So, when Lewes Town Council passed a Tree Charter on September 10, recognising the rights of trees to flourish and maintain their natural life cycles, ecological functions and evolutionary processes, you might imagine this would be considered a fairly uncontroversial attempt to protect the natural environment.

Not so, apparently.

The Spectator decided that the trees of Lewes are yet another front in the culture war.

Alexander Larman, the magazine’s US books editor, devoted an entire column to the supposed decline of the East Sussex town, which has become, in his opinion, a rather tiresome haven for wealthy, self-satisfied lefties.

Larman, who lived in Lewes for nearly five years between 2014 and 2019, describes its “well-heeled denizens” and recalls being regarded with scorn as a “DFL,” Down From London. He portrays the town as having transformed from a beautiful, largely unspoilt place into a “tiresome and self-regarding hotbed of all things hard-left”.

Naturally, the familiar Spectator rollcall follows: £5 oat-milk lattes, wealthy lefties, Jeremy Corbyn, Palestine activism, the burning of Donald Trump in effigy at Lewes Bonfire, and the inevitable swipe at climate politics.

This is, after all, a magazine whose wider output has repeatedly attacked environmental policies and climate politics, with Spectator TV producing videos about “climate alarmism,” “Labour’s net zero madness” and net zero “leading the world to ruin.”

Lewes’s tree charter therefore provides another opportunity to turn environmentalism into another episode of the same culture-war drama.

But there’s a problem with this narrative.

Lewes’s reputation as a home for unconventional, creative and politically-independent people did not begin when affluent Londoners discovered it.

The town and its surrounding area have a much deeper cultural history. Thomas Paine, one of the great political radicals of the 18th century, was born nearby. Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set had strong connections with the area, which remains known for its artistic and cultural life. The local tourism body still describes Lewes as having a thriving contemporary arts scene alongside its Bloomsbury heritage.

And the connection with creative outsiders continued long after Bloomsbury. Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts moved to Lewes in the 1960s. In fact, my mum went to college there with the music legend, a small personal connection, perhaps, but one that rather neatly illustrates how Lewes’s creative history long predates the modern culture-war portrait.

The story is not therefore that Lewes magically manufactures left-wing geniuses. Nor is it that everyone who lives there is some wealthy progressive stereotype.

It is that the town has repeatedly provided fertile ground for people who are independent-minded, artistic, unconventional or prepared to challenge the status quo. A history of dissent, a strong cultural life, a tolerance of eccentricity and its connections to London and Brighton have helped create an environment in which unconventional people can flourish.

That makes Lewes’s reputation as a home for creative “lefties” rather less of a fashionable lifestyle affectation than Larman would have us believe. It looks much more like the latest chapter in a considerably older tradition.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: The Spectator has a problem with Lewes, apparently even its trees are woke appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Suella Braverman, whose extraordinary media profile as a Conservative cabinet minister has largely faded since she joined Reform in January 2026, resurfaced on the Express’s front page alongside fellow female Reform MP Sarah Pochin and a group of mothers from Piddington campaigning against plans for an asylum accommodation centre near the Oxfordshire village.

The Express presented the story as a front-page ‘exclusive,’ splashing on the headline “This is for our children” and using deliberately inflammatory language to describe plans to accommodate up to 1,250 asylum seekers at a former Ministry of Defence site.

The newspaper told readers that the 350-person village, including 133 women and 46 children, was facing a “David versus Goliath battle” against the “monstrous might” of the Home Office, which was seeking to “plonk hordes of young male asylum seekers” on its doorstep.

And it didn’t stop there.

The article warned of the “terrifying prospect of roving groups of young men wandering the lanes and fields,” claiming some villagers were seeking self-defence lessons, upgrading CCTV and considering buying guard dogs.

Residents are, of course, perfectly entitled to scrutinise plans that will affect their community. But there is a difference between reporting those concerns and turning them into a ready-made immigration scare story.

The Express widened the story beyond Piddington, linking the alleged “frightening security risk” to Operation Vanguard, the scheme launched by Reform-led Essex County Council to patrol towns with security “operatives” following concerns about gatherings of male migrants.

The newspaper also took aim at female MPs, particularly Labour MPs, after a group calling itself the “Women of Piddington” wrote to female MPs highlighting their concerns.

Only four women MPs reportedly met the villagers, including Braverman and Pochin, something the Express celebrated as a “powerful show of solidarity”.

Former home secretary Braverman used the opportunity to take a swipe at the current home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, claiming she knows Mahmood could cancel the plans and saying she was “devastated” for the Piddington women.

The article also reminded readers that Reform wants to stop what it calls the “invasion” of Britain’s south coast by migrant-smuggling gangs.

And, naturally, the rest of the right-wing media pile-on followed.

The Daily Mail, GB News, the Sun and the Telegraph all picked up the story, with the Mail declaring:

“Piddington fightback against migrant camps ‘could spread across the whole country’ — as Reform and Tories back villagers’ ‘referendum’ on leaving UK.”

Isn’t this the same right-wing media ecosystem, and many of the same politicians, that spent much of last summer whipping up hostility towards asylum hotels?

Once again, asylum accommodation becomes the perfect vehicle for combining anxieties about immigration, crime, public safety and the welfare state into one potent political grievance.

And once again, the political incentives are obvious.

A local dispute over the siting of accommodation becomes a national battle. Concerns about a particular development become warnings about “hordes” of young men. A village campaign becomes something that could supposedly “spread across the whole country.”

Reform gets to present itself as the political champion of frightened communities, while the right-wing press gets another opportunity to turn asylum seekers into the protagonists of a national security scare.

What is conspicuously absent from much of this coverage is the government’s response.

The Home Office says the government is closing every asylum hotel and that this will save taxpayers more than £1 billion in asylum support since the election.

It also says asylum seekers are being moved into alternative accommodation, including former military sites designed to be self-contained and intended to reduce the impact on surrounding communities.

And, it says it engages with local authorities and police forces as part of the process to ensure the safety and security of people living nearby.

Those points do not fit nearly as neatly into the Express’s narrative.

For Braverman, once one of Westminster’s most ubiquitous media politicians, the Piddington story offers a return to familiar territory.

For Reform, it offers another opportunity to pose as the party willing to say what the supposedly timid political establishment will not.

And for the likes of the Express, Mail and GB News, it provides exactly the sort of story that can transform local anxiety into national alarm. Find a community with genuine concerns, strip away the context, add some frightening language, give Reform a microphone, and turn it into an immigration panic.

Imagine for a moment an alternative narrative: that these young men are enabled to play a part in village life, helping the elderly residents, engaging with English lessons, using their physical strength to restore what needs restoration, participating in church services. All impossible while our reactionary media creates and then amplifies a siege mentality.

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: Piddington panic – right-wing press turn village protest into an immigration scare story appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Hungary’s former prime minister wasted little time making his intentions clear. At the annual Kötcse gathering of Fidesz politicians and allies, he delivered what was described as a “fiery speech,” declaring the “grace period for the neo-communists is over,” and that his party was ready to fight. He accused Péter Magyar’s government of overseeing the “recolonisation” of Hungary and claimed Brussels, rather than Hungarian national interests, was driving the country’s direction.

Orbán may have lost power, but he has no intention of disappearing from politics.

And his comeback matters well beyond Hungary.

Voters decisively rejected him at April’s parliamentary election, ending his 16-year tenure and handing Magyar’s Tisza party a two-thirds majority. But the political networks, ideas and relationships cultivated during those years did not disappear with him.

Reform could face a similar situation. Even if it loses an election, that wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of its political influence. Like UKIP before it, Reform could succeed in pulling the mainstream parties towards its positions on issues such as immigration, net zero and taxation, achieving some of its political goals without holding a parliamentary majority.

It also has assets that can survive an electoral setback: a high-profile leadership, extensive media exposure, substantial financial backing and an established institutional presence. With elected representatives across local councils, the London Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd, Reform is already building a political infrastructure that extends beyond any single election. Its reported £72 million in combined donations from billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo could further help it maintain that infrastructure and its campaigning networks.

In other words, electoral defeat would not necessarily amount to political disappearance. Orbán’s experience shows how a movement can retain influence through networks, ideas, institutions and sympathetic media even after losing power. That is an important part of understanding what Reform’s long-term impact could look like.

Orbánism has travelled

For years, Orbán presented Hungary as a blueprint for what he called an “illiberal” state, built around national sovereignty, traditional family values and hostility towards perceived foreign interference.

His government was criticised by opponents at home and abroad for taking Hungary in an authoritarian direction, but its influence was never confined to Hungary.

Orbán cultivated relationships with politicians, intellectuals, think tanks and media organisations across Europe and the US, and government-backed Hungarian institutions became part of an international conservative network, providing platforms, funding and opportunities for political collaboration.

Hungary became a reference point for politicians seeking to challenge liberal institutions, strengthen national sovereignty and oppose what they portrayed as the influence of Brussels and international organisations.

That network now stretches across Europe, and into Britain’s populist right.

The Reform-Orbán connection

A DeSmog investigation published in April mapped links between Reform figures and Orbán-linked organisations. It found that senior Reform figures had appeared on Orbán-backed platforms and that organisations associated with Reform figures had received funding from institutions connected to the Hungarian government.

One prominent link is James Orr, Reform’s head of policy until his recent resignation following an undercover investigation into Reform’s handling of foreign donations.

Orr is a trustee of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, whose UK board includes figures such as Michael Gove. The foundation has been identified as a recipient of Hungarian-linked funding, with investigations reporting substantial funding from the Orbán-linked Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC).

Orr is also UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, which organises National Conservatism conferences, which are also sponsored and coordinated by the Brussels arm of the MCC. 

NatCon has provided a meeting place for politicians and intellectuals sympathetic to Orbán’s brand of national conservatism.

At its 2024 conference in Brussels, Orbán was the headline political figure, while Orr and Nigel Farage were also on the programme. Suella Braverman, who defected to Farage’s party in January, also spoke at the event. As has Matthew Goodwin, GB News presenter who stood as Reform UK’s candidate for the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election. In an interview with Hungary Today earlier this year, Goodwin praised the Orbán model, saying that “Britain can learn from countries like Hungary.”

These connections matter because Orbán’s influence has never depended solely on formal political alliances. Conferences, think tanks, intellectual networks and cultural organisations have helped create a common political narrative and goal across borders.

Patriots for Europe – the far-right gains ground

The pattern is visible across Europe.

Orbán has openly cultivated relations with Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In February 2025, shortly before Germany’s federal election, he met AfD co-leader Alice Weidel and declared that Berlin had been a “city of walls” and that it was time to tear down another one.

The AfD subsequently achieved a landmark result in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election on September 6, winning around 44% of the vote.

In the Czech Republic, billionaire populist Andrej Babiš’s ANO won just under 35% of the vote in the 2025 parliamentary election, taking 80 of the 200 seats. Babiš, who was prime minister from 2017 to 2021, is a founding member of Patriots for Europe, the right-wing populist European Parliament group established by Orbán in 2024.

Following Orban’s election loss in April, the Patriots declared renewed vigour.

“The Patriots Group is more united than before and determined to intensify its efforts, committing to continue and strengthen the political struggle for sovereignty, prosperity, and freedom for all European nations,” they said in a statement.

The group also includes Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), France’s National Rally, Portugal’s Chega and other nationalist parties. With 84 of the European Parliament’s 720 seats, it is the chamber’s third-largest political group. Its chairman is Jordan Bardella, National Rally president, Marine Le Pen’s party that has developed particularly close political ties with Orbán, sharing positions on immigration, national sovereignty and opposition to the EU establishment.

Portugal has also seen the rapid rise of the far-right sovereigntist party, Chega. In the 2025 snap election, the party won 60 seats and 22.8% of the vote, becoming the second-largest party and the largest opposition force. Chega joined Orbán’s European alliance in 2024.

Sweden offers another example of how far-right influence can outlive an electoral setback. After a desperately tight race, voters rejected the prospect of the far-right in government. The Sweden Democrats’ share of the vote fell for the first time since it began as an openly neo-Nazi party in the late 1980s, slipping from second to third place behind the conservative Moderates. It may have lost ground, but the party remains a potent political force, spending years exerting considerable influence over Sweden’s centre-right government from outside the cabinet.

Across Europe, ideas once associated with the political fringe have entered mainstream political debate, particularly around migration, crime, national sovereignty and cultural identity.

Hungary is trying to dismantle the Orbán model

Yet there is, thankfully, counter forces to Orbán’s comeback, providing a glimmer of hope.

While he is attempting to mobilise supporters against Hungary’s new government, his successor, Péter Magyar, is moving in the opposite direction.

His government has promised to reverse parts of Orbán’s legacy and has already begun dismantling parts of the political and institutional infrastructure built during Orbán’s tenure, including replacing Orbán-era appointees and pursuing anti-corruption measures. This week, the government submitted legislation to roll back Orbán-era anti-LGBTQ+ rules and intends to reverse the effective ban on same-sex adoption introduced under the previous government.

And something else to make progressives smile – Orbán’s comeback should not be mistaken for a resurgence in domestic popularity. A Europion poll conducted on September 7 – 8 put Fidesz on just 26 percent, compared with 56 percent for Péter Magyar’s Tisza party. Tisza retains an absolute majority in Budapest, where it has 56 percent support, county-seat cities with 51 percent, voters under 40 with 52 percent and, most notably, university graduates with 62 percent.

The model survives

For Britain, the Orbán story is particularly relevant because his relationship with the British populist right is hardly new.

Farage has been explicit about his admiration, having repeatedly praised Orbán, describing him, in 2018, “the strongest leader in Europe and the EU’s biggest nightmare” and “the future of Europe.”

Since then, the political networks surrounding Orbán and Britain’s populist right have become increasingly interconnected through National Conservatism, MCC-linked organisations, conferences and think tanks.

This is what can be missed when Orbán is treated simply as a Hungarian phenomenon.

His most consequential export may not be a particular policy, but a political model – sovereignty placed above international institutions, liberal elites portrayed as enemies of the people, migration and cultural change framed as existential threats, traditional family values turned into political weapons, and independent institutions presented as obstacles to popular will.

Orbán may be out of power in Hungary. The political ecosystem he helped build is not. It reaches from Budapest to Brussels and Berlin, and, through networks linking the European and British populist right, into Britain too.

Orbán might be physically back but in terms of influence, he never really went away.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

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“Theresa and Sir Philip May face revolt from ‘anti-woke’ Athenaeum Club members,” barked the Telegraph.

Now, Theresa May’s premiership may feel like a long time ago. And, after everything that came after her, it can even seem vaguely liberal by comparison. But to accuse her of being “woke”?

The Telegraph reports that critics have accused the former prime minister and her husband of pursuing “left-wing policies” and “going woke” during Sir Philip May’s chairmanship of the Athenaeum Club, one of London’s oldest private members’ clubs.

Sir Philip became chairman in June 2024 and, according to the Telegraph, some members have accused him and his wife of “destroying the ethos of the historic establishment.”

The Athenaeum was founded in 1824 by John Wilson Croker, an Anglo-Irish MP, as “a club of the mind.” It was established in opposition to explicitly partisan establishments such as White’s, associated with the Tories, and Brooks’s, a social hub for the Whigs.

In other words, the club’s founding principle was not to become an ideological clubhouse.

Yet the Telegraph says ten current and former members, speaking anonymously, believe the current leadership is pursuing left-wing policies and has “fundamentally changed the club’s make-up.” They claim the club now applies a “strong, left-leaning lens” when selecting speakers, supposedly at odds with its apolitical principles.

Since Sir Philip took over, the paper reports, conservative figures have allegedly been prevented from speaking at the club on several occasions, prompting claims of “cancel culture.”

“I had hoped the club would be a civilised haven from the culture wars,” one member told the Telegraph. “Instead, I found that it was ground zero.”

Among those who apparently failed to secure an invitation was Lord Biggar, the Oxford theology professor and Conservative peer, who resigned from the Athenaeum towards the end of last year.

He reportedly did so after a proposal for him to speak about his bestselling book on colonialism was “turned down flat” by the club’s committee.

Biggar, who had been a member for 15 years, said he held Sir Philip partly responsible, adding: “Naturally, I now prefer to associate myself with a genuinely liberal club, where dissenting voices are welcome.”

Quite what constitutes a “genuinely liberal club” in this context is presumably open to interpretation.

The Telegraph also points to changes to the club’s rules and membership. Lady Limb, a former civil servant and teacher, is portrayed as a moderniser, including for helping to rescind the rule requiring men to wear a jacket and tie inside the club.

Writing previously on the Athenaeum’s website, she described herself as “a butcher’s daughter from Moss Side” who was “honoured to be a member of a club that reflects the vibrant intellects, diverse talents” of its membership.

And perhaps that is where the Telegraph’s culture-war framing begins to look rather strained.

The Athenaeum, like much of private members London circuit, has not exactly been a model of rapid social change. Women were only admitted as full members in 2002.

Yet the club itself notes that, despite its delayed gender integration, it has never excluded anyone “on grounds of race or religion.”

Since when did relaxing a dress code, broadening representation or questioning how a private members’ club operates become evidence of a sinister left-wing takeover?

There is also the slightly awkward question of what, exactly, is so “woke” about Theresa May.

As prime minister, May certainly wasn’t a standard-bearer for the political left. Her government pursued Brexit, introduced tougher immigration measures and maintained the Conservatives’ commitment to fiscal restraint.

But she did occasionally make the mistake, in the eyes of today’s culture warriors, of acknowledging that social problems actually exist.

In her first speech as prime minister in July 2016, May spoke about the “burning injustices” in Britain. She talked about young black men having greater confidence in their relationship with the police and women no longer being paid less than men.

She also argued that social concerns should be given greater weight alongside economic ones.

None of that makes Theresa May a radical left-winger. It makes her a Conservative politician who was willing to acknowledge that inequality, discrimination and social disadvantage exist.

Yet in today’s increasingly binary culture-war landscape, even that can apparently be enough to earn the label ‘woke.’

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: Theresa May too ‘woke’ for the Athenaeum? Press cries foul over club’s supposed leftward lurch appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

This time, the target is his house.

The Telegraph splashed on the story this week with the headline: “Jeremy Corbyn is selling his North London home for around £700,000 – nearly twice as much as he paid for it.”

The article reports that the Your Party MP for Islington North has lived in the three-bedroom terraced house in Finsbury Park since 2007, when he bought it for £363,000, according to Land Registry documents.

The property was initially advertised in March for £800,000. After failing to sell, the asking price was reduced to £780,000 in April and then £750,000 in May.

It is now under offer, according to the Telegraph, having eventually been advertised for offers over £700,000. The final sale price will not be known until contracts have been exchanged.

So far, so unremarkable.

But the Telegraph clearly considers Corbyn’s property portfolio worthy of closer scrutiny. The article goes into detail about the estate agent’s description of the house as a “charming and spacious” three-storey townhouse, with a 26ft-long rear garden and “great links to the City and West End”.

It also digs up a quote from Corbyn describing the street as his “dream street,” which he said was “very friendly and mixed”.

Then there is the council tax.

“This year, Mr Corbyn would have paid £2,577 in council tax to Islington council for the Band E property.”

And, seemingly unable to resist another political dig, the article contrasts Corbyn’s home with that of foreign secretary Ed Miliband, noting that, unlike Miliband’s North London property, Corbyn’s house does not have a heat pump.

Instead, the Telegraph informs readers, the “D”-rated property has gas heating and a gas boiler.

This is a remarkable amount of attention to devote to a politician selling a fairly ordinary London terraced house.

The Daily Mail was even less restrained.

“Jeremy Corbyn is set to double his money on his North London home after agreeing £700,000 sale,” its headline declared, adding: 

“Socialist former [Labour] leader Jeremy Corbyn is likely to nearly double his money on his North London home after agreeing terms with a buyer.”

The paper then attempted to add some more political significance by claiming: “Many neighbours on his street in Islington, North London, are also thought to be staunch socialists and were supporters when he was Labour leader, so may be sad to see him leave.”

It went on to point out that the property’s value is well above the UK average and the London average.

The piece even includes photographs of the house, which, to be honest, hardly looks like a luxury pad. It’s a fairly modest, terraced property in an expensive part of London.

While there is nothing unusual about someone selling a home they bought almost 20 years ago for more than they paid for it, particularly in London, where property prices have risen hugely in recent years, the coverage presents it as though Corbyn has been caught doing something hypocritical, hinting at well-worn cries of ‘champagne socialism.’

Readers were quick to point this out.

One comment observed:

“A copy of the Telegraph costs £4, five times what it cost in 2007.”

Another said:

“Breaking news: person sells house for what you’d expect them to sell it for in the current market.”

One reader highlighted the absurdity of trying to turn a normal property gain into evidence of political hypocrisy:

“Almost like that’s how markets work. If he sold it for what he paid for it, Telegraph would be reporting on him being a terrible businessman and try to imply he would have been terrible at balancing the country’s budget.”

And another offered a suitably Telegraph-style alternative:

“It’s called the housing market telegraph. Last I checked you were a fan of this?”

There was also this suggestion:

“I can put him in touch with a potential buyer who has £5m cash and wants a pad that’s not too close to Clacton.”

Someone else joked:

“Person sells home in housing market. Telegraph names him. Exclusive.”

Breaking news indeed.

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: Telegraph ridiculed over ludicrous Jeremy Corbyn house sale story appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

The newspaper pointed to the historical significance of a party that does not draw a clear dividing line from Nazi Germany winning an election by such a large margin more than 80 years after the Nazi dictatorship.

Would Der Spiegel be able to make such a critical assessment if the AfD were in government and had the power to change the law?

The far-right party has long targeted Germany’s established media by undermining its credibility, threatening its funding and becoming a social media superpower to bypass traditional journalists entirely.

“We want to finally pull the plug on this woke, anti-German and manipulative influence,” said Ulrich Siegmund, the party’s parliamentary group co-leader in Saxony-Anhalt, when promising to “terminate” the public broadcasting agreement.

And it’s not just in Germany. Across Europe, right-wing governments have shown how political power can be used to reshape the rules governing the media, weaken independent journalism and make life increasingly difficult for outlets that scrutinise those in power.

And we are already seeing the warning signs here in Britain.

Just last week, Reform UK blocked a Left Foot Forward journalist from attending its party conference, claiming it was “overcapacity” for media applications, despite the party selling additional late-registration media passes for £100.

Other journalists who have investigated Reform were also refused passes, including Michael Crick, Peter Geoghegan, whose conference pass was rejected less than an hour after he published a story revealing how Isabel Oakeshott, the right wing journalist, had privately called Reform mega donor Christopher Harborne “untrustworthy.” The Guardian’s Anna Isaac, who broke the story about Nigel Farage accepting an undeclared £5m gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, was also refused a pass.

This is the party that routinely presents itself as a defender of free speech while portraying the media as part of an Establishment conspiracy against it.

When attacks become law

Russia provides the bleakest example of what happens when such parties have the power to change the rules governing the media.

Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government introduced laws criminalising what it deemed “knowingly spreading false information” or “discrediting” the military.

The legislation effectively destroyed what remained of Russia’s independent media. Outlets were forced to close or flee the country, while Novaya Gazeta suspended its coverage of the war because of fears the new laws would be used against its journalists.

As Professor Marko Milanovic of the University of Reading wrote: “The freedoms of speech and protest have been dying a long, slow death in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

Hungary offers another example.

Viktor Orbán used his parliamentary majority to rewrite the constitution and introduce sweeping media laws. His government took control of public broadcasting while changing the legal and regulatory environment in ways that helped government-friendly oligarchs acquire private media.

Reporters Without Borders estimates that the Orbán government came to control around 80% of Hungary’s media outlets.
The pattern is clear: first, discredit journalists as biased or hostile, then change the laws and institutions governing the media, and finally, use those powers to reshape what the public is allowed to see and hear.

Italy under Giorgia Meloni has also seen concerns over press freedom, including the use of defamation cases against journalists and public figures. Italy has fallen from 41st to 49th in the World Press Freedom Index since Meloni’s party came to power. When the European Commission flagged this in a rule of law report, Meloni accused left-leaning Italian media of twisting its findings. Last summer, the Italian prime minister was caught telling Donald Trump at the White House: “I never want to speak to my press.”

And as for Trump, since returning to office, he has used lawsuits, threats against broadcasters, restrictions on journalists’ access and the power of government agencies to put pressure on media organisations.

Last month, Walt Disney sued the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the Trump administration of launching a “retaliatory campaign” against its ABC television networks over their broadcasts. Trump has repeatedly called for the FCC to revoke ABC’s licences.

Reporters Without Borders has warned that Trump’s administration is not merely attacking journalism rhetorically but reducing the physical and institutional space in which journalists can operate.

“It’s a very basic tactic but a fundamental hit to press freedom,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA. “Just as he wants to control the narrative in print and on the airwaves using government pressure or lawsuits against media outlets, he’s also trying to control the narrative by restricting the press’s access to spaces where crucial decisions are made, avoiding transparency and accountability,”

A politician complaining about an unfavourable coverage is one thing, but when a government changes the law, controls regulators, threatens licences or turns the courts and state institutions against media organisations, the stakes are entirely different.

And what about Reform and its dubious ‘Free Speech Bill’? 

Ahead of the 2024 general election, Reform pledged that a Reform-led government would begin reforming what it described as the “out-of-touch,” “wasteful” and “institutionally biased” BBC within 100 days of the next Parliament.

Its manifesto, rebranded as “our contract with you” rather than a manifesto, promised to scrap the TV licence, which it branded “taxation without representation”. “In a world of on-demand TV,” it declared, “people should be free to choose.”

The party also called for a Free Speech Bill, supposedly designed to protect “personal freedom and democracy,” while promising to legislate against what it described as “left-wing bias and politically correct ideology.” It pledged to put an end to “cancel culture,” “left wing hate mobs” and “political bias in public institutions.”

The contradiction is difficult to miss. Reform presents itself as the defender of free speech while simultaneously proposing to use legislation to combat viewpoints and ideas it considers too left-wing.

In his party conference speech last week, Nigel Farage pledged to eliminate “obstacles” to his plans, declaring he would use a “national emergency” if he wins power. He also threatened to overhaul the House of Lords and how judges are appointed if they stood in the way.

Identifying the judiciary as another potential “obstacle,” Farage promised to remove the judges’ ability to rely on conventions such as the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

“Parliament makes the law, judges interpret the law. We will do whatever it takes, and perhaps have to consider how judicial appointments work in the future,” he said.

The ‘national emergency’ tactic is familiar in Trump’s America, where emergency powers have been used to justify sweeping changes to government and the law. Critics have warned that normalising the language of permanent crisis risks weakening democratic norms and giving governments greater scope to exercise extraordinary powers, including over the media.

“In any emergency-power regime, it’s crucial that the ‘emergency’ trigger be carefully defined and cautiously applied, lest the state of emergency become the new normal,” said David Pozen, a Columbia University law professor. “Yet that seems to be exactly what Trump wants – to govern in perpetual crisis model.”

And warnings about what a Reform government could mean for the free press and the laws governing are are also mounting.

In August, Labour’s Bridget Phillipson accused Reform deputy leader Richard Tice of a “chilling attempt to silence a free press” after he sent a legal threat to the Guardian over its reporting on his financial affairs.

The National Union of Journalists has also condemned Reform’s restrictions on journalists, urging all political parties to “demonstrate their commitment to media freedom and uphold the public’s right to be informed.”

 Even Kemi Badenoch warned that the party’s behaviour could offer a glimpse of how it might govern.

“I think you could … [see] what kind of government they would be – authoritarian and using state power actually to pursue opponents is what they’ve effectively been threatening.

“We believe in free speech. We believe in a free press. And yes, of course, that might be painful for us as politicians, but public scrutiny is part of the gig. If Nigel Farage can’t handle difficult questions about his dodgy £5m then he shouldn’t be a politician.”

Farage’s complaints about the media are hardly convincing when so much of the right-wing press has spent years giving him and Reform a sympathetic platform.

But the victim narrative remains politically useful. Reform can cast itself as an outsider battling a hostile Establishment while simultaneously behaving like a political organisation that wants to control which journalists get access to it.

The crucial issue, however, is not whether Reform dislikes Left Foot Forward, the Guardian or any other publication.

It’s what happens if a party that regards critical journalism as an attack acquires the power to change the laws governing journalism itself.

Russia, Hungary and Trump’s America show why that question matters.

Free speech is not simply the right of politicians to say what they want.

It’s also the right of journalists to scrutinise those politicians, and the ability to do so without governments changing the law to punish them for it.

That is the real test of whether a government believes in a free press. And one Reform should be prepared to answer.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post How right-wing governments change the law to silence the press appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

You might also expect a national newspaper to have more important things to report than a trivial warning attached to one television programme.

But this is the Sun we’re talking about.

According to the Murdoch tabloid, ITV bosses are a ‘woke joke’ for placing a content warning on a celebrated British television documentary series.

The original episode of 7 Up broadcast in 1964. It followed a group of seven-year-olds from different social backgrounds as they discussed class, money, education and their hopes for the future. Intended as a one-off programme, it was later developed by its director and narrator, Michael Apted, into an extraordinary documentary project, with the participants filmed every seven years.

As the group approach retirement age, the series has returned to ITV with the first of a three-part programme aired over three successive evenings.

So, what has the Sun got its knickers in a twist about?

A warning.

Before the original 7 Up episode, ITV informed viewers that it “contains outdated attitudes.” That is apparently enough to trigger the tabloid’s latest bout of culture-war outrage.

And, naturally, the Sun found an ally willing to complain about the complaint. The Free Speech Union’s Lord Toby Young told the paper: “It can’t be a surprise to anyone that a 1964 documentary contains outdated attitudes.”

Indeed, it can’t. Which rather raises the question of what, exactly, the Sun is objecting to. The warning doesn’t prevent anyone from watching the programme. It doesn’t censor the documentary, edit out controversial material or tell viewers what they should think about it. It simply gives modern audiences a small amount of context before they watch a programme made more than 60 years ago.

That hardly amounts to the great suppression of free speech.

Yet this is not the first time the Sun has put ITV bosses in its crosshairs over a content warning.
Earlier this year, the paper took aim at ITV for placing a warning on a repeat of Bob Monkhouse’s 1994 An Audience With…, telling viewers that the programme “reflects the language and attitudes of its time.”

Like the original 7 Up, Monkhouse’s comedy, and the conventions that shaped it, belong to a different era of British entertainment. It was therefore entirely reasonable for ITV to provide some context for a modern audience.

A brief warning doesn’t condemn Monkhouse, erase his work or prevent anyone from watching it. It simply acknowledges the blindingly obvious fact that social attitudes change, and comedy changes with them.

The Sun’s response is part of a familiar pattern. Anything that acknowledges changes in social attitudes can be branded ‘woke,’ regardless of whether anyone has actually been censored, cancelled or prevented from expressing themselves.

It is a particularly curious position for a newspaper that routinely claims to defend free speech. It also ignores the fact that such warnings have been standard practice for years on those channels which earn a crust by recycling ancient television series. The Sun only seems to have noticed when ITV engaged in the practice. Imagine their response if it had been the BBC!

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Right on cue, the Daily Express published an article questioning whether Londoners can still ‘afford’ the carnival, reviving familiar complaints about policing costs, disruption and public spending.

Written by James Ford, who was an adviser to former London mayor Boris Johnson, the piece takes aim at a festival that has become one of Britain’s most recognisable celebrations of Caribbean culture and Black British identity.

But the history of Notting Hill Carnival makes Ford’s argument about taxpayers’ money difficult to separate from the wider political and cultural hostility that has surrounded the event since its beginnings.

Notting Hill was home to a growing West Indian community following the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, but Black residents faced racism, intimidation and violence. The area had been a stronghold of Oswald Mosley’s far-right movement and was the scene of attacks on Black communities by groups of white youths.

The carnival emerged from a period of racial tension and violence in west London during the 1950s. It developed as a celebration of Caribbean culture, community and resistance. Over the decades, it has grown into a huge public event reflecting the diversity of modern London, bringing together people across racial, religious and sexual identities.

That history matters when considering Ford’s proposal.

“I take great exception to the Notting Hill Carnival,” Ford writes. “Not because the event is associated with an orgy of violent crime and stabbing. Not because of the extent to which it inconveniences local residents. Not even because of the staggering number of police officers injured each year.

“My beef is with the economics of the Notting Hill Carnival. And, more specifically, the value that London taxpayers get from it versus the subsidy they must cough up each year. Because, whilst the carnival may seem like a free day out, it is far from it.”

Ford then points to the costs associated with the event, including around £1 million for cleaning up the streets, £13.5 million in policing costs in 2024 and a £5.6 million City Hall grant.

He puts the total cost to taxpayers at around £20 million a year.

There is, however, another side to the economic argument.

Ford acknowledges that supporters point to the economic activity generated by the carnival, estimated at £396 million. Even using his own figures, that would represent a substantial return to the wider London economy compared with the public funding he identifies.

Yet Ford remains sceptical, arguing that the supposed economic benefit “disappears into the pockets of traders, food vendors, hoteliers and landlords.”

But that is rather the point of economic activity. Money spent by visitors doesn’t become meaningless simply because it reaches businesses. It helps generate revenue for food vendors, shops, hotels, transport operators and other businesses. For many small businesses and traders, large public events can provide an important source of income.

Ford’s answer is to turn the carnival into a paid event, suggesting a £10 charge for every attendee.

“I don’t want to cancel the carnival. I just want to stop it being a giant black hole for taxpayers’ cash. Surely, we have better things to spend £20m on each year?” he concludes.

The problem with this ‘solution’ is that it fundamentally changes what Notting Hill Carnival is.

A £10 admission fee might sound modest to someone on a comfortable salary. But for a family on a low-income struggling with the cost of living, the bill quickly mounts. The consequence would be to create another barrier between people and a public cultural celebration.

And that goes directly against the ethos of the carnival. For decades, the carnival has represented a public celebration of a Black British culture that once faced hostility, violence and exclusion. Its existence is a reminder of how far Britain has travelled since the racist attacks of the 1950s, and of why public spaces where different communities can come together still matter.

If the right really wants to debate public spending, there are plenty of questions worth asking.

But turning Notting Hill Carnival into an annual target, then proposing to put a price on participation, risks losing sight of what the event actually represents.

A carnival that grew from resistance to racism should not become a privilege reserved for those who can afford the ticket.

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Scientists overwhelmingly agree that human activity is driving climate change, yet the right-wing media appears determined to find almost anything else to blame.

Their latest target is rewilding, the restoration of ecosystems by allowing vegetation and natural processes to return with less human intervention. Their argument is that allowing vegetation to grow has created vast ‘tinderboxes’ and that environmental policies are therefore responsible for Britain’s worsening wildfire problem.

There is a serious discussion to be had about how land should be managed to reduce fire risk, but turning that discussion into a conspiracy about rewilding is another matter entirely. It also creates a notable contradiction. Newspapers claiming to defend ‘evidence-based’ land management are promoting a narrative that ignores much of the scientific evidence about what is actually driving extreme wildfire conditions.

The Telegraph’s rewilding blame game

When a 371-acre wildfire began at the RSPB’s Minsmere reserve in Suffolk before spreading to National Trust-owned Dunwich Heath, the Telegraph sought to pin the blame on ‘rewilding.’

The paper reported claims that the area had become a ‘tinderbox’ because of the RSPB’s ‘rewilding agenda,’ quoting Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner, whose organisation has consistently opposed rewilding.

Bonner accused organisations of refusing to manage vegetation because of ‘political ideology’ and an ‘obsession with rewilding.’

Yet the organisations actually responsible for managing the land gave a very different explanation.

The RSPB said the summer’s fires were “unprecedented in scale, driven by drought and prolonged heat exacerbated by climate change.”

The National Trust likewise pointed to prolonged drought and exceptionally low rainfall across England and Wales.

The Trust’s communications director Celia Richardson summed up the absurdity: “Some of the oldest surviving heathland in the UK burns in unprecedented temperatures and Telegraph headline says “rewilding” is to blame.”

There is an obvious problem with treating vegetation management as the primary explanation for catastrophic fires. Devastating wildfires have also occurred on intensively managed land. Scotland’s first recorded ‘megafire,’ at Dava on a managed grouse moor in June 2025, is one example.

And talking of grouse land. A recent article in the Murdoch-owned Times headlined “Wildfires suggest rewilding needs a rethink,” claims that “Green enthusiasm for ignoring the old-fashioned thinning and clearing of land does create habitats – and kindling.”

But there is a wider vested interest behind this particular vision of ‘traditional’ land management. Grouse moors are managed to support driven grouse shooting, a pursuit associated with Britain’s wealthy landowners and the ultra-rich, for whom vast swathes of upland Britain are maintained as private shooting estates.

That matters because much of this land is managed through intensive heather burning. Environmental campaigners have long argued that such burning can damage peatlands, which are naturally wet ecosystems that store carbon and support a wide range of wildlife.

So, when the right-wing press present burning and intensive management as the sensible alternative to rewilding, it’s worth asking whose interests that version of ‘sensible’ land management serves.

Climate science tells us that higher temperatures dry out vegetation and make it more flammable.

Indeed, there is evidence that some forms of ecological restoration can make landscapes more resilient to extreme weather. Rewilding can increase carbon storage, restore water-retaining soils and wetlands, provide shade and diversify vegetation.

Rewetting peatlands can also reduce the continuity of flammable vegetation. RSPB senior policy officer Tom Aspinall has explained that burning can encourage heather, an oily highly flammable plant, while rewetting and diversification can introduce a wider range of vegetation and disrupt the ability of fires to spread.

A balanced debate?

In response to a front-page story in the Daily Mail claiming that ‘eco-dogma’ and Labour’s environmental policies had caused the record number of UK wildfires, Rachel Millward, deputy leader of the Green Party, accused the newspaper of “turning reality on its head” by blaming rewilding while denying readers the facts about climate change.

“This is another deeply irresponsible headline from a deeply irresponsible newspaper,” she told Left Foot Forward. “The Mail seeks to blame the climate crisis on anything other than its main cause – burning fossil fuels.”

There is, of course, a legitimate debate about whether particular landscapes are being managed in the best possible way.

University of York associate professor Andreas Heinemeyer, who has studied UK moorland ecology for 15 years, widens the discussion to include the common practice of vegetation control through burning. He argues that the supposed conflict between those who support burning and those who oppose it has become a “false culture war.”

For Heinemeyer, policy should be based on “unbiased and robust evidence” rather than “false and misleading claims about burning.”  

Amen to that but there seems little prospect of the right-wing media presenting a balanced discussion any time soon.

Trump’s war on conservation

And such misinformation isn’t confined to Britain. As with so many of the culture wars peddled by the right, the inspiration comes from across the Atlantic, where the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal recently ran an editorial arguing green policies were fuelling fires in Europe.

It’s a depressingly common thread. When wildfires become more frequent and extreme, the right-wing media repeatedly looks for an environmental policy to blame, anything, it seems, except the fossil fuel emissions driving global warming.

Donald Trump has taken a similar approach to environmental protection in the US.

His administration has rolled back protections covering huge areas of public land and weakened conservation safeguards. He has repeatedly attacked environmental regulations as the work of “radical climate activists,” including complaining that endangered-species protections have placed land off limits to development and even military training.

The same political instinct is visible on both sides of the Atlantic, to portray environmental protection as an ideological project, then use environmental problems as evidence that environmental protection has failed.

But the consequences of weakening habitat protections are not ideological. Habitat loss remains a leading driver of extinction. The Rewilding Institute has warned that rolling back habitat protections removes the foundations needed for ecosystems and wildlife to recover.

France’s far right exploits the fires while opposing green policy

The same contradiction is playing out in France which suffered a summer of record heat. By the end of July, the area burned by wildfires had already broken the annual record. 

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has spent years opposing green regulations. Yet the party seized on France’s worst blazes in years to accuse President Emmanuel Macron’s government of failing in one of its most basic duties, protecting people and their homes.

As Politico noted: “As France has sweltered through record heat, the National Rally has so far paid little political price for its lack of credibility on climate and environmental policy.”

Rather than addressing the causes of climate change, the party focused on adaptation, how governments can protect people from its consequences. During a June heatwave, for example, it proposed financial assistance for installing air conditioning in homes and public buildings, presenting the measure as an immediate response to concerns about health and safety.

It is a familiar political manoeuvre: exploit the consequences of a warming climate while sidestepping the policies needed to tackle its causes.

The French example makes clear that this is not simply a British media obsession with rewilding. Across the right, climate impacts are increasingly being used to attack environmental policy, even when the policies being attacked are aimed at addressing the underlying crisis.

Follow the evidence not the culture war

The Met Office says 2026 is on course to be the hottest UK summer on record. Temperatures reached 38.1°Cat in Kew Gardens, while 2026 became the first year on record in which temperatures reached at least 35°C in May, June and July. A summer this hot has been made around 130 times more likely by human-induced climate change, according to the Met Office.

Dr Stephen Cumbers, a medical doctor and chartered scientist, summed up the implications: 

 “None of this means every wildfire, death or hot day can simply be labelled ‘climate change’,” he wrote. “Nor does the evidence dictate a single policy programme. But it does make continued delay increasingly difficult to justify.”

His conclusion should be the starting point for the debate.

“The message to government should be neither alarmism nor complacency.

“Take the evidence seriously. Be honest about the risks and costs. And make energy and climate decisions on evidence rather than short-term political convenience.”

There is nothing wrong with questioning how particular landscapes are managed, or examining whether controlled burning, grazing, rewetting and other interventions can reduce wildfire risk.

What is wrong is turning that legitimate scientific and ecological debate into a political conspiracy in which rewilding is blamed for a wildfire crisis occurring amid record heat and drought.

The right-wing media’s argument ultimately collapses under its own contradiction. It demands that environmentalists “follow the evidence” while repeatedly ignoring the evidence when it points towards climate change.

Britain might need better land management, but it also needs an honest conversation about what is making wildfires worse.

Blaming rewilding won’t make the climate crisis disappear. In the meantime, the debate (or lack of debate) does feel like those astronomical arguments of the early modern period. Long after scientists and seafarers had proved that the earth was round and went round the sun, there were still those who insisted on the opposite. Are climate change deniers the flat earthers of our time? 

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post The great rewilding conspiracy: the right fight the science while Britain burns appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

It was perhaps inevitable, then, that one of Bristol’s most celebrated landmarks would eventually find itself accused of succumbing to ‘wokery.’

Brunel’s SS Great Britain recently underwent a £1.6m redevelopment of its visitor experience. Before the museum had even reopened, the Telegraph was sounding the alarm over what it described as a “controversial rebrand.” The paper reported that “Great Britain” had been dropped from the museum’s branding in favour of “Bristol Dockyard Museum,” supposedly to appeal to a more diverse audience after consultation found some local residents believed “SS” stood for “slave ship” rather than “steam ship.”

Readers were unsurprisingly reminded that the ship sits close to the spot where Colston’s statue was dumped into Bristol Harbour during the 2020 protests.

The consultation documents did indeed discuss broadening the museum’s appeal. They argued that the trust should attract a more ethnically diverse audience and proposed incorporating “new perspectives” on migration and Britain’s global connections. Yet to some commentators, that alone was enough to trigger accusations that Brunel was being erased and history rewritten.

When the redeveloped museum opened on July 18, the Telegraphreturned to the story with a provocative headline asking whether the attraction had “gone woke.” Travel writer Simon Horsford dutifully rehearsed the familiar complaints. Critics, he noted, feared that the redevelopment would diminish the legacy and engineering genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who came second only to Winston Churchill in the BBC’s 2002 poll of the greatest Britons. He also repeated the anecdote about some Bristolians confusing “SS” with “slave ship,” once again linking it to the city’s recent history of anti-racist protest.

Yet the same article itself quietly dismantled the very narrative its headline invited readers to believe.

Horsford praised the museum’s extensive archival research, the work of local historians and the richer storytelling that now accompanies the ship. His verdict could hardly have been clearer: “Has the SS Great Britain gone woke? I saw nothing to justify the concerns voiced a few weeks ago, when the rebrand was announced. The ship’s history is dealt with in a balanced manner, and the new museum adds to what’s on offer, rather than detracting from Brunel’s story.”

The supposedly ‘woke’ changes amount to little more than providing additional historical context, telling more of the stories connected to the ship, and making the museum more accessible to a wider audience. Brunel’s achievements remain central.

The only thing that truly appears to have changed is the headline. The SS Great Britain didn’t become another casualty of woke revisionism. It became another prop in a culture war that exists largely because some commentators refuse to stop inventing new fronts in it.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: SS Great Britain didn’t ‘go woke,’ but the Telegraph couldn’t resist implying it did! appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.