Home secretary’s condenmation of ‘misinformation and inflammatory commentary’ comes after death threats to police
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has warned of a “dangerous undercurrent” in the wake of the murder of Henry Nowak, who was falsely accused of racism by a Sikh man who had fatally stabbed him with a ceremonial dagger.
Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years for the December 2025 murder of 18-year-old Nowak.
Continue reading...Sources predict ‘toe-curling’ revelations as more than 1,000 pages of documents relating to his appointment as US ambassador to be published
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the release of the Mandelson files today would be “an unprecedented piece of government transparency”.
He said that party political material would be included, despite precedent suggesting it should be included, and that some material had to be declassified to allow it to be published.
The broad scope of the [humble address motion – see 9.26am] has required the discovery, assessment, analysis and preparation of thousands of individual documents and messages.
This is a task that has involved every government department.
Yeah, I have changed what I would say. I wouldn’t say that phrase any more.
And I think that, you know, over the last few years, I think a lot of us, myself included, have thought about this question in quite some detail.
Continue reading...Australian Greens should ‘take on’ Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Polanski tells Victorian conference, just as he took on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK
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Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green party of England and Wales, has told his counterparts in Australia that they need to start “connecting with people’s anger” and learn from the “storytelling power” of populist rightwing politics.
Speaking via video link at the Victorian Greens campaign conference on Saturday night, Zack Polanski said the party in Australia needed to start “taking on” Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, just as his own party had taken on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
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Ministers are proposing new laws to crack down on damage to undersea cables amid “hostile activity by Russia”, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Tougher penalties for ship owners and operators who recklessly damage underwater infrastructure will be set out in a white paper later this year, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said.
Acts of sabotage linked to a hostile state already carries life imprisonment for the most serious cases but undersea malicious activity sometimes operates in a “grey zone” which is difficult to prosecute, DSIT said.
It’s astonishing that Reform have admitted they knew about Kenyon’s social media accounts. Nigel Farage needs to urgently explain to the public why, if his party was aware of his online history, he was happy to put forward a candidate who has made vile degrading comments about women, multiple homophobic posts and spread dangerous false narratives about the Manchester Arena bombing.
I am rough around the edges. I have made mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect. Nobody is. Not a single person in the world is perfect. I think everybody does say things that eventually they regret.
It was a crude attempt at a joke to probably about 50 followers.
No offence was meant, and it’s not something I’d do now.
I think I’ve addressed the issue. I think that no offence was meant and it wasn’t a direct comment to her. If you go into any building site in the area or any public barracks, I think you’d hear a hundred times worse said.
Continue reading...What’s Carol Vorderman moaning about? All I said was how fit she was … must be going through the menopause or something
Another sweltering sub-Saharan summer’s day in late spring. If this is global warming, I say: “Bring it on.” I go outside to the van, turn on the engine and leave it running. This is the kind of day you want to burn as many fossil fuels as possible. Back indoors, I turn on the radio where Tony Blair is talking. There’s a politician who talks sense.
Bollocks to net zero. That’s what I say. It stands to reason. I mean, think back to the ice age. Let’s face it, there weren’t that many international flights a day while the Neanderthals were alive – five or six at most – and the world still got a whole lot hotter. So it’s all just woke nonsense. Make a note in my diary to ask if Tony is free to come up to Makerfield to do some door-knocking.
Continue reading...‘Robert’s answer is not Reform policy’, Yusuf said about an answer that Jenrick gave to journalists days earlier
Keir Starmer has said that SNP leaders need to explain why they did not realise that Peter Murrell was stealing more than £400,000 from the party.
Asked about yesterday’s court proceedings in Edinburgh, where Murrell admitting embezzling money from the party to spend on luxury goods, Starmer said:
I think anybody looking at what’s happening up in Scotland will be baffled that those at the top of the SNP say they didn’t know anything about what was going on, so clearly there are questions that need to be answered.
Continue reading...Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, seeks to present issue as irrelevant in interview with Laura Kuenssberg
Labour has accused Nigel Farage of attempting to dodge scrutiny as the Reform leader continued to face questions over the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire shortly before the last general election.
Asked about the gift from Christopher Harborne on Sunday, the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, sought to present it as an irrelevance to voters and said it had complied with all the rules.
Continue reading...Party has success in Labour and Tory heartland areas but one pollster says results suggest Reform may have peaked
Nigel Farage hailed sweeping election wins for Reform UK as a “historic shift in British politics” on a day when the populist party made gains at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives.
Reform made advances in heartland areas of both parties, clocking up substantial early results in the English local elections by taking control of Essex county council, Havering – its first London local authority – and Sunderland city council.
Continue reading...As Labour faces record-breaking losses in Thursday’s local elections, prime minister says rivals are unfit to lead
Labour is braced for record-breaking losses in Thursday’s local elections in England, which could be decisive for Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister.
In a message to voters on Thursday, Starmer said Reform’s Nigel Farage and the Greens’ Zack Polanski were “not fit to meet this moment of great global instability” and that only Labour was putting the national interest first.
Continue reading...Green leader also apologised for misrepresenting his work with the Red Cross, and defended party policy on drugs
Labour has criticised Zack Polanski for saying he was concerned about how the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings was treated when he was arrested by the police.
Referring to what Polanski said about this in his Today interview this morning (see 9.33am), a Labour party spokesperson said:
Our brave police ran towards a suspected terrorist and tackled him while he was still carrying a knife and before they could handcuff him.
The fact that Zack Polanski is still sympathising with this individual is utterly astounding. For the Green party leader to be litigating the case for the defence against the police shows whose side he is truly on.
The latest unemployment figures for February showed a fall, interest rates were expected to come down, the markets were pricing in a couple of cuts during the course of the year.
The truth is, with the effect of the Iran war, we can’t count on any of that at the moment. There is likely to be an effect on prices, which feeds through from energy costs, and there may well be labour market implications.
Continue reading...French publication Le Monde says Laure Ferrari ‘dodged’ question when quizzed over property purchase in Clacton
Nigel Farage’s partner, Laure Ferrari, has refused to confirm how she paid for a house in the Reform leader and MP’s constituency of Clacton, adding “there’s more than one way to pay for a house”.
In an interview with French publication Le Monde, Ferrari was questioned over revelations in the Guardian that she had purchased a house in her name in Clacton after Farage had claimed to be the buyer.
Continue reading...Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Robert Jenrick, among others, have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro
Reform UK’s leading figures have repeatedly promoted a new pothole-fixing machine by the construction company JCB, while the party received £200,000 from the British digger maker, the Guardian can reveal.
Several Reform politicians including Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro machine.
Continue reading...Electoral Commission reviewing whether Reform UK leader should have declared billionaire’s gift before entering parliament
The UK elections watchdog is considering whether to investigate an undisclosed £5m gift received by Nigel Farage before he announced his candidacy at the last general election.
The Guardian revealed this week that the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne gave the Reform UK leader the money.
Continue reading...PM took questions from leader of the opposition and other MPs in final PMQs before recess
Here is the running order for PMQs.
Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, Anna Isaac reports.
Continue reading...Reform leader changed his mind about standing as MP after gift from Thai-based crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne
Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, the Guardian can reveal.
Farage had stated he did not intend to stand as a prospective MP but U-turned in June 2024, within weeks of receiving the personal gift from the Thailand-based businessman.
Continue reading...Hope Not Hate campaign identifies election hopefuls calling for a ‘white Britain’ and complaining of ‘kowtowing to the black community’
A Reform UK candidate who called for a “white Britain” and said Keir Starmer should be shot is among a number of contenders fuelling doubts about the party’s claim to have tightened up its vetting.
The past comments of Linda McFarlane and other political hopefuls have been unearthed ahead of the 7 May elections, including one who complained about “constant kowtowing to the black community” and others who endorsed the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Continue reading...Labour calls on Nigel Farage to sack candidates and says his party’s checks ‘clearly not fit for purpose’
Reform UK’s checks on candidates are “clearly not fit for purpose”, Labour has said after two more candidates in May’s local elections were accused of making offensive or potentially racist social media posts.
Meanwhile, it emerged that Restore Britain, the party set up by the MP Rupert Lowe after he left Reform, appeared to have accepted a donation from someone who has called publicly on social media for “another Hitler” to come to power.
Continue reading...Individuals such as Matt Goodwin and Lord Frost benefited from largesse of self-styled ‘illiberal democracy’
The last 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule have been kind to a number of British political figures – from the Tory peer David Frost to Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin and James Orr.
All benefited from largesse extended by the self-styled “illiberal democracy” established by the Hungarian leader’s ruling Fidesz party, which took a particular liking for those on the harder right of British conservatism.
Continue reading...Poll projects major political earthquake across Britain with Labour losing Wales and England’s Red Wall
In the light of what George Robertson, who led the strategic defence review for Labour, said about defence spending in his speech last night, there’s a good chance Kemi Badenoch will choose to raise this at PMQs later.
She may well raise the Times’s splash, which says Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is proposing to raise defence spending by less than £10bn over the next four years.
The State of It political podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times has been told that Reeves is unwilling to break her fiscal rules or increase taxes to boost defence spending.
John Healey, the defence secretary, is pressing for a bigger increase as there are concerns that £10bn will not be enough, given the increasing likelihood that British forces will be deployed to Ukraine and the Middle East.
Lord Robertson produced his first SDR as Tony Blair’s defence secretary in 1998, and the historian David Edgerton noted then that Britain was committing itself “to acting primarily with the USA in a wide-ranging programme of global policing”. The structure of the armed forces is designed not for autonomous defence but because “the composition … is what allows Britain to be the USA’s principal partner”. Only 15% to 20% of spending, Prof Edgerton reckoned, related to purely national defence. In that sense, the model Lord Robertson now defends was never primarily about defending the UK at all. It was about plugging into a US system and piggybacking on its arms industry base.
The Treasury is right to question prioritising defence now. Cutting welfare would hit demand and weaken growth. As Khem Rogaly of the Common Wealth thinktank argues, defence spending provides a weak economic stimulus compared with public investment – and is even worse as a job creator. Moreover, the UK is not using higher defence spending to build its own independent military, but to reshape its armed forces around a US-style venture capital and tech ecosystem. With Mr Trump in office, there is no better time to ask: whose security are we funding – Britain’s or America’s?
Continue reading...Promotion of ‘bitcoin treasury’ firm with Kwasi Kwarteng draws new attention to Reform leader’s relations with industry
A thumping electronic beat provides the soundtrack to the video as Nigel Farage appears in front of a bank of screens.
At first glance, it could be yet another of the Reform UK leader’s “second jobs” – whether promoting gold as a pension fallback or recording Cameo videos. And in a sense, it is: Farage is promoting a £2m cryptocurrency purchase by a company in which he has £215,000 invested, Stack BTC.
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