The BBC is now refusing to reveal how many staff make up its Verify team and how much they are paid. Something to hide?
The corporation is now refusing freedom of information requests on the team numbers and salary because figures “with an increased headcount and combined salary will potentially identify the salary of a small number of new recruits. Therefore, if the BBC disclosed this information it would contravene data protection principles.” Bogus…
The salary costs for BBC Verify are at least £3.4 million and have been rising over the past two years. The value of that team to the taxpayer is not hard to verify…
Over the weekend Reform vowed to scrap the fracking ban, telling energy firms to get ready to “drill, baby, drill“. Richard Tice declared it “grossly financially negligent” to leave “hundreds of billions of pounds” worth of energy sitting underground. Some cracks are forming in the party’s local branches…
In Reform-run Lancashire County Council, Fylde East’s County Cllr and Cabinet member Joshua Roberts put out a press release yesterday flatly rejecting fracking in his patch. He insisted:
“As Cllr Joshua Roberts has stated previously, the conditions in the Fylde Coast are not conducive to fracking, and there are no plans for it to take place here. While Reform UK does support fracking on a case-by-case basis, any activity is expected to be more likely in the East of England rather than the Northwest. Cllr Roberts will continue to support local residents and liaise with them regularly to ensure their concerns are heard and represented.
Yours Sincerely,
Joshua Roberts.
Reform Fylde Chairman.
County Councillor for Fylde East”
The UK’s only two shale gas wells were in Lancashire, with the last major shale gas site in Preston New Road ordered to fill their wells with concrete in January to be done by June. Cracking under pressure?
Labour has come up with a new excuse for the small boat crisis. It’s gone from ‘bad weather’, to ‘it’s not our fault’, to now just: ‘it could be worse’…
Paymaster General and EU Relations Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds made a speech on the EU surrender deal, where he was asked about how to tackle the surge in crossings. He said:
“There’s around 12,000 people who would have crossed the Channel in the last 13, 14 months who haven’t because of measures that we’ve been able to take.”
Meanwhile, more than 50,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel since Starmer took office, with more than a 40% increase on the same period last year. Doubt this latest plea to the public will wash…
Nigel Farage is speaking in Edinburgh as part of Reform’s series of recess press conferences. Reform says they will be making a “special announcement”…
LIVE: A special announcement from Reform UK in Scotland. https://t.co/Gp221e6dLP
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 27, 2025
UPDATE: Tory MSP Graham Simpson defects to Reform.
Even the ministers are doing it now. Labour MPs have slowly been shedding their colours on postal material since the election…
Energy minister and Ed Miliband’s rising star Miatta Fahnbulleh has been sending round “First anniversary update” material to her Peckham constituents boasting about her work in the constituency. No Labour logo, no Labour colours…
There is not even a mention of Labour anywhere on the leaflet. A minister in hiding…
IPSA rules on constituency communications using their funds means you can’t run a political campaign with the material. Ditching any mention of the party entirely is a strict interpretation…
MPs could also choose to celebrate their first anniversaries with Labour branding and non-IPSA funds. They’ve stayed away…
Labour sources say Miatta is personally ambitious what with her former high profile status as director of the leftist New Economics Foundation and political support of Ed Miliband. Who wants to be associated with Starmer in times like these…
In a sign of how far the debate has shifted Blair’s former Home Secretary Jack Straw has called for the UK to ‘decouple’ from the ECHR. The camel’s back at risk of breaking here…
Straw said:
“There is no doubt at all that the convention — and crucially its interpretation — is now being used in ways which were never, ever intended when the instrument was drafted in the late 40s and early 50s.”
The increasingly vocal former Home Secretary added the misuse of the convention was “never anticipated when we were discussing in great detail how we incorporated human rights into British law in the mid-90s.” His proposal is to amend the Human Rights Act to stipulate that UK courts don’t have to take account of the ECHR. Has been done by others…
Straw joins Blunkett and veteran Labour MP Graham Stringer in their calls for departure. Downing Street insisted yesterday at the Lobby briefing of journalists that leaving the ECHR or rewriting legislation related to it is “not something we are looking at” and minister Matthew Pennycook was right to say that would “put us in a club with Russia and Belarus.” Farage pledged yesterday to leave the convention and introduce a British Bill of Rights. Starmer boxed in, left behind…
Lucy Powell on LBC, asked by Tom Swarbrick for her reaction to Labour MP Samantha Niblett’s call for a ‘summer of sex’ debate in Parliament: “I personally don’t own any sex toys, but each to their own… I’m not really sure that’s the right place for it, no.”