u/Ecstatic_Buy4364

When a single network of donors—particularly those with ties to foreign military intelligence (IDF) and foreign governments (via ELNET and the Israeli Embassy)—overwhelmingly backs an entire faction of the party, and that faction then takes all the top jobs, it is entirely legitimate for the public to ask: Who is setting foreign and defense policy?

Burnham cabinet is surrounded by a tight-knit ecosystem of donors, lobbyists, and former intelligence operatives who view the UK's relationship with Israel as paramount.

"Andy Burnham just appointed Bridget Phillipson as Chair of the Labour Party.

But did you know that Bridget Phillipson received £80,000 from an individual linked to Israeli military intelligence?

I’ve discovered some documents that Phillipson might not want you to know about...

In 2023, Bridget Phillipson registered two £40,000 donations from pro-Israeli lobbyist Stuart Roden.

He is the co-founder of Hetz Ventures, which he set up with ex-IDF intelligence officer Judah Taub.

But Phillipson is not the only Andy Burnham appointment bankrolled by Roden.

Last year, leaked diaries revealed that Stuart Roden had been conducting private meetings with then Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy.

According to John McEvoy, Roden’s Hetz firm employs “an array of former Israeli soldiers, many of whom have served in elite intelligence units”.

Labour MP Lisa Nandy also held "secret" meetings with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy.

In the past, Nandy has received thousands of pounds from serial lobbyists Stuart Roden and Trevor Chinn.

Now, she is Andy Burnham's Culture Secretary.

After a FOI request into Lisa Nandy’s meeting with Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotolevy, the Labour government refused to provide further details.

Instead, Nandy’s department said that they would prioritise:

“…protecting relations between the United Kingdom and Israel.”

At the end of June, Labour MP Sarah Sackman registered two new donations from veteran lobbyist Trevor Chinn.

She previously worked as a judicial clerk at the Israeli Supreme Court.

Andy Burnham just appointed Sackman as a justice minister.

Yvette Cooper is another Labour MP who has benefited from Trevor Chinn’s financial largesse.

In 2024, Cooper also received £47,000 from Labour Together and £210,000 from Gary Lubner for “staffing costs”.

Last week, Andy Burnham appointed Cooper to his cabinet.

For at least two years, Burnham’s new Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson was receiving quarterly payments from Trevor Chinn.

During her deputy leadership bid, she also received support from Labour First, a group once run by ex-Israel lobbyist and now Labour MP Luke Akehurst.

Luke Akehurst was quick to celebrate Burnham’s appointment of Bridget Phillipson as Labour Party chair

In the past, Akehurst has also been funded by Phillipson financier Stuart Roden.

Ex-IDF officer Shai Masot described Akehurst as “one of the best on the inside…of the party”.

In 2023, ELNET UK paid for a member of Bridget Phillipson's staff to visit occupied Palestine.

Described in financial disclosures as a "study tour", they were accompanied by Akehurst.

A staffer for Burnham's new Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, also travelled with the group.

ELNET list the Israeli Foreign Ministry as one of their “partners”.

A 2024 trip organised by the lobby group was led by Jeffrey Epstein “pal” and disgraced ex-Labour peer Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson described Burnham’s new chief of staff, James Purnell, as “one of my boys”.

In October, Bridget Phillipson received £40,000 from David Sainsbury and £15,000 from his daughter, Francesca Perrin.

Phillipson has also admitted to accepting £14,000 in donations from Waheed Alli for “lobby journalist” events.

Alli was Keir Starmer’s largest “personal” donor.

In 2022, Phillipson accepted £15,000 from ex-Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Under Murphy, Labour lost 40 of their 41 seats in Scotland.

This year, his Arden Strategies lobby firm was caught offering access to a VIP dinner with top advisers to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.

Jim Murphy’s “lobbying behemoth” Arden Strategies now has its own Labour Party “directorate”.

In 2024, Arden helped raise funds for more than 30 Labour election candidates.

Their clients include arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman, which supplies weapons components to the IDF.

In November, Bridget Phillipson stood for deputy leader of the Labour Party.

She received £10,000 for her campaign from Jim Murphy, a former director of Labour Friends of Israel.

Murphy promised to “support Israel long after my political career is over”.

In October 2024, Bridget Phillipson posted a short update on her personal website titled:

“Good to meet with Andy Burnham”.

Keir Starmer had only been Prime Minister for three months.

Now, just two years later, Burnham has ousted Starmer and Phillipson is Labour Party chair."

— Jody McIntyre
(well worth following on twitter and substack)

As the revelations around donations to Reform and its leader multiply, we’re keeping the receipts. Carole Cadwalladr introduces a master timeline of our investigation into Farage’s biggest funder, cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne, and argues that Farage is a symptom, not a cause, of forces reshaping politics across the world

"People who use saunas regularly appear to develop fewer respiratory illnesses.

My favorite example is a long-running Finnish study in which men who took two to three or four or more sauna baths per week had a 27 percent and 41 percent lower risk of developing a respiratory illness, respectively, than men who used a sauna no more than once weekly. Association? Yes. But a small study also found that regular sauna users experienced roughly half as many common colds during the final three months of a six-month study."

Song about Jordan Devlin who was in prison for over one year without trial.

For years, Earth has staggered from one crisis to another: malfunctioning hand dryers, unaffordable croissants and the disappearance of Ceefax. Politicians promised solutions. Pundits offered analysis. But only one intergalactic space warrior had the vision, the cape and the bin-shaped head to Make Earth Great Again.

And then something happened. Count Binface arrived from planet Sigma IX. He took on prime ministers, mayors, and assorted human calamities; he won votes, hearts, and at least one moral victory. Along the way, he became Britain’s most formidable Recyclon, defender of common sense, enemy of the planet Copyright and tireless champion of the Lovejoybox set.

Now, with more than 30 of the finest comics creators on planet Earth receiving the Bin-Signal, this revolutionary 72-page anthology brings the Binface universe gloriously to life. Expect space battles, political nonsense, cosmic bureaucracy, recycled wisdom, and more heroic rubbish than you can fit in a wheelie bin.

I know this might ruffle some feathers, but I think it's worth asking

I want to explore the indigeneity of modern Judaism. We know that Second Temple Judaism was land-based, priestly, and sacrificial—rooted in Jerusalem. But the Judaism that survived and thrived was largely codified in Babylon, expanded in Europe, and adapted to diaspora life.

If the Romans had not destroyed the Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish population remained concentrated in Judea rather than scattering across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, we would not have the Judaism we know today.

So if the religion that defines modern Jewish identity was largely forged in exile—are the modern Jewish people more a product of exile than the land of Israel?

What if the Romans never destroyed the Second Temple and expelled the Jews in 70 CE? Let's say the fire that destroyed the Temple never spread, Titus allowed it to be reconsecrated, and the Bar Kokhba revolt never happened—so the Jewish population remained concentrated in Judea rather than scattering across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.

The implications are huge, because the Judaism we know today is essentially a product of exile:

No Rabbinic Judaism – The Pharisees and the rabbinic tradition only became dominant because the Temple was destroyed. Without that, the priestly Sadducees likely remain in charge, and Judaism stays a Temple-centric, sacrificial religion. Synagogues and Torah study exist, but they're secondary. Would "Judaism" as we know it today even be recognizable or exist?

The irony is that the very thing that preserved Jewish identity—dispersion and the portable religion it created—wouldn't exist in this timeline. When the Roman Empire becomes Christian under Constantine, the Levant becomes intensely Christianized. A non-exiled, Temple-centric Jewish population in Judea would face massive pressure from the Byzantine state. They wouldn't have the safety net of distant diaspora communities to retreat to. Over the centuries, most would likely convert to Christianity—just like the majority of Levantine peoples did—leaving a small remnant clinging to the Temple mount, much like the Samaritans (who did mostly stay and now number only ~800 people).

Or, if they held on a bit longer, they might have faded away like the Nestorians—a once-influential Christian branch that got trapped between Islamic empires and Mongol invasions, and now exists only as tiny, dwindling communities in Iraq, Iran, and India. Geographically pinned down, they couldn't adapt or escape, and history slowly buried them.

Meanwhile, Muhammad was deeply influenced by Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian communities scattered across Arabia. If those Jewish tribes in Arabia (like the Banu Qurayza) don't exist because the Jews never dispersed, the religious landscape of 7th-century Arabia would look very different. Islam as we know it might not emerge at all.

The diaspora created the survival strategy. Staying put would have meant assimilation, marginalization, or gradual extinction—just like countless other Levantine groups that are now footnotes of history.

Either way, the Judaism of the last 2,000 years never happens. No Maimonides in Spain, no Kabbalah in Safed, no Yiddish in Poland, no Zionist movement, no Holocaust, no Lobby, no AIPAC.

Judaism may have been born in the Levant—but it was brought up in the diaspora.

In this interview, we spoke with Geraldine Coggins, the Green Party candidate for Greater Manchester Mayor.

We discuss her vision for the region, focusing on critical issues such as safety, security, and the urgent need to tackle knife crime and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). Geraldine also shares her plans to address the cost of living crisis affecting residents across Greater Manchester.