‘How Beverley Turner Found a Home on Right-Wing TV’ by Ryan Soames—guest blogger

For the majority of her media career, Beverley Turner was remarkably uncontroversial. Her politics, insofar as they were visible at all, were mainstream and largely unremarkable. What changed was not a sudden, internal ideological "awakening" but the pushback she encountered from specific corners of the UK media and public when she began criticising COVID-19 lockdown measures, and the choices she made in response.

Turner first drew significant backlash in 2021, when she appeared as a guest on ITV’s This Morning. She clashed with presenter Dermot O’Leary after claiming that COVID-19 vaccines were not fully effective and suggesting that younger people might consider refusing them. Following the segment, she was reportedly banned from returning to the programme. A subsequent appearance on the Jeremy Vine Show sparked hundreds of Ofcom complaints. Turner later shared a video of herself crying, describing the experience as being “ambushed”.

These episodes highlight the reputational risks of dissent in mainstream media. Yet Turner’s response was not merely defensive: she eventually moved to platforms like GB News, which amplified opposition to COVID-19 measures and rewarded a more confrontational, oppositional style.

Media ecosystems are not neutral; they shape incentives, tone and identity. Once embedded within a partisan environment, a broadcaster is rewarded for alignment rather than nuance. Over time, heterodox positions can solidify into coherent ideological identities. Turner’s trajectory illustrates how structural incentives and personal choices intersect: while she faced pushback, she also embraced and cultivated the reactionary, grievance-driven style rewarded by sympathetic platforms.

Her early opposition to lockdowns evolved into a broader posture of institutional hostility, and in recent months, she has publicly expressed views that align with far-right talking points, such as supporting Donald Trump uncritically, and supporting his controversial use of ICE agents in Minneapolis. These choices show that she is no longer a marginal figure caught in a media vise; she is an active participant in a polarised, ideologically extreme discourse.

This process reflects a recognisable sequence:

1. Moral exclusion or public backlash in response to controversial positions.

2. Opportunities in partisan media that reward outrage and reinforce identity.

3. Adoption of broader ideological stances, often amplified by audience and platform incentives.

Turner is less an anomaly than a case study in how personal choices interact with structural pressures. Early ostracism does not excuse or justify her current views, but it helps explain the pathway by which dissenting voices can become entrenched in extreme positions. The lesson is not about her as a victim; it is about how polarised media environments create conditions where extremes thrive, and moderate voices are either pushed aside or radicalised.

Beverley Turner did not begin her career as a far-right figure. She has, however, chosen to embrace that role. The structural pressures of media ecosystems may have shaped the trajectory, but her current ideological stance is the result of conscious alignment, not mere circumstance.

‘From Analyst to Advocate: The Polarising Journey of Matthew Goodwin’ by Robert Miller—guest blogger

Matthew Goodwin, a former academic and political scientist, who held a professorship at Kent University, and is now a presenter on GB News, has had a career that has not been without controversy. 

Critics accuse him of being an advocate for populism's more extreme tendencies, with many questioning the objectivity of his work in that field. They argue that his interpretations of data and trends are often overly simplistic and tailored to fit a particular narrative, lacking the nuance required to fully understand complex political phenomena. These concerns are seen as casting a shadow over his contributions to the field, suggesting that his work might prioritise sensationalism over scholarly rigour.

A contentious aspect of his career is his shifting stance on immigration. In 2013, he argued that Britain had extensively debated immigration and that further stoking of public anger would destabilise the political system. This position was in line with calls for a balanced and measured approach to immigration policy. 

However, a decade later, he reversed his position, advocating for a more aggressive anti-migrant campaign and urging the government to mimic the hardline stance of US Republicans. This volte-face has been criticised as pandering to xenophobic sentiments and abandoning earlier calls for moderation. The shift has been viewed by some as a response to the increasing influence of nationalist and populist movements within British politics, as well as a strategic move to align with the more radical elements of his audience.

In his book Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, he argues that the UK’s elite is disconnected from the conservative instincts of the majority and that cultural institutions are dominated by cosmopolitan values that suppress dissent. His framing of these issues often aligns with reactionary identity politics, which critics argue distorts the true nature of Britain’s socio-political landscape. Of this, Oliver Eagleton said in The New Statesman on 25 March 2023:

“When setting out these positions, Goodwin often sounds like a duller Piers Morgan. Yet, unlike Morgan, he tends to obscure his most unpalatable opinions behind a dense thicket of polling data—distancing himself from their pernicious implications by informing us that this is simply what the average Red Wall voter thinks.”

Eagleton notes that while Goodwin acknowledges economic factors in the rise of populism, he primarily frames it as a cultural conflict between traditionalism and progressivism, often subordinating class issues to national identity. By emphasising cultural liberalism as the primary driver of populist sentiments, his analysis is said to overlook material grievances that have equally influenced political outcomes. This approach has sparked debate within the academic community, with some scholars arguing that it oversimplifies the relationship between economic hardship and political radicalisation. His critics argue that this perspective fails to account for the nuanced ways in which economic factors and cultural values intersect, thereby limiting the potential for comprehensive solutions to the challenges posed by populism.

Given these concerns, Goodwin’s influence in the field of political science is not without its challenges. His evolving stance on key issues, such as immigration, and his tendency to emphasise cultural rather than economic factors in his analysis have raised questions about the consistency and objectivity of his work.

His approach, which often aligns with reactionary viewpoints, suggests a potential prioritisation of sensationalism over nuanced understanding. As a result, these factors impact the perceived credibility and scholarly value of his research.

Sleep as a Rehearsal for Death

I’ve been thinking lately about dreamless sleep. Not the dreaming state, but the period where nothing at all is experienced. I think that state has something important to tell us about death.

Most people who don’t believe in an afterlife fear death because they fear “annihilation”: the idea of becoming nothing, of there being nothing after. Yet, when we look at it rationally, that fear relies on a strange assumption: that there will still be someone there to experience the nothingness. In other words, it asks us to imagine ourselves existing in a state where we cannot exist, which is paradoxical.

Dreamless sleep is the closest thing we know to genuine non-experience. When we wake from it, we don’t remember hours of darkness or being in “nothingness”. We are aware only of a discontinuity: one moment we are awake at night, the next we are awake in the morning. The interval itself is not experienced

This shows that non-experience cannot be experienced. The fear of annihilation depends on imagining ourselves enduring nothingness, but dreamless sleep demonstrates that nothingness isn’t an experience at all. So it cannot be feared, it cannot be remembered and it cannot exist as a conscious state. It is a kind of absolute neutrality, beyond the reach of thought or sensation.

Interestingly, we already practice “dying” every night when we sleep. We lie down, let go of control and allow consciousness to dissolve, without fearing annihilation. In sleep, we surrender ourselves to an interval that is unexperienced yet essential to life. It is a small rehearsal for what awaits us at the end of life, a reminder that the cessation of awareness is not inherently terrifying.

This does not, of course, remove all the fears surrounding death. We feel sadness at leaving loved ones behind, regret unfulfilled ambitions, and so on. These fears are understandable because they are located in the living mind; in consciousness that cares and remembers. But it does remove the specific terror of annihilation, the imagined torment of being trapped in nothingness. That fear is, as has been mentioned, only frightening if we assume non-experience could somehow be experienced—which is a logical impossibility.

Viewed this way, then, death is not an experience waiting for us at the end of life. It is the end of experience itself. What troubles us belongs to the living mind, on this side of consciousness. Beyond that, there is nothing: no fear, no awareness, only the absence of both. And perhaps that is not something to fear, but something profoundly simple: a return to the dreamless state of sleeping that we pass through each night.

'The Greenland Deal is No Deal at All' by Alastair Leacock—guest blogger

The recent so-called “Greenland deal” is being framed by MAGA as an example of Donald Trump’s hard-nosed deal-making. In reality, it illustrates the opposite. The United States ends up with exactly what it already had: continued access to military bases and mineral resources. Greenland retains full sovereignty. No new concessions are extracted, no leverage is converted into gains and no strategic breakthrough occurs. By any serious definition of power or negotiation, that is not a win.

Trump’s objective was to access minerals and increase the number of military bases, yet those were already in place before his intervention. The U.S. has long maintained a military presence in Greenland and had cooperation with Denmark and Greenlandic authorities. If the goal was leverage—using pressure or spectacle to extract something new—that effort failed outright. Nothing material changed. Rebranding the outcome afterward as “The Art of the Deal” does not alter the facts on the ground.

Some people have suggested that the arrangement could elevate U.S. bases in Greenland to the status of “sovereign U.S. soil”. Even if that were true (which has not been established) it would still represent little more than a legal technicality. In practice, foreign military bases almost never constitute transferred sovereignty; they remain host-state territory subject to special jurisdictional agreements. Where limited sovereign base areas do exist, as in rare historical cases, they rarely alter real power on the ground, because operational control already existed beforehand. The United States already exercised exclusive military control over its Greenland bases and already projected force from them. Formalising that control in legal language would not create new leverage, new capabilities or new concessions. At most, it would convert an existing reality into a symbolic designation—administrative clarification, not strategic gain.

History judges outcomes, not intentions or rhetoric. The outcome here is straightforward: no transfer of sovereignty, no additional concessions, no expansion of U.S. control and no tangible benefits beyond the status quo. Declaring that such an outcome was inevitable or desirable after the fact does not transform failure into success. Greenland keeps control and the United States gains nothing extra. That is the textbook definition of a failed threat, not strategic wisdom.

The Greenland episode produced no shift in sovereignty and no meaningful renegotiation of terms. It did, however, reinforce a basic lesson: bluster without follow-through does not create power. When threats are issued and nothing changes, the credibility of future threats erodes. That is not a strength—it is a cost.

Power that exists only in rhetoric fades quickly. Power that produces concrete results endures. By that standard, the Greenland episode was not a triumph of deal-making—it was a reminder that noise is not leverage, and threats without results are not strategy.

‘The Psychological Legacy of Fred Trump on His Son’ by Ryan Soames—guest blogger

Fred Trump did not raise Donald Trump in isolation. All of his children were brought up within the same psychological environment: authoritarian, success-obsessed, emotionally withholding and openly contemptuous of weakness. Love was conditional and approval was earned. So Trump was not uniquely targeted. What made him different was how he adapted to this.

The pivotal figure here is Fred Trump Jr., Trump’s older brother. He was temperamentally different: he was reflective, emotionally open and less interested in domination. He wanted a different life.

The response from his father was: belittlement, withdrawal of approval and eventual ostracism. This led Fred Jr. to descend into alcoholism and an early death. Trump witnessed what happened to Fred Jr. and saw that resistance does not lead to freedom; it leads to death. Trump, therefore, did not submit to his father out of fear or passivity but out of calculation.

He recognised what the system rewarded and chose to embody it fully. Toughness, bravado, aggression and winning at all costs. In doing so, he did not merely comply with but over-identified with his father. He became louder, harsher and more extreme than his father.

Psychologically, this is known as “identification with the aggressor”. It is not weakness; it is a survival strategy that offers safety through imitation of power. The child adopts the worldview of the dominant figure completely.

So Trump was not manipulated in the conventional sense. He was not gullible, docile or suggestible. Instead, he was conditionable: quick to detect power dynamics, rewards and threats; and willing to remodel himself to dominate within them.

Fred Trump did not need to control Trump directly for long. Once the rules were internalised, external control became redundant. Approval followed dominance, dominance followed imitation and imitation became identity. The result is a man who appears fiercely independent, yet operates according to an internalised code he has never seriously questioned.

This upbringing produced a lasting psychological contradiction. Trump shows intense resistance to criticism, constraint or authority imposed from outside. Institutions, laws, norms; and even reality itself are treated as negotiable if they threaten his dominance.

At the same time, he remains deeply loyal to the internalised values of his father’s world: hierarchy, zero-sum thinking and contempt for vulnerability. That loyalty is invisible to him because it feels like self-hood rather than inheritance.

Trump was not moulded by manipulation alone, nor was he simply a victim of his upbringing. He was the child who “adapted perfectly” to a brutal value system and was rewarded for doing so.

And once that delivered power, protection and success, it never loosened its grip.

'How Grokipedia’s Information on Trump Favours Trump' by Alastair Leacock—guest blogger

Grokipedia is presented as an impartial AI-powered encyclopaedia, but its entry on Donald Trump shows that is is has programmed editorial biases rather than neutral reasoning.

The Trump entry details purported accomplishments and ongoing initiatives, including executive orders, policy achievements and electoral victories, even projecting into 2025–2026. For instance, it describes Trump’s second presidency with highly specific interventions, such as a proposed $1.5 trillion military budget, nationwide freezes on federal hiring and complex cryptocurrency initiatives, all presented as completed facts. These claims are implausible within a real-world timeline and illustrate Grokipedia’s tendency to inflate successes while attributing ongoing or speculative events as historical.

Also, legal and political controversies are framed in ways that downplay their severity or suggest bias against Trump. For example, indictments and civil judgements are described as “politically motivated” or “biased”, even when accompanied by factual outcomes. For instance, the Mueller investigation and impeachment episodes are recounted with emphasis on Trump’s exoneration or partial vindication, while criticism from opponents is framed as partisan or unverified.

It also frequently cites highly precise statistics on voter demographics, election outcomes and policy impacts that reinforce a positive image. Examples include claims that Trump received 57% of Hispanic voters and 13% of Black voters in 2024, or that certain tariffs and executive orders produced large, specific economic benefits. These figures are implausibly precise and lack verifiable sources, suggesting a mechanism to give credibility to favourable narratives while avoiding facts.

Promotional language is also frequently used, describing Trump as the architect of a “golden age” and the leader who delivered the “first Republican popular vote victory since 2004”. Such framing encourages readers to see him as heroic or exceptional rather than presenting events neutrally.

These patterns suggest that Grokipedia operates less like a neutral AI and more like a curated, ideologically slanted aggregator. It collects and reformulates information from existing sources and adds speculative content as if it were factual. This can mislead by blurring fact, speculation and advocacy, making it unreliable for controversial subjects.

Overall, Grokipedia’s coverage of Donald Trump shows that it is programmed to present information through a partisan lens, particularly for polarising figures, where selective emphasis and speculative projections dominate.

'The New York Post's False Claims About Renee Nicole Good' by Robert Miller—guest blogger

Recent coverage in certain outlets, including a New York Post article, has painted a distorted picture of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis mother tragically killed by a federal ICE agent on 7 January, 2026. A careful review of reporting from multiple reputable sources shows that many claims in that story are unverified or false.

Renee Nicole Good, age 37, was shot during an ICE enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. She was a mother of three and a poet, with no known history of violent activism. Federal authorities assert the shooting was in self-defence, while some local witnesses have questioned the circumstances. The investigation is ongoing.

Debunking the False Claims

1. “Anti-ICE warrior” and “trained to resist federal agents”

The Post described Good as a militant activist trained to confront ICE agents. There is no evidence from credible reporting to support this. Family members and community sources describe her as a compassionate parent, not an organised protester or militant. No public records or independent reporting confirm that she received any formal training to resist law enforcement.

2. Involvement through a charter school pushing activism

The article claimed Good became involved with ICE Watch through her child’s school, which it described as politically radical. Reliable reporting confirms that the Southside Family Charter School emphasises social consciousness, but there is no evidence connecting Good’s school involvement with organised resistance to ICE operations. This appears to be speculative and anecdotal.

3. Organized confrontations and calls to violence

The Post alleged that ICE Watch and aligned groups encouraged barricading streets or ramming ICE vehicles. Independent sources confirm that some community groups monitor ICE activity, but there is no verified evidence that Good participated in violent actions, and claims of systematic coordination are unsubstantiated.

4. Claims of a 3,200% spike in attacks on ICE agents

The article cited a dramatic increase in vehicular attacks against federal agents. No government or reputable independent sources support this specific statistic. It appears to be an exaggerated figure not grounded in verified data. 

While the circumstances of Good’s death are still under investigation, the confirmed facts are: she was killed during an ICE operation, she was a mother of three and accounts of her actions immediately before the shooting are disputed. Assertions about her being a trained activist or participating in violent anti-ICE campaigns are unsupported by evidence.

‘Operation Mincemeat’: A film in Need of Suspense

Operation Mincemeat (2022) tells the true story of the British intelligence plan to deceive Nazi Germany during World War II by planting false documents on a corpse. The historical operation itself is clever and consequential, yet the film fails to maintain the tension that made the earlier film adaptation of the story The Man Who Never Was (1956) superior. This weakness is due to the absence of a suspenseful subplot the 1956 film had.

In The Man Who Never Was, the character Patrick O’Reilly (a German agent sent to London to find out if the British are planning a deception or not) transforms the narrative from a procedural TV-style detective “whodunit” into a tense thriller. The viewer experiences the operation not just as a dry outlining of a strategy but as a dangerous gamble. If O’Reilly discovers the deception, the entire Allied plan could collapse. This subplot gives the story a palpable, almost Hitchcockian suspense, grounding the abstract stakes of espionage in real-time danger. Without it, the tension becomes theoretical rather than real.

The 2022 film, though historically accurate, focuses mainly on the War Cabinet’s planning and the interpersonal relationships between the characters, who are largely uninteresting. Also dialogue-heavy scenes dominate the film, and whilst attempts are made to move the story beyond office walls, the film largely remains a series of meetings, briefings and document exchanges. Any suspense relies entirely on the waiting game: will the Germans believe the ruse? This results in what is essentially a “1970s British television play” with a big budget.

Some have defended this choice by emphasising historical accuracy. No German agent actually came to London to investigate. Yet good storytelling requires more than strict adherence to fact; it also requires tension and conflict. In the 1956 film, artistic license produced a story that was gripping. Operation Mincemeat, however, leaves the viewer watching a clever plan unfold with limited emotional investment.

The result is that viewers wanting the thrill of espionage might find the film monotonous.