caroline wheeler

Political Editor of the @theipaper, Ex Sunday Times. News addict, author, wife, mum of three. Journalist of the Year 2024. [email protected]

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

THREAD: My friend Ade Goodyear nearly broke my heart when he told me how he was informed at school, age 15, that he had been infected with HIV.
His story is the centrepiece of my book “Death in the Blood” on the contaminated blood scandal https://t.co/pwGZhtZtap

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Wednesday's front page: Farage quits and gambles his future on new by-election – amid investigation into £5m crypto gift

Read the full story: https://t.co/44M8EbopZw

[Arj Singh @singharj]

NEW Home Sec Shabana Mahmood highlights the prospect of ‘special treatment’ for some groups of migrants in her settlement crackdown

Comes amid a Labour revolt over the changes

https://t.co/XEWitW9ioe

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Breaking: Labour will not stand candidate in Clacton by-election against Nigel Farage.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Nigel Farage is engulfed in a sleaze scandal and he’s desperately trying to change the subject. It’s pathetic, and the Labour Party is not going to indulge it. Labour's ruling body, the National Executive Committee, has decided not to stand a candidate in this circus. Instead, Labour will remain focused on delivering for working people and holding Reform to account. Farage should let the parliamentary investigation into his finances run its course and face the consequences.”

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Exclusive: Pat McFadden has signalled a shake-up disability benefit assessments for people with ADHD, autism and other conditions that were far less widely diagnosed when the current welfare system was designed.

In an interview with The i Paper, McFadden said the current system was struggling to keep pace with a surge in diagnoses of conditions that barely registered when it was built 13 years ago.

More than 100,000 people with ADHD are now claiming personal independence payment (PIP) - disability benefit designed to help cover the extra costs of living with a long-term health condition or disability - a 40 per cent rise since Labour came to power.

Overall, more than four million people now claim PIP and real-terms spending on it is due to rise from £26bn in 2024-25 to £45bn by 2031, according to government forecasts.

The figures were released just days before Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister, is due to publish an interim report on the disability welfare system.

“These numbers tripled… between 2020 [and] 2024 and they’ve continued to rise,” McFadden said. Asked directly whether the trend was sustainable, he said he had already raised the issue with the panel conducting the Timms review.

“I spoke to the Timms review panel… a few months ago and I said one of the things to consider from a system that was designed 13 years ago is whether the assessment process is really fit for the range of conditions and the rise in the reports of some conditions… and also to be ambitious about if they conclude that it hasn’t taken into account those things enough about what the future might look like now,” he said.

McFadden added that he expected “that whole question of the assessment and different conditions will be quite central to their work,” giving the clearest indication yet that eligibility rules for conditions such as ADHD, anxiety and autism are set to be tightened or reworked.

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden tells The i Paper such conditions were less widely diagnosed when the system was designed

🔴 Exclusive from @cazjwheeler

Read more: https://t.co/QBSraQHzrn

[Christopher Hope📝 @christopherhope]

💥 👀 👇

[Will Hazell @whazell]

Restore Britain was registered with “start-up” capital worth £2.5m.

Where did it come from? We don’t know because the party didn’t t respond to repeated requests from @theipaper and under an electoral law loophole they don’t have to declare it.

Story link in thread below👇

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Why Burnham as PM means a rent freeze is more likely https://t.co/Kh3duYan3R

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Encouraging a move from fossil fuels to electricity could give families 'breathing space' on cost of living, analysis suggests

Read more: https://t.co/PaS6VICmw3

[The i Paper @theipaper]

‘Trump will go for him’: Burnham urged to choose EU over volatile White House https://t.co/CyrkI6Xdgp

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Civil servant sacked over Mandelson facing campaign to block his return https://t.co/PUMxGS7tpa

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Tensions grow between teams of the outgoing and likely incoming Prime Minister

Read more: https://t.co/oTJ4esuR5s

[Dave Penman @FDAGenSec]

As I told @cazjwheeler, the clock is ticking. Andy Burnham is starting as a mid term PM & the last thing he or the country needs is the civil service to be rearranging the deckchairs, unsure of the seating plan, rather than getting on with delivering.

https://t.co/XhygKlxnBy

[Andrew Clifford @sentinelcurrent]

i weekend
Labour MPs urge Andy Burnham to introduce southern wealth tax.
Saturday 4 July 2026
A look at #TomorrowsPapersToday

[The i Paper @theipaper]

This weekend's front page: Labour MPs urge Andy Burnham to introduce wealth tax on home owners in South
#TomorrowsPapersToday
https://t.co/1iwDEH2WFc

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the @theipaper investigation showed Putin’s willingness to exploit anyone to sustain the war.
“Putin is just exploiting anyone and everyone in any way that he can, and he simply does not care,” she said.
Cooper criticised Putin’s “disregard for human life, his disregard for anyone and everyone, and his willingness to throw other people’s lives away for what is effectively a warped ideology”.
Moscow is now spending more on compensation to families of dead Russian soldiers than it is on salaries for serving troops – reflecting the sheer scale of the battlefield losses, according to a senior Western intelligence source.

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Vladimir Putin has sent young men trafficked from Kenya to the frontline in Ukraine, after luring them to Russia under false pretences, according to documents seen by The i Paper

🔴 Exclusive from @cazjwheeler

Read more: https://t.co/xXVnJ4wawq

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Andy Burnham repeats on Reddit what he told The i Paper last month - his Government will keep the triple lock in place.

Read the news first @theipaper

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Andy Burnham: I’ll keep the triple lock, and give pensioners a tax cut https://t.co/PEAbti4fVb

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Exclusive: Vladimir Putin has sent young men trafficked from Kenya to the frontline in Ukraine, after luring them to Russia under false pretences, according to documents seen by The i Paper.
The Russian President’s operatives have targeted East African men aged 18 to 35 and enticed them to the country with the promise of a better life, briefings to Whitehall officials reveal.
The i Paper has been shown evidence of an organised recruitment network co-ordinated between the Russian military, recruitment agents, and brokers in African countries.
Whitehall officials have received briefings from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency that claim 2,965 African nationals had signed Russian military contracts by April this year. At least 316 are said to have died.
In February, Kenya’s National Intelligence Service estimated that 1,000 Kenyans had been recruited, according to security sources.
The i Paper has seen testimony from a Kenyan retail worker who was trafficked to Russia and later repatriated to Kenya after being treated in hospital for injuries sustained in a drone strike on the frontline.
Another Kenyan man is believed to have been coerced into sending a video to friends and family back home to encourage others to travel to Russia for work. The i Paper has seen a transcript of the footage.

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Vladimir Putin has sent young men trafficked from Kenya to the frontline in Ukraine, after luring them to Russia under false pretences, according to documents seen by The i Paper

🔴 Exclusive from @cazjwheeler

Read more: https://t.co/xXVnJ4wawq

[The i Paper @theipaper]

The £1m pay cut Nigel Farage would have to take to become PM https://t.co/RtsoqU02Tp

[The i Paper @theipaper]

Andy Burnham has said there is “some room” in the Labour manifesto for “movement on tax”.

Follow live: https://t.co/tyKld19Zss

[Rosemary Calder @nickys_mum]

Today, we are remembering all the children we lost to the infected blood scandal. As bereaved parents, we have fought for years to have their lives acknowledged and their deaths recognised.

We continue to call on the government for real and fair justice for every bereaved parent