Scottish Labour leader says claim he tried to do Reform deal is ‘desperate lie’

Anas Sarwar has dismissed as “a desperate lie from a desperate man” a claim by Reform UK’s Scotland leader, Malcolm Offord, that he offered to do a deal with the rightwing party to keep the Scottish National party out of power.Offord made the claim on Channel 4’s Scottish leaders’ debate on Tuesday evening, alleging the Scottish Labour leader came “bouncing up” to him at an event in December last year, suggesting they “work together to remove the SNP”.The row escalated when Offord told reporters after the debate that he stood by the remarks. Thomas Kerr, a Reform UK candidate in Glasgow, claimed Sarwar had made similar overtures to him some months earlier.Sarwar immediately dismissed the accusations as “nonsense” but the SNP posted the exchange on social media, saying it was evidence of Scottish Labour seeking “a grubby deal”

Questions asked and answers given – up to a point. Welcome to lo-fi PMQs | John Crace

Credit where credit is due. The last few prime minister’s questions have been an exercise in nihilism. The embodiment of existential futility. Questions asked by Kemi Badenoch but not even a pretence by Keir Starmer of answering them. It was like the worst days of Boris Johnson’s time in No 10

Starmer rejects accusation Labour is ‘complacent’ on defence funding

Keir Starmer has said he does not agree with George Robertson’s comments about the government’s “corrosive complacency” on defence funding, as the prime minister faced sustained pressure on the issue.Questioned in the Commons about the claims by Robertson, the former Labour defence secretary and Nato chief who co-authored a defence review for the government, Starmer insisted that defence spending was increasing rapidly.Pressed by Kemi Badenoch about whether he agreed with Robertson, now a Labour peer, that social security should be cut to boost defence, Starmer said his government was tackling both areas – and argued that previous Conservative governments neglected them.Government sources have not denied that Rachel Reeves has proposed increasing the budget by less than £10bn over the next four years amid concerns that any more would be unaffordable.While the government has committed to reach 2

How a £2m bitcoin order made Nigel Farage the political face of UK crypto

A thumping electronic beat provides the soundtrack to the video as Nigel Farage appears in front of a bank of screens.At first glance, it could be yet another of the Reform UK leader’s “second jobs” – whether promoting gold as a pension fallback or recording Cameo videos. And in a sense, it is: Farage is promoting a £2m cryptocurrency purchase by a company in which he has £215,000 invested, Stack BTC.“So we are about to place our bitcoin order,” says Farage with a smile, drawing on the communication skills honed as a politician and GB News anchor.After pressing a button, he shrugs theatrically as a bugle marks the “purchase” before the clip cuts to him standing on a roof with Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Tory chancellor known for his disastrous 2022 mini budget in the government of Liz Truss

‘Bizarre’ lack of urgency in putting UK on war footing, says defence review co-author

A co-author of Britain’s strategic defence review has joined criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership on military policy, warning of a “bizarre” lack of urgency in defence planning.Fiona Hill, a former chief adviser to the White House on Russia, echoed the concerns of George Robertson, her co-author with Gen Richard Barrons on the strategic defence review (SDR), over what he had called the prime minister’s “corrosive complacency”.Robertson, a peer and former head of Nato, has publicly aired his frustration at the government’s failure to come forward with its 10-year spending plans for defence following publication of the SDR last June.Elaborating further on Tuesday night in a speech in Salisbury, Wiltshire, he accused “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism” and warned that “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”.Robertson also disclosed he had a discussion with the defence secretary, John Healey, on Monday about his intervention

How war in Gulf reveals the ‘cut corners’ on British defence

If Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a wake-up call for Nato, the war in the Gulf has brought some harsh realities home to the British public about the state of the UK’s armed forces.While air defence systems and fighter jets were already in place or deployed relatively swiftly, the time it took to send a single destroyer to Cyprus in the form of HMS Dragon focused minds on Britain’s military readiness and capabilities.An added sense of urgency came on Tuesday in the form of the intervention by George Robertson, a former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, who accused Keir Starmer of showing a “corrosive complacency towards defence” that put the UK in peril.Ministers’ response has been to say they are wrestling with “decades of underinvestment” by previous governments when it comes to defence and are now embarking on the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war. The Ministry of Defence also highlighted its target of spending 3

Reeves condemns Trump’s decision to launch war against Iran as ‘folly’– as it happened

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has described Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran as “folly”.She used the comment in an interview with the Daily Mirror, ahead of her trip to Washington for IMF meetings where she will discuss the global impact of the war with her counterparts.Reeves has already said publicly that she is “angry” about the war, but she was blunter speaking to the Mirror. She said:double quotation markThis is a war that we did not start. It was a war that we did not want

Labour MPs call for Swiss-style EU deal and review of US ties to revive party

A group of Labour MPs is to propose a series of new policies to defeat rightwing populism, including a Swiss-style deal with the EU, lower electricity prices, a robust defence of climate policies and a reduced dependence on Washington.Among those contributing to a new collection of essays is the former cabinet minister Anneliese Dodds, who calls for a fundamental reappraisal of the UK-US relationship, saying alliances should be based on “a hardheaded assessment of which nations share our values and goals.”Andrew Lewin, the Labour MP for Welwyn Hatfield who led calls for the government to accept the EU’s youth mobility deal, said in his essay that the UK must now seek to forge deep new economic ties with the EU including greater freedom of movement.The pamphlet – titled Common Endeavour – is set to be published by eight of the party’s most ambitious MPs as ways to try to revive the government’s currently bleak fortunes, with Keir Starmer’s party now polling behind Reform, the Conservatives and the Greens in the latest YouGov poll.The MPs – who have written on challenges from climate, to the cost of living, to international relations – have been holding ideas salons in parliament called “Labour Thinks” to try to rewrite Labour’s offering

Kemi Badenoch’s memory wipe and the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind | John Crace

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