Labour’s swift pubs U-turn shows government learning – and repeating Treasury mistakes

Political U-turns come in various forms, and as news of the latest government reversal drifted out, this one connected to the plight of the pub trade, Labour MPs could take comfort in one thing: at least it happened quickly.While last summer’s change of stance on benefit reforms was forced on Downing Street by open rebellion, and those for pensioners’ winter fuel payments and inheritance tax for farmers followed months of dissent, the decision to revisit decisions on business rates took a matter of weeks.“It would have been better if we hadn’t done it at all, but at least it was reversed quickly,” said one MP about the promised new look at business rates valuations, which the hospitality trade say would have seen major increases for pubs and hotels.“Maybe they are learning. And to give the government credit, they have been in proper listening mode over this

Software tackling deepfakes to be piloted for Scottish and Welsh elections

Election officials are working “at speed” with the Home Office on a pilot project to combat the use of deepfakes to target candidates standing in this year’s Scottish and Welsh elections.Officials at the Electoral Commission in Scotland said they and the Home Office expected software capable of detecting AI-generated deepfake videos and images to be operational before election campaigns begin in late March.Sarah Mackie, the commission’s chief in Scotland, said that if the software detected a hoax video or image, officials would contact the police, the candidate concerned and inform the public, although she acknowledged it could not always provide 100% certainty.They would then urge the social media platform to take the content down, she said. However, because such action is currently voluntary, the commission also wants legally enforceable “takedown” powers that would require media platforms to remove hoax material

Badenoch claims forthcoming business rates U-turn for pubs ‘too little, too late’ – as it happened

We don’t yet know the extent of the government U-turn shortly to be announced related to business rates for pubs and other parts of the hospitality sector. (See 2.24pm.)But Kemi Badenoch is already saying it is “too little, too late”. In a post on social media, she says:Yesterday Keir Starmer told us Labour had ‘turned a corner

‘Go back home’: Farage schoolmate accounts bring total alleging racist behaviour to 34

Thirty-four school contemporaries of Nigel Farage have now come forward to claim they saw him behave in a racist or antisemitic manner, raising fresh questions over the Reform leader’s evolving denials.One of those with new allegations is Jason Meredith, who was three years below Farage at Dulwich college, a private school in south-east London. He claims that Farage called him a “paki” and would use taunts such as “go back home”.Meredith, 58, who is of Anglo-Indian heritage and has lived in Switzerland where he works as a product manager since 1999, said it was support for anti-racism that motivated him to come forward.He told the Guardian: “What really irked me was the denial [by Farage] of being racist

Farage accused of ‘parroting Kremlin lines’ after remarks on UK troops in Ukraine

Nigel Farage has been accused of “parroting Kremlin lines” after saying that he would vote against any UK government plans to deploy the military in Ukraine.On Tuesday, Britain and France said they would be ready to send troops to Ukraine after a peace deal, but the Reform UK leader said he would vote against any such move to put boots on the ground.Farage’s comments cast doubt on his commitment to the UK’s national security, the cabinet minister Pat McFadden said. He accused the politician of taking a pro-Russia stance on the issue, which he said should give voters “pause for thought”.“This guarantee is not just for Ukraine, it’s for the whole of Europe,” he said

Mandelson accuses European leaders of ‘histrionic’ reaction to Trump’s Greenland stance

Peter Mandelson has accused European leaders including Keir Starmer of a “histrionic” reaction to Donald Trump’s plan to take over Greenland, arguing that without “hard power and hard cash” they will continue to slide into unimportance in the “age of Trump”.In his first political comments since being sacked as Britain’s ambassador to Washington last year, Lord Mandelson said Trump had achieved “more in a day than orthodox diplomacy was able to achieve in the past decade” when he captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.The intervention is likely to be seen as a criticism of the British prime minister, who has attempted to walk a diplomatic tightrope since the US captured Maduro. This week he signed a statement calling on the US president to respect Danish sovereignty over Greenland after a White House statement said the US was looking into “a range of options” in an effort to acquire Greenland, adding that using the US military to do so was “always an option”.On Wednesday evening, Starmer “set out his position on Greenland” in a phone conversation with Trump, Downing Street said without giving further details of the call