Only Nigel Farage benefits from another ‘summer of riots’

We must not let Reform dominate the summer,” Kemi Badenoch told Conservative MPs in an end-of-term pep talk. True, she grabbed some headlines with a limited shadow cabinet reshuffle, but so far, Reform UK is dominating the summer.

Other carefully constructed Tory initiatives go largely unreported, to the party’s frustration, while Nigel Farage makes news with that smirk or by raising an eyebrow.

He is now widening his pitch beyond immigration, which he has banked as a vote-winner, and will campaign on law and order over the summer. His pledge to halve crime at a cost of £17bn doesn’t add up. But it still garnered positive headlines; Reform is judged by different standards than rival parties. It is now seen as the best party on handling law and order.

Farage got lucky with his timing. Yesterday’s Daily Mail front page, on his crime campaign, was manna from heaven: “Britain is facing societal collapse, warns Farage.” His backing of the protests outside an asylum hotel in Epping, Essex – and his dismissal of those arrested as “a few bad eggs” – might have been attacked by other parties in normal times.

But deputy prime minister Angela Rayner made a highly significant intervention at yesterday’s cabinet meeting, warning that Britain could face a repeat of the riots almost a year ago unless the government addresses people’s concerns, and that immigration is having “a profound impact on society”. It seemed to validate Farage’s warning of “civil disobedience on a vast scale” and sparked fears of another summer of violence.

Downing Street’s briefings on cabinet meetings are normally as dry as dust. Its release of the deputy prime minister’s remarks tells us that the government does not want to look flat-footed and not “in control” if there is more civil unrest this summer.

Nor can Labour allow Farage a monopoly on proposals to crack down on illegal migration. Hence today’s announcement of a deal between the government and food delivery companies to tackle hotspots of illegal working, sometimes near asylum hotels. “This is a pull factor for migrants crossing the Channel,” one government insider admitted.

On other issues, Reform has been less lucky. It sometimes shoots from the lip without thinking things through. Richard Tice, its deputy leader, sent shockwaves through industry by suggesting the party would scrap renewable energy contracts if it wins power, before half-retreating and saying a Reform government would oppose “any form of variation” to the contracts. Labour warned that 1 million jobs would be at risk from Reform’s plan. Tice temporarily forgot his party’s pitch to the red wall: left on economics and right on social issues.

He appeared to translate people’s concerns about the cost to them of net zero measures like heat pumps and electric cars into opposition to climate change measures. In fact, a majority of Reform supporters back policies to combat climate change.

With Reform consistently ahead in the opinion polls, the business world must take Farage seriously as a future prime minister, but its attempts to engage with his party are proving difficult. Business wants to know about Reform’s policies, but the party has no formal policy-making process. As with his pal Donald Trump, policy seems to be whatever Farage thinks when he wakes up in the morning or announces on the hoof.

“Policy is what Farage says – everything is decided by him,” one business figure told me. “It’s hard to work out what is just another headline and a serious policy.” Farage has started to hold business meetings. “Everyone gets a bit p***ed, but we don’t learn much,” another company executive said.

How will Reform deliver its pledge to raise the personal tax allowance from £12,570 to £20,000 at a cost of between £50bn and £80bn? We don’t know. Will this promise survive a rigorous policy process, as the grown-ups in Reform know the party needs?

Such fantasy economics, based on deep spending cuts – with Reform sometimes pledging to spend the same billions of savings more than once – is Farage’s achilles heel. That’s what other parties should target.

“Farage is a vibe,” one minister said, “it’s hard to attack a vibe.” But the other parties need to find a way.

For now, many voters are not bothered about whether Reform’s sums add up. The public will have a free hit at next May’s elections to English local authorities, including London and Birmingham, and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. That is bad news for both Keir Starmer and Badenoch, whose leadership will come under pressure if their parties do badly, as they probably will.

But voters will care about the details of Reform’s economic pitch when they come to choose a government at the next general election. A vibe will not be enough.

UK admits aid cuts could see deaths rise – with women at most risk

The government has admitted that slashing foreign aid spending will likely see global deaths rise – as it confirmed the cuts will fall disproportionately on women and girls’ education and on projects across Africa.

Its own assessment of the cuts’ impact said: “Any reductions to health spending risk an increase in disease burden and ultimately in deaths, impacting in particular those living in poverty, women, children and people with disabilities.”

“The world’s most marginalised communities, particularly those experiencing conflict and women and girls, will pay the highest price for these political choices,” said Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for international development organisations. “At a time when the US has gutted all gender programming, the UK should be stepping up, not stepping back.”

Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons International Development Committee, said the changes “will hurt education, health, social protection and support for women and girls” which she described as “the pillars of healthy and secure societies”.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in its annual report published on Tuesday set out cuts of £575 million in 2025 to 2026, The government is cutting aid spending by 40 per cent in total, from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income or roughly £6 billion by 2027, meaning the deepest cuts are still to come.

The report confirmed the UK will send £1.8bn to the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) – providing grants and low-interest loans to low-income countries – in part of a shift in funding towards big multi-country spending programmes including the global vaccine alliance Gavi. This means less money going from the UK directly to projects in specific countries.

The African region has been disproportionately hit by cuts, while the Americas, Europe and Indo-Pacific regions all saw increases in their budgets, said Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.

“Despite making cuts of roughly half a billion pounds, it’s encouraging to see that the government is prioritising multilateral spend and honouring its pledge to the World Bank. Yet, it is unfortunate that Africa – home to over two-thirds of those in extreme poverty – will receive under half of FCDO’s country and regional budget,” he said.

“If the government is to achieve its manifesto mission to tackle poverty, it will need to focus its budget where poverty exists and give African countries greater priority in its subsequent allocations.”

Mr Rabinowitz said while he welcomed the consistent funding for certain humanitarian crises, vaccines and the World Bank, “it is clear that the government is deprioritising funding for education, gender and countries experiencing humanitarian crises such as South Sudan , Ethiopia and Somalia.”

While the government has committed to protecting spending for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, other crisis-hit countries face significant cuts, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The plans also see a halving in spending on girls’ education as well as reductions in spending on women’s health, including sexual and reproductive health, and health emergencies.

Leading charities have previously raised the alarm that programmes supporting girls and women would be in the firing line.

The UK has been a leader in funding sexual and reproductive health including family planning, and the withdrawal of the US from funding these services has left a huge gap. It remains to be seen whether key programmes increasing access to contraception around the world like the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) initiative will be protected.

While the government’s own impact assessment makes it clear that, where cuts fall, they will negative impacts on equality, the report claimed overall spending demonstrated, “disproportionate impacts on equalities have been avoided”,

Minister for Development Baroness Jenny Chapman said: “We are modernising our approach to international development. Every pound must work harder for UK taxpayers and the people we help around the world and these figures show how we are starting to do just that through having a clear focus and priorities.

“The UK is moving towards a new relationship with developing countries, becoming partners and investors, rather than acting as a traditional aid donor. We want to work with countries and share our expertise – from world leading science to the City of London – to help them become no longer dependent on aid, and organisations like the World Bank and Gavi are central to how we can work with others to solve some of the biggest challenges of our time: humanitarian disasters, pandemics and the climate crisis.”

More details on where further cuts will fall are expected later in the year.

This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project

BBC to air MasterChef series starring sacked hosts

The unaired MasterChef series recorded before Gregg Wallace and John Torode were sacked from the show will air as normal on the BBC.

It was previously unknown whether the pre-recorded episodes would see the light of day after allegations of misconduct were upheld against the show’s hosts.

However, the BBC has now decided to air the series, which was recorded in late 2024, from 6 August on BBC One and iPlayer.

“After careful consideration and consultation with the contestants, we have decided to broadcast the amateur series of MasterChef,” a spokesperson said.

The corporation acknowledged that “not everyone will agree” with what it recognised as a difficult decision.

“In showing the series, which was filmed last year, it in no way diminishes our view of the seriousness of the upheld findings against both presenters. We have been very clear on the standards of behaviour that we expect of those who work at the BBC or on shows made for the BBC.

“However, we believe that broadcasting this series is the right thing to do for these cooks who have given so much to the process. We want them to be properly recognised and give the audience the choice to watch the series.”

On 14 July, a report upheld 45 allegations of misconduct against Wallace, including one of unwelcome physical contact.

It was announced the next day that Torode, his co-host of 20 years, had also been sacked from the long-running cookery show after an allegation of racist language was substantiated during the investigation into Wallace’s behaviour.

Wallace said he was “deeply sorry for any distress caused”, while Torode said he had “no recollection” of the alleged remark.

The BBC previously apologised to “everyone who has been impacted by Mr Wallace’s behaviour”, and admitted that “opportunities were missed to address” his conduct. “We accept more could and should have been done sooner,” said the broadcaster.

After Wallace stepped away from the show in November 2024, Torode filmed Celebrity MasterChef with Grace Dent as well as two Christmas specials.

The hunt is now on to replace both Wallace and Torode, with contenders including Nigella Lawson, Tom Kerridge and Big Zuu.

Before the allegations against the presenters were upheld, BBC director-general Tim Davie had expressed concern over cancelling the pre-recorded regular version of the series given that the amateur chefs who participated “gave a lot of time” to shoot the episodes.

“It means a lot, it can be an enormous break if you come through the show,” Davie said. “So, I want to just reflect on that with the team and make a decision and we’ll communicate that in due course.”

In regards to Wallace, more than half of the 83 allegations against him were upheld, including one of unwelcome physical contact and several citing inappropriate sexual language and being in a state of undress. Seventy-eight witnesses provided evidence.

The “vast majority (94 per cent)” of the 83 allegations were linked to behaviour that allegedly happened between 2005 and 2018. Only one was substantiated after that time period.

Wallace faced multiple accusations, including claims that he made inappropriate sexual jokes, asked for the phone numbers of female production staff, and behaved unprofessionally around female colleagues on set.

He denied the allegations, and last week vowed to “not go quietly” after being dropped by the broadcaster, who said his MasterChef return is “untenable”.

Patrick Holland, chief executive of MasterChef production company Banijay UK, said it was “clear that escalation procedures were not as robust as they should have been”, adding: “We are extremely sorry to anyone who has been impacted by this behaviour and felt unable to speak up at the time or that their complaint was not adequately addressed.”

Karen Baxter, a partner and head of investigations at Lewis Silkin, who oversaw the seven-month investigation, said that Wallace’s autism diagnosis was “highly relevant in the context of the findings made, particularly regarding his use of humour as a ‘masking’ technique and his difficulty in reading social cues”.

Baxter added: “Mr Wallace accepts that his diagnosis may help to explain some of his actions, but he does not wish to hide behind it.”

It was found that Wallace “was consistently described as energetic, humorous, and generally able to put contestants at ease” – but that some of these interactions and comments “made within earshot of contestants or colleagues sometimes resulted in offence and/or left people feeling uncomfortable”.

More to follow

Children face two-hour social media limits in screen time crackdown

Children could face two-hour limits on social media like TikTok and Snapchat as part of a government plan to crack down on “compulsive” phone use, the science and technology secretary has said.

Peter Kyle, who is due to make an announcement in the autumn, warned of the effects on young people’s sleep and their ability to focus on studying for exams, saying he was concerned about “the overall amount of time kids spend on these apps” as well as their content.

Among the ideas being seriously considered are a two-hour cap per platform, while a night-time or school-time curfew has also been discussed, according to reports. Last year Australia passed a law to ban all under 16s from social media, although the UK is not expected to go that far.

It comes as a new survey showed one in five children spend at least seven hours a day using phones and tablets.

Mr Kyle said he was “looking very carefully about the overall time kids spend on these apps”.

“I think some parents feel a bit disempowered about how to actually make their kids healthier online,” he told Sky News.

“I think some kids feel that sometimes there is so much compulsive behaviour with interaction with the apps they need some help just to take control of their online lives and those are things I’m looking at really carefully.

“We talk a lot about a healthy childhood offline. We need to do the same online. I think sleep is very important, to be able to focus on studying is very important,” he added.

He added that he wanted to stop children spending hours viewing content which “isn’t criminal, but it’s unhealthy, the overuse of some of these apps”.

“I think we can incentivise the companies and we can set a slightly different threshold that will just tip the balance in favour of parents not always being the ones who are just ripping phones out of the kids’ hands and having a really awkward, difficult conversation around it,” he added.

It comes after Angela Rayner warned on Tuesday that time spent online is a major factor in the weakening social cohesion in the UK, along with deprivation and immigration.

Warning that the UK faces a repeat of last year’s summer riots unless “the government shows it can address people’s concerns”, the deputy prime minister said that the issue was having a “profound impact on society”.

She told colleagues: “Economic insecurity, the rapid pace of de-industrialisation, immigration and the impacts on local communities and public services, technological change and the amount of time people were spending alone online, and declining trust in institutions was having a profound impact on society.”

TikTok and Snapchat have been approached for comment.

Traders guilty of rigging interest rates have convictions quashed

Former financial market traders Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, who were found guilty of benchmark interest rate rigging, have had their convictions quashed at the Supreme Court.

Mr Hayes, a former Citigroup and UBS trader, was found guilty of multiple counts of conspiracy to defraud over manipulating the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor) between 2006 and 2010.

Mr Palombo, the ex-vice president of euro rates at Barclays bank, was found guilty of conspiring with others to submit false or misleading Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) submissions between 2005 and 2009.

After the Court of Appeal dismissed appeals from both men in March 2024, they took their cases to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the panel of five justices found there was “ample evidence” for a jury to convict the two men had it been properly directed – but they had not.

In an 82-page judgment, with which Supreme Court president Lord Reed, Lords Hodge and Lloyd-Jones and Lady Simler agreed, Lord Leggatt said: “That misdirection undermined the fairness of the trial.”

The jury direction errors made both convictions unsafe, Lord Leggatt said.

He added: “Mr Hayes was entitled to have his defence to the allegation that he agreed to procure false submissions as well as his denial that he had acted dishonestly left fairly to the jury.

“He was deprived of that opportunity by directions which were legally inaccurate and unfair.

“It is not possible to say that, if the jury had been properly directed, they would have been bound to return verdicts of guilty.

“The convictions are therefore unsafe and cannot stand.”

Mr Hayes was jailed for 14 years after his conviction in 2015, which was later lowered to 11 years after an appeal, while Mr Palombo was jailed for four years in 2019.

Lord Leggatt continued: “When the flaws in the directions given at Mr Palombo’s trial are considered in combination, it cannot safely be assumed that, without them, the jury would still have been bound to convict Mr Palombo.

“Thus, his conviction also cannot stand.”

He added: “Accordingly, both appeals should be allowed.”

A spokesperson for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it would not be seeking a retrial.

In a statement issued after the judgment, it said: “Our investigation led to nine convictions of senior bankers for fraud offences, with two of these individuals pleading guilty and seven found guilty by juries.

“This judgment has determined that the legal directions given to the jury at the conclusion of trial were incorrect in Hayes’ and Palombo’s trials and for that reason their convictions have today been found unsafe.

“We have considered this judgment and the full circumstances carefully and determined it would not be in the public interest for us to seek a retrial.”

The Libor rate was previously used as a reference point around the world for setting millions of pounds worth of financial deals, including car loans and mortgages.

It was an interest rate average calculated from figures submitted by a panel of leading banks in London, with each one reporting what it would be charged were it to borrow from other institutions.

Euribor was created along with the euro currency in 1999 as a benchmark rate of interest for transactions in euros.

In 2012, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began criminal investigations into traders it suspected of manipulating Libor and Euribor.

Mr Hayes was the first person to be prosecuted by the SFO, which opposed his and Mr Palombo’s appeals at the Supreme Court.

The SFO brought prosecutions against 20 individuals between 2013 and 2019, seven of whom were convicted at trial, two pleaded guilty and 11 were acquitted.

Mr Hayes had also been facing criminal charges in the United States but these were dismissed after two other men involved in a similar case had their convictions reversed in 2022.

When my friends were facing cancer, a community of people stepped up

When I was younger, I used to worry incessantly about my parents getting cancer. I’d lay awake at night, ruminating on what would happen to my brother and I if they did. Who would support us? Thankfully, both are still cancer-free, well into their seventies.

However, now that I’m a parent myself, I worry about my children. Many people believe that cancer only really happens to people in old age, but that’s just not true. One beloved friend’s daughter died of leukaemia in 2020, aged just five; an unthinkable horror that changed the lives of everyone who knew her and her family.

And with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, I also worry about my friends – parents themselves, their lives touched by cancer. One friend sat me down in our favourite local café, our toddlers playing at our feet, to break the news that she was about to undergo a double mastectomy. We cried together.

Another friend, Sarah, a single parent to two teenage girls, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before we heard that King Charles had cancer, and a month before the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced her own diagnosis in March last year. It seemed like cancer was everywhere.

As a result, Sarah put 2024 on hold – she missed her daughter’s last sports day and last concert at primary school and had to find a whole new way of co-ordinating family life.

“I’m lucky in some ways that my children are teenagers, so they are able to look after themselves to some degree – but I’m also a single parent, so there are some things that they can’t do, or struggle with, due to their age,” she tells me.

“I have even set up multiple alarms on our Alexa reminding them to put their packed lunches in their bags or leave for school, just in case I can’t get up.”

Sarah says she thought she knew quite a lot about cancer prior to her diagnosis, but now admits she “really didn’t”. She explains: “There are so many terms and procedures to understand – stages and grades, not to mention over 100 different chemotherapy drugs.”

Sarah tells me about the exhausting cumulative effect of chemotherapy, which she endured every three weeks during her cancer treatment: “After the very first lot, I slept for a few hours and felt much better pretty quickly. For my last rounds, I slept for 48 hours solid and even days later, I needed to have a nap in the middle of the day and was in bed by 8pm.”

Sarah’s now finished chemotherapy and, a year on from her diagnosis, is turning 50. She’s throwing a huge party to celebrate not only the birthday milestone, but getting over this “annus horriblis” – a year she couldn’t have gotten through without the people around her.

“People can do so much for us when we are unwell – and I am forever grateful,” she says. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the support that my friends have given me; from ferrying around my children to and from after-school events and sleepovers when things get bad, to my 75-year-old neighbour mowing the lawn. One friend popped round with a huge pot of pasta sauce and I even had a gift box from a recruiter at work.”

What talking to my strong, resilient friends about their cancer journeys has made me realise most, is the power of community: for when we receive the worst news imaginable, what we need is people around us to see us through. A community of other women: friends, school mums, neighbours.

They had people willing to make them food, pick up their children, go shopping for them or to just sit with them and listen. They had support when they decided to raise money for cancer support charities, when they did fundraisers such as hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning.

It takes a village to raise a child – and that village will be with you every step of the way when you need them most.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

Trump rages over newly surfaced Epstein wedding photos

Newly uncovered photos and footage cast fresh light on Donald Trump’s past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

At least two black and white photographs unearthed by CNN confirm, for the first time, that Epstein attended the president’s second wedding in December 1993 to Marla Maples at the Plaza Hotel in New York. A third photograph taken two months earlier shows the pair together during the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in New York.

The network also broadcast footage from a 1999 Victoria’s Secret runway event in New York, showing Trump, accompanied by Melania Trump, “laughing and chatting” to Epstein. Both the photos and video predate any of Epstein’s known legal issues.

Asked about the photos in a call with CNN Tuesday, Trump said, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” before lashing out at the “fake news” organization and hanging up.

The report comes as the president attempted to brush off “nonsense” claims surrounding the convicted sex offender’s case and peddled a theory that former president Barack Obama manufactured evidence related to the investigation into alleged Russian meddling on behalf ofTrump’s 2016 campaign.

Ukraine war latest: Anti-corruption protests target Zelensky in Kyiv

Anti-government protests have broken out in Kyiv as hundreds flocked to the streets to oppose a decision to curb the powers of two anti-corruption agencies.

Ukraine has toughened restrictions on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Amendments approved by Volodymyr Zelensky’s party yesterday have rolled back the agencies’ autonomy in favour of tighter executive control, a move the Ukrainian president says is needed to rid the organisations of “Russian influence”.

Angry protesters held signs reading ‘F*** corruption’ and ‘Corruption = Death’ while chanting “Ukraine is not Russia”.

Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a prominent political opponent of Mr Zelensky, was among the protesters.

Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, said the move was a “serious step back” for Kyiv’s membership hopes, while French European affairs minister Benjamin Haddad said it “not too late” for Kyiv to reverse the decision.

It comes as a third round of talks is set to take place in Istanbul, Turkey after previous summits in May and June failed to yield any results, except agreement on swapping prisoners of war.