Zack Polanski speaking at a separate festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, this month. Photo: Rich Dyson/Alamy Live News
Green leader throws weight behind Media Sovereignty Act campaign to stop press barons “literally buying democracy”
Green leader Zack Polanski has backed a campaign for a fundamental overhaul of Britain’s media ownership, in order to prevent billionaires buying newspapers in order to “literally buy democracy”.
Polanski threw his weight behind the ‘Media Sovereignty Act’ campaign in a speech at Green Gathering festival in Chepstow (Wales) earlier this month.
The petition promoted by the Green Party of England & Wales leader calls on the Government to “pass [a] law to ban foreign and offshore ownership of UK media” and enact a social-media levy to “distribute media ownership across society & fund independent, local and cooperative-owned media”.
…
Such an act would mark the biggest shake-up of media law in generations – and would conceivably force sell-offs of most national newspapers.
That includes the (now German-owned) Telegraph, the Mail group (owned by non-dom Lord Rothermere and structured through offshore trusts), as well as the Independent which is part-owned by Saudis, local news giant Newsquest (owned by the US holding company USA Today Co) and the Financial Times (owned by Japan’s Nikkei).
It is not clear if it would apply to listed firms which have some foreign shareholders such as Mirror and Express publisher Reach PLC, part-owned by Swiss firm Lombard Odier Asset Management and Boston-based Fidelity.
Polanski told a panel at the festival: “Billionaires should not be able to have a monopoly on our free press.”
He criticised the “billionaire media” repeatedly, adding that Britain needed “a free press for a free country”.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
As I have already noted today, The Times has chosen to question whether Chris Packham is really autistic, despite the fact that he has a diagnosis saying that he is. I have already discussed some aspects of this issue. I also think it is worth asking why they have done this.
I stress that question because I cannot know the motivation of those involved. I have no access to the editorial discussions at The Times, and I am not suggesting that I do. But newspapers make choices. They decide whom to feature, what questions to ask, which doubts to amplify and what associations they want their readers to make. So asking why Chris Packham has become a target is entirely reasonable.
There are, I think, several possible explanations, and they obviously overlap, creating a credible explanation as a consequence.
The first is that Chris Packham is becoming an important figure in British public life. He is no longer simply a television presenter who talks about wildlife. Increasingly, he appears to be assuming the mantle that Sir David Attenborough wore for decades.
That matters. Attenborough acquired authority because millions of people trusted him. He could talk about the destruction of the natural world in a way that politicians could not because people did not think of him as a politician. They thought of him as someone who knew what he was talking about.
Packham has some of that authority, but there is an important difference. He is more explicitly political. He does not simply say that a species is disappearing or that an ecosystem is under threat. He asks why that is happening, who is responsible and what we should do about it. That makes him potentially threatening to some powerful interests.
Packham is a prominent advocate of action on climate change. He challenges the fossil fuel economy. He questions environmentally destructive forms of agriculture. He supports environmental protest. More broadly, he challenges the idea that the pursuit of profit should take priority over the survival of the ecosystems on which human beings depend.
…
Chris Packham’s diagnosis tells us nothing about whether he is right about climate change. The evidence on climate change stands or falls on its own merits. If The Times, or anyone else, disagrees with what Packham says about the climate, biodiversity, fossil fuels or the environment, there is an obvious response available to them. They should challenge his arguments. But what they should not do is challenge who he is, or seek to undermine him, and others, by doing so. That is not just unethical, it provokes prejudice to support profit at cost to many.
We should not be surprised that profit is promoted at cost to many. That is what extractive capitalism does. That is not a flaw in its design. It is what it is designed to do. The well-being of millions and maybe billions of people have been sacrificed to that false god over decades and maybe centuries. But should Chris Packham be added to that list, to be discarded by being discredited because he asks awkward questions? I think not. And that is why this case matters.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli forces demolish two Palestinian-owned houses using heavy machinery on the grounds that they were built without permits in the town of Anzah, south of Jenin in West Bank, Palestine, on July 27, 2026. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
About 12,360 settlement units have been approved in the occupied West Bank this year, while nearly 7,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from more than 260 communities, Palestinian Land Authority head Alaa Al-Tamimi said.
Speaking to broadcaster Cairo News on Tuesday evening, Tamimi said briefings given by UN envoy at the UN Security Council today were important in exposing what he described as Israeli crimes in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as ongoing crimes in the Gaza Strip.
He said that since the fragile ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, more than 1,200 Palestinians had been killed, including women and children, while Israeli bombardment and other attacks had continued.
“During 2026 alone, the establishment of 12,360 settlement units was announced,” he said.
Tamimi also described attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank as “settler terrorism”, saying their aim was to forcibly displace Palestinians from their communities.
“The number of Palestinian communities that have been displaced has risen to more than 260, with more than or nearly 7,000 Palestinians displaced during 2026,” he said.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Israeli forces conduct a raid, taking extensive security measures on August 09, 2026 in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
UN officials said Tuesday that the occupied West Bank has reached a critical “breaking point,” citing a record surge in violence by Israeli occupiers and a systematic unraveling of Palestinian statehood, Anadolu reports.
“Humanitarian organizations cannot create the political conditions that children need to be safe,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman told the Security Council. “That responsibility rests with member states who have the power to change them.”
She presented four urgent requests to the international community: prioritizing the protection of children by ending administrative detention, halting forced displacements through diplomatic pressure, ensuring safe access to schools and hospitals, and allowing vital humanitarian supplies to move without delay.
Sulieman reported a harrowing toll on minors, noting that 174 Palestinian children have been verified killed in the occupied West Bank since January 2024. “That is more than one child every week,” she noted.
She revealed that at least 355 Palestinian children are being held in military detention, the highest in eight years, with nearly half detained without charge or trial.
Systematic displacement
Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov echoed the alarm, describing the situation as an emergency requiring immediate action to prevent de facto annexation. He said that in 2026, dozens of Palestinians have been killed and approximately 3,800 displaced due to demolitions, evictions and attacks by occupiers.
“Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” Alakbarov emphasized, citing more than 1,400 documented incidents this year affecting 260 communities. He warned of a clear pattern where Palestinian populations are forcibly removed from their villages before occupiers seize the vacated land. The official noted that for the first time, land was explicitly seized in “Area A” to build infrastructure for occupiers.
Fiscal, political instability
Alakbarov also highlighted the acute fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA), which reportedly lacks $6 billion in clearance revenues withheld by Israeli authorities. Amid the turmoil, he welcomed preparations for legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28.
Alakbarov concluded that they are “interconnected steps, not isolated developments,” aimed at weakening Palestinian governance.
He said if the situation continues to unravel, it will undermine implementation of resolution 2803 (2025) and erode the prospects for realizing a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution, urging an immediate “and in full” implementation of resolution 2803, together with the New York Declaration.
Resolution 2803 endorses a peace plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for the Gaza Strip and a temporary international force in the enclave following two years of war.
Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have escalated attacks in the West Bank, killing more than 1,183 Palestinians, injuring 13,000 and arresting nearly 25,000, according to Palestinian figures.
Palestinians warn that the escalation is part of Israeli efforts to impose facts on the ground, paving the way for annexation of the occupied West Bank and undermining the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders under relevant UN resolutions.
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceOrcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
US air force personnel prepare to load munitions on to a heavy bomber aircraft at the RAF Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Trade unions say UK prime minister must begin by revoking permission for US to use RAF bases for airstrikes in Gulf
Trade unions have called on Andy Burnham to tackle the cost of living crisis at its source by pressuring Donald Trump to bring the conflict in the Middle East swiftly to an end.
Leaders from 10 unions, including Unison, the UK’s largest, urged the prime minister to oppose further fighting in the Gulf to help bring down energy and fuel costs.
To put pressure on Trump, unions said Burnham must begin by revoking permission for the US to use RAF bases to launch airstrikes on Iran.
…
The general secretaries of 10 UK trade unions, representing more than 2.3 million workers, said in their letter to Burnham that he should do more to oppose “the US and Israel’s devastating, illegal war on Iran”, which was “deepening the cost of living crisis faced by our members and the British public”.
“Since the war started, the average British household has seen its annual energy bill rise by £221, while monthly food bills are forecast to rise by £32.80. Without an end to the war, there will be no end to this cost of living crisis,” they wrote.
The general secretaries said they were encouraged by the new government’s focus on the cost of living and the measures it was taking “to make life more affordable”.
But they said they were “deeply concerned” that it had “authorised US airstrikes to be conducted from bases on British territories as part of the escalating war against Iran”.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
