Nigel Farage faces inquiry over £5m gift from crypto billionaire
Nigel Farage is facing a formal investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.The Reform UK leader received the money weeks before announcing he would stand as a candidate in the 2024 general election.Farage has said the gift, first revealed by the Guardian, was intended to cover his personal security costs and therefore did not need to be declared.However, other parties argue that the money from the Thailand-based businessman falls within rules requiring MPs to declare any potentially relevant gifts or donations received in the 12 months before entering parliament.Daniel Greenbergh, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, is understood to have begun an investigation under rule 5 of the code of conduct obliging MPs to “fulfil conscientiously” requirements relating to their registration of interests.
It states that new MPs must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election,This must be done within one month of their election, and they must register any change in those registrable interests within 28 days,If the investigation finds Farage committed a particularly serious breach of parliamentary declaration rules, he could be suspended from the Commons,A suspension of 10 days or more could trigger a recall petition, potentially forcing him to fight again for his Clacton seat,There is no fixed timetable for investigations by the commissioner as individual cases vary in complexity.
A speech Farage was to give on Thursday evening to supporters in Sunderland, a key target for Reform, was “temporarily postponed” by the party after the investigation was announced.Reform said the reason for the postponement was “the chaos in government and an impending Labour leadership race”.However, news of the investigation has overshadowed attempts by the party to capitalise on its historic breakthrough in the elections last week.A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Mr Farage’s office is in communications with the parliamentary commissioner for standards.He has always been clear that this was a personal, unconditional gift and no rules were broken.
We look forward to this being put to bed once and for all.”Farage also faces the prospect of a second inquiry after the Electoral Commission – the independent body that oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK – received a complaint from the Conservatives over the £5m from Harborne.The elections watchdog has told the Tories it is considering the complaint and will respond by the end of the week.It had said earlier that it would respond to the Conservatives by 12 May, after the elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England.A Conservative party spokesperson said: “£5m is an enormous amount, more than most people will earn in a lifetime.
Nigel Farage needs to explain how he got it, why he got it, and why he didn’t declare it.If there is a simple answer then he should welcome these investigations.But like so often with Reform, there is something very fishy about the whole story.”Anna Turley, the chair of the Labour party, said after news of the standards inquiry broke: “Nigel Farage has been avoiding legitimate questions since news of his billionaire backer’s ‘gift’.It’s right that he faces a proper investigation.
Farage and Reform clearly believe it’s one rule for them, and another for everyone else,”Harborne has become a pivotal figure in British politics, bankrolling Farage personally and the parties he has led over the past seven years,Last year, the businessman donated £9m to Reform UK, the largest single donation by a living person to a British political party,In total, he gave £12m to the party in 2025,Asked about the gift on the BBC, one of Reform’s MPs, Danny Kruger, reiterated the party’s position on Wednesday that the money was a not a political donation.
“It was made before he was an MP, before he was back in politics,He has explained it,This was a gift made directly to Nigel and he has explained he will be using that money to pay for his own security, which the government does not pay for,“He is a high-risk politician and for the rest of his life he is going to need very expensive security and he has that now funded personally,”
Google announces raft of free upgrades for Android phones
Google has announced a range of features coming to Android phones this year, including a new Gemini Intelligence AI system and a tool to help users avoid distracting apps.Revealed in a livestreamed “Android Show” event, the free upgrades are scheduled to arrive in waves over the next year for high-end new and old phones alike, including Samsung and Pixel devices. Google also revealed that a new lineup of laptops will arrive in the autumn.Gemini Intelligence will combine the company’s top AI tools into one system aimed at being more proactively useful.It will be able to automate tasks by directly interacting with the apps already on a phone
Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military
The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military.Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company’s technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale.The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank.The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear; however, sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company
GameStop’s $55.5bn bid for eBay rejected as ‘neither credible nor attractive’
The board of eBay has rejected the US video games retailer GameStop’s surprise $55.5bn bid (£41bn) for the online marketplace, describing the proposal as “neither credible nor attractive”.Earlier this month, GameStop made an unsolicited bid for eBay, publishing a letter on its website outlining a half-cash, half-stock proposal.This was despite the US games company – which became a global household name during the meme stock craze of 2021 – being worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn before its bid, almost a quarter of eBay’s $46bn valuation
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian.Donald Trump is headed to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, would join Trump
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech while emulating Xi Jinping on AI
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO – who is close to Trump but criticized the US’s limitations on chip sales to China in an April interview, saying that he didn’t want a “loser mentality” to cost the US its edge in AI – will not be joining the president
Molière Ex Machina: AI used to create ‘new work’ by beloved French playwright
Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire.Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Paris used artificial intelligence to help write an experimental play in his style.L’Astrologue ou les Faux Présages (The Astrologer, or False Omens), a three-act comedy, made its debut at the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles last week.The two-hour play tells the story of a wealthy bourgeois Parisian who, under the instruction of a charlatan astrologer called Pseudoramus, insists his daughter Lucile marry a debt-ridden and elderly wigmaker.While the theme could well have been dreamed up by Molière, the dialogue, music, costumes and scenery were all created with the help of a French AI tool called Le Chat (The Cat)
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