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The Walliams and Brand scandals are catastrophic for the BBC

Licence fee-payers have every right to ask why their taxes are funding a national broadcaster with such a poor record around its male stars Daily Telegraph Ever since Jimmy Savile was posthumously exposed as a prolific sexual predator almost exactly 15 years ago, the BBC has been hit by an extraordinary number of scandals involving major male stars. Huw Edwards . Rolf Harris. Stuart Hall. Then there was the sacking from MasterChef of Gregg Wallace, and the mysterious disappearance from Radio 2 of Scott Mills. Not to mention the forthcoming trial of former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood. And now, in the space of a week, we’ve had the conviction for rape of Russell Brand , and some extremely serious allegations about David Walliams – which he denies. Both these men were once big BBC stars, too. For the reputation of our increasingly beleaguered national broadcaster, this is obviously catastrophic. Why, though, is the BBC so remarkably unlucky? What on earth makes it such a magnet for s...

The white working class has given up on success

Lower-income families may prioritise children’s happiness, but academic achievement helps create the economic circumstances that foster it Daily Telegraph If you’re interested in cultural differences within the British population, the work of the Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes is essential reading . Its polling, focus groups and interviews with white working-class children and their parents, reveals a fundamental cultural outlook that explains a great deal, not just about the educational and economic performance of those children, but about Britain’s current economic and political condition. The key finding is that white working-class children and their parents are much less likely than everyone else in the country to think that passing exams and doing well at school is important. This is a class issue. Fifty-seven per cent of white ABC1 parents, otherwise known as the middle classes, say that achieving good grades is a key part of succes...

Burnham is trying to relieve himself of the burden of leadership

Asking voters and think tanks to shape policy means blame can be spread more widely when everything falls apart Daily Telegraph First you wait for ages for a 10-year plan, then two come along at the same time. But then it turns out that the second plan wasn’t ready after all , and there would be an extended delay before it arrived. Such is life in Labour’s Britain. First we had Keir Starmer, or “two-year Keir” as some social media wag christened him, defying criticism from his own party by announcing he needed at least 10 years in office to turn things around. And he had a plan to prove it. He would have been wiser to produce a four-months plan. Then his successor, Andy Burnham, promised his own 10-year plan and even suggested that those dissatisfied with John Healey’s Budget last month should look to the publication of the plan , before the year’s end, to answer everyone’s substantive questions that the Budget did not. But now the plan itself has been delayed until January, th...

EXC: Home Office Staff Privately Criticise Labour Ministers Over ‘Asylum Centre’ Plans

Home Office staff have criticised ministers on an all-staff call over Labour plans to house 1,200 adult male asylum seekers in a North Yorkshire village with a population of 600. Why would the villagers be upset? They must be racist… The call was held yesterday. It was hosted by Home Office Permanent Secretaries and was open to all departmental staff. In a Q&A section, the following popular comment was posted anonymously by a staff member: Guido hears the senior staff chose not to answer that one… The illegal migrants would outnumber the residents of the village by two-to-one. The village also has 100 children… Immigration minister Anna Turley caused outrage when she said: “ We are not housing them in the community. They are being housed on a specific site that is self-contained and away from the community. All their needs are met on that site. Where they are not met, they are transported usually to larger places—cities or towns. That is certainly the situation at the two sit...

Trump’s Republicans only have themselves to blame for this disaster

It was the economy, stupid Daily Telegraph The first thing you notice on election night is the live billboards. Screens broadcasting second-by-second changes in political betting markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are dotted throughout New York City, as “traders” wager money on the likely winners of races big and small, from Senate to the Texas railroad commission. It didn’t take long for the boards to turn a deep blue. There had been no Hail Mary for the Republicans, no miracle in the form of yet another significant underestimation of GOP support by pollsters. Axios’s Stef Kight captured the scale of the damage: “a year ago, North Carolina and Georgia were expected to be the toss-up Senate races of the cycle. Both were called for Democrats before 8:30pm.” This time around, what looked bad really was bad . And the Republicans only had themselves to blame. The signs of a blue wave were early and obvious. An initial set of results in Kentucky’s sixth district showed the Republica...

Trump crushed in midterms

Democrats’ control of Congress will put them in position to launch investigations into the president and his family Daily Telegraph 04/11/26 Donald Trump lost control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in a disastrous midterm election that threatens to derail the final years of his presidency. Democrats carved deep inroads into Republican heartlands in a blue wave that rolled across the country on Tuesday, winning both chambers and breaking long-standing records along the way. Washington is now set for political deadlock as Mr Trump will struggle to pass legislation against a considerable Democratic majority. It also raises the prospect of the US president facing impeachment proceedings and a wave of investigations into everything from the administration’s business dealings to the purges inside the Pentagon. Advertisement On their way to victory, Democrats not only won states that had backed Mr Trump by significant margins in the 2024 election, some by double digits...