Farage delivers energy sermon at the pump – just don’t mention the war

Let’s try to look on the bright side. At least Nigel Farage wasn’t personally out of pocket. There again, he seldom is. The whole point of being Nige is to never pay for anything if you can help it. Unless you fancy buying a few shares in Kwasi Kwarteng’s “get rich quick” crypto scheme

Lammy defends jury reforms against claims they will worsen racial bias in legal system – as it happened

As we have already mentioned in the blog, MPs will debate and vote on the principles of the proposals in the Courts and Tribunals Bill during its second reading today, with the legislation facing a significant backbench rebellion in the Commons.The justice secretary, David Lammy, has been defending the plans to cut the number of jury trials in England and Wales after intense criticism from legal professionals who argue they erode constitutional principles. Critics also say the plans risk worsening racial bias within the criminal justice system and won’t be that effective at clearing the backlog.Defending his proposed changes, Lammy said:double quotation markThe status quo of the broken system does produce injustice, and the burden of that delay is not evenly shared.Black people are 14% more likely to be victims of crime

Nigel Farage accused of U-turn as he says UK should keep out of Iran war

Nigel Farage has been accused of making a U-turn after he said Britain should not get involved in Donald Trump’s war with Iran.His comments on Tuesday contrasted with his previous assertion that the “gloves need to come off” when dealing with Iran.Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, said: “Reform wanted the UK to go to war in Iran and are now trying to cover up the consequences for British families, including higher fuel prices.”While Farage has insisted he does not heed public opinion, a YouGov poll showed Reform’s 2024 voters are split, with nearly a quarter (24%) wanting the UK to actively join the attack on Iran and 63% supporting either a retaliatory or defensive position.The conflict has exposed existing fault lines among senior Reform figures over foreign policy and the extent to which the UK should take a more isolationist “Britain First” position – an echo of splits in Trump’s own conservative base in the US

Ministers to ask 100 UK citizens to advise on digital ID plans

Ministers will ask 100 people randomly selected from across Britain to feed into the government’s consultation on digital IDs as the government hopes to combat conspiracy theories about how it intends to use the technology.Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, will announce the details of the consultation on Tuesday, amid scepticism from parts of the public and within the government about the idea.As part of the consultation, ministers will announce a “citizens’ assembly” of people to feed in their views in an effort to hear the concerns of non-experts.Jones is also facing resistance from some of his own colleagues, with the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, understood to have ruled out using the technology to help allocate special educational needs funding.Jones said: “Public trust in the state has been declining for years, whoever has been in power – and people too often feel shut out of decisions

So Badenoch, Farage and Blair think the Iran war is a great idea? Hmm … | John Crace

There have been any number of opportunities for people to decide they wanted no part of America’s war with Iran. The first was after the US had launched its first wave of strikes. To be fair, this was the moment Keir Starmer and most of the UK reckoned enough was enough and that our involvement would be limited to defensive strikes only.You couldn’t really fault the logic. Did the UK really want to be part of a war that was illegal in most versions of international law and for which the Americans had no clear vision of how it might end? Other than Donald Trump gets bored and lets everyone else clear up his mess

Ministers must act more quickly on deepfakes to protect women and girls, Kendall says

Ministers need to act more quickly to combat fast-changing threats from technology such as deepfakes, the technology secretary has said, as she warned about the risks women and girls face online.Liz Kendall said on Monday that technology was developing at such a pace that it was outstripping the government’s ability to regulate it, even suggesting there could be regular annual reviews of regulations as happens at the budget.The technology secretary was speaking to the Guardian after hosting a roundtable with tech companies including Meta, Snapchat, Reddit, Match Group, Google, TikTok and OnlyFans, during which she urged them to do more to tackle online misogyny.She said: “It took eight years for [the Online Safety] Act to come in, and the technology has developed so rapidly it hasn’t kept pace. Every year MPs have a finance bill to deal with the budget