An Iranian spy-ring on the heart of London?

According to reports, an Iranian spy recruitment ring is operating openly in London and the Islamic Republic is exploiting Britain’s “permissive environment” as a base for its Western intelligence-gathering and propaganda campaigns, according to the newspaper.

It seems the UK's permissive environment is common knowledge at this point, with charitable organisations linked to the antisemitic regime operating freely here, repeated glorification of the terrorist IRGC and regime leadership on our streets, propagandistic events on campuses and vigils for assassinated terrorist figures that run absolutely counter to our values. Iranian state television still operates in the UK, and the regime itself continues to enjoy a diplomatic foothold.

British authorities have been warned that an Iranian spy recruitment network is operating openly in London, with the country’s state broadcaster, Press TV, reportedly serving as a front to identify and cultivate intelligence assets, according to reporting by The Telegraph. The network is said to exploit Britain’s permissive environment to gather information on Western targets and propagate Tehran’s interests.

Press TV, the English-language channel of Iran’s state broadcaster, maintains a studio in London and is alleged to have produced programming that effectively created a “target list for terrorists” by highlighting Jewish charities, schools, and community organisations, officials told The Telegraph. Concerns have risen following a recent anti-Semitic arson attack in north London, where two men were arrested after ambulances owned by a Jewish charity were set alight outside a synagogue. Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation, amid fears the incident could be linked to Iran.

Earlier this month, two Iranian nationals were charged with spying for Tehran after allegedly conducting surveillance of the Israeli embassy in London and Britain’s oldest synagogue, the Westminster magistrates’ court was told. Experts have long cautioned that Iranian intelligence services routinely target Jewish communities, Israelis, and Iranian dissidents, often using criminal intermediaries.

Police stand outside the scene of an antisemitic arson attack in the Golders Green Bneighbourhood of north London, on March 24, 2026. (AFP)

“From an Iranian perspective, London is a permissive environment,” Jonathan Hackett, a former American intelligence officer with two decades of experience in Marine Corps intelligence, told The Telegraph. He said some Press TV journalists were tasked with spotting and assessing potential recruits, using their professional credentials to gain access to both private and governmental circles. Hackett explained that the journalists would develop assets before transferring them to more experienced Tehran-based handlers.

Hackett noted that Press TV’s London office has assumed a “more significant” role in recruitment efforts as the broadcaster has been sanctioned in other Western countries. In recent years, Press TV has faced restrictions in the European Union, Australia, Canada, and the United States, with the latter citing the airing of forced confessions and the channel’s use by Iranian intelligence to recruit sensitive assets, including U.S. nationals, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The recruitment of Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force counter-intelligence specialist with access to top-secret defense files, was highlighted as a high-profile example. Witt was allegedly groomed by Press TV presenter Marzieh Hashemi, initially “spotting, assessing and handling” her before transferring the case to a Tehran-based officer, Hackett said. Witt defected to Iran in 2013, a development described by Hackett as a major intelligence victory for Tehran.

Press TV has also faced scrutiny for broadcasting content considered anti-Semitic. The Community Security Trust (CST), a U.K.-based Jewish charity, has criticized the channel’s programme Palestine Declassified for depicting numerous Jewish organisations and individuals as “genocidal Zionist extremists.” The CST spokesman said the programming raises safety concerns for the targeted individuals and organisations, requiring extensive monitoring and security measures. Episodes reportedly named 14 Jewish charities and criticized Jewish schools and leaders for alleged pro-Zionist activities.

Two prominent U.K. presenters of the programme include Chris Williamson, a former Labour MP now deputy leader of the Workers Party, and academic David Miller, who was dismissed from Bristol University over anti-Zionist claims but later won a workplace discrimination case. Both are noted for presenting Palestine Declassified and contributing to Press TV’s English-language output.

In response to the growing concerns, a group of Members of Parliament urged the U.K. security minister to impose financial sanctions on Press TV. David Taylor, Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead, called the broadcaster the “international mouthpiece for Iran’s murderous regime,” highlighting its alleged role in targeting Jewish communities and propagating anti-Western narratives. Discussions at Downing Street and among officials at the Foreign Office, Home Office, and Treasury have reportedly considered measures to further restrict the channel’s operations in the U.K.

Press TV’s broadcast licence in Britain was revoked by Ofcom in 2012, and it has been banned from YouTube, yet it continues to operate via social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, and X, with over one million followers. Roger Macmillan, a former director of security at independent Farsi-language broadcaster Iran International, described Press TV as operating in a “grey zone,” noting that while it may not violate broadcasting regulations, it continues to disseminate pro-regime content and anti-Semitic material.

                                                 Marzieh Hashemi, a Press TV presenter, is accused of recruiting spies for Iran 

A U.K. government spokesperson said, “We are clear-eyed about the threats posed by Iran, and our first priority is protecting British interests and British lives both in the U.K. and overseas. We have introduced a comprehensive set of additional measures aimed at countering threats posed by the Iranian regime.”

The network’s activities in London, including the alleged use of Press TV to recruit intelligence assets, remain under scrutiny amid broader security and counter-terrorism efforts.

At a time when Jewish institutions, synagogues, schools and individuals are being targeted by Iranian assets and extremist cells, we are in desperate need of a crackdown, however Starmer and his pseudo-liberal buddies seem reluctant to tackle issues that not only affect the Jewish community, but the UK as a whole,

The possibility of an Iranian spy ring will be no great surprise to most of us, but the fact it is to Starmer is a matter of deep concern.

An ill wind from Tory HQ

Ken Livingstone
If you're suddenly feeling worse off this month, blame the Tories - David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson.

Worse-off Wednesday was an apt way to describe April 6, when a whole series of tax changes, benefit cuts and reductions to welfare payments imposed by the government came into effect, hitting pay packets and peoples' quality of life.

We are seeing housing benefit cuts to the tune of £220 million, tax benefit cuts amounting to £1.18 billion, a freeze in child benefit equivalent to a £356m cut and other welfare cuts amounting to £664m.

These cuts come to about £10 for every household in Britain. But clearly not everyone will lose out in the same way.

The biggest losers from these changes will be those entitled to welfare - the working poor, the growing number of unemployed and those with disabilities.

Not only are they the ones hardest hit by the changes but they are those least able to afford them.

But all this is just the beginning.

The government's own data shows that cuts will rise over time, so that by 2014-15 they and other cuts will amount to £18.08bn - or more than £750 for every household in Britain.

And it won't just be the very poorest who will suffer - the "squeezed middle" are in for a tough time too.

Combined, those on low and middle incomes are bearing the brunt of the government's measures.

A freeze on the threshold for the higher-rate 40 per cent tax-band at £35,001 rather than allowing it to rise with inflation to £37,400 means 750,000 people will be brought into the band for the first time, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The increase in employees' national insurance contribution rate from 11 to 12 per cent is also a tax increase.

And it all comes on top of an increase in the VAT rate, hitting the entire population with a regressive tax, and rising inflation which is now running at three per cent above average wage growth.

Much of this inflation is either directly caused by the Tory-led coalition through the VAT hike or has been allowed by them in the form of rising utilities bills and increased fares.

In London, for example, the impact of Chancellor George Osborne's lifting of the cap on rail fare increases is compounded by Mayor Boris Johnson's above-inflation public-transport fare rises.

In three years a single bus or tram fare in the city has risen from 90p to £1.30 - an increase of 44 per cent.

Fares in London are planned to rise by two per cent above inflation for years to come.

Londoners are also hardest hit by the flat-rate cuts in benefits such as housing, because housing is so much more expensive in London than in the rest of the country.

According to homeless charity Shelter 160,000 households across the capital will be affected by the cut.

All these cutbacks will literally hit hundreds of thousands of households, most of them in work.

According to independent research from the Resolution Foundation London families will lose an average of £603 a year as a result of the government's decision to reduce the percentage of child-care costs paid through the Working Tax Credit, £167 more than the average across the UK (£436). There could hardly be a clearer illustration of the damage being caused by the coalition government than families losing £603 a year as a result of just one of the many cuts being made.

So it was richly ironic that Boris Johnson used his £250,000-a-year Telegraph column this week to whinge about Labour criticism of government policies, comparing it to trying to "spread gloom in the sunshine."

The weather may be sunny but the winds blowing from the Conservative-led government are as icy as ever.

•It is becoming increasingly apparent that public opinion is moving against military intervention in Libya.

YouGov's Anthony Wells wrote earlier this week that "for the first time so far our poll today showed more people (43 per cent) thinking the military action was wrong than those in favour of it (38 per cent)."

Moreover opinion has moved on whether the intervention is going well.The week before last, 57 per cent of the public thought it was going well and 19 per cent thought it was going badly.

Polling this week found 42 per cent thought it was going well, 34 per cent saying it was going badly.

It is hardly surprising. Though posed in liberal and humanitarian terms, there is no clear logic to the Libya intervention compared to other humanitarian crises and problems in the world. There are few clearly defined war aims and no sense of what the exit strategy for the intervention may be.

At a time when the public is being told there is no money for libraries, when the NHS faces its greatest threat, when the Royal Mail is under threat of privatisation and when our young people are being saddled with cuts and mounting debt, it is not hard to see that the public will take some persuading over the long-term that intervention is the right policy.

•The Andrew Lansley rap might have once seemed an unlikely hit this spring, but the NHS is very dear to the British people's hearts.

Lansley, Cameron and Clegg have been forced to announce a "pause" which amounts to a tactical maneouvre to work out how best to proceed.

The Tory-led government has opened a two-pronged attack on the NHS. Although it was claimed that NHS spending would be protected the experience up and down the country is of resources being squeezed.

That is borne out by the fact that although nominal health spending is planned to rise from £103bn to £114.4bn - just over 11 per cent - while over the same period the Office for Budget Responsibility projects that inflation will have risen by 22 per cent.

That's a real decline of 11 per cent.

The fundamental character of the NHS is threatened with change with the government looking for the biggest conceivable private-sector role.

Government policy is not about improving the NHS for patients but improving the profits of the private sector.

All over London we are seeing examples of Londoners concerned about the future of their local health service - such as in the campaign to oppose the closure of the A&E and maternity departments at Romford's King George Hospital.

It's one of the many reasons I'll be putting campaigns to defend the NHS top of the agenda this spring.