Katie Hopkins looked at me during a Weekend Truth Festival and said: ‘I smell a virgin’
“I smell a virgin…” Katie Hopkins said, looking straight at me. “I smell lefty, pressy scum!”
The far-right commentator was addressing an audience of 500 people in a soggy tent in a rural corner of northwest England.
I was standing at the back but that didn’t stop her singling me out. The crowd theatrically booed me, as if I was a pantomime villain. I blushed.
This was one of many strange moments I witnessed at the three-day event, officially called the Weekend Truth Festival (WTF), that some may call a conspiracy theory gathering.
As well as being called out by Hopkins, I saw children chanting anti-vax slogans and had a magnet applied to my arm to prove my COVID vaccinations are the antenna of a bioweapon.
This was the first WTF and its organisers hailed it as a success.
Its programme featured talks from speakers, including celebrities of the movement like Hopkins and former Southampton footballer Matt Le Tissier, as well as workshops and other activities with dozens of RVs and tents arranged around a giant marquee.
The first Weekend Truth Festival took place in a rural corner of north west England
The festival attendees, who describe themselves as part of the “freedom movement”, paid a £100 donation to see their “truth heroes”.
There are many political and ideological dividing lines in British life, but perhaps the deepest, and most damaging, is that which was on show here – when one part of the population rejects the others’ view of reality.
Attendees paid a £100 donation to see their ‘truth heroes’
This summer a number of similar truther gatherings are being held across the country from Glasgow to Dorset, with the biggest having a capacity of several hundred.
That’s why I found myself in a muddy field on the first May bank holiday: to understand why a movement born in lockdown appears to be evolving out of the dark corners of the internet into real-life meet-ups like this.
My presence there was the result of careful negotiation with the organisers, who agreed to let me come and report. They wanted the world to see what it was really like.
“It’s a gathering of like-minded people who basically think alternatively to the mainstream,” said organiser Kevin Dowling, a man in his fifties with a dry sense of humour.
He and Nicola Mayoh organise regular meet-ups in Buxton, near Manchester, in the top room of a pub.
Nicola and Kevin hailed the event a success
But this was much bigger, and they’d spent a long time preparing.
I asked whether this movement had longevity beyond the headline-grabbing pandemic protests.
“I think COVID woke people up to other things that go on,” Nicola said. “We’ve gravitated towards each other because we’re all very similar.”
I got lucky with where I pitched my tent – next to Theresa Clark and Andy Ryan, friends from Stockport, who met through the movement. They make unlikely conspiracists and their journey from COVID scepticism to WTF attendees was revealing.
Friends Theresa and Andy met during lockdown
Both were in their sixties. Theresa, a former civil servant, was wrapped up in a parka coat with a woolly hat covering her hair, while Andy was similarly attired in a padded black jacket.
They were warm and friendly, and offered me endless cups of tea from Andy’s stove.
On the first night, I found myself sitting around a blazing fire, sharing a glass of wine with them.
Theresa explained she wasn’t originally an anti-vaxxer; she made sure all her children and grandchildren had their recommended vaccinations. But then came COVID.
Living alone during lockdown, Theresa connected with online groups that led her here. “It’s been a great journey for me because I’ve met such wonderful people,” she told me.
Her path first crossed with Andy, and many of the other people who have come to Cumbria, through an activist group called Rebels on Roundabouts.
At the height of lockdown, they gathered on roundabouts and held yellow signs up to passing motorists with slogans such as “Please don’t jab kids” and “Media masking truth”.
This summer will see a number of similar truther gatherings held across the country
Since the pandemic, they’ve expanded. Their Telegram group now has more than 3,000 members.
Their website currently lists events from Newcastle to Tunbridge Wells, and explains their belief that COVID was “ruthlessly exploited by a global elite through their puppet politicians and the mainstream media” and is part of a “sinister CONTROL and DEPOPULATION agenda”.
What does that all mean?
Let’s take Theresa as an example. She went from lockdown and vaccine scepticism to thinking there was a bigger conspiracy at play.
Central to that view is a concept called the Great Reset, originally a short book from the World Economic Forum (WEF) outlining the post-COVID recovery.
But many of those in the movement see it as a blueprint for a totalitarian world government headed by the WEF.
“That scared me,” Theresa said. “Is that the world that we’re aiming for?”
The Great Reset is arguably not the smartest name – it does have an air of the conspiratorial. And those at the festival were willing to connect all sorts of unconnected things – net zero, Ultra Low Emissions Zones (ULEZ) or Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) – as proof that the WEF was trying to take away our freedoms.
I pushed back on the idea that the WEF is able to control the world to that extent, suggesting it was an influential lobby group but not a shadow government.
“It’s not a fiction book, is it,” Theresa pointed out, in reference to the Great Reset.
Her views, like many others who gathered round the campfire, were deeply held.
They relished the chance to set me – the embodiment of the loathed mainstream media – straight. Behind much of their thinking, it seemed, was strong emotion.
Not least for Theresa.
Her father moved into a care home just weeks before lockdown, something she only mentioned after we had been talking for more than an hour.
“It wasn’t nice to go and visit your father and see him through the glass,” she said, tearfully.
“Those last few months, to not be able to give him the love that he deserved… You just don’t get over that.
“These are the harms the COVID lockdown did.”
Crowds gather for an event at WTF, which took place over the bank holiday
That said, there were some limits to her beliefs. For instance, she was sceptical about reptilians, the idea pushed by conspiracy theorist David Icke that suggested shape-shifting lizard people control the world.
Many consider the theory antisemitic, although Icke has always strongly denied this.
Theresa admitted that it was a “bit far-fetched” for her. “But then who am I to say to somebody what you’re saying is utter rubbish. That’s their belief,” she added.
The next day, the sun was shining as Gillian England showed me the ley lines in the field behind the festival site and explained that the weather had improved because she “thanked the elementals”.
“I’m a being from a realm beyond planet Earth,” she said, as we walked through the field.
“My job is to assist the developing consciousness of humanity… I believe in the higher Galactics. I’ve got my star family that I connect to, but this is the fifth dimension and beyond.”
“And where is that?” I asked.
“Well, it’s beyond this reality.”
The Freedom Movement is a broad church that includes people like Gillian, a former NHS psychotherapist turned mystic healer. As we approached a stone circle, the divining rods in her hands started to twitch, then crossed. We had found our ley line.
The divining rods in Gillian England’s hands as we reached a stone circle
You might wonder what Gilian’s new age vibe had in common with anti-lockdown protests on a roundabout, or the Great Reset, or what ley lines had to do with ULEZ.
But when COVID prompted people to do their own research, they found a world of conspiracies ready and waiting to draw them further in. People like Gillian who already had their own alternative understanding of reality and were willing to help those along the same journey.
It doesn’t mean signing up to all the exact same beliefs. Another attendee told me: “I hate that woo woo stuff. There’s loads of that here.” But they were all on the same side, against the mainstream.
“COVID woke people up,” Gillian said. “They were stuck at home, got off the rat race for a little while and started questioning.”
Down at the festival site a little later, Gillian and other adults gathered the children – mostly primary school aged – in a tent near the food stalls. They had dragon puppets, glitter and music and were teaching them to chant the freedom movement slogan: “I do not consent”.
This was the most troubling part of the festival, where legitimate free speech perhaps crossed into something darker.
Among the more troubling claims made by speakers were that COVID was an attempted genocide and a Satanist cult was planning to murder everyone. But just as quickly, a party mood returned.
Matt Le Tissier gave an entertaining talk with occasional anti-vax comments. Then it was time for drinks and dancing.
The DJ played fairly hardcore techno. The crowd ranged from young adults to pensioners and the fashion was hemp hippies meets cyber ravers. Theresa waved as she boogied away.
My tent at the three-day gathering, WTF
This is perhaps the true counterculture of the UK now. It may not have its own music or fashion, but it does have its own Podcasters, Twitter users and YouTubers who reach hundreds of thousands.
On the final day, I wandered down to the main tent. A man had put up a large placard advertising the formation of a “people’s party”. Many people here insist they are neither on the left nor right, but many of the talking points echo the far-right.
Mark Steele, a self-styled “weapons expert”, was one of the speakers. He served time in prison back in the 1990s for shooting a teenage girl in the head.
He believes that ULEZ cameras can be used in conjunction with vaccinations to turn people into literal zombies and cast doubt on Rishi Sunak’s Britishness.
As we spoke, he held a magnet to my arm to prove my COVID vaccination was the antenna of a bioweapon. If a ULEZ camera activated a beam at the right pulse it would be “carnage”, he warned.
The magnet supposed to prove my COVID jab is the antenna of a bioweapon
After packing up my tent, I caught up with Nicola and Kevin who were delighted with how it had gone.
When I said I found some elements surprisingly aggressive, Kevin’s response was that there “has to be a bit of edginess” because as a society we are facing “difficult conversations and difficult times”.
He also reminded me that I wanted to use my visit to test the “political climate and how people are feeling about things”.
That’s true. And what I found was a wider sense of alienation from the main parties, with several attendees talking of finding candidates to stand as independents in the general election.
Hopkins was the final speaker and I followed the rapturous crowd into the main tent to watch her.
Theresa and Andy were there, enjoying the show, although Theresa said she felt sorry for me when Hopkins called me a virgin.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
After saying my goodbyes, I watched them walk up the hill in the twilight, hoods up, carrying their camp chairs, readying themselves for another evening by the fire.
While they had lives and families outside, in that moment this was their people, and this was their place.
UK
‘Of course I didn’t’ lie about budget forecasts, chancellor tells Sky News – as Badenoch calls for her to resign
The chancellor has insisted to Sky News that she did not lie to the public about the state of the public finances ahead of the budget.
Rachel Reeves is facing widespread accusations that in a speech from Downing Street on 4 November in which she laid the groundwork for tax rises, she misled the country and led the public to believe the fiscal situation was worse than it actually was.
Asked directly by Sky’s Trevor Phillips if she lied, she said: “Of course I didn’t.”
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Ms Reeves said the decision by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to review and downgrade productivity meant the forecast for tax receipts was £16bn lower than expected.
As a result, she said she needed tax rises to create more fiscal headroom (the amount by which government can increase spending or cut taxes without breaking its own fiscal rules) to reassure the financial markets and create stability in the economy.
But the OBR has said it told the chancellor in its forecast on 31 October that there was a £4.2bn budget surplus, rather than a black hole following the productivity downgrade, and Trevor challenged her on why she did not say that to the nation and argue that more headroom was needed.
She replied: “I said in that speech that I wanted to achieve three things in the budget – tackling the cost of living, which is why I took £150 off of energy bills and froze prescription charges and rail fares.
“I wanted to continue to cut NHS waiting lists, which is why I protected NHS spending. And I wanted to bring the debt and the borrowing down, which is one of the reasons why I increased the headroom.
“£4bn of headroom would not have been enough, and it would not give the Bank of England space to continue to cut interest rates.”
Ms Reeves also said: “In the context of a downgrade in our productivity, which cost £16bn, I needed to increase taxes, and I was honest and frank about that in the speech that I gave at the beginning of November.”
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Prime minister defends the budget
She confirmed that the prime minister was aware of the fiscal forecasts and what she was going to say in her speech on 4 November about the challenges facing the UK economy, saying: “Keir [Starmer] and myself met regularly to discuss the budget and the choices, because these are the choices of this government.
“And I’m really proud of the choices that we made – to cut waiting lists, to cut inflation, and to build up that resilience in our economy.”
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Budget winners and losers
Tax rises ‘not on scale of last year’
Following her budget last year, in which she raised taxes, the chancellor was explicit to Trevor that she would “never need to do that again” or “come back for more”.
But Ms Reeves did raise taxes by freezing income tax thresholds until 2031, and implementing a range of smaller tax rises totalling £26bn, so Trevor put to her that what she said last year was not true.
She replied: “The budget this year was not on the scale of the one last year, but as I set out in my speech at the beginning of November, the context for this budget did change and I did have to ask people to contribute more.”
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She conceded that it is “true” that she said she wouldn’t have to raise taxes, and has now done so, but said it was “for reasons not in my control”, pointing to the OBR’s decision to conduct a productivity review.
But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch hit out at the chancellor’s handling of the economy, telling Trevor: “I think the chancellor has been doing a terrible job. She’s made a mess of the economy, and […] she has told lies. This is a woman who, in my view, should be resigning.”
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‘I think the chancellor has been doing a terrible job’
‘I am choosing children’
Ms Reeves also told Trevor that she is “proud to be the chancellor that lifts half a million kids out of poverty” through her decision to lift the two-child cap on benefits from April, which was brought in by the Conservatives in 2017 and meant parents could only claim universal credit or tax credits for their first two children.
Trevor put to her polling that shows that while 84% of Labour members are in favour of scrapping the cap, just 37% of those who voted Labour in 2024 think it should be scrapped.
And asked if she is choosing party over country, the chancellor replied: “I am choosing children, Trevor. This lifts more than half a million children out of poverty, combined with our changes on free breakfast clubs, extending free school meals, 30 hours [of] free childcare for working parents of pre-school age children.
“You can put up those percentages, but the people I was thinking about were kids who I know in my constituency, who go to school hungry and go to bed in cold and damp homes. And from April next year, those parents will have a bit more support to help their kids.”
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Trevor that her party backs the decision, saying: ” First of all, we think it is morally the right thing to do. And secondly, because it saves money for the taxpayer in the longer term, because we know that children growing up in poverty end up costing the taxpayer more because they have worse health outcomes, worse educational outcomes as well.”
But she added that they are “deeply concerned” about “this double whammy stealth tax on both households and on high streets”.
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‘A real victory for the left’
‘We need growth in our economy’
But the Tory leader hit out at the decision, telling Trevor that lifting the two-child benefit cap is “not the way” to lift children out of poverty, and saying that it means the government is “taxing a lot of people who are struggling to pay for those on benefits”.
Ms Badenoch said: “About half a million families are going to be getting an uptick of about £5,000. Many other people don’t have £5,000 lying around.
“We believe that people on benefits should have to make the same decisions about having children as everybody else. And remember, we’re not talking about child benefits here. We’re talking about the universal credit element of it. You get child benefit for as many children as you have.
“But at some point, someone needs to draw a line somewhere.”
Read more:
Lammy says justice reforms will reduce victims’ suffering
Reeves accused of imposing ‘stealth tax’ on hospitality
Ms Badenoch argued that the way to ensure children are not in poverty is to “make sure that their parents have jobs and that those jobs pay well”, and said the level of unemployment has increased “every single month” since Labour came to office in July 2024.
“What we need is growth in our economy. Simply taking out from people who are struggling and giving to a different group of people is not making the economy better,” she said.
Former West Ham captain and manager Billy Bonds has died at the age of 79, his family has said.
The defender and midfielder, who played 799 games for the Hammers between 1967 and 1988, holds the club’s all-time record for most appearances.
As well as captaining the east London side to FA Cup victories in 1975 and 1980, he also managed them from 1990 to 1994.
A giant screen displays an image of Billy Bonds before a match between West Ham United and Liverpool on Sunday. Pic: AP
During his tenure, the club was promoted to England’s top division, relegated, and then promoted again.
In a statement on West Ham’s website, his family paid tribute, saying: “We are heartbroken to announce that we lost our beloved Dad today.
“He was devoted to his family and was the most kind, loyal, selfless, and loving person.
“Dad loved West Ham United and its wonderful supporters with all his heart and treasured every moment of his time at the club.”
Billy Bonds with the FA Cup after their 1975 triumph against Fulham at Wembley. Pic: PA
West Ham gave Bonds a show of appreciation before Sunday’s Premier League home game against Liverpool, with fans participating in a minute of applause.
Captain Jarrod Bowen, who held Bonds’ number four shirt aloft throughout, spoke about the legacy of his predecessor before the opening whistle.
“He’s probably going to go down as West Ham’s biggest legend and the best club captain they’ve had,” he said.
“He achieved so much here and I’ll never emulate that success, but to put on the captain’s armband like he did is a big thing for me.”
Head Coach Nuno Espírito Santo added: “He represents everything that West Ham is all about – the fight, the desire.
“My thoughts are with his family and with our fans, and let’s use this moment to honour Billy Bonds.”
On its website, West Ham described Bonds as “an extremely private and loyal man” who was “completely devoted to his family”.
The club said he was “never one to crave the limelight,” but was “universally loved, respected and admired by his team-mates, players and supporters”.
West Ham also offered its condolences to Bonds’ daughters, Claire and Katie, and granddaughters, Eloise and Elissa.
“Rest in peace Billy, our courageous, inspirational, lion-hearted leader,” their statement concluded.
Charlton Athletic, where the footballer got his start in 1964, also offered its condolences.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, the club wrote: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of former player Billy Bonds MBE.
“Our thoughts are with Billy’s family and friends at this extremely difficult time.”
Billy Bonds with fellow West Ham player Trevor Brooking in 1975. Pic: PA
Bonds was born in Woolwich on 17 September, 1946, to football fans Arthur and Barbara, both Charlton supporters.
He had a variety of jobs as a young man, working in a propeller factory, cleaning windows with his dad, and sweeping the terraces at The Valley.
But his true calling was on the field and he would join Charlton as a teenager.
As a teacher at Eltham Green Comprehensive School would tell him: “Your brains, Bonds, are all in your feet.”
Billy Bonds in front of the stand named for him. Pic: PA
The footballer had honed his skills playing in the street and he competed for his school district and a Sunday-morning side, Moatbridge.
In 1960 he and his Moatbridge teammates were presented with winners’ trophies by another West Ham legend, Bobby Moore.
Bonds recalled: “Being a Charlton fan, I knew that the blond, well-built fella sitting up there was a West Ham player but I didn’t really know any more than that.”
Seven years later they would be teammates.
He would take West Ham’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement award in 2013, and was voted as the club’s greatest ever player in 2018.
Billy Bonds MBE receives his Hammers’ Lifetime Achievement award in 2013. Pic: PA
Bonds was appointed an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in January 1988.
He would say afterwards: “A lot more people have done much more valuable things than play football but I’m very proud of that medal.”
The east stand at West Ham’s London Stadium home is named in his honour in 2019.
He used the occasion to reflect on his career.
He said: “I would’ve happily played down the local park for nothing.
“But I was fortunate enough to get paid to be a footballer and, trust me, realise just how lucky I’ve been to have had such a fantastic career.”
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