Nigel Farage and Yusuf are in Millbank Tower “to announce new plans to reverse illegal migration.”
Reform says it will review all asylum claims granted in the last five years. It expects to make 400,000 liable for deportation with the plans…
Lord Ashcroft is turning his guns on Zack Polanski with a new (and first announced) biography of the Green Party leader. Get ready for excoriation…
In this era of multi-party politics it’s only fair to run the rule over every party leader, so having just completed my new book on @Nigel_Farage I’m pleased to announce my next book will be about @ZackPolanski and @TheGreenParty. Early research has proved fascinating…
— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) April 20, 2026
Ashcroft has so far published works on Starmer, Rayner, and Badenoch. His Nigel Farage biography is due out this summer. Doing the rounds of party leaders – Guido wouldn’t be surprised if Ed Davey fails to get a look in…
As Guido has long predicted, the BBC’s declining audience share meant that YouTube overtook the state broadcaster as the most-watched outlet by Brits earlier this year. YouTube is bigger than the BBC…
Now regulators are running to catch up. Under new ‘prominence’ rules being considered by Starmer after his ill-advised reset with the EU, the BBC could be given special treatment as an organisation hand-picked by ministers. Attempts are being made to ask social media platforms to change their display algorithms to give more ‘prominence’ to this content. In other words, some want to try to force YouTube and other video sites to give ‘prominence’ to the BBC over every other creator…
That’s ironic as the video sites themselves are massive net givers to the creative economy: YouTube alone contributed 7 billion Euros to the EU’s otherwise faltering media market in 2024. In the UK, that platform alone has added more than £2 billion to GBP…
State regulation of poplar platforms never works. Starmer’s internet crackdown is reaching insane new levels…
Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander has taken the morning round ahead of Starmer’s Commons statement at 3:30 p.m. Alexander argued that the public announcement of Mandelson’s appointment happening prior to the security vetting process was the fault of “previous governments.” Questioned on by Sophy Ridge on Sky News he said:
“So the process by which a political appointee can be appointed as an ambassador was one that we inherited from previous governments. In that process, appointments could be made ahead of developed vetting vetting status being undertaken… there was an established process that process in retrospect was inadequate and that’s why already even before the events of the last few days the government has moved to change that process to make sure that vetting precedes appointment so you’re right to recognise that was a flawed process.”
Labour’s move to bring security vetting forward after the last Mandelson blow-up also contradicts Starmer’s claim not to have known there was any problem with Mandelson’s vetting specifically until last week. We are reaching levels of ‘blame the Tories’ never previously thought possible…
Douglas Alexander – a friend of Starmer’s – was asked on Sky News if the PM will be in post at the next election. He wasn’t so sure himself:
“I think he will. There are no certainties but of course I think he will lead and I think he should because, frankly, on the biggest call in this parliament he’s exercised the right judgment, which is to keep us out of someone else’s war.”
