Summary of the day …
Thank you for reading the blog today, which I am just about to wrap up. Here are the headlines …
Without specifically naming any one person, Post Office minister has said Kevin Hollinrake has said people responsible for the Horizon scandal “should go to jail” in an interview on BBC Breakfast. He claimed he has instructed government officials to “just settle” compensation cases where “it looks right”
No 10 has told MPs to be cautious about unsolicited messages after an attempted “honeytrap” scam appears to have targeted a dozen MPs
Keir Starmer has said “nobody is interested” in Angela Rayner’s tax affairs, as the Daily Mail continued to try to apply pressure about her domestic arrangements a decade ago
Downing Street has responded to a report that the Foreign Office has an identity that is “somewhat elitist and rooted in the past” by saying that Rishi Sunak does not think it is, and that it should not remove colonial-era artworks from display in its premises
Reform UK says it published it candidates list early so media could help vet it. Several have been stood down, and leader Richard Tice warned activists not to drink and then post on social media
An episode of shadow foreign secretary David Lammy’s LBC programme is being investigated by Ofcom
A review into the Ofsted’s response to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry will begin this month, led by a former Ofsted chief inspector
Gordon Brown has written for the Times criticising Sunak over his threats to leave the European court of human rights (ECHR), which Brown says “plays into Putin’s hands”
Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride has agaain refused to commit Sunak’s government to paying compensation to the Waspi women campaigners over changes to their state pension
That’s a wrap from me, Martin Belam. Assuming the solar eclipse doesn’t whisk us all up into the rapture, I will see you tomorrow. You can follow the eclipse live here by the way, the photos should be great, and you might even be able to see a partial one from bits of the UK – Robyn Vinter has our guide to that.
Our political correspondent Aletha Adu has this report for us on Richard Tice saying that Reform UK had released its candidate list early in order to aid scrutiny, in which he said “Every party has their fair share frankly of muppets and morons. You’ve seen it with sexual weirdos in the Tory party, you’ve seen it with antisemitism in the Labour party and George Galloway’s party. So I say yes we’ll get rid of anybody with inappropriate behaviour.”
He also suggested Reform UK were going to use AI to monitor candidate’s behaviour in real-time, and that his party made “the fastest decisions when someone does or says or writes something completely inappropriate”.
Read more here: Reform UK says it published candidates list early so media could help vet it
