Reform UK has received a record £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency mogul, according to the latest quarterly declarations to the Electoral Commission.

It’s the largest-ever single donation by a living person to a British political party. News of the gift comes at a time when Reform is leading in the national polls, but has been forced onto the defensive over a series of other, less welcome, stories.

‘Toxic’ and ‘divisive’

Last week Nigel Farage denounced what he called “a false story” in the Financial Times, which reported that he had told donors that he expected “a deal or merger” between his party and the Tories ahead of the next general election. “The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous,” he said. Reform also faced more questions about Farage’s alleged behaviour at school.

Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now claim to have witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College in south London. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said Farage’s accusers were peddling “made up twaddle”.

Farage has admitted that he was “offensive” at school, but insists he never made comments “with malice”. He angrily accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy”, saying it should apologise for all the politically incorrect programmes it broadcast during the same era, such as “The Black and White Minstrel Show” and “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum”.

Farage faced separate accusations of racism last week over a campaign video in which he lamented the “cultural smashing of Glasgow”, citing the recent finding that nearly one in three school pupils in the city speak English as a second language. The comment prompted Keir Starmer to call Farage a “toxic, divisive disgrace”.

This week, it emerged that Farage had been reported to the police over claims of falsified election expenses. A former member of his campaign team, Richard Everett, says the Reform leader exceeded the £20,660 local election spending limit during his successful bid for the Clacton constituency last year by about £9,000, because some costs – including the refurbishment of a Reform-themed bar in the campaign office, and the loan of an armoured Land Rover used in a rally – weren’t declared. A Reform UK spokesman denied any wrongdoing.

Nigel Farage reportedly expects an electoral pact or even a merger between Reform UK and the Conservatives before the next general election, a shift which would represent a historic realignment of the right.

A Reform donor said Farage told them that an agreement on cooperation between the two parties could help his party’s path to electoral success, according to the Financial Times. Another associate said that Farage described a pact or merger as “inevitable”, although the party leader said he “felt betrayed after the pact he made with the Tories at the 2019 election”.

“They will have to come together,” the donor said. “The Conservatives have been a successful political party forever because the left was always divided…If the right is divided, it can’t win.”

What did the commentators say?

I have long been sceptical of such a pact, said the newspaper’s Stephen Bush in his Inside Politics newsletter. Farage is a “polarising figure” who could unite the left and centre against him. Reform may be the “stronger party” in the polls, but the Tories have far more MPs – any deal would have to involve a lot of Tory losers, with many serving MPs “shunted out of plum seats”. But talk of a pact is “no longer far-fetched”. Kemi Badenoch’s lacklustre leadership has “made the Tory party such a marginal bit-part player that I am no longer so sure”.

Farage dismissed the accounts of his alleged remarks, telling the FT that “sometimes people hear what they want to”. After next May’s devolved elections and local polls, the Conservatives “will no longer be a national party”, he said. “I would never do a deal with a party that I don’t trust. No deals, just a reverse takeover. A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.”

But even if Reform does as well as current polls suggest, those numbers still wouldn’t give the party a Commons majority, said Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates. Farage would need backing from Tory MPs to get into No. 10. While Badenoch has dismissed the idea, YouGov polling of members before conference season found that 64% supported an electoral pact, and 46% supported a full-blown merger. “The appetite’s there.”

Frankly, there is “already a slow merger going on”, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. Over the past year, 21 current or former Conservative MPs have “defected to Reform” – three this week. Reform’s ratings have also fallen in recent polls, and “waves of tactical voting” saw it lose the Hamilton and Caerphilly by-elections. Under a “more confident” Badenoch, the Tories’ standing is improving. “So is a deal inevitable?” One of Farage’s closest aides told the magazine: “Over my dead body.”

What next?

No pacts or deals will be considered while Badenoch is party leader, a Conservative spokesperson told Sky News. “Reform wants higher welfare spending and to cosy up to Putin.”

Anthony Wells, head of politics and elections at YouGov, told the FT that although Reform was “miles ahead in the polls”, tactical voting by left-leaning voters could block Farage from power. There are also a significant number of Conservative voters who wouldn’t back Farage even if the alternative was Keir Starmer’s Labour. “There are some Tories that really don’t like Reform,” said Wells, “so there will be some leakage from right to left.”

And therein lies “the key point to keep in mind: pact or no pact”, said Eaton. What really matters for the election is “whether the right is more divided than the left”. Labour and the Lib Dems have never needed a pact to “demolish” the Conservatives with progressive tactical voting, such as in 2024. Reform and the Tories don’t need a pact to “do the same to Starmer”.

It is the hectoring, jeering tone in Nigel Farage’s voice that brings it all back for Peter Ettedgui, said The Guardian. Farage used the same tone, at Dulwich College, the south London private school that both men attended in the late 1970s, when he would sidle up to him and growl: “Hitler was right” or “Gas them”. He would sometimes add “a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers”, says Ettedgui, now in his 60s, who was one of the few Jewish children at the school. It wasn’t just Jews the young Farage singled out. “I’d hear him calling other students ‘P*ki’ or ‘W*g’ and urging them to ‘go home’,” says Ettedgui.

Smear campaign

Farage has denied the specifics of these allegations. But The Guardian has spoken to 22 contemporaries and former teachers who say otherwise. They remember him, as a prefect, singling an Asian boy out for detention, for no reason; doing Nazi salutes and chanting “Oswald Ernald Mosley”; and singing racist songs as an army cadet. No one is claiming that Farage still holds such views. “Nevertheless, extreme views in any person’s history matter, particularly if that person may be a future PM.”

“A smear campaign is always a nasty thing,” said Brendan O’Neill in The Telegraph. “Deploying rumour and insinuation to taint the reputation of someone you hate – it’s the lowest form of politics.” Obviously, Farage denies these claims, but “there is just something so ominous, so elementally unpleasant about marshalling childhood rumours against a 61-year-old man”. The most recent offence The Guardian accuses him of took place more than 40 years ago. In the case of some allegations, he was just 13 or 14 at the time. “Jim Callaghan was prime minister. The Sex Pistols were storming the charts.”

Only ‘banter’

Bear in mind, too, that social norms were different back then, said Niall Gooch in The Spectator. “There were not the same sensitivities around racially charged language. It is absurd for this to be an issue in national politics in 2025.”

I agree up to a point, said Victoria Richards in The Independent. We were all idiots at school, and I wouldn’t want to be judged for many things I did as a 16-year-old. But we weren’t all vile racists. Farage’s sort-of denials have been “slippery”. He claims that he “never directly racially abused anyone”, and didn’t engage in “racism with intent”; that it was only “banter”. Even so, surely it’s “revealing” that he apparently chose to make jokes about the Holocaust, and to sing horrific songs about gassing Jews and P*kis. The child is father to the man. Isn’t it fair to suspect that Farage’s teenage prejudices might have an influence on his “grown-up” policies?

Nigel Farage today sought to position Reform UK as the “party of alarm clock Britain” championing both business and workers.

In a speech in the City of London this morning, the former stockbroker said the country was being “led by human rights lawyers, not entrepreneurs”, and blamed a “political class who are not business people” of wasting the “opportunities to deregulate and become more competitive” offered by Brexit.

Promising to balance the budget, and that the party would “never borrow to spend” if it came to power, “marks the first time Reform has articulated something resembling a fiscal rule”, said the Financial Times. It also raises serious “questions over the spending cuts or tax increases needed to achieve this goal, as well as the precise definition of the pledge itself”.

What did the commentators say?

This is a “big moment” for Reform, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. Headline-grabbing promises made at the last election such as lifting the income tax threshold to £20,000, scrapping inheritance tax on estates of less than £2 million, and taking water companies back into public ownership, are set to be junked.

In their place the “new-look ‘Nigel from Accounts’” is promising “a far more sober approach to the public finances”. But still “don’t be fooled: this doesn’t mean that Reform is abandoning the economic radicalism that the UK desperately needs if it is to break out of its doom loop of stagnant growth and rising taxes”.

One area the party appears willing to challenge the status quo is on the pension triple lock. The policy of raising the UK state pension each year by whichever is highest out of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% has “trapped Britain’s two main parties since 2012 in a bind that, for some, has come to symbolise the paralysis of the state”, said Politico’s Dan Bloom.

While economists have long argued this has become unsustainable, successive governments of both main parties have shied away from touching it in fear of angering older voters.

Reform, by contrast, has been “remarkably open” about whether the triple lock would survive, said Bloom. While any decision appears a “long way off”, when Farage does make up his mind, “he has the power to radically alter the political landscape in the UK – and set a new bar for insurgent parties across Europe telling hard truths that the centre cannot”. But saying that, “he would also come under ferocious attack”.

Another major spending area the party appears ready to start a fight over is reforming public sector pensions to bring them more in line with those offered by companies.

When spending is “under control” and borrowing costs down, said Farage, “then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth”.

What next?

There is a belief among Reform insiders that the economy is “only going to worsen before the next election,” said The Times, which will mean the Tories “having to abandon many of their promises to cut taxes”.

Farage may choose to keep his cards close to his chest until then, but he is “at least trying to signal a more traditional coding when it comes to the economy, entering the financial stability battleground on which elections are routinely fought”, said Politico’s London Playbook.

“On that front, the insurgent is straining to sound a little more like the opponents he’s trying to banish”.

Right on cue, Labour last night attacked Reform’s claim to be “on the side of working people, whilst also promising to slash the public services they rely on”, saying Farage’s plan would mark “a return to austerity, pure and simple”.

Meanwhile, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said Farage has committed to “extra welfare spending and a huge expansion of the state”, adding it is “impossible to take Reform seriously on the economy when their promises disintegrate after five minutes”.

Herein lies both the danger and opportunity for Reform as it looks to hone its offering to voters on both the left and the right.

Officials were “understandably chuckling at the opposing attacks from each angle – but there’s a serious point here”, said London Playbook. “Each new bit of detail that Farage fleshes out will give his rivals, and the public, more to unpick him on.”

Plaid Cymru’s triumph in the Caerphilly Senedd by-election is a “reset for Welsh politics”, said the party’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

The Welsh nationalists got 47% of the vote in a record turnout of 50%. Reform UK came second on 36% and Labour a distant third with 11%. Here are five things we learned from a historic night in south Wales.

UK politics is evolving 

The result was terrible for the “two big beasts of Westminster politics”, said political editor Chris Mason on the BBC. Labour was “humbled, pummelled, crushed”, while the Tories got just 2%. “Yes, you read that right,” – they “managed just 13% of the vote between them”.

So the “key lesson” from Caerphilly for “every political leader” is that UK politics is “moving at speed, with voter loyalties shifting and atomising in unprecedented ways”, said The Guardian. “Those who cannot adapt will be crushed.”

Bad headlines ‘hampered’ Reform  

Reform UK “threw everything at the campaign”, said Sky News. Nigel Farage “visited three times” and his party was expected to win, but when the result was declared at 2.10am, the party leader was “nowhere to be seen”.

The outcome “represents a clear disappointment for Reform”, said The Guardian, and it’s “possible the party’s chances were hampered” by reports that its former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, had admitted to taking bribes to make pro-Russia comments in the European Parliament.

In-fighting harmed Labour

Labour “had a horror of a start to this campaign”, said Wales Online. Its council leader “quit”, explaining that he “couldn’t support” either Keir Starmer or the "Johnny-come-lately" by-election candidate, Richard Tunnicliffe.

The Caerphilly “drubbing” could reinforce the “ongoing narrative” that Labour is going to do badly in the full Senedd elections next May. Canvassers “might now think twice” about "whether it is worth their effort” to go door-knocking over the winter.

Reform’s regional obstacles 

Reform coming second with 36% of the vote is a “solid performance for an upstart”, said Mason, but “insurgencies remain insurgent by winning – and they were easily beaten”. It’s “clearly not easy for them to be the first choice ‘none of the above’” alternative to Labour and the Tories when there’s “another party also claiming that mantle”.

So this could continue to be "a challenge for them in Wales, as it is in Scotland with the SNP, in a way that it isn’t in England”.

Labour faces threat from left

Much has been made of the threat to Labour from the right, but “the road to a Labour recovery does not simply lie in winning back voters from Reform”, said polling expert John Curtice in The Times. “The party is losing ground to its left as well as its right.” In Caerphilly it was Plaid who “were able to do most of the damage”.

Welsh Labour is clear where the blame lies for its poor performance. It “remains supportive of and loyal to first minister Eluned Morgan”, said Tom Harris in The Telegraph, but there is “simmering resentment towards Keir Starmer” for the “party’s unpopularity”.

People who have been granted asylum in the UK will no longer be given automatic settlement and family reunion rights – as part of a government effort to “reduce the pull factor for small boat crossings”.

To “make the system fairer”, Keir Starmer has announced changes to asylum policy that end a refugee’s so-called “golden ticket” rights to bring their family to the UK and earn settled residency status after five years. Automatic family reunification will end, and migrants granted asylum will have to wait 10 years and meet new “contribution-based” conditions before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain.

With Nigel Farage announcing his party’s intention to scrap all indefinite leave to remain, the government’s announcement “marks the latest hardening of Labour’s immigration policy in an attempt to stymie the popularity” of Reform UK, said The Times.

What is the current process?

People who have been granted asylum used automatically to gain the right to petition for their spouse and children to join them in Britain. In early September, the government temporarily suspended applications to this family reunification scheme.

Refugees are also currently given the right to stay in the UK for five years, during which they can study, work and apply for benefits. When the five years are up, they can apply for indefinite leave to remain, which gives them the right to apply for a British passport.

The government has said it wants to “continue to play its role in welcoming genuine refugees” but this current system is “not fit for purpose”. It is therefore making the “route to settlement” longer. “There will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK,” said Starmer. People will have to earn it “by contributing to our country, not by paying a people smuggler to cross the Channel in a boat”.

How will things change?

The suspension of automatic family reunification rights will now become permanent – meaning refugees must meet the same requirements for family reunion as any other migrant.

Refugees will still be “entitled to a package of core protection” but will not be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain until they have been in the country for 10 years. Additionally, there will be new “contribution” requirements for indefinite leave to remain. These include being in work, making National Insurance contributions, not taking benefits, learning English “to a high standard”, having a “spotless” criminal record, and “giving back” to the local community.

Refugee advocates have expressed their concern. “Blocking our chance to settle or to reunite with family members still at risk of harm keeps people like us, and our children, on the outside, never really allowed to feel secure or like we truly belong,” Kolbassia Haoussou, a refugee and a director at the charity Freedom from Torture, told The Guardian. These measures “are taken straight from the populist playbook the government itself has condemned”.

There are also concerns that restricting legal paths to family reunion “only pushes more desperate people into the arms of smugglers” in an effort to reach their loved ones, Jon Featonby, chief policy analyst at The Refugee Council, told the paper.

How many people have arrived in the UK through the family reunification scheme?

Numbers have been rising. Between 2010 and 2020, refugee family reunion consistently accounted for 30% to 40% of the 10,000 to 20,000 people granted asylum-related permission to stay in the UK each year, according to the University of Oxford’s The Migration Observatory. By 2023, that total number had jumped significantly to 63,000, “partly due to family reunion”. In 2024, 19,700 people were issued with a family reunion visa – a “likely knock-on effect” of the government’s efforts to clear the backlog in asylum applications.

The public “should be in a state of collective outrage and revulsion” at the crimes of Nathan Gill, said Neil Mackay in The Herald.

Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, has admitted accepting bribes in exchange for making statements in favour of Russia while he was a member of the European Parliament.

‘In bed with Putin’

The 52-year-old pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between December 2018 and July 2019 involving payments from Oleg Voloshyn, whom the US government once described as a “pawn” of Russia’s secret services.

But instead of outrage, there’s “a collective sense of ‘oh well, so now we know the rumours were true’”, said Mackay. That “tells you all you need to know about Reform”. Gill may no longer be a member of Nigel Farage’s party, but when it comes to connections between Russia and the British far-right, “there’s much to pick over”.

Farage is “in bed with Putin”, Rachel Reeves claimed at the recent Labour conference. Boris Johnson, a one-time Farage ally, also described his stance on Russia as “extremely dangerous”. The former prime minister recently told the “Harry Cole Saves the West” show that he had “serious anxieties” about Reform’s position on the Ukraine war.

The Reform leader does have a “long record of falling for even the most inventive of Kremlin cock-and-bull tales”, said The Telegraph. His response to Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 “proved his willingness to believe Russian propaganda”. Putin’s “cover story” was that Ukraine had “provoked its own invasion” by applying to join the EU and Nato. That year Farage told the European Parliament that “amongst the long list of foreign policy failures” had been “the unnecessary provocation” of Putin – although Putin had already annexed Crimea.

Far from retreating from this speech, he “retweeted it approvingly” last year. Even on the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “he could not stop himself from repeating the Kremlin’s cover story that the whole tragedy was a ‘consequence of EU and Nato expansion’”.

Until the channel was banned, Farage had a regular paid role on Kremlin broadcaster Russia Today, voicing similar views. Such thoughts raise “a vital question: is there anything he would not believe if the Kremlin claimed it to be true?”

‘Ideological alignment’

During the last general election, ABC News in Australia discovered a “network of Facebook pages” spreading “pro-Kremlin talking points” and posting support for Reform. Some of the posts were shared by Reform candidates.

In March, The New York Times reported that “one of the biggest corporate donors” to Reform had “sold almost $2 million” worth of sensitive technology to “a major supplier of Moscow’s blacklisted state weapons agency” – just two days after Farage was announced as party leader.

There is “no suggestion” that Farage ever received illegal bribes for his opinions about Russia, said Byline Times. But the Gill case highlights “a consistent alignment between senior members of Reform and Kremlin messaging”. And as Reform continues to rise in UK polls, that “ideological alignment raises urgent questions in need of answers”.

A person or a party “does not need to be a paid stooge of the Kremlin to be a threat to national security”, said Mackay. “Simply being in any way simpatico with Putin should be enough in this day and age to render a movement or an individual so beyond the moral pale as to be unelectable.”

“Ed Davey has lost none of his skill at the eye-catching but ultimately vacuous video-opportunity,” said The Independent.

He paraded into the Liberal Democrat annual conference in Bournemouth this weekend at the head of a drummer band, proudly twirling a baton. Yet even if the stunt was cringeworthy, it’s true that the Lib Dems are “on the march”. Having shrunk to a low point of just eight MPs after the 2015 election, the party won 72 seats in last year’s election, the best result by any third party in Britain in a century.

The Lib Dems now control more councils than the Tories do, said Oliver Wright in The Times, and, with polls suggesting that they’re trailing the Conservatives by only two points, the Lib Dems believe they could end up winning more seats than them at the next election. “It’s not a completely implausible scenario.”

‘The Gail’s strategy’

The Lib Dems owe their recent success partly to a more focused electoral strategy, said Ian Birrell in The i Paper. In the 1992 election, they won almost one in five votes, but only 20 seats. Last year, Davey’s tactic of targeting prosperous Tory constituencies – nicknamed the “Gail’s strategy” because of the popularity of the high-end bakery chain in such areas – won them 72 MPs with the support of only one in eight voters.

The party’s plan now seems to be “to sit tight, play it safe, and seek to pick up more seats” from the two stricken main parties. “But is this really sufficient?” One can’t help feeling that in this tumultuous era of populism, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party dominating political debate, the Liberal Democrats are failing to meet the moment and offer a proper defence of “liberalism and democracy”.

‘Profile-raising stunts’

For all Davey’s much-mocked stunts, only 37% of people were able to identify him from a photo in a recent survey, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. But he has had some success in raising his profile by speaking out on issues that other leaders prefer to avoid. For instance, he said he would not be attending the recent state banquet for Donald Trump, in protest at the treatment of the people of Gaza. Such statements go down well with Lib Dem activists, who “skew left”.

At the same time, though, Davey has attacked Labour for imposing VAT on private school fees and removing inheritance tax relief from farms, a stance that puts him to the right of the Government. This attempt to peel off centre-right voters is risky: it could exacerbate the existing “tension between the kind of party the Lib Dems are and the kind of seats they aspire to hold or already do”.

The Royal Parks and RSPCA have dismissed Nigel Farage’s claim that migrants are killing and eating swans.

The Reform UK leader suggested that swans are being stolen and eaten by “people who come from countries where that’s quite acceptable” in an interview on LBC. He was echoing Donald Trump’s baseless allegation last year that illegal immigrants from Haiti were eating domestic pets in Ohio.

Old legends

Dubious and sensational claims about which animals immigrants eat go back centuries. For instance, the “dog eater” trope is a “fearmongering tactic white politicians have long deployed against immigrants of colour, particularly those of Asian descent”, said The Guardian.

“Racists have long twisted dietary rules to divide people and dehumanise immigrants,” said Cornell University lecturer Adrienne Bitar on The Conversation. “The myth of eating pets traces back to old legends”, including that Asian immigrants in the US were capturing and cooking people’s pets.

In 1883, a Chinese-American journalist offered $500 for proof that Chinese people were eating cats or rats in New York. No one came forward “but that didn’t stop the racist jokes or urban legends”, said Bitar. In 1888, Grover Cleveland’s presidential election campaign team published trading cards featuring cartoons of Chinese men eating rats. In 1971, an “outrageously silly urban legend” that a pet poodle named Rosa was served up at a Hong Kong restaurant, “complete with chilli sauce and bamboo shoots”, was reported by mainstream news organisations, and in 1980, the city of Stockton, in California, was gripped by rumours of Vietnamese families stealing expensive pedigree dogs for food. More recently, in 2016, the Oregon county commissioner and US Senate hopeful Faye Stewart accused Vietnamese refugees of “harvesting” dogs and cats for food.

Corrosive consequences 

The consequences of these sorts of stories can be “serious”, said Bitar. In 2024, a rumour that a Laotian and Thai restaurant in California cooked pit bulls led to “such vile harassment” that the owner moved the restaurant to a new location. Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets made the community the target of bomb threats and forced city buildings and schools to close.

After Trump’s allegation hit the headlines, social media was “flooded” with “AI-generated images” of him holding kittens and ducks and sometimes “carrying them away from Black people giving them chase”, said Slate. “There’s no dog whistle here – the bigotry is open and gleeful.”

The consequences of rumours like Farage’s aren’t “abstract” but “corrosive”, said Alexandra Jones in The Independent, because they “feed prejudice” and “normalise the idea that entire groups can be smeared without proof”. Political discourse itself is degraded because if a party leader can “traffic in tales from the internet’s underbelly, why should anyone else stick to the truth?”

A Reform government would turn Britain into “Trump’s America”, Ed Davey has said, as he tried to tie the policies of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump together in voters’ minds.

“Imagine living in the Trump-inspired country Farage wants us to become,” said the Lib Dem leader in his keynote speech at his party’s conference in Bournemouth. Davey painted “a nightmarish vision”, said the BBC, of the end of the NHS, a countryside destroyed by fracking, lax gun laws, racism, misogyny and “a constant state of chaos”.

Farage duly rubbished those claims but Davey’s warning about the Trumpification of British politics should be taken seriously, said Peter Geoghegan in Prospect: the American president is a “lodestar, the harbinger of a populist revolution that could be emulated on this side of the pond”.

What did the commentators say?

The year is 2029, and Donald Trump “holds two titles”, said Politico’s Paul Dallison: “US President-for-Life and UK prime minister”.

That sentence “would have been firmly in the realm of science fiction even a couple of years ago. But now, it doesn’t sound quite so far-fetched.” After all, the US president, with his British mother, would be eligible for the UK premiership, as former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out on GB News during Trump’s state visit.

For the past decade, “some of Trump’s biggest donors have been secretly funding a clutch of the most influential groups on the right of British politics”, said Prospect’s Geoghegan.

Former Conservative bigwigs Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Liz Truss have “all traipsed to Washington” and spoken at the Heritage Foundation, the “hugely influential” think tank behind Project 2025, the “blueprint for a state-eviscerating” second Trump administration.

But few UK politicians are “as close to Trump as Nigel Farage”. He is “plugged into the very top” of the Republican party and has recently claimed Trump “knows” that he will be Britain’s next prime minister. He told the Harry Cole Saves the West YouTube show that Trump’s team saw “similarities in what they’ve done and what we’ve done, and you know what, we speak the same language”.

Farage has “enjoyed a friendship with Trump for almost a decade”, said Dominic Penna in The Telegraph. He joined him on the US presidential campaign trail in 2016 and told his supporters that a Republican victory would be “Brexit plus, plus, plus”.

What next?

Regardless of Trump’s next political endeavour, it’s clear that the tech billionaires who have supported him are already having their own impact on politics abroad.

Palantir founder Peter Thiel and his fellow Silicon Valley “political kingmakers” are heavily influenced by far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin’s “dark enlightenment” ideas, said The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi. They believe “super-rich elites should have dictatorial powers” while the “hoi polloi should suck it all up”.

Elon Musk, Tesla boss and Trump’s former “first buddy” is “increasingly taking his political meddling worldwide”, from Canada and Germany to the UK. He “spent January posting about grooming gangs”, then, at the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, called for a “change of government”. Over a video link, he told the crowd, “Violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.”

It feels as if Musk is increasingly trying to “destabilise democracies worldwide so he can accumulate more power”, said Mahdawi. It is “not inconceivable” that a tech mogul “could effect regime change in Britain”.

Nigel Farage has announced Reform UK's tough new proposals for dealing with the “Boriswave” of migrants which, he claims, could end up costing the British taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds in benefit payments.

The liberal immigration policy overseen by Boris Johnson after the UK left the EU was, said Farage, “the biggest betrayal of democratic wishes in anyone’s living memory”. He’s not alone in his criticism. Keir Starmer has also called it an “experiment in open borders, conducted on a country that voted for control”.

What is the ‘Boriswave’?

The term refers to the sharp increase in migration to the UK after January 2021, when new post-Brexit points-based visa rules came into force.

The then home secretary Priti Patel vowed the new system would slash immigration numbers and cherry-pick only “the best and the brightest” but, by the end of 2022, net migration reached 873,000: four times more than it had been before Brexit. The numbers did drop to 431,000 in 2024, according to Office for National Statistics data, but they are still higher than they were in the 2010s.

What happened?

There are differing views within the Conservative party of what went wrong, said The Telegraph. Some say the system Johnson designed was "flawed”; some say the “myopic and incompetent Home Office let Johnson down”, and others say “Johnson was mostly mugged by circumstance”. But the “most damaging accusation” is that Johnson 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.

A recent report from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee found the “insufficient” intra-governmental collaboration on “workforce strategies” meant the Home Office lacked a “full understanding of the potential consequences” of its immigration policy changes. To put it more bluntly, said Michael Simmons in The Spectator, the Home Office “didn’t think about how a flood of new working-age migrants (and their dependants) might affect salaries, services or housing”.

And 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, once granted, allows migrants the permanent right to live, work and study in the UK, and access the health and benefits system. It would be replaced with a renewable five-year visa for those who meet certain criteria, and those who currently have settled status would be forced to re-apply.

His plans would “save British taxpayers at least £234 billion over the lifetime of these migrants”, said Farage, citing a report by the Centre for Policy Studies think tank. The Centre for Policy Studies has since said, however, that the fiscal data contained within its report was the “subject of dispute”.

Labour, which is already consulting on plans to increase the waiting criteria to apply for indefinite leave to remain, has said Farage’s forecasted savings “have no basis in reality”.

When Reform UK won two mayoralties, 677 council seats and overall control of 10 councils earlier this month, it was hailed as a political tsunami.

Three weeks on from those election results, Reform is beginning to face up to "the enormous challenges that local government poses" – particularly for a party that's "been so rapidly thrust into positions of political power", said Local Government Chronicle. And already there are signs that things "could get messy", said The Independent.

'Embarrassing' councillors

Nigel Farage hailed his party's election success as proof that Reform had professionalised but, just a few weeks on, "the truth is beginning to emerge", said The New European, "as newly-elected Reform councillors begin to quit, wasting tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money" on by-election costs for their replacements.

Des Clarke resigned from Nottinghamshire County Council just days after being elected, citing "significant changes" to his personal circumstances. Donna Edmunds – elected in Hodnet in Shropshire – has also stepped down, after being suspended from the party just 48 hours after her election for a social-media post about her plans to defect. Andrew Kilburn quit his post in Durham after failing to declare that he worked for the council. Luke Shingler, who was elected in Warwickshire, is now serving as an independent because his RAF job prohibits him from representing a political party. And Staffordshire Reform councillor Wayne Titley resigned for "personal reasons", after posting on social media that the Royal Navy should use a "volley of gunfire" to sink small boats crossing the Channel.

Despite Reform's pledge to vet candidates "rigorously at all levels", an investigation by The Telegraph has uncovered other statements by a number of the party's new councillors that "may prove embarrassing" – including a Ku Klux Klan "joke" in response to a meeting of Grenfell Tower survivors. All this raises questions about and whether Farage "has what it takes to build a serious political machine".

Part of the problem lies in Reform's "sheer unexpected success" at the ballot box, said The Independent. It's meant many "'paper' candidates" – those who "were not expected to win" – are now elected, "with a job that they didn't particularly want to do".

'Collision course with reality'

Reform has "very clearly signalled that its approach will be confrontational", said The Covert Councillor in Prospect magazine. Deputy leader Richard Tice has announced a "war" against renewable energy projects and diversity initiatives. Reform councils will only fly the Union Jack, St George's flag and county flags, "banning shows of solidarity with war-torn Ukraine, for instance".

But this approach will put the party "on a collision course with financial reality". Any savings made from scrapping diversity and inclusion initiatives will be "nominal", unlike "the costs of picking fights with unions or stalling job creation and investment in solar tech".

On a wider level, the party "still hasn't really made up its mind" about some issues, said The Independent. This includes whether or not to back far-right activist Tommy Robinson, to endorse mass deportations or, indeed, "to publish a full manifesto with detailed policies and plans".

As he unveiled his much-touted "reset" deal with the EU, Keir Starmer said it is time to move on from "political fights" and "stale old debates" about Brexit.

Nearly 10 years on from the Brexit referendum, and more than five since the UK formally left the EU, the new agreement strengthens ties over areas including fishing, trade, defence and energy.

Starmer's appeal to "common sense" and "practical solutions" may strike a chord with the public, but his "big bet" is that "nobody really cares" about Brexit any more, said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.

What did the commentators say?

"This was the day the Brexit dream died," said the Daily Mail in an editorial, while The Express called it "a betrayal dressed up as a policy".

Staunch Brexiteers will "blast" Starmer "on fisheries, rule taking and youth migration", while diehard Remainers "will argue it's a meek deal that hasn't gone far enough to repair the economic scars of Brexit", said Politico. But "this fight down the middle is one the prime minister's quite happy to pick", while the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of whom have described the deal as a "surrender", "risk sounding like broken records on Brexit".

With this deal – coming in the same month that trade agreements were announced with the US and India – Starmer has managed the "impossible", said The Independent: "to have his cake and eat it".

When Labour under Starmer "pivoted" in 2020, from campaigning for a second referendum to a policy of "make Brexit work", "nobody really took it seriously". But he has "succeeded where others failed and managed to break the Brexit conundrum".

Despite the "upbeat rhetoric", some of the "most difficult issues to resolve have been pushed back into future negotiations" – including the shape of a youth mobility scheme, said The Times. The deal also "leaves a number of difficult questions unanswered", such as how much Britain will have to pay to access the new EU defence fund and to align with the EU food standards and energy trading system.

But the government hopes that voters will warm to the tangible effects of a "reset" in relations with the EU, including cheaper food and energy, and a reduction of red tape for small businesses.

What next?

What will "prove revealing over the coming days, weeks, and months" is how much Reform and the Conservatives decide to campaign around the idea of a Brexit "betrayal", said the BBC's Zeffman.

If opposition to the deal becomes a "significant part of these parties' platforms, it will tell us that they believe there is in fact plenty of controversy yet in the decades-long debate over the UK's relationship with the EU".

If that's right, it could thrust questions about Brexit "right back to the centre of political life.

"But if Sir Keir is right that the bulk of the public simply wants as little friction with the EU as possible, then he could prove to be our first truly post-Brexit prime minister."

British voters have heard many politicians over the past two decades vow to "take back control of our borders". Unveiling the government's long-awaited white paper on immigration on Monday, Keir Starmer became the latest PM to promise the UK's "broken system" will be fixed, enforcement will be "tougher than ever", and net migration numbers will tumble.

"It's a sign of the times," said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper, that a party led by human rights lawyers and confirmed centrists is "about to undertake a U-turn which is going to make it sound like it has adopted the Fortress Britain vision it once disdained as parochial or even subliminally racist".

What did the commentators say?

There's "just one problem" with the government's new approach, said Jonathan Walker in the Daily Express. "Labour and their lefty friends" have spent years branding opposition politicians who raised concerns about immigration as "horrible, xenophobic and racist". Starmer and his colleagues are "massive hypocrites".

British voters will be "sceptical" of Starmer's new-found hardline stance on immigration, said Martin Ivens on Bloomberg. "They've heard it all before when it comes to pledges to make the borders less porous." For two decades, "politicians of all stripes" have pledged to reduce net migration, only to produce "half-hearted, ineffective or muddled" measures, even when "promises to curb the influx played a large part in the pledges that got them elected in the first place".

Many proposals – training Britons rather than importing unskilled foreign workers, and raising education levels and standards of English for those applying for skilled work visas – sound "pretty familiar", said The Independent in an editorial. But a proposed change giving clearer guidance to judges on the application of human rights provisions "could have a quantifiable effect, as well as helping to reassure that doubting public".

Starmer's warning that "we risk becoming an island of strangers" has already resulted in the PM being accused of "pandering to the populist right", said The Guardian. Some MPs on the left claimed that his words echo Enoch Powell's notorious 1968 "rivers of blood" speech, which imagined a future multicultural Britain where the white population "found themselves made strangers in their own country". But while this rhetoric may put off some progressives, Labour HQ will be more than happy if this message cuts through to up-for-grabs voters in red wall constituencies.

What next?

With Reform UK surging ahead in the polls and surveys showing immigration emerging as the number one issue for voters, it is clear why Labour feels the need to talk tough. "Whether voters will believe Sir Keir really means what he's saying remains to be seen", said Walker in the Express.

"Fury with the failure of successive governments to honour their effusive promises to 'take control' will mean that nothing short of Trump-style mass deportations will be enough" to mollify some voters, said The Independent. But a "first impression" of the government's proposals is that "their bark may be worse than their bite, and deliberately so".

Starmer has avoided setting any targets, other than bringing about a "substantial reduction" in net migration. But successive governments' failure to tackle the issue has "turned the voters against the political class", said Ivens on Bloomberg. "Now Starmer needs to own the change – not just mouth the slogans."

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK emerged as the biggest winner of the first major polls since Labour swept into government last year. The right-wing populist party won its fifth seat in Parliament in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, as well as two mayoralities and hundreds of local council seats.

The results mean the party, seen until recently as an underdog in British politics, has now arrived as a serious force. But it has many progressives asking: where is a serious left-wing populist alternative?

Keir Starmer's welcoming of the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman revealed that he "doesn't fear the left", said UnHerd. Rather, he is adopting a "defensive position out of fear of the populist right – and specifically Reform UK". Starmer could lean so far in that direction that he alienates Labour's "anti-populist supporters". But his "tricky balancing act is made much easier by one of the most underrated features of British politics: the sheer weakness of the left-wing opposition to Labour".

As Labour’s leadership "shifts rightwards", a few alternative left-wing movements "are beginning to fill the void left behind", said Brian McDaid for Yorkshire Bylines. The Green Party, the most significant of these alternative left movements, gained 43 seats in the local elections. Its platform, which is focused on tackling climate change, social justice and the redistribution of wealth, "aligns closely with the left-wing populism that Labour abandoned under Starmer".

"The Greens have the potential to be a real threat,” one Labour MP, whose nearest rival at the last election was a Green candidate, told Politico.

John McTernan, a political strategist who served as a key aide to Tony Blair, warned that Labour would ignore its progressive voters "at its peril", arguing that the party needs to "deliver change to every single part of the country that voted for it, and create a new coalition of voters to support it for the next election".

Yet when it comes to economic policy it is Reform, surprisingly, which appears to be most in tune with left-leaning voters, said James Kirkup in The Spectator. More than two-thirds of Reform UK voters support the public ownership of the water, rail and energy sectors, Almost 70% believe foreign ownership of British firms is bad for the country, and 68% agree that big companies don't pay enough tax. Indeed, Reform voters are "further left on those questions than the typical British voter". "An economic cocktail of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn might sound unlikely, but it's notable that Farage is happy to praise both men as he sketches out Reform's new economic agenda."

What next?

"What should be taken from the results? That the electoral contest is now all about change – that was Labour's slogan last year and is also the message implicit in the name of Farage's party," said McTernan. "But change to what? Reform is clear – being pro-worker and pro-nationalisation, a sort of Labour-lite. That's a fight Labour can win if it remembers who the party is for."

For the left as a whole, the "choice is obvious", said politics lecturer David Jeffery on The Conversation. It should "resist the urge to ape the populist radical right" and instead adapt to a political landscape where its existence is "a problem to be managed". But openly ignoring the issues Reform campaigns on "will not work".

In the 1951 general election Labour and the Conservatives between them secured 98% of the vote. By 2024 that had dropped to 59%, and polling suggests support for the two main parties has continued to fall over the past year, driven in large part by the rise of Reform UK.

What this reveals is that UK politics has been "slowly but steadily unwinding from a two-party to a multi-party system for decades", said Byline Times. But "just like going bankrupt, things in politics change gradually and then very quickly".

What did the commentators say?

With Reform, Labour and the Conservatives roughly tied nationally and the Lib Dems slowly gaining ground in the south, "British politics is heading towards a place it was never designed to go, with a fractured four-way split", said The Economist. "Call it 20-20-20-20 vision."

This is because "politics is no longer one-dimensional," polling expert Sir John Curtice told the Financial Times. The old left-right divide no longer explains British politics; cultural issues are now a key factor.

With both Labour and the Tories shedding votes, "the conditions are there for the biggest challenge to the political conventions of British politics since the 1920s".

Seizing this opportunity is Farage's insurgent party, which "is proving adept at adapting itself to the ideologically fluid political positions of its target voters, for whom the distinction between left and right in politics is not set in stone", said the FT.

The "story of polarisation" – when "working-class" and "middle-class" had clear meanings and strong party affiliations – "holds the key to understanding the threat to the Labour-Tory dominance", said pollster Peter Kellner in Prospect. He described the condition of Britain's two-party system as "chronic".

"We shall of course see fluctuations in party support" but with issues like "Ukraine, slow growth, weak public finances and Donald Trump's presidency" all presenting "tough challenges for years to come" there is "no obvious reason why today's mainstream total, Labour plus Tory, should return to sustained dominance of the electorate".

What next?

This "unprecedented fragmentation puts the electorate on a collision course with the electoral system", said Robert Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University, in The Guardian. "First past the post is an amplifier: the winner takes all, everyone else gets nothing. But when voters divide evenly between multiple choices, this is a recipe for chaos."

This means "once unviable strategies" – like putting up a celebrity candidate with little experience but huge name recognition – "can work", said The Economist. Tactical voting, "the grease that keeps British democracy turning, becomes close to impossible".

Many agree that a new electoral system is needed to better reflect this new multi-party political reality. But neither Labour (who won two-thirds of seats at the last election on a third of the vote) or the Conservatives, nor it seems Reform, appear interested in this – at least for now.

"That doesn't mean that events like another pandemic, war or a climate catastrophe won't squeeze voters back into the two-party fold," said Byline Times. "But it won't be willing and will therefore only ever be temporary."

The Labour government's Employment Rights Bill will amount to a "banter ban" if it's allowed to go ahead, critics have said.

A particular passage of the bill, which addresses "harassment by third parties", is being seen in some quarters as an effective ban on "discussion of sensitive subjects such as religion or views on transgender rights", said Jessica Elgot in The Guardian.

The government says that particular clause is designed to protect workers from sexual harassment by customers. But, there are concerns that pub customers could be asked to leave or bar staff could begin to launch tribunals if an overheard conversation is taken as offensive.

'Pubs will no longer be a safe haven'

Trade Unions have urged the government to continue with the bill without amendments, at the same time the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said that the government should provide "guidance for employers not to overinterpret the legislation".

The EHRC also warned that without guidance, employers could face "complexity", which could lead to "excessive limitations on debate", something that critics, like Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, claim "could lead to the end of pub banter", said Elgot.

The pub has always been the "one place" people "felt free to speak our minds" away from home, and "although these ancient freedoms still exist", the impending bill will mean "pubs will no longer be a safe haven", said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail.

A "bartender with big ears" who overhears a "lively discussion in a pub about religion or abortion or transgender issues" could "demand that the pub landlord take action". Or, if no action is taken, take things to an "employment tribunal". It's not so "far-fetched", Glover wrote, with the term "harassment" now "very broad" in "modern Britain".

The bill is still making its way through Parliament, with some peers in the House of Lords warning of an "attempt to block" the "crackdown on pub banter" in its next reading, said Amy Gibbons at The Telegraph. Those Lords, including Conservative peer and Free Speech Union founder Toby Young, are demanding that certain "venues are excluded" from the bill, including pubs and universities. Young claimed that the bill meant "woke activists" at universities "could block certain speakers" over claims of harassment.

'Banter is a tiresome noise'

"Any sane proponent of Britain’s liberal democratic values should be angry", said Zoe Strimpel in The Spectator, as the bill could "equate to a clampdown on normal back-and-forth between human beings". But while the bill should "not threaten conversation", would it be such a bad thing if it were able to "outlaw banter full stop"?

Banter is a "tiresome noise" and "often a synonym for sexual inquisition" in which there is "no place for the sensitive or thinking person" and "certainly not women", she wrote. So while it is positive that "British freedoms are being throatily defended", there will be little regret in ensuring "the boys" have to "think twice before letting loose with their noisy banter".

The bill is now with the House of Lords and it is as yet unclear whether it will return to the Commons with amendments. If critics are able to push through the amendments, then landlords "won’t have to worry about protecting bar staff from the opinions (or even jokes) of their customers", said Christian May at CityAM. But if they do not, it will be a clear example of Keir Starmer extending "the power and reach of the state", he said.

The bill's clause will still mean people are "able to talk freely in pubs" and will ensure "employers take reasonable steps to protect workers from aggressive customers", said TUC general secretary Paul Nowak. Critics like Nigel Farage have "no plan for workers" and are only "promising the same broken status quo".

Keir Starmer has admitted the failure of the state to stop the Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana "leaps off the page" but has strongly hit back at accusations of a cover-up.

Rudakubana dramatically pleaded guilty yesterday to killing six-year-old Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe (seven) and Alice da Silva Aguiar (nine) at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced there will be a public inquiry into the attacks. But the guilty plea has given the green light for the publication of more information about Rudakubana's past, "all of which poses very serious questions for the state about how it failed to intervene before tragedy struck", said Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Rudakubana "seemed, on the face of it, an unthreatening figure: a quiet boy from a God-fearing family, slightly built and small for his age", said The Guardian. So how he was able to carry out such a heinous crime "will be the subject of intense scrutiny".

Following the guilty plea, it can be revealed that the 18-year-old had been referred to the counterterrorism Prevent programme three times between 2019 and 2021, but on each occasion a "judgement was made that he did not meet the threshold for intervention", said Katy Balls in The Spectator.

The killer had had "contact with the police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services", said Sky News. He also had a history of violence. ITV News reported that he was "widely rumoured" to have had a "'kill list'" of pupils he wanted to murder, while The Times said "he had planned an attack on that same school" just a "week before his killing spree", after he had been expelled for carrying a knife.

Both Cooper and Starmer have been quick to stress they could not reveal details of Rudakubana's past for fear of prejudicing the trial, but this has not stopped opposition figures accusing the government and police of orchestrating a cover-up.

Nigel Farage today claimed on X that "cover up Keir" was "once again hiding behind the contempt of court argument", while Reform's deputy leader Richard Tice said the PM has "deliberately misled the British people to continue suiting his own narrative". It follows calls by shadow home secretary Chris Philp for the public "to know who in government knew what and when, as well as why the authorities may have withheld some information from the public".

This drew stinging criticism from the Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges. He wrote on social media that while he understood that "conspiracy theorists" were "peddling their crazy Southport lines", what is "unforgivable is politicians – and even some journalists – who know precisely what restrictions are imposed when major cases are pending suddenly pretend to be ignorant of them".

What next?

Much of the "controversy" surrounding the case has arisen from the decision not to classify the attack as terrorism, said The i Paper. This came after police revealed in October that Rudakubana had also been charged with production of the biological toxin ricin and possession of an Al-Qaeda training manual – a terror offence.

Despite this, the BBC said his case has "never been treated as terror-related by police as he did not appear to follow an ideology, such as Islamism or racial hatred, and instead appeared to be motivated by an interest in extreme violence".

The decision by the Prevent panel that Rudakubana was not motivated by a terrorist ideology or posed a terrorist danger is "likely to be at the heart" of the upcoming public inquiry, said The Times.

There was nothing in Starmer's latest comments to suggest that this will be "any sort of whitewash", said The Guardian. If anything he "sounded like someone happy for it to be as damning as it needs to be".

Elon Musk has called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK, just weeks after the tech billionaire was reportedly in talks to donate a substantial amount to the party.

In a post on X, Musk said Farage "doesn't have what it takes" to lead the party. The surprising souring of relations came just hours after Farage described Musk as a "friend" and called him a "hero" of free speech in an interview with the BBC.

The fall-out appears to be connected to Musk's support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, whom Farage has condemned, said The Independent.

Musk's involvement in UK politics has intensified in a series of posts that target Keir Starmer, accusing him of failing to properly prosecute "rape gangs" while he was director of public prosecutions. Musk also called safeguarding minister Jess Phillips a "rape genocide apologist" who "deserves to be in prison".

What did the commentators say?

Musk poses "a delicate new challenge for Britain’s political leaders", said CNN. Starmer is "taking great pains to charm" President-elect Donald Trump, while "also hoping to hold back at home the growing influence of Reform UK".

For many Labour MPs, Musk's "anger – like much online trolling – remains little more than a sideshow", but others find themselves asking: "why us?" Unlike in other European countries, such as Germany, "there is no impending parliamentary election through which Musk can exert his influence", leaving many scratching their heads over Musk's apparent fixation with British politics.

While the next general election is still as much as four years away, "Musk can't be entirely ignored". With Labour "desperate to build trust with the Trump administration" and to generate economic growth at home, "the delicate nature of Starmer’s relationship with Trump may depend on keeping the billionaire at arm's length – for as long as that remains possible".

Earlier today, Starmer called out "those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible", although, notably, he refrained from naming Musk among them. Indeed, the "concern in No. 10 is that meeting fire with fire will only escalate the row further, and give Musk more oxygen", said The Times. And for No. 10, "the importance of retaining good relations with Trump cannot be overstated", after the president-elect "spent much of the US election campaign threatening to impose a blanket 10% tariffs on imports", a move that would do "huge damage" to Britain's economic prospects, a key priority for Starmer's government.

Musk has demonstrated that he is "capable of setting the political weather in the UK", with both the Conservatives and Reform UK now backing his calls for a public inquiry into grooming gangs. But as his volte-face on Farage this weekend demonstrates, the Tesla and X boss can be a "precarious ally". "So for now the strategy for dealing with Musk remains unchanged – to challenge him on points of fact but to avoid directly confronting him over his rhetoric."

What next?

Britain is far from Musk's "only target in Europe", said Euractiv. He met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, "a leading figure on the radical right", in December at his Florida home, and Musk has "also been accused of interference by the German government for his strong support of the far-right AfD party ahead of parliamentary elections". He is due to host a conversation with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on X later this week.

And Musk could soon turn his attentions towards Paris, said Politico, with President Emmanuel Macron reportedly "desperate to get him onside".

Reform UK published "news-making, cor blimey, take-a-look-at-this photos" of a meeting this week between Elon Musk and Nigel Farage at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion, said the BBC's political editor Chris Mason.

But this is about more than just photos: it is "the most clear-cut proof yet of the richest man in the world's desire to get involved in – meddle in, as some see it – British politics".

It has only added to the speculation that Musk, "the world's disruptor-in-chief", intends to donate up to $100 million (£78 million) to the party led by "the UK's political disruptor-in-chief", Farage.

What did the commentators say?

For the boss of X and Tesla, British politics seems to have become a bit of a "side hustle", said Matthew D'Ancona in London's The Standard. Musk has "endorsed Reform in the most theatrical fashion, and clearly intends to subsidise its campaign of nationalist disruption". If the $100 million donation does materialise, it would be the largest ever donation in British political history, and have "transformative consequences for Reform's prospects".

But Reform is hardly a well-oiled machine. Even if such a donation is made, it's not clear what impact it would have on a party that Farage "concedes is still lacking in organisation and election-winning knowhow", said The Guardian.

Yet, the image of Farage standing beside Musk, who poured $250 million (£200 million) of his fortune into helping Trump win a second term in the White House, sums up the current state of UK politics. This is "the second age of Farage as a domestic tribute act to Trump – one in which, Farage hopes, he also ends up with an election win".

"Pundits are right to be wary of all rich actors, foreign and domestic, meddling in politics," said Freddy Gray in The Spectator.

Still, Reform's rise in the polls isn't just because Musk is behind them: it's because voters are fed up with both Labour and the Conservatives. People are drawn to Farage and others who talk about the "uniparty" running Britain, especially on hot-button issues like immigration. Perhaps what British voters want is "more disruption, not less".

What next?

The Mar-a-Lago talks have "highlighted the urgent need to reform the UK's archaic rules on how political parties are funded", said Andrew Grice on The Independent.

Musk could legally give Reform money through X or Tesla as they are UK-registered, but the Electoral Commission has reportedly urged the government to strengthen the rules around political donations to deter foreign interference. The "Musk-Farage link-up" could therefore be Keir Starmer's "golden opportunity to clean up the dark money flowing into British politics".

"This weekend is when Reform UK comes of age," bellowed Nigel Farage at his party's largest-ever conference in Birmingham over the weekend, as he both revelled in its unexpected election success and looked to strengthen its future ambitions.

Farage and Reform "shook up" the general election in July, capitalising on the Conservatives' failing fortunes to win five seats in Parliament and come "third in the popular vote", said Politico.

That was a "warning shot to the established political parties", and while the Reform leader continued to reinforce his upstart message of defiance to the existing members at the conference, it was the declaration that the party must now begin "taking itself seriously" to make future progress.

'Capitalise on disillusionment'

Ahead of the conference, Farage announced he would relinquish control of the party, which had been set up as a limited company, to its members and set up as other political parties do. That change was one of the initial signs that Farage is looking to make the party "fit for the long-term future", said The Independent. There are also likely to be "wide-ranging changes" to the party's structure as it looks towards its next big test at local elections in England next year.

That will be a building block towards the next general election when Reform hopes to "capitalise on disillusionment" of Labour and Tory voters to gain more seats, said Politico.

But to get there, the party needs to "professionalise", Farage said, as he "urged his party to learn from the Liberal Democrats" and focus efforts on "local activism and winning seats on councils" to "attract middle-of-the-road voters" sick of "endless scandals", said the BBC.

'Self-forced errors'

If Reform is to attract those disillusioned voters it must also rid itself of the "self-forced errors" it made in the last campaign, said Katy Balls in The Spectator. The party "is already working on candidate selection", she wrote, after it blamed poor vetting for getting caught in racism rows involving prospective candidates.

By distancing itself from these controversies, Farage believes the party can challenge Labour as it did with the Tories in the last election. While immigration remains Reforms "cause célèbre" and will push Labour on any "shortcomings", it will also hope to attack Labour's "austerity" and any job losses caused by its "so-called green transition".

There is a sense that Farage is approaching Reform's future with "hard-headed pragmatism", hence the "dull but important changes" announced at the conference, said Politico. But while he's given "members control of the party" and pushed them to pounce on public disillusionment, Farage "is still its main attraction".

It has been a bruising end to the election campaign for Reform UK, said Stephen Bush in the FT. 

Nigel Farage has attracted flak for asserting in an interview that the West "provoked" Russia into invading Ukraine. And his party has been hit by a string of embarrassing news reports about its supporters. 

Last week it distanced itself from a volunteer canvasser who had been filmed by an undercover Channel 4 reporter making offensive comments. Andrew Parker had called Rishi Sunak a "f**king P***", and suggested that the Army should use migrants arriving on British beaches for target practice. Over the weekend, Reform disowned three candidates over other offensive remarks. 

Collectively, these stories have generated "the worst headlines in the party's brief existence". But since Reform UK is largely targeting older voters, many of whom are likely to have already voted by post, the impact may be limited.

Lib Dems' 'patron saint'

Despite the fuss over his "Putin-sympathising language", Farage looks on track to "turn British politics upside-down" once again, said Fraser Nelson in The Spectator. By splitting the conservative vote, Reform will gift seats to the other opposition parties and devastate the Tories.

The Lib Dems are predicted to win Salisbury, which has been Tory for a century, and could even claim Tunbridge Wells, which has voted Tory for even longer. "Farage has become our patron saint," says one Lib Dem strategist. "He can do more for our chances than we can. Our guys should really dress up [like] his and campaign for Reform."

The voice of voter discontent

Farage has been tormenting the Tories for 14 years, said Freddie Hayward in The New Statesman. After the election, he'll become Labour's problem, too. No other politician in Britain can match him when it comes to getting a message across and enthusing supporters.

Although many of his backers are older, he has been attracting growing support from the young. Reform UK polls higher than the Tories with 18- to 25-year-olds. "Farage has 804,000 followers on TikTok, compared with Labour's 207,000 and the Tories' 67,000."

The difference between Farage's campaign and those of the main parties has been striking, said John Crace in The Guardian. While Sunak and Keir Starmer "have gone out of their way to meet as few members of the public as possible – one or two strictly controlled photo ops a day", Farage has held old-fashioned rallies. His plans, to the extent that he has revealed any, don't bear much examination, but he does know how to give voice to people's discontent. Next week, in all likeliness, he will have a seat in Parliament. "Don't say you haven't been warned."

If the polls are right, this general election could deliver the most "lopsided" results in modern history, said The Guardian. The Labour Party looks set to enter Downing Street with "a record number of seats and an immense majority", despite receiving slightly fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. 

The latest YouGov MRP poll projects Labour taking 39% of the vote, and winning 425 seats, its largest-ever number; the Tories, with 22%, would have only 108 seats. Our first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is notoriously unfair to third parties, but this time the outcome would be particularly "skewed". Nigel Farage's Reform UK, according to YouGov, would come third, with 15% of votes, but would win only five seats; by contrast the Lib Dems, with only 12% of the vote, would get 67. In short, this election "could make the case for proportional representation (PR)".

'PR for foreigners'

FPTP has long been defended on the grounds that it roots MPs in their local community and provides stable governments, said Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. "PR was for foreigners, typically Italian, who like being governed by chaotic coalitions" collated from party lists. But that case now looks less convincing. "The two-party system is dying." 

Smaller parties have emerged to represent "the disenfranchised" and "the discontented": the SNP, Reform UK, the Greens. Yet elections are still delivering results as if we were living under two mass-membership parties, circa 1945. Curiously, this is one part of the political system Keir Starmer doesn't want to reform. "Votes for 16-year-olds, Lords reform, yes." But why would he "tinker with an electoral system that hands him Napoleonic powers"?

'Screwed by the system'

Still, the Lib Dems, long the victims of FPTP, have shown a way to adapt to it, said Andrew Adonis in Prospect. Experts in "tactical opposition", they have built up their support so that it is concentrated in a hundred or so seats, mainly in the southwest and the Home Counties.

FPTP has always had its "quirks", said John Burn-Murdoch in the FT. But the "mismatch between votes and seats" is becoming much harder to wave away. And it's not clear that it "ensures greater political stability" and moderates the influence of extreme parties, as its defenders claim.

Analysis by the group Make Votes Matter shows that governments actually stay in power longer under PR than under FPTP. And if next week it deprives smaller parties of seats, its effect will be to boost populists like Farage by leaving "millions of voters with a justifiable sense of having been screwed by the system". It's time for change. "The make-up of Britain's Parliament should reflect the views of Britain's voters, not the peculiarities of its electoral system."

Nigel Farage has made no bones about his desire for Reform UK to supplant the Conservatives as the main opposition to Labour following next week's general election.

Political commentators and many voters may scoff at the idea that a party with no current MPs could replace one of the most electorally successful political entities in the history of democracy, but "there is a playbook for this", said The Telegraph's Philip Johnston.

Just such a surprise victory in Canada in 1993 has "acquired a near mythical status on the populist right". And the parallels with the UK today – a Conservative administration in office for over a decade and led by a relatively new prime minister – are "uncanny".

What happened to Canada's Conservatives?

It is "difficult to overstate the magnitude" of what happened at the 1993 Canadian federal elections, said the UK in a Changing Europe think tank.

Just five years earlier, under then prime minister Brian Mulroney, the Progressive Conservatives (PC) had won a second consecutive majority with 43% of the vote. Following the 1993 election, they were reduced to two seats in Canada's 295-seat Parliament. "They had official party status removed, and were effectively supplanted by Canada's Reform Party, which became the broad home of right-wing voters" said City A.M.

The result "fundamentally altered the country's political landscape" said The Guardian, and "shattered the notion that only the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives were the rightful parties of government".

"The lessons of 1993 are that the worst-case scenario can happen," said political analyst Éric Grenier at the Writ. "Just because you've been around forever doesn't mean that you will be around forever. You can have the kind of election that requires you to restart a party and to come back from almost zero."

As UK Conservatives faces the prospect of a comparable defeat, political historians say Canada's recent past offers "lessons on the challenges of tempering populist rumbles – and the steep electoral losses that can follow", said The Guardian.

What happened to Canada's Reform Party?

"Huge, huge, huge," said Farage when he was asked about how important the former leader of Canada's Reform Party has been in shaping his campaign.

Founded and led by Preston Manning, initially as a protest movement, Reform won its first seat in Canada's parliament in a by-election in Alberta in 1989. Campaigning on a "populist agenda, which included creating an elected Senate, abolishing official bilingualism and broadly reducing the size of government" at the 1993 federal election, Reform "stormed to prominence, winning 52 seats and replacing the Progressive Conservatives as the voice of Western Canada" said the national broadcaster CBC News.

In less than a decade, rebranded as the Conservative Alliance, the party swept to power under Stephen Harper, who served as prime minister for nine years.

"In the end they sort of 'reverse took over' the old Conservative Party – they are the model," said Farage. "That's the plan." 

Will it happen in the UK?

There are some "almost exact parallels with the current political moment in the UK", said the London Evening Standard: the economy was failing, a conservative incumbent had recently replaced its leader, and it was up against a young, insurgent right-wing party named Reform. The "most significant similarity" between Westminster and Canada may be that both use first past the post (FPTP), "a system that has the potential to significantly skew how votes are converted into MPs".

If the polls are correct, the Conservatives are heading for a cataclysmic defeat on 4 July. 

Clearly, there are "several similarities between the difficulties they confront and the PC’s dire situation in 1993", said UK in a Changing Europe. But "as dim as the prospects are for the Tories, they are unlikely to suffer an electoral rout on the same scale due to the much more territorialised nature of the Canadian party system".

In the 1993 Canadian election, "regional issues were highly salient, and whereas the PC vote share was geographically diffuse and highly inefficient, two of their main competitors benefitted from having regionally concentrated support".

That Reform UK does not have the "geographical base in the same way that Reform in Canada had" poses Farage's real problem in Britain's FPTP system, as his party will struggle to translate votes into seats, Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told CBC News.

If Labour returns to power next week, it is "likely that the Conservatives will be the biggest opposition party", said Prospect magazine. "What is remarkable is that the question is even worth asking."

Nigel Farage has set out a two-election strategy that he claims paves the way for him to be elected as prime minister after his Reform UK party becomes the main opposition to Labour.

Speaking yesterday before launching his party's manifesto, called "Our Contract With You", Farage said he hoped the upcoming 4 July election would result in Reform establishing a "bridgehead" in the House of Commons. He would then build a "big national campaigning movement around the country over the course of the next five years for genuine change".

The "real ambition", he said, was to clinch the top job at the next election, which must be held in 2029 at the latest.

What did the commentators say?

The most obvious route to No. 10 for Farage would involve staging a "reverse takeover of the Conservatives", said the i news site. He has "made no bones about his desire to see the Conservatives 'destroyed' and for him to pick up the pieces to shape the remnants of whatever is left in his own image".

But the choice of Merthyr Tydfil for Monday's manifesto launch was telling, said UnHerd. Far from the fabled Red Wall, the South Wales town has been solidly Labour for more than a century.

For Farage, "that seems to be the point". The former Ukip leader "barely bothered with the Tories in his remarks, but rather set out a two-election strategy to establish Reform as the true opposition to Labour" and then "storm to power in 2029".

That has a "fleetingly plausible ring to it", said The Independent's chief political commentator John Rentoul, "and sounds less like a snake-oil preacher predicting the Rapture" – unlike the two pages of "costings" at the end of the "contract" document, which "look like a ChatGPT version of something the Institute for Fiscal Studies might endorse".

For all the oxygen that Farage's return to front-line politics has taken up, debate continues about how popular his policies actually are with the wider public and if the manifesto is really a winning platform with the electorate.

"The mainstream elite in the media and in politics who claim to oppose Farage, and who pretend to stand as a bulwark against far-right politics, are again duly buying into the hype he has created for himself," said Aurelien Mondon, senior lecturer in politics at Bath University, on The Conversation.

What next?

Farage may be right when he said that UK politics was becoming more "presidential-style", with people voting for leaders rather than parties. But strong poll numbers do not necessarily translate into power in a first-past-the-post parliamentary system. Even in a best-case scenario, Reform will enter the next Parliament with just a handful of MPs.

Should the Tories suffer a near-extinction level event, Farage will still "not be the leader of the opposition, and he will not be the 'real' leader of the opposition", said Rentoul. "He will be a lonely figure at the back of the far end of the opposition benches." And while "the 'What to do about Nigel' question may continue to split the Tory party", the "prospect of a reverse takeover, of the larger entity by the smaller, will remain distant".

If Farage is "serious about spearheading a movement, is Reform really the right vehicle for it", asked Sky News's deputy political editor Sam Coates. Or "is a broken Conservative Party a better host for his ambition", given that "there is a chance the membership could well elect him leader if he ever got into the last two candidates in a contest to run the party"?

Farage has repeatedly side-stepped questions about whether he would rejoin the Tories to lead them, probably because he "genuinely has not ruled out the possibility, depending on the success or otherwise of Reform UK and the makeup of the Conservative Parliamentary party after 5 July".

"He is clearly enjoying himself – the TikTok videos, the TV interviews, the campaign events… It's all part of his love of publicity and the airtime which Reform's position in the polls gives him right now," said Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC.

But questions remain about whether he genuinely wants to be PM – or even become an MP, with all the limits that entails.

"He's just a reality TV star," said a source quoted by Kuenssberg. "Going to the jungle wasn't leaving the political arena, it was coming home."

Nigel Farage's announcement that he will lead Reform UK into the upcoming general election is Rishi Sunak's "worst nightmare" come true, said The Times's political sketchwriter Tom Peck.

At an "emergency general election announcement" press conference in London yesterday, Richard Tice – Reform's leader since 2021 – revealed that he would be handing the reins to Farage, who will also be running as the party's candidate in Clacton.

A buoyant Farage then took to the stage, "popping out of the darkness like a clockwork Jack the Ripper", for a bullish victory speech in which he claimed the Conservatives were on "the verge of total collapse", and laid down the welcome mat to Tory defectors.

It was another "potentially damaging blow" for the Conservative Party's "faltering" general election campaign, said The Guardian. Not only does Farage's entry into the election "pose an immediate threat" to the Tory candidate in Clacton, it may also "energise his party's national campaign, splitting the right-wing vote in other constituencies".

Even more than that, Farage's decision to stand could "both reset and re-align the Conservative Party", said the BBC's political correspondent Ione Wells. By "worrying Conservatives afraid of losing their seats", Reform UK will now be able to "influence Conservative policy" without even holding any seats.

Farage has never won a parliamentary seat despite trying seven times, but Clacton is the "perfect place" for him to stand, said The Independent. The Essex seaside town was the constituency of the only UKIP MP ever to make it to the House of Commons, Douglas Carswell, who held the seat until 2017.

The town's current Tory MP, former sitcom actor Giles Watling, was elected for the second time in 2019 with a comfortable 24,000 majority that now looks anything but safe. Or, as Farage's campaign manager, Peter Harris, put it: "Giles Watling starred in 'Bread', but now he is toast."

Regardless of whether the eighth time will prove to be the lucky one for Farage's parliamentary ambitions, his dramatic re-entry into British politics is "a moment that will haunt Rishi Sunak for four more weeks", said Peck, "and after that, one suspects, the rest of his life".

Westminster continues to reel from the so-called honeytrap scandal amid speculation about whether it was the work of a hostile foreign state or a political insider.

Tory MP William Wragg went public last week to confirm he had been blackmailed into giving out numbers of colleagues after sending explicit pictures to someone called "Charlie" on the dating app Grindr. Wragg stood down last night from his roles as head of the Commons' Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and vice-chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.

At least 15 people – all of them male – are now believed to have been targeted by the "spear phishing" account, including journalists, researchers and MPs from across the political spectrum.

Calling Wragg's actions "exceptionally inappropriate and ill-advised", cabinet minister Mel Stride told GB News that "the overarching lesson for all of us in public life here is to proceed with great caution in the circumstances". 

What did the commentators say?

While some senior politicians – most notably Chancellor Jeremy Hunt – have backed Wragg, others have been less forgiving. "To give out the telephone numbers of other MPs is not only a serious breach of trust towards his colleagues, it also raises some quite serious security questions, too" said Nigel Farage in The Telegraph. "What he did was unforgivable in every way."

The "embarrassment of a few Westminster insiders" "provides endless opportunities for tabloid amusement", said The Observer in its editorial. But there is "a more serious problem: the way the pathological addiction to WhatsApp of Britain's ruling elite has undermined democratic institutions and conventions".

The Covid crisis had already exposed Westminster's over-reliance on private messaging apps that "might suit gossip and informal exchanges but is inappropriate for important decision-making", said David Omand, a former head of GCHQ and one-time permanent secretary at the Home Office.

If the pandemic raised questions about transparency and accountability then the honeytrap scandal has shone a light on security procedures within the Westminster bubble in the era of instant communications.

The popularity of direct messaging and social networks makes targeted attacks "easier to carry out," said Politico, "with malign actors able to create virtual numbers and buy cheap SIM cards on the high street".

What next?

The nature of this scandal and the fact that it involves the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats mean it is "unlikely to become a party-political issue", said James Heale in The Spectator.

The long-term consequences for the intimate circle of MPs and journalists are likely to depend on who is identified as being behind the blackmailing operation. There is "considerable debate" in Westminster as to whether a hostile state actor was involved, said Heale. The scandal has "alarmed security hawks" within the Conservative Party, "who believe state-sponsored cyberattacks are on the rise", said Politico.

However, said The Sun's political editor Harry Cole on X, "it continues to be stressed this is a police matter not one for the security services".

The so-called Westminster honeytrapper is believed to have been at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last year, said The Times, "fuelling speculation that the perpetrator is a political insider".

Dominik Wojtczak, head of the Cybersecurity Institute at the University of Liverpool, told Politico that the messages were probably part of a "spear phishing attack" and that "the purpose is most likely to simply obtain indecent images of the victims and then blackmail them".

But this misses the point entirely, said Farage. "It is totally irrelevant whether 'Charlie' or any other dark actors linked to the Wragg scandal are working for the Russians, the Chinese, or a scurrilous website," he wrote. "Those who are in public office have to be held to a higher standard than everybody else. If not, breakdown will follow."

Calling for an investigation to "help to establish whether there are any other Wraggs in Parliament who have been similarly compromised", Farage said: "We ought to think about the security implications of MPs giving out to blackmailers confidential telephone numbers."

The former Ukip leader concluded: "The security of the nation and the safety of the public could depend on it."

Boris Johnson could be drafted in to help save the Conservatives from annihilation at the general election – and prepare for a possible return to politics should the party be wiped out.

Johnson has largely stayed out of the political limelight since he was ousted from power in the summer of 2022. Since then, however, his party's fortunes have nosedived, and a feeling is growing that the man who won the Tories a huge majority in 2019 is the only person who can save them this time.

Tory fears of a mass exodus of voters across the so-called "red wall" in the north of England has been heightened by the defection of former party deputy chair Lee Anderson to a surging Reform UK party. 

"There are many in the party who don't think we have a hope in hell of winning unless Boris comes back," one backbencher told The Telegraph. "Of course there are some who can't forgive him for Partygate but we're running out of better ideas."

What did the commentators say?

In the wake of the Partygate scandal, the notion of "bringing back Boris" appeared "complete folly", said Camilla Tominey in The Telegraph. "Yet the resurgence of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for US president, combined with the Tories this week falling to their lowest level of poll support in almost 50 years, have increased the likelihood of a Cincinnatus-style comeback." Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was the Roman statesman recalled as dictator referenced by Johnson in his outgoing speech as PM.

A comeback has been made more likely by a significant "thawing" of relations between Johnson and Rishi Sunak over the past six months, said The Times's political editor Steven Swinford. Tominey also reported that "sources familiar with the former prime minister's thinking" had revealed last month the former PM would welcome a personal telephone call from Sunak to ask for his help campaigning in the general election.

While undoubtedly a divisive figure nationally, Johnson still retains widespread support among the Tory grassroots and those who voted for the party for the first time in 2019. In a focus group reported by The Telegraph in the red wall seat of Wellingborough ahead of February's by-election, four out of seven participants pinpointed Johnson's departure and subsequent Tory infighting as the reason why they had given up on the party.

A look at the latest polls and the distribution of target seats shows that "the difference between losing the next election and annihilation lies in great measure in getting former Conservative voters to show up on election day", said Anne McElvoy on the i news site. In this Johnson could be decisive and would "probably make a difference", agreed one veteran Tory backbencher.

With Sunak failing to move the dial, some in the party are even "muttering about some sort of complex putsch" in which Johnson is reinstalled as leader before the election, said the Mail on Sunday in an editorial. This would most likely backfire, said the paper, but a "more sensible course of action which would tend to unite rather than split the Tories" would be for Sunak to "make full use of this powerful asset in the developing campaign".

Johnson has a "unique power to charm and captivate a national audience, and there is no point in Sunak or any other leading Conservative being envious of this", the Mail on Sunday added. But "given the many egos and fractured bromances in this story, the only way Johnson is likely to resurface is if he sees personal gain in doing so", said McElvoy.

What next?

While any involvement in the campaign is likely to start off informally – he could "visit marginal constituencies, make speeches and appear on leaflets", said The Times – there have been suggestions that Johnson could make a comeback as an MP before the election or be parachuted into a safe seat after.

HuffPost said that Johnson's hopes of a political comeback have been "dealt a major blow" by the Tory candidate in his former seat of Henley insisting in an LBC interview that she would not make way for him. 

But the "real field of play for Johnson", said McElvoy, "is the immediate period after the likely election rout". Then, a "rump party, with a bunch of ambitious contenders on the right, will assess the Reform Party's performance – and the possible appeal of a Farage-Johnson dream team", she said. 

In practice, this would most likely be a "fissile combination", but "something profound is likely to shift in the Conservative Party – and Johnson has always seen moments of instability as an opportunity".

Liz Truss is rebranding herself in a bid to relaunch her stalled political career over in the US. 

Following her stint as Britain's shortest-serving prime minister, the former Lib Dem-turned-centrist Tory is "plotting a new course back to relevance as a darling of the American far-right and as the bridge in a transatlantic conservative movement" said the Daily Mail's US political reporter Bob Crilly.

Since leaving No. 10 in October 2022,  Truss has doubled down on her free-market policies and "worked tirelessly to build ties with US conservatives, including key Members of Congress", said Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher, in The Telegraph. Truss is "widely admired in conservative circles" as "one of the few British politicians who really understand the United States and the direction America's conservative movement is taking".

'Martyr of the Conservative cause'

Following her year in the "political wilderness", said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, Truss is now "ubiquitous". An appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last week provided the latest opportunity for the former Tory leader to "try out the persona she has adopted since her enforced departure from Downing Street: the martyr of the Conservative cause".

The annual event has "long been one of the most influential conservative gatherings in the world", said Crilly in the Mail, and is now a "showcase for Donald Trump's Maga movement".

Making her CPAC debut alongside former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, Truss "positioned herself as a fierce defender of history against the mores of the left", said The New Statesman's Matt McDonald – and "then proceeded to retell her own". Rehashing the platform she stood on in the Tory leadership contest, Truss portrayed herself  as the "populist conduit for the policies of her party's base" and claimed the "deep state" brought down her her tax-cutting plans. 

Referencing the title of her upcoming book, Truss warned that there were only "10 years left to save the West". She derided "wokenomics," Joe Biden and "the usual suspects" in the media and corporate world who allegedly undermined her as PM. And she ended with a call for Americans to elect Republicans "who aren't going to cave into the establishment" and are willing to be unpopular with elites, even if it means "they don't get invited to any dinner parties".

'Differences with her new audience'

Whether Truss's US bid to "remake herself as a right-wing celebrity will succeed is anyone’s guess", said The Independent's White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg. Her CPAC debut appears to be part of a "new offensive" to gain "new allies in the populist, antidemocratic milieu inhabited by Trump, Farage, and other authoritarian-friendly gadflies such as ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon".

Yet while her focus on the "enemies within" might have come straight from the Trump playbook, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times, there are "lots of reasons" why Truss might not want to "explicitly endorse" the former president. She knows "full well" that it is "hard" to "reconcile" her hawkish positions on foreign policy, particularly her support for Ukraine, with Trump's stances. 

Her foreign policy views "might be a harder sell to the American right, which is held in Trump's isolationist grip", agreed Crilly in the Mail. And she faces other "potential differences with her new audience", including her rejection of the widespread belief amongst Maga supporters that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Little wonder that her CPAC appearance was met with a mixture of confusion and scepticism, said Jack Montgomery in The National Pulse. Her support for action against climate change and backing for "woke" policies while in government show that Truss "wasn’t ousted by the deep state", he wrote. "She is the deep state."

Following the political turmoil of 2022, which saw three different prime ministers pass through Downing Street, it was hoped this year would provide a period of relative calm ahead of the rough and tumble of a general election expected in 2024.

But Nicola Sturgeon's resignation as Scotland's first minister set the tone for the year. Rishi Sunak struggled to maintain control of the Conservative Party in the face of Covid revelations and manoeuvrings among his top ministers, while Nigel Farage brought down the head of one of Britain's biggest banks.

Abroad, the continuing war in Ukraine was overshadowed by Hamas's deadly 7 October attacks and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets around the world to protest. Across the pond, Donald Trump racked up nearly 100 criminal indictments over the course of the year yet still leads the opinion polls ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Here is how the newspapers covered some of the biggest stories of the year.

Sturgeon resigns

When the Daily Record reported the sudden resignation of the all-powerful Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon in February with the headline "I want my Independence" few could have predicted what would happen next. 

The resignation and subsequent arrest of Peter Murrell, Sturgeon's husband and, for 24 years, the SNP's chief executive, sent the party into a tailspin from which it has never recovered. For years, the SNP was "admired, feared and envied" for its iron discipline, said Severin Carrell in The Guardian, but in just a few short weeks its once "impregnable political edifice" collapsed, and with it perhaps any remaining chance of Scottish independence.

The lockdown files

In a major scoop, The Telegraph obtained more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between the then health secretary Matt Hancock and other ministers and officials at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The conversations were detailed in what the paper called "The Lockdown Files" and they raised "vital new questions about the handling of the pandemic ahead of a public inquiry into the response to Covid-19", said the paper. Among the multiple revelations was Hancock's rejection of expert medical advice on care home testing.

Trump in the dock

In April, Donald Trump became the first sitting or former US president to face criminal charges when he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records linked to hush money payments allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his first presidential election campaign.

Many papers led with variations on The Times's "Trump in the dock" headline in what The Independent described as "a day that shook America". But while an extraordinary moment, it was soon eclipsed by further charges brought against Trump related to the unauthorised possession of classified documents, the financial reporting in his organisations and attempts to overturn the 2020 election. 

Despite all these, the former president remains odds-on favourite to win the Republican nomination and is leading Joe Biden in head-to-head polling for next year's presidential election.

A 'happy and glorious' coronation

The organisers of King Charles' coronation in May said it would be an "unforgettable spectacle" and this pledge was "gloriously fulfilled on a day that mixed splendour and sacrament", reported the Sunday Express. 

Thousands lined the streets and millions tuned in around the world to watch the royal procession and ceremony at Westminster Abbey, although the day did not pass without incident after anti-monarchy protesters were detained, causing a significant backlash and pre-empting more recent debates around how police deal with protests.

Nigel Farage vs. NatWest

The Independent reported how NatWest lost £850 million in a single day's trading as Nigel Farage called for the entire board to quit after chief executive Dame Alison Rose stepped down in the wake of his "debanking scandal".

The row, which rumbled on for months, led not only to the departure of Rose but also Peter Flavel, chief executive of Coutts, as well as an intervention from the UK's data privacy regulator. 

In July the Treasury summoned the heads of Britain's biggest banks to explain how they intend to ensure that customers are not cancelled for their political views. The scandal cost Rose millions in pay-outs with Farage announcing in November he would sue NatWest, seeking millions of pounds in damages.

'Britain's worst baby killer'

The conviction of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby – found guilty in August of murdering seven newborns and attempting to kill another six after a 10-month trial – earned her the label of "Britain's worst baby killer".

But it was the Daily Mail that highlighted what was to become the focus of public anger over the coming weeks and ultimately lead to the setting up of a government inquiry, reporting on how hospital bosses had failed to "act on a string of warnings". Letby was sentenced to a whole-life jail term without the prospect of parole.

Hamas attacks

The world was stunned when Hamas launched a murderous attack on Israel in the early hours of 7 October. Some of the most harrowing images from that day came from a video of a student who was abducted from a music festival and heard screaming "don't kill me". Her words made the front page of the Mail on Sunday as people around the world showed their solidarity with Israel.

Yet support quickly turned to anger at what many saw as the indiscriminate targeting of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. The fate of the woman in the video is unknown, with Hamas claiming that 50 hostages taken on 7 October have since died in Israeli air strikes.

Useless *******s morons & ****s

The Daily Record splashed on Dominic Cummings' foul-mouth tirades on WhatsApp that were revealed at the Covid Inquiry. Boris Johnson's former senior adviser said that the government's initial plan for dealing with Covid was a "joke". 

He described the Cabinet Office, at the heart of No.10, as a "dumpster fire" and called Johnson's absence on holiday in February 2020, as Covid loomed, "insane". Cummings thought Johnson returning early from his holiday would have been "counterproductive", said The Times, while The Telegraph said that when Cummings resigned he left the country to be run by a man he described as "unfit for office".

Suella Sacked (but look who's back)

The Evening Standard was the first paper to lead on the dramatic return to frontline politics for former PM David Cameron. While the sacking of home secretary Suella Braverman had been widely anticipated following her inflammatory comments around Pro-Palestinian protests in the lead up to Remembrance Sunday, coverage of the biggest cabinet reshuffle of Rishi Sunak's premiership was dominated by the return of his predecessor-but-three.

Cameron is "well-connected on the international stage, which comes in handy when you're an incoming foreign secretary", said the BBC's political editor Chris Mason, and "he'll have useful words of advice about winning general elections too". But he also comes with significant "baggage".

1. Nigel Farage has the PM cornered over migration

Iain Martin in The Times

on a test for Boris

“Love, like or loathe him, once again it’s Nigel Farage setting the agenda,” writes Iain Martin, as the Rwanda policy brings migration to the centre of political debate again. Far from suiting the PM, the Rwanda issue is actually “nightmarishly tricky for a divided Tory party”, Martin feels. “Most ominously for Tory HQ, they now have Farage on their case making menacing demands,” says The Times columnist. “Once he starts, it is not long before one of the mega-donors who admire him picks up the phone to suggest a national campaign, or forming a new party, to intimidate the Tory leadership and make it act more Brexity.” In the meantime, Farage has “set the PM a test: Brexit is incomplete, you haven’t got it done until you leave the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights]. It is a test all but impossible to pass.”

Read more

2. Poverty leaves scars for life – I’m still scared of strangers at the door and bills through the letterbox

Jack Monroe in The Guardian

on the price of poverty

The majority of those struggling in the cost-of-living crisis have been “sliding into this cesspit of deprivation and destitution for nigh on a decade now”, writes Jack Monroe in The Guardian. Having experienced poverty, Monroe writes: “I often could not open my own front door nor my mail as a result of living in poverty, when the only people who knocked on the door were bailiffs or debt collectors.” To this day, “an unexpected visitor leaves me having a full-blown panic attack”. The 14.5 million people living in poverty in the UK today are “ticking timebombs” of physical and mental conditions, says Monroe, and therefore “choosing to deny people the most basic of human needs for the sake of scraping a few quid off the bottom line today will end up costing us – as a society, as a country and as an economy – far more in the months and years to come”.

Read more

3. Starmer certainly put more welly into it at PMQs

Lloyd Evans in The Spectator

on flung footwear

“Last week, Sir Keir was monstered by his critics after a feeble performance at PMQs saw him fail to trouble a wounded Boris,” writes Lloyd Evans for The Spectator. This week, however, “we saw Sir Keir transformed and unleashed”, and “he was flinging wellies in all directions”. The Labour leader tried a “Love Island analogy”, saying “contestants that give the public the ick” get booted out. “Did that hit home? Boris isn’t at risk of being ‘booted out’ by the public so the analogy rang false. As did the implication that the high-minded Sir Keir – whose mother was a nurse, remember – likes to watch a speed-dating show full of bronzed hunks and oiled bimbos.” Evans said Starmer droned “like a philology professor reading the Shipping Forecast in Esperanto” and “even the Speaker got fed up”.

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4. Glastonbury crowds are mostly white – but is that really a problem?

Michael Deacon in The Telegraph

on diversity

This week, Lenny Henry remarked on the lack of ethnic diversity among the Glastonbury festival crowds. Michael Deacon of The Telegraph believes that what Henry says is “undeniably true” but this “isn’t necessarily a surprise” because Glastonbury celebrates British rock music – “a genre that has always been largely performed by (and listened to by) white men”. He writes that “a lack of ethnic diversity is a problem if non-white people are somehow being excluded, or made to feel unwelcome”, but Glastonbunry organisers “aren’t stopping non-white people from attending” and “no one is being denied a ticket on the basis of their ethnicity”. Where there’s racism, “we must tackle it”, he writes, but “that doesn’t mean that the crowd at every public event must be forced to reflect the precise ethnic make-up of the national population”.

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5. Amber Heard has shown astonishing fortitude and she won’t be silenced

Katie Edwards for the i news site

on moving on

As critics call on Amber Heard to “move on” from the Johnny Depp trial, Katie Edwards asks: “How is she supposed to move on if the poison just keeps flowing?” Hateful hashtags are still trending on Twitter. “What exactly is the aim of this onslaught of abuse? Is she supposed to pipe down and take the punishment from millions of strangers who, just because they watched the trial (or not), think it gives them a right to continue to revile her over a week after the verdict?” asks Edwards, writing for the i news site. Most of the “anti-Amber community” on social media seem to think they’re genuinely furthering an important and overlooked cause, says Edwards, adding that she finds this “moral crusader stance puzzling” as it does nothing to help male victims of abuse. “Where will this end? Whatever you think of Heard, she’s shown astonishing fortitude to withstand the weeks of hatred. When will the public gallery be happy?”

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Reform’s rise in the polls has seen a number of their policy proposals under the microscope and earlier this year, Nigel Farage called for an end to the NHS being funded through general taxation, arguing it “does not work”, and revealed a wish to change to an insurance-based health system.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting countered by saying this would privatise the NHS by the back door, reducing the NHS to “a poor service for poor people, with working people forced to pay to go private”.

The slide to the private sector could have already begun, however; the NHS already outsources its appointments more frequently to independent providers, said Alex Nichol on LBC. Since October 2024, the number of NHS appointments, tests and operations delivered by private institutions has “increased by almost 500,000 this year, now totalling 6.15 million”. This currently amounts to around 10% of elective NHS activity, experts said.

So what are the arguments for and against the radical step of moving to a privatised health system?

Pro: more choice for patients

Around 16 million people, which equates to around a third of the working-age population, think that private medical insurance is “essential”, said Moira O’Neill in the Financial Times. However, only 8% of a sample of 2,000 UK consumers aged between 18 and 70 had bought private medical insurance in the last two years, creating a “gulf” between desire and ability for private healthcare.

The NHS is often seen as a one-size-fits-all system by its detractors, while a privatised service might allow patients to better choose where to be treated and what treatment to have.

Perhaps in a nod to this thinking, reforms announced by the health secretary earlier this month will see an overhaul of the NHS App to give patients greater choice over where they have their appointments and treatment.

The prime minister likened the digital reforms to having a “doctor in your pocket providing advice 24 hours a day, seven days a week”.

“This is not a new idea”, said Jim Reed on the BBC. “It’s been talked about for years as a way of relieving pressure on the NHS and cutting waiting lists”. However, there are still questions of how the network and rollout will be funded, and how long full implementation will be expected to take, fuelling the fire for larger, wholescale changes.

Con: less certainty over funding sources and costs

Opponents of privatisation warn that it will open the door to more cronyism and a lack of due process. Private companies are not held to the same standards as public ones, and do not need to publish accounts to show how they have spent funds.

Removing control from the NHS could lead to cracks in the healthcare system. In April, the Department of Health and Social Care investigated “billing irregularities” in the cataracts market, after private clinics were accused of having “artificially inflated costs for the taxpayer, performed unnecessary operations and incentivised high-street optometrists to refer patients to their services” said Shaun Lintern in The Times.

Critics of NHS privatisation have pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how outsourcing contracts to private firms can lead to a lack of transparency. Former deputy chair of the British Medical Association, David Wrigley, said in 2020 on the BMA website that the then-Tory government had chosen to outsource to “scores of private firms” with “minimal oversight, governance or transparency”.

Pro: could reduce waiting times

Both the previous Conservative government and the current Labour one have made cutting NHS waiting lists a top priority.

In June, NHS England announced the waiting lists had fallen to their lowest numbers in two years, and the lowest in April since 2008. Numbers fell from 7.42 million to 7.39 million, the first reduction in 17 years, excluding the first year of the pandemic.

Using the existing private-sector spare capacity could be “key” to the government’s targets, said David Hughes in The Independent.

Though there has been success with using private practices to service NHS appointments, “caution is required”, said Ammad Butt on UnHerd. There are fears that the NHS could become “addicted” to this short-term solution: if it does, “the cost of procedures and managing backlogs will remain permanently high” and do damage in the long run. Staff would be driven away from the NHS system, able to “charge higher rates when working privately, even though the money may still be coming from the taxpayer”.

Con: could reduce quality and continuity of care

The late Professor Stephen Hawking warned that a move towards a “US-style insurance system, run by… private companies” would lead to “the establishment of a two-tier service”, where rich and poor received wildly different levels of care.

A 2023 review in The Lancet found “aggregate increases in privatisation frequently corresponded with worse health outcomes for patients” overall.

“The implications are that privatising the NHS is not corresponding with better quality care, and, starkly, that the inverse might be true,” said Ben Goodair, one of the review’s authors.

This extends to continuity of care as well. The argument goes that private firms will not carry on providing an unprofitable service any longer than they have to. This could lead to a lack of continuity, with some patients finding their health providers change during their treatment or that aftercare, such as follow-up physio after an operation, is not included.

Pro: could 'reverse the rot'

The NHS is as close as Britain gets to a secular religion. The moral argument for a public system which delivers free care to everybody, regardless of wealth or status, has become a non-negotiable in public debate. But this religious-like fervour has led to stasis and a disjointed set of short-term solutions that have brought the entire health system to the point of collapse, critics argue.

Commentators have highlighted the need for more generalist doctors into the system, with England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, warning of the risks of over-specialisation, said The Times. Additionally, Re:State, a health think tank believed that patients requiring several specialisms causes “gridlock” in hospitals, with doctors not retaining generalist skills to treat appropriately.

“To subscribe to the notion that the NHS is the best health system in the world, one must assume the government is uniquely qualified to deliver healthcare,” said Dr Michael Christopher in The Critic. Continuing in this vein would drive us to “second-rate healthcare in perpetuity”, unless major systematic changes are made, like a move to privatisation systems.

Con: public healthcare is more efficient

This may seem a surprising claim, given that the prevailing wisdom since the Thatcher years has been that state control is inherently inefficient and internal markets bring savings.

Although the NHS’s performance compared to the rest of Europe’s health services is a bit of a “mixed bag”, said James Maddocks on the NHS Confederation website. It is not a “consistently outstanding performer, nor is it consistently underperforming”, but by some “academic estimates” around costs, the UK outperforms countries such as Germany, France and Sweden.

A private healthcare system does not mean an instant cut in costs, as exhibited across the Atlantic. It is generally accepted that wealthier countries tend to spend more on health care per citizen than lower-income countries. Even by this metric, the US spends “far more per person on health” than any of its comparable Western counterparts, parting with almost a fifth of its GDP on health consumption in 2020, said health policy researcher KFF. According to the outlet, on average, Americans spent “$8,353 [£6,365] per person on inpatient and outpatient care, compared to $3,636 [£2,770] in peer countries”.

The debate on healthcare, though privatised, is just as fierce abroad, and by no means any simpler once a public healthcare provider is removed or avoided. In the US, the debate over healthcare was arguably “at the centre of the US government shutdown”, said Eric Berger in The Guardian.

Donald Trump hinted he might run again for the US presidency, criticised Meghan Markle and professed his love for the Queen in a “freewheeling” interview with Nigel Farage for GB News.

The former president was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, South Florida, where he was joined by one-time Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, now a broadcaster for the beleaguered news station, in what was billed as a “world exclusive”.

It was an interview that “broke little new ground”, said The Guardian, “beginning with the twice-impeached, one-term Republican president repeating the lie that the 2020 presidential election” was stolen from him. This was followed by further “gripes and complaints about his successor” Joe Biden, while he also “took aim” at UK targets including Boris Johnson and Meghan Markle, “whom he believes exploited her position in the royal family”.

“I’m not a fan of hers. I wasn’t from day one. I think Harry has been used horribly and I think some day he will regret it, he probably does already,” Trump told Farage. “I think it’s ruined his relationship with his family, and it hurts the Queen.”

The former president also criticised Johnson’s plans for the UK to become a leader in harnessing offshore wind energy, which he branded “a big mistake”.

“But I like him, I always got on with him [although] he’s gone a little on the liberal side,” he added.

Farage touched on the Capitol Hill attack, in which thousands of Trump supporters stormed the government building, but it was largely dismissed by the man himself, who claimed that “the insurrection took place on November 3 [election day]”.

A ‘box office’ night for GB News

The UK’s newest TV channel has got off to something of a “volatile start punctuated by technical gaffes and the noisy exit of its chairman and lead presenter Andrew Neil”, said The Telegraph.

But despite some “positive signals” – some flagship shows have begun to beat Sky News in certain time slots – GB News has yet to attract a significant audience, infamously “nursing zero viewers for some programmes shortly after launch”, said the paper. This begs the question: “can Trump’s blockbuster billing help GB News capitalise on its green shoots of growth?”

“Nigel’s certainly earning his fee”, said political blog Guido Fawkes, which thought the interview had been “box office” for the news channel. It reported seeing figures that show the interview pulled in “the largest GB News viewership since its original opening night”.

“For two whole hours between 7pm to 9pm, GB News beat the BBC’s average by 155,600 viewers to their 118,200, with Sky News some distance behind on 60,500. The interview reached 208,500 just after 7pm and held steady for the next hour,” reported the Westminister gossip site.

Lloyd Evans in The Spectator added that Farage had “delivered the shortest hour-long interview in TV history”.

GB News may have cleared 60 minutes of its schedule for Trump’s “bombshell” appearance, but “viewers soon realised that Farage had spent relatively little facetime with the former president” in an interview that was “bulked out… with snatches of personal analysis and Zoom calls with American pundits”.

For Whitehall correspondent Mikey Smith in The Mirror, the interview amounted to “two elderly guys whining at each other for an hour” as Farage occasionally “tossed his softball questions in return for a few scraps of news”.

“Perhaps Farage’s greatest triumph,” Smith concluded, “was to stretch what appeared to be a 15-minute sit-down interview into a full hour on the broadcast schedule.”

1. Donald Trump now senses his opportunity to win back the White House

Nigel Farage in The Telegraph

On a fighter friend

“Whether you like him or loathe him”, says Nigel Farage, one thing “is beyond doubt” about my pal Donald Trump. “He is a fighter who never gives up.” Writing for The Telegraph from Florida, where he has interviewed the former president for GB News, Farage argues that no conservative in the Western world can win a majority without blue-collar support. Dismissing other potential Republican hopefuls for 2024, the former Brexit Party chief argues that none of them “can reach those voters living in the eight states that make up the Great Lakes region in the way that Trump can”. And while Trump faces many challenges in the next three years, and “still has much work to do to secure white voters who lead comfortable lives in middle-class suburbs”, Farage “genuinely believes that my friend will be back in the White House in January 2025”.

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2. #MeToo changed Hollywood – but what about our schools, workplaces and homes?

Rosamund Cloke for The Guardian

On harassment closer to home

On the fourth anniversary of the #MeToo movement, London school pupil Rosamund Cloke wonders what impact the campaign has had on the world. While the movement has “certainly made a difference in Hollywood, leading to the arrest and conviction of powerful men such as Harvey Weinstein”, she writes in The Guardian, “sexism and sexual harassment are not only found in Hollywood but also closer to home, in our schools, our workplaces and our everyday lives”. Cloke “can attest from personal experience that sexual harassment in schools is scarily common, to the extent that it is considered ordinary classroom banter among boys”. And “what is even more rife within the school environment is the presentation and exchange of nude images”. Sexual harrassment “is still happening, the only difference is that now we’re much more aware of it”, she continues. But perhaps awareness is “the first step in eradicating the threat of sexual assault that many of us feel daily, and in slowly dismantling the dangerous culture created by decades of silence”.

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3. Michael Buerk says freedom of speech is ‘seriously under threat’ – he has lost himself in a moral maze

Sean O’Grady for The Independent

On an absent acerbic

“Lovely Michael Buerk” is in the news for saying that the BBC is too “woke” and that freedom of speech is “seriously under threat”, writes Sean O’Grady, who argues in The Independent that the veteran broadcaster has made a rare misstep. “Once upon a time, it would have been unthinkable for a BBC show to question the monarchy, for example, or concede that homosexuality is ‘normal’,” says O’Grady. “It’s good those taboos have gone, and now we have our own ones. That’s what all societies do; they have their norms and bounds and their Overton windows, and that’s quite normal.” The real problem with the BBC Radio 4 show hosted by Buerk, The Moral Maze, is that “it’s a bit woolly, and just another discussion programme, and the presenters aren’t all that spikey and provocative”, O’Grady continues. What is needed is the return of the controversial Dr David Starkey, who “was a wonderful panellist – the best – because he brought such an acerbic edge to the show, spicing up the usual amorphous philosophical soup with balls-out personal attacks”.

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4. To keep Iran from going nuclear — and prevent war — America must work with Israel

Michael Makovsky for the New York Post

On the balance of burden

Former Pentagon official Michael Makovsky worries that a “major Israel-Iran war” is on the cards. Writing for the New York Post, the CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America reveals that defence officials from “our closest Middle Eastern ally, Israel, were the most pessimistic I can recall” because “they perceive America as checked out, adrift, pusillanimous, unfeared and desperate to avoid military confrontation and Iran as emboldened and nearing the nuclear-weapons threshold”. Senior Israeli defence officials believe “that it will be Israel’s burden alone” to prevent Tehran going nuclear, says Makovsky. He argues that Washington “should lighten that burden” through measures such as moving Israel “to the head of the line to receive KC-46 aerial refueling tankers” and accelerating “delivery of precision-guided missiles”. Because ultimately, “Washington is fortunate it can turn to Israel” to “prevent a nuclear Iran, thereby advancing US interests as Jerusalem advances its own”.

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5. It’s so much harder to be sincere than clever

James Marriott in The Times

On Swift’s sincerity

Chart-topping singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s great talent, “one much rarer than mere cleverness”, is for sincerity, writes James Marriott. “She is capable of meaning what she says. Very few people are.” The Times columnist believes that “showing your heart is a great deal harder than it sounds” and that “most pop music (most of everything, in fact)” shows not “sincere personal feeling but a sickly soup of emotional clichés distilled from the cultural atmosphere”. Sincerity, he contends, is “what we actually refer to when we talk about artistic talent”. Yet “the really sincere are rarely quite in tune with their times and are therefore almost never cool”. So Swift is not cool, says Marriott, but she reminds us of something important: that “a great deal of artistic originality is in feeling not in thinking”.

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The face of GB News has announced his resignation just three months after masterminding the launch of the channel.

Veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil left the BBC last year to become the chair and lead presenter of the right-leaning station, but hosted only eight programmes before announcing his resignation last night.

“I am sorry to go but I have concluded it’s time to reduce my commitments on a number of fronts,” he said in a statement. “Over the summer I’ve had time to reflect on my extensive portfolio of interests and decided it was time to cut back.”

He added: “I wish GB News well in continuing to fulfil its founding promise and mission to reach audiences currently underserved by existing news broadcasters.”

A statement from GB News said that Neil would continue to contribute “as a regular guest commentator” until early next year. He announced his resignation less than two hours before making his debut as a pundit on Nigel Farage’s nightly 7pm show on the channel.

Neil “said he would remain as a twice-weekly contributor” to Farage’s show, The Guardian reported, the but “did not discuss his departure from GB News” .

Ironically, twice-weekly appearances would represent a major uptick in those put in my Neil so far. Following the June launch, he was on air for less than two weeks before announcing that he was taking a break.

“To go on a summer holiday after just eight programmes naturally attracted attention, and when that holiday continued for more than two months, it was clear something was going on,” said the BBC’s media and arts correspondent David Sillito.

The terms of Neil’s departure from the channel are unknown, but “multiple GB News sources claim the process was the subject of lengthy legal wrangling after the breakdown in his relationship with the station’s chief executive, Angelos Frangopoulos”, according to The Guardian.

The Times reported that their relationship “soured dramatically” after the “calamitous” launch, was marred by technical difficulties.

Neil’s departure has fuelled speculation about the future of the floundering channel, which “has struggled in the ratings, with some programmes registering as having zero viewers”, added The Guardian.

Three senior GB News producers reportedly quit last week, and insiders claimed that other “senior members of staff were now considering their positions following Mr Neil’s exit”, said The Telegraph.

The 72-year-old journalist is believed to have played a key role in recruiting other noted TV personalities including Simon McCoy and Kirsty Gallacher to the channel ahead of its launch.

Newsroom sources told The Times that former BBC News anchor McCoy had been “openly unhappy” about the increasingly populist direction of GB News, “and its persistent technical problems and errors”. Former Sky Sports News presenter Gallacher is also said to have grown frustrated.

And the station is expected to swing further to the right following the departure of Neil. “Sensationalist voices” including Ann Widdecombe and Martin Daubney, both former Brexit Party politicians, are “poised” to join the station, said The Times. A source told the paper: “The idea that we aren’t Fox News is increasingly laughable.”

Piers Morgan, who left his role as a presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain in March, is believed to have been offered a seven-figure deal to join too, but is reportedly “still considering his options”.

For now, former Brexit Party leader Farage - who was hired by the channel in July in the hope of reversing its plummeting viewing figures - is continuing to draw GB News’s biggest audience.

“GB News is now Farage News, and not in a good way. It’s unwatchable,” wrote Sean O’Grady in The Independent following Neil’s resignation announcement.

“I can’t say I blame Neil for getting out,” O'Grady added. “He used to be editor of The Sunday Times, for God’s sake. I have no doubt he’d not want to spend the rest of his professional life playing second fiddle to Nigel Farage.”

1. Attacking lifeboats may seem like a new low, but the right craves a ‘migrant crisis’

Daniel Trilling in The Guardian

on the media economy

“If your politics involves frequent attacks on beloved national institutions, no matter how much you claim to be defending them from subversion, you risk looking like you simply dislike them,” writes Daniel Trilling in The Guardian. Turning to Nigel Farage’s recent criticism of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for helping asylum seekers travelling across the English Channel, he writes that “it was notable that most rightwing talking heads did not join in Farage’s attack” out of fear at attacking a national institution. However, he predicts that such attacks are “likely to keep on coming as they have become essential to the political tactics of the right” and because there is a “thriving media economy founded on rightwing outrage”. The problem, he adds, is that these culture wars distract us from the questions we should be asking: “Why are people so desperate to reach the UK that they will step into dinghies, and what is our role in creating those conditions?”

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2. The rest of the world has shamed Britain’s blasé rejection of liberty

Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph

on freedom and autocracy

“Freedom is losing the battle in Britain,” writes Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph. Noting the pressure on the young to get vaccinated and the danger of vaccine passports “bar[ring] the unvaccinated from nights out”, she warns that among the public “an almost puritanical devotion to caution has prevailed over the seductions of liberty”. Despite a reported fall in cases and Professor Neil Ferguson’s prediction that the pandemic could “largely be over” by October, “any hope of a decisive return to normal seems dead”, she argues. In contrast to the clamour for freedom in other nations such as France and the US, she concludes: “Britons have tended not to give freedom or its compatibility with contemporary views much thought”. In other words, Britain has “failed to confront the autocratic implications of Covid rules”.

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3. The core message of Terry Pratchett’s books was that people should think for themselves

Marc Burrows in the New Statesman

on literary nuance

Although Terry Pratchett died in 2015, “that hasn’t stopped [him] being drawn into the increasingly vicious row over trans rights”, writes Marc Burrows in the New Statesman. In recent days, a controversy has erupted after a Twitter user claimed transphobes “are trying to recruit Terry Pratchett posthumously”. Burrows, who has written an in-depth biography of the Discworld author, says readers “take away from books what you bring to them, and often the reader’s views are confirmed rather than challenged, regardless of the author’s intention”. He believes that “we cannot know Pratchett’s views on the gender wars, but we can assume they would be insightful, compassionate and wise”. He concludes that Pratchett “knew that people were nuanced and complicated, messy and changeable, that there are no simple answers, no meaning of life”.

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4. Boris Johnson is about to find out what happens when a party turns on its leader

The Independent’s editorial board

on a coming fall

Boris Johnson’s “superhuman political performances have certainly defied belief for most of the two years he has occupied No. 10”, says The Independent. However, his recent attempt to “dodge” self-isolation has “been something of a final straw”. The prime minister is watching his poll ratings slide, “along with his authority in his own party”. With disappointing by-election performances in Chesham and Amersham, and Batley-and-Spen, he is “no longer such a winner”, the paper argues. And as politics reverts to a “more normal pattern”, the “instinct to rally behind the leader in a crisis is evaporating”. “This most unlikely of premiers has carried all before him”, but “he could soon find out what happens when he no longer looks like an electoral asset”.

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5. A job for Jeeves

Max Hastings in The Times

on service scarcity

“The British recoil with ever more disgust from performing personal service”, writes Max Hastings in The Times. He suggests that if Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse’s famous character, “has modern counterparts caressing the yachting blazers of the super-rich, they are probably Portuguese or Ukrainian”. Therefore, “we can hardly be surprised that the exodus of European workers following Covid and the unmentionable B-word has caused a staffing crisis in pubs, hotels, restaurants”. In the longer term, he says, millions more industrial and clerical jobs will be “lost to robots” and “as economic inequality worsens, the only certainty is that there will be a huge demand for butlers, maids, nannies and suchlike”. This demand, he adds, is “unlikely to be met by homegrown recruits from the new Blue Wall regions”.

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Last night marked the launch of Nigel Farage’s primetime GB News show, Farage, said to be part of a programming reboot designed to entice audiences to the beleaguered channel.

Since it started on 13 June, GB News has been hit with various controversies, most recently the “cancelling” of presenter Guto Harri for symbolically “taking the knee” during a discussion about the racism directed towards black footballers during the 2020 Euros. A senior executive resigned after Harri was taken off air and the channel’s director of programming also quit the station, The Guardian has reported.

Now the former UKIP leader has been drafted in with the hope of reviving the channel’s plummeting viewing figures, which have been so low that some broadcasts “attracted zero viewers”, says the newspaper.

Farage, whose new show runs at 7pm Monday to Thursday, was in his “greatest hits mode” as he launched the programme last night, writes The Telegraph’s Ed Power. The Brexiteer despaired at refugees crossing the channel, eye-rolled over news that the EU flag may fly at the Olympics opening ceremony and sipped a pint with the head of the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, at the “GB News pub”. “It was all vaguely box-ticking and predictable,” adds Power, who gave the debut three stars, but “still, Farage fans will have enjoyed it. This was red meat served juicy and dripping.”

But Sean O’Grady in The Independent complains that it was “littered with mistakes and mind-numbingly boring”.

Farage “promised us that his show wouldn’t be a stale echo chamber”, says O’Grady, but then chose a former Tory donor and Brady to interview. “So a bit of an echo, maybe?”

To be fair to Farage, he can at least “string a sentence together”, understands politics and is a good debater, says O’Grady. “He’s better than most of the competition on GBeebies. But it’s rather like when he was the only competent leader of UKIP. I’d like to see him argue properly with the likes of Blair, Starmer, Sturgeon, Ed Davey, but it’s not going to happen. The Farage show is just like the rest of GB News: a football match played with only one team on the pitch or, at best, a boring friendly.”

Farage’s rescue bid comes five weeks after the channel kicked off with a five-minute monologue by GB News’ chair Andrew Neil.

Offering a mixture of news updates, opinion and debate, GB News is the biggest of its kind launched in the UK since Sky News began broadcasting in 1989. Neil told viewers that his new project would give “a voice to those who have felt sidelined or even silenced in our great national debates”.

The new channel will “not slavishly follow the existing news agenda”, the veteran political commentator promised, and will “not lecture” or “talk down” to the audience. “GB News will not be yet another echo chamber for the metropolitan mindset that already dominates so much of the media,” he added.

Neil’s straight-to-camera “set-up felt vaguely North Korean”, wrote Chris Bennion in a four-star review of the launch for The Telegraph.

And another monologue followed from the presenter of the 9pm slot, former talkRADIO host and Sun showbiz reporter Dan Wootton. The New Zealand-born journalist gave his views on topics ranging from England players “taking the knee” to Boris Johnson having “bottled it” over the 21 June lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

Indeed, his “foxy, fact-free” monologue “wouldn’t have shamed Tucker Carlson”, said O’Grady for The Independent, in a reference to Fox News’ nightly political talk show host.

But “you did have to wonder, if it is setting a ‘fresh agenda’, whether having Nigel Farage and Lord Sugar as some of Wootton’s first guests was helpful”, said Carol Midgley in her three-star review for The Times.

Clips from the launch quickly went viral, including Wootton’s chat with The Apprentice boss, who described Keir Starmer as “a nutter” and the row over football players taking the knee as “ridiculous”.

Lord Sugar had “nothing to declare but his ignorance”, said The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries, who awarded the show’s launch just one star. “It was an utterly deadly segment” where Sugar “told us about his knee op, like some dear old grandad leaning on the garden fence as the long day closes and you wish you were somewhere else”, Jeffries wrote.

Even The Telegraph’s slightly more impressed Bennion agreed that Wootton’s Tonight Live wasn’t the best opener. With Neil “having spent an hour stressing that GB News would be grown-up, responsible and level-headed, what the channel cried out for was the firmest hand on the tiller from the go”, Bennion argued.

The launch event was also plagued by technical issues, from out-of-sync sound to hazy camera quality. “The first hour of GB News looked like a hostage video filmed on a Nokia 3310,” wrote one Twitter user.

“There was no disguising the mic failure” either, said the i news site’s arts and media correspondent Adam Sherwin in his four-star review. “A punchy start but was the medium sabotaging the message?”

Actually, these glitches “may well have boosted GB News’s cause, giving more credence to the idea that they are ‘disruptors’, outsiders taking on the slick establishment”, said Bennion in The Telegraph. “The BBC doesn’t have glitches.”

Either way, the channel’s debut certainly attracted plenty of interest. According to the Press Gazette, data from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) showed that 164,400 viewers tuned in for GB News last night - more than watched either BBC News, at 133,000, or Sky News, at 57,000.

The run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum saw the launch of a campaign that many commentators claim used immigration scare stories and xenophobia to persuade voters to quit the European Union.

Vote Leave allegedly “relied on racism” to appeal to the British public’s inherent prejudices, as Martin Shaw wrote in The Guardian last year. Regardless of such accusations, the anti-EU campaign secured a 52% to 48% victory in the Brexit vote, under the snappy slogan “Take Back Control”.

This slogan appears to have struck a chord with the many Leave voters who believe the EU represents a democratic vacuum. Leading Brexiteer Nigel Farage repeatedly refers to EU politicians as “unelected bureaucrats”, while the Vote Leave campaign website describes the institution as “undemocratic”.

With a no-deal Brexit now looming as UK-EU trade tensions grow, The Week takes a look at the inner workings of the bloc.

How is the EU structured?

The EU is comprised of a number of institutions that work together but have very different functions.

First is the European Council. “The EU’s broad priorities are set by the European Council, which brings together national and EU-level leaders,” says the official EU website. Or to put it another way, the council is a collection of leaders who were democratically elected within their own borders.

The European Parliament, meanwhile, is the only directly elected EU body, with representatives, or MEPs, apportioned by each member state’s population. The Parliament is unusual in that it cannot propose legislation, but EU laws cannot pass without its direct approval. The current president of the Parliament is Italian politician David Sassoli, who was chosen by MEPs.

The most controversial institution of the EU is the European Commission. This is the executive branch, meaning it submits proposals for new legislation to the Parliament and the Council, implements EU policy and administers the budget. Most crucially, the commissioners are not elected but are instead nominated by member countries, each of which gets one representative.

During his final appearance in the European Parliament in Brussels in January, Nigel Farage told his fellow MEPs that “if we want trade, friendship, cooperation, reciprocity, we don’t need a European Commission”.

He added: “It isn’t just undemocratic, it’s anti-democratic and it puts in that front row, it gives people power without accountability – people who cannot be held to account by the electorate.”

The EU defends this set-up on its website by pointing out that all EU laws handed down by the Commission can “only be approved by democratically elected politicians” in the Parliament, which “also endorses new Commissions, holds the Commission to account and can even force the Commission to resign in a so called ‘motion of censure’”.

So is the EU democratic?

As the UK in a Changing Europe think tank notes, “‘democracy’ means different things to different people” - so there are no easy answers to this question.

“To take the most obvious example, when we talk about democracies, we often mean representative democracies, where we elect people to represent our views and make decisions on our behalf,” says the independent research organisation.

“That’s very different from a direct democratic approach where, like in the EU referendum, many or all decisions are taken by the population at large.”

And although the EU is an “international organisation, like the United Nations or Nato, founded on treaties between its member countries”, the bloc “far surpasses other international organisations in its democratic control” and “reaches into far more areas of public policy than its counterparts elsewhere”.

Given the conflicting interpretations of what democracy means and how far the EU’s powers should extend, the think-tank concludes that “there are still questions about the right balance to strike”.

To some commentators, the question of EU democracy hinges more on accountability than representation. Writing for the London School of Economics (LSE) blog, historian Pippa Catterall suggests that the idea of the EU being undemocratic may stem from its functional differences to national governments.

Large swathes of the EU are effectively appointed by a voting populace - a decidedly democratic facet of the institution.

But “because it remains fundamentally an international organisation, it does not have a ‘government’ which can be voted out by the disgruntled,” says Catterall, a professor of history and policy at the University of Westminster. “Its parliament makes laws and holds confirmation hearings on appointees, but those appointees are placed there by horse-trading between the member states, rather than directly.

“In that sense, the EU’s organisation falls some way between that of an international organisation (which few people expect to be democratic), and that of a state. However, the more the EU seems to resemble a state rather than an international organisation, the more it has become judged by the normative expectations of how democratic the former rather than the latter are.”

Transparency is another key issue in perceptions about whether the EU is democratic.

In an article on The Conversation, Alan Butt Philip, a former Reader in European integration at the University of Bath, writes: “The elected governments of the member states are not keen to grant access to debates in the Council, which are held behind closed doors – and where most important decisions are made. These meetings can’t be watched online and minutes are not made public. Not even representatives of the European Parliament can attend.

“This is difficult to square with the claim of being democratic.”

So is the EU undemocratic? It depends on both which lens we view the question through, and the standard to which we hold the EU.

FullFact concludes that “compared to a country, the EU has democratic shortcomings”, but adds that the most “obvious remedies would imply a considerable strengthening of EU powers, making it look even more like a state”.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Rachel Sylvester in The Times

on the Brexit Party chucking a spanner in the works

Nigel Farage’s move is a mixed blessing for Tories

“The prime minister’s electoral strategy is not based on surfing a ‘blue wave’ to victory - it depends on breaking through the ‘red wall’, winning over a swathe of Leave-voting seats in the north and the Midlands to make up for the losses he expects to suffer in Remain-supporting areas in the south. These are precisely the constituencies that the Brexit Party is now going to throw all its energy into targeting, meaning the Leave vote will be divided in the very places Mr Johnson needs to capture from Labour.”

2. John Rentoul in The Independent

on the reliability of opinion polling

Opinion polls are important, but letting them dictate election coverage is a dangerous game

“In the 1992 election... Labour policies were scrutinised closely not just for themselves but for their acceptability to the Liberal Democrats; there were endless discussions of the mechanics and possible horse-trading of a hung parliament, and in the final week, a huge fuss about electoral reform. Similar things happened in the 2015 election, the 2016 referendum and the 2017 election. In no case were the opinion polls very wrong, but in each case the assumptions built on them coloured the reporting of the campaign, and the result came as a surprise.”

3. Frida Ghitis on CNN

on politicians sleepwalking their way towards removal

Bolivia’s blunt message to leaders drunk on power

“In a perfect situation, Bolivia would have a fuller investigation and a new election with credible results. Instead, Morales has been forced from power by the actions of the military. He and his backers are emphatic that this was a coup. His critics claim his removal saves Bolivian democracy. The coming days will show whether the country can return to peace and a democratic path, or if darker days lie ahead.”

4. Michael Tomasky in The New York Times

on billionaires burying their heads in the sand

Bill Gates, I implore you to connect some dots

“The 400 richest Americans - the top .00025 percent of the population - now own more of the country’s riches than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent of wealth distribution. The 400’s share has tripled since the 1980s. This is carnage, plain and simple. No democratic society can let that keep happening and expect to stay a democracy. It will produce middle and working classes with no sense of security, and when people have no sense that the system is providing them with basic security, they’ll make some odd and desperate choices.”

5. Borisa Falatar in The Guardian

on Europe’s troubling Balkan bluster

Bosnia’s politics are in crisis. But that is reason for the EU to help, not shut us out

“Business as usual will lead to Bosnia’s leadership pivoting to the Gulf states, China and Russia, which will further jeopardise the country’s cohesiveness and its EU future, especially now, when the only national consensus that existed – the hope of EU integration – appears to be indefinitely postponed. It will become ever harder for Bosnia to avoid becoming a testing ground in a new cold war. The European council and the new commission should be braver and more ambitious. Our common values and stability are at stake. Otherwise, all we may be left with is a failed state on the EU’s doorstep and EU flags on humanitarian relief items – sad reminders of a never-realised dream.”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Clare Foges in The Times

on switching your vote

Let’s welcome the death of the political tribe

“Together, two things that may be undesirable in the short term — national divisions over Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrous leadership — are achieving something highly desirable in the long term. They are eroding the idea that your background, income, profession or age should mean you belong to a party for life. Thanks to Brexit’s furies and Labour’s fantasy economics, the bonds of political tribe are finally wearing away. How refreshing this is, and how long overdue, for when political parties feel they ‘own’ blocs of voters, unhealthy things happen.”

2. Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph

on the Brexit Party’s electoral strategy

Nigel Farage has tragically turned into the Frodo Baggins of Brexit

“Some who know [Farage] believe – after years of being despised, ignored or patronised by senior Tories – he has a pathological determination to destroy the Conservative Party. But others insist he is motivated much more by ego. Drunk on his own publicity, and surrounded by sycophants, he is incapable of taking yes for an answer. And so he keeps campaigning for a ‘real Brexit’, even though in so doing he risks destroying the real Brexit that Boris is trying to deliver.”

3. Nesrine Malik in The Guardian

on party prejudice

When it comes to Islamophobia, Tory eyes are still wide shut

“The leaders of the Conservative party have decided that the perception that the Conservatives have a problem with Muslims – whether real or imagined – is one they can live with. The decision to pull the Islamophobia inquiry in favour of a vague look into “all types” of prejudice isn’t a sign that the party thinks this problem doesn’t exist; it’s an indication that they think it’s a problem they can afford to have. This realisation is far more alarming than the fact that the country’s ruling party is tolerant or dismissive of prejudice. For it is possible to conclude definitively that the British people do not care about Muslims enough for Tory apathy on the issue to cause any further damage to the Conservative brand.”

4. John Rentoul in The Independent

on polling

Opinion polls are important, but letting them dictate election coverage is a dangerous game

“It is possible that some of what happened last time will happen this time – that Labour support will firm up as the moment of decision approaches. And the wide range of outcomes shows how sensitive seat projections are to changes in shares of the vote. On the other hand, it is possible that people are, once again, fighting the last war, and over-correcting for the mistakes they made last time. I am all for treating the election as if it is wide open, and think it is democratic and right to hold Corbyn to account as if he were a serious contender to be prime minister. But it has to be acknowledged that, at this stage, the evidence suggests that Johnson is likely to win.”

5. The Financial Times Editorial Board

on public service broadcasting

The BBC needs to adapt to the new media world

“The BBC’s role as an ambassador — both through the World Service and more intangibly as a beacon for UK creative industries — should also not be underestimated. The BBC will fight to remain a large monolithic organisation, big enough to take on commercial rivals. But the digital world is moving too fast to assume structures that worked in the past are right for the future. Reform is needed in order to preserve.”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Tom Peck in The Independent

on a new age of electoral chaos

Welcome to the toddlocracy: Johnson, Corbyn and the rest have created an election mess that demands attention

“In hindsight, it is clear to see that the age of liberal democracy, lasted between two historic lectures. The first was given by the French philosopher Benjamin Constant at the Paris Athenaeum in 1816 and titled ‘On The Liberty of the Ancients Compared With That of the Moderns’. The second, which has come to be known as ‘Not Another One’, was delivered in 2017 on a front doorstep in Bristol by a woman called Brenda, whose surname has sadly been lost to history.”

2. Gary Younge in The Guardian

on a messy start to the Tory campaign

When Jacob Rees-Mogg lets slip what he really believes, the choices become clear

“Rees-Mogg folded, issuing an apology in which he claimed he meant to say the exact opposite to what he actually said. Then another Tory MP stepped up to defend him, explaining that what he really meant was that he was cleverer than the fire service chiefs who gave the advice. He too then apologised. These were only gaffes in the sense that both the Labour and Tory MPs were caught saying out loud what they actually believe. ‘The danger when Margaret speaks without thinking,’ the late leader of the House of Commons, Norman St John-Stevas, said of his former boss, Margaret Thatcher, ‘is that she says what she thinks.’ She was not alone. The challenge here is not that you might be caught in a lie. It’s that you might be caught in the truth and then have to explain yourself.”

3. Patrick Maguire in the New Statesman

on the potential swan song of an iconic Brexit figure

Nigel Farage’s last stand

“One cannot help but wonder if Farage has made his disappointment, and that of the voters he claims to represent, inevitable. I ask him to consider one of his heroes: Enoch Powell. Unlike Powell, who implored his followers to vote Labour in an intervention that was widely credited with delivering Harold Wilson victory in February 1974, Farage is endorsing nobody but himself. But might his campaign have the same effect? ‘I hadn’t really thought about that,’ he says.”

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4. in The Washington Examiner

on the double standards within French foreign policy

Emmanuel Macron's ridiculous Economist interview

“This is pretty ridiculous stuff. First off, it's prima-facie hypocritical. While France does support important NATO capabilities, Macron's government spends below the 2%-of-GDP NATO defense spending target. France also remains hesitant to deploy its naval forces in presence operations proximate to Russia. These two failings undermine NATO's deterrent posture. They also gut Macron's criticisms of the U.S., which continues to underwrite NATO's defense capability. Thanks to Trump, U.S. defense spending now stands at around 3.5% of GDP. Without that spending, NATO would have near non-existent airlift, deep strike, and satellite warfare capabilities.”

5. Roisin Lanigan in i-D

on generational warfare

boomers really hate the ‘ok boomer’ meme lmao

“It seems that no-one’s offered the boomers this sage advice though, given the journalists among them have spent the last week churning out a seemingly endless torrent of reaction articles explaining why ‘ok boomer’ is offensive, hurtful and untrue. Without any kind of irony, the generation who popularised the “snowflake” stereotype have complained that ‘Gen Z aren’t as bad off as they think they are’. It’s been called a pro-Russian slur and perhaps even more bizarrely, ‘the n-word of ageism’. Displaying a complete lack of insight into how the internet works and the levels of irony that have come to define Gen Z humour, media companies across the country have spat out a level of overreaction unmatched since your mum saw you in a Neopets chatroom and thought you were being groomed.”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Hugo Rifkind in The Times

on Nigel Farage as ambassador to Washington

Let’s make Farage ambassador to North Korea

“Having seen the harm Nigel’s foaming entourage can do to Britain’s global reputation even in the inglorious fag end of our involvement in the EU, surely even Johnson would be wary of letting the entire mad circus relocate to somewhere they could do real damage. Give the old boy the knighthood he craves, if you must. Maybe even send him to the Lords. But diplomacy? From this lot? Do not make this man an ambassador. Unless it’s to North Korea. That would be fine.”

2. Danny Dorling in The Guardian

on student loans

When a nurse repays more than a banker, it’s time to scrap university tuition fees

“For fees and loans to work, the highest-paid UK professionals would have to carry on being paid many times more than those in ordinary jobs – otherwise the entire loan book would collapse. The UK already has the highest income inequality in Europe. The current system locks in that gross inequality so if we want a more equal society, we will have to scrap it.”

3. Michael Eltchaninoff in the New Statesman

on what Russia’s president wants

Vladimir Putin’s quest to build an anti-liberal empire

“To understand what Putin thinks and wants, it is essential to grasp what he means by ‘liberal’: that is, individuals who have been ‘Westernised’. In other words, they have been ‘zombified’ by the idea of human rights, by an open-mindedness to ‘the other’, and by mass consumption; they are reduced to inconsequential, cowardly, selfish beings who are unable to sacrifice themselves for their motherland and who have forgotten their origins. Putin relentlessly denounces this phantasmic “liberal” being and liberalism’s anthropological, religious, social and geopolitical dimensions.”

4. William Hague in The Daily Telegraph

on British diplomacy

Our man in Washington was doing his job - no thanks to the leaker

“After Brexit we are going to need more than ever that strong and professional network of the most able diplomats we can recruit and train. If, however, we stop asking the most experienced among them for the unvarnished truth we might as well not bother. So this furore does not tell us to conduct foreign relations differently. It does not mean we have to be ashamed. It should not lead to replacing anyone. It only reminds us that we benefit from being informed honestly each day of what is happening around the globe, that on the whole the people we ask to do that are doing it well, and that someone – for whatever motive – is trying to stop them.”

5. Slavoj Zizek in The Independent

on the dilemma facing the radical left

I believed in Syriza, but their election defeat was secured the moment they caved in to the forces of capitalism

“I often mockingly evoked a group of participants who, once a year, meet in a cafeteria at the anniversary of past demonstrations and sentimentally remember the bygone moments of ecstatic unity… but then a cell phone rings and they have to run back to their boring jobs. We can easily imagine such a scene today: members of Syriza meet in a cafeteria fondly remembering the unique spirit of their 2015 mass protests, and then a phone rings, and they have to run back to their office to pursue the job of austerity. This is our world today, a world in which right wing populists enact welfare-state measures and the radical left does the authoritarian job of imposing austerity. Will a new left find a way out of this deadlock?”

Brexit Party MEPs have been accused of being disrespectful after they turned their back in protest during a performance of the EU’s official anthem Ode to Joy during opening the European Parliament’s new session.

The party, which only launched in February, secured a stunning victory in May’s European Parliament elections, winning the most seats out of any single group across all 28 EU member states.

The stunt, by what MailOnline called a group of “euro-disruptors”, suggests they could purse a strategy of disobedience against what they see as the trappings of statehood from the European Union.

The Daily Telegraph says “protocol is that MEPs stand for the anthem,” which has been seized on by Eurosceptics as proof of the bloc's federal ambitions.

Speaking after the opening of parliament, the party’s leader Nigel Farage promised his group of 29 MEPs “are going to be cheerfully defiant” and that they had “already made their presence felt”.

Denying that the Brexit Party’s “very silent act of defiance” was disrespectful, Farage added: “What is disrespectful is to take the ancient nation states of Europe and without asking anyone's permission turn it into a country, because that's what the president of the parliament called it this morning”.

Brexit Party MEP David Bull reiterated this argument on BBC Radio 5 Live when he said his colleagues turned their backs because it was a “federal anthem”.

“We were not turning our backs on our European friends and colleagues, we do not believe in a federal European state and an anthem is as symbol of that,” he said, adding “if it had been a national anthem we would have respected it. No-one in Europe has voted to have an anthem.”

The London Evening Standard notes UKIP MEPs performed the same political stand as they turned their backs at the start of the session in 2014. Paul Nuttall, the party’s deputy leader at the time, said it was intended to send the message they did not “recognise or respect the EU flag or anthem”.

As well as the Brexit Party’s action, Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden remained seated for the anthem.

“For years the EU has said that it doesn’t have the ambition to be a state and it is states that have anthems,” he told Sky News, arguing that “playing this so-called anthem is a deliberate political act and something I don’t recognise”.

However, the stunt drew stinging criticism from politicians from both the EU and UK, with the leader of Labour’s MEPs, Richard Corbett, highlighting how, like the EU, both the Olympic Games and United Nations also have anthems.

The European parliament’s president, Antonio Tajani, rebuked those MEPs who did not immediately get to their feet saying: “[It] is a question of respect; it doesn’t mean that you necessarily share the views of the European Union. If you listen to the anthem of another country you rise to your feet.”

Ska Keller, co leader of the Greens/EFA group, branded Farage and his MEPs a “total disgrace” while Labour's Lilian Greenwood called it “childish, disrespectful and damaging to our country's interests”, and her colleague Luciana Berger described it as it “beyond pathetic”.

Catherine Rowett, a Green Party MEP, tweeted: “How silly and irritable can you look, turning your back on the Ode to Joy at the opening of Parliament. Did people really elect them for that? Only Brexit Party have the gall to object to the sentiments of that anthem.”

Others noted that while they refused to take part in Brussels protocol like the official anthem, Brexit Party MEPs will draw their salary from the EU.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Polly Tonybee in The Guardian

On Jeremy Hunt’s hardening no deal Brexit position

Jeremy Hunt seemed the sensible Tory option. No longer

“The only useful role for the inevitable loser in the Conservative leadership contest was to pull the next prime minister back into the realms of reality. But in the death throes of this contest, Hunt emerges as a swiveller too, a turncoat peddler of the same hyper-dishonesty, just as ready as his opponent to wreck the economy and people’s lives.”

2. Hugo Rifkind in The Times

On how environmentalism stole the show at this year’s Glastonbury festival

Sir David Attenborough was this year’s Glastonbury hero

“In referendum year, the whole site felt like a defensive liberal fortress. The next, it felt like a hotbed of potential revolution. This time, it felt more like an escape. No politics this time, thank you. Give us a week off. It’s why we came.”

3. Freddie Sayers in UnHerd

On the Brexit Party’s ‘manifesto for the regions’

Farage has found Boris’s weak spot

“Never mind that the sums are highly dubious; the politics are significant. Farage’s offer is a hybrid of anti-corporate populism and Thatcherite appeal to small business owners. He is responding to a deeply held feeling across the country that London has benefited over recent decades as the regions have declined. And crucially it makes Boris Johnson, inextricably associated with London as its twice-elected Mayor, a highly vulnerable adversary.”

4. Malcom Rifkind in the Daily Telegraph

On Britain’s response to the Hong Kong protests

Crushing dissent in Hong Kong will not be as easy for China as Tiananmen Square

“The Chinese have always been adamant that they are punctilious in respecting international treaties that they have signed. If China disavows the commitments it has made to protect the freedoms of Hong Kong then the British government cannot just make ritual protests. To keep its honour there would have to be a deep and lasting breach in relations between the UK and China for many years. This would not only damage our trade with China, it would leave China with a reputation as a country that does not honour its obligations.”

5. David Skelton in the New Statesman

On English cricket's declining popularity in the UK

English cricket only has itself to blame for the forgotten World Cup

“In losing terrestrial coverage, cricket has also lost the benefit of capturing accidental viewers and has shut off its heroes from national view. Terrestrial TV coverage lends enormous oxygen of publicity to a sporting event and means that viewers who accidentally tune in might end up hooked. That isn’t the case when you have to buy a satellite dish and a Sky Sports subscription and then make your way to the relevant channel.”

Nigel Farage faces being banned from the European Parliament after he was set a 24-hour deadline to explain why he allegedly failed to declare almost half a million pounds in gifts from Brexiteer tycoon Arron Banks.

Earlier this year a Channel 4 News investigation unearthed documents suggesting UKIP’s one-time top donor provided Farage with a furnished Chelsea home, a car and driver, and other living expenses worth about £450,000.

It also reported that Banks, who is currently under investigation by the National Crime Agency over allegations of criminal offences by him and his unofficial leave campaign during the Brexit referendum campaign, organised and funded visits to the United States for Farage in the year after the referendum, including a trip in July 2016 to the Republican national convention.

The explosive findings prompted the European Parliament’s advisory committee to look into whether Farage broke EU rules by accepting funding from Banks but not declaring the donations on the parliament’s online register of interests.

Farage has now been issued a summons to a formal hearing today and the Daily Telegraph cites Parliament sources as saying he “is likely to be found in breach of EU rules even if he does turn up”.

If found guilty, “the MEP could be fined, banned for up to 30 days from the parliamentary activity, and, in what would be an unprecedented move, have his parliament badge temporarily revoked”, says the paper.

That could mean Farage, who was re-elected last month after his new Brexit Party secured around a third of all UK votes, being unable to enter the new parliament when it meets for the first time at the head of his phalanx of 29 new MEPs.

In a typically bellicose statement, Farage said of the summons: “What is this but an EU kangaroo court where I am given 24 hours notice about allegations picked up from press stories.”

“I will not be attending at such short notice. And if they try to bar me from the building, who else gives voice to the thousands of people who voted for me? Is this democracy EU style?”

Despite calling on the committee to instead investigate “the waste of public money by well-known MEPs”, the New European notes an old video was recently uncovered which showed Farage boasting about how MEPs can milk the system.

The pro-Remain paper also reports that last year Farage’s salary “was docked by half for misspending EU funds intended to staff his office”.

The striking image of Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage drenched in banana milkshake hurled by a protester in Newcastle made many front pages this morning, with the Daily Express declaring the incident “an affront to democracy”.

The Independent pairs the image with the news that the party is to be investigated by the elections watchdog over alleged foreign donations, while The Guardian’s photo is accompanied by a front-page story on rising rates of racism in Britain since the Brexit vote.

Elsewhere, The Daily Telegraph leads on Tory leadership hopeful Dominic Raab’s calls for cuts to income tax, and The Daily Mail reveals that Prince Charles will host a “tea party summit” for Donald Trump when he visits the UK next month.

Nigel Farage was extravagantly funded by Arron Banks in the year after the EU referendum, reports Channel 4 News.

The programme unearthed documents suggesting the insurance tycoon provided Farage with a furnished Chelsea home, a car and driver, and money to promote him in America. In total, Banks spent about £450,000, claimed the report.

The Daily Mail says the paperwork “lays bare the extent of Nigel Farage's financial reliance on Arron Banks” while the Huffington Post points out that Farage has “consistently defended Banks”, with the former UKIP leader insisting that “the allegations surrounding [Banks'] business deals, his campaign and his relationship with Russia are ‘unfounded’”.

Channel 4 News said the funding, some provided via Banks’ company Rock Services Ltd, was used to rent a Chelsea home for £13,000 a month. Farage was also provided with a Land Rover Discovery and a driver, and Banks sought to raise an extra £130,000 from supporters to cover security.

It is claimed that the documents also show that Banks organised and funded visits to the United States for Farage in the year after the referendum, including a trip in July 2016 to the Republican national convention.

Banks is already under investigation by the National Crime Agency over allegations of criminal offences by him and his unofficial leave campaign during the Brexit referendum campaign. Farage has said that Banks is not funding the Brexit party. He has always refused to name a donor to the party, claiming he would be “hounded” if his identity was revealed.

At an event in Merthyr Tydfil on Wednesday, Farage repeatedly refused to answer questions about the latest allegations, saying: “No comment.”

In a statement Banks said: “Channel 4 attempts to smear myself and Nigel, come at a time when the Brexit Party is riding high in the polls, so it should come as no surprise to anyone.”

Nigel Farage is under fire from Jewish groups after it emerged he discussed conspiracy theories with a far-right US talkshow host.

The Brexit party leader appeared six times on the show of Alex Jones, discussing concepts which are traditionally tied-up with the anti-Semitic trope that Jewish financiers are plotting to replace nation states with a global government.

In the appearances, which date back as far as 2009, Farage uses words and phrases such as “globalists” and “new world order”, which regularly feature in antisemitic motifs. He said “globalists” are trying to engineer a world war as a means to introduce a worldwide government.

The Guardian says the interviews reveal one of two things about Farage: “At best, he is a politician happy to fit in with even the most unsavoury opinions of a flattering host; at worst, he is one who genuinely believes a series of demonstrably false conspiracy theories of a kind most commonly propagated by the anti-Semitic far right.”

Responding to the news, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “It is vital that our politicians distance themselves from conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, including those who trade in anti-Semitic tropes.”

The Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism, said Jones was “a notorious conspiracy theorist” and that for Jones’s “conspiracy-minded audience”, the “references to ‘globalists’ and ‘new world order’ will be taken as familiar codewords for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.

During his appearances on the controversial show, Farage claimed that members of the Bilderberg gathering of political and business leaders are plotting a global government and that the banking and political systems are working “hand in glove” to try to disband nation states.

In the most recent appearance, from April 2018, Farage argued the “deep state” could be behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria. He has also claimed that climate change is a “scam” intended to push forward a transnational government.

A leaked video sent to friends by far-right activist Tommy Robinson shows him using racist slurs and bragging about procuring drugs wherever he goes.

In the footage, obtained by The Sun, Robinson says: “No matter where I’ve gone in the world I score... I’ve gone to f***ing Qatar, to Doha, and scored gear on the sesh while they’re all praying. Everywhere, mate, every city I’ve gone to.”

The controversial founder of the English Defence League (EDL) has several criminal convictions, including for cocaine possession, Metro reports.

The video, which was reportedly filmed in the Italian city of Bologna, also shows him calling a taxi driver a “little P**i that drives a car”.

Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, goes on to dub himself “King of the whole Islam race” - which is “quite something coming from one of the main vectors for anti-Muslim rhetoric in the UK”, says HuffPost.

In another bizarre twist, he claims to have spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he refers to as “Benjamin Netanf***ing blah” in the clip. “I got my Zionist card out and said I am a Zionist,” Robinson says, adding: “F**k Palestine.”

The former EDL leader has posted messages on his Facebook account to defend his behaviour in the video. He claims the clip was shared as “banter” between friends in a private group, which he said contained Asian and black people.

He also claims that he was drunk when the video was shot. “I was absolutely steamboated, I don’t even remember,” he said. “It’s cringe.”

And he denies buying drugs in Qatar, despite his filmed boasts. “Does anyone think that Tommy Robinson went to an Islamic country and got drugs and took them?” he said in a live-streamed video shared with his followers.

The row comes as Robinson tries to distance himself from his past links with the EDL and the British Freedom Party.

In November, UKIP leader Gerard Batten controversially appointed Robinson as his adviser on “rape gangs”. Former UKIP boss Nigel Farage criticised the appointment as “shameful” and claimed that the party faces “total and utter marginalisation” for working with a “thug”.

HuffPost suggests that the new video clip exposes Robinson as a “hypocrite”, undermining his supposed disavowment of far-right extremism.

“For all his attempts to rehabilitate his image ahead of a launch into politics, via UKIP, he continues to focus on Muslims, celebrating the fact that he casts a shadow across communities, instilling fear and concern,” says the news site.

A Labour MP has been suspended from the party and urged to resign from parliament after being found guilty of repeatedly lying to avoid a speeding ticket.

Fiona Onasanya was found guilty of perverting the course of justice following a retrial. She had been accused of colluding with her brother to avoid having three points added to her licence for speeding – and then doubling down in a series of lies that became increasingly hard to defend.

The MP for Peterborough had claimed a former lodger had been driving her car, even though police established the lodger was in Russia at the time.

Prosecutor David Jeremy QC told the jury she went on to lie “persistently and deliberately” to avoid prosecution.

Days before the first trial began, the MP’s brother Festus admitted three charges of perverting the course of justice. The pair could now face custodial sentences.

The Guardian says the career of Onasanaya “lies in ruins after the verdict”.

A Labour spokesman said that the party was “deeply disappointed” in her behaviour and said that she has been suspended from the party and should resign as an MP. She might also be struck off as a solicitor.

The verdict could also have political ramifications, as it raises the possibility of a by-election in Peterborough, a seat Onasanya won by 607 votes at the general election.

Sky News says “if she doesn't receive a custodial sentence of more than a year she can sit as an independent if she chooses to resign from the Labour party. There is automatic disqualification if a member receives a custodial sentence of more than one year.”

While the Tories will look to capitalise on Onasanya’s downfall, “Peterborough’s 60.9% vote to quit the EU sparked rumours that Farage could stand for parliament for an eighth time, hoping to finally be elected an MP by potentially campaigning on a Brexit betrayal narrative,” says HuffPost UK.

The former UKIP leader has said he will not be standing, “but whatever happens, Brexit is likely to dominate any campaign with parliament in chaos over the EU withdrawal process”, says the news site.