Billionaire Tory donor gives £200,000 to Reform UK

The company owned by the billionaire Conservative donor Lord Bamford has donated £200,000 to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.The JCB chair, who has given millions of pounds to the Tories and bankrolled Boris Johnson’s wedding celebrations, disclosed the donation at the weekend, alongside one of equal size to the Conservatives.The Staffordshire-based heavy machinery manufacturer said it had donated to the Tories and Reform because it wanted to support parties that “believe in small business”.JCB is the world’s third-largest construction equipment company, with 22 plants on four continents, employing 19,000 people worldwide. Its sales turnover in 2024 was £5

Lady Howells of St Davids obituary

Like so many thousands of other young people of her generation, Rosalind Howells, who has died aged 94, left the Caribbean in 1951 with her head and heart filled with plans and dreams and intent upon her own hopes of a future possible professional career as a lawyer in Britain. Having arrived in London and recognised the grim everyday realities of inequality and discrimination that faced black people, she dedicated the rest of her life to doing something about it.She spent nearly half a century in south London working to improve the housing, education, health services and lifestyle of her community and then, on official “retirement”, went to the House of Lords in 1999. Tthe next 20 years she spent expounding her demands for equality to a wider audience, at Westminster and on international platforms in China, the Middle East and the US, seeking still to transform society and open the doors for others.She was not interested in rhetoric without reality, even less in tokenism

Can Nigel Farage emulate success enjoyed by Italy’s far-right Giorgia Meloni?

Reform’s leader may hope to tread a similar path to Italy’s prime minister, but she is an experienced parliamentarian open to collaboration and compromiseOne of the more striking images from June’s G7 summit showed a small group of world leaders engaged in an impromptu and informal evening chat at the venue’s restaurant. In the foreground of that photo was a familiar blond head: Giorgia Meloni.During her three years as the Italian prime minister, Meloni has moved beyond her hard-right populism, not to mention her fascism-adjacent origins, to earn at least the respect of other leaders – Keir Starmer among them – for her pragmatism and flexibility. Among those watching this transformation from the sidelines will be the man hoping to be Starmer’s replacement: Nigel Farage.If campaigning is, as the political truism goes, conducted in poetry while government is prose, this is doubly so for insurgents and outsiders, whose careers are built on promising rapid and straightforward solutions to seemingly intractable national troubles

King Charles and senior politicians lead UK Remembrance Sunday service at Cenotaph – as it happened

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, and other senior politicians have laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in central London to honour the service and sacrifice of those who lost their lives in conflict.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, home secretary Shabana Mahmood and Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle were among the other political figures who laid floral tributes during the Remembrance Sunday service.King Charles led a two-minute silence at the Cenotaph in central London as senior royals and senior politicians, including the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the leader of the Conservative party Kemi Badenoch, gathered for the national memorial service on Remembrance Sunday.The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, vowed that Labour is going to “grip” the prison crisis as the government continues to come under pressure after a number of high-profile cases of prisoners being wrongly released. Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips this morning, Nandy confirmed that four wrongly released prisoners are still at large

AI-powered nimbyism could grind UK planning system to a halt, experts warn

The government’s plan to use artificial intelligence to accelerate planning for new homes may be about to hit an unexpected roadblock: AI-powered nimbyism.A new service called Objector is offering “policy-backed objections in minutes” to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes.It uses generative AI to scan planning applications and check for grounds for objection, ranking these as “high”, “medium” or “low” impact. It then automatically creates objection letters, AI-written speeches to deliver to the planning committees, and even AI-generated videos to “influence councillors”.Kent residents Hannah and Paul George designed the system after estimating they spent hundreds of hours attempting to navigate the planning process when they opposed plans to convert a building near their home into a mosque

Developers met ministers dozens of times over planning bill while ecologists were shut out

The scale of lobbying of ministers by developers on Labour’s landmark planning changes, which seek to rip up environmental rules to boost growth, can be exposed as campaigners make last-ditch attempts to secure protections for nature.The government published its planning and infrastructure bill in March. Before and after the bill’s publication the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and housing minister Matthew Pennycook have met dozens of developers in numerous meetings. The body representing professional ecologists, meanwhile, has not met one minister despite requests to do so.The government’s planning bill will reach its final stages before it is given royal assent in the coming days, after months of tussling between ministers, nature groups and ecologists