Reform UK’s head of policy and a senior aide to Nigel Farage have both stood down, after being filmed appearing to plot to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations.

Investigative journalists posed as a wealthy American and his son, a potential Reform supporter. The “father” is said to have paid for £32,500 of polling commissioned by Reform. The polling “was not attributed to Reform, and was reported in The Telegraph and The Times without those newspapers knowing that it was commissioned by the party and paid for by the US donor”, said The Guardian. The benefit in kind was not reported to the Electoral Commission.

What was revealed?
In July, Farage met the undercover pair in his Clacton constituency for oysters and wine. This was after the three polls had been “published and paid for”, said Channel 4 News, which aired the investigation by the Verbatim group of journalists. Farage is seen saying the “amazing” polling provided “bang for buck,” adding: “It worked. Boom.”

Channel 4 said it was James Orr, Reform’s head of policy and a Cambridge academic, who originally suggested to “William” that his father could pay for the opinion polling. And then Farage’s aide, Dan Jukes (pictured above, centre), suggested a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000. 

Is it illegal?
“Permissible” donors to a UK political party must be either a UK-registered voter or a company registered in the UK. Not disclosing funding for polls would be illegal, as would accepting this kind of foreign funding. Parties must report all permissible donations with a value of over £11,180, and all impermissible donations over £500.

Any “potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider”, said an Electoral Commission spokesperson. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported Reform to the Metropolitan Police, which is assessing the matter.

What does Reform say?
The party denies any wrongdoing. Farage told LBC that the polls were commissioned by an independent third party. “It had nothing to do with Reform,” he said. Polls are “funded by overseas people every single week”. He said that his party had “broken no laws”, nor taken “any dodgy money”, but he admitted that “a couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said”.

Before the US presidential election in 2024, young Africans were asked whether they expected their continent to fare better under Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Across a range of measures, responses to the African Youth Survey showed Biden as a better bet (42%-44%) than Trump (23%-24%). Cut to the most recent African Youth Survey, and nearly two-thirds of the 18- to 24-year-old participants believe Trump’s leadership could benefit their countries. That’s despite the US president’s foreign aid cuts, dismantling of development programmes and “disparaging remarks about the continent”, said Foreign Policy.

‘Bombastic, straight-talking’
Trump has “seldom been polite” about Africa, said The Economist, “allegedly dismissing Nigerians as hut-dwellers and African states as ‘shitholes’”. Yet “he is more popular in Africa than in any other region”.

In Nigeria, the most populous African nation, there has long been a “large affinity towards him”, said The Guardian. His image as a “bombastic, straight-talking, self-made billionaire made his books a hit” even before he became president. He “strikes a chord”, and his business acumen is admired. Nearly 80% of Nigerians said they had confidence in Trump “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”, according to a 2025 Global Attitudes Survey by the US-based Pew Research Center. That’s over 20% higher than the same survey recorded in 2017. 

‘Defender of family values’
Many Nigerian Christians see Trump as the only president to defend them; his administration claims they are being persecuted by Islamist groups. Indeed, there is an “overall African evangelical love for Trump”, said the Council on Foreign Relations. African Christians share with American evangelicals a feeling of “being simultaneously persecuted by secular authority and pressured by a cultural momentum”, particularly with regard to sexuality and gender. Trump is viewed as a “defender of family values”.

The so-called manosphere exerts a strong influence in Africa, and it views Trump as a “positive role model”, said Foreign Policy. In South Africa, he also enjoys strong support among the anti-migrant movement. “As an African, what resonates with me most about the America First message is not that Africa should become America,” said a member of anti-migrant group Operation Dudula, “but that African countries should also put their own citizens first”.

A helicopter drops water bombs to try to contain a fire at the Putri Cempo landfill site in central Java, Indonesia. The blaze broke out on Tuesday, and emergency responders have been distributing oxygen tubes to residents affected by the smoke.

 Devi Rahman / AFP / Getty Images

Wiltshire: Bowden Hill House, Chippenham
A Grade II country mansion dating from the mid-19th century and set above the picturesque village of Lacock. About 34 acres, including dilapidated outbuildings. The house requires extensive renovation, with potential to be reinstated to its former glory. 21 beds, 7 baths, 5 receps, 2 kitchens, cellar, gardens, disused swimming pool. OIEO £1.5 million; Carter Jonas.

Buckinghamshire: Rippling Waters, Marlow
Charming Victorian boathouse dated c.1880 that has come to the market for the first time in over four decades. 2 beds, 2 baths, 2 kitchens, 2 receps, 1-bed annexe with potential for enlargement, mooring. £1.7 million; Knight Frank.

Surrey: Red House, Frith Hill
A substantial Grade II residence dating from 1889, which combines the genius of Sir Edwin Lutyens with the horticultural influence of Gertrude Jekyll. Set on high ground (about 0.75 acres in all) above Charterhouse School, the house is a rare opportunity for buyers to acquire an important piece of the Arts & Crafts movement. 12 beds, 4 baths, 4 receps, kitchen-dining room, gardens. £1.35 million; Knight Frank.

Pembrokeshire: Eaton Hall, Dale
A Grade II grand residence in a prime waterfront position with spacious gardens and an adjacent “reading room” building. Having recently undergone external renovation work, the three-storey property with larger cellar has vast potential for modernisation. 6 beds, family bath, kitchen, 4 receps, utility, large garden. £795,000; Country Living Group.

Burnham will soon be in a worse position than when Liz Truss and I were in office
Kwasi Kwarteng in The Telegraph
My 2022 mini-budget “has become part of the demonology of the Left”, writes former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. But “invoking” that “spectre” only highlights the “blank space where a Labour growth strategy should be”. I am “somewhat bemused to see” government bond yields “move much higher than” they ever did when I was at No. 11. Yet the prime minister plays the “jovial Santa Claus”, handing out “gifts and bonhomie, totally oblivious as to how this will be paid for”. 

Can LinkedIn restore humanity to dating?
Kitty Thompson in The Spectator
LinkedIn is the new “place to find love”, writes Kitty Thompson, “as young singles grow weary” and “wary” of dating apps. The networking site “certainly has some strengths” that Tinder does not: “the person behind the profile” may actually exist, for a start. And “while a dating app might tell you if someone likes walking along sandy beaches, a LinkedIn post tells you what those beaches taught” them “about B2B sales”. If that “gets your blood pumping”, I wish you luck.
 
I’m only sad that Gloria Steinem lived to witness Donald Trump trash all she fought for
Sarah Ditum in The Independent
You could say feminist Gloria Steinem lived “ten years too long”, writes Sarah Ditum. In 2016, abortion was liberalised and America seemed about to elect its first female president. But “the future wasn’t female”; it was Donald Trump and the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. “Steinem’s life captured the whole arc of feminism”, from “tentative gains” to “the cusp of apparent triumph” and then “the strange dark moment of now”. At her death, its “achievements feel more precarious than ever”.