Green party membership in UK passes 200,000 after byelection victory
The Green party said its membership had passed 200,000 this weekend in the wake of its victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection, in which it overturned a huge Labour majority,The party’s membership has tripled since September last year, when it was about 68,000, after the announcement of Zack Polanski as its leader,The Green victory in Gorton and Denton is its first in a national byelection, forcing Labour into third place with Reform in second,The Greens now have five MPs and are regularly matching the Lib Dems in the polls while snapping at the heels of Labour and the Conservatives,Labour is under pressure from some of its MPs to steer more to the left to win back progressive voters from the Greens after the byelection result, where 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer was elected.
Polanski said: “This membership surge proves that the future of progressive politics belongs to the Greens.” He described it as a “political turning point”, with its members joining a “movement that refuses to accept managed decline, climate delay or timid politics”.He added: “Greens are not here to be disappointed by Labour, but to replace them.We will not wait politely for change; we are building it.”Figures released last summer suggested Labour was still the UK’s largest political party with more than 330,000 members – down from more than 500,000 in 2019.
However, a report in the Times put it lower, at fewer than 250,000 late last year – fewer than Reform UK.The number of Conservative party members is not known but is thought to be about 120,000, while Reform UK says it has more than 270,000.Figures published in August suggest that Lib Dem membership was last recorded at about 80,000.High membership numbers do not necessarily translate into electoral success, with Labour having had a peak of more than 500,000 members under Jeremy Corbyn, who lost two general elections.However, they are an indication of how much the party is enthusing its core base whose support can lead to higher levels of volunteering and activism during an election.
The Greens’ surge has caused worries among some senior Labour figures, who believe Polanski’s party could take votes and seats from theirs in May’s local elections in England, particularly in some London boroughs.Polanski has repeatedly set out the Greens’ ambition to supplant Labour.In his speech to his party’s annual conference, he said that without action Keir Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform UK.
Jack Dorsey to cut 4,000 jobs due to AI advances at Square parent Block
Fintech company Block announced that it would be laying off 4,000 of its 10,000 employees because of gains in AI productivity.“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Jack Dorsey, Block’s CEO, said in a letter to shareholders on Thursday. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week
Woman at heart of US trial says she was addicted to social media at age six
The young woman at the heart of the landmark trial about the addictive nature of social media testified for the first time on Thursday, saying she got hooked on YouTube starting at age six and Instagram at nine. By the time she was 10, she said, she had become depressed and was engaging in self-harm.The woman, who is now 20 and known by her initials KGM, is the lead plaintiff in an expansive lawsuit against YouTube and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook. The crux of the case alleges social media companies intentionally create addictive products, leading to mental health issues in young people.KGM testified on Thursday that her use of social media made her anxious and insecure, and features like beauty filters distorted her self-image
Riaz Hasan obituary
My father, Riaz Hasan, who has died aged 87, was a water resources engineer with a distinguished career working across 40 countries – in the 1970s with the British firm Halcrow and, from the 80s, at the UN and the World Bank.Originally from Hyderabad, Riaz arrived in the UK in 1965 with £3 and an A–Z, invited, like many engineers in India at that time, by the government. After completing a master’s degree in water resources at Bradford University, where he developed a love of Yorkshire pudding and received his degree from Harold Wilson (which he described as a real privilege), he embarked on his career designing life-saving, long-term water and food solutions for the most vulnerable and those affected by war, famine and natural disasters.Born in the small town of Warangal, near Hyderabad, to Mohammed, an English professor, and his wife, Khadija, Riaz went to Nizam college. He did his engineering degree at Osmania University, graduating in 1960, then got his first job at the Central Water Power Commission (CWPC) in Delhi
Met police to pilot facial recognition identity checks, mayor confirms
Metropolitan police officers are to start scanning citizens’ faces using automated facial recognition technology to check their identities, in a move backed by the mayor of London but described as “alarming” by opponents.The pilot was revealed on Thursday when Sadiq Khan said 100 officers would use the roaming technology – commonly deployed on smartphones – for six months. The mayor was responding to questioning from an opposition politician amid rising concern about the rollout of AI-powered policing tools. The Met’s website still states it “does not presently use the so-called operator initiated facial recognition”.Face scanning has already been deployed by police with cameras on vans and in fixed locations including in Croydon, Manchester and South Wales
Tell us: how will the UK’s landline switch-off affect you or your family?
UK telecoms companies are retiring traditional landline services and replacing them with internet-based home phone connections.The industry has set a deadline of January 2027 to complete this switch with roughly 3.2 million homes still to move over. While the digital switchover has been straightforward for most households, for some vulnerable customers, such as those with telecare devices, it has been very stressful.In December 2025 Virgin Media was fined £23
‘Unbelievably dangerous’: experts sound alarm after ChatGPT Health fails to recognise medical emergencies
ChatGPT Health regularly misses the need for medical urgent care and frequently fails to detect suicidal ideation, a study of the AI platform has found, which experts worry could “feasibly lead to unnecessary harm and death”.OpenAI launched the “Health” feature of ChatGPT to limited audiences in January, which it promotes as a way for users to “securely connect medical records and wellness apps” to generate health advice and responses. More than 40 million people reportedly ask ChatGPT for health-related advice every day.The first independent safety evaluation of ChatGPT Health, published in the February edition of the journal Nature Medicine, found it under-triaged more than half of the cases presented to it.The lead author of the study, Dr Ashwin Ramaswamy, said “we wanted to answer the most basic safety question; if someone is having a real medical emergency and asks ChatGPT Health what to do, will it tell them to go to the emergency department?”Ramaswamy and his colleagues created 60 realistic patient scenarios covering health conditions from mild illnesses to emergencies
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