In his response to the BBC, Farage went on to address the point about his own comments at the time being racists,He said he had received many letters from fellow pupils, and he quotes from one of them,The writer said he called “plenty of macho, tongue in cheek schoolboy banter” at the time, and some of it was offensive,But it was not done with malice, the writer said,The writer went on:I never heard [Farage] racially abused anyone.

If he had, he would have been reported and punished …Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist.If I can help in any way, let me know.UPDATE: See 4.08pm for the full quote.Nigel Farage has denied saying anything racist “with malice” in his latest attempt to address allegations of abuse made by numerous of his contemporaries at school.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has received a £9m donation from Christopher Harborne, a leading cryptocurrency investor, as well as £50,000 from the wife of the owner of the Daily Mail.Ministers are to postpone elections for new mayors in four parts of England, prompting accusations from opposition parties that Downing Street is “cancelling democracy”.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.Keir Starmer has announced that thousands of military families will benefit from funding for Christmas return leave.He announced this on his visit to RAF Lossiemouth.

Explaing the change, the Ministry of Defence said:Around 30,000 junior personnel in years 2-5 of their military careers – a group particularly affected by postings far from home early in their service – will benefit from a funded return journey to see their loved ones this Christmas.A further 5,000 separated parents with non-resident children will also receive travel credit, helping them reunite with their children over Christmas.This is targeted support where it is most needed – with personnel in their early years of service most likely to be separated from family and friends due to the demands of military life and placements.While many in the armed forces already qualify for travel cost support, around 35,000 service personnel don’t currently qualify for this support, and the government is changing that this festive season.Starmer said:Our armed forces make extraordinary sacrifices, and I know how important being with family is, and that is why today we’re announcing extra travel support for service personnel to be with their loved ones this Christmas.

The UK and Norway have signed a defence pact that will see their navies operate a combined fleet of warships to hunt Russian submarines, PA Media reports,PA says:The deal, which the government said was the “first of its kind”, is aimed at protecting critical undersea cables, which the UK and its Nato allies believe are under increasing threat from Moscow,It comes after a 30% rise in Russian vessels sighted in UK waters in the past two years, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD),The so-called Lunna House agreement – named after the Shetland Isles base used by the Norwegian resistance during the second world war – was signed by defence secretary John Healey and his Norwegian counterpart Tore Sandvik in Downing Street on Thursday morning,Healey said it marked an “important moment” for two nations “with deep bonds”.

He added that a “new era of threat” demands “cooperation” between Nato allies, saying that the pact is as important as defence agreements the UK has made with other nations.Sandvik said the pact marked a “burden shift”, saying more money will be spent on defence.Shortly after, Keir Starmer met his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Støre, and Sir Keir said that Norway is an “absolutely vital member of the coalition of the willing”.Later Starmer and Støre went to RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland to meet maritime patrol crews tracking Russian vessels.Anna Turley, the Labour chair, has issued a statement about the Nigel Farage press conference.

She says:Nigel Farage can’t get his story straight,It really shouldn’t be this difficult to say whether he racially abused people in the past,So far, he’s claimed he can’t remember, that it’s not true, that he never “directly” abused anyone, that he was responsible for “offensive banter”, and deflected by saying other people were racist too,Instead of shamelessly demanding apologies from others, Nigel Farage should be apologising to the victims of his alleged appalling remarks,Reform want to drag our politics into the gutter.

They are simply not fit for high office.Here is Rowena Mason’s story from the Nigel Farage press conference.Rowena did get a question at the press conference.(The Guardian and the Mirror tend to get called last at Reform UK press conferences, but we normally do get a question.Farage is better than most other party leaders at taking questions at these events.

) She asked if Farage would agree with Richard Tice in saying the people who accused him of being racist or antisemitic at Dulwich College were lying,(See 9,22am,)Farage would not follow Tice,He just said: “Recollections may vary after half a century.

”Earlier I quoted from the Economist’s interview with Keir Starmer.(See 2.15pm.) Here is the conclusion from the Economist’s write-up.It says:Sir Keir’s agenda in government does not match the scale of the challenge.

He agrees that Britain is at a pivot point – a 1945 or a 1979.Those moments had a leader who seized it, in Sir Keir’s telling.Clement Attlee, the Labour prime minister, had to “rebuild the country”.Margaret Thatcher set out to “break the mould”.Each phrase is pithy enough to go on an election placard.

What would go on Sir Keir’s bumper sticker? “Our mission of national renewal, renewing our country, understanding our country for what it is, which is a society of reasonable, pragmatic, compassionate people who would actually help each other out if they had half the chance to do so,” As an example of Starmerese, there is no better; as a philosophy to keep the centre together or indeed to inspire, it needs work,Accepting that the Conservatives are, in effect, allies against Reform may backfire,Some in Reform refer to “the Uniparty”—a grotty consensus between Britain’s mainstream parties, which has led to ruin,Mr Farage would be delighted that Sir Keir sleeps soundly at the thought of their centre-right rivals in office.

Many in Labour would be disturbed.But the prime minister knows there is a bigger battle at hand, even if Labour’s squabbling government does not always act like it.Therein lies the paradox of Sir Keir: a man who can articulate the size of the moment, yet still does not quite know how to meet it.And this is from Duncan Robinson, who writes the Economist’s Bagehot column, on Bluesky.I was just saying to my mate that Britain needed a mission of national renewal, renewing our country, understanding our country for what it is, which is a society of reasonable, pragmatic, compassionate people who would actually help each other out if they had half the chance to do soHere is the full quote from Nigel Farage at his press conference when he implied that whatever he said at Dulwich College was acceptable because it was no worse than anything being shown on the BBC at the same time.

Farage was replying to a question from the BBC’s Damian Grammaticas.(See 3.23pm.) As he went into rant mode, it started to sound pre-rehearsed – although Farage was successful at sounding angry.Farage said:The double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing.

At the time I was alleged to have made these remarks, one of your most popular weekly shows was the Black and White Minstrels.The BBC were very happy to use blackface.And not only in the Black and White Minstrels.You did it in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum as well.And what about Alf Garnett? Do you remember the word he used to describe Marigold on primetime national TV? I better not repeat the word, otherwise you will all say that I used it.

Homophobia,It Ain’t Half Hot Mum,Are You Being Served?And what about Bernard Manning? Perfectly happy, at exactly the same time, for Bernard Manning to appear on primetime national BBC comedy telling jokes for which these days you’d probably get a knock at the door from our thought police and perhaps get a 31-month prison sentence,I cannot put up with the double standards at the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago, and what you were putting out on mainstream content,So I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did during the 1970s and 80s.

As the Conservative party points out (see 4.26pm), this argument undercuts another one that Farage has been using – which is that he did not say what he is accused of saying.The line about a 31-month jail sentence is a reference to Lucy Connolly, the woman jailed for posting a message on social media saying asylum hotels should be set on fire.When Harry Horton from ITV News asked another question about Dulwich College, Farage turned on him too, saying ITV was “the channel of Bernard Manning”.Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.

Barristers’ leaders, including the respective chairs of the Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association and the various regional circuits have issued a joint statement saying they “fundamentally disagree with the government’s plan to restrict the deeply entrenched constitutional principle of a jury trial”,They say they have seen no evidence that the proposals, announced on Tuesday, which include removing the right of defendants to choose to have their cases heard before a jury and the establishment of a new judge-led court will curtail the record backlog in the courts,They say:The government itself acknowledged on numerous occasions this week that this proposal will not make a difference any time soon,It hinges on Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendation which has not been piloted or thoroughly modelled,Crown courts such as Liverpool have shown that efficiencies and investment of time and resources do make a difference.

In Wales, there’s no meaningful backlog due to close and effective cooperation between the bench and Bar.All the efficiencies we suggested in January – including different case management and defendant delivery time, that have also been recommended by Sir Brian Leveson – do not require legislation.We know they work and would have an impact now.Resources need to be focused on rebuilding the system and allowing other measures to embed.Criminal trials being decided by a single judge goes further than the recommendation by Sir Brian which recognised the importance of judgment by peers.

The lord chancellor’s own 2017 report made plain that juries are free from bias and provide diversity,This draconian approach undermines such a well-founded sentiment and attacks a constitutional freedom, namely, trial by jury,Earlier today, figures were published showing that the backlog in the crown courts could hit 125,000 (from the current 78,000) by the end of this parliament,The justice secretary, David Lammy, said:These figures set out the true scale of the court emergency we face – without bold reform the backlog is only going to go up,We simply cannot sit our way out of this crisis.

My plan combines reform, increased investment in legal aid, sitting days and the courts to help us turn the tide on the rising backlog, deliver swifter justice and put victims first.And the Labour party has issued this on social media about the Nigel Farage press conference.Farage now trying to dodge questions from@harry_horton raising serious allegations of racism from his past.If he has nothing to hide, why respond like this? pic.twitter.

com/NMqpTceOZrThe Conservatives have generally been reluctant to comment on Nigel Farage schoolboy racism story, perhaps viewing it as a dispute between Reform UK and the Guardian.But the party has just issued a press notice pointing out that, even thought Farage has denied making the racist comments attributed to him, this afternoon is main argument was that anything he may have said was no worse than the low-grade racism that was routine in the 1970s, particularly on TV.A Conservative spokesperson said:Nigel Farage just called a press conference and used it to rant at journalists over historic allegations of racism and antisemitism – allegations he has just admitted are true.Farage is too busy furiously defending himself to defend democracy from the Labour party’s elections delays.Reform’s one man band is in chaos once again.

Farage was right to say that there were plenty of programmes on TV in the 1970s that would not be acceptable today because of their racism,But it is hard to recall a comedy programme about the Holocaust,Here is a fuller quote from the letter that Nigel Farage read out during his Q&A when he was responding to a question about racist comments his contemporaries remember him making at Dulwich College,(See 3,23pm.

)Quoting the letter, Farage said:I was a Jewish pupil at Dulwich College at the same time and I remember [Farage] very well.While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive … but never with malice.I never heard him racially abuse anyone.If he had, he would have been reported and punished.He wasn’t