The lawyers challenging Palestine Action’s proscription faced sustained pressure. The government’s case for the ban received a fraction of that scrutiny.
Andrew Gilligan has worked at the BBC, the Telegraph, the Sunday Times, City Hall and Downing Street. Today he writes for The Spectator and Policy Exchange, and his main subject is British Muslims. This dossier sets out his career, what he writes, what the NewsCord Watchdog found in it and the people he has written about.
On Monday Shabana Mahmood told MPs that the right to live in Britain for good must now be earned. Her rules sort people by their salary and by how they got here, and they apply to more than 500,000 people already living here. Kemi Badenoch proposed most of it first. Andy Burnham's Labour government is the one doing it.
Britain's papers have made the Board of Deputies the voice of British Jews on Palestine. They print its attacks on Palestine solidarity as the Jewish community's verdict, never tell readers its constitution commits it to "advance Israel's security, welfare and standing", and shut Palestinians out of stories about their own land.
Kévin T. admitted he chose his victims by how Muslim or African they looked, in a town he called "a haven for Islamists". We read 90 English-language articles from 41 outlets. They folded the killing into the protests, called it random, and 32 of the 41 never reported his confession.
In 115 of 199 English-language election reports we checked, Palestinian citizens of Israel were only ever "Arabs". Every leading candidate ran on denying Palestinians a state, a say in government or a home in Gaza. Here is what they posted, in their own words.
We examined 920 headlines about El-Sayed from 141 outlets and 740 stored articles. Fox and the Post carried the smear from August onwards and almost never told their readers it had nothing behind it. The charts compare headline subjects, who made the allegations and whether the articles assessed the evidence.
UKLFI has reported dozens of charities to Britain's regulators. Where we could find the outcome, the regulator found nothing against the charity in 11 cases out of 14. Its letters to hospitals, councils and colleges work better: Gaza children's art, nurses' badges and Palestinian flags have come down after them.
UN investigators found genocidal acts in Gaza since the 'ceasefire', and extermination, torture, rape and persecution in the West Bank. We counted every word of 15 reports. Israel's denial got 1,178 words. A Palestinian got 46, and he was defending the Palestinian Authority.
In our English-language sample, 35.1% of Brazil result headlines included the loser’s challenge, against 26.7% for Ecuador. Sky put Bolsonaro’s rejection in its headline and González’s below it. CBS buried the fact that both Brazilian campaigns had asked for extra voting time.
In December 2024 the Health Secretary met the Board of Deputies, whose constitution commits it to "advance Israel's security, welfare and standing", and the Jewish Medical Association asked him for IHRA. Ten months later the NHS adopted it, and the review went to Lord Mann, whose office a charity runs on £420,000 of uncompeted government grants. We followed the money.
The government said the man who wrote its antisemitism review was independent, with no conflict of interest. He was being paid by a government agency. In 2005 he singled out Muslim schools as a challenge to "our coherence as a nation", and a charity whose one firm policy is opposing boycotts of Israel has named him on its council since at least 2016. We followed the money.
Sir David Bell's review used it to say a view held by 45% of British adults, that Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated Jews, could be antisemitic. It was committed to the definition before it heard any evidence. A charity whose one firm policy is opposing boycotts of Israel lists Bell on its council. Four of 37 reports told readers what the definition says about Israel.
Between 1 and 20 October, 37 British national outlets covered one motion at one party conference. Israel's government alone got more words than every Palestinian put together, and 2,422 of the Palestinian words sat in stories tying the motion's author to al-Qaeda. Not one of 89 comment pieces backed the motion. Not one headline said genocide.
The protests began on 21 September at one school near Paris, over teaching posts nobody had filled. We read 734 English-language reports from 164 outlets. On the day 550,000 people marched, 73% led on the violence, 42% never said the marches were peaceful, and only two gave any number for injured protesters.
We read 4,858 BBC News pages published since 7 October 2023 and found every use of the word atrocity. When Hamas killed Israelis, the BBC used the word itself. When Israel killed Palestinians in Gaza, the BBC left the word to the UN, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam: 76 times, and every time as their words, never its own.
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