Early evening summary
Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, has told MPs that the government will legislate to ban the supply of nudification apps, and that a law to make it illegal to create nonconsensual, intimate images, already on the statute book, will be brought into force this week. (See 4.54pm and 5.05pm.) She was speaking in a Commons statement on the way the Grok AI app has allowed X users to digitally undress women and children, creating sexualised, deepfake images.
No date has been set yet for when a major plan for defence spending will be published, the head of the armed forces has said. As PA Media reports, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the defence staff (CDS), also told the defence committee he was “confident” British soldiers would be as safe as possible if deployed into Ukraine on a peacekeeping mission once Russia’s invasion has drawn to an end.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Kemi Badenoch is arguing that the proper response to dangerous material online is to stop children using social media. She posted this on X, referring to her call for the UK to adopt an Australian-style social media ban.
We don’t ask nightclubs to serve orange squash to kids so they can have something to drink. We say no kids in nightclubs.
Social media is exactly the same.
Social media is not a safe for children. Extreme content is rife, and the safeguards the companies have put in place are complex and woefully ineffective.
It’s time to make sure children are protected from adult spaces. The Government should focus on what matters, not banning companies they don’t like.
This is from the Press Association’s parliamentary reporter Harry Taylor.
Shouts of “shame” towards Tory shadow minister Julia Lopez after her attack on the Government over its response to Grok and X’s nudification of women and girls.
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, welcomed Kendall’s statement. But she called for more government to deal with “bot farms abroad”. She said that, when the internet went down in Iran at the weekend, 1,300 bot accounts that support the SNP also went down. She said either there were a lot of SNP supporters in Iran at the time, or it was evidence of a “deliberate attempt to udnermine our democeracy and stir mischief”.
In response to Lopez, Kendall said that when she talked about X being banned for UK users as a last resort, she was just pointing out what the law said.
And she said it was Lopez’s party, the Conservatives, who passed the Online Safety Act.
She said that she was not threatening freedom of speech; she was just talking about “upholding British values”.
And she claimed that what the government is doing is similar to the Take it Down Act signed into law by President Trump.
She said that she hoped there would be cross-party agreement on this problem in the Commons.
And she claimed, from their reaction, some Tory MPs were alarmed by the tone that Lopez adopted.
Tories suggest Labour's talk of shutting down X over-reaction, describing Grok deepfakes as new version of old problem
Julia Lopez, the shadow technology secretary, was responding to Kendall on behalf of the Conservatives.
She said people were right to be outraged about the way Grok AI was being used to digitally undress people.
She said laws were already in place protect people, and she said she would await the outcome of the Ofcom inquiry.
But, at that point in her speech she switched from being supportive to being critical.
Lopez said she was worried about the government over-reacting.
I accept the enforcement threat must be credible, but its use must also be proportionate.
She said the suggestion that X might be banned for users in the UK was serious. She went on:
Since its invention, the internet and social media have been misused, often criminally, by people traffickers, paedophiles, fraudsters, the gutter dwellers of our society. Nobody is on their side. But government has never before proposed to wholesale block TikTok, Google or Facebook for the frequent and often flagrant misuse of their sites.
It is an extraordinarily serious move against a platform that can be used for good for uncovering scandal, sparking democratic revolution and allowing day to day the free exchange of ideas, including ideas we don’t like. It is that very power for good that sees Iran’s mullahs reach to block the internet in the face of courageous protesters.
Lopez also said the production of a lot of this material sat in “legal grey area”.
What was happening on X was a “modern-day iteration of an old problem”, she said.
From crude drawing to Photoshop, Grok is not the only tool capable of generating false or offensive imagery, and not all of this content will cross the threshold into illegality. Plenty of it is sick, degrading, morally repugnant. But it does not cross the criminal threshold.
Lopez said there was a risk that further action could distract the authorities from dealing with more abhorrent and dangerous crimes.
And she argued that heavy-handed action by the UK could prompt retaliation from the Trump administration.
Lopez ended by saying that, while dealing with online abuse was important, the government should be focusing more on problems in the real world.
At the start of her speech Lopez was heard in silence, but as she went on there were some protests, as if MPs were surprised by how far she divereged from the government’s line.
UPDATE: Lopez also said:
The government’s appendage swinging over the weekend was extremely serious. Ministers mooted as an urgent remedy the banning of a site of 21 million monthly users in this country, despite another minister guffawing that banning X was conspiracy theory number 3627.
Updated
Kendall concluded:
I believe, and the government believes, AI is a transformative technology which has the power and potential to bring around extraordinary and welcome change, creating jobs and growth, diagnosing and treating diseases, helping children learn at school, tackling climate change and so much more besides.
But, in order to seize these opportunities, people must feel confident that they and their children are safe online and that AI is not used for destructive and abusive ends.
Many tech companies want to and are acting responsibly, but where they do not, we must and we will act. Innovation should serve humanity, not degrade it.
So we’ll leave no stone unturned in our determination to stamp out these demeaning, degrading and illegal images.
If that means strengthening the existing laws, we are prepared to do so because this government stands on the side of decency.
Updated
Kendall defends government being on X as means of communicating with voters - but says its use kept under review
Kendall said she understood why many people want the government to stop using X.
It would keep this under review, she said.
But she said there are 19 million X users in the UK, more than a quarter of whom say they use it as a primary source of news.
Kendall criticises Reform UK for wanting to repeal Online Safety Act
Kendall challenged opposition MPs to back the government’s stance on X.
And, with just one Reform UK MP sitting in the chamber, she said that if Reform continued to call for the Online Safety Act to be reapealed, they would be “shamefully supporting scrapping protections that keep women and children safe”.
Kendall says government will make supplying nudification apps illegal
And Kendall said she could confirm the government would use the crime and policing bill, which is currently going through Parliament, to criminalise nudification apps.
This new criminal offence will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images, targetting the problem at its source.
Kendall says Ofcom can act against X before its investigation is over
Kendall said that Ofcom has announced an investigation into X.
She said that Ofcom should set out a timetable for the investigation “as soon as possible”.
But, she said, Ofcom did not have to wait until it was over before it acted. “They can choose to act sooner to ensure this abhorrent and illegal material cannot be shared on their platform,” she said. And she said Ofcom would have government support “to use the full powers which parliament has given them.
Kendall says law making creation of nonconsensual, intimate images illegal to brought into force from this week
Kendall says the decision by X last week to restrict the Grok AI deepfake tool to subscribers does not go anywhere near far enough.
She goes on:
Under the Online Safety Act, sharing intimate images without someone’s consent, or threatening to share them, including images of people in their underwear, is a criminal offence for individuals and for platforms.
My predecessor [Peter Kyle] rightly made this a priority offence, so services have to take proactive action to stop this content from appearing in the first place.
The Data Act, passed last year, made it a criminal offence to create or request the creation of nonconsensual and intimate images.
And today I can announce to the house that this offence will be brought into force this week, and that I will make it a priority offence in the Online Safety Act.
This means individuals are committing a criminal offence if they create or seek to create such content, including on X. And anyone who does this should expect to face the full extent of the law.
Updated
Liz Kendall say non-consensual, sexual material on X is 'vile', illegal and sometimes child abuse
Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, is making her statement to MPs about sexualised deepfake images on X.
She says the content being circulated is “vile”. She goes on:
In recent days the Grok AI tool on the social media platform X has been used to create and share degrading, non-consensual, sexual, intimate deepfakes.
The content which has circulated on X is vile. It’s not just an affront to decent society. It is illegal.
The Internet Watch Foundation reports criminal imagery of children as young as 11, including girls sexualised and topless.
This is child sexual abuse.
The Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran says they are giving up X.
My time on X has come to an end.
I can’t sleep knowing that I’m leading traffic to a site that actively enables sexual exploitation of women and children.
Instead, you can find me on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. Links below. See you there
Many other MPs have already given up posting on X. But not the government.
In her Commons statement on X, which will start in about half an hour, Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, is due to speak about this. She will mostly be talking about the Ofcom inquiry.
Updated
What commentators are saying about Zahawi defection
A reader asks:
@andrew, surely the continuing flow of Boris-era Tories to Reform is a good thing for the current conservative party? It’s removing a number of personalities that the general public and voters have a low opinion of, as they will forever be tied to the 12 years of Tory government, plus many are linked to personal scandal. This makes it much easier for Kemi et al to run with the whole “we are a different party to Boris/Liz/Rishi” line. Has anyone done any polling on how this is playing with potential Tory voters - do these defections make them more or less likely to switch their vote from Tory to Reform?
I am not aware of any specific polling on this. But there has been an interesting debate about this online today involving commentators and academics.
Keiran Pedley from the polling company Ipsos argues that defections like Zahawi’s make it easier for Labour to depict Reform UK as a new version of the Tory party.
Re Zahawi. On the one hand Reform will want people in parliament that can credibly lead government departments. But yet another former Tory cabinet minister joining their ranks surely only boosts Labour’s claim that Reform are the Tory party rebranded and led by Nigel Farage.
Pedley’s argument is fair as far as it goes. But I don’t think these defections really make it easier for Kemi Badenoch to argue that her party has changed; it might have been different if she had expelled all the Johnsonites and Trussites, but she didn’t (because they were the people who elected her).
But Jane Green, the academic who runs the British Election Study, disagrees with Pedley. She says:
I‘ve long disagreed with view that Con>Reform defections are somehow toxic for Reform. I doubt many know Zahawi’s controversies. I think its much more about (powerfully, frankly) signalling and reconfirming that Reform has become a natural home for disgruntled Tories, as has been true since 2024.
Here are comments from two political journalists who agree.
From Patrick Maguire from the Times
99 per cent of analysis I’m reading about Zahawi is way too involved. To the extent people pay attention to this at all, it will be to note that Reform are doing well and hear someone else say Farage will/can be PM. Also: are Reform the same old Tories or something new and scary?
Plus psephologically they surely need a bit of they-can’t-be-that-bad-he-used-to-be-chancellor-they’re-just-the-Tories-now-I-may-as-well-vote-for-him to grow beyond 30 per cent consistently
From Matthew Holehouse from the Economist
The overriding essay question that Reform needs to answer in the next three years is: if you are on the right and hate Keir Starmer, which of a) Reform UK or b) The Tories is the bigger, stronger, more viable vehicle for change? In many ways it is a basic issue of showing mass and velocity
Reform as the Strong Horse Theory of Politics en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Str...
In some ways, the defection of people who previously declared they hated nasty Farage, but now say that Farage is the only show in town and the Tories are toast, could not be more helpful for Farage; because that is the logic by which the rump Conservative vote will be persuaded to defect
And here are some other points about the defection.
From Richard Spencer, a Times foreign affairs specialist
Is it insensitive to point out that Nadim Zahawi, a Kurdish Iraqi refugee, is defecting to a party which made its name promising to keep Kurdish Iraqis out of the country? (They were a significant proportion of people arriving by boat 2018-24). That’s British politics!
From James Heale from the Spectator
An obvious point but Nadhim Zahawi yet another onetime big Boris backer signing up to Reform, after Nadine Dorries, Jake Berry, Jonathan Gullis, Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Ross Thomson
A well known SW1 politico messages re Zahawi: “this is the first reform defection that has HIT THE CHATS”
Peers elect former Tory cabinet minister Michael Forsyth as Lord Speaker
Michael Forsyth, the former Tory cabinet minister, has been elected as the new Lord Speaker. He got 56.3% of the vote, beating Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former artistic director of the Royal Opera House.
Forsyth got 383 votes and Bull got 297. Of the 814 peers eligble to vote, 680 (83.5%) participated. Forsyth, who joined the Lords in 1999 and who has been chair of the Lords economic affairs committee and chair of the association of Conservative peers, replaces Lord McFall, a former Labour MP.
Forsyth said:
I would like to thank all my supporters for the trust and confidence they have shown in me. I am grateful too to my opponent Baroness Bull who ran a vigorous, courteous, and friendly campaign.
I would also like to pay tribute to Lord McFall the outgoing Lord Speaker. He has made great strides in improving the governance of the House and the accountability of the administration to members. I intend to build on that work as chair of the House of Lords Commission and Lord Speaker.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson did not deny the reports sayngt he EU is demanding guarantees the UK will compensate the bloc if a future government reneges on the Brexit “reset” agreement Keir Starmer is currently negotiating.
This was “pure speculation”, the spokesperson said. (Normally, that means something is true.)
The spokesperson added:
More broadly, termination clauses including financial commitments are standard practice in international treaties. I’d remind you that this government was elected on a manifesto to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU, including a food and drink deal, which will break down barriers to trade. It’s indisputable since Brexit there’s been a 21% drop in exports and 7% drop in imports that have been hugely damaging for UK businesses.
At his press conference earlier Nigel Farage said he was not convinced this reset deal would ever be agreed. (See 12.10pm.)
Labour MP says Grok AI still being used to create degrading images
Helena Horton is a Guardian reporter.
Jess Asato, a Labour MP and campaigner against AI nudification, said the abuse was still happening to her on X as of this morning.
She said explicit and degrading images were being created using the Grok app – which is also available separately from X – and other AI apps and posted on X, because she was speaking against Musk’s platform. She said:
It’s still happening to me and being posted on X because I speak up about it.
Thankfully it’s just bikinis, no one has properly nudified me yet. Just this morning someone has made me of a tradwife with a massive pregnant tummy. It’s like they’re saying, this is where you should be, this is your role, you should be a baby birthing machine. This has disturbed me weirdly more than the bikini pictures.
The MP added that “thousands of people” had sent hateful messages and AI-augmented images of her as a result of her campaign to ban AI nudification.
She added:
There are users themselves telling me they are still able to create images of women nudified and they don’t necessarily have to pay for it. So many people are able to do it without paying, on the Grok app. We need the nudification to stop. There are thousands of these apps still generating this content. Women are not consenting to being digitally stripped.
The latest edition of our Politics Weekly podcast is out. It features Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey talking about the Ofcom investigation into Grok AI, and Nadhim Zahawi’s defection to Reform UK.
Zahawi explains why he no longer stands by 2015 tweet saying he would be 'frightened' to live in UK run by Farage
The Green party says Nadhim Zahawi has joined Reform UK for opportunist reasons. This is from the Green MP Ellie Chowns.
Another discredited Conservative has landed on the shores of Reform UK. Nadhim Zahawi is the chancellor turned chancer – trying his luck with Nigel Farage’s outfit having completely discredited himself in the Conservative party.
Is this the same Mr Zahawi that said of Nigel Farage, your comments are offensive and racist and I would be frightened to live in a country run by you? Indeed, it would appear it is.
Chowns was referring to this tweet from Zahawi, from almost 11 years ago.
At the news conference earlier, Katherine Forster from GB News asked Zahawi about this tweet. Zahawi replied:
If I thought this man sitting next to me in any way had an issue with people of my colour or my background who have come to this country, who have integrated, assimilated, proud of this country, worked hard for this country, paid millions of pounds in taxes in this country, invested in the country, I wouldn’t be sitting next to him, and I think he wouldn’t be sitting next to me either.
UPDATE: Sunder Katwala from the British Future thinktank has posted a useful thread explaining the Farage policy that prompted Zahawi’s tweet in 2015 – and why Farage is essentially adopting the same position (on race discrimination laws) now.
Updated
Zahawi tried, and failed, to get a peerage from Badenoch before defecting to Reform UK, Tory sources claim
Nadhim Zahawi approached Kemi Badenoch’s team about trying to become a Tory peer – only to defect to Reform UK after being told he would not get one, Pippa Crerar reports.
❤️🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi made approaches to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team about getting a peerage just weeks before defecting to Reform UK - but was turned down.
Tory source: “Nadhim asked for a peerage several times. Given he was sacked for his dodgy tax affairs, this was never going to happen. His defection tells you everything you need to know about Reform being a repository for disgraced politicians.”
The Telegraph’s Tony Diver has been given the same briefing.
Nadhim Zahawi was denied a Conservative peerage weeks before he defected to Reform, Tory sources claim.
Zahawi said to have made “multiple approaches” in late 2024, asking to be on the most recent political peerages list.
“We were very clear he wasn’t going to get one.”
Zahawi is said to have made approaches in person and on the phone to senior members of Kemi Badenoch’s team. Tories say he was told that he was “not suitable” for elevation because of his resignation from the Sunak cabinet over unpaid tax.
Zahawi does not dispute that he discussed a peerage, but says he has a “message from the top that they want to look at elevating me” and said he was told he would be contacted again about it in 2026.
Updated
Nadhim Zahawi's defection - snap verdict
Tory defections are becoming relatively commonplace now, but there was still something striking about Nigel Farage being able to unveil Nadhim Zahawi as a new recruit this morning. There are now at least 22 former Tory MPs in Reform UK (there is a list of 20 of them here, plus Ben Bradley, plus Zahawi), and that is not including the two former Tory MPs who are now Reform UK MPs (Lee Anderson and Danny Kruger).
Almost without exception, recruits from the Tories to Farage have all come from the more shifty, opportunist wing of the party (other adjectives are available) and Zahawi, who called on Boris Johnson to quit only 24 hours after agreeing to serve him loyally as chancellor and who was later sacked from cabinet by Rishi Sunak over an ethics breach, won’t do anything to change the Lib Dem thesis about what is happening. (See 1.13pm.)
But Zahawi is still technically the most senior person to cross the floor. As vaccines minister during Covid, he established a higher profile than most cabinet minsters. And, above all, his defection implies some sort of snowball effect is underway, and that there is an inevitability about Reform UK eclipsing the Tories.
Farage always insists, and did again this morning, that the two parties are different. And the Conservative party is also happy to claim that the two organisations remain very distinct. But the Tory statement (see 1.23pm) today was a masterclass in wishful thinking. Farage’s party does not support higher welfare spending and higher taxes, with each defection the “one man band” claim becomes a bit weaker, and it is hard to describe Reform UK as has-beens when their polling still looks so encouraging.
But perhaps the debate about whether or not Reform UK will replace the Conservatives as the UK’s party of the right is misframed. Instead, arguably the Tories are regenerating, like Dr Who, with a new name and a new identity, but in other respects just an update on what was there before. Watching the press conference this morning, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that, whatever Farage says, a Reform UK government would heavily infused with Tory DNA.
Zahawi’s defection means the competition for who might be chancellor in a Reform UK government has just opened up. Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf were seen as the lead candidates, but today Zahawi sounded up for a big job.
Or Lord Zahawi, as he may end up. Last week, in an interview with Danny Kruger for the Spectator, Tim Shipman said that Kruger believes Farage might have to appoint 500 new peers to be sure of getting his plans through the upper house. That is a lot of potential peerages for people who have yet to defect. At the press conference this morning, Zahawi did not sound unhappy about the prospect that his name might be on that list.
Tories say Reform UK becoming party for 'has-been politicians looking for next gravy train'
And this is what the Tories are saying about the loss of Nadhim Zahawi. A Conservative spokesperson said:
Reform is fast becoming the party of has-been politicians looking for their next gravy train. Their latest recruit used to say he’d be ‘frightened to live in a country’ run by Nigel Farage, which shows the level of loyalty for sale.
Reform want higher welfare spending and higher taxes. They are a one-man band with no plan for our country. Under Kemi Badenoch the Conservatives are demonstrating we have the plan, the competence and the team to get Britain working again.
Reform UK becoming 'retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers', say Lib Dems
And the Liberal Democrats say that the Nadhim Zahawi defection to Reform UK shows that Nigel Farage’s party is becoming “a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers”.
Manuela Perteghella, who took Stratford-upon-Avon, Zahawi’s former seat, for the Lib Dems at the last election said:
Reform is becoming a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers.
Zahawi served under Liz Truss and Boris Johnson and now he’s being championed by Nigel Farage.
It’s no wonder voters in Stratford kicked out the Conservatives at the last election and put their trust in the Liberal Democrats.
Labour says Zahawi defection shows Reform UK 'has no shame'
Labour has issued a response to Nadhim Zahawi joining Reform UK from Anna Turley, the Labour party chair. She says:
This confirms what we already knew: Reform UK has no shame. Nadhim Zahawi is a discredited and disgraced politician who will be forever tied to the Tories’ shameful record of failure in government.
Zahawi himself has previously repeatedly lambasted his new boss over his divisive and extreme rhetoric - and Farage has said that Zahawi has no principles and is only interested in climbing the greasy pole. This shameless scurry of yet another failed Tory over to Reform will tell people everything they need to know about both of them.
There are two urgent questions in the Commons this afternoon after 3.30pm, on the “New Medium Helicopter contract and potential closure of Leonardo’s helicopter site in Yeovil” and on water shortages “in East Grinstead and the surrounding villages”.
That means the Liz Kendall statement on “non-consensual sexual deepfakes on social media” will not start until about 5pm.
Zahawi calls for police chief to be sacked over Maccabi fans ban, claiming West Midlands police gave in to 'Islamist thugs'
The final question at the press conference went to Daisy Eastlake from the Times. At Reform UK press conferences, the news organisations deemed hostile to the party (eg, the Guardian, the Daily Mirror etc) normally get called last – although, Farage does make a point of taking questions from every reporter who wants to ask one, which is not what most other party leaders do. Normally the Times gets called quite early. But it must be on the naughty step because of it investigation into Laila Cunningham published last week.
Q: Last week you said that the chief constable of West Midlands police, Craig Guildford, should be sacked for supposedly misrepresenting the evidence used by his force to justice the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ban. When does that need to happen?
Farage said he was amazed that Guilford has not been sacked already. He claimed that Guildford “hasn’t just lied to everybody, but he’s literally kowtowed to … a form of violent extremism”.
Zahawi said he found the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban really serious. He went on:
The message this sends is so dangerous and corrosive to our country. Why do I say that? Because the question is, who controls our streets?
If the police force in the West Midlands needed additional support, they should have called the home secretary and the defence secretary and got the army in.
No way should we allow Islamist thugs and terrorists to feel that they can have control of our streets.
He suggested Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, would have a “serious problem” if she did not sack Guildford today.
The Times has a story today by Eastlake, Geraldine Scott and David Woode saying that the Commons home affairs committee, which took evidence again from Guildford last week about this matter, is gearing up to call for his sacking or resignation. They say:
Members of the home affairs select committee are understood to be “unanimous in their disappointment” at the evidence given by the force, with several believing it had “retrospectively gathered evidence to suit their decision making” rather than basing the ban on genuine intelligence at the time.
Pressure is mounting on Craig Guildford, the West Midlands chief constable, to go after Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were barred from travelling to the game at Villa Park in November by the local Safety Advisory Group (SAG), which cited safety concerns based on advice from the police force …
One MP told The Times that sacking Guildford would be “the nuclear option” but said there was now “no other option” if their suspicions were confirmed that the force had given a misleading account.
The committee has a Tory chair but a Labour majority.
Updated
Zahawi claims that accusations of racism, directed at Farage and others, are now so widespread it's become 'joke'
Q: What is your response to the fact that there are now 34 contemporaries of Nigel Farage at Dulwich College who recall Farage being racist when he was a pupil there?
Farage says there are so many allegations of racism being thrown around the whole time that they “almost become meaningless”.
Zahawi says, anticipating this question, he made a point of looking up all the things in Britain that have been called racist. He says the list includes coffee, picnics, electricity and mathematics. He claims this shows that this line of criticism is “a joke”.
Farage says even the Traitors has been called racist, by the Guardian. He must be referring to this.
Zahawi also says, if he thought Farage were racist, he would not be sharing a platform with him.
Updated
Q: [To Zahawi] Do you want to return to the Commons? Or has Reform UK offered you the peerage that the Conservative party never gave you?
Zahawi says no promises have been made, and no promises have been sought?
Q: Who approached whom about the defection?
Zahawi says he has known Farage for years. And he also says Nick Candy, the Reform UK treasurer, is a mutual friend.
He says he allowed his Conservative party membership to lapse over Chrismas because he wanted to reflect on his future political allegiance.
Q: Are you comfortable making money from X because of the payments you get for your posts that attract a big audience?
Farage claims he does not make money from X because of the amount he has to spend on staff to operate his social media accounts.
Farage says 'tragedy of Brexit is we didn't do it'
Q: Would you refuse to pay if the EU includes an exit payment in any new deal with the UK to reduce SPS checks?
Farage says:
The tragedy of Brexit is we didn’t do it.
We had the pandemic and that’s that. That’s the argument that always gets made. We had the pandemic, therefore we didn’t get time.
For Keir Starmer to realign with single market rules is easy because we never, ever took the opportunity or the potential advantage of moving away from it. So I’m absolutely furious at both of them.
But he also says he is not convinced that Starmer would “sign up to something as treacherous as this”.
Farage says he would not pull back any British military deployments at eastern border of Nato territory
Q: [To Farage] You say you would not support troop deployments to Ukraine. And you think Nato expansion was a mistake.Would you support the continuation of UK troop deployments at the eastern border of Nato territory?
Farage says he said in 2014 that Nato expansion would provoke Russia.
But he supports Nato, he says. And he says Trump has been good for Nato because he has led to other Nato countries increasing defence spending.
Farage dismisses report claiming Trump has lost faith in him
Q: [To Farage] A report in the Sunday Times yesterday said that Donald Trump has lost faith in you because he does not think you are for real. Are you for real?
Farage says he met Trump at Mar-A-Lago in November and Trump has always been “enormously supportive” of him.
He says they do not see eye to everything.
Referring to the report, he says:
Sometimes journalists write things that may not necessarily be wholly true.
Q: [To Zahawi] Did you seek any assurances from Reform UK about its vaccines policy before you joined?
Zahawi again says this is a stupid question to raise. He says he would not be here if Nigel Farage did not think the vaccine programme had been good for Britain.
Zahawi insults journalist who asks why he is joining party that platformed US adviser who suggested vaccines caused king's cancer
Q: [To Zahawi] The speaker at the Reform UK conference actually blamed the policy that you implemented for the king’s cancer. And, at that conference, David Bull, the party chair, said the speaker was contributing to Reform’s policy on this.
Farage intervenes. He says Bull spoke about this at the Reform UK rally on Friday night in London. He said he was proud of the UK’s record on vaccines.
Zahawi tells the journalist that he asked a “really stupid question” and that he expected better of him.
(It was not a stupid question at all. It was a fair one, which Zahawi refused to address.)
Q: As a former Cabinet Office minister, do you have any plans to help Reform UK take on the civil service?
Zahawi says, as a minister, he saw the best and the worst of the civil service.
He says he only took on the job of vaccines minister when Boris Johnson promised that he would be able to act at all time on the authority of the PM. Johnson asked what that would mean. Zahawi says he told Johnson it meant he would always have to have access to the PM very quickly.
He says he was encouraged by Farage a few minutes ago about wanting to see the evidence about the Australian social media ban before making policy. That is how policy should be made, he says.
Q: Isn’t there a danger, with defections like this, that people will see you as a new version of the Tories?
Farage claims the differences between Reform UK and the Conservatives are enormous. He was opposed to the EU long before the Tories, he says.
Q: Have you been promised a role with Reform? And will you stand to be an MP?
Zahawi says there have been “no promises” about jobs. He says he is a footsoldier. He is joining because he thinks Britain cannot afford 10 years of Labour government, he says, suggesting he does not see any prospect of the Tories winning the next election.
Farage says he 100% supports a ban on smartphones in school. But, in relation to the Australian ban on under-16s having social media accounts, he says he wants to wait and see how that works.
Q: As a former vaccines minister, how do you feel about Reform UK platforming a vaccine sceptic at its conference?
Farage jumps into answer, despite he question being addressed to Zahawi. He says the speaker at the conference was an adviser to US administration. He was not setting out Reform UK policy.
Zahawi says he respects a party that values free speech.
Farage plays down significance of Zahawi being sacked over tax affairs when he was in cabinet
Farage and Zahawi are now taking questions.
Q: [From the BBC’s Iain Watson] You were sacked from cabinet over your tax affairs. Aren’t you an establishment figure yourself?
Zahawi says the mistake he made was not being specifici in the settlement he made with HM Revenue and Customs to the Cabinet Office.
Farage says in the US most successful people in business have had some failures. So he was not surprised to see his new mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, attacked in a paper last week over some past business failures.
On Zahawi’s tax affairs, he says “there’s nobody with a complex business empire that does not have to have negotiations at some point with HMRC”.
Zahawi says Tories failed to overturn Blair's 'constitutional vandalism', and claims Reform will take on 'unelected bureaucracy'
Zahawi says he accepts that the Conservatives are to blame for some of the problems facinng the country.
Since leaving parliament, I have been reflecting on the successes and failures of my old party’s time in government, and I rue the timidity, even at times the weakness, with which we try to deal with the problems of the country.
My analysis is that a huge culprit is the over-mighty bureaucratic inertia that now dominates and runs the country, that has taken control of swathes of the economy and, with barely a shrug of the shoulders, restricts the individual liberty of each and every one of us.
Zahawi says he has always defended civil servants as individually. But collectively they have turned the UK into “an administrative state”, he says.
He says MPs have been “terrified of the awesome power and the sacred responsible that the British constitution bestowed upon our ancient and sovereign parliament”.
So it is time for another glorious revolution to get us back to a fully sovereign parliament.
He goes on:
Britain needs Reform.
My own party, and by definition to some extent me personally, should share some blame for the continuation of the Blairite constitutional vandalism and our failure, to coin a phrase, to take back control from the rich powers of the unelected bureaucracy.
Now, Conservatives did some important work stabilising the economy in the early years after Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s destructive reign, reforming education and welfare.
But failures on mass migration, failure to strengthen our armed forces or even protect special forces from insane government lawyers, and bad virtue signalling legislation that has made us less competitive and less prosperous, to name but a few – these have provided me with painful lessons learnt that will, I hope, benefit this great new team.
Zahawi says he could have chosen to stay out of politics. He has been chairing one of the UK’s biggest retailers, he says.
He says he knows what it is to be a popular politician; when he was minister for the vaccine rollout during Covid, he was one of the most popular politicians in the UK, he claims.
And he says he expects to get a lot of criticism for his decision today.
But he says he feels it is his duty to support Reform UK.
Zahawi claims that UK is 'sick' as he explains his defection
Nadhim Zahawi is speaking now. He says “Britain needs Nigel Farage as prime minister”.
His declaration will come as a shock to his old colleagues, he says. But he says other people will not be surprised.
We can all see that our beautiful, ancient, kind, magical island story has reached a dark and dangerous chapter.
He says in Westminster people may think things are going fine.
But that is not the experience of people around the country, if they are trying to get a GP appointment, or if they want to express an opinion on X, or if they just want their children “to be taught facts, not harmful fictions at school”, or if they are being “crushed into the dirt by ever growing taxes”.
Addressing these people, he says:
You know in your heart of hearts that our wonderful country is sick.
Former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defects to Reform UK
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding his press conference now.
He has unveiled Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory chancellor (if only for a two months), as a defector to his party.
There is a live feed here.
What Ofcom says about inquiry into 'deeply concerning' reports into Grok AI potentially creating 'child sexual abuse material'
Here is the Ofcom statement about the Grok AI investigation.
And here is an extract.
Our initial assessment
There have been deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images of people – which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography – and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
As the UK’s independent online safety watchdog, we urgently made contact with X on Monday 5 January and set a firm deadline of Friday 9 January for it to explain what steps it has taken to comply with its duties to protect its users in the UK.
The company responded by the deadline, and we carried out an expedited assessment of available evidence as a matter of urgency.
What our investigation will examine
Ofcom has decided to open a formal investigation to establish whether X has failed to comply with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act – in particular, to:
-assess the risk of people in the UK seeing content that is illegal in the UK, and to carry out an updated risk assessment before making any significant changes to their service;
-take appropriate steps to prevent people in the UK from seeing ‘priority’ illegal content – including non-consensual intimate images and CSAM;
-take down illegal content swiftly when they become aware of it;
-have regard to protecting users from a breach of privacy laws;
-assess the risk their service poses to UK children, and to carry out an updated risk assessment before making any significant changes to their service; and
use highly effective age assurance to protect UK children from seeing pornography.
Ofcom’s role
The legal responsibility is on platforms to decide whether content breaks UK laws, and they can use our Illegal Content Judgements Guidance when making these decisions. Ofcom is not a censor – we do not tell platforms which specific posts or accounts to take down.
Our job is to judge whether sites and apps have taken appropriate steps to protect people in the UK from content that is illegal in the UK, and protect UK children from other content that is harmful to them, such as pornography.
Ofcom’s investigation process
The Online Safety Act sets out the process Ofcom must follow when investigating a company and deciding whether it has failed to comply with its legal obligations.
Our first step is to gather and analyse evidence to determine whether a breach has occurred. If, based on that evidence, we consider that a compliance failure has taken place, we will issue a provisional decision to the company, who will then have an opportunity to respond our findings in full, as required by the Act, before we make our final decision.
Ofcom to launch formal investigation into X's Grok AI tool and its sexualisted images content
Ofcom has launched a formal investigation into X’s AI tool, Grok, over it being used to create sexualised imagery of women and children, Sky News is reporting.
Sadiq Khan revives speculation he won't stand for further term as London mayor
In an interview on the Today programme this morning, Sadiq Khan revived speculation that he will not stand for a further term as London mayor.
Khan was first elected London mayor in 2016 and he is the only London mayor to have been elected (in 2024) for a third term in office. In Labour circles it is taken as almost certain that he won’t run for a fourth term.
But, in an interview on LBC in September last year, Khan muddied this assumption by declaring that he did intend to stand for a fourth term. “There is no reason I would give this job up for another job in politics,” he said. “I love what I am doing.”
The next mayoral election will be in 2028.
Today, in an interview on the Today programme, Khan did not repeat the LBC line. Instead, when asked if he would run again, he just replied:
The last election I fought and won is nearer than the next one, so ask me again in a year’s time.
In a post last year on his London Centric Substack, Jim Waterson said that the Khan LBC interview took place at a time when the papers were full of speculation about Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham returning to parliament to challenge for the Labour leadership and Khan was just trying to assure people that he was not planning something similar; Khan did not mean to commit to a fourth term, Waterson said.
London Centric has been told that the mayor’s intention had been to shut down speculation that he might consider double-jobbing by holding a Westminster seat at the same time as the mayoral role — only to accidentally inflame speculation.
Instead, the official line remains one of constructive ambiguity — with Khan aware that acknowledging any intention to stand down at the end of his term in 2028 would leave him as a ‘lame duck’ mayor, which inevitably causes power to drain away.
Waterson also pointed out that Dawn Butler, who is a friend of Khan’s, is actively campaigning to be Labour’s next candidate for mayor. He said Khan would not be letting her waste her time on this if he intended to be the 2028 candidate himself.
The government “has identified a legal basis which it believes can be used to allow UK military to board and detain vessels in so-called shadow fleets”, the BBC is reporting. The BBC said this could the British military action against some of these tankers, in line with the operatation launched by the US, with UK assistance, against the Russian-flagged the Marinera tanker in the north Atlantic last week.
Met chief Mark Rowley dismisses Reform UK claim that London getting less safe
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding another press conference today. Last week he held one that was largely devoted to the crime late in London, which he depicted as a ghastly hellhole where it wasn’t safe to walk the streets. He and Laila Cunningham, his candidate for mayor in London, claimed the capital used to be safer in the past.
Today Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is highlighting postive crime figures for London. As Vikram Dodd reports, the murder rate is at its lowest level for a decade.
Khan has written about this in an article for the Guardian. He says:
London’s homicide rate is lower than rates in New York, Berlin, Brussels, Milan, Toronto and Paris, five times lower than the rate in LA, and almost 12 times lower than the rate in Chicago. Last year, the capital recorded the fewest number of homicides of victims aged under 25 this century. Our homicide rate for under-25s is now three times lower than it was when I set the VRU up in 2019, and hospital admissions of young people for knife assault have fallen by 43% in the same period.
The success of our crackdown on violent crime means Londoners are safer in their homes and on our streets.
Khan and Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, have both been giving interviews this morning. Cunningham says Rowley should be sacked. Speaking to Times Radio, Rowley did not criticise Reform UK directly, but he said that surveys show that people who live in London feel safe. He said it was people who don’t live in London who think that it isn’t safe, because of the “rhetoric” they hear, he said.
He went on:
London is getting safer. And don’t just judge it on what I say. Casualty departments are seeing far fewer people coming in with assault based injuries. The footfall in the West End in December was up on last year. And I saw some recent YouGov survey data that said well over 80% of Londoners feel safe in London.
So this isn’t just about my data, this is how people feel. These are the facts. The fact that so much public debate is now more on sort of rhetoric than it is on facts is not my responsibility.
Rowley accepted that shoplifting was a problem in London. But he said shoplifting prosecutions were doubling.
Peter Kyle says Ofcom should use powers 'to full extent of law' on X's sexualised AI images ahead of Commons statement
Good morning. We are expecting developments this week in relation to Grok AI sexualised deepfakes scandal, which meant users of Elon Musk’s X social media platform have been able to digitally undress women and children. An announcement on Friday that this service would only be available to paid subscribers was taken by No 10 as evidence the platform had yet to grasp why this was so objectionable, and Liz Kendall, the tech secretary, said that Ofcom must act “in days, not weeks”. That was three days ago.
Kendall is expected to make a statement on this to MPs today.
Peter Kyle, the business secretary, and Kendall’s predecessor as business secretary, has been giving interviews this morning (mostly about other matters – more on those later) and, when asked on LBC why the government was waiting for Ofcom to take a decision, he replied:
Because the law requires us to.
The law requires Ofcom as an independent enforcer and regulator to enforce the law. Now, Ofcom has requested information from X. I believe X has given Ofcom that information and Ofcom is now expediting an inquiry into the behaviour and decisions of X when it comes to operating in the UK market.
Now, at these points in time, Ofcom acts as an enforcer, as an enforcement agency, and it must use those powers to the full extent of the law to keep people safe in this country.
Under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom has sweeping powers to fine companies like X for breaches of online safety rules. In extremis, it could even go to court to to have X blocked from the UK. But the main provisions of the act only came into force relatively recently and they have not been used in a big dispute with one of the global tech giants before. This is uncharted territory.
And it is also politically hazardous. Although Musk left his job in Donald Trump’s administration last year after a row with Trump (mostly about Trump’s budget plans), Musk remains a leading figure in the Maga movement, and the pair had dinner very recently. In Magaworld, it is regarded as axiomatic that European attempts to regulate social media companies are an attack on US free speech. JD Vance, the vice president, told David Lammy last week that allowing an AI app to sexually undress children wasn’t really acceptable. But a day or so later, a more junior figure in the administration, Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, was on social media attacking the UK for “contemplating a Russia-style X ban to protect them from bikini images”.
We have more on this in our First Edition briefing.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer and Peter Kyle, the business secretary, are on a visit in London where they will be speaking to the media.
Morning: And Kemi Badenoch and Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, are on also doing a London visit, where they will be recording a clip for broadcasters.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, holds a press conference.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2pm: Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the defence staff, gives evidence to the Commons defence committee. Last week it was reported that he has warned the PM of a £28bn shortfall in the defence budget.
Afternoon: Starmer is due to give a speech to staff at No 10. Later, at 6pm, he will speak to Labour MPs in private at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP).
Afternoon: The House of Lords will announce the result of its election for the next Lord Speaker. The two candidates are Michael Forsyth, a former Tory cabinet minister, and Deborah Bull, a crossbencher and former artistic director of the Royal Opera House.
After 3.30pm: Liz Kendall, the tech secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the Grok AI sexualised deepfake imagery scandal on Elon Musk’s X.
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