The Bylines Network - related to but not controlled by the Byline Times, as both are now eager to stress - is the latest leftwing organisation to get a bundle of cash from the government. £266,221 to be precise, so that it can continue covering local news.
I have looked at every article published by the ten local Byline websites in the last seven days. There are articles about the Spanish elections, Iran, Sudan and the US midterms (“Congratulations to us all, Everywhere!”). There are several articles about rejoining or more closely aligning with the EU. There are articles about drones, gardens, the Second World War, climate change, Nigel Farage, misogyny, birds of prey, VAR, autism and how to throw an environmentally friendly party.
Some of this has a local angle, but most of it does not, and there is not very much of any of it. Central Bylines and Kent & Sussex Bylines haven’t published anything in the last week. West England Bylines hasn’t published any local news since 3 November when it announced a day of action from Extinction Rebellion. The closest Bylines East Anglia has got to regional news gathering in the last week is an article “based on a press release by the National Trust” about some ponds being restored (it also has an article about saving energy “based on a press release from Our Power Community Energy, compiled with assistance from AI tools”). The only news specific to Wales on the Bylines Cymru website, aside from an article about an eagle being reintroduced, involves Brexit and is written by the Secretary of the pro-EU campaign group Wales for Europe. Bylines North-West has done a better job of local journalism insofar as it has reported that the Queer Youth Summit will be coming to Manchester in 2027.
Something called the Gambling Policy Commission suddenly appeared this week, with the announcement that it will be launching "an independent review of UK gambling laws and regulations".
NEW: A group of leading economists and experts has today launched an independent review of UK gambling laws and regulations, alongside an open call for evidence. The Gambling Policy Commission comes over 20 years after the publication of the Budd Report and the introduction of the 2005 Gambling Act. It is comprised of former advisers to the Bank of England, HM Treasury, the Independent Football Regulator and the Social Mobility Commission. Read more: https://t.co/aFkADHlv48
— Gambling Policy Commission (@gampolcom) November 9, 2026
Seed funding for the Gambling Policy Commission has been philanthropically provided by Derek Webb.
Members of the Commission have been drawn from a range of backgrounds, including economics, law, public policy, health, academia and sport. They are: Philippe Auclair, Professor Chris Bojke, Peter Kellner CBE, Professor Lindsey Macmillan, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, Dr James Noyes, Professor Janet O’Sullivan and Thomas Savill.
The group is chaired by Jagjit Chadha OBE, professor of economics at the University of Cambridge. James Reade, professor of economics at the University of Reading, is serving as the Commission’s chief economist.
Chadha, Savil and Noyes are all directors of the similarly named Gambling Policy Committee, a limited company set up in March to manage the money which, by the look of it, will all be coming from the ubiquitous Mr Webb.
The Guardian's racing correspondent Greg Wood has written about the GPC, treating it as a quasi-official organisation and not mentioning Webb's involvement. He urges the racing industry to participate in it. This strikes me as bad advice. The anti-gambling lobby cannot be appeased or bargained with. No one can stop Webb from having his little show trial but consumers and the industry should be wary of giving it legitimacy and credibility by participating. It will not have any bearing on the GPC's conclusions, which will inevitably be to ban, ban and ban. It will just allow them to say that consumers and industry were heard during the process.
In 2017, the parliamentary commissioner for standards rebuked the APPG on FOBTs for trying to pass off a self-published report as an official House of Commons publication. The bookmakers were invited to take part in that charade but wisely refused, describing it as a "kangaroo court". A cordon sanitaire around Webb's latest venture would also be sensible.
The Science Media Centre (SMC) has been a lifeline for journalists in need of a quote since it was formed in 2002. It emails expert opinion about embargoed studies and publishes a list of expert comments on its website for the public to view. The comments are sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Sometimes the experts disagree with each other, but the SMC provides some useful perspective.
The SMC has occasionally received flak for amplifying the views of experts who don’t go along with the latest craze. The Guardian has been having a pop at it ever since it voiced criticisms of a BBC documentary attacking genetically modified crops in 2002 which happened to have been co-written by its editor. In 2023, the Guardian got its knickers in a twist after five professors made some fairly obvious criticisms of the ultra-processed food panic at an SMC event. It turned out that some of these nutritional scientists had “links” to — hold on to your hats — the food industry!
These manufactured controversies provide the backdrop for a study published last week titled “Does the Science Media Centre promote pro-corporate views of science? An analysis of SMC funding, governance and expert commentaries on public health research”. Most of its six authors have dedicated their careers to researching the “commercial determinants of health” — an ideological outpost of “public health” academia which takes a dim view of the free market and sees the hidden hand of big business in everything.
The SMC is funded by universities, academic publishers, charities, media outlets, government agencies and companies. In 2023, its biggest funders were the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, UK Research and Innovation, Springer Nature and the Wellcome Trust. The authors of the study are not interested in these organisations and focus instead on the “health harming industries” that also donate to the SMC. Under their expansive definition of “health harming”, these include Diageo (alcohol), BP (oil), Nestlé (food), Danone (infant formula) and CropLife International (pesticides and plant biotechnology).
Read the rest at The Critic (no paywall). There is a twist in the tale.
As I say in The Critic piece, they do not have the slightest interest in assessing whether the comments made by experts in SMC Rapid Responses are true or not. All they care about is whether a comment is “pro-industry”. Anything “pro-industry” is portrayed as inherently suspect. Like much of their “research”, this study has one aim: to discredit anyone who does not toe the extremist ideological line of the authors.
Science is the pursuit of truth. If an academic is not interested in truth and only cares about a perceived power struggle between goodies and baddies, they are not scientists. They are activists.
It's out! Here's a sample...
In a letter to Health Secretary Yvette Cooper, 55 experts said that the evidence from Scotland and Wales, where MUP has already been introduced, is “clear and compelling” as it called for England to adopt the policy.
“MUP is a proven policy that targets the cheapest drinks linked to the greatest harm, protects health, and eases pressure on public services.”
The policy was introduced in Wales in 2020, with the authors highlighting how this led to the “removal of cheap, high strength products associated with the highest levels of harm from the market”.
Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said that England “is in danger of becoming the UK’s alcohol harm outlier” as alcohol deaths in England continue to rise.
I was on Geoff Norcott's podcast What Most People Think again this week, talking about Andy Burnham, leaving the IEA, vaping, smoking, folic acid and more. Geoff's a great man and I enjoy his pod. Hopefully, we'll get him on Last Orders again soon.
You can watch it here and listen to it in all sorts of ways, such as here.
I was on the (relatively) new Guido Fawkes Show talking about sin taxes in the Budget, what bans I'd scrap and British Summer Time. All the old favourites. You can catch up below.
