Sajid Javid calls on Nigel Farage to apologise for alleged schoolboy racism
The former Tory cabinet member Sajid Javid has called on Nigel Farage to apologise for alleged racist comments as a schoolboy.It came after a Guardian investigation found more than 30 of Farage’s contemporaries at Dulwich college have accused the Reform UK leader of racist and antisemitic bullying.Farage has denied “directly” targeting anyone with racist or antisemitic abuse or having the “intent” to hurt anyone.This month, he dismissed the allegations as “complete made-up fantasies” based on political motivation.In a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Times magazine, Javid, who became the first home secretary from an minority ethnic background in 2018, said Farage’s remarks were “clearly the wrong thing to say”, even if they were banter to him.
“He could well be a totally different person today,” Javid said.“But to demonstrate you are a different person, it starts with an apology and he hasn’t done that yet.That’s what disturbs me.”Javid spoke of his family’s story of integration after his parents moved to the UK from Pakistan.Born in Rochdale, he could not speak English when he started primary school, but went on to hold the offices of home secretary, health secretary and chancellor of the exchequer.
“If we talk about British Muslims, I think it is a success story of integration,” Javid said,“Today Britain has become, in my opinion, the most successful multiracial society on earth,”In November, a Guardian investigation uncovered a series of fresh allegations of racism against Farage,Among the accusers was the award-winning Jewish film-maker Peter Ettedgui, who said Farage would say “Hitler was right” and “gas them”, and make hissing noises to simulate the sound of the gas chambers,A month later, 26 school contemporaries wrote an open letter to Farage urging him to apologise and describing their “dismay and anger” at how he had dismissed the allegations.
The letter read: “What disturbs us is less what happened years ago, hurtful as it was, but rather your refusal to acknowledge your past behaviour or apologise for it.”The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.Secure Messaging in the Guardian appThe Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories.Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs.
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Disposable income in 11 towns and cities has risen twice as fast as rest of UK
Eleven towns and cities in the UK, including Warrington, Barnsley and Wakefield, have seen their disposable incomes rise twice as fast as the rest of the UK over the past decade, a study has found.A report from Centre for Cities, a thinktank, showed that between 2013 and 2023, disposable income for residents of these top performing towns and cities – all in England – rose by an average of 5.2%, compared with an increase of 2.4% for urban areas in the UK overall.The report said that if all 63 of the UK’s largest towns and cities had experienced the same rate of growth as the top 11 performers over this period, people would have pocketed an extra £3,200 on average in disposable income
Gold price tops $5,000 an ounce for first time as investors seek safe haven from Trump turmoil
Gold has jumped above $5,000 an ounce for the first time, as Donald Trump’s chaotic policies and proclamations drive more investors to seek safe harbour in the precious metal.The price of the yellow metal reached a record high of $5,100 on Monday morning, before easing back to settle up 2.2% at $5,089.The historic moment came as Trump threatened Canada with 100% tariffs if America’s northern neighbour “makes a deal with China”, and after the US president’s dramatic showdown with Europe over the future of Greenland.With global financial markets already jittery, there are also rising fears of another US shutdown after Democrats threatened funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the weekend shooting of a man in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents
More than a quarter of Britons say they fear losing jobs to AI in next five years
More than a quarter (27%) of UK workers are worried their jobs could disappear in the next five years as a result of AI, according to a survey of thousands of employees.Two-thirds (66%) of UK employers reported having invested in AI in the past 12 months, according to the international recruitment company Randstad’s annual review of the world of work, while more than half (56%) of workers said more companies were encouraging the use of AI tools in the workplace.This was leading to “mismatched AI expectations” between the views of employees and their employers over the impact of AI on jobs, according to Randstad’s poll of 27,000 workers and 1,225 organisations across 35 countries. Just under half (45%) of UK office workers surveyed believed AI would benefit companies more than employees.Younger workers, particularly those belonging to gen Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – were the most concerned about the impact of AI and their ability to adapt, while baby boomers – born in the postwar years between 1946 and 1964 and nearing the end of their careers – showed greater self-assurance
US small businesses are doing fine. Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers
Regardless of all the challenges they face, small businesses have been doing pretty well in this country across the board. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the latest numbers.For more than 50 years, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) has published a monthly report of small-business economic trends, based on a random sample of the organization’s approximately 300,000 member firms. This survey is one of the longest and most consistent of any I follow, using the same questionnaire since 1973. So where do things stand?Last year ended with a second consecutive monthly uptick in small-business optimism, with small-business owners anticipating that economic conditions would remain generally favorable going into 2026
Minnesota workers pressure employers to take action against ICE operations
Some of the US’s biggest companies are coming under increasing pressure to speak out about the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s operations in Minnesota.Workers throughout Minnesota have been pressuring their employers to act following the death of Renee Good, an unarmed woman killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.The killing on Saturday of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs Hospital ICU Nurse and member of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), intensified those calls from labor unions against ICE.“ICE continues to make everyone less safe, and Minnesota’s Labor Movement repeats and amplifies our call for them to leave our state immediately,” said Bernie Burnham, Minnesota AFL-CIO President, in a statement. “Minnesota’s Labor Movement will continue to actively support and stand in solidarity with every worker who has been unlawfully detained
City minister accused of ignoring £2bn car finance tax loophole
The City minister, Lucy Rigby, has been accused of snubbing taxpayers after she appeared to brush off concerns about a £2bn tax loophole benefiting big banks caught up in the car loans scandal.Rigby was urged to intervene by a member of the parliamentary Treasury committee after it emerged that lenders including Barclays, Lloyds and Santander could sidestep rules designed to ensure banks pay tax on compensation linked to corporate misconduct.Rules introduced in 2015 prevent banks from deducting compensation payouts from their profits before calculating corporation tax, meaning they cannot reduce their tax bill, regardless of the financial impact of their own wrongdoing.However, the Guardian revealed last month that banks will be able to exploit a loophole when they start paying compensation to victims of the £11bn car finance scandal this year. Their motor finance divisions are registered as “non-bank entities”, even though they are part of the larger banking groups, placing them outside the scope of rules
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