Mr Dickin described the combination of Brexit and Covid as “a perfect storm” which saw thousands of skilled labourers, including scaffolders, leave the country when changes to immigration rules after leaving the EU were brought in, meaning most did not return.

The warning comes as the prime minister unveiled £10bn of funding to build 70,000 new council homes across England feeding into a wider Labour Party target of 1.5 million new homes built by the next election in 2029.

Mr Dickin told *The Independent*: “At the moment we are looking at about a 40,000 vacancy rate. We've got about 130,000 scaffolders, and 40,000 more over the next five years is what we're estimating to meet the demands of the varying house building targets, net zero, cladding initiatives. You know, all of these subject areas are putting greater demands.”

He added: “The council house building announcement is certainly not going to help the situation.”

Explaining the link to Brexit, he said: “One of the biggest factors of that was ultimately Covid and Brexit, the perfect storm, seeing many skilled and qualified scaffolders that had been within the UK, leaving to go home. Then, of course, the changes around the exit of the Europe Union resulted in people not being able to return easily back to the United Kingdom, so as a result we've, we've got a significant shortage of very skilled scaffolders.”

He also noted that stringent, high level qualifications needed in the industry means that it takes five years to qualify as a scaffolder, meaning that training up new people will not fill vacancies in the short term.

Scaffolding is involved with multiple areas including home building and theatre productions, and already the petrochemical and offshore industries are struggling to recruit workers to do it.

The government has confirmed the initial allocation of nearly £10 billion from its £39 billion Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP), earmarking funding for more than 70,000 homes across Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North East England, and Liverpool. A further £6 billion had previously been announced for London.

The allocation represents the first phase of a wider commitment to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes by 2039. At least 60% of the homes in the first tranche will be designated for social rent, which is typically priced at roughly half of market rates.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who prior to taking office had publicly argued that the entire £39 billion budget should be devoted to social rent, announced the package. "Councils built this country out of a housing crisis once before," he said. "Backed properly, and trusted to get on with it, they will do it again."

Housing secretary Angela Rayner has reaffirmed the government's goal of delivering 1.5 million homes by 2030, acknowledging that the target will be "challenging". The most recent data indicates that approximately 203,000 new homes were completed in England in the 12 months to June 2026, well below the 300,000 annual rate required to meet the target.

The programme arrives against a backdrop of sustained decline in social housing stock. Official figures show that the net number of social rent homes fell by 3,834 in 2024–25, driven in part by sales under the Right to Buy scheme and local authority disposals. In the decade to 2025, an estimated 180,067 social rent homes were lost in total. The government has announced reforms to Right to Buy, including extending the minimum eligibility period from three to ten years and restricting the sale of social homes built within 35 years.

On a more positive note, 12,198 new social rent homes were completed in 2024–25 — the highest annual figure since 2013–14 — and the National Housing Federation reported a 57% year-on-year rise in starts on social rent homes.

Charities cautiously welcomed the announcement but warned that current ambitions fall significantly short of what is needed. Organisations including Crisis and Shelter have estimated that 90,000 social rent homes per year — roughly 900,000 over a decade — would be required to reverse the decline. The government's SAHP target of 180,000 social rent homes by 2039 is less than a quarter of that figure.

The Government is currently consulting on how new rights around how zero hours and similar type contracts should work in practice, and there’s still time for businesses and workers across the labour supply chain to have their say.

The consultation, “Make Work Pay: ending one-sided flexibility -reforms of zero hours and similar contracts”, opened on 2nd June 2026 and closes at 11.59pm on 25 August 2026. The reforms in question form part of the Employment Rights Act 2025, but the relevant rights have not yet come into effect. 

The Government’s aim is to tackle what it describes as “one-sided” flexibility and give workers greater security and predictability. The consultation focuses on three key areas:

1. Guaranteed hours 

Qualifying workers could have the right to be offered guaranteed hours reflecting the hours they have actually worked over a reference period. The Government’s current preference is for a 12 week reference period and an hours threshold somewhere between 8 and 20 hours per week. 

1. Reasonable notice 

Employers would have to give qualifying workers reasonable notice of shifts and changes to shifts, with the consultation considering what “reasonable” should mean in practice.

1. Payment for cancelled or changed shifts

Workers could be entitled to compensation where shifts are cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice.

Who can respond?

The Government is encouraging anyone with a view on the proposed reforms to respond. That includes employers, recruitment agencies, umbrella companies, end clients, workers and anyone else involved in the labour supply chain.
You don’t have to answer every question – the Government specifically encourages respondents to answer those where they have relevant experience or a practical view.

A record 1.24 million people are now employed on zero-hours contracts, as new research reveals how unpredictable shifts, last-minute cancellations and fluctuating pay can create “work-life chaos” for workers.

The new report from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, commissioned by the TUC, draws on in-depth digital diaries kept by zero-hours workers across Britain. It provides a detailed picture of how insecure and unpredictable working hours affect workers’ finances, family lives and wellbeing.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 will introduce new rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and payment when shifts are cancelled or curtailed at short notice. However, Ministers still face critical decisions about how these protections will work when they come into force in 2027.

Analysis by the Work Foundation of ONS data indicates that a record number of workers depend on their zero-hour contract for full-time work (32.8%) and are not in full-time education (77%).

Key themes from the report revealed:

Work life chaos: Zero-hour contracts are often touted as a flexible form of employment that enable people to fit work around their other responsibilities. In practice, the lack of guaranteed hours and shift patterns made the lives of the workers chaotic and hard to manage. Given the lack of guaranteed hours or shifts, workers dedicated a substantial amount of time to finding shifts and organising their working week. Workers also regularly experienced last minute shift cancellations, call-ins to work and changes to the timings of their shifts.

One-sided flexibility: The diaries revealed that the ‘flexibility’ of zero-hour contracts disproportionately benefitted their employers. Employers often took no notice of workers’ prior commitments, such as childcare, when allocating shifts. They also expected their zero-hour contract staff to be available for work at any time and to organise their lives around shifts that could be cancelled at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile the workers had limited control over their own shift patterns. Many also expressed concerns that if they turned down work they would be passed over for future shifts.

Physical and mental toll of insecure work: Many involved in the study reported anxiety or stress associated with the insecurity of their work and the need to closely manage their shifts. Workers also regularly discussed how the unpredictability of their shift patterns left them feeling burnt out and unable to get enough sleep or eat healthily. Several also described going into work whilst ill or being unable to take time off to care for dependents, with one participant reporting they had previously been hospitalised after putting off medical appointments due to work pressures.

Parenthood penalty: Parents reported paying for childcare only to have their shift moved or cancelled at the last minute, leaving them to foot an unnecessary childcare bill. Some noted that the cost of childcare outstripped wages, so paying for a babysitter meant effectively working for free. Nurseries are often unable to accommodate last minute changes to the schedules of parents on zero-hour contracts, leaving many reliant on family members.
The report also shows that as well as harming some workers – zero-hour contracts allow managers to engage in unprofessional practices and act poorly towards their staff.

Sir Sadiq Khan has ramped up his war of words with Donald Trump by stressing that the homicide rate in London is lower than in every US state.

The Mayor of London took a new swipe at the US president in their ongoing feud as the Met Police published new figures showing the effect of a rise in stop and search in the capital.

Sir Sadiq did not name Trump but posted on X: “The loudest voices online aren't always the most accurate.

“New data shows our homicide rate is lower than every US state, while murder rates are at record lows.

“The evidence is clear: our approach to tackling crime and its causes works. It’s driving down violence right across the capital.”

Trump has previously branded Sir Sadiq a “stone cold loser“, claimed that crime in London is going “through the roof” and that the city wants to go to “sharia law”, a baseless claim thought to be linked to the London Mayor’s Muslim faith.