… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: Metropolitan Police

  • The UK charities sending nearly £2 million to illegal settlements

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    https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uk-charities-sending-nearly-2-million-to-illegal-settlements/

    A Palestinian boy protests outside the illegal settlement of Modiin Illit. (Photo: Majdi Mohammed / Alamy)

    Exclusive: Six British charities appear to funnel donations to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank

    Six registered British charities are openly fundraising for activities and infrastructure in illegal Israeli settlements, a Declassified investigation has found.

    Two of the charities explicitly state in their publicly available filings with the Charity Commission that they are supporting specific settlements in the occupied West Bank. Others feature illegal settlements in their names.

    Altogether, they appear to have sent more than £1.7 million to recipients in settlements over the past three years, although the figure could be much higher.

    The findings raise further questions about the quality of the commission’s oversight following recent reports, including several by Declassified, which have revealed the role UK charities play in facilitating the flow of money to settlement-supporting organisations.

    “The government and regulators have been far too slow to confront the systematic issue of UK charitable funds supporting settlements,” said Shaima Dallali, legal researcher from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP). 

    …

    The ICJP has already filed a formal complaint with the Commission and the Metropolitan Police about one of the charities flagged by Declassified and is reviewing the others.

    Dallali said there are “legitimate questions” about how charities were able to operate “without apparent regulatory intervention”. 

    …

    See the article at https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uk-charities-sending-nearly-2-million-to-illegal-settlements/

    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
    UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.

  • Palantir to sue Sadiq Khan over blocked £50m Met police contract

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    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/09/palantir-sue-khan-blocked-met-contract

    Sadiq Khan had blocked the deal and suggested Palantir had been the only contender for the Met’s AI contract. Photograph: Michael Bowles/Shutterstock

    US spy-tech company to challenge London mayor’s intervention after he raised concerns over breach of procurement rules

    Palantir intends to sue the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, after he blocked a contract between the US spy-tech firm and the Metropolitan police.

    The Met had planned to use Palantir’s software to automate intelligence analysis in criminal investigations, until Khan intervened in late May, sparking a row between the UK’s largest police force and the mayor’s office.

    Khan said there had been a breach of procurement rules in the contract and suggested Palantir had been the only contender.

    Now the Times has reported that Palantir’s lawyers have written to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime saying they intend to challenge the decision in court. Khan’s office confirmed they had received the letter. Palantir declined to comment for this article.

    A spokesperson for Khan’s office said: “The Met did not present its procurement strategy as required and the Met only fully engaged with one potential supplier: Palantir.”

    …

    On Tuesday morning, the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, confirmed the government was conducting a full review of the NHS contract with Palantir, assessing whether to extend the £330m deal or activate a break clause that would allow it to stop using the company’s services in early 2027.

    Last week, a parliamentary committee urged the government to trigger a break, calling Palantir’s presence an “unacceptable point of weakness” in a public sector increasingly reliant on a handful of US tech firms.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/09/palantir-sue-khan-blocked-met-contract

  • Labour reports alleged Farage hack to security officials after Reform leader fails to do so

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    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/29/labour-inquiry-nigel-farage-russia-phone-hack-donation-reform-uk

    Nigel Farage initially claimed he was given the money to cover security costs. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

    Request follows claims actors linked to Moscow accessed Reform UK leader’s data and leaked information over £5m donation

    Labour has reported the alleged hacking of Nigel Farage’s phone to police and government cybersecurity officials after the Reform UK leader failed to do so himself.

    The Labour chair, Anna Turley, has asked the Metropolitan police and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to investigate Farage’s claims that his phone was compromised by hostile actors linked to Russia.

    Reform has suggested the Guardian’s revelation that Farage was given a £5m donation from the Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne originated from material leaked from his phone, email and bank accounts. The party said last weekend it believed his information had been obtained by “hostile actors, almost certainly linked to Moscow”.

    Reform said it had reported the matter to “the relevant authorities”, without specifying which ones. Labour challenged the party to refer the case to the NCSC, but it is understood that had not happened by Thursday afternoon.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/29/labour-inquiry-nigel-farage-russia-phone-hack-donation-reform-uk

    dizzy: I suspect that this may be Farage’s downfall.

    Nigel Farage blames the Muzzies.
    Nigel Farage blames the Muzzies.

  • Anti-war groups call for Met chief to resign

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/anti-war-groups-call-met-chief-resign

     Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley gives a statement outside Charing Cross police station, London, after a High Court challenge over the Met Police’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology was dismissed, April 21, 2026

    ANTI-WAR groups have launched a letter campaign for the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley after “openly lying” about Palestine protesters.

    Signed by more than 1,300, the letter to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, and Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime chief executive Rena Laigie, warned that “Rowley must go.”

    Sir Mark claimed that the pro-Palestine march on May 16, which coincided with a far-right demonstration, posed a threat to the public and that it deliberately marched past synagogues.

    Stop the War Coalition and other organisers quickly debunked the statements and demanded corrections.

    “On 16 May, Mark Rowley allowed a far-right hate march led by known fascist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to go to Parliament while barring the Palestine movement from the political centre of London,” the letter reads.

    “The Metropolitan Police has failed to act on incidents of Islamophobia and incitement to violence on the far-right demo, while downplaying the size of the Palestine mobilisation.

    “Commissioner Rowley’s role as a politically neutral head of the Metropolitan Police has become untenable. We call on Rowley to resign his post immediately.”

    The letter can be signed on actionnetwork.org.

    The Met Police declined to comment.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/anti-war-groups-call-met-chief-resign

  • Morning Star calls on London Mayor to sack Met Police boss Mark Rowley

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    London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley. Image by Katie Chan, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license via wikimedia.
    London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley. Image by Katie Chan, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license via wikimedia.

    The Morning Star is calling on London Mayor Sadiq Khan to sack Met Police boss Mark Rowley

    Morning Star Editorial: Sadiq Khan must sack Mark Rowley

    MARK ROWLEY is fast becoming a menace to democracy in Britain. The country’s most powerful police officer is daily transgressing the limits — on partisanship, on political interference, on responsibility to all citizens — which have traditionally bounded the public interventions of leading state officials.

    Of course, those limits have often been honoured in the breach.  But the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has discarded all appearances of impartiality and, indeed, truthfulness.

    It has long been clear that he has a special animus for the Palestine solidarity movement. He has sought to restrict its demonstrations on the most specious grounds and arrest its organisers for entirely peaceful and responsible conduct.

    After the most notorious of such crackdowns, on the demonstration in January 2025, Rowley hastened to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which had been pushing for protest curbs, to receive an ovation from them the very next day.

    By contrast, he has consistently refused to meet the organisers of the protests. He has been zealous in arresting peaceful objectors to the Palestine Action proscription.

    Now he is deploying direct falsehoods in his attempt to rationalise a still more severe crackdown. He has accused the organisers of the huge demonstrations against Israel’s genocide of repeatedly seeking to march past synagogues.

    That is a lie, as Rowley knows. The campaign has never sought to march past synagogues nor protest outside them in any way. Had they done so, it would indeed have been a matter of concern.

    …

    Continues at Morning Star Editorial: Sadiq Khan must sack Mark Rowley