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Rishi Sunak should apologise for his transgender jibe which was made while Brianna Ghey’s mother was in parliament, Gordon Brown has told Sky News.

The former PM was speaking to the Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge a day after the current occupier of Number 10 joked during Prime Minister’s Questions about Sir Keir Starmer’s record on gender recognition, while Esther Ghey was on the parliamentary estate.

Peter Spooner, the father of murdered transgender teenager Brianna, has also told Sky News he thinks Mr Sunak should say sorry for what he called the “degrading” and “dehumanising” remark made in the Commons on Wednesday.

Mr Sunak had accused Sir Keir of having difficulty in “defining a woman” during an attack on Labour Party U-turns. The PM has refused to apologise and said his comment had been “absolutely legitimate”.

Mr Brown has had his own moments of regret – including calling a voter he had just met a “bigot” after a discussion on immigration.

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He later returned to the woman’s house to apologise – telling waiting journalists that he was a “penitent sinner”.

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Mr Brown told Sophy Ridge: “Prime ministers make mistakes. I don’t think you can say that every prime minister will fail to make some mistakes, but I think you should apologise if you get things wrong.

“And I mean it is a very sad and really tragic, tragic case of a family in grief.

“I know, he’s said he’s compassionate about the family, but perhaps he should do what I had to do on one or two occasions and apologise. And I do accept that if you make mistakes, you’ve got to correct them quickly.”

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Transgender remark ‘comment on U-turns’

Speaking on a wide range of topics, Mr Brown stated that a second Donald Trump presidency would “cause a lot of damage to jobs in Britain”.

The New Labour titan said European countries should warn the US about the dangers the world would face if Mr Trump returns to the White House.

“I would normally say British leaders should keep out of American politics, and they would say any American leader should keep out of British politics,” he said – but “we’ve got to sound some worry”.

Mr Brown added: “If Donald Trump were elected, he’s promised a 10% tariff on goods. So you’ve immediately got a trade war.”

And this trade war would “actually cause a lot of damage to jobs in Britain”.

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Chants of ‘shame’ at PM after transgender jibe

Mr Brown, who was the UK’s chancellor for a decade, said that this year is different to 2016 in that Mr Trump actually has policies to scrutinise – including leaving the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and potentially withdrawing support for Ukraine.

This – and uncertainty about his policies in China and the Middle East – “are huge issues not just for America, but for the whole of the world – and particularly issues for Britain, and Europe as well”, according to Mr Brown.

He added: “I think in this instance, we’ve got to speak out and say, look, we are worried about what the policies that he’s proposing are.”

Donald Trump campaign in Las Vegas last month. Pic: AP
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Donald Trump campaigning in Las Vegas last month. Pic: AP

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Mr Brown, who left parliament in 2015 having been ejected from Number 10 in 2010, now campaigns on child poverty in the UK.

He told Sophy Ridge that there is an “emergency” and a “crisis” at the moment with regard to young people and the cost of living.

A combination of factors, including the ending of support payments for energy, inflation, the two-child benefits cap and other matters have left families unable to afford basics like toothpaste, soap, shampoo and winter coats.

He highlighted examples of schools which have set up washing machines to ensure students have clean clothes.

“And so you’ve got a cleanliness problem, you’ve got a health problem, and something has got to be done to make life better because we are sacrificing the future of thousands of children on the altar of failing to take into account that we’ve got to do more about that poverty,” he said.

Mr Brown backed Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to look at reforming Universal Credit – and highlighted his continuing disapproval for the two-child benefit limit.

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‘It breaks my heart as a parent’

This refers to the policy of restricting means-tested financial support to families with three or more children.

He stopped short of calling on Sir Keir to scrap it, but said he never liked it and said reviewing Universal Credit is the “right thing”.

Labour has not said if it would scrap the policy.

On Labour’s U-turn on green policies, Mr Brown revealed he had not been asked by the current party leadership for his advice.

He noted that he did not want to be a “backseat driver” or to “pontificate from the outside” – but added that “the situation has changed and “we are in a new fiscal cycle”.

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The former chancellor said: “Our economy is not growing.

“I mean the best we can hope is we get to 1% over the next year and that will not be enough to keep standards of living rising or alternatively to pay for our public services.

“So these are difficult decisions that Keir Starmer, [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves have got to make.

“If they asked for my private advice, I said I’ll give it.”

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‘I wish I’d never met him’: Peter Mandelson ‘regrets’ association with Jeffrey Epstein

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'I wish I'd never met him': Peter Mandelson 'regrets' association with Jeffrey Epstein

Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the United States, has told Sky News he “regrets” his association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Lord Mandelson‘s links to the late billionaire were exposed in a 2019 report by JP Morgan bank, filed in a New York court.

Epstein killed himself in August of that year while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.

He had previously served an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution.

Whilst serving that sentence, the JP Morgan report suggests that Mr Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan flat.

Epstein wrote to his private banker on 17 June 2009: “Peter will be staying at 71st over weekend…”

At the time, Lord Mandelson was the Business Secretary in the UK government under then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He was appointed UK ambassador to the United States in December 2024.

Jeffrey Epstein. File pic: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
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Jeffrey Epstein. File pic: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP

Sky News asked him if he did, indeed, stay at Epstein’s flat while the disgraced financier was in jail.

He replied: “I’m not answering any questions about him. My knowledge of him is something I regret, I wish I’d never met him in the first place.”

Asked why he had an association with Epstein whilst he was in jail, Lord Mandelson replied: “Why did many people meet him? He was a prolific networker. And I wish I’d never met him in the first place.”

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As US ambassador, Lord Mandelson represents Britain’s interests in Washington and has vowed to treat Donald Trump‘s administration with “respect, seriousness and understanding of where they are coming from politically”.

This comes after Lord Mandelson described the US president as a “danger to the world”, for which he apologised earlier this year.

He told the Alain Elkann Interviews podcast in 2019: “What Donald Trump represents and believes is an anathema to mainstream British opinion.”

President Donald Trump, center, with from l-r., Vice President JD Vance, and Britian's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson, making remarks on a trade deal between U.S. and U.K. in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance, and UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson. Pic: AP

Mr Mandelson added: “Even those who have a sneaking admiration for Donald Trump because of his personality, nonetheless regard him as reckless, and a danger to the world.”

But in January this year, Lord Mandelson said he now considered his remarks “as ill-judged and wrong”.

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ZKPs can prove I’m old enough without telling you my age

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<div>ZKPs can prove I'm old enough without telling you my age</div>

<div>ZKPs can prove I'm old enough without telling you my age</div>

Opinion by: Andre Omietanski, General Counsel, and Amal Ibraymi, Legal Counsel at Aztec Labs

What if you could prove you’re over 18, without revealing your birthday, name, or anything else at all? Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) make this hypothetical a reality and solve one of the key challenges online: verifying age without sacrificing privacy. 

The need for better age verification today

We’re witnessing an uptick in laws being proposed restricting minors’ access to social media and the internet, including in Australia, Florida, and China. To protect minors from inappropriate adult content, platform owners and governments often walk a tightrope between inaction and overreach. 

For example, the state of Louisiana in the US recently enacted a law meant to block minors from viewing porn. Sites required users to upload an ID before viewing content. The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law as unconstitutional, making the case that it infringed on First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed on procedural grounds. The reaction, however, highlights the dilemma facing policymakers and platforms: how to block minors without violating adults’ rights or creating new privacy risks.

Traditional age verification fails

Current age verification tools are either ineffective or invasive. Self-declaration is meaningless, since users can simply lie about their age. ID-based verification is overly invasive. No one should be required to upload their most sensitive documents, putting themselves at risk of data breaches and identity theft. 

Biometric solutions like fingerprints and face scans are convenient for users but raise important ethical, privacy, and security concerns. Biometric systems are not always accurate and may generate false positives and negatives. The irreversible nature of the data, which can’t be changed like a regular password can, is also less than ideal. 

Other methods, like behavioral tracking and AI-driven verification of browser patterns, are also problematic, using machine learning to analyze user interactions and identify patterns and anomalies, raising concerns of a surveillance culture.

ZKPs as the privacy-preserving solution

Zero-knowledge proofs present a compelling solution. Like a government ID provider, a trusted entity verifies the user’s age and generates a cryptographic proof confirming they are over the required age.

Websites only need to check the proof, not the excess personal data, ensuring privacy while keeping minors at the gates. No centralized data storage is required, alleviating the burden on platforms such as Google, Meta, and WhatsApp and eliminating the risk of data breaches. 

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Adopting and enforcing ZKPs at scale

ZKPs aren’t a silver bullet. They can be complex to implement. The notion of “don’t trust, verify,” proven by indisputable mathematics, may cause some regulatory skepticism. Policymakers may hesitate to trust cryptographic proofs over visible ID verification. 

There are occasions when companies may need to disclose personal information to authorities, such as during an investigation into financial crimes or government inquiries. This would challenge ZKPs, whose very intention is for platforms not to hold this data in the first place.

ZKPs also struggle with scalability and performance, being somewhat computationally intensive and tricky to program. Efficient implementation techniques are being explored, and breakthroughs, such as the Noir programming language, are making ZKPs more accessible to developers, driving the adoption of secure, privacy-first solutions. 

A safer, smarter future for age verification

Google’s move to adopt ZKPs for age verification is a promising signal that mainstream platforms are beginning to embrace privacy-preserving technologies. But to fully realize the potential of ZKPs, we need more than isolated solutions locked into proprietary ecosystems. 

Crypto-native wallets can go further. Open-source and permissionless blockchain-based systems offer interoperability, composability, and programmable identity. With a single proof, users can access a range of services across the open web — no need to start from scratch every time, or trust a single provider (Google) with their credentials.

ZKPs flip the script on online identity — proving what matters, without exposing anything else. They protect user privacy, help platforms stay compliant, and block minors from restricted content, all without creating new honeypots of sensitive data.

Google’s adoption of ZKPs shows mainstream momentum is building. But to truly transform digital identity, we must embrace crypto-native, decentralized systems that give users control over what they share and who they are online.

In an era defined by surveillance, ZKPs offer a better path forward — one that’s secure, private, and built for the future.

Opinion by: Andre Omietanski, General Counsel, and Amal Ibraymi, Legal Counsel at Aztec Labs.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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Gisele Pelicot’s daughter says chemical castration ‘could be part of the solution’ for sex offenders

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Gisele Pelicot's daughter says chemical castration 'could be part of the solution' for sex offenders

The daughter of Gisele Pelicot has suggested chemical castration could be “one part of the solution” when there is “nothing else you can do” for sex offenders – like her father.

Caroline Darian’s father Dominique Pelicot admitted repeatedly drugging and raping his wife Gisele between 2011 and 2020, and inviting dozens of other men to their home in southern France to do the same.

Gisele decided to waive her right to anonymity to hold the trial of her husband and 50 other men in public, saying: “It is not for us to be ashamed, but for those men.”

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Speaking to Ali Fortescue on The Politics Hub, Ms Darian said the UK government’s plans to consider mandatory chemical castration could be “one part of the solution” for men like her father.

Gisele Pelicot. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Gisele Pelicot. Pic: Reuters

She said: “It’s probably one part of the solution because you know when you’re at that level of crime, that level of criminal, there is nothing else you can do.”

Asked if she believed “men like your father” could be rehabilitated, Ms Darian said “no” and “never”.

For ten years, Pelicot repeatedly sedated his wife and invited strangers to abuse her after advertising sex with her on a French swinging website.

Some denied the rape charges, claiming they believed Gisele had agreed to be drugged and was a willing participant in a sex game between the couple.

But all the men charged were found guilty of at least one offence, with nearly all convicted of rape, after a trial that shocked France and made headlines around the world.

The defendants were sentenced to a total of more than 400 years, with Pelicot being sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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Pelicot also took photos of his daughter Caroline semi-naked while she was asleep.

Ms Darian is pressing charges against her father, having accused him of drugging and raping her. Pelicot has denied this.

Speaking to French media, Beatrice Zavarro, Pelicot’s lawyer, said Ms Darian’s decision to press charges was “unsurprising”.

She added that prosecutors had said there were insufficient “objective elements” to accuse Pelicot of raping and using chemical submission on Ms Darian.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said last week that she will pursue “a nationwide rollout” of a scheme being piloted in southwest England to use medication to suppress the sexual drive of sex offenders.

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‘It’s a moment that will remain etched in my memory forever,’ David tells Sky News’ Siobhan Robbins.

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It came after an independent review, led by the former justice secretary David Gauke, was commissioned by the government amid an overcrowding crisis in prisons in England and Wales.

The review recommended that chemical castration “may assist in management of suitable sex offenders both in prison and in the community”.

Ms Mahmood said she is “exploring whether mandating the approach is possible”. The trial is currently voluntary.

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