It’s not too late to donate to our appeal that has raised £900k for charities tackling hate
The Guardian’s 2025 charity appeal launched a few weeks ago against a backdrop of creeping nastiness and social division: the return of 1970s-style racist abuse, the demonisation of refugees and the resurgence of far-right marches in Britain’s streets.Our aim was to raise money and profile for charities that provide an antidote to hatred and othering: whose vital grassroots work is about bringing communities together, establishing common human bonds regardless of skin colour, culture or faith.The theme was hope in unhopeful times.Your response has been characteristically generous.So far we have together raised an incredible £900,000.
You told us this was for many of you a topical and important issue close to your hearts,It is not too late to give to the appeal, which closes at midnight on Wednesday evening,I’d like to thank the thousands of readers who have donated so far, and offer my gratitude in advance to those whom we hope we can still persuade to contribute,Your generous donations will be shared among our five 2025 charity appeal partners: Citizens UK, the Linking Network, Locality, Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust, and Who Is Your Neighbour?We’ve highlighted in recent weeks some of the brilliant work they deliver or support, from Father Chris Hughes’s inspiring “Walk of Hope” in North Shields to Salaam Shalom Kitchen’s groundbreaking joint Muslim-Jewish food project in Nottingham, to 174 Trust’s revelatory “dining across the divides” initiative in Belfast,The Linking Network’s joyful schools matching schemes bring together children of different faiths, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds to explore what they have in common.
Who Is Your Neighbour?’s innovative “difficult conversations” around race and immigration are grounded in the core belief that empathy builds empathy,Back on the Map’s impressive revitalisation of a Sunderland neighbourhood in the wake of the 2024 riots suggests political attempts to sow grievance and division can be countered by local enterprise, tolerance, pride and solidarity,At the grassroots, its chief executive, Joanne Cooper, told us, “people do care about each other”,Your donations will make a positive difference,Locality and Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust will regrant much of their share of donations to local organisations doing essential work to nurture that pride and solidarity, providing an antidote to distrust, intolerance and hate.
The Linking Network and Who Is Your Neighbour? will use their shares to develop and expand their pioneering work,Citizens UK will use its share to invest in its power-building fund to train community leaders and organisers with the skills to harness the power of communities to campaign for positive local change,The 2025 appeal – as always – has not just been about raising money for good causes, but showcasing the vital role of the voluntary sector,In the past 11 years Guardian readers have raised more than £16m through our annual appeals, for causes from refugees support to helping victims of conflict, the climate crisis, homelessness and child poverty,
Zarah Sultana’s Your Party membership launch may be ‘criminal’ matter for police, ICO says
Zarah Sultana’s unauthorised launch of a Your Party membership portal may have been “serious criminal activity” and should be referred to the police, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has advised.Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project (PJP), which referred Your Party to the information watchdog last September over a potential data breach, has been advised by the ICO that it should consider “taking further action” regarding the matter, after deciding it was not a matter for them.An extraordinary split opened up between Corbyn and Sultana in September after an email was sent to 800,000 people on Your Party’s mailing list, urging them to become paying members for £55. Sultana revealed the new membership portal on X, urging supporters to “be a part of history”, and reassured her followers that the membership site was “safe and secure”, encouraging them to keep trying to sign up despite “issues due to such high traffic”.Later the same day, Corbyn issued an “urgent message” telling his followers on X to ignore the “unauthorised” site and said “legal advice is being taken”
Reform UK accused of betraying election pledges after council tax rises
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been accused of betraying election promises to cut council tax after several councils it controls said they planned to increase rates close to the maximum allowed.They include Kent county council – the party’s flagship local authority and one viewed by it as the “shop window” for what a Reform-led government would look like – which has proposed an increase of 3.99%.Four other county councils controlled by the party – Derbyshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Leicestershire – have also all proposed 5% council tax rises, the maximum permitted by law.Derbyshire county council earlier this week confirmed the rise after predicting a £38m gap in its budget, with overspends in children’s social care and adult social care
It is Labour’s party machine that is out of touch | Letters
To combat rightwing populists, Chris Powell calls for “a local action network, a permanent organising infrastructure … to listen, act and communicate – identifying local problems, launching campaigns to fix them and publicising every small win” (What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough. We have a plan to take them on, 1 January).An organisation that could fill this role already exists: it’s called the Labour party. And, under Jeremy Corbyn, it had a Community Organising Unit to do just what Powell now asks for.That he overlooks this starkly illustrates how “analysts” and “advisers” such as himself have contributed to the party’s slide to the brink of oblivion
UK politics: Reform UK mayoral candidate apologises for Lammy ‘go home’ tweet – as it happened
Elon Musk’s social media platform X has responded to the sexualised deepfake controversy by turning off the Grok AI image creation function for the vast majority of users. Helena Horton, Dan Milmo and Amelia Gentleman have the story here.At the Downing Street lobby briefing today, the PM’s spokesperson described this as insulting to victims of misogyny because it was so weak.He said:[Today’s move] simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service. It’s not a solution
Lib Dems call on Reform MPs to donate income from X to charity amid Grok row
The Liberal Democrats have urged Reform UK MPs who receive payment from X for their posts to donate the money to charities working to combat sexual exploitation, after the site was flooded with AI-generated sexualised images of women and children.The Lib Dem spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, Victoria Collins, said Nigel Farage and other MPs paid by the Elon Musk-owned site were receiving “tainted money”.A series of MPs have called for the government to stop posting on X after the site’s inbuilt AI tool Grok started generating huge numbers of images of women and children in bikinis or other minimal attire, often in sexually provocative poses, in response to user prompts.The site has now limited the image creation function to paying subscribers, a move that Downing Street condemned as turning “an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service”.X users who are verified earn money based on the amount of engagement they generate
Home Office tells Gaza academic his bid to bring family to UK not urgent
A Palestinian academic has failed in his latest attempt to be reunited with his family in the UK after the Home Office concluded their case was not urgent and it was more appropriate for his two children to remain with their mother in a tent in Gaza.Bassem Abudagga was also told in a letter from Home Office officials that no reason had been found that was “sufficiently compelling” to defer a requirement that his wife attend a visa application centre (VAC) in Gaza so she could provide fingerprints to satisfy the conditions for evacuation.No such facility remains in Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardments, which have continued despite the fragile ceasefire – a fact that Abudagga says the Home Office is well aware of.Abudagga last saw his wife, Marim, son Karim, six, and daughter Talya, 10, four weeks before the October 7 attack in 2023 when he returned for a visit to Gaza.He had won a scholarship to study for a PhD at York St John University in 2022 and is regarded by his tutors as a model student
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