Ramzy Alwakeel

Lewisham, where that ^ development is, was actually one of the councils that didn't know how many social rent homes it had approved.

Another of those was Bradford, which took 18 weeks to admit to one of its own members that didn't have the data.

50% of councils approved zero social rent homes in six months Data from 119 English councils shows that council houses made up just 6% of planning approvals in Labour’s first half-year in office

Coincidentally, 98 homes out of 1,700 is just under 6% – which is also the % of social rent homes among all the units given planning permission across 119 councils between July 2024 and January 2025 (we haven't crunched more recent data).

Yes, that isn't very many.

hyphenonline.com/2025/05/19/h...

Unfortunately The i Paper is making several reporters redundant today, and my role is one of them.

I'm very proud of the work I've published over the last three years, and I'm looking forward to continuing my reporting freelance.

Want to chat? Drop me an email, text or DM.

1,700 South London homes approved plus tiered parks and streets Lewisham Council has approved the plans despite it containing only 98 social rent homes, while 10,000 people sit on the housing waiting list

Excellent to see a planning story that pulls out – in the subhead no less! – a figure for social rent homes, not the nebulous category of "affordable". (Less excellent is the figure itself.)

www.mylondon.news/news/south-l...

ah yes the old Elizabeth Line line situation

I just reverse image searched this to see if I could find the original and of course an AI summary came up before the actual results. But ... does this suggest that AI can understand and translate its own slop back into English??

Your party, with 'party' in lower case, in a headline

Your Party, with 'Party' capped up, in a headline

Your Party, with 'Party' capped up, in a headline

Surely there is no coming back for the curious Guardian style ruling on capping down political parties (Labour party, Conservative party, etc) when it comes to Your Party. Looks like they did it once then gave up

Islamophobia working group submits proposals to government Shaista Gohir, part of the group working on a definition of Islamophobia, says attacks on members are intended to scare government

BREAKING: A crossbench peer who was among five independent experts tasked with producing an Islamophobia definition has issued a warning as the group submits its proposals to the government.

Story by @lucascumiskey.bsky.social 👇

hyphenonline.com/2025/10/13/i...

‘Egyptian is the most wanted’: inside the world of Arabic dubbing The people behind our favourite characters – Bluey to Captain Majid – rarely appear on screen, but you’ll recognise their voices

*LOVE* this feature by @leilalatif.bsky.social about the voice actors who dub the Arabic versions of films & cartoons. If you've ever looked at the dubbing credits for a million languages at the end of a Netflix show and wondered who all those people are, read this!

hyphenonline.com/2025/10/07/v...

Dalton mosque: town unites against anti-mosque protests - Hyphen Plans for the South Lakes Islamic Centre in Dalton-in-Furness have attracted the ire of Britain First and Nick Tenconi

A rare bit of (sort of) actual nice positive news about people not being racist? hyphenonline.com/2025/10/07/s...

Peacehaven mosque arson attack ‘followed months of abuse’ - Hyphen Police are appealing for information about the attack on Peacehaven Mosque in East Sussex, which saw the entrance set alight

Muslims in Peacehaven have been left ‘terrified’ following an arson attack on their mosque, a manager has said.

Full story by Saman Javed.
hyphenonline.com/2025/10/06/p...

Screenshotted text reads: Criticising the idea that “you can’t be part of this country because you’re different colour”, he said: “I was born here. I would hope I’m making a contribution by being in public service.” The government this week said migrants would have to spend time volunteering in order to earn indefinite leave to remain — including those who work in public services — but Khan would not be drawn on commenting directly about these plans.

Also an ?accidental drive-by on the principles underlying the government's planned change to indefinite leave to remain, which would see people forced to spend time volunteering (even though many already work mad hours in public services) in order to be eligible.

Wajid Khan says government must tackle hate against Muslims Former faith minister said Britain needed to celebrate the contributions of migrants and warned against scrapping anti-Islamophobia work

🔴 In his first interview since leaving the role of faith minister, Wajid Khan speaks to @sajeraj.bsky.social about tackling racism, celebrating the contributions of migrants, and why the government shouldn't shelve its anti-Islamophobia work.

hyphenonline.com/2025/10/01/w...

Two-child benefit cap: data reveals impact on Muslim children Labour MPs and party’s Muslim network add to pressure on ministers to axe two-child benefit cap in light of Hyphen’s findings

The two-child benefit cap helps keep poor people poor and disproportionately affects British Muslim families. Scrapping it (as govt is reported to be doing) is vastly better news for Britain than anything that's been announced at Labour conference.

hyphenonline.com/2025/06/02/t...

Winner Jess O'Thomson for their submission to the inaugural Indie Media Maverick Awards in the category of Digital Journalism.

Feels a bit egregious to post about awards two days in a row, but I have just found out I was nominated for – and have won – an independent journalism award for my reporting following the Supreme Court decision in For Women Scotland for @wearequeeraf.com

Thank you!

Congratulations! That's fantastic news and very well deserved. Great to see.

A bar graph headed 'profiting from war?' with the explanation text: Investments held by six sharia-compliant funds in firms benefiting from Israel's war in Gaza and the occupation economy as of most recent reporting periods in September 2025. The bar marked 'Microsoft' is the largest, with $718m worth of shares held by different Islamic investment funds.

3/ As you can see here, these funds' investments in Microsoft dwarf the amounts they have tied up in other companies we investigated. Muslims we spoke to were pretty outraged that the Israeli war machine was benefiting them through what they had thought were sharia-compliant financial products.

Halal investments ‘unknowingly’ profiting from war in Gaza Sharia-compliant funds including the HSBC Islamic Global Equity Index have more than $1bn tied up in firms such as Microsoft and Alphabet

2/ @hyphenonline.com revealed this week these funds had >$1bn of shares in firms including Microsoft that had been aiding the Israeli military – meaning investors were in effect profiting from the destruction of Gaza.

Story by @lucascumiskey.bsky.social 👇

hyphenonline.com/2025/09/23/s...

1/ This is a huge victory for those pressuring Microsoft to pull out of its deal with the Israeli military. Perhaps less obviously, it will also be music to the ears of many UK Muslims with pensions and investments tied up in halal funds.

UK Muslims with workplace pensions provided by the likes of Aegon, Aviva and Fidelity will want to read this.

Even the risk officer at one of the funds in question admitted the industry needed to "up its game" – and lobbied for sharia scholars to start screening for "support for genocide" as a condition of compliance. Currently it is not.

Sheffield Central Labour MP Abtisam Mohamed: “The financial sector has shown itself willing to sacrifice integrity in the pursuit of profit. I will be encouraging my constituents to scrutinise their pension funds carefully.”

Between them, six funds Hyphen analysed had held shares in:
- a firm that sells Israel fighter jet fuel
- one that makes missile navigation components used by Israel's air force
- one whose Tasers are used by Israeli police
- one whose charitable arm donated to Friends of the IDF

It also affects individual investors with money in sharia-compliant funds. Some of these funds operate globally but all are available to UK investors.

Most sharia-compliant pension schemes in the UK are invested in the HSBC Islamic Global Equity Index Fund.

Our analysis found the fund was invested in the parent company of booking.com, Honeywell International, Microsoft and Alphabet.

Halal investments ‘unknowingly’ profiting from war in Gaza Sharia-compliant funds including the HSBC Islamic Global Equity Index have more than $1bn tied up in firms such as Microsoft and Alphabet

🔴 NEW from @lucascumiskey.bsky.social for @hyphenonline.com: British Muslims with investments and pensions in sharia-compliant funds may be unknowingly profiting from Israel’s war in Gaza and the occupation economy.

hyphenonline.com/2025/09/23/s...

How the simmering UK freedom of speech row reached boiling point How did we reach a point where the UK is being compared to a 'tin pot Third World dictatorship'?

What on Earth is this? An "in depth" BBC article about free speech in the UK that only cites examples of right-wing/ 'anti-woke' speech being suppressed. How can you mention Lucy Connolly but completely ignore Palestine Action / Just Stop Oil? Gob-smacking. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Mothin Ali elected co-deputy leader of the Green party Leeds councillor who made national headlines becomes the only Muslim in England and Wales in mainstream political party leadership role

.@mothinali.bsky.social is the Greens' new co-deputy leader.

He made headlines last year for trying to deescalate riots – and was attacked by the far right for his efforts. Greens now the only mainstream party in Eng & Wales with a Muslim leader or deputy leader

hyphenonline.com/2025/09/02/m...

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UK has deported eight offenders to Afghanistan since Taliban takeover Data obtained exclusively from the Home Office shows at least one deportee had been serving a sentence of less than six months

A reminder that the UK has actually been deporting people to Taliban-run Afghanistan since, er, August 2021:

hyphenonline.com/2025/04/24/f...