Hardeep Matharu

Nigel Farage responds to racism claims saying he never ‘tried to hurt anybody’ Reform leader denies racist or antisemitic behaviour ‘with intent’ at school, but says he can’t remember everything from 49 years ago

"Have I ever tried to take it out on any individual on the basis of where they're from? No. I have never directly really tried to go and hurt anybody".

If the press is giving Farage such a platform it must, as ITV News has done, scrutinise. That this isn't being reported prominently is astonishing.

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Always a good well balanced well researched read.

From Underground Man to Internet Man: Apocalyptic, Cleansing Violence – Byline Times Digital / Print Edition In 1976, Peter Jukes wanted to be Travis Bickle. A decade later, he realised the Taxi Driver anti-hero was a psychopath. Now he suspects Bickle’s dangerous saviour complex underpins the architecture o...

If you're still looking for good writing and journalism as the legacy newspapers continue their slide into the ooze, you could do a lot worse than sign up to Byline Times. This is just the most exceptionally good writing from @peterjukes.bsky.social ...

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Revelling in the latest edition of @bylinetimes.bsky.social

From the BBC to migration, Islamophobia to disability, our editor in chief @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social has done an amazing job tying up the Carousel of Scapegoats with the co-morbidity of current politics ➡️ subscribe.bylinetimes.com

It's simply to do with the mailing dates. The vast majority of our sales comes from subscribers. We have always communicated how much we appreciate and prioritise our subscribers. That is not, and has never been, and will never be, cynical.

When politics can provide no real solutions for people's lives, welcome to 'The Carousel of Scapegoats': distracting, psychological projection to make them feel 'better' – because the lives of 'others' can be made worse

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Yes, but personalities are only able to define structures if those structures are, to begin with, vulnerable. BBC is an establishment institution with many wide-ranging structural & political forces defining the role it, in reality, carries out. The personalities slot in & reinforce vulnerabilities

Robbie Gibb is, of course, at the centre of this all. But the job of any DG has to be to fight for the BBC's independence. Tim Davie failed in this, in my view. This is a structural problem, beyond personalities.

Outgoing BBC DG Tim Davie says the corporation needs to "fight for our journalism". It also needs to fight for its independence. The two are linked. Davie, a former Tory councillor candidate, has inadequately fought for reporting that actually scrutinises rather than simply 'reflects' back opinions.

Ha!

The thing about the moment we are in is we have been here before. During the Brexit Referendum campaign, the Johnson years, and now with Farage's ascent. Our established press has played a role in why we have got to this point in British politics. What's happening at the BBC now was an inevitability

Indeed! I'm the Editor-in-Chief of Byline Times 😊

Logo for live event by Byline Time featuring The Lure Of as text and the Byline Time masthead including the strapline What the Papers Don't Say

TONIGHT at The Cockpit! Byline Times is deep diving into the gnarly Lure of Class - conscious and otherwise. Ripe for discussion with all the public schoolboy shenanigans at the Beeb currently @bylinetimes.bsky.social

www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/the_lur...

A key victory in Trump's road to power in America was successfully branding the majority of its established press as "fake news". Now, he is bringing this across the pond to the BBC – where these same tactics are favoured by prominent politicians and media outlets on the right. A dangerous moment.

In my piece of June 2024, written as a person of colour, I said: "Because, for minorities like me, hearing one of Farage’s “ordinary folk” call the PM of this country a “f**cking P*ki” is no laughing matter. It is terrifying". No one else raised this at that time

bylinetimes.com/2024/06/28/t...

I absolutely do not believe this is simply an "organic" backlash to wokeism & do not think I presented it as that. As Editor-in-Chief of Byline Times for 6.5 years, so much of my work has highlighted all of the things you mention. This is an unfair comment, but I will leave it there.

As always, the story is how and why the media – particularly prominent broadcasters such as the BBC – are making certain choices as to which individuals, ideas, and views are platformed and how these are framed to the public.

The path ahead will be shaped by such decisions. The water we swim in...

With a little help from Bob Dylan… Why does Bob Dylan’s masterpiece, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’, keep playing in Paul Connew’s head as he tries to review the state of Britain’s political, media and public opinion landscape?

"Needless to say, copies of the Byline Times special issue have been circulating widely this week among the ranks of anti-Reform parties in the corridors of Westminster. The Gill case was also the main thrust of Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey's PMQs questions"

Having an impact – outside of the system 👇

Independent investigative journalism that truly sits outside of the established system allows the media-political class itself to be scrutinised. How can we understand the world we live in if we won't ask difficult questions of those framing it?

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Snippet of Byline Times, November 2025, pointing out how the British mainstream media has created a "perfect circle of self-perpetuating hype" around Nigel Farage, i.e. how his prominence in MSM feeds his popularity which in turn justifies further coverage, and so on. Author proposes that this is a predictable consequence of an industry that has restructured itself around virality.

Superb piece by @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social in this month's @bylinetimes.bsky.social mag: "Britain's Media Has Let Nigel Farage Reshape Political Journalism - Why?" This article alone was worth my annual sub to one of the very few news outlets still doing proper journalism

Worth a read
Bottom line we all need a sense of community
Doesn’t necessarily has to be rooted in hate of others
“Immigrants are the scapegoats they need. Everyone else just needs some humanity and help. Otherwise, we will remain strangers in a strange land -foreign to ourselves and to each other.”

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Congratulations to the hugely talented @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social - shortlisted for the Editors’ Editor 2025 Award by the British Society of Magazine Editors - and prized guest @bylinepodcast.bsky.social

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“Journalism: far from being a neutral arbiter of information, it has the … power to craft the ideas we think with, not just the ideas we think about”
@hardeepmatharu.bsky.social in this months @bylinetimes.bsky.social

@peterjukes.bsky.social
@adambienkov.bsky.social @josiah.writes.news

Show us you’re listening @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social by responding to this from @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social in this months @bylinetimes.bsky.social

Guessing you won’t …

@adambienkov.bsky.social @mrjamesob.bsky.social @hopenothate.org.uk @zackpolanski.bsky.social

I edited my first newspaper when I was 26 in 2014. 11 years on, a lovely surprise to be nominated for the 2025 Editors' Editor Award by The British Society of Magazine Editors for my work at Byline Times. A testament to the entire brilliant team @bylinetimes.bsky.social

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Byline Podcast: Nigel Farage's Putin Problem Adrian Goldberg discusses 'Nigel Farage's Putin Problem' - the headline story in the new Byline Times newspaper. He's joined by Byline Times executive editor Hardeep Matharu and executive editor Pe...

The press continues to elevate Farage & not properly scrutinise Reform. Meanwhile, the temperature of the water we swim gets hotter... Small boats, asylum, protests – what about those, for the first time, thinking of themselves & others in terms of race?

I discuss this with @peterjukes.bsky.social👇

Given how much the China spy case has dominated headlines, it really does beg the question: why is our political-media class so uninterested in Nathan Gill, his Russian bribes, his once close associate Nigel Farage, and Reform UK?

Our new Byline Times edition investigates what the media won't 👇