Jeffrey Epstein sent money to Mandelson’s husband after prison release, emails suggest

Jeffrey Epstein sent thousands of pounds in bank transfers after his release from prison in 2009 to Peter Mandelson’s husband, according to emails published by the US Department of Justice on Friday.The latest documents raise fresh questions about Epstein’s relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington when details of his support for the disgraced financier emerged in September.The latest dataset published on Friday shows that Mandelson’s husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, emailed Epstein on 7 September 2009, about two months after Epstein was released from prison. Epstein had served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender. Mandelson was business secretary at the time and in a relationship with da Silva

Labour accuses Reform candidate of ‘toxic politics’ after Tommy Robinson endorsement

Labour have accused the Reform UK candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection, Matthew Goodwin, of representing “toxic politics” after he was endorsed by the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.The move will be uncomfortable for Nigel Farage, who has consistently kept the parties he leads separate from Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner and one of the UK’s leading far-right figures.In a post on X on Friday to his 1.8 million followers, Robinson quoted a tweet by Hope Not Hate, which researches and campaigns against far-right politics, adding simply: “Vote for Matt.”A Reform spokesperson said in response: “We have consistently been clear on this issue

UK politics: Starmer shrugs off Trump’s criticism of ‘very dangerous’ deal with China – as it happened

Keir Starmer has shrugged off comments made by Donald Trump that it was “very dangerous” for the UK to do business with China, suggesting that the US president “was talking more about Canada”.Trump was asked by reporters on Thursday for his reaction to Starmer’s visit to Beijing (you can read more about that in our earlier blogpost).He responded: “Well, it’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China.”He added that Canada was doing “poorly” and “you can’t look at China as the answer”.When asked by Sky News to respond to the comments, Starmer said the US president “was probably talking more about Canada than the United Kingdom”

Greens select former mayoral candidate to run in Gorton and Denton byelection

The Green party has selected the former mayoral candidate Hannah Spencer to run in the Gorton and Denton byelection.Spencer, a Trafford councillor and plumber by trade, used to live in the constituency and was the Green candidate for mayor of Manchester in the 2024 election, where she finished fifth behind Labour’s Andy Burnham, who retained the post, and Conservative, independent and Reform candidates.Her nomination was officially announced on Friday in Longsight. The decision had been made democratically by local party members in online hustings the night before. Spencer is understood to have gained a large majority of the vote, beating competition that included Fesl Reza-Khan, who previously stood for the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat in the 2024 general election, finishing sixth, and Sarah Wakefield, a local campaigner and the former general secretary to the Manchester University student union

Starmer signals support for Trump’s aggressive approach towards Iran

Keir Starmer has signalled support for Donald Trump’s aggressive approach towards Iran, saying it is vital the Iranian leadership is not able to develop nuclear weapons.While the prime minister did not comment directly on the possibility of US military strikes on Iran, he said allies needed to face up to the nuclear issue and “deal with” the deadly repression of anti-government protests.The US president has warned Iran it must end its nuclear programme and stop killing protesters if a large US armada of warships deployed in the Middle East is not to be used against them.Starmer’s words during a visit to China on Friday were deliberately guarded, and No 10 officials said he would not comment on hypothetical future US strikes, but they are likely to be seen by some as a tacit endorsement of Trump’s bellicose attitude to Tehran.“The goal or the aim here is that Iran shouldn’t be able to develop nuclear weapons and that is hugely important and, of course, we need to deal with the fact they are repressing protesters, killing protesters,” Starmer told the BBC during a series of broadcast interviews in Shanghai

‘It’s about ego’: Matt Goodwin’s journey from far-right expert to firebrand Reform candidate

It was the autumn of 2011 and Dr Matt Goodwin was documenting the potential reach of the racist far-right in Tameside, a borough in east Manchester that is part of the parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton.The borough council had spotted the work the young academic had been doing on the rise of the British National party – the subject of his pioneering PhD – and asked him to dig deeper into the local dangers of what Goodwin was describing as a “new British fascism” emerging in disaffected parts of northern England.Regarded by colleagues as ambitious to a fault, he was not one to turn down such interesting work. Having built strong contacts within the Conservative party, he had already been assisting the hereditary peer James Bethell, and Tim Montgomerie, previously chief of staff to Iain Duncan Smith as Tory leader and the founder of the influential ConservativeHome website, on a campaign with the strapline “there is nothing British about the BNP”.Goodwin’s co-authored report to Tameside council identified the areas “most ‘at risk’ of far-right extremism and the factors that have driven this support”