Q&A: Will Farage tolerate other high-profile leaders in Reform UK?
This is from Sonet66.
Q: Q&A Andrew, to what extent do you think Farage will tolerate other would-be ‘leaders’ within Reform, given the number of ‘personalities’ who have been defecting in that direction?
Nigel Farage has a long history of falling out with political colleagues who have challenged him in public, or threatened his popularity. I think that will continue, and I would expect at least one of the high-profile Tories who have joined recently to have fallen out with him by the time of the next election.
That said, Farage does seem to be taking the prospect of being PM quite seriously, and he must realise that you can’t run a government without a bit more delegation than he allowed when he was leader of Ukip. He talks a lot now about wanting to show that Reform UK is not a one-man band. (He did it again today – see 11.24am.) That does not mean his temperament will change. But it does seem likely that he is learning to become a bit more accommodating of his colleagues.
Q&A: What impact do Guardian lawyers have on what gets covered in the blog?
This is from adogsatonmypizza.
Q: Dear Andrew - How much dancing with The Guardian’s legal department do you have to do? Both yourself and regarding comments? Does it impact your output and does it ever frustrate you?
Getting copy approved by lawywers takes time, and that does not really work if you are writing a minute-by-minute live blog. And so, if a subject is legally contentious, I tend to avoid it and restrict myself to posting links to articles by colleagues on the topic that have been legalled.
And, on comments, we do turn them off if we think there is a risk of people posting material that might get us into trouble with libel or contempt laws. I don’t like having comments turned off but understand why it has to happen.
Q&A: Do government policies help people?
This is from Perspectiverox.
Q: Hi Andrew, my question is - are the UK government’s current policies genuinely helping citizens, or are they leaving many behind?
Some do, some don’t.
Trying to answer that question involves asking what they trying to do, whether they are achieving what they are trying to do, whether they or someone else is to blame if they’re not, and what else they should be doing?
These sorts of issues are being thrashed – in my blog and elsewhere – every day.
The answers are not simple. But that’s why politics is interesting.
Q&A: Does AI help with factchecking?
It’s time to speed things up.
This is from Brumbaer.
Q:Accepting that Farage is a good seller of snake oil, and the G does some job of countering those claims, what about the Greens’ policies? And Lib Dems? Badenoch does a pretty good job of destroying credibility on her own. At least the G explains the lack of realism behind some Labour/government claims.
Also, in this digital age with AI, how easy is factchecking?
I’ll just address the AI bit. And the short answer is – no.
I occasionally use AI for research, rather than Google, but not very often. And it does not help much with factchecking because you have to factcheck AI.
Also, increasingly Google is AI – which can be a problem.
The other day I used it to try to find out how tall Kemi Badenoch is (because she had said she would tackle a shoplifter herself, but not a big one). The Google AI told me she is 6ft.
She isn’t. She’s 5ft 4in.
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Q&A: What stories would you have covered differently?
This is from Mattipus.
Q: Hi @andrew, thanks for doing the Q&A. I wanted to ask, looking back over your time overseeing the Guardian politics liveblog, are there any stories you wish you could have covered differently, or that you regret the Guardian could not cover?
Being slow to realise that Labour might elect Jeremy Corbyn a leader is what comes to mind most. Admittedly, everyone else in mainstream political journalism was in the same boat. However, that does not really minimise the failure. I still blush remembering a hustings right at the start of the campaign where I focused on the division between Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper on some arcane bit of policy, not realising that it was Corbyn’s broad-brush idealism that was going to win over the party. Ever since, I have always tried to make sure that a) supposedly dissident views get a proper hearing, and b) no outcome is viewed as too imposssible to actually happen.
Q&A: Is being an MP a hard job, and are they up to it?
This is from Pazoozoo.
Q: You don’t have to look at BTL for long to conclude that an awful lot of people think they know better than politicians - but my application of Occam’s razor would be that a person paid well to do a job, who thinks about that job full time, knows more about it than me.
So who’s right: are MPs generally very bright, hard working people, or are they other reasons they get the top jobs?
Related question, is being an MP a hard job? In some ways it seems really hard, but then not many want to step down, even well well beyond retirement age, they must like it if that’s the case.
There are various threads in this question worth addressing separately.
First, you seem to assume that, if a job is hard, people won’t want to do it. That’s a category error. It is a hard job (at least, if you are doing it properly). But there are lots of people who want to become MPs, because often jobs that are particularly hard also tend to be particularly rewarding.
Are MPs generally bright and hard-working? Not always, but generally yes. It is hard to get elected without a fair amount of talent and a considerable amount of dedication (although some people slip through without much evidence of either).
Could they do a better job? A lot of that depends on how you view the job. That is not easy, because there is no job description.
If you view the job as being about effective legislating, or effective governing, then intelligence, experience, judgment etc are crucial.
But MPs are also there to represent their electors, and my late colleague Simon Hoggart was fond of telling a story about …
[At this point I turned to Google, and realised I could let Simon tell this story himself.]
An old mining MP called Bill Stone, who used to sit in the corner of the Strangers’ Bar drinking pints of Federation ale to dull the pain of his pneumoconiosis. He was eavesdropping on a conversation at the bar, where someone said exasperatedly about the Commons: “The trouble with this place is, it’s full of cunts!”
Bill put down his pint, wiped the foam from his lip and said: “They’s plenty of cunts in country, and they deserve some representation.” (To get the full effect, say it aloud in a broad northern accent.) As a description of parliamentary democracy, that strikes me as unbeatable.
If you take the Bill Stone view of parliamentary democracy, then intelligence, experience and judgment don’t matter so much.
Readers can make their own minds up about who the Bill Stones of this world will be voting for at the next election.
If you want a longer discussion about what qualities are needed by MPs, I do recommend Isabel Hardman’s five-part (15 minutes each) Radio 4 series What Do Our Politicians Need to Know Now?, which was on last week.
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Q&A: Has my faith in politics declined?
This is from Jasper9220.
Q: Hi Andrew, by coincidence I recently read an “Ask Me Anything” you took part in on a Reddit forum some years ago. Of course, in that time a lot has changed but has your passion for political reporting ever wavered, or your faith in the political/media establishments more broadly?
I’m lucky enough to do a job I enjoy, and my enthusiasm and passion for political reporting has not changed.
But as for my faith in the political/media establishment?
I still think most people who go into politics are motivated by good intentions, and for all its faults the way Britain does politics is a lot better than the way it is conducted in many other parts of the world.
However, I do believe that around 10 years ago it all started to go a bit mad. Partly that may have been the financial crash, austerity, declining standards, and a sense that the system no longer delivers for working people, but a lot of it was social media, online hate and shorter attention spans. There seems to be more (even more?) anger and dishonesty in politics than there was. That is not good.
And my faith in the classic liberal defence of journalism (see 3.03pm) – give people the truth, and they will take good decisions – has taken a bit of knock, what with Brexit, Trump etc.
Still, there’s always hope.
Q&A: Is Labour's drift to the right to blame for its collapse in the polls?
Here is a question about Labour.
This is from SOWhat.
To what extent do you think Labour and Starmer’s poor poll ratings are directly attributable to the actual or perceived drift to the right of Labour since the last election?
I think the main problem is that Labour came in promising change, people wanted change, and yet it feels like change has not happened.
Partly that it because Labour came into office having ruled out using any of the main levers available to raise revenue from tax. Rachel Reeves has raised tax, by a lot, but she would have a lot more scope to act if she had not ruled out raising income tax, national insurance or VAT. In that sense Labour is held back by a drift to the right before the general election.
Labour is still being hurt in some seats by its stance on Gaza, another area where the move to the right happened before the election. I was struck reading comments BTL this week to see some people still talking about Keir Starmer’s LBC interview when he (inadvertently, he later said) seemed to defend Israel cutting off Gaza’s water supply.
But the drift to the right before the general election (from 2020 to 2024) also coincided with a huge rise in Labour support.
Since the election, Labour has sounded more rightwing on immigration and public protest than it did before 2024. And I think this definitely has cost the party support, especially since Zack Polanski turned the Greens into a more compelling, leftwing proposition.
But I don’t think that is the whole story of why Keir Starmer is now so unpopular.
Updated
Q&A: Will Reform UK continue to see its support go down, and will election of lots of Reform-led councils have impact?
Here are two related questions.
This is from dianab.
Q: Is Reform likely to recover from current dip in the polls by such policies as guaranteeing triple lock and sacking a spokesperson? (apparently for inappropriate comment but might be hidden reason given their record on appalling statements)
And this is from RichienotsoRich.
Q: With the polls indicating huge gains for Reform after May 7, might this be a gift to Labour come 2029? Reform led councils might (at best) be unable to deliver promises and (at worse) prove how dysfunctional they are at governing.
Individual announcements by any party tend to have no visible impact on polling, and so getting rid of Simon Dudley, or committing to the pension triple lock, won’t make any real difference on their own.
It is definitely the case the Reform UK’s support has plateaued and gone down a bit. The pollster Peter Kellner showed that clearly in a recent Substack post. Explaining why, he said:
Why has Reform slipped? Farage’s personal ratings are also down – but his fortunes simply track his party’s: they do not help us determine cause and effect. For those of us old enough, a trip 45 years down memory lane gives us a clue to what is happening. In 1981, the newly formed Social Democratic Party, formed by MPs breaking away from Labour, surged ahead in the polls. But the same polls also showed that many of its supporters neither knew what the SDP stood for or supported its signature policies. Over time, its aims became better known, and voters started to drift away.
Something similar may be happening to Reform. At its peak, its support came from two distinct groups – devotees who supported Farage’s distinctive nationalism, not just on immigration but on issues such as climate change. They were the great majority of the 15 per cent who voted Reform at the last general election and have stayed loyal. The second group, who lifted the party’s total above 30 per cent last year, look like a cross-section of the electorate, united by their feelings of insecurity and their hostility to both Labour and the Conservatives, but not by shared opinions, other than on immigration.
As Reform’s agenda has become better known, and more voters become aware of its stumbles in running the counties it captured last May, it has lost a chunk of last year’s shallow converts.
In a recent article for the New Statesman, Ben Walker develops a variant of this theory; he says there is evidence that Reform UK is losing votes to the Greens.
Will the decline continue? Not necessarily, but there are at least two factors that pose a potential threat. By the time of the next election, it is likely that Donald Trump will be even more reviled by the British electorate than he is already, and that won’t help Reform. Also, Reform is unusual for a political party in having its popularity almost entirely tied up with the charisma of a single politician. Farage is not that old, and seems pretty robust and healthy, but if for any reason they were to lose him as a leader, they would be in trouble.
As to the impact on their long-term fortunes of the local elections, and their probably victory in many councils, it is almost certain that this will produce a rich crop of ‘Reform council in chaos’ stories of the kind we have already seen (particularly in the Guardian).
But it would be a mistake to assume that this will do them much damage nationally. How many people follow council politics carefully? In reality, having a strong base in local government will probably help the party a lot, because it is much easier to win parliamentary seats in areas where you are organised and well represented on the council. Just ask the Liberal Democrats, who have been doing this for years.
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Q&A: When will the Guardian 'come off the fence' with Reform UK?
For the rest of the day I will be mostly/wholly focused on responding to questions for the Q&A, and I will start with this one – because it related to the topic raised with me most often BTL.
This is from MEGAHEAD2.
Does the Guardian editorial department have a general approach to the increasing extreme right wing views that it reports on politics live? It often seems that the ‘balance’ in the reporting is muted, and not, imo, sufficiently robust. The kind of political talk/policy/views being aired by populist (and more established) right wing parties is absolutely fascistic in some of the themes and aims. At what point does the Guardian decide that it needs to come off the fence?
First, I’d say I don’t think the Guardian is on the fence re Reform UK. We have been a newspaper for a very long time, and now we are a global digital news organisation too, and – as newspapers have been doing for centuries – we develope a collective view that we express in editorials. If you read them, they are very clear; the Guardian is not neutral about Reform UK. We appalled by much of what they say and do.
But what I think you are asking is, why is there so much Reform UK coverage? And, if it has to be there, why is it not harsher and more critical?
On the first point, you talk about extreme rightwing views being reported here increasingly. But that is a reflection of the way the world has changed. Donald Trump is president of the US. There are far-right parties at or near the top of the polls all over Europe. Even in what used to be the party of the mainstream right in the UK (the Conservative party), views are being expressed that would have been regarded as extreme and unacceptable just a decade ago.
So how do we respond? Some readers tell me we should just ignore Reform UK because writing about them gives them publicity, and helps them. But if the Guardian were just to ignore them, that would make no difference at all to their political progress, and readers would just be less informed.
Other readers tell me they want the Guardian to be more aggressive, as if everything we publish should be intended to bring them down. Some “news” organisations function like this – essentially as propaganda vehicles. But that is not the sort of reporting or journalism we do. We are not a mouthpiece for a political campaign. We do campaign on particular issues, and we are committed to liberal progressive values, but we are committed to reporting the world as it is. We think that quality journalism is a public good, and that if people get reliable, accurate about what it happening in the world, they will make better choices.
(This does not always work; I will post more on this in reponse to another question later.)
What is, though, essential is to challenge and contest false claims made by politicians. This applies across the board, but it is particularly important with populists like Reform UK because they are particularly cavalier with the truth.
Do we do enough of this? Across the board, I think yes, absolutely, the Guardian has a very good record – particularly challenging Reform. Look at our reporting about Nigel Farage’s alleged racism at Dulwich college, or his Cameo activities.
Within a blog, it is slightly harder. I write thousands of words a day quoting politicians (not least because I think it is important to get things on the record, in a place where they can be searched and referenced later). Does every dodgy Reform UK claim get challenged? Probably not, because I don’t have the time to factcheck every sentence. But the significant ones definitely do.
And news does not exist in a vacuum. I write this blog on the assumption that, if you are reading this bit of the Guardian, you will probably be reading others too. And I think if you do that you will accept our coverage is, to use your phrase, “sufficiently robust”.
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Reform donor Nick Candy sells Chelsea mansion for reported £275m
Nick Candy, the honorary treasurer of Reform UK and a major donor, has sold his mansion in the Chelsea district of London for a reported £275m, Rowena Mason reports.
Badenoch says Dudley's Grenfell comment shows why Tories better off without their 'problematic' Reform UK defectors
Simon Dudley was a Conservative before he defected to Reform UK. Commenting on his sacking today, Kemi Badenoch said the controversy about his Grenfell Tower comment showed why were party was better off without some of the people who have gone over to Nigel Farage.
Describing Dudley’s remark about the Grenfell Tower tragedy as “disgraceful”, she said:
I said at the beginning of this year that Nigel Farage was doing my spring cleaning, a lot of these people who have gone to Reform are problematic people.
All of these defectors, they are his problem now. They are flip-flopping all over the place on all sorts of policies. I think people can see that the Conservative party is the only serious party …
Dealing with issues like Grenfell requires a composure and a professionalism that is simply lacking with Reform. All we’re seeing from them seeing them is chaos.
Updated
Scottish Greens claim they are on verge of historic breakthrough in Holyrood election
The Scottish Greens are standing on the verge of an “historic result” in the forthcoming Holyrood election, the co-leader of the party has said. The Press Association reports:
Speaking at the launch of the party’s campaign in Edinburgh this morning, Gillian Mackay said “bold solutions” are needed to tackle problems like the rising cost of living and climate change.
She said her party’s policies will help deliver a “fairer, kinder and more equal Scotland”, which “works for everyone and where everyone is given a fair chance to live a better life”.
These include, she said: a fair wage for care workers; a national rollout of mental health support centres; curbs on how much land any individual or company can buy; and “the biggest expansion of free childcare for a generation”.
“There are more than 10,150 of us, to be exact, with more people joining us every day from all parts of our country,” she said.
“In every community across Scotland, there are people who are planning to vote Green for the very first time.
“That is why we stand on the verge of what could be a historic result and a major breakthrough for our movement.”
She added: “If you want a fairer, greener and better Scotland, if you want green policies that will save you money and tackle the climate emergency, if you want to keep Reform’s politics of hate out of Scotland’s parliament, then you have to vote for it,” she said.
Updated
Labour responds to Dudley's sacking by saying Farage should apologise for appointing him in first place
Here is some reaction from other parties to the decision by Reform UK to sack their housing spokesperson, Simon Dudley, over his Grenfell Tower comment.
For Labour, Steve Reed, the housing secretary, said Nigel Farage should apologise for appointing Dudley in the first place. Reed says:
Simon Dudley’s disgusting comments about those who died in Grenfell Tower show what a shameful failure of judgment it was for him to have been appointed as Reform’s housing spokesperson. Reform’s first instinct was to defend him, not sack him, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into finally doing the right thing. Nigel Farage should apologise to the victims’ families for putting Dudley in such a senior position in the first place.
One rule of politics is that, if you can no longer call for someone to be sacked because they have been sacked, you can always say it should have happened earlier. But “dragged kicking and screaming” is not really very accurate. Most people at Westminster were unaware of what Dudley had said until the i published a story about his interview at 6.45pm last night. By 11am today Dudley was gone. That is a relatively swift response to a controversy of this kind.
For the Conservatives, Kevin Hollinrake, the party chair, says this shows a Reform UK goverment would be chaotic. He says:
Simon Dudley’s comments were shocking and ill-informed. It was right he was sacked.
But this episode shows exactly why Reform isn’t fit to govern. Farage runs a one-man band where policy and personnel decisions are made on the hoof. That’s chaotic. As their shambolic councils already show a Reform government would be no different.
And the Greens are calling for an assurance that Reform UK will not water down safety regulations. The Green MP Siân Berry says:
It is absolutely right that Simon Dudley has been sacked following his truly disgusting comments on Grenfell.
It was deregulation and the cutting of red tape that was ultimately responsible for the 72 deaths at Grenfell, so it is beyond alarming that Reform wants to drag us back to that.
Nigel Farage should heed the outrage and pledge his party will not water down the key building safety regulations that are still needed in high-rises across the country.
At his press conference this morning, Farage broadly backed the point that Dudley was making in his Inside Housing interview about regulation. (See 11.50am.)
And this is what a Reform UK spokesperson told the i when asked about Dudley’s original comments.
Homes must, of course, be built safely. However, overly burdensome building safety regulations can stifle housebuilding, meaning targets are missed, and the waiting list for homes grows longer at a time when we need more.
Simon’s comments on Grenfell reflected his broader point that the regulatory pendulum has swung too far in response to the tragedy. As he explained, there is a fine balance between over-regulation – which can slow the delivery of new homes – and ensuring that more homes are built safely without too much red tape.
Reform UK's plan to get rid of public sector final salary pensions 'economically incoherent', union says
Prospect, a union representing public sector workers, has dismised Reform UK’s plan to get rid of final salary pensions in the public sector as “economically incoherent”.
Mike Clancy, the union’s general secretary, said:
Reform’s plan for public sector pension is economically incoherent and would end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come, blowing a gaping hole in all of their spending promises, and casting doubt on their ability to honour their pledge on the triple lock.
Public servants are not punchbags for Reform politicians, and their pension pots are not piggybanks that can be raided. This is yet another example of Reform’s war on working people, with people’s pensions and rights at work at risk from their anti-worker policy agenda.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has been clear that public sector pensions are not a risk to our fiscal sustainability, the real risk would be a Reform government with no understanding of how the public finances work.
In a briefing note explaing why it thinks the plan is flawed, the union says:
Public sector DB [defined benefit – also known as final salary] schemes are unfunded. That means today’s contributions pay for today’s pensions. The full cost of paying for current pensions is carried on the Treasury’s balance sheet. Even if a new DC [definned contribution – also known as money purchase] scheme is introduced those payments will be made.
Member contributions as well as employer contributions to public sector DB schemes go straight into the Treasury pot and register on the balance sheet. Moving to DC would mean a loss to the Treasury of all those member contributions.
Under a DC scheme, payments today pay for the pension which will be ultimately drawn in future. These payments must also be costed by the OBR. So the public finances would be paying for all of: DB pension payouts, DB member contributions, DC employer contributions.
This represents an additional cost to the public finances of: Current DB member contributions plus DC employer contributions.
The union also estimates that, if 20% of public sector workers were to transition from DC to DB, that would leave a fiscal hole of between £4.4bn and £6.4bn by the end of the first term of a Reform government.
Yvette Cooper says closure of strait of Hormuz 'hitting global economic security' as she chairs virtual international meeting
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has been chairing the online meeting of countries interested in exploring ways of reopening the strait of Hormuz. The US is not participating.
As Sky News reports, in her opening remarks Cooper said the ongoing closure of the strait was “hitting our global economic security”.
She said:
In today’s meeting we are focusing on the diplomatic and international planning measures, including collective mobilisation of our full range of diplomatic and economic tools and pressures, reassurance work with industry, insurers and energy markets, and also action to guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and effective coordination that we need across the world to enable a safe and sustained opening of the strait.
A further meeting of military planners would consider what could be done to “marshal our collective defensive military capabilities, including looking at issues such as de-mining or reassurance once the conflict eases”, she said.
Cooper went on:
We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage. This is hitting the trading routes for Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi, Oman, Iraq, but that means liquid natural gas for Asia, fertiliser for Africa, and jet fuel for the world.
That Iranian recklessness towards countries who were never involved in this conflict, which we and 130 countries across the world have strongly condemned at the United Nations, is not just hitting mortgage rates and petrol prices and the cost of living here in the UK and in many different countries across the world, it is hitting our global economic security.
Simon Dudley claims he was not 'belittling' Grenfell tragedy in comments that led to Reform UK sacking him as spokesperson
Simon Dudley posted this on social media this morning before he was sacked as the party’s housing spokesperson.
Grenfell was an utter tragedy and quite rightly prompted a wholesale review and tightening of fire regulations. I said it was a tragedy in my interview with Inside Housing and in no shape or form am I belittling that disaster or the huge loss of life. It must never happen again. I reiterate that, and am sorry if it was not sufficiently clear.
Within the last 24 hours, the Berkeley Group, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, has paused new land purchases and announced a hiring freeze. They blame ‘an unprecedented surge in costs and regulation.’ These concerns are felt across the industry. The result? The UK’s long running housing crisis is getting worse.
To address the national housing crisis, we must ensure that regulation remains safe, sensible and proportionate. My concern is the introduction of numerous measures that do nothing to protect life and are throttling housebuilding.
For the record, here is the full quote from Dudley’s interview with Jess McCabe from Inside Housing that led to his sacking. McCabe writes:
I ask, was Grenfell not an awful warning about insufficient regulation?
“That was a tragedy. It was a failure,” Mr Dudley says. But he doesn’t believe the current regulatory regime is proportionate. “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?” he says.
“Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare,” he argues. “Many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?
“Think about all the human suffering of not having a home, not being able to have children, being stuck with your parents, in your childhood bedroom,” he continues. “You can’t stop tragic things happening. You can try to minimise excesses, but bad things do happen.”
Farage claims 'cataclysmic' Labour losses in May elections likely to lead to Starmer being replaced as Labour leader
The press conference has finished.
Farage wrapped up with a comment about the local elections, saying he expected Keir Starmer to do so badly that he would be forced out by the end of May.
Farage said:
If you start to look at the West Midlands. and the north-west and the north-east and South Wales, the Valleys in particular, you are looking at parts of this country that have been Labour heartlands since the end of world war one.
And all the evidence, all the data, all the campaigning that we’re doing is we are going to diminish their base in local government and in the Welsh parliament to a very significant degree.
Farage said Labour was also facing a challenge from the Green party, and from what he described as “the strange alliance between the Islamist movement and the trans lobby – quite how that works, I’m not sure”. He said in some places the Greens were taking “some real chunks” from the Labour vote.
So you’ve got a prime minister looking down the barrel of a cataclysmic result on 7 May.
If that happens, I’d be very surprised if he’s still there at the end of May.
And I think that will begin the disintegration of this government that will lead us to having a general election next year.
Updated
Q: Will your benefit cuts affect British citizens as well as non-British citizens?
Yes, says Jenrick. He says people who choose not to work will “absolutely” be affected.
Farage says he doesn't think Trump will take US out of Nato
Farage says he does not think Donald Trump will take the US out of Nato. He says he has had many conversations with Trump about this. He says Trump has been expressing a frustration about Nato, but this is one that other US presidents have also shared. He goes on:
If Trump was to leave Nato, that would take America into an isolationist position.
Now, there are some in the Republican party who do take that view, absolutely.
But I don’t for a minute believe Trump to be one of them.
Trump wants the rest of Nato to act in concert with him.
Updated
Q: Do you agree with Trump when he says the UK does not have a navy?
Farage says his views on what Trump said are irrelevant. You could say the navy should not have to take three weeks to get a boat to Cyprus. But he says his views are irrelevant because the first sea lord thinks the navy is not ready for war.
Farage is referring to an interview highlighted by the Telegraph yesterday. In the interview Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins said:
Are we as ready as we should be? I don’t think we are. We have work to do and I am completely dedicated to the mission.
Q: Do you agree with that Simon Dudley said about safety regulations being excessive?
Farage says he is not qualified to talk about safety regulations.
He says there are two issues here.
On Grenfell, he says Dudley said something that was “rather insulting to a very large number of people”.
On regulation, he says “in general terms we tend to respond to tragedy by putting masses of regulation in place, which doesn’t necessarily stop those tragedies from ever happening again”.
Q: Would you make winter fuel payments universal again?
Jenrick says Rachel Reeves performed a U-turn on winter fuel payments. That is “the right way for it to remain”, he says.
(In her U-turn, Reeves expanded eligibility, but she did not make winter fuel payments universal.)
Updated
Q: Would you repeal some of what Keir Starmer is agreeing with the EU?
Jenrick says Starmer is “trying to use the Iran crisis … as a back door to pursue his longstanding ambition to get back into the single market, or as close to it as possible”.
He says there are some Starmer ideas he “vehemently” disagrees with, such as an open-ended youth mobility scheme.
Q: Robert Jenrick seemed suprised when you made the announcement about Simon Dudley. Shouldn’t you have told your party first?
No, says Farage. He says the decision was only taken about an hour ago.
He says it was for Richard Tice to make that announcement.
(But, actually, it was Farage who made the announcement.)
He says Dudley “clearly acted yesterday in a pretty hurtful, insulting way to an awful lot of people”.
Q: What would you have done about the Clapham riots?
Farage says the UK has decriminalised shoplifting. This is the consequence.
He says people are blaming social media platforms. But if you shut down one, another pops up.
He says we should blame those involved.
And he claims this vindicates his claim about London being lawless.
He says all low-level crime must be prosecuted. It worked in New York when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.
He says “societal breakdown” was another reason why he chose to come back to frontline politics.
Farage says the government is not telling the truth when it says that, if the UK allowed more oil and gas drilling, that would not affect the global price paid.
He says the UK buys LNG from the US. It is produced in the US, liquefied and then sent to the UK. The UK pays more than the spot price because it has to be transported. He says having domestic production would make it cheaper.
He says he returned to frontline politics partly because he thought the main parties had got their energy policy all wrong.
And he dismisses Kemi Badenoch as “copycat Kemi” because the Tories have followed Reform UK on energy policy. Earlier this week she claimed to be visiting an oil rig. But it wasn’t an oil rig. It was as decomissioning rig, he says.
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Q: [From ITV’s Harry Horton] Shouldn’t you be helping younger people, not older people?
Jenrick says younger people want their parents and grandparents to have a decent retirement.
And he claims the party would help younger people too.
Q: Is it fair that Europe has to clear up the mess caused by Donald Trump and his Iran war?
Farage claims that Keir Starmer made a “catastrophic error” not allowing Trump to use British bases like Diego Garcia at the start of the war. He then had to change his mind, Farage says, after he had upset Trump.
This did not stop Cyprus being attacked, he says.
But he says Starmer may have been right to rule out British military involvement. He says Britain does not have the resources to do this.
Farage says, in taking on defined benefit pension schemes in the public sector, Reform UK is making a brave choice.
Jenrick backs this up. He says public sector pensions, and welfare spending, are two of the biggest problems for the public finances.
He says other parties have not been willing to take on this challenge.
Q: [From the BBC’s Iain Watson] Isn’t your decision to keep the pensions triple lock a sign you have lost your nerve because you have so many elderly supporters?
Farage says Watson won’t be talking about Reform UK losing its nerve on cuts when it publishes its plan for benefits in the next two weeks. (See 11.11am.)
Farage says Simon Dudley sacked as Reform UK's housing spokesperson over 'deeply inappropriate' Grenfell comment
Farage and Jenrick are now taking questions.
Q: [From Christopher Hope from GB News] What is your reaction to the comments from Simon Dudley, your housing spokesperson. Will you sack him, as Keir Starmer is calling for? [See 8.51am and 9.12am.]
Farage says “that’s already happened”.
Dudley is no longer a party spokesperson, he says.
In response to a follow-up question, Farage says Dudley’s comments were “deeply inappropriate” and “frankly rather shocking to many people”.
Asked if he sacked him himself, Farage says Dudley worked under Richard Tice, the deputy leader and business spokesperson, and Tice dealt with it.
Farage cites this as an example of how the party is not a one-man band.
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Jenrick says Reform UK considering ending final salary pension schemes for public sector workers
Jenrick confirms that Reform UK would cut the benefits bill. He gives a series of example of areas were he things government spending could be cut back drastically.
And he announced that Reform UK is launching a review of the case for blocking new entrants to defined benefit (final salary) pensions schemes in the public sector.
He says these pensions were removed in the private sector decades ago.
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Jenrick confirms Reform UK would keep pensions triple lock
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is speaking now.
He says pensioners who have paid into the system for 30 or 40 years are genuinely worried about the future.
He says:
[Pensioners] look at the debt that successive governments have racked up. They look at Labour borrowing left, right and centre, just like the Conservatives did, and they know, they fear, something’s got to give.
They fear this government may be soon led by Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband, backed up by Zack Polanski [and it] will pull the rug from under them, will erode, chip away, at the pension that they’ve worked and paid into for their whole life. And they’re right to be worried.
Under reform it will be different. We will protect pensioners. Today I can announce that a Reform UK government will keep the triple lock for state pensions.
Under Reform and Nigel Farage, your pension will always rise each year with either inflation, average earnings or by 2.5%, whichever of those three figures is the highest.
Reform UK would impose 'biggest cuts to benefits bill ever seen in history of this country', Farage says
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is speaking at his press conference now.
He confirms the party are keeping the pensions triple lock. (See 8.51am.)
He says that, when he previously said the jury was out on this, he genuinely meant that he was undecided.
He says he decided the party should keep it because he thinks there are pensioners who need it. And he backs the principle that people who pay into the welfare system should get something out of it.
But, he says, there is another reason. He says within the next two week Reform UK will announce “the biggest cuts to the benefits bill ever seen in the history of this country”.
That means Reform UK would be able to afford to keep the pensions triple lock “many, many times over”, he says.
Grenfell United survivors and bereaved families group condemns Reform UK spokesperson's comment as 'deeply dehumanising'
Grenfell United, which represents survivors and bereaved families from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, has issued this statement about the comments from Reform UK’s housing spokesperson about the fire.
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Here is the passage from Ed Davey’s speech this morning setting out details of what the Lib Dems are calling their “emergency transport package”. (See 10.05am.)
He said:
That’s what we’re calling for today. Action. Now. To tackle the costs of Trump’s war and keep Britain moving.
And that means cutting the cost of trains and buses too. So we’re calling for a 10% cut in rail fares, saving a typical commuter in Winchester more than £50 a month.
And we’re calling for the cap on bus fares to be cut too. It used to be £2, before Labour put it up to 3. Our plan would cut it not just back to £2 but down to £1. £1 a bus ticket, wherever you need to go.
And on electric vehicles, our plan would make them cheaper to run. Starting by cutting VAT on public charging, coupled with a review to bring down unfair network costs that drivers ultimately have to pay too.
And then there’s petrol and diesel.
Especially important today, as people set off to join family and friends for the Easter weekend. 21 million trips – the busiest weekend on British roads in years.
Many families are sitting in queues at petrol stations right now, waiting to get their holidays started.
Paying more than they should to fill up for the journey …
We say the chancellor needs to go much further to keep Britain moving.
Cut fuel duty now – not by 1p, not by 5p, but by 10p per litre.
Cutting the cost of filling up a 55-litre tank by £6.60.
Giving families the help they desperately need, today.
Davey claimed that the government would be able to fund this with the extra revenue coming in as a result of higher fuel prices. But yesterday Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said that the claim she was getting a windfall as a result of higher energy prices was “for the birds”.
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Politics live Q&A
This afternoon I will be setting aside an hour or two specifically to answer questions from readers. People post questions BTL (below the line) anyway, but I don’t always have time to address them and so today we are trying a new approach, prioritising the Q&A. It means comments will be open for a bit longer than usual too.
Please post questions BTL, on any subject related to British politics. I will try to answer as many as I can, but I will be focusing on a) the ones that seem most interesting, and b) the ones where I may be able to give a decent answer.
If you include Q&A in the questions BTL, that will make it easier for us to see them, but don’t worry if you leave those out.
I will be answering the questions from about 3pm until about 5pm. Until then, I will be blogging as usual.
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Q: Do you think Starmer should use stronger language to criticise Donald Trump?
Davey says he listened to Trump’s address last night, and agrees with him on one point; Trump is not smart enough to end this war.
He says Starmer has taken some good first steps in trying to mobilise an international coalition to get the strait of Hormuz open.
But he says it is Trump who has put the special relationship “on life support”.
Q: What is your reaction to Keir Starmer yesterday proposing closer links with the EU?
Davey says he thinks Starmer has been “far too timid” on Europe, and should be proposing closer links.
Q: Do you agree with the Tories about wanting more oil and gas drilling from the North Sea?
Davey says Kemi Badenoch claims she can get an extra £2.5bn in tax revenue by allowing more exploration in the North Sea. He says she is “just lying”. He says everyone knows that that is not realistic.
He says, when he was energy secretary, he approved many North Sea licences. He says he thinks the proposal for the Jackdaw field should be allowed to go ahead.
Q: Do you want people to drive less?
Davey says the plan to cut the cap on bus fares is designed to get more people using public transport.
But he says lots of people have not other choice but to use a car.
Q: Should the king and the queen meet Epstein survivors when they go to the US?
Davey praises the king and the queen for the statement they issue a while back about the Epstein victims.
He says it is well known that he does not think the state visit should go ahead anyway.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey calls for 10p per litre cut in fuel duty to counter price rises caused by Iran war
Ed Davey is speaking now.
He starts by referring to the rise in petrol prices as the “Trump/Farage/Badenoch tax”, because Donald Trump started the Iran war and Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch “cheered” the war.
He says people need help now.
On petrol, he says the Tories and Reform UK are calling for the fuel duty increase to be abandoned. But that rise is not going to take effect until September, and so that would not help now, he says.
He says the Lib Dems are calling for fuel duty to be cut now by 10p a litre. This would save drivers £6.60 every time they fill up an average tank, he says.
He says the Lib Dems are also proposing measures to cut the costs of other forms of travel.
Rail fares should be cut by 10%, he says.
And he says the Lib Dems would reduce the cap on bus fares from £3 to £1.
He claims the Lib Dems have a plan to fund all these measures.
UPDATE: See 10.49am for more details.
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SNP's John Swinney calls for parliament to be recalled so MPs can debate energy crisis
Ed Davey must be going soft. Normally the Lib Dems are the first to call the recall of parliament. But, judging by the Lib Dem press releaese (see 9.50am), he seems to be happy to wait until the Commons returns, as scheduled, on Monday 13 April.
Instead, it is the SNP leader and Scottish first minister John Swinney who is calling for parliament to be recalled to debate the energy crisis. In a statement he says:
We are facing an unprecedented energy crisis with motorists being hammered at the petrol pumps and households facing unaffordable energy bills while the UK fovernment is doing nothing.
Labour are sleepwalking into a crisis and it will be ordinary people who pay the price.
Our European neighbours like Ireland and Spain have already taken action to protect their people from the crisis and have stepped up with billions of pounds in support. Yet the prime minister stands by like a rabbit in the headlights doing nothing.
I am calling today for the House of Commons to be recalled from its recess, so that the UK government can be forced into taking action to support people.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is about to start his press conference.
According to the party, he will “set out a package of support that he says the chancellor should include in an emergency statement to parliament as soon as it returns after Easter”.
Tories commit to fully axing carbon tax
The Conservatives have pledged to fully axe the carbon tax if they get back into power, the Press Association reports. PA says:
The party had already proposed removing the tax as it applies to electricity generation, but now say they would go further and fully scrap the carbon tax regime, the cost of which they say is burdening British industry.
But Labour said such a move would be “wrong” and “hammer” industry.
The Conservatives said they would get rid of the UK emissions trading scheme (ETS), which was brought in under the Tories in 2021 and sets a carbon limit on certain sectors, meaning they must minimise emissions or fund measures to offset them.
It currently applies to the heavy industry, power and aviation sectors and is set to extend to the maritime industry from July.
Keir Starmer has committed to linking the UK emissions trading scheme with the EU’s as part of his government’s reset with the bloc.
The Tories have said they would also scrap the carbon price support, a levy paid by fossil fuel electricity producers, as well as the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) due to come into force in January next year.
The CBAM is a carbon levy on imported goods that aims to stop UK firms being undercut by overseas manufacturers and also goes back to Tory government policy from 2023.
Such a mechanism could give industry a boost but that requires a UK carbon price, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank.
Jess Ralston, head of energy at the ECIU, said: “A well-designed, carbon border adjustment mechanism could help rejuvenate British industry, helping make it more competitive with other cheaper countries, and many businesses have been calling for one for years.
“But it’s predicated on a UK carbon price and, if we don’t have that, revenues that would have been going to Treasury will instead by transferred into EU coffers when British industry exports to the EU, our largest trading partner.
“A significant amount of UK steel is exported to the EU each year. Market-based policies like carbon pricing and CBAM have long been advocated for by thinktanks and politicians on the right of politics, so there’s a big question around what you do instead to reach net zero emissions, given that is essential to stopping climate change.”
As Ben Quinn reports in his story on the Simon Dudley controversy, the Grenfell Next of Kin group are demanding an apology. They say:
The death of our parents, partners, children, siblings grandparents and grandchildren in the most horrific circumstances was gross negligent manslaughter, NOT fate.
Dudley and Reform must apologise to the Grenfell Next of Kin families.
Here is Ben’s story.
Starmer tells Farage to sack Reform UK's housing spokesperson over 'shameful' Grenfell Tower comment
Keir Starmer has also called for Reform UK’s housing spokesperson Simon Dudley to be sacked over his Grenfell Tower comment. (See 8.51am.) The PM (or his team) has posted this on social media.
Reform UK urged to sack housing spokesperson over ‘disgraceful’ Grenfell Tower comment
Good morning. One of the big policy decisions for all parties ahead of the next election is whether or not to keep the pensions triple lock. Most mainstream economists and welfare experts think it is overly generous (pensioners used to be significantly poorer than working-age people, but that is no longer the case), and ultimately unaffordable. But it is popular, and pensioners turn out to vote in elections in much higher numbers than younger people.
The Conservatives at one point suggested they might drop it, but Kemi Badenoch now defends the triple lock quite strongly. Labour has not said what its election plans are yet. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, says he will take tough decisions to cut welfare spending, and he was thought to be sceptical about the triple lock. But Robert Jenrick, his Treasury spokesperson, is thought to be in favour, and at a press conference later they are expected to confirm Reform UK would keep it.
But they will end up taking questions about the party’s housing spokesperson, Simon Dudley, who is now facing calls to resign over a comment apparently making light of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The Press Association has the story. PA says:
Reform UK is facing calls to sack its housing spokesman after he said the Grenfell Tower fire was a “tragedy” but that “everyone dies in the end”.
Simon Dudley, a former executive at Homes England and the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, said the pendulum had “swung too far the wrong way” on regulation after the deadly blaze at the west London tower block in 2017.
The Grenfell Inquiry found that the 72 deaths were avoidable and had been preceded by “decades of failure” by governments and the building industry to act on the dangers of flammable materials on high-rise buildings.
Dudley was appointed as housing spokesman for Reform last month and the party said at the time he would lead an urgent review into “Britain’s building crisis” that would set out reforms to planning, housing delivery and national infrastructure.
In an interview with Inside Housing published yesterday, he said building safety regulations introduced after the Grenfell Tower fire were an example of “regulation which is not working”.
Dudley told the magazine the Grenfell fire was a “tragedy” but said he does not believe the regulatory regime is proportionate.
He went on to say: “Sadly, you know, everyone dies in the end. It’s just how you go, right?”
The Building Safety Regulator, which was set up after the fire and is responsible for regulating the safe design, construction and occupation of higher-risk buildings, has faced criticism for delays in its approval processes.
In June last year, the government announced reforms to tackle delays to building new high-rise homes, including a fast-track process and investment.
Dudley added: “Extracting Grenfell from the statistics, actually people dying in house fires is rare… many, many more people die on the roads driving cars, but we’re not making cars illegal, so why are we stopping houses being built?”
He argued that “You can’t stop tragic things happening. You can try to minimise excesses, but bad things do happen.”
The effect of poor regulation, he said, is that it stops houses being built.
“So the pendulum has just swung too far the wrong way,” he said.
Responding to the interview for Labour, Steve Reed, the housing secretary, said:
If Nigel Farage has an ounce of decency, he will sack his housing chief immediately.
These disgraceful comments about those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire are beyond the pale and it is completely untenable for Simon Dudley to continue in his position.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.45am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, holds a press conference, where he will call for tax cuts as a response to rising energy prices caused by the Iran war.
10am: The Scottish Green party launch their Holyrood election campaign.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Robert Jenrick, his Treasury spokesperson, hold a press conference.
Late morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in Redcar and Sunderland.
Lunchtime: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, hosts a virtual meeting of foreign ministers from the 35 countries interested exploring ways to get the strait of Hormuz open.
12.15pm: Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, sets out plans to improve Scottish education.
3.30pm: Scottish political party leaders take part in an elections hustings.
Today we are also be trying something new; I will be spending an hour or two in the afternoon specifically answering reader questions. We would like you to post them BTL and I will be replying ATL, probably from about 3pm. I will post more on this shortly.
In the meantime, if you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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