Keir Starmer says ‘hugely talented’ Angela Rayner will return to cabinet

Keir Starmer has predicted that Angela Rayner will return to the cabinet, calling his former deputy, who resigned in September after underpaying stamp duty on a property purchase, “hugely talented”.In an interview with the Observer, the prime minister described Rayner, who left school aged 16 without any qualifications, as “the best social mobility story this country has ever seen”.Rayner resigned as deputy prime minister and housing secretary after Starmer’s ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, found she had breached the ministerial code over her underpayment of stamp duty on a flat in Hove.Magnus said Rayner had “acted with integrity” but that her failure to get sufficient advice on how much stamp duty she had to pay amounted to a breach of the code.Asked in the interview if he missed Rayner, Starmer replied: “Yes, of course I do

Nigel Farage aide dismisses alleged racism as ‘playground banter’

One of Nigel Farage’s key aides has suggested the Reform UK leader was involved in “playground arguments or banter” when he allegedly made racist and antisemitic comments while at school.Danny Kruger, who has been preparing Reform’s possible programme for government since defecting from the Conservatives, also said he was relieved that Farage was facing so much scrutiny about his behaviour as a teenager because it meant he was not being attacked for his present-day politics.Twenty-eight of Farage’s contemporaries at Dulwich college have told the Guardian they experienced or witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour when he was a teenager.They include Peter Ettedgui, 61, who is Jewish, and who said Farage repeatedly told him “Hitler was right” or said “gas them” at him when they were at school. On Friday, Yinka Bankole said a then 17-year-old Farage told him: “That’s the way back to Africa” when he was much younger and new to the school

Forcing UK banks to support credit unions would help keep loan sharks at bay

Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, made a pilgrimage on Friday from its glass and steel HQ in east London to the Pioneers Museum in Rochdale – the spiritual home of the co-operative movement.His unlikely day trip aimed to highlight the City watchdog’s role in opening the way to a doubling of the size of the mutuals sector – a Labour manifesto pledge.Among these customer- or worker-owned organisations, including huge companies such as John Lewis and Nationwide building society, are the 350 credit unions.These are locally based lenders whose interest rates are capped by law and whose clients tend to include the low-income consumers left behind by the big banks. Holding assets of £4

Faith and Reform: is the religious right on the rise in UK politics?

At recent Reform UK press conferences, two very distinctive heads can often be spotted in the front row: the near-white locks of Danny Kruger, the party’s head of policy, and the swept-back blond mane of James Orr, now a senior adviser to Nigel Farage.As well as guiding the policy programme for what could be the UK’s next government, the pair have something else in common. Both are highly devout Christians who came to religion in adulthood and have trenchant views on social issues such as abortion and the family.Kruger, an MP who defected from the Conservatives in September, and Orr, who is a Cambridge academic, also sit on the advisory board of a rightwing thinktank called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, led by Philippa Stroud, a Conservative peer who is strongly religious.Another member is Paul Marshall, the hedge fund millionaire who owns GB Newsand the rightwing Spectator magazine

From bricklayer to mayor: Steve Rotheram is quietly building a Liverpool success story

From the towering south stand of Everton’s gleaming new riverside football stadium, the Liverpool city region mayor Steve Rotheram is showing off his next big goal to the visiting government minister.It was not much to look at: acres of industrial wasteland, disused docks and a sorry-looking gothic clock tower, said to be one of only two in the world with six faces.The hands of the Grade II-listed “dockers’ clock” have not moved for years, an all too fitting symbol of time standing still on this part of the Mersey dockland against the rampant regeneration nearby.Accompanied by the communities secretary Steve Reed on Thursday morning, Rotheram announced a “once-in-a-generation” development on the 174-hectare (430-acre) site beside the £800m Hill Dickinson stadium. A new government-backed body promises 17,000 new homes and commercial premises over the next 15 years

Farage dodges press as he unveils Reform’s first peer after Conservative defection

Nigel Farage has addressed Reform UK’s largest rally in Scotland to date but refused to engage with local journalists – leaving the newly defected peer Malcolm Offord to field questions on allegations of racism and antisemitism.Farage introduced the former Conservative peer and millionaire donor Offord at a sold-out rally of about 700 at a hotel conference centre near Falkirk.The businessman, who served as a Scotland Office minister under the last government and until recently was treasurer of the Scottish Conservatives, announced his intention to give up his peerage in order to stand for Reform UK in next May’s Holyrood elections.Farage said he was “delighted” to welcome Offord to the party. He called the peer’s defection “a brave and historic act”