Farage backtracks on pledge to stop small boats within fortnight

Nigel Farage has rowed back on a pledge he made to the party’s conference to stop small boat crossings within two weeks of taking office, just one day after making it.

It came as Reform UK’s conference entered its second day in Birmingham, with key party figures taking aim at the chaos within the Labour government and calling for an early election as the party set out its plan for government.

The Reform UK leader had told an audience at the conference on Friday it would take a fortnight of him entering Downing Street to halt small boats arrivals, if he won an election.

But on Saturday, Mr Farage backtracked on the claim, telling Sky News: “I didn’t say that”.

He instead said Reform would stop the boats within two weeks of passing their proposed legislation.

The party has proposed quitting the European Convention on Human Rights and repealing the Human Rights Act to be replaced with a British Bill of rights – a process which is likely to take more than a year.

Mr Farage also said he would introduce similar laws to those passed by Australian prime minister Tony Abbott over a decade ago to stop arrivals from Indonesia.

“As soon as the law is in place. As soon as you have the ability to detain and deport, you’ll stop it in two weeks”, he clarified to the BBC.

On Friday, the Reform leader had said: “You cannot come here illegally and stay – we will stop the boats within two weeks of winning government.”

Its the second time Mr Farage has sparked confusion with his migration policy over the last month, after he went back and forth on whether or not the party would deport women and children.

On Saturday, he confirmed he would deport female asylum seekers back to the Taliban in Afghanistan if he wins the next election.

Speaking to Sky News on the second day of the Reform conference in Birmingham, he was asked whether he would detain women and children and “send them back” – to which he responded: “Yes”.

But he said the UK has a “duty of care” if a four-year-old were to arrive in a dinghy.

It comes after Mr Farage faced condemnation last month when he said everyone who arrives in the UK via small boat, including women and children, would be detained.

He later rowed back, to clarify that the party was “not even discussing women and children at this stage”, and then in a separate interview, said that single women could face deportation if they didn’t arrive with children.

His latest comments came on the second day of the party’s conference after he had told attendees on Friday to expect a general election in the next two years amid disarray in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

Attendees at the conference passed motions on Saturday, including one that will call for Reform’s immigration policy to be broadened to include a review of asylum approvals by Labour and Conservative governments.

Lancashire county council deputy leader councillor Simon Evans proposed the motion, which would see a review of immigration decisions on potential illegal migrants, where the police national computer and counter terror checks were bypassed.

Similar motions on repealing the 2008 Climate Change Act and removing “gender ideology from public organisations” were unanimously passed.

The conference also saw Mr Farage admit he misspoke when he said he bought a house in Clacton before the last election.

The Reform UK leader said last year he had bought a home in his Clacton constituency, but it was later reported that his partner had actually made the purchase.

“I should have said ‘we’. All right? My partner bought it, so what?”, he said.

He said it was “her money” and “her asset”, adding: “I own none of it. But I just happen to spend some time there.”

“I should have rephrased it. I didn’t want … to put her in the public domain.”

Mr Farage’s deputy Richard Tice had earlier said the party leader’s tax affairs are “irrelevant” to voters after questions about the purchase resurfaced following Angela Rayner’s resignation. The deputy prime minister resigned on Friday over underpaying stamp duty on a seaside flat she bought this year.

Meanwhile, Reform’s newest MP, Sarah Pochin, used her main stage address at the conference to promise to do away with “woke policing”, saying she has “had enough” of police that appear to “sympathise with protest groups that simply do not reflect the views of the majority of the British people”.

Lee Anderson, who has been tasked with putting together Reform’s plan to crack down on benefits, told the conference that the benefits system should be “a safety net, not a career option”.

“The best way out of poverty is education, training, opportunities and a bit of decent graft”, he said.

“Benefits should be a safety net, not a career option. Work should always pay more than benefits, which is why Reform UK will overhaul our benefits system and reward our workers, not the shirkers.”

And on Saturday afternoon, Lucy Connolly appeared on stage in a special live recording of The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, telling the conference that the justice system is “broken”.

The former childminder and wife of a Conservative councillor was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year.

“Never in a million years did I ever think I was going to end up in prison. And it’s not funny but as I said earlier if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry”, she said.

“However, I learnt a lot in there and things that you’d never see in any other walk of life, and I really hope that I can change some things having come from there.

“Because it really is such a broken system, the whole system just needs completely reforming.”

‘TikTok tourists’ are ruining the Cotswolds and exploiting our village for clicks, councillor fumes

A picturesque village described as the “Venice of the Cotswolds” is being “ruined” by social media as “TikTok tourists” use it for clicks, a local councillor has complained.

Bourton-on-the-Water has become increasingly popular with tourists in recent years, with Jon Wareing saying it is being used for people to shoot videos for Instagram and TikTok reels, as well as taking selfies.

“This kind of visitor tends to have little real interest in the heritage, culture or natural environment they are exploiting for clicks. They are the ultimate hit-and-run tourist,” Mr Wareing said.

He also stated that there had been an increase in rubbish, particularly “on the green”, which is popular among tourists.

Residents have also reportedly received verbal abuse and have struggled with traffic congestion.

“It’s a combination of overtourism and fast tourism, which refers to people flocking to honeypot locations for the sole purpose of content creation,” he said.

In May 2024, Wareing tabled a motion to get the council to accept that tourism was a problem for the village, which was rejected by six votes to four.

“The recent bank holiday weekend provided an illustration of volatile public sentiment on this topic on social media,” Wareing said.

“This is so destructive for our community and is deeply worrying.”

Bourton-on-the-Water is not the only village in the Cotswolds that has become overwhelmed by tourism.

In Castle Combe, residents said their privacy had been “invaded” by tourists’ drones, while the community was ruined by short-term holiday rentals. The 356-resident village is visited by hundreds of people each year.

Meanwhile, minibus operators that tour the Cotswold villages have seen a surge in business.

Bourton-on-the-Water is renowned for its five low, arched stone bridges, while its houses and shops are famous for their yellow limestone.

The village often has more visitors than residents during the peak tourist season. It is estimated that 300,000 visitors arrive each year, as compared to under 3,500 permanent residents.

Each August, thousands gather to watch a game of medieval football, which is played with goalposts set up in the River Windrush itself.

Red Roses bid to match record unbeaten run in Australia clash

England will look to secure top spot in Pool A as they face Australia in a crucial of the Women’s Rugby World Cup fixture.

The Red Roses have already booked their place in the last eight of the tournament after thrashing the United States and Samoa in their first two pool games, and will now set their sights on matching their own record winning run of 30 matches with another victory here. The hosts have shown little to suggest they remain anything other than big favourites to triumph at the end of the month, with more heavy rotation again displaying the depth at John Mitchell’s disposal.

For Australia’s Wallaroos, this is a critical fixture, with one more competition point required to join the Red Roses in the quarter-finals. Jo Yapp, a former England scrum half, will know the size of the task facing her side here, though, and could yet rue the missed opportunities in a dramatic 31-31 draw with the USA last weekend.

Follow all of the latest from the clash in Brighton with our live blog below:

MP loses eight stone on Mounjaro after abuse from online trolls

A Labour MP has lost eight stone with the help of Mounjaro after battling online abuse from trolls who made fun of her.

Carolyn Harris was a size 24 and weighed 19 stone when she started taking the weight loss jab in October.

The 64-year-old, who is on the highest weekly dose of 15mg, said she weighs 11 stone and is a size 10 one year later, and is now “healthier than ever”.

“The abuse I was receiving online was horrendous and I made the decision to try Mounjaro,” said Ms Harris, who has since quit the social media platform X.

But the MP for Neath and Swansea East fears the drug’s price rise will exclude others from benefiting from Mounjaro.

Currently around 1.5 million people use weight-loss drugs in the UK, with the vast majority paying for them privately.

However, the drug company Eli Lilly said in August it was putting up the list price of the drug by as much as 170 per cent.

Eli Lilly launched Mounjaro in the UK in February last year, while rival Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy treatment has been available in the country since September 2023.

The company said when it launched Mounjaro in the UK, it agreed to a list price “significantly below” that in its three other European markets to prevent delays in availability through the NHS.

“We are now aligning the list price more consistently,” a spokesperson previously said.

Ms Harris said she has never spent more than £150 a month on her private prescription but, like many of the 750,000 people in the UK who are thought to be using Mounjaro, she now faces paying hundreds of pounds extra a month. Her 15mg dose is increasing to £429 a month.

She has written to the health secretary, Wes Streeting, to ask for help for those who cannot afford the weight-loss jab.

In the letter, shared with The Sunday Times, Ms Harris said the impact of the price rise was of “huge concern” and called on him to work with the manufacturers to “keep the cost for patients at, or near, the current level”. It would also “keep the NHS waiting list at a lower level”, she claimed.

In the letter, she explained the drug could be life-saving and save the NHS millions, with obesity currently costing the NHS £107bn each year.

It comes as thousands of NHS patients who could benefit from the weight-loss jab Mounjaro are missing out due to funding issues.

Less than half of commissioning bodies across England have started prescribing the drug on the NHS in line with health service guidance – with just 18 out of 42 starting the roll-out more than two months after it started nationally.

Mounjaro is currently only available on the NHS for those who are older than 18 and who meet strict criteria – they need to have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher and four or more weight-related health conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and obstructive sleep apnoea.

Donald Trump was an FBI ‘informant’ on Epstein, Republican claims

Donald Trump was an FBI informant on convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a senior Republican has claimed.

Mike Johnson also told CNN that Trump thought what Epstein did was a “terrible, unspeakable evil” and that the US president had been “misrepresented” throughout the controversy over the files during his second term.

Mr Johnson’s comments come after months of speculation regarding a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi said in February was sitting on her desk.

The Wall Street Journal later reported that Ms Bondi had informed Mr Trump that his name had appeared several times on the list, which is understood to have included names of influential figures associated with the sex offender.

Epstein was found dead in his cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on a number of sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled as a suicide but has prompted countless conspiracy theories and public scepticism.

Trump had initially been friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s and has been pictured with the disgraced financier, but severed ties with him after an argument at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

“What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Mr Johnson said.

“I’ve talked to him about this many times, many times. He is horrified. It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself.”

Mr Johnson added: “When he first heard the rumour, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”

The controversy has divided the Maga camp, with even loyal supporters of the president including Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson calling for greater transparency.

Republican Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, and Democrat Ro Khanna, of California, are also campaigning for a “discharge petition” in the House of Representatives that would force a vote on publicly releasing the entirety of the government’s Epstein case information.

On Wednesday, a group of Epstein victims and their families held a press conference to support the discharge petition, intensifying the pressure on the White House.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has said it has found no evidence of a client list that was kept by the paedophile.

In previous years, Mr Trump has speculated that it was possible Epstein had been murdered, and called for a full investigation in 2019.

However, last week he described it as a hoax, saying: “From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.”

The funniest, strangest and best things from this year’s Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe is a place where British eccentrics take centre stage and the country’s weirdest most wonderful talents get to explore the craziest outreaches of their creativity, whether it’s staging immersive theatre in a bathroom, or performing a show on a treadmill.

For all the silliness, though, there’s a seriousness to the whole thing: the Fringe is the breeding ground for Britain’s comedy trendsetters: The Mighty Boosh and The League of Gentlemen first found audiences here and the international phenomena that are Fleabag and Baby Reindeer got their first outings on the stages of the Fringe.

This year, as ever, the festival’s packed schedule sees Edinburgh veterans rubbing shoulders with dozens of emerging voices on the hunt for an audience, many of them willing to perform anywhere from the backroom of a pub to a book shop, or even a bathtub.

The summer of 2025 is looking like it’s going to be a particularly strong year for established heroes of the Fringe. Winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award back in 2009, Tim Key returns to the Fringe with a new show Loganberry, likely to be informed, in part, by his recent experiences starring in the film The Ballad of Wallis Island and appearing as pigeon in Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17. Expect deadpan poems and much hilarity.

Following the success of her smash hit Channel 4 show The Change, about a menopausal woman rediscovering herself in the Forest of Dean, Fringe-favourite and 2013 winner Bridget Christie returns to Edinburgh with a work in progress at the Monkey Barrel. Also showing a work in progress is Ahir Shah, who has pedigree when it comes to licking a show into shape at the festival – when he did so in 2023, he won the main prize. Television presenter and podcaster Nish Kumar is back on his old stomping ground too with a new show Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe at the Gordon Aikman Theatre.

For all the tried-and-tested performers who pretty might guarantee laughs, one of the real joys of the Fringe is to be found in taking a risk on an up-and-coming comedian in the hope you stumble across a star of the future.

In some cases that might mean checking out a Fringe first-timer like Toussaint Douglass, who makes his Edinburgh debut with his hotly-tipped show Accessible Pigeon Material, which promises to be joyfully absurd and very pigeon-heavy in terms of content. Or popping in to see if promising young talents can pull off that tricky second album: having scooped a Best Newcomer gong at last year’s Fringe, Joe Kent-Walters is reprising his gloriously demonic working men’s club owner, Frankie Monroe, at the Monkey Barrel Comedy venue (Cabaret Voltaire).

Also keen to build on a promising start will be Leila Navabi, a television writer from South Wales, whose 2023 musical comedy show Composition included a song about having her ears pierced in Claire’s Accessories. This year, she’s back with Relay, which blends jokes and songs to explore her attempts to make a baby with her girlfriend and a sperm donor.

Whether they’re promising young tyros or established names, for many comedians the creative freedom and outright silliness of the Fringe has them coming back time and time again. Take, for example, Ivo Graham whose show this year is called Orange Crush and is described by the man himself as “a show about hats, haters and hometown heroes, from a man who promised everyone he loved that he wouldn’t do Edinburgh in 2025, but then came back anyway, because he simply had to do this show.”

If you are planning to join Ivo in Edinburgh to soak up the comedy chaos in person, don’t forget provisions. The average Fringe day involves walking 15,000 steps, climbing 43 hills and sitting through at least one show in a sauna-like attic with no ventilation. So, pack accordingly: a bottle of water, a sturdy fan and a packet of Maynards Bassetts Wine Gums or Jelly Babies to keep your blood sugar and national pride intact. Nothing says “I’m here for the arts” quite like chuckling through a late-night experimental mime while chewing on a Jelly Baby’s head.

Now you’re in the know, don’t forget to set the juice loose with Maynards Bassetts – grab a bag today!

Max Verstappen grabs surprise Italian GP pole ahead of Lando Norris

Lando Norris’ world championship aspirations were dealt a boost after he qualified second for the Italian Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen taking pole position.

Norris, who trails Oscar Piastri by 34 points with nine rounds to go, suffered a scruffy session at the sun-cooked Temple of Speed before pulling out his best lap of the day in the closing moments.

Norris briefly took top spot in Monza only to be relegated by Verstappen, who will start from the front after he edged out the McLaren driver by 0.077 seconds.

Piastri will line up in third, more than a tenth back from Norris, with the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton fourth and fifth respectively.

However, Hamilton will be relegated to 10th as he serves a five-place grid drop for his yellow flag infringement at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.

Norris, quickest in two of the three practice sessions prior to qualifying, made life hard for himself in Q2 when he was forced to abort his first lap after he locked up under braking for the opening Variante del Rettifilo.

Norris returned to his garage for a new set of tyres, and his next effort was good enough only for 11th with just the top 10 guaranteed of progressing.

A final throw of the dice lifted him to fifth and a collective sigh of relief from the British driver’s allies at the back of the McLaren garage. Hamilton was also on the bubble sneaking through in ninth.

On to the decisive Q3 and Norris was way back in seventh after his first attempt, half a second down on the pace-setting Verstappen and almost four tenths back from Piastri.

However, the British driver pulled a lap out of the bag to propel himself up the order and provide him with the hope that he can eat into Piastri’s title lead on Sunday.

Yet the day belonged to Verstappen as the world champion claimed his first pole since the British Grand Prix in July after he improved with his final lap – a track record in Monza of one minute and 18.792 seconds.

George Russell will line up from fifth, promoted a place following Hamilton’s grid sanction, one spot ahead of Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli.

Isack Hadjar was brought back down to earth six days on from claiming his maiden podium when he was eliminated in Q1.

Rookie Hadjar excelled to finish third in Zandvoort last weekend, but Racing Bulls have struggled for speed here with Hadjar failing to make it out of the first phase and finishing only 16th. Team-mate Liam Lawson ended up 20th and last.

Public banned from Commons after ‘sex noises’ phone prank foiled

Members of the public have been banned from the Commons chamber after a hidden phone was found during a security sweep shortly before Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday.

Tourists and visitors will be unable to walk among the green benches “until further notice” while an investigation takes place, parliamentary authorities have said.

The ban also applies to the House of Lords chamber, but other areas of Parliament will remain open.

It comes after a mobile phone was discovered in the lower chamber, with media reports suggesting the device had been planted to play sex noises as a prank during PMQs.

Scotland Yard has launched a probe and said it believes the phone was “purposely” placed there “with the aim of causing disruption to business in the House”.

The Times reported that the phone had been hidden near the front bench to broadcast adult content in the middle of Sir Keir Starmer’s weekly showdown with Kemi Badenoch.

A UK Parliament spokesperson said: “While investigations continue, we have decided to temporarily limit full public tours in both Chambers from Saturday September 6, until further notice.

“Public access to the rest of Parliament is unaffected and remains open as usual.

“We have robust and proactive security measures in place in Parliament and the safety and security of everyone who works or visits here remains our top priority.”

A source earlier told The Times: “It looks like it was just a prank, but it could have been much worse.”

And they raised concerns that it could have been an explosive, adding that “we don’t know how it got here”.

Multiple live events have been disrupted by “sex noise” pranks in recent years, though the victims have mostly been sport-related.

The Euro 2024 draw was hit as pornography sounds were loudly played as teams were finding out their groups for last summer’s football tournament.

Social media personality Daniel Jarvis, known as ‘Jarvo69’, promptly claimed responsibility for the prank, declaring on a live stream: “We done it, we got in there. Sex noises at the Euro 2024 draw. Love you guys.”