Declassified UK: What on earth is going on?
Posted: 1st March 2025
Laura Pidcock here. I wonder how many times we ask this every month about the state of the political system, both here in the UK and globally, in an attempt to garner clarity over the political decisions that are being made.
The latest revelations about increased military spending to 2.5% and then possibly 3% of GDP come at a time when there are 14.3 million people in poverty. The government has stated the increase in military spending will be funded by reducing Overseas Development Assistance but there will surely be pressure on other government departments too, the decision coming just in time for Starmer’s visit to Donald Trump.
In his announcement, Keir Starmer strongly referenced Ukraine and the threat from Russia. Here our Co-Director, Mark Curtis, looks at how both the increase in military spending and the agreement with Ukraine are platforms for the UK arms industry and, worryingly, key to the government’s strategy for growth.
Mainstream media
Des Freedman has written extensively about the way in which the mainstream media are beating the drums of war and asks ‘When did you last see someone interviewed on the BBC who opposed spending more money on the military?’ Anti-war perspectives are being squeezed out of the mainstream with fervent militarism dominating.
Hamza Yusuf has written a truly revelatory investigation exclusively interviewing half a dozen current and former staff at the BBC, Sky, ITN, the Guardian and the Times, about the extent of anti-Palestinian prejudice in their newsrooms.
This, taken together with Mark Curtis’s previous investigation into the BBC and its failure to report on the various ways the UK has supported Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, builds a shocking picture about the mainstream media and their coverage of Israel’s brutality against Palestinians.
Gaza
Importantly at Declassified we continue to investigate the UK’s approach towards Israel and assess the extent to which the UK government is complicit in the destruction of Gaza.
Mark Curtis asks here why Israeli military aircraft have been landing at the Royal Air Force’s main base in Oxfordshire and questions if they were carrying arms.
Whilst a ceasefire is in place, Declassified has found that the Royal Air Force have operated surveillance flights near Gaza on the days that Hamas has released hostages. This article asks: Is the UK Spying on Hamas for Israel? You can see Mark & Phil Miller, our editor, also discuss the article here.
Just four days after 77 attendees of the demonstration organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign to commemorate the ‘victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza’ were arrested, a high-ranking Israeli military general was given special diplomatic immunity from arrest for war crimes, the UK government confirms, as explained by John McEvoy here.
Read the exclusive details of how a senior British soldier is leading a UK military delegation to Israel here.
What else?
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Here is just a taste of some of the interviews this month:
Watch: this fascinating interview with Mark Curtis & the UN’s Francesca Albanese where they explore how complicit is the UK in Gaza’s genocide.
“International law is proving more and more ineffective by the day, and this is a situation in which everyone loses because we are embracing… or we have entered a lawless world.” - Francesca Albanese, International Lawyer & United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Watch: Antony Loewenstein on Israel’s SHOCKING use of Palestinians to test weapons for the West.
Watch: me assess the prime minister’s anger at Gazans getting a visa to enter Britain and how it demonstrates his double standards on Ukrainian and Palestinian refugees.
Every month our team brings you brave, honest journalism. We do this because journalism should be truth seeking, but we also feel a responsibility to cover things that the mainstream media won’t.
Your support is truly valued and contributes to uncovering stories which would ordinarily be buried under corporate and political interests.
Yours sincerely,
Laura Pidcock
Co-Director Declassified.
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