Nigel Farage says Reform UK is ‘parking its tanks’ on Labour’s lawn
Nigel Farage has promised that Reform UK’s tanks are “on the lawns of the red wall” as he openly targeted Labour in a local elections speech heavy on Trump-like rhetoric but light on policy detail.For his biggest set-piece event yet in a campaign in which his party hopes to win a slew of councillors in northern England and Midlands, Farage spoke at a working men’s club in County Durham – very deliberate symbolism in what was the Sedgefield constituency of Tony Blair.“Reform are parking their tanks on the lawns of the red wall,” Farage told Reform activists and candidates in Newton Aycliffe.“Today is the first day I’ve said that, but I absolutely mean it, and we’re here, and we’re here to stay.“If you are considering voting Conservative in these areas, you are wasting your vote, because if you want a party that can beat Labour, it is now very clearly Reform.
”Much of Farage’s speech was based on the idea that Reform UK had replaced Labour as the party of working people, and would reindustrialise declining regions with support for industries linked to steel and fossil fuels.He cited polling produced for the party showing he was outperforming Keir Starmer in red-wall areas.In another echo of Donald Trump, Farage littered his speech with culture war references, including a condemnation of recruitment policies that he said disadvantaged white people.“We see recruitment policies in police forces, recruitment policies in the NHS, designed to put ethnic minorities to the top of the list against white people with more history in this country,” Farage said, calling the situation “a disgrace”.He added: “We do not believe in DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and that madness in any way at all, but it’s all part of the north London human rights lawyers being completely out of touch with ordinary folk.
”Condemning the “cultural decline” of the UK, Farage reiterated Reform’s intent to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and repeal the UK’s Human Rights Act, saying this would curb the influence of a “somewhat corrupted judiciary”.Despite a cross-party Commons report this week dismissing the idea of “two-tier” policing during riots last summer, Farage repeated his claim that there had been “the most appalling cover-up” after the Southport killings that sparked the disorder.Ignoring polls suggesting Trump was increasingly unpopular with UK voters, Farage made explicit references to the US president’s agenda, promising a “British equivalent of Doge” – Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency – in any councils won by Reform on 1 May.In the speech and in a lengthy Q&A with reporters, Farage was vague about any specific policies, including how he would finance a repeal of the national insurance increase as well as changes to farm inheritance tax and the means-testing of winter fuel payments, all while raising the income tax threshold from £12,500 a year to £20,000.Farage simply indicated that “the reindustrialisation of Britain” would “within a couple of years produce tens of thousands of well paid, in fact in many cases highly paid, jobs” that would boost growth.
Extra money would also come from abolishing regulators and quangos “who do so much to stifle business”, he said.Having backed the nationalisation of British Steel, Farage said a Reform government would aim to forge “a good partnership with the unions” – with the exception of teaching unions.He said the National Education Union wanted to poison children’s minds “about everything to do with this country, its history, what it stood for and what it has fought for”.He claimed union members were “telling kids that Reform is a racist party, Reform is a bad party, and kids that speak out against that face disciplinary action”.
‘You wouldn’t pick us out as mother and daughter!’: Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter on acting together for the first time
Bridgerton star Bessie – soon to play Nancy Mitford in a new TV drama – and her mum, acting royalty Imelda, talk Sondheim, sandwiches and taking the stage together in Shaw’s sex worker scandal Mrs Warren’s Profession‘It’s amazing that I came from you,” says Bessie Carter to her mother, Imelda Staunton, during a break in rehearsals for the forthcoming revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession, in which they’ll play a mother and daughter and share a stage for the first time. She has a point. Carter, 31, best known as Bridgerton’s Prudence Featherington, is 5ft 10 and aquiline, glamorous in a maroon leather coat and silver-studded shoes. Staunton, 69, is barely 5ft tall, quiet and unassuming in slacks and a blouse, short grey hair pinned back.There’s no hint of grandeur to this theatrical dame, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake in 2004, played Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series from 2007 and was the last iteration of Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown
Julio Torres: ‘When I worked at SNL, I thought Shawn Mendes was an intern’
Your first comedy show was called My Favorite Shapes. What is your least favourite shape?A pentagon. Or an octagon. There’s a rigidity to it that I find displacing.What’s the oldest thing you own and why do you still have it?You know, I was just going into what I refer to as the forbidden closet in my apartment, which is just a door that I never open
On my radar: Kit de Waal’s cultural highlights
Born in Birmingham in 1960, Mandy Theresa O’Loughlin is better known as author Kit de Waal. After a career as a magistrate specialising in adoption and foster care, she studied creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. Her debut novel, My Name Is Leon, was published in 2016, winning the Kerry Group Irish novel of the year award. De Waal, who chairs this year’s judging panel for the Women’s prize for fiction, is a fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, where she set up a scholarship for writers from marginalised backgrounds. Her latest book, The Best of Everything, is out now (Tinder Press
Olly Alexander review – part night creature, part light entertainer
Palladium, LondonThe singer and actor hints at an outre new synth-heavy sound, drawn largely from latest album Polari. He stops short, though, of scaring his daytime TV fans“I’m all about playful subversion,” declares Olly Alexander with a grin on the final night of his UK tour. Clad in a series of outfits whose shiny buttons nod towards London’s pearly kings and queens and the dressing-up box – there’s one handily located on the left side of the stage – he is outlining the essence of Polari, the slang once used by the LGBTQ+ community, showfolk and the denizens of London’s Soho, as was.Evolving out of the vocabularies of Italian immigrants and Travellers to evade the understanding of law enforcement and mainstream society in the 19th and early-mid 20th centuries, Polari also doubles as the title of Alexander’s latest, queer-club pop-themed album. Released two months ago, it was the first under his own name; previously, he had traded as Years & Years, first as a band, then as a solo project
From The Return to The Last of Us: a complete guide to this week’s entertainment
The ReturnOut now Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washes up looking like something the cat dragged in after 20 years away at the Trojan wars. Penelope (Juliette Binoche), his wife, has troubles of her own: a bunch of unwelcome suitors plotting to marry her and kill her son. An adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey notable for reuniting the leads of The English Patient.The AmateurOut now Rami Malek is a CIA decoder whose world is turned upside down when his wife is killed. But knowledge is, as they say, power, so he attempts to put his work in intelligence to a new purpose: personal revenge
Almost a third of UK independent cinemas say they are at risk
Almost a third of independent cinemas face closure within next three to five years without investment, according to new research.A survey conducted by the Independent Cinema Office (ICO) found that 31% of independent cinemas and mixed arts venues in the UK said they would not be able to remain operational without capital investment, while a further 28% were unsure of their future viability.Of the 109 venues polled, only 41% were confident that they could survive the next three years. The 69 venues that were able to provide estimates of their capital funding needs gave figures totalling more than £79m.The most in-demand types of capital investment were: upgrading equipment and interiors (89%); investing in environmental sustainability (60%); business growth (56%); and building repairs (54%)
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