Our new Prime Minister is desperate to present himself as an ordinary, football-watching, pint-sinking bloke. He even took to Instagram to tell us he calls a bread roll a “barm”, writes Arthur Reynolds for The Critic. No matter how patronising I find this latter-day Bill Shankly routine, if the polls are to be believed, it’s tempting some wavering voters back into the Labour fold. However, the working-class communities Burnham’s targeting may baulk at the company he’s kept. As Mayor of Greater Manchester and in opposition, he repeatedly embraced figures and organisations that, at best, promoted a polarising politics of Muslim victimhood. Read more on The Critic. Related… The Guardian: Burnham calls for ‘toxic’ Prevent strategy to be scrapped

Prevent Watch responds to Home Office Prevent statistics published today. Home Office figures released today show a record 10,293 Prevent referrals — yet the majority of those referred had no ideology of any kind, and most cases were closed without any action. More than half of those referred were children, some of primary school age, and a striking proportion were autistic or living with mental ill-health. The programme has been turned inside out. The threat Prevent was built around — so-called ‘Islamist extremism’ — now barely features in its own caseload, while the largest group of people it processes fit no ideological category at all. Dr Layla Aitlhadj, Director, Prevent Watch, said: “These record numbers are a record failure — but instead of admitting it, the Government has relabelled these cases as ‘complex’, turning the programme’s failure into the justification for its expansion.” “Record referrals are proof the programme has […]