Reform council leader accused of racism after alleged remarks about Sadiq Khan
A Reform UK council leader has been accused of racism after allegedly describing Sadiq Khan as a “narcissistic Pakistani” and saying a black British lawyer should have “F’d off back to Nigeria”,Ian Cooper, the leader of Staffordshire county council, is also said to have attacked the justice secretary, David Lammy, in a social media post that said: “No foreign national or first generation migrant should be allowed to sit in parliament,”In another post, Cooper allegedly claimed migrants were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”,Nigel Farage’s party said it was undertaking an “urgent internal investigation over Councillor Cooper’s non-disclosure of social media accounts”,Two other Reform UK politicians were suspended last month over offensive messages.
Laura Anne Jones, the sole Reform UK member of the Senedd, used a racial slur in a discussion about the potential threat of China utilising TikTok for espionage,In Lancashire, the councillor Tom Pickup was suspended for calling Keir Starmer a “dicktaker” in a post to a WhatsApp group where members allegedly called for “mass Islam genocide”,Cooper, who was elected in May as Reform UK won swaths of council seats across England, was Farage’s parliamentary candidate for Tamworth in a byelection in 2023 and again in last year’s general election,He is listed as the interim chair of the party’s Tamworth branch,In one message in February, seen by the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate and shared with the Guardian, Cooper allegedly called Khan, the London mayor, a “narcissistic Pakistani” and described London as “a 3rd world shit hole”.
In a post directed at the broadcaster Sangita Myska in April, the council leader appears to have said she was English “only in your dreams”, adding: “You are neither ethnically, culturally or historically English.Your diaspora isn’t NW European.All you have is a piece of paper entitling you to British citizenship.”Cooper also allegedly attacked the British-born lawyer and women’s right activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu.In a post three years ago, he appears to have said: “Dr Shaga Bing-Bong….
Time she F’d off back to Nigeria,She’d feel more at home there,”In another alleged post a year ago, he said it was “a lie” that diversity was Britain’s strength and claimed that migrants from the “global majority south” were “intent on colonising the UK, destroying all that has gone before”,He is also alleged to have said diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes were disguising “oppression” and enabling a situation “where indigenous people are actively removed or excluded, and not allowed to complain”,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionIt emerged last month that Cooper had defended his fellow Reform UK councillor Peter Mason, who had criticised a statue of what he called a “fat arsed black woman” and described the police as “a bunch of politically indoctrinated British hating scum”.
In an email to Reform UK councillors seen by the Independent, Cooper said Mason was under “targeted political attack” by the party’s opponents.He said: “Peter’s comment regarding a statue of a black woman was a critique of public art, not a personal attack on an individual.His views on policing also reflect concerns shared by many, including recent reporting that the Metropolitan police is expanding its ‘woke’ workforce while facing a £250m funding gap and cutting thousands of frontline jobs.”Gregory Davis, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, said: “The picture painted by Ian Cooper’s social media posts is of a man who is deeply bigoted and tapped into far-right media and terminology.“Cooper joins a long list of Reform UK councillors who have been exposed for their extreme views.
It’s particularly shocking that someone in a leadership position has not been vetted sufficiently – or perhaps Farage and his party think this is an acceptable way to behave?”
‘I don’t take no for an answer’: how a small group of women changed the law on deepfake porn
For Jodie*, watching the conviction of her best friend, and knowing she helped secure it, felt at first like a kind of victory. It was certainly more than most survivors of deepfake image-based abuse could expect.They had met as students and bonded over their shared love of music. In the years since graduation, he’d also become her support system, the friend she reached for each time she learned that her images and personal details had been posted online without her consent. Jodie’s pictures, along with her real name and correct bio, were used on many platforms for fake dating profiles, then adverts for sex work, then posted on to Reddit and other online forums with invitations to deepfake them into pornography
Pornography company fined £1m by Ofcom for not having strong enough age checks
A pornography company that runs 18 adult websites has been fined £1m by the watchdog Ofcom for not having strong enough age checks, in the largest fine yet under the UK’s Online Safety Act.The Belize-based AVS Group has been hit with the punishment, plus a further £50,000 for failing to respond to information requests.It is the third time that the internet and communications watchdog has fined a company in relation to the Online Safety Act, which brought into force strict age-checking requirements in July.While AVS has implemented what it claims is an age verification regime, the regulator’s investigation did not deem it to be highly effective.The company now has 72 hours to introduce age checks that Ofcom will view as effective or face a penalty of £1,000 a day
Probation officers in England and Wales to be given self-defence training after stabbings
Probation officers will be given self-defence training, bleed kits and body-worn cameras for the first time under plans before ministers in the wake of two stabbings, the Guardian has learned.Knife arches and handheld metal-detecting wands, which can be used to search people for weapons, have been approved for pilot schemes in selected offices.The disclosures come days after a staff member was stabbed in a probation office in Oxford. Separately, a man has admitted the attempted murder in July of a female officer in another probation centre in Preston, Lancashire.The probation officers’ union, which believes these are the first knife attacks in probation offices, has said members have a “palpable fear” about going to work since the attacks
Leasehold ‘wild west’ under scrutiny as minister criticises FirstPort’s fees and failures
A senior minister has said he has “significant concerns” about one of Britain’s biggest property managers after dozens of residents complained of high charges, slow repairs and aggressive debt collection techniques.It is the latest sign of growing anger in Westminster over the behaviour of FirstPort, which manages properties on behalf of 1 million people, and other leasehold management companies.Pennycook has previously called the unregulated leasehold market a “wild west” of operators and is planning to publish a draft bill in the coming weeks that would all but end the leasehold system.Matthew Pennycook recently met Martin King, the managing director of FirstPort, to raise his concerns. The minister made clear in a subsequent letter he had been unconvinced by some of the company’s responses
Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has ordered a clinical review of the diagnosis of mental health conditions, according to reports. Streeting is understood to be concerned about a sharp rise in the number of people making sickness benefits claims because of diagnoses for mental illness, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the Times reported. He has asked leading experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become “over-pathologised”, the newspaper said, as he seeks to grapple with the 4.4 million working-age people now claiming sickness or incapacity benefit. The figure has risen by 1
Discussing breast density after mammograms may cause unneeded anxiety, study finds
Telling women whether they have dense breasts as part of their breast cancer screening results may leave them feeling unnecessarily anxious and confused, according to a study.Breast density refers to the level of glandular and fibrous tissue relative to fat in breasts. Dense breast tissue is a risk factor for breast cancer, and can also make mammograms more difficult to read.Those undergoing breast screening in Australia are already told of their breast density, and the measure is being considered in the UK by the National Screening Committee (NSC).The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney and published in the BMJ, looked at data from 2,401 women who had been screened for breast cancer in Australia between September 2023 and July 2024 who were classified as having dense breasts
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