Early evening summary
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
MoD announces funding for thousands of armed forces members to return home at Christmas
Keir Starmer has announced that thousands of military families will benefit from funding for Christmas return leave. He announced this on his visit to RAF Lossiemouth.
Explaing the change, the Ministry of Defence said:
Around 30,000 junior personnel in years 2-5 of their military careers – a group particularly affected by postings far from home early in their service – will benefit from a funded return journey to see their loved ones this Christmas.
A further 5,000 separated parents with non-resident children will also receive travel credit, helping them reunite with their children over Christmas.
This is targeted support where it is most needed – with personnel in their early years of service most likely to be separated from family and friends due to the demands of military life and placements.
While many in the armed forces already qualify for travel cost support, around 35,000 service personnel don’t currently qualify for this support, and the government is changing that this festive season.
Starmer said:
Our armed forces make extraordinary sacrifices, and I know how important being with family is, and that is why today we’re announcing extra travel support for service personnel to be with their loved ones this Christmas.
UK and Norway sign defence deal to operate combined fleet hunting Russian submarines
The UK and Norway have signed a defence pact that will see their navies operate a combined fleet of warships to hunt Russian submarines, PA Media reports. PA says:
The deal, which the government said was the “first of its kind”, is aimed at protecting critical undersea cables, which the UK and its Nato allies believe are under increasing threat from Moscow.
It comes after a 30% rise in Russian vessels sighted in UK waters in the past two years, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The so-called Lunna House agreement – named after the Shetland Isles base used by the Norwegian resistance during the second world war – was signed by defence secretary John Healey and his Norwegian counterpart Tore Sandvik in Downing Street on Thursday morning.
Healey said it marked an “important moment” for two nations “with deep bonds”.
He added that a “new era of threat” demands “cooperation” between Nato allies, saying that the pact is as important as defence agreements the UK has made with other nations.
Sandvik said the pact marked a “burden shift”, saying more money will be spent on defence.
Shortly after, Keir Starmer met his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Støre, and Sir Keir said that Norway is an “absolutely vital member of the coalition of the willing”. Later Starmer and Støre went to RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland to meet maritime patrol crews tracking Russian vessels.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, has issued a statement about the Nigel Farage press conference. She says:
Nigel Farage can’t get his story straight. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to say whether he racially abused people in the past.
So far, he’s claimed he can’t remember, that it’s not true, that he never “directly” abused anyone, that he was responsible for “offensive banter”, and deflected by saying other people were racist too.
Instead of shamelessly demanding apologies from others, Nigel Farage should be apologising to the victims of his alleged appalling remarks.
Reform want to drag our politics into the gutter. They are simply not fit for high office.
Farage declines to join Richard Tice in calling people who say he was racist or antisemitic at school liars
Here is Rowena Mason’s story from the Nigel Farage press conference.
Rowena did get a question at the press conference. (The Guardian and the Mirror tend to get called last at Reform UK press conferences, but we normally do get a question. Farage is better than most other party leaders at taking questions at these events.) She asked if Farage would agree with Richard Tice in saying the people who accused him of being racist or antisemitic at Dulwich College were lying. (See 9.22am.)
Farage would not follow Tice. He just said: “Recollections may vary after half a century.”
Updated
Earlier I quoted from the Economist’s interview with Keir Starmer. (See 2.15pm.) Here is the conclusion from the Economist’s write-up. It says:
Sir Keir’s agenda in government does not match the scale of the challenge. He agrees that Britain is at a pivot point – a 1945 or a 1979. Those moments had a leader who seized it, in Sir Keir’s telling. Clement Attlee, the Labour prime minister, had to “rebuild the country”. Margaret Thatcher set out to “break the mould”. Each phrase is pithy enough to go on an election placard. What would go on Sir Keir’s bumper sticker? “Our mission of national renewal, renewing our country, understanding our country for what it is, which is a society of reasonable, pragmatic, compassionate people who would actually help each other out if they had half the chance to do so.” As an example of Starmerese, there is no better; as a philosophy to keep the centre together or indeed to inspire, it needs work.
Accepting that the Conservatives are, in effect, allies against Reform may backfire. Some in Reform refer to “the Uniparty”—a grotty consensus between Britain’s mainstream parties, which has led to ruin. Mr Farage would be delighted that Sir Keir sleeps soundly at the thought of their centre-right rivals in office. Many in Labour would be disturbed. But the prime minister knows there is a bigger battle at hand, even if Labour’s squabbling government does not always act like it. Therein lies the paradox of Sir Keir: a man who can articulate the size of the moment, yet still does not quite know how to meet it.
And this is from Duncan Robinson, who writes the Economist’s Bagehot column, on Bluesky.
I was just saying to my mate that Britain needed a mission of national renewal, renewing our country, understanding our country for what it is, which is a society of reasonable, pragmatic, compassionate people who would actually help each other out if they had half the chance to do so
Why Farage said BBC should apologise for its racism and homophobia in 1970s
Here is the full quote from Nigel Farage at his press conference when he implied that whatever he said at Dulwich College was acceptable because it was no worse than anything being shown on the BBC at the same time.
Farage was replying to a question from the BBC’s Damian Grammaticas. (See 3.23pm.) As he went into rant mode, it started to sound pre-rehearsed – although Farage was successful at sounding angry.
Farage said:
The double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing.
At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks, one of your most popular weekly shows was the Black and White Minstrels. The BBC were very happy to use blackface.
And not only in the Black and White Minstrels. You did it in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum as well.
And what about Alf Garnett? Do you remember the word he used to describe Marigold on primetime national TV? I better not repeat the word, otherwise you will all say that I used it.
Homophobia. It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Are You Being Served?
And what about Bernard Manning? Perfectly happy, at exactly the same time, for Bernard Manning to appear on primetime national BBC comedy telling jokes for which these days you’d probably get a knock at the door from our thought police and perhaps get a 31-month prison sentence.
I cannot put up with the double standards at the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago, and what you were putting out on mainstream content.
So I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did during the 1970s and 80s.
As the Conservative party points out (see 4.26pm), this argument undercuts another one that Farage has been using – which is that he did not say what he is accused of saying.
The line about a 31-month jail sentence is a reference to Lucy Connolly, the woman jailed for posting a message on social media saying asylum hotels should be set on fire.
When Harry Horton from ITV News asked another question about Dulwich College, Farage turned on him too, saying ITV was “the channel of Bernard Manning”.
Updated
Barristers' leaders release joint statement saying they 'fundamentally disagree' with plan to restrict jury trials
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
Barristers’ leaders, including the respective chairs of the Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association and the various regional circuits have issued a joint statement saying they “fundamentally disagree with the government’s plan to restrict the deeply entrenched constitutional principle of a jury trial”.
They say they have seen no evidence that the proposals, announced on Tuesday, which include removing the right of defendants to choose to have their cases heard before a jury and the establishment of a new judge-led court will curtail the record backlog in the courts. They say:
The government itself acknowledged on numerous occasions this week that this proposal will not make a difference any time soon. It hinges on Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendation which has not been piloted or thoroughly modelled.
Crown courts such as Liverpool have shown that efficiencies and investment of time and resources do make a difference. In Wales, there’s no meaningful backlog due to close and effective cooperation between the bench and Bar. All the efficiencies we suggested in January – including different case management and defendant delivery time, that have also been recommended by Sir Brian Leveson – do not require legislation. We know they work and would have an impact now.
Resources need to be focused on rebuilding the system and allowing other measures to embed.
Criminal trials being decided by a single judge goes further than the recommendation by Sir Brian which recognised the importance of judgment by peers. The lord chancellor’s own 2017 report made plain that juries are free from bias and provide diversity.
This draconian approach undermines such a well-founded sentiment and attacks a constitutional freedom, namely, trial by jury.
Earlier today, figures were published showing that the backlog in the crown courts could hit 125,000 (from the current 78,000) by the end of this parliament.
The justice secretary, David Lammy, said:
These figures set out the true scale of the court emergency we face – without bold reform the backlog is only going to go up. We simply cannot sit our way out of this crisis.
My plan combines reform, increased investment in legal aid, sitting days and the courts to help us turn the tide on the rising backlog, deliver swifter justice and put victims first.
Labour accuses Farage of dodging questions about racism allegations
And the Labour party has issued this on social media about the Nigel Farage press conference.
Farage now trying to dodge questions from@harry_horton raising serious allegations of racism from his past.
— Labour Press (@labourpress) December 4, 2025
If he has nothing to hide, why respond like this? pic.twitter.com/NMqpTceOZr
Tories accuses Farage of ranting about racism allegations - while at same time in effect admitting they are true
The Conservatives have generally been reluctant to comment on Nigel Farage schoolboy racism story, perhaps viewing it as a dispute between Reform UK and the Guardian.
But the party has just issued a press notice pointing out that, even thought Farage has denied making the racist comments attributed to him, this afternoon is main argument was that anything he may have said was no worse than the low-grade racism that was routine in the 1970s, particularly on TV.
A Conservative spokesperson said:
Nigel Farage just called a press conference and used it to rant at journalists over historic allegations of racism and antisemitism – allegations he has just admitted are true.
Farage is too busy furiously defending himself to defend democracy from the Labour party’s elections delays.
Reform’s one man band is in chaos once again.
Farage was right to say that there were plenty of programmes on TV in the 1970s that would not be acceptable today because of their racism. But it is hard to recall a comedy programme about the Holocaust.
'Offensive ... but never with malice' - Farage quotes letter from Dulwich contemporary in his defence over racism claims
Here is a fuller quote from the letter that Nigel Farage read out during his Q&A when he was responding to a question about racist comments his contemporaries remember him making at Dulwich College. (See 3.23pm.)
Quoting the letter, Farage said:
I was a Jewish pupil at Dulwich College at the same time and I remember [Farage] very well.
While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive … but never with malice.
I never heard him racially abuse anyone.
If he had, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t. The news stories are without evidence, except for belatedly, politically dubious recollections from nearly half a century ago.
Back in the 1970s the culture was very different … especially at Dulwich.
Lots of boys said things they’d regret today or just laugh at.
Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist.
As mentioned this morning (see 9.22am), Farage’s responses to the main claims about him being racist and antisemitic at Dulwich College have see-sawed between conceding that he may have made offensive comments (albeit not with malice, or the intent to cause hurt) and claiming the accusations are entirely without foundation.
This afternoon, quoting the letter, he was back on the former of these (the “banter” defence).
Updated
Farage suggests Reform UK will get rid of council leader accused of racist social media posts
Q: What should happen to Ian Cooper, the Reform UK council leader accused of racist social media posts?
Farage says he only found out about this at 5pm yesterday.
He says Cooper seems to have a social media account that the party was not aware of. He goes on:
We’re going through due process. All I can say is it doesn’t look very good. We expect our people to be truthful with us and if they’re truthful with us, we’ll be honorable towards them.
And that was the end of the press conference.
Q: Would you like to have Robert Jenrick in your party?
Farage says there was a story yesterday saying he was being urged by colleagues to lure Jenrick into the party. He says some people have tried to get him to recruit Jenrick.
That is because they think he has genuinely changed, and that is no longer the remainer he was. Farage says he does now know if that conversion is genuine. But if it is, he would be “more than happy” to talk to him.
Q: When you talked about BBC programmes in the 1970s, were you accepting your comments at the time were not acceptable?
Farage repeats the line he used earlier, from the letter sent by a fellow pupils, saying there were lots of comments made at the time would not acceptable now.
Asked about Ukraine, Farage says we do not know how President Zelenskyy will last. But he says he has been brave. And he accepts that he cannot give up territory.
So the peace deal at the moment won’t work, he says.
But he says that is not a criticism of Donald Trump. He says he thinks Trump does want peace.
Farage says Reform UK considering if it can use judicial review to make mayoral elections go ahead
Q: Are you considering suing Emma Barnett?
On legal actions, Farage says he will consider tonight whether he can go to judicial review to make these mayoral elections go ahead.
On libel actions, he says he has fought them in the past. He has not lost one. He has not fought many. But they take up a lot of your financial and emotional capital.
Q: What due diligence had you done on the £9m donation?
Farage says the system Reform UK was proposing for crypto donations would have been the most thorough in British politics.
Reform UK has sent back more donations than any other party. That is because they are applying the laws strictly, he says.
He says they recently sent back a big donation from a holding company because they did not think it was in the spirit of the rules.
With regard to Christopher Harborne, they are very confident they know where his money comes from
Q: [From the Express’s Jonathan Walker] Do you think these regional mayors are a bad idea? Would you get rid of them?
Farage says he would like to be able to stop this reorganisation. But it is happening. He is not committing to reverse these plans. He will try to make them work.
Farage says Reform UK in government would reverse Labour's plan to restrict right to jury trial
Q: [From Daniel Martin at the Telegraph] Would you reverse Labour’s plans to restrict trial by jury if you win the election?
Yes, says Farage.
He says he attended court recently, for the trial of someone who threatened to kill him.
He was amazed how much hanging around there was. They had to wait for the prisoner to be delivered by Serco.
He says crown courts should be working from 7am to 10pm to clear this backlog.
Q: At what point, when so many Tories are joining your party, it is not them that is being taken over, but you.
Farage says he can choose whether to accept Tory MPs as members or not.
He says he will admit people to the party if they can add something.
He admits that the people at the top of his party don’t have experience of government. That is why having people like Danny Kruger is so useful.
He says Reform UK will not become the Conservatives 2.0.
After next May the Tories will no longer be a national party. They will be “obliterated” in Scotland, and will almost cease to exist in Wales.
Farage claims Christopher Harborne wants 'absolutely nothing' from Reform UK in return for his £9m
Q: [From Sam Coates from Sky News] Why do you think Christopher Harborne has given you £9m?
Farage said this was a very big donation.
But other parties get big donations too, he said. He said this was about creating a level playing field for Reform UK.
He goes on:
Does [Harborne] want anything from me? No. Absolutely nothing in return at all.
He just happens to thing that we’ve not made the most of Brexit, that we’re not getting into the 21st century technologies …
Does he want anything in return for his money? I promise you, absolutely nothing. Do I speak to him regularly? Maybe once a month, maybe once every six weeks, and certainly not more than that. And have I promised him anything? Hand on heart, I have not promised him a single thing in return for his donation.
Updated
Farage says he has had letter from fellow Dulwich pupils defending him over racist comment claims
In his response to the BBC, Farage went on to address the point about his own comments at the time being racists.
He said he had received many letters from fellow pupils, and he quotes from one of them.
The writer said he called “plenty of macho, tongue in cheek schoolboy banter” at the time, and some of it was offensive.
But it was not done with malice, the writer said. The writer went on:
I never heard [Farage] racially abused anyone. If he had, he would have been reported and punished …
Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist. If I can help in any way, let me know.
UPDATE: See 4.08pm for the full quote.
Updated
Farage accuses BBC of 'double standards' over race, demanding apology for its 70/80s TV shows now considered racist
Farage is now taking questions.
The first, from the BBC, was about what Richard Tice said on the Today programme this morning.
Farage started by referring to Emma Barnett as one of the BBC’s “lower grade presenters”.
He says that the way she framed her question (at one point she referred to Farage’s “relationship” with Adolf Hitler).
He then goes on to attack the BBC for the fact they were showing programmes in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was alleged to have made the racist and antisemitic comments at Dulwich college, that would be viewed as racist now.
I cannot put up with the double standards of the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago, and what you were putting out on mainstream content. So I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s.
Updated
Farage claims mayoral elections postponed by Labour to stop Reform UK winning them
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, is holding a press conference. There is a live feed here.
He starts with a spiel about how Labour is “authoritarian”. He criticises the plan for the police to use more facial recognition, the plans to limit the use of jury trial.
And then he move on to the mayoral elections being cancelled – the main point of the press conference.
He says he spoke to a senior council figure in Essex this morning (where he is an MP), and he says they said they were ready for the elections.
He says he could understand the argument for postponing some elections this year. But postponing these elections for two years is “monstrous”.
He says one consequence of the decision is that people in Clacton, where he is the MP, will have to vote in 2026, 2027 and 2028.
He says it would be good to have a regional mayor to explain why they should go ahead.
He says Reform UK would have won all four mayoral elections.
But, by postponing them, Labour hopes that it will be able to stop Reform winning them all because the AV voting system will be in place.
Zack Polanski calls for cap on political donations after £9m gift to Reform UK, saying democracy should 'never be for sale'
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has called for a cap on the amount people can give to political parties in the light of the news the Reform UK has received £9m from a crypto investor. In a statement, he said:
Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy. When a single party can be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy individuals, it drowns out the voices of ordinary people and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites.
This is exactly why we need a cap on political donations. Democracy should never be for sale. Every party should compete on ideas, not on the size of their donor spreadsheet.
While Reform pockets eye-watering cheques, Greens are building a movement powered and funded by people through thousands of new members.
When we win elections, it will be because of the tens of thousands of people volunteered, not the people who donated tens of thousands. If we want a politics that serves the public, not billionaire backers, then capping donations is essential. Let’s end the influence of big money and put democracy back where it belongs: in the hands of voters.
Updated
£9m gift to Reform UK highlights 'alarming trend' of parties getting ever larger donations from the very rich, ERS warns
The Electoral Reform Society has issued a new statement in response to the news about Reform UK getting a £9m donation (see 12.41pm), saying this is part of an “alarming trend” involving parties getting every larger donations from single individuals.
Jess Garland, director of policy and research at the ERS, said:
We are seeing an alarming trend of parties receiving larger and larger donations from single super wealthy donors and the public are rightly asking what these very rich people expect in return for their money.
The UK is uniquely exposed in this new era of mega donors as we do not even have a donations cap meaning parties can receive unlimited sums.
The government urgently needs to reform our party finance laws to ensure that political parties are focused on bettering the lives of voters not super rich donors.
The Local Goverment Information Unit (LGiU), a thinktank for the sector, has strongly criticised the decision to delay four inaugural mayoral elections. In a statement, Jonathan Carr-West, its chief executive, said
The government set out a clear and ambitious timetable for devolution that until this week they were insisting was still on track. Councils have moved mountains to meet every single deadline presented to them. Many will be wondering what has changed?
Across the country, so many colleagues in the sector have been working hard on devolution – including on preparation for mayoral elections – and it’s simply not fair to keep chopping and changing. It’s essential that the government now sets out a definitive timetable for devolution and local government reorganisation, including (crucially) final confirmation of whether county and district council elections will take place in DPP [devolution priority programme] areas next May.
Today’s ministerial statement still includes too many phrases like “minded to” or “as soon as possible” – the government must set out a clear plan and stick to it. Councils and our communities deserve that.
Starmer says Britain may not survive as 'tolerant, diverse country' if Reform UK takes power
Keir Starmer has said that, while he could “sleep at night” with the Tories in power, if Reform UK were to win the election, Britain would not survive as a “tolerant, diverse country”.
He was speaking in an interview with the Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, in which he delivered some of his strongest warnings yet about the prospect of Nigel Farage winning the next election.
Starmer described Reform UK as ‘a party that is pro-Putin or Putin-neutral”, and he said there was “no way on earth” that Britain would be part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ supporting Ukraine with Farage as PM.
But Starmer also said that his concerns about Reform went well beyond that.
We would tear apart our country with their propositions for not actually respecting the tolerant, diverse country that we are. And they’ve got no ideas on the economy whatsoever.
And my worry is, and this is how history tells us, is that a rightwing proposition like that, with fantastical ideas, leaning towards Russia, if it gets into power, it will find that its policies don’t work, and it won’t become more progressive, it won’t nudge towards the centre, it’ll be go to the right, to the right, to the right. We’ve not faced that in this country ever in this form, and it is the political fight of our times and we have to win that political fight.
In what seemed to be more of a reference to past Conservative governments than to Kemi Badenoch, Starmer said:
If there is a Conservative government I can sleep at night. If there was a right-wing government in the United Kingdom, that would be a different proposition.
And we have to prove between now and the next election, that progressive national renewal, patriotism, central … centrist politics can meet the challenges of the day …
If we fail that test, this country is going to move to the right in a way that many of us think would challenge the very essence of who we are as a nation.
Asked if he agreed with Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, who has described this moment as “the last chance” for the centre in his country, Starmer replied:
Yes. I think this is the real test of centrist politics.
Asked what would happen if Reform were to win, Starmer said:
Well, where to begin? Firstly, their economics is pure fantasy. They’ve just got billions and billions of pounds that they say they will either spend or save without any plans to do so.
Secondly, they do not want to live in the tolerant, diverse country that we are. I’m proud that we’re a diverse, tolerant, compassionate, live-and-let-live country, and I want to represent all parts of that.
With Reform, with their policy, which was to reach in to people who’ve been lawfully in this country for years and deport them, that’s their policy, they would tear our country apart, because these are the people that work in our schools, in our hospitals, that run businesses, who are our neighbours.
Updated
Phillipson tells MPs full safeguarding review will take place after 'sickening' case of paedophile nursery worker
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has told MPs that the government will strengthen the ways children are kept safe after the “sickening case” of paedophile nursery worker Vincent Chan.
In a statement to the Commons, Phillipson said a full local child practice safeguarding review will take place.
She said: “All of us here and people across our country will wish to join with me in expressing our horror at hearing of these appalling crimes.”
Phillipson said a rapid review was conducted “to establish the facts”, adding:
A full local child safeguarding practice review is warranted, which is being set up immediately.
I am clear that this wider review must shine the strongest possible light on these horrifying incidents and that we learn every lesson we can to make sure that crimes like this are guarded against at every step and every stage.
Reform UK received £50,000 from Lady Rothermere, wife of the Daily Mail's owner, figures show
Yesterday Sam Freedman published a very good post on his Substack blog on six lessons to be learned from the 2024 general election. It was based on data in a new book, The British General Election of 2024, which is written by four academics and is the latest in the series of authoritative “Nuffield” guides to British elections going back to 1945. Reading it, Freeman said he had forgotten how critical the rightwing papers were of Reform UK last summer.
Reform also faced a barrage of attacks from the right-wing press during the 2024 campaign. I’d forgotten quite how hard the Daily Mail, in particular, went for them in an attempt to protect the Tories. [The book says:] “[The Mail published an] editorial entitled ‘A Worrying Reform’ dismissed what it called the party’s ‘threadbare’ policies (10 June 2024), while its manifesto was derided as ‘fantasy economics’ (18 June 2024). As columnist Andrew Neil put it, the ‘Reform crackpot ‘contract’ has all the rigour of maths done on the back of a Farage fag packet after a two-bottle lunch’ (Daily Mail, 18 June 2024)”
As Freeman says, it is not going to be like that at the next election.
And that is why, in the Electoral Commission figures out today, almost as interesting as the £9m donation to Reform UK from Christopher Harborne (see 10.29am) is the £50,000 donation to the party from Claudia Harmsworth, aka Lady Rothermere, the wife of the owner of the Daily Mail.
As Michael Savage and Mark Sweney pointed out in a good profile at the weekend, Lord Rothermere himself subscribes to a “gentler, more pro-European conservatism” than the version you will find in his papers. But his wife seems to be more pro-Farage, and his Mail titles seem to be going that way too.
Updated
Swinney defends review of grooming gangs evidence in Scotland as Tories call for full inquiry
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
First minister’s questions were dominated by the Scottish government’s announcement yesterday afternoon of a review of evidence on the operation of grooming gangs in Scotland – which will inform any future decision on whether or not to hold a judge-led public inquiry.
It will be carried out by the Care Inspectorate, the Inspectorate of Constabulary and Education, and Healthcare Improvement Scotland – oversight bodies which are independent of the government and the review will be overseen by Prof Alexis Jay, who led the inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.
But Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay said this amounted to organisations “marking their own homework” and fell short of a full independent inquiry.
John Swinney, the first minister, said his government was taking the issue seriously by embarking on the “important investigative and exploratory work” to decide whether a full inquiry was necessary and welcomed Jay’s appointment.
Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid, who has been campaigning for an independent inquiry for months, called for Jay to be given “full authority” to shape the review. She said:
If ministers were serious, they would have commissioned a straightforward, fully independent rapid review – exactly as England did.
Instead, they’ve chosen the most complicated, most politically controlled route possible because they still can’t admit fault.
Prof Jay must be given full authority, full access and complete freedom to shape this review. Anything less will fail survivors and fail Scotland.
Gina Miller, the campaigner who launched successful legal challenges against the last Tory government over using article 50 to start the Brexit process, and over the prorogation of parliament, has also said the £9m donation to Reform UK shows why a cap on donations is needed. She says:
For years I’ve been saying that there needs to be caps on political donations of £50,000
A mega-bucks donation of £9m to Reform from a cryptocurrency bro must have strings attached!
With the #ElectionsBill going through parliament, there’s a golden opportunity to clean up our politics and rebuild trust, through such a reform and others eg regulating political advertising, closing donor loopholes and misleading information
Record £9m gift to Reform UK prompts renewed calls for government to impose cap on political donations
Following the news today that Reform UK has received £9m in a single donation (see 10.29am), the Electoral Reform Society has renewed its call for a cap to be placed on donations to political parties. It says:
Today, Reform UK were given £9,000,000, their largest single donation ever, and the largest donation ever from a living donor. In recent years, donations of over a million have become common across the political spectrum - it’s time for a cap on donations
In a blog on its website, Doug Cowan, its head of digital, said:
In the UK today, there is still no legal limit on how much a single donor can give to a political party each year. That simple fact shapes our politics in profound ways. When unlimited money flows into campaigns from a small group of exceptionally wealthy individuals, it becomes harder for the rest of us to get our voices heard.
Introducing a clear cap on political donations is one of the most effective steps we could take to rebuild trust. With the upcoming elections bill, the government has an opportunity to put a donations cap into law.
Asked about the donation in the Commons, Miatta Fahnbulleh, the local government minister, said the elections bill will tighten the rules on donations to political parties. (See 11.25am.)
The elections bill has not been published yet. But the government has released a policy paper outlining what will be in the bill, and it did not propose a cap. Some campaigners, like Spotlight on Corruption (here) said much tougher rules were needed.
Updated
Foreign Office says Russian military intelligence agency being sanctioned in its entirety after Dawn Sturgess report
The Foreign Office has announced that the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, has been sanctioned in its entirety in the light of the report from the inquiry into the death of Dawn Strugess. (See 12.12pm.)
The FCDO is also sanctioning and exposing 11 individuals involved in the attack. It says:
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, is now sanctioned in its entirety by the UK. GRU agents carry out Putin’s bidding, seeking to destabilise Ukraine and attempting to sow chaos and disorder across Europe. The action comes as the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry publishes its final report into the tragic circumstances surrounding Dawn Sturgess’s death in Salisbury in 2018.
Today’s sanctions also zero in on eight cyber military intelligence officers for working for the GRU, the organisation which was responsible for cyber operations targeting Yulia Skripal with X-agent malware and, five years later, the attempted murder of Yulia and her father on UK soil.
The Russian ambassador is also being summoned to the Foreign Office “to answer for Russia’s ongoing campaign of hostile activity against the UK”.
Putin is ‘morally responsible’ for Dawn Sturgess’s novichok death, inquiry finds
Vladimir Putin is “morally responsible” for the death of a British woman killed after she sprayed herself with a nerve agent smuggled into the UK by Russian agents to assassinate a former spy, an inquiry has concluded. Steven Morris and Caroline Bannock have the story.
The number of people in hospital with flu in England is at a record level for this time of year, in fresh evidence of the scale of this year’s surge in infections, PA Media reports. PA says:
An average of 1,717 flu patients were in beds in England each day last week, including 69 in critical care, according to the first of this year’s NHS winter situation reports.
This is 56% higher that the equivalent numbers for the same week in 2024, when the total was 1,098 with 39 in critical care.
It is also well above levels seen at this point in both 2023 and 2022.
Numbers peaked last winter at 5,408 patients in early January.
Lord Mann, the former Labour MP who is now the government’s adviser on antisemitism, says Richard Tice should resign if he cannot prove his allegation that the people accusing Nigel Farage of being racist and antisemitic as a schoolboy are lying. (See 9.22am.)
If Tice can’t prove his ‘liar’ assertion then he has to resign. @BBCr4today
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Rachel Reeves will not be investigated over pre-budget briefing, FCA says
The Financial Conduct Authority has decided not to immediately investigate Rachel Reeves and the Treasury over pre-budget briefings – but it has left the door open to further examine what the Conservatives claim amounted to market manipulation. Kiran Stacey and Kalyeena Makortoff have the story.
Compass, the leftwing group committed to pluralism and PR, has welcomed the decision to delay the four inaugural mayoral elections. Lena Swedlow, its deputy director, said:
Delaying these elections isn’t damaging to democracy – holding them under first-past-the-post when you’re literally legislating it out of existence would be
Compass has been calling for this nationally and locally our members have been organising to delay their mayoral elections – because they know FPTP turns elections into a lottery. With political trust at an all-time low and turnout falling, this is a welcome move from a government finally doing something to give new mayors an actual mandate to govern their local areas.
Electing four first-time mayors under FPTP when every other new one will take place under SV would have been nonsensical.
The government is legislating to ensure regional mayors are elected using the supplementary vote not first-past-the-post. SV is seen as fairer because it means second preferences can be taken into account. The changes are in the devolution bill, which is still going though parliament.
Households face higher energy bills as £28bn grid upgrade gets go-ahead
Energy companies have been given the green light to spend £28bn on Great Britain’s gas and electricity grids, raising fears of higher household bills, Jillian Ambrose reports.
Here is more reaction to the decision that four inaugural regional mayoral elections are being delayed for two years.
This is from Kemi Badenoch.
This is the second time Labour have cancelled elections.
Democracy isn’t optional. We will oppose this every step of the way.
And this is from Zöe Franklin, the Lib Dem local government spokesperson.
This is a disgrace. Democracy delayed is democracy denied. We are fighting to end this blatant stitch up between Labour and the Conservatives over local elections. The Liberal Democrats will keep working to give millions of people their vote back in May.
Latest £9m donation to Reform UK shows elections not fair if they can be 'bought by handful of individuals', MPs told
Lisa Smart (Lib Dem) told MPs that the figures out from the Electoral Commission today revealed some parties are getting “eye-wateringly large donations”. She went on:
Our elections are not being fought on an even footing if they can be bought by a small handful of individuals.
She urged the minister to ensure that financial donation rules are tightened in the elections bill.
Fahnbulleh said Smart was making a “powerful point” and she confirmed the elections bill would tighten the rules.
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Minister says mayoral elections could technically happen in 2026, but government is delaying so 'foundations are strong'
Back in the Commons, Alec Shelbrooke (Con) asks why ministers originally thought these four mayoral elections could take place in 2026, and why they are now being delayed for two years.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the local government minister, said that the elections could go ahead inn 2026. But she said the government had concluded that it would be better to delay for two years to ensure that there are strong unitary authorities in place when the mayors start work. She said:+
We think it is worth taking the time, having the breathing space, to ensure that the foundations are strong.
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Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference later, at 3pm, to talk about the four delayed mayoral elections. It will start at 3pm.
Here is the written ministerial statement for Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, confirming that the four mayoral elections for Sussex and Brighton, Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Greater Essex are being postponed.
In its, Reed is announcing £200m for six new strategic authorities – the four where inaugural mayoral elections are being postponed, because councils are being reorganised in those areas, and two others (Cheshire and Warrington, and Cumbria).
In Cheshire and Warrington, and Cumbria, local leaders have already asked for the inaugural mayoral elections to be delayed until May 2027, so that they will align with the local elections there.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said that in Essex county council elections were postponed. He said district councils were being replaced with a new “pretty amorphous unitary authority”. Because of that, the area also needed “a clear elected figure”, a mayor, he said.
Fahnbulleh said the government wanted to create strong, unitary councils. He said that would be a difficult concept for Reform UK to understand, “given the absolute shambles that we’re seeing in the councils that they control”.
Former Labour minister accuses government of ignoring 'moral obligation' to allow mayoral elections to go ahead
Jim McMahon, who was local government minister until he was sacked in the reshuffle in September, accused the government of ignoring a “moral obligation” to allow these mayoral elections to go ahead.
He said local leaders “across the political spectrum” accepted these reorganisation plans in good faith. They have prepared for these elections and parties, including Labour, have selected candidates, he said. He went on:
The government had a moral and a legal obligation to honour its side of the bargain
Fahnbulleh paid tribute to the work that McMahon did on this when he was in government. But she said the government had to respond to the “facts” as they are now.
David Simmonds, the shadow local government minister, pointed out that, when the Tories tried to amend legislation saying the four mayoral elections would have to go ahead next year, the government claimed it would be wrong to put that timetable in law because there was a risk the elections might need to be cancelled for a reason like Covid.
He suggested ministers were not being honest when they insisted previously that they wanted these elections to go ahead on time.
In response, Fahnbulleh stressed that the normal local elections were not affected.
But these elections were different, she said, because they were linked to the establishment of new bodies that are still being set up.
Local government minister says four mayoral elections being delayed to allow time for council reorganisation
In the Commons Miatta Fahnbulleh, the local government minister, is responding to an urgent question about the cancellation of some mayoral elections next year.
She says the local elections will go ahead as planned next May. “We are as up for elections as anyone else,” she says.
But she says the government is “minded” to delay elections for mayors to take charge of new strategic authorities – Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton – until May 2028.
She says is because the strategic authorities are being set up at the same time as local government reorganisation is taking place in those areas.
The government wants to delay the mayoral elections because it wants to allow time for the new unitary authorities (councils) and for the strategic authorities (multi-council organisations, run by mayors) to be set up first.
Reform UK gets record £9m donation from Boris Johnson supporter and crypto investor Christopher Harborne
Reform UK has received a donation of £9m, the biggest single donation in history to a political party from a living person, Electoral Commission figures out today reveal.
It is from Christopher Harborne, a British businessman who made the donation on 1 August.
According to the figures, Reform UK received £10.5m in the third quarter of 2025. The Conservatives received almost £7m, Labour £2.5m and the Lib Dems just over £2m.
The full list is here.
Harborne has in the past given money to the Conservative party. He also gave a £1m donation to Boris Johnson’s office after Johnson stood down as PM. Tom Burgis wrote about his relationship with Johnson as part of our recent “Boris Files” investigation.
Harborne, who is described as an aviation entrepreneur and crypto investor, was born in Britain but lives in Thailand. He gave large sums to the Brexit party in 2019 and 2020. The Brexit party subsequently changed its name, becoming Reform UK.
While Harbone’s £9m donation is the largest to a party from a living person, it does not match the £10m that John Sainsbury left to the Conservative party in his will in 2022.
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Labour says it's 'deplorable' for Tice to dismiss Farage schoolboy racism claims as lies
Labour has described Richard Tice’s claim that the people saying Nigel Farage was racist or antisemtic towards them when he was a teenager at school are lying (see 9.22am) as “deplorable”.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, issued this statement after the Tice interview on the Today programme.
It took serious courage for the victims of Nigel Farage’s alleged racism to come forward and tell their story.
It’s utterly deplorable that Richard Tice has dismissed this and suggested they are lying, despite Farage himself refusing to offer a categorical denial and saying he couldn’t remember everything that happened at school.
Instead of repeatedly changing their story, Nigel Farage and Richard Tice should urgently apologise to those bravely raising these serious concerns. Reform want to drag our politics to a dark place and it shows they are not fit for high office.
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Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has ordered a clinical review of the diagnosis of mental health condition, Nadeem Badshah reports.
Home Office launches consultation as it sets to expand use of facial recognition technology by police
Ministers are seeking to ramp up police use of facial recognition to fight crime and are asking people how it should be used to form new laws, PA Media reports. PA says:
A 10-week consultation is being launched that will ask for views on how the technology should be regulated and how to protect people’s privacy.
The government is also proposing to create a regulator to oversee police use of facial recognition, biometrics and other tools and is collecting opinions on what powers it should have.
Policing minister Sarah Jones described facial recognition as the “biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching” saying that it has already helped catch thousands of criminals.
“We will expand its use so that forces can put more criminals behind bars and tackle crime in their communities,” she said.
According to the Home Office, the Metropolitan police made 1,300 arrests using facial recognition over the last two years, and found more than 100 registered sex offenders breaching their licence conditions.
But the technology has faced criticism, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) describing the Met police’s policy on use of live facial recognition technology as “unlawful”, earlier this year.
The equalities watchdog said the rules and safeguards around the UK’s biggest police force’s use of the technology “fall short” and could have a “chilling effect” on individuals’ rights when used at protests.
No 10 to delay four England mayoral elections amid accusations of ‘cancelling democracy’
Ministers are to postpone elections for new mayors in four parts of England, triggering accusations from opposition parties that Downing Street is “cancelling democracy”, Eleni Courea reports.
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice says racism claims about Nigel Farage from fellow pupils are ‘made-up twaddle'
Good morning. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has given different responses, at different times, to the accounts of him being racist and antisemitic when he was a teenager given by some of his contempories at Dulwich College in south London. They have ranged from saying he may have engaged in “banter” using language that, 50 years later, may be regarded as offensive, to saying the claims were entirely without foundation. There is a good summary here.
But today Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, has gone much further, accusing at least one of Farage’s critics of lying and describing the recollections as “made-up twaddle” motivated by political bias.
Tice was being interviewed on the Today programme by Emma Barnett about the decision to delay some mayoral elections in England. Tice described the decision more than once as “dictatorial” and, after a decent discussion about the elections, Barnett (who is Jewish) used the reference to dictators as a cue to ask about Nigel Farage and Hitler. She summed up some of the stories about Farage highighted in the recent Guardian investigation, including Farage telling a Jewish pupil “Hitler was right”, and asked if language like this would amount to racist abuse.
Tice said it would be. But he went on:
I can’t believe anybody would have said that.
Barnett asked: “Including your leader?” And Tice went on:
Yes. This is all made-up twaddle by people who don’t want Nigel to be prime minister of the country. It’s funny how they didn’t remember this three years ago, six years ago, 10 years ago.
Barnett pointed out that Peter Ettedgui, the former pupil who remembers Farage telling him “Hitler was right”, did remember this years ago. He spoke about it to people like Michael Crick, who first reported on some of these allegations more than a decade ago, she said. Barnett said that people who do suffer racist abuse don’t forget it because “it gets etched on your memory”.
But Tice doubled down. He said:
This is this is this is made-up nonsense by someone who’s got a politically biased motive.
And let me tell you; no one has stood up against antisemitism more than Nigel and I. We were the ones who, immediately after October 7, said we were very worried about the protests, the pro-Palestine protest, that were inciting hatred, antsemitism and violence.
Barnett said Tice was accusing Ettedgui of lying. “Yes,” Tice replied.
Barnett went on: “But you don’t know that?”
And Tice replied:
I think this is made-up twaddle by a whole bunch of people with … a political axe to grind.
And every week the voters are going out in byelections and they are voting for Reform because they are not buying into this leftwing, anti-Nigel narrative.
‘Brave’ would be one word that might Tice’s approach in this interview. Readers can probably think of others. It is certainly not the strategy that would have been adopted by anyone taking advice from a libel lawyer beforehand.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Darren Jones, the Cabinet Office minister and cheif secretary to the PM, takes questions in the Commons.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in west London.
Morning: Keir Starmer meets Jonas Gahr Støre, the Norwegian prime minister, in Downing Street.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Noon: The final report from the inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess, who was killed in the Salisbury novichok Russian nerve agent attack, is published. Dan Jarvis, the security minister, is due to make a statement on it to MPs.
Afternoon: Starmer and Støre visit RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland where they will announce measures to deal with Russian submarine incursions.
Late afternoon: Starmer visits Glasgow for an event with Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, where they will highlight budget measures that will benefit Scotland.
At at some point today Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, is giving a speech in parliament to MPs and peers as part of his state visit.
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