Nigel Farage has announced Reform UK’s tough new proposals for dealing with the “Boriswave” of migrants. The liberal immigration policy overseen by Boris Johnson after the UK left the EU was “the biggest betrayal of democratic wishes in anyone’s living memory”, said Farage, who claims migrants will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of pounds in benefit payments unless urgent action is taken.

What is the Boriswave?
The term refers to the sharp increase in migration to the UK after January 2021, when post-Brexit points-based visa rules came into force. By the end of 2022, net migration reached 873,000 – four times more than before Brexit. The number of new arrivals dropped to 431,000 in 2024, according to Office for National Statistics data, but the totals are still higher than in the 2010s.

What happened?
There are differing views within the Conservative Party of how Johnson’s government came to “lose their grip” on migration, said The Telegraph. But the “most damaging accusation” is that he and his top team “knew what they were doing and what the consequences would be” but “consciously opted to ramp up net migration for economic reasons”.

Speaking on The Sun’s podcast last year, Johnson said he was forced to keep the migration policy loose to ensure there were enough workers to “stack the shelves and fill the petrol stations with petrol”. Everyone was “freaking out” and “saying we need more pairs of hands to get things done”, said the former PM. Under pressure to fill labour shortages, especially in lower-paid sectors such as care, his government lowered the qualification and salary thresholds needed to get visa points – and the number of visas issued to lower-skilled workers ballooned.

Now, with millions of Boriswave migrants close to having spent five years in Britain – and therefore able to apply for indefinite leave to remain and the means-tested benefits that come with it – there is concern that they will end up taking more from the British state that they contribute.

What is Reform proposing?
Farage has promised to abolish indefinite leave to remain status, which would be replaced with a renewable five-year visa for those who meet certain criteria. People who currently have settled status would be forced to re-apply. Farage claims the changes would save £234 billion over the lifetime of these migrants, but that figure has been disputed.

Kim Kardashian has triggered fresh debate about homework by saying she doesn’t “believe in it” because her children are already “in school for eight hours a day”. When they’re not in class, they should “play sports, live their lives” and “spend time with their family”, she said during a recent interview.

The reality star’s wishes for her children, aged 12, nine, seven and six, have resonated with many parents worldwide, reopening the long-standing homework divide.

‘Unnecessary stress’
Homework for primary school children “doesn’t have a positive effect”, said Victoria Richards in The i Paper. Studies have produced “stark” findings that doing too much homework can “actually send student performance back the other way” and is a “primary source of stress”, affecting “health” and “cutting into time spent with family and friends and hobbies”.

Homework is “not compulsory by law”, said Georgina Fuller in The Times, but “many primary schools seem to set it for children as young as four”. In my experience, it “inevitably falls to the parents” and, judging by the queries in my school WhatsApp group about “spelling tests” and “maths equations”, this “causes lots of unnecessary stress for families”.

‘Understanding concepts’
Homework is still “an important part of schooling, if it has purpose”, Dr Emily Levy, a learning and academic skills specialist, told Newsweek. It “allows children to independently practise skills they learned at school and make sure they understand the concepts”.

A growing percentage of adults appear to share that view. Nearly 70% think children should have homework, according to a study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London – a significant increase on the 21% who expressed that view in a similar survey in 1937.

Technology has also changed the face of homework: instead of a textbook, children are “issued with passwords, digital logins, dashboards and any number of online resources”, said Jennifer Powers in The Independent. It’s “ironic” that schools “lecture parents and pupils” about “the dangers of too much screen time” yet now require the “pervasive use of screens” for homework.

A miniature candy crab blends in beneath the waves. The “dinky” crustacean, “measuring a mere centimetre”, was “perched on her pink coral mattress” in the Phillipines’ Tañon Strait, said Jade Hoksbergen, who was among the finalists for Ocean Photographer of the Year for the image.

Jade Hoksbergen / Ocean Photographer of the Year

As the days get shorter and gloomier, a last-minute break in Morocco sounds increasingly appealing, and with their sun-dappled courtyards, pretty tiled walls and airy bedrooms, Marrakech’s riads are the perfect place to unwind in the bustling city. Here are some top spots.

Royal Mansour
For total privacy, you won’t find much better than Royal Mansour (pictured above). Owned by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, the luxurious hotel is home to 53 riads, “each of which offers secluded indoor and outdoor living spaces stretched across three storeys”, said House & Garden. Expect serious opulence: private terraces feature plunge pools with sweeping views of the Atlas Mountains.

Riad Noos Noos
Set in the “mellow” old Jewish quarter of Marrakech, this “comfy” riad is a “real bargain”, said The Times. The charming guest house has just nine rooms, with “exceedingly comfortable beds”, a small spa with a hammam and sauna, and a “dreamy sun-trap rooftop” where you can enjoy a breakfast of “freshly baked breads, homemade creamy yoghurt and flaky Moroccan pancakes”. Laid-back and breezy, it’s a “restful space” tucked away from the buzz of the medina.

Riad 72
This “hip hideaway” is “tucked down a quiet alley” just steps from the “colourful Bab Doukkala vegetable market”, said The Telegraph. Guests get access to a “gold-hued” spa, “sizeable” pool, two additional patios and a “trendy” Italian-Moroccan restaurant. There are 14 rooms, adorned with “plush” fabrics, traditional Moroccan furnishings and statement design pieces. But the real draw is the “super chic panoramic terrace”.

Geezer masculinity can rescue our lost boys
Josiah Gogarty in The New Statesman
The geezer, that “avatar for white, working-class masculinity”, was “derided” for years, writes Josiah Gogarty, but “now everyone is ordering the geezer a drink”. The Oasis tour has revived “Nineties lad culture aesthetics” and Danny Dyer is almost a “national treasure”. Geezers are “at ease” with themselves. They are “not saints, and the high noon of lad culture came with a grim dose of misogyny”, but they don’t have “the zero-sum status obsession of the online manosphere”.

I’m so disgusted Charles hasn’t acted on leeches Andrew and Fergie. Her emails aren’t even half of the full story… mark my words, this could end the monarchy
Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail
Sarah Ferguson’s emails to Jeffrey Epstein “sound the death knell” for her credibility, writes Amanda Platell. By allowing “this reckless loose cannon and her worthless ex-husband” to “attend and be photographed at family occasions”, the royals have “tacitly accepted their outrageous excesses”. The King should be “more concerned with the feelings of his subjects”; it’s “no exaggeration” to say that “the very survival of the Windsors as a royal house could be at risk”.

A Bagpuss film is a terrible idea
James Innes-Smith in The Spectator
“Seventies children’s classics” are enchanting “new audiences by way of YouTube”, writes James Innes-Smith, but the news that “Bagpuss” is getting the “full film treatment” doesn’t “bode well”. It’s to be “a mixture of live action and animation”, which “feels wrong”: the charm of the original “saggy cloth cat” stories came from “the homemade judderiness of its stop-motion puppetry”. It “belongs on the small screen” and “should be left as a charming period piece”.