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Donate to help Project Citizen cover their rising legal costs for this important follow-up to the Russia Report Perhaps Trump is right about one thing. Democracies are in desperate need of effective protection from foreigners. But not from the poor refugees he despises. The real threat comes from the subject of Trump & Co's unceasing fascination: the world's most powerful autocrats, sitting on trillions of stolen money, surrounded by hordes of their spooks, assassins and diamond-encrusted oligarchs. In her latest book, Anne Applebaum aptly defined this murderous motley of interests as Autocracy Inc, as the world's wealthiest despots increasingly cooperate on a global scale to attack, oppress, avoid sanctions and launder money wherever they want it. And while at it, undermining our democratic systems, as they use their considerable resources to sponsor Western complacency. They do it by buying influence and friends in high places, and by weaponising a whole toolkit of political manipulation. Importantly, it includes "active measures", ranging from social media and funding an array of MP's offices, election campaigns, think tanks and research, to KGB-style dirty tricks. After the summer of 2020, when the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee's Russia Report accused MI5 of "taking the eye off the ball", the Service, together with SO15, has been scrambling to catch up with the Russian intelligence activities after years of neglect. Delayed by Prime Minister Johnson until after the 2020 election, the massively redacted report did not go as far as to suggest that there has been any meaningful foreign interference in our democratic processes, but it did appear to effectively accuse the Security Service of not considering it a threat to national security. A thriller BY PROJECT CITIZEN, featuring Carole Cadwalladr, Peter Jukes and Sergei Cristo that exposes an alleged secret spy ring operating at the very heart of the British establishment Combatting Active Measures Perhaps over-compensating for the criticisms in the Russia Report, MI5 is unusually open about its counterintelligence successes. We have witnessed a string of spy scandals being paraded by the authorities in front of the stunned British public, something unheard of in the past. There were spies from Russia and China with Parliamentary passes, and most recently a Chinese citizen in the inner circle of Prince Andrew, as well as a frightful group of Bulgarian freelance spies tasked by the Russian intelligence to follow, spy on, honey trap and kill investigative journalists. While these showcases went some way towards reassuring the worried electorate, they only represented a small part of the Russian intelligence effort directed at Britain over the past decade. Back in the times of the USSR, the KGB used to spend most of its foreign budget not on the infiltration and running of agents in foreign governments but on the so-called "active measures" (up to 80% of the First Chief Directorate budget, according to some sources), operations to influence government policies and public opinion in Western democracies. Active measures operations often do not require to have an agent in place. While the tools available to intelligence operations have evolved since then, there is little evidence that Moscow's overall intelligence approach in that respect has changed in any drastic way. In our podcast Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring, produced by Project Citizen and funded by public donations, we will offer you some evidence that MI5 underestimated the power of Russian active measures around the Brexit referendum and subsequent elections. The Government seemed to protest that there was nothing new with the Kremlin trying to interfere in elections. However, never before, as far we know, has the Russian Government managed to channel funds to the Conservative Party, which was in power at the time, and individual MPs (almost all of them dyed-in-the-wool Brexiteers), providing ...

This article was originally published in the January 2025 print edition of Byline Times To stay ahead of the curve, subscribe now An English parliament has existed for more than 800 years, and there have been some startlingly bad ones: the Mad Parliament of 1258; the Bad Parliament of 1377; and the Merciless Parliament of 1378. But, following this vigorous start, terrible parliaments took a 646-year break so they could get a really good run-up to the Conservative one that ended in 2024. This was a parliament that took the biscuit (and then probably tried to have sex with the biscuit, or chopped it up for snorting, or flogged it to their mates). Even the Telegraph described it as "the worst parliament in history" - and not without cause. Of the MPs elected in 2019, a record number were expelled or resigned due to some depravity or other. How we laughed as Rishi Sunak promised that he was about to conjure "integrity, professionalism and accountability" from the cast of self-serving crooks, xenophobes, and charlatans that formed his party. How bereft of laughter it seems now. The year began with an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which shoved the story of Britain's biggest ever miscarriage of justice into every living room, hot on the heels of 14 years of heroic governmental apathy. Kemi Badenoch, at the time the Business Minister most recently responsible for doing nothing at all, immediately decided the buck stopped several miles away from her: she phoned the Post Office's chairman, who she had never even bothered to meet, and sacked him on the spot. "Well, someone's got to take the rap for this", she told him, while instructing him via civil servants to stall compensation payments, so they'd land on the desk of an incoming Labour government, thus allowing the Tories to "limp into" the general election. And limp they did, largely as a result of shooting themselves in both feet, not least over asylum seekers. Credit where it's due: the Conservatives had guaranteed an illegal migration policy, and that's precisely what they delivered. The Supreme Court ruled the Rwanda plan was unlawful, because the country was an unsafe destination. So the Tories attempted to declare it safe by parliamentary fiat. Why didn't they just vote to make Gaza safe, if that's how it works? Or Chernobyl? Or putting your fingers near Jonathan Gullis' mouth? Sunak's inevitable failure over Rwanda was enough to make Andrea Jenkyns demand yet another Tory leadership election, so she could serve under a "new and true Conservative leader". By the year's end, her search for a new and true Conservative led her to Nigel Farage, an old liar from the Reform Party. But, in the meantime, Sunak spent the six months prior to Farage's inevitable return to the spotlight tackling more urgent biggest problems: his immediate predecessors. Liz Truss was like an actor who had been cast in a single episode of Star Trek, and then eked it out into a lifetime of Comic Con appearances. In her endless quest for relevance, the least popular premier in the history of British polling launched a faction called 'Popular Conservatism', which was designed to unite the party but, in a dazzling return to form, managed to split in two during its actual launch event. Four speakers had been invited, but only Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg turned up, like a jump-scare. Kwasi Kwarteng decided - only 14 years too late - that it would be better if he quit politics entirely. And Simon Clarke was forced to pull out because his most recent coup attempt left his colleagues describing him as "a self-indulgent tosser". Meanwhile, as Russia became ever-more dangerous, we discovered Conservative funding cuts had left the Army unable to afford enough bullets. Luckily, we could depend on our volunteer force. "Lance Corporal Johnson reporting for duty, Sah!", declared Boris Johnson, secure in the knowledge he was 25 years too old for military service. But at least he'd moderated his ambitions. Where on...

This article was originally published in the January 2025 print edition of Byline Times To stay ahead of the curve, subscribe now The launch of Pop Idol in 2001 was arguably a pivotal moment in modern pop history. The reality TV series, which turned 'ordinary talent' into household popstars, launched countless careers, led to a global TV franchise, and inspired hundreds of copycat talent shows keen to muscle in on the winning format. One of those was The X Factor, which created pop sensations such as One Direction. But at some cost. In October, Liam Payne - who was made world-famous in the boyband alongside Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan - was found dead after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. The 31-year-old had alcohol, cocaine, and a prescription antidepressant in his body at the time. His death shocked younger generations across the world that had grown up with the band's Beatles-like iconography, while others with experience of the reality TV entertainment industry said it was yet another example of how shows such as The X Factor care little for the toll such sudden fame, its rules, and its consequences, have on the mental wellbeing of those in its throes. Singer Will Young was 23 when he beat Gareth Gates to win the first series of Pop Idol. A Byline Times supporter, the now 45-year-old reveals why rapid fame as a young gay man - which saw him transformed from an unknown singer into a TV star almost overnight - was a double-edged sword, and the stories that have still to come to light about the reality TV music world. You became well-known at quite a young age. What was it like for you? Being recognised by people isn't normal, and there were extremes. I remember once having to escape through the fire exit of a service station because I'd gone to use the loo and the paparazzi all came into the garage. It was right at the height of the madness. I remember going to Marks and Spencer another time and they had to shut the doors as fans were trying to follow all of the Pop Idol cast there. It was right off the back of such a popular TV show and we were doing a tour. If you had more than a couple of us, it would go bonkers. That level of fame is quite fun - it goes back to the kind of mania over pop stars in the 1960s, and maybe even the 1950s, that really started with Elvis, then the Beatles. I had a smattering of that, though never on the same level. I remember having a meeting about doing international promotion. Someone said that, after working with me, he wouldn't be able to walk down any street in the world without being recognised. I left the meeting because I said that was my idea of hell. So I didn't do any international promotion. I was one of the only artists to turn it down. The context of being famous over 20 years ago was the press, which is so different now. You can't discuss it without talking about phone-hacking and the lawlessness of photographers and celebrity magazines. This was before social media, and there was a shaming element that came with those magazines. It was typically very bad towards women - you'd see headlines like 'look how awful she looks on the beach' or they'd circle a roll of skin on some woman. It affects other people too - my friends and family included, because the press would be doorstepping them. Then there were people saying not very nice things in the papers, but you have a choice whether you want to read it or not. Did you ever find it too much, and did you have support for coping with sudden fame? I was pretty resilient, and I was very driven. I concentrated on why I was famous - I wanted a career as a singer and actor. I tried to have as normal a life as possible. The other option of blacked-out cars and posh restaurants seemed pretty grim. I probably became hardened to the attention. It was enormous then - shops would let paparazzi in [to chase me]. Even smart restaurants would. Being followed was scary. What would you do if you were a n...

Though often mistaken for one because it doesn't toe any single ideological line, Byline Times has never been a 'centrist' paper - and this year of elections, which have shown the vulnerability of liberal democracies in Europe and the US, have also exposed the weakness of centrism. If your principles are just an average of the political and social sentiment of the day, then you're always going to be prey to normalisation - narratives that make extremes seem central. That's why we are committed to the opposite: pluralism - which highlights the non-average and tries to explore issues and amplify voices that others ignore. The idea of pluralism affects everything we publish - whether it's untold scandals, the variety within an individual's identity, grassroots movements, or fact-based investigation - because we believe it provides us with a better, more accurate, picture of the world. Pluralism permits us to remain sceptical but not cynical; to change our minds when events demand change. Like the fable of the reed and the oak, it allows us to survive the storms when more rigid structures break. The political culture of America since the re-election of Donald Trump is an abject object lesson in the media's capitulation to extremes. We saw this before the 5 November vote, when the owner of The Washington Post - which coined the motto 'democracy dies in darkness' during Trump's first term - spiked an editorial endorsing Kamala Haris. Since then, billionaire Jeff Bezos has spoken warmly of Trump and is reportedly intending to donate $1 million to his inaugural fund. Likewise, the owner of the LA Times, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, also spiked the paper's normal endorsement of a presidential candidate. Since Trump's election victory, Soon-Shiong has taken a "number of previously unreported steps" designed to reduce Trump-related commentary and "required" the editorial board to email him "the text of every editorial and the name of its writer". The fear rife among American commentators and journalists is not without reason. Trump and his acolytes have made it clear that they intend to harry and punish any media organisation that covers them critically. The ABC network backed down on a weak libel case and paid Trump's campaign $15 million. Even pollsters, who deal with data rather than defamation, are in the firing line, with Trump planning to sue Iowan pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register newspaper for publishing a poll days before the election that projected Kamala Harris had a 3% lead in the state, which Trump went on to win by 13%. Even without any mention of 'Musk', there could be few better illustrations of the dangers of oligarch-owned media, and its imperative - for commercial reasons - to 'obey in advance'. As Marc Elias had observed in Democracy Docket, "not… all legacy media has given in to Trump. But enough have, including too many owners, that it affects the overall effectiveness of the industry… Trump is a master at leveraging the legacy media's need for news with his ability to provide access to it… A weakened legacy media, with greater pressures on it, is simply no match for an emboldened Trump". Cosy Connections and Corporate Comms The British press was already much more partisan than the US newspaper market and, with hedge fund owner and GB News backer Sir Paul Marshall's takeover of The Spectator this year, it has shifted significantly to the right. As Hardeep Matharu notes in the editorial of the January Byline Times print edition, the worrying sight of Labour politicians and 'liberal democrat' journalists attending the Spectator's recent annual parliamentarian awards, raises the issue of how "truly living one's values and doing what is comfortable are different decisions". Meanwhile, the sale by the Guardian's Scott Trust of its 253-year-old Sunday newspaper, the Observer to the small and relatively unknown company, Tortoise Media, is another worrying sign that the centre cannot hold against the on...

This article was originally published in the January 2025 print edition of Byline Times To stay ahead of the curve, subscribe now One of the factors which brought Labour to power was the widespread sense under the last Conservative Government that 'nothing works any more', especially when it comes to public services. It carried the implication not just that government spending needed to increase, but also that it needed to be better targeted. It's possible, of course, to argue that Labour's entire framing of fiscal policy is wrong and that Keir Starmer's Government should substantially raise general taxation and also borrow more freely. But there is little public appetite for the former, while bond market reactions to the new 'fiscal rules' announced in October's Budget suggest the latter has already been stretched to the limit. Even in a much freer fiscal environment there would still be decisions about where to raise taxes and focus spending. That is the background to two of the most contentious fiscal decisions the Government has taken so far - limiting winter fuel payments, and reducing the inheritance tax exemptions on farms. There is a rational case for both. Why should people who really don't need the winter fuel payment get it when there are such pressing needs for money for public services? And why should farming land be used as a device to avoid inheritance tax by the super-wealthy? In those terms, these are small but sensible ways of reallocating public expenditure to higher priorities. 'Lady Chatterley's Brexit' Not accepting or being able to discuss the damage caused by Britain's exit from the EU leaves the country in a unsustainable position, writes Chris Grey Chris Grey It is also true that those just above the cut-off point for winter fuel payments will genuinely suffer. And that, although the numbers involved are disputed, some family farms will suffer, and even disappear, caught in the net of inheritance tax changes. The point, however, is not the merits of these particular changes - it is that they illustrate how any re-targeting of resources adversely affects some while benefitting others, with the losers far more vocal than the beneficiaries. But if every attempted change faces a huge backlash of protest, then the danger is that no change is possible or, perhaps worse, that those who can most loudly and effectively protest become untouchable. Conversely, the weakest or most unpopular groups suffer. For example, it is widely known that prisons are in a disgraceful state. But it is much harder to mobilise public anger about that than it is for groups who can be sympathetically presented, such as freezing pensioners or hard-pressed farmers. Who will blockade the streets for criminals? The result is a kind of 'fiscal nimbyism'. Just as people may agree that new houses need building but baulk at them being built near them, they want government spending targeted at where it is most needed - so long as they don't lose out in the process. If the consequence isn't simply inertia, then one approach is to 'spread the pain' by making a large number of relatively small changes to how public money is used. The danger - and it seems to be happening now - is that the Government faces so many disparate challenges that it becomes seen as embroiled in a rolling crisis. The even greater danger is that governmental willingness to tackle big, important problems disappears. For example, almost everyone recognises that the council tax system is broken. Based on property valuations from 1991, it is irrational and unfair. Similarly, most recognise that the social care system is broken, with knock-on damage to the NHS and, actually - far more than inheritance tax - reduces what many people end up being able to pass on to their children. These and similar problems, and their solutions, are well-documented in endless reports and reviews. They are things which, from outside government, are subject to repeated calls for root-and-bran...