Labour challenges Farage over cost of private jet trip to Maldives
Labour has queried Nigel Farage’s claim that a return trip to the Maldives on a private jet linked to a billionaire donor cost as little as £25,000 as the Reform leader attempted to reach the Chagos Islands.Farage initially recorded his two-day trip to the Maldives as costing £12,500 funded by Thailand-based Reform megadonor Christopher Harborne, before upgrading this to £25,000 in the latest register of interests.The Guardian reported that ownership of the private jet was linked to Harborne, who has given the party more than £12m.However, Anna Turley, the chair of the Labour party, wrote to Farage on Thursday arguing that chartering a private jet of a similar size would cost many times more than the sum declared.“According to publicly available flight logs, this was an 11,000-mile round trip, lasting just over 23 hours, using a model of plane that is currently advertised on multiple private jet websites as costing at least $11,500 (£8,500) per hour to charter,” she said.
“Not only did Mr Harborne pay for the costs of this flight, according to your declaration, it is reasonable to assume – based on the Guardian’s reporting on 8 March – that the plane in question and its sister plane are operated by one of Mr Harborne’s companies …“It appears that Mr Harborne put this luxury private jet at your personal disposal for a period of two-and-a-half days, including 23 hours of flying time and the costs of its crew, fuel, refreshments and other operating costs – and yet your valuation of that donation at £12,500, which you later amended to £25,000, bears no relation to the market rate for any other provider of the equivalent services available in the private jet charter industry.”She asked Farage to clarify how he came about valuing the cost of the flight to the Maldives, which did not end in him reaching the Chagos Islands, as he did not have permission.Turley highlighted Electoral Commission guidelines that state: “If you receive goods or services free of charge … you must ensure these are valued at a comparable market rate … The guiding principle is that, in all cases, you should make an honest and reasonable assessment of the value of the goods or services you are receiving.”Farage and Reform did not reply to requests for comment.Previously, the Reform UK leader has described the visit as a “humanitarian mission”, saying he undertook the trip to highlight the plight of the Chagossians, whose families were removed from the islands in the 1960s and are seeking to return.
He also opposes the UK government’s decision to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius to comply with international law while continuing to lease the base from them.As well as being linked to the plane that flew Farage to the Maldives, Harborne is linked to another plane that flew another group of Chagossian campaigners to Sri Lanka before they set out for the archipelago by boat.The Thailand-based cryptocurrency and aviation investor has previously not replied to requests for comment about whether he owns the planes that facilitated the trip.
Starmer calls on Reform to sack Simon Dudley after ‘everyone dies’ Grenfell comments
Keir Starmer has called on Nigel Farage to sack Reform’s new housing spokesperson after he described the Grenfell Tower fire as a “tragedy” but added that “everyone dies in the end”.Simon Dudley, a former head of Homes England, announced in February that he was joining Reform, as Nigel Farage said he was planning to bring more “experts” onboard to advise the party.However, the new Reform housing spokesperson was embroiled in controversy overnight after he gave an interview to Inside Housing magazine in which he described building safety regulations introduced after the 2017 Grenfell tragedy as “regulation which is not working”.“That was a tragedy. It was a failure,” Dudley was quoted as saying, when asked if the fire was a warning
Starmer calls for ‘ambitious’ new UK-EU ties as Trump threatens to quit Nato
The UK will seek an even deeper partnership with the EU because of the instability wreaked by Donald Trump’s war with Iran, Keir Starmer has said, adding that the moment called for a more ambitious deal with Brussels to strengthen trade and defence.His comments came as the US president again said he was considering pulling the US out of Nato, which he described as a “paper tiger”. Trump has frequently lambasted the UK and European nations for failing to support the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and criticised their militaries.In another barb at the prime minister, Trump told the Daily Telegraph he believed King Charles would have backed his strikes on Iran. The king is scheduled to visit the US later this month, and will address Congress on 28 April
Energy crisis: why ‘keep calm but cut down’ may be a better message for Labour
Labour ministers asked in recent days about the looming energy crisis sparked by the Iran war, including Keir Starmer himself, have essentially stuck to that reassuring wartime slogan: keep calm and carry on.“I think people should go about their lives as normal, knowing that the government is taking action to bring energy bills down,” James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.But there are growing fears the government’s “don’t panic” messaging may be underplaying the scale of the challenges ahead and crowding out sensible advice on cutting consumption.“It’s the wrong message,” says Andrew Sissons, the director of the climate programme at the research foundation Nesta, referring to the government’s communications on the war’s impact. “The reality is that the global supply of oil and gas is going to be down by maybe 20%
Opaque party funding affects all of British politics | Letters
While I agree with much of Polly Toynbee’s opinion piece (How will we know Labour is really cleaning up party funding? When Reform and the Tories fight like hell to stop it, 26 March), I was left a little concerned about the tone, which seemingly presented this as uniquely a Tory/Reform UK matter.Dirty money (or just opaque funding) in British politics is not really such a sectarian issue. The proposals would appear to do nothing to prevent a party from accepting, for example, £4m from a hedge fund in the run-up to an election, and not declaring it until afterwards (Labour/Quadrature). Nor would they prevent a party engaging a thinktank that had itself accepted £200m from a rightwing American tech oligarch, bringing them into government, and installing staff in the heart of the policymaking process (Labour/Tony Blair Institute/Larry Ellison of Oracle).But it was heartening to see Toynbee begin to address the way that disparities in funding distort the democratic process
Starmer pledges to tackle new cost of living crisis at May elections campaign launch
The 7 May elections are taking place against a backdrop of “war on two fronts”, Keir Starmer has said, as he pledged action to tackle the resurgent cost of living crisis.Launching Labour’s English local elections campaign in Wolverhampton on Monday, the prime minister said: “We’re facing a war on two fronts – the Ukraine war, now four and a bit years in … and now the Iran war, which I know is causing huge concern.“People look at their screens and they’re worried when they see explosions, infrastructure blown up, the rhetoric that goes with it, worried about whether this is going to escalate even further.”Labour is braced for heavy losses in English council votes on 7 May, in particular in the north-east and London, amid challenges from Reform UK on the right and the Green party on the left. The contests are seen as a major test for Starmer’s premiership
MPs wary of move against Starmer while war is raging
A week after Labour’s election victory in July 2024, officials at Labour HQ held their first crisis meeting about the May 2026 local elections.The party had just secured a 174-seat majority and already strategists were predicting it would be very tough, though none were assuming the prime minister’s own position would be vulnerable.Now, according to multiple officials, it will be nothing short of a “bloodbath” – though it is an open question whether the parliamentary Labour party will use it to depose Keir Starmer.One Starmer ally said it would be impossible to spin the results. “There’s no point us doing expectation management, as the results are going to be terrible anyway,” they said
Smiley Face: finally, a stoner comedy for the girls who get overstimulated at the supermarket
‘After one gig, someone stole my car with my dole money in it’: Morcheeba on how they made The Sea
Jayson Gillham announces tour with Palestinian-Jordanian musician ahead of MSO court case
The Guide #236: Is celebrity casting a cynical marketing stunt or does it help to democratise theatre?
Jimmy Kimmel on Mike Johnson’s new award for Trump: ‘You can almost feel his spine exiting his body’
Seth Meyers on Donald Trump’s ‘present’ from Iran: ‘Is the president getting catfished?’