The Feed

Trail Hunting and Nigel Farage’s Latest Dress-Up Act

As Labour signals plans to ban trail hunting, arguing it is routinely used to circumvent the foxhunting ban, Nigel Farage has emerged as a vocal defender of the practice. The article examines the origins of trail hunting as a post-2004 workaround, the evidence that it has blurred into illegal hunting, and Farage’s role in recasting the issue as a symbolic fight over rural identity. It argues that his involvement prioritises performance and spectacle over legal clarity or animal welfare, turning a question of enforcement into another exercise in political dress-up.

Nigel Farage has thrown his support behind trail hunting as the government moves to close what critics say is a long-standing loophole in the foxhunting ban. His intervention leans heavily on imagery and identity, framing a legal question about animal welfare as a cultural battle over the countryside.

Opinion

Epstein Files Miss Deadline, Arrive Smothered in Redactions

A court-ordered, law-mandated release of Jeffrey Epstein-related records has arrived in public view looking less like transparency and more like a ransom note written in censor bars. The Justice Department says the redactions are necessary to protect victims and to review hundreds of thousands of pages, but lawmakers from both parties have accused the administration of slow-walking and selectively releasing material that spotlights rivals while leaving key investigative documents missing. Reuters noted the release contains only scant references to Trump, while Bill Clinton appears far more frequently in photos and materials, fuelling accusations that the production is as political as it is procedural. Trump has alternated between promising disclosure and dismissing the entire saga as a “SCAM” pushed by Democrats, while Bondi has publicly signalled eagerness to unseal grand jury transcripts — a move experts say may not answer the central question the public keeps asking: who else, if anyone, was involved, and why has so little ever been charged.

The Trump administration has released a heavily redacted tranche of Epstein-related files that critics say answers almost nothing while somehow finding time to make Trump barely visible. Officials insist the black ink is about protecting victims; sceptics say it’s also doing a remarkable job protecting the President.

FIFA Invents a Peace Prize for Trump After He Fails to Win the Real One

FIFA has awarded Donald Trump a newly created “Peace Prize” at a lavish ceremony in Washington, a move critics say has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with flattery. Announced just weeks before the event and handed to Trump after his failed bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, the award has been derided as an invented honour designed to soothe a bruised ego. FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s effusive praise, Trump’s self-congratulatory acceptance speech, and the moment he placed the medal around his own neck have fuelled accusations that the organisation has turned peace into a performative accessory, cheapening both the concept and its own claims of political neutrality.

After Donald Trump failed to secure the Nobel Peace Prize, FIFA quietly created its own “Peace Prize” and gave it to him anyway. The move has been widely mocked as a consolation award masquerading as global virtue.

Truss Unveils New Show: Because 49 Days in Office Wasn’t Enough Unhinged Content

Just over three years since her 49-day premiership imploded, Liz Truss has decided the public still needs her urgent truth — broadcast in her brand-new show, “The Liz Truss Show”. Deemed the “home of the counter-revolution,” the programme promises to tackle cultural decline, media groupthink and establishment betrayal, while positioning Truss as the lone warrior against Western collapse. 

In her own words: “the deep state tried to destroy me but now I’m back.” Critics are already queuing up popcorn. For many, the show is less “bold new programme” and more spectacle — a desperate grasp at relevance. A Guardian review summed up the first episode as “hapless ravings from a cupboard”, replete with conspiracy-tinged monologues and theatrical indignation. 

Whether Truss aims to launch a genuine political movement or simply chase clicks and cash, this feels like the kind of comeback tour you watch with dread and morbid curiosity in equal measure.

Britain’s shortest-serving former prime minister has re-emerged with what she calls The Liz Truss Show — a weekly rant against the “deep state,” mainstream media and basically anything that once stood for stability. It’s part grand comeback, part misplaced messiah complex, and entirely self-serving.

Tech

How Nepal’s Gen Z Used Discord to Elect a Prime Minister: Inside the World’s First Digital Power Transfer

When Nepal’s political system collapsed in 2025, no one expected that the leadership void would be filled not in parliament or a palace, but in a sprawling Discord server where thousands of young Nepalis debated, fact-checked, and ultimately voted for former Chief Justice Sushila Karki to lead an interim government. Now considered the world’s first mass digital election for a national executive figure, this article revisits how the “Youths Against Corruption” server became an improvised civic assembly, how its grassroots vote forced the state to recognise a digital mandate, and why global analysts continue to debate the implications for future governance.

In September 2025, Nepal became the first country in history to choose a head of government through a public vote on Discord. This retrospective examines how a youth-led digital movement filled a political vacuum and rewrote the rules of democratic legitimacy.

AI in 2026: The Year the Future Stops Waiting?

AI enters 2026 no longer as a promising technology but as a structural force reshaping economies, politics and everyday life. The US is pushing ahead with rapid deployment, the EU is tightening regulation to manage risk and the UK is positioning itself as a diplomatic bridge on AI safety. These diverging approaches highlight how global competition, education systems, labour markets and information environments are being transformed by increasingly capable artificial intelligence. With predictions of human-level and even superhuman systems this decade, governments are racing to balance opportunity and stability in a world where the pace of innovation now outstrips traditional policymaking.

As AI accelerates into 2026, the world’s major powers are scrambling to define their strategies. The US, EU and UK have taken sharply different paths, each reflecting contrasting philosophies on innovation, risk and geopolitical influence.

Reform Turns on the BBC After Years of Feasting on Its Airtime

For years, the BBC inflated Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s political profile far beyond their democratic weight, platforming them across television, radio, online news, and endless panel shows. Reform received more mentions per MP than any party in the country, with Farage himself becoming a near-permanent fixture on flagship programmes—despite holding only a handful of seats. But the instant Donald Trump launched a furious backlash over Panorama’s misleading edit of his January 6th speech, threatening legal action worth billions, Farage gleefully joined the assault. In a display of pure opportunism, Reform turned on the broadcaster that legitimised and amplified them, reframing years of favourable exposure as proof of persecution. This article explores the scale of the BBC’s role in boosting Reform, the contradictions in Farage’s crusade, and how Trump’s fury became the excuse Reform needed to fully attack the hand that fed it.

photo of New Broadcasting House by Alexander Svensson

Farage and Reform UK spent years feasting on lavish BBC exposure—more airtime, more coverage, and more manufactured relevance than any small party in modern British history. But the moment Donald Trump threatens a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit over the Panorama scandal, Reform immediately joins the attack, biting the very hand that built them.

Straight News

Trump’s $1bn BBC Threat Escalates His War on the Media

Donald Trump’s ultimatum to the BBC—retract a Panorama documentary or face a $1bn lawsuit—has become the most consequential flashpoint in a long-running battle that has reshaped press–government relations on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on public reporting, court filings, and regulatory decisions from July 2024 to November 2025, this analysis shows how Trump moved from campaign-trail attacks to a multi-front offensive: defamation suits against ABC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Penguin Random House and others; FCC manoeuvres targeting broadcasters; funding cuts for public media; and unprecedented efforts to bar outlets like AP and Reuters from covering White House events. The BBC dispute is not an anomaly, but the international extension of a strategy built on pressure, intimidation, and legal firepower.

President Trump’s extraordinary $1bn legal threat against the BBC marks the peak of a two-year confrontation with the media that has spanned lawsuits, regulatory pressure, and aggressive public attacks. A detailed timeline shows how his war on the press escalated from rhetoric to legal and political force.

Reform UK after the pivot: promises, pressure and the politics of retreat

Nigel Farage’s latest speech in London’s Banking Hall confirmed Reform UK’s transformation from insurgent movement to cautious fiscal player. Promises of sweeping tax cuts have been postponed in favour of appeasing the markets, with Farage admitting that “substantial tax cuts are not realistic at this current moment in time.” The shift recasts Reform as a pro-capital, pro-deregulation party, its “workers’ champion” image slipping away. Welfare pledges have softened, NHS reforms rely on staffing that Brexit helped drive out, and the climate policy U-turn is framed as growth strategy rather than ideology. The Institute for Fiscal Studies notes that Reform’s £90 billion in tax cuts and £50 billion in new spending depend on vast, uncosted reductions elsewhere. What remains is a paradox: a movement that once vowed to tear down the establishment now seeks its trust — promising discipline to financiers and patience to voters.

Nigel Farage’s move from anti-elite crusader to appeaser of the markets shows Reform UK’s evolution from rebellion to reassurance — a populism now desperate for establishment approval.

A Royal Rinse: Charles Scrubs Andrew, but the Stain Remains

After years of scandal, King Charles III has finally stripped Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, of all titles and booted him from his Windsor home — a move billed as a clean break for the monarchy. But behind the official statements and sympathetic nods to “victims,” the institution remains an unaccountable, publicly funded theatre of dysfunction. From Elizabeth and Margaret’s sisterly drama to Charles and Andrew’s modern banishment, the Windsors have long recycled the same moral pageant to stay relevant. This piece asks whether Britain’s royal family is anything more than an inherited soap opera — one financed by half a billion pounds a year, defended by nostalgia, and applauded by habit.

King Charles’s decision to banish Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, may look like moral hygiene, but it’s really a centuries-old pantomime: one royal falls, another redeems, and Britain keeps paying for the encore.

Stop the BOTS

Social-media bots have become key amplifiers of far-right narratives in Britain, flooding platforms with anti-migrant slogans, conspiracies and divisive commentary disguised as public opinion. Despite the UK’s robust legal armour — from the Online Safety Act to the National Security Act — enforcement lags behind a rapidly evolving digital threat. This investigation traces how bot networks manipulate discourse, how government and platforms are fighting back, and what more is needed to protect democratic conversation from algorithmic deceit.

As Britain’s far right chants “Stop the boats”, a more dangerous invasion is unfolding online. Armies of social-media bots are distorting debate, amplifying hate, and reshaping politics in their image — while regulation struggles to keep pace.

Labour’s Comms Are Glitching

After fourteen years of austerity, corruption and decline, Labour should be bursting with conviction, joy and purpose. Instead, their social media strategy seems to have been designed by an algorithm trained on committee minutes. This isn’t how you build a movement — it’s how you bore one to death.

For a party riding a once-in-a-generation wave of public exhaustion with Tory chaos, Labour’s communications manage to feel like reheated porridge. Where’s the hope, the energy, the point?

PressTorch Staff