David Bull, the doctor and TV presenter unveiled as Reform UK chairman
Dr David Bull has been unveiled as the new chair of Reform UK after Zia Yusuf sensationally quit the role last week.
The former doctor and ex-deputy chair of Reform is a popular figure among members and first joined Nigel Farage’s team when he became an MEP for the Brexit Party in 2019.
After the furore surrounding Mr Yusuf’s sudden departure last week – and subsequent return days later to run Reform’s Donald Trump-inspired Doge cost-slashing unit – Mr Farage needed a replacement to run the party who could act as an internal diplomat.
He will also need to persuade potential donors to part with their money, with Reform lagging behind the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems in attracting financial support. This was another problem identified with Mr Yusuf as chair by his critics.
Dr Bull fits the role as the former co-deputy leader has spent a lot of time supporting members and helping the party get up on its feet.
But the NHS doctor turned TV presenter has also had a colourful career, not least as a presenter on the paranormal TV show Most Haunted Live!.
The 56-year-old was born in London but grew up in rural Suffolk from the age of four before studying medicine at Imperial College London.
He studied at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School at Imperial College London, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine degree, a Bachelor of Surgery degree (MBBS) and a Bachelor of Science honours degree (BSc) in 1993.
He gave up his medical career in 2009 as his television interests grew, although his licence was temporarily restored to allow him to help out in the Covid crisis in 2020.
His career as a broadcaster began on Sky’s Travel Show, and he later went on to present Newsround and a string of shows for the CBBC children’s channel.
Using his medical experience, he also presented shows offering advice, such as Call the Doctor.
Dr Bull’s interest in politics came quite early, running unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Conservative Party in Brighton Pavilion in 2010. He has clashed with Mr Farage in the past, taking to social media in 2014 to describe the Reform leader as an “idiot”. “ Nigel Farage’s comments are ill-judged, prejudiced and dangerous. HIV can affect anyone regardless of sex, race and class,” he said, responding to the then UKIP leader’s suggestion that HIV-positive immigrants should not be offered treatment on the NHS.
After the EU referendum in 2016, he joined Mr Farage’s Brexit Party in 2019 and became an MEP for North West England.
He has run unsuccessfully a number of times since as a candidate for the London Assembly and West Suffolk in 2024.
Currently, he is a presenter on TalkTV and has remained active in Reform as deputy chair. He is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, and wore an ear bandage in solidarity with the US president while presenting his TalkTV show following the Republican’s attempted assassination on the campaign trail.
After Mr Trump won the election in 2024, Dr Bull said “what a result”.
Dr Bull has also repeatedly railed against what he describes as the encroachment of “woke” culture, including lashing out at airline TUI for stopping addressing passengers as “ladies and gentlemen” in a gender-neutral drive. “When will this madness stop?” he said at the time.
He has also attacked Rachel Reeves as “Rachel from accounts” – an insult branded sexist by backers of the chancellor – over her tax hikes in Labour’s autumn Budget.
Greta Thunberg breaks silence after landing in Paris following deportation by Israel
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has left Israel after being arrested for attempting to break the country’s 18-year naval blockade of Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry posted two pictures of the 22-year-old activist on board a plane. They said the flight would take her back to Sweden via France.
At least four of the 12 activists arrested on board the Gaza-bound, UK-flagged Madleen flotilla are expected to be deported on Tuesday, according to Israeli broadcaster Kan.
The group were picked up off the coast of Egypt earlier on Monday morning and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where they were detained. They had been attempting to take a symbolic amount of aid into Gaza.
Kan reported that eight of the activists had refused to sign their deportation papers, meaning they could not be immediately deported.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorise their deportation,” the Israeli foreign ministry wrote on X.
The human rights organisation Adalah, representing the activists, confirmed they had met the Madleen passengers late last night, after issuing “multiple requests” to access their clients.
The need for awards to ditch gender categories has never been starker
On Sunday night, and for the first time ever, the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play was presented to an actor who is not a man. Cole Escola, the 38-year-old star of the hit Broadway comedy Oh, Mary!, took home the award, becoming the first non-binary performer to win in the category at the Tonys (long considered theatre’s equivalent of the Oscars).
While there’s reason to celebrate the win – as a breaking of boundaries and a spotlighting of LGBT+ talent – the night raised questions about the very sustainability of the Tony Awards format, which divides its performance categories by gender. It’s a practice that’s more or less ubiquitous: nearly all the major film award bodies do it, including the Oscars, as well as the TV ones, such as the Emmys. But it’s one that seems increasingly incompatible with our modern understanding of gender. It was glaring to see Escola, wearing a dress and long auburn wig (an homage to Broadway legend Bernadette Peters) – in other words, presenting themself as very visibly not a cisgender man – win in a category otherwise populated by men (among them George Clooney and Daniel Dae Kim). But these are the options, if you’re a non-binary actor in show business: compete in a gender field to which you don’t belong, or don’t compete at all.
It’s perhaps doubly dissonant given that Escola won the award for playing a woman: in the irreverent Oh, Mary! they portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in the days leading up to Honest Abe’s assassination. (The role has elsewhere been played by Betty Gilpin, a cis woman, and Tituss Burgess, a cis man.) In recent years, many non-binary actors have often elected to run for awards in the male or female categories: Bella Ramsey, for instance, competed for best actress in various TV awards for their work in The Last of Us, likewise House of the Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy. But others have opted out: Liv Hewson, who stars in the hit drama Yellowjackets, chose not to submit themself for the Emmys, stating: “It’s quite straightforward and not that loaded. I can’t submit myself for this because there’s no space for me.”
Often, when it comes to issues of gender, the phrase “it’s complicated” is used to excuse regressive policy decisions. But in this case, it is complicated, if only because of the wider structures of bigotry that pervade the entertainment industry. The fear is that, if the Tonys, or the Oscars, were to combine the acting categories into genderless lead and supporting actor brackets, then it would ultimately end up limiting opportunities for women. “It’s so important that the recognition for women in this industry is preserved,” Ramsey has said. “I think the ‘gendered categories’ conversation is a really interesting one and I don’t have the answer.”
This fear played out shortly after the Brit Awards removed gendered categories – a decision partly prompted by non-binary singer Sam Smith refusing to submit themselves into the male or female categories in 2021. In 2023, there controversially wasn’t a single woman nominated for Artist of the Year. (The next two years, however, fared markedly better.) If there is to be a shift towards uniformly ungendered awards, it must be accompanied by a conscious and continuous evolution of the voting process. There will always be women out there just as worthy of awards as men; the question is whether those in positions of influence have the mandate to identify and champion them.
There are probably other reasons why those in the entertainment industry might be opposed to desegregating the acting awards. For performers, it theoretically halves your chance of winning in any given year – something studios and agents would surely baulk at, too. Ultimately, the whole issue bumps up against one of the central problems of awards ceremonies – that they are, on a very fundamental level, a capitalist construct. Awards have nothing to do with art; the Oscars were created in an attempt to quell emergent Hollywood unions. And so while the acting world might indeed encompass some of the most progressive and diverse parts of society, awards bodies are never going to truly reflect or affirm this.
It’s worth noting that some awards bodies have done away with gendered categories very successfully. The Gotham Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards, for example – two of the most highly regarded film awards bodies – have both ditched the male and female brackets, and have had no trouble finding worthy female nominees to recognise. Theirs is an example that needs to be followed. It’s great that Escola was able to find recognition in a system that’s designed to ignore people like them. But it’s still a system that needs changing – whether it’s complicated or not.
Raducanu takes on Spain’s Bucsa in first round at Queen’s Club
Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu begin their singles campaigns at Queen’s Club with contrasting victories, having triumphed in the first round as a doubles pair on Monday.
Boulter and Raducanu made for an impressive duo as they romped to a straight-sets win on Andy Murray Arena, and both faced qualifiers in the first round of the singles draw: Boulter first beat Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in three sets, before Raducanu swept aside Spaniard Cristina Bucsa 6-1, 6-2. On Court 1, Heather Watson progressed to the second round.
The top four seeds – Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen, Americans Madison Keys and Emma Navarro, and 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina – have been given byes to the second round at Queen’s, while Raducanu could meet seventh seed and reigning Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejciova.
Follow all the tennis scores and latest action from Queen’s Club below.