Farage deploys the rottweiler to distract from awkward £5m gift story | John Crace

It’s a classic from the Donald Trump playbook: everything’s been going a bit tits up, so you create a distraction. Get everyone looking in the wrong direction. Last week was the worst in months for Reform. First the party was pegged back in the opinion polls, then the Guardian revealed Nigel Farage had been given a £5m handout by Christopher Harborne, a Thai-based crypto dealer. A donation that Nige had never thought to declare

There’s no excuse for boozing at work | Brief letters

I am sorry, Gaby Hinsliff, but I cannot defend MPs’ booze culture (My advice to Hannah Spencer? Before calling out MPs’ boozing, try to understand the reasons behind it, 1 May). As a retired nurse, there were times when my colleagues and I were working long hours under a great deal of stress, often making life and death decisions. There is no excuse for drinking at work. Hannah Spencer was right to call it out.Patricia HowlettSouth Benfleet, Essex Friends at Abberton reservoir recently encountered a group of women in a bird hide who gave a whole new meaning to the term “hen party”

Greens must take immediate action against antisemitism in party, says Lucas

The former Green leader Caroline Lucas has called for the party to take immediate action against candidates who have made antisemitic comments or posts, following a series of cases before Thursday’s elections.Lucas, who led or co-led the party for six years and served as its first MP, said that while the number of such cases was limited, they could not be ignored.“Statements that have now come to light from a handful of @TheGreenParty candidates are totally unacceptable & require immediate action,” she wrote on X. “There’s no place for antisemitism or any hate speech in the party. This is a society-wide problem and needs to be rooted out wherever it’s found

Cabinet minister warns Labour against ‘doomscrolling’ through leaders like the Tories

Labour should not be “doomscrolling” through leaders like the Conservatives, the communities secretary, Steve Reed, has said, urging MPs not to move against Keir Starmer after the May elections.MPs who fear Starmer cannot lead the party into the next general election because of his unpopularity are understood to have been discussing whether to lay out a timetable for his departure to present to the prime minister.Starmer could also potentially face a direct leadership challenge, though would-be candidates, including Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, are said to be unlikely to move first against him.MPs told the Guardian they were sceptical about the idea of a letter urging the prime minister to set out a timetable for departure – though some hope a longer timeframe would benefit the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, giving him time to return to Westminster.Reed said the majority of MPs and local leaders did not want to unleash the chaos of a leadership challenge

Vote Lib Dem or ‘regret it’ living under a Reform council, Davey tells voters

Voters in the home counties will “regret it for a long time” if they do not back the Liberal Democrats and wake up to a Reform-led council, Ed Davey has said.The Lib Dems leader has identified five councils – East Surrey, West Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex and Huntingdonshire – where his party could win overall control, as well as swathes of the former “blue wall” where Davey said it was a “straight fight” between his party and Reform at the English local elections.More than 5,000 councillors will be elected on Thursday, with more than half of these being in either London or the south-east. Some projections show the Lib Dems gaining 500 seats, with Labour losing as many as 1,800. The Greens are also expected to gain hundreds of seats, with top projections putting the figure at 1,700

Next Scottish government faces ‘really difficult’ spending choices, economists say

The next Scottish government will need to make “really difficult” spending decisions soon after taking power, including tackling its large public sector pay bill, senior economists have said.Economists with the Fraser of Allander Institute, at the University of Strathclyde, believe the manifestos published by Scotland’s political parties during the campaign failed to tell voters about the true scale of the challenge.Prof Mairi Spowage, the institute’s director, said the next government would need to have a “reckoning” after the 7 May election because the last Scottish National party administration consistently spent more money than it received from its core sources of funding.She said it had been heavily reliant on non-recurring windfalls, such as fees from the ScotWind offshore wind licensing round or one-off payments from the Treasury, to fund its higher spending.The next government would therefore face the most challenging budget since the Scottish parliament was founded in 1999, she said, and may need to cut this year’s spending to cope with the shortfall

‘A test of our values’: Starmer to call for whole-society response to rising antisemitism

Keir Starmer will call for a whole-of-society response to rising antisemitism on Tuesday, saying that it is not enough simply to condemn the scourge, but people “must show it” through their actions too.Before a roundtable event at Downing Street, the prime minister will call for action on all forms of antisemitism, after a knife attack against the Jewish community in Golders Green last week, a spate of serious arson attacks and the terror incident in Heaton Park in October.Sarah Sackman, the Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said there had been a “lack of vocal solidarity” from parts of the liberal left, including some anti-racist organisations, in the face of rising antisemitism across the UK.No 10 will host representatives from across society including business, charities, health and culture, higher education and policing, for talks with the Jewish community. Starmer is expected to say they all need to refuse to platform hatred or turn a blind eye to extremism

Cabinet ministers warn mutinous MPs about trying to oust Keir Starmer

Cabinet ministers have told mutinous Labour MPs that any attempt to oust Keir Starmer after a potentially disastrous set of election results this week would unleash chaos for the party that would not be easily overcome.Several, however, told the Guardian that even with the prime minister’s determination to stay in Downing Street after Thursday’s vote, the mood on the backbenches was febrile and events could yet spiral out of control.They also admitted that – while they would discourage any coup against Starmer now, they did not expect him to lead the party into the next election. “When your personal brand is so poor, it is seldom retrievable,” one said.Labour faces losing more than 1,500 council seats across England, a struggle for second place in Scotland and the prospect of losing Wales after a century of domination, leaving thousands of angry local politicians who see themselves as victims of the government’s unpopularity

Reform UK plan to set up migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas condemned by other parties – as it happened

A Reform UK proposal to prioritise places that vote for Green councils or MPs when it sets up detention centres for migrants facing deportation has been denounced as “abhorrent” from opponents across the political spectrum.Reform says it would deport “all illegal migrants” and, to make this possible, it has announced plans for deportation centres holding up to 24,000 people.In a post on social media, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, said that these would be located in Green-voting areas. He explained:double quotation markSo here’s our promise:A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council