Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Welsh Secretary digs in on undermining devolution
The broadcaster says that Jo Stevens spoke after Labour Senedd member Alun Davies said ministers in Cardiff were being "humiliated" by the UK government's stance on devolution:
Davies was one of 11 Labour backbenchers in Cardiff Bay who signed a letter attacking how funding for the Pride in Place scheme was going directly to local councils, bypassing Welsh ministers.
But Stevens said "my job is to make sure that we get more in Wales, not less, and I'm not going to turn money away".
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth used a debate in the Welsh Parliament on Wednesday evening to accuse Sir Keir Starmer of "an abject lack of delivery for Wales".
In the debate Davies criticised how the country is funded and disagreements over powers with Westminster, saying it was "not fair that Wales is treated the way it is".
There is a split within Labour between Westminster and Cardiff on where power should lie in devolved areas.
A visit to Port Talbot on Thursday by Jo Stevens was the first opportunity for a member of the UK cabinet to respond to the criticism from Labour Cardiff Bay politicians.
Stevens said Pride in Place funding was "about making sure that people in Wales get what they need and what they deserve in order to make improvements to their lives".
"So if you open your door in the morning and there's a bus shelter that's broken or you haven't got enough bins in your town centre, people want these things fixed," she told BBC Wales.
"That's what they want, that's what their priorities are.
"And there is money going to every single local authority in Wales in order to do those sorts of things."
Stevens was asked what her message was to Labour Senedd members "causing her a bit of a headache".
"I met with all the Labour MSs last week, actually, and I spend a lot of my time out and about with Labour MSs all over Wales," she said.
"We are doing a job of work for the people of Wales, and I will be absolutely fully behind the First Minister, Eluned Morgan, as we go into the run-up to the elections next year."
Davies told the Senedd on Wednesday he wanted "equality for our country within the United Kingdom", having earlier argued that policing powers should also be devolved to Wales.
"It is not fair that Wales is treated the way it is, and it is not fair that Welsh ministers are humiliated – and we saw it this afternoon – having to run to catch up because they don't know what's being said from London," he said.
"It's not fair that Welsh ministers need to try to explain that rail funding is fair when it's self-evidently not, that Barnett is fair when it is self-evidently not."
The Barnett formula is used by the UK Treasury to set funding for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Welsh government has said the formula should be changed because it does not meet Wales' needs.
Stevens is right of course about the priorities of people in Wales, but under the present settlement, it is not her job to deliver on them, it is the job of Welsh government.
Like previous Tory governments and, as revealed by the release of confidential papers yesterday, previous Labour governments as well, the Secretary of State for Wales and her fellow ministers do not get devolution and do not like giving up power and influence to devolved administrations.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Time to start learning from mistakes
The paper says that new analysis by Labour MP, Joe Powell found that at least 87 contracts across the public sector in the government’s own database involve companies criticised in the phase 2 report into the Grenfell fire, published in September 2024, though some contracts may have since expired:
Two large companies linked to the disaster – Saint-Gobain and Rydon Maintenance – appear in the public contracts database with contracts worth millions in the public sector.
Rydon, the main contractor for the refurbishment, was heavily criticised. The inquiry concluded that the company “gave inadequate thought to fire safety” and failed to ensure subcontractors and consultants properly understood their responsibilities.
Rydon’s team was found to be inexperienced and relied on subcontractors to highlight errors.
But the company also appears on multiple public contracts, including facilities management services for NHS trusts worth millions. Confirmed contracts include £6.6m with Oxleas NHS foundation trust and £4.3m with Avon and Wiltshire mental health partnerships NHS trust. The trusts did not respond to requests for comment.
In total the database showed 14 contracts with Rydon with unspecified end dates worth more than £5.5bn – though some of the contracts may have since expired. Rydon did not respond to requests for comment.
Powell has written to the NHS trusts involved, as well as Scottish Water, asking them to review their contracts. In his letter to Penny Dash, the chair of NHS North West London, Powell said the trust should review its contract with Rydon.
“It is essential that while we wait for the criminal justice process to conclude, those companies cited in the inquiry are not benefiting from any public funds,” he wrote.
Another of the companies, Celotex, then owned by Saint-Gobain, was found to have marketed its RS5000 insulation as safe for use on high-rise buildings despite knowing it was combustible – and it was used for 95% of the insulation on the tower. The company has said it was intended for use with non-combustible cladding.
During the inquiry, a former Celotex employee testified that they were made to “lie for commercial gain” and described the company’s actions as “completely unethical”.
The procurement data shows that Saint-Gobain continues to hold a £17.6m contract with Scottish Water that runs until 2029. It is no longer the parent company of Celotex, but was at the time of the fire. Scottish Water declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Saint-Gobain Construction Products UK said it comprised “a wide range of businesses, including Saint-Gobain PAM, a manufacturer of high-performance ductile iron pipes for infrastructure and water projects.
“Those businesses had no connection with the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, nor with Celotex Limited, which has not traded since December 2015. They were not referenced during the inquiry or subsequent government announcements, and their integrity has not been called into question.
“Saint-Gobain businesses have been manufacturing in the UK since 1846. They are a critical supply chain partner across numerous UK construction and infrastructure projects, valued employers, and contributors to the economic areas and local communities in which they operate.”
The Procurement Act 2023 gives local authorities, NHS bodies and other public organisations the power to exclude suppliers for poor past performance, including breaches of health and safety, labour or environmental law, or professional misconduct.
Powell said the powers needed to be used more proactively to protect public safety and public funds, rather than relying on voluntary caution by contracting authorities.
Whatever the reason, the fact that responsible contractors are continuing to benefit from public funds cannot reassure the victims of this disaster and the sooner the legal process is concluded, the better.
Monday, December 29, 2025
Former teacher testifies to Farage's behaviour at school
Ms Deakin raised her concerns after hearing reports of him bullying other pupils. She says that she conferred with colleagues in the staff room who corroborated accounts of harassment of fellow pupils and of Farage’s apparent fascination with the far right, including claims that he had been “goose-stepping” on combined cadet force marches:
Despite the chatter in the playground and staffroom, Farage was put on a draft list of prefects by the headteacher, David Emms, and his deputy, Terry Walsh. There was a meeting where strong views were aired, though Emms and Walsh were of the opinion that Farage was naughty, rather than being a malevolent racist.
“So when I heard that Farage’s name was on the finalised prefect list, I was appalled and that was why I wrote independently to Emms, because I felt strongly about it – I still do,” Deakin recalled.
Deakin’s letter of June 1981, first revealed by the Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick in a report in 2013, is uncompromising. She has never spoken before of this episode with the letter – written after Farage’s 17th birthday – emerging only as a result of her having given a copy of it to a senior teacher at the time, as was the practice at the school.
She wrote: “You will recall that at the recent and lengthy meeting about the selection of prefects, the remark by a colleague that Farage was a ‘fascist but that was no reason why he would not make a good prefect’ invoked considerable reaction from members of the [staff] common room.
“Another colleague, who teaches the boy, described his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views, and he cited a particular incident in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set that he had to be removed from his lesson.
“Yet another colleague described how, at a [combined cadet force] camp organised by the college, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler Youth songs; and when it was suggested by a master that boys who expressed such views ‘don’t really mean them’, the college chaplain himself commented that, on the contrary, in his experience views of that kind expressed by boys of that age are deep-seated and are meant.”
The letter concluded: “You will appreciate that I regard this as a very serious matter. I have often heard you tell our senior boys that they are the nation’s future leaders. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these leaders are enlightened and compassionate.”
The Guardian says that their reporters have now spoken to more than 30 school contemporaries of Farage who have given testimony of being on the wrong end of racist or antisemitic abuse or witnessing it at the school and yet Farage has not acknowledged or apologised for his alleged actions.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Cap needed on political donations
The Guardian reports that these organisations have urged the government to show more ambition as it prepares to publish legislation early next year that will extend the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds:
In a letter sent this week to Steve Reed, the communities secretary, and Samantha Dixon, the democracy minister, 19 civil organisations said “a donations cap is the best way to protect our democracy and to rebuild voter confidence in the system”.
Its signatories include the Electoral Reform Society, Transparency International UK, Hope not Hate and the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition.
The call comes weeks after Nigel Farage’s Reform UK declared it had received £9m from the Thailand-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne, the largest donation made by a living person to a British political party.
As well as reducing the voting age to 16, ministers are planning to use the elections bill to reduce loopholes in political finance.
Last summer, the government said it would tighten the rules around political donations from shell companies and unincorporated associations and empower the Electoral Commission to issue much bigger fines – increasing the maximum from £20,000 to £500,000.
The campaigners’ letter called on the government to use the bill to ban political donations made in cryptocurrency, after similar action taken by Ireland and Brazil.
The Guardian reported this month that ministers were exploring doing so amid growing concerns that cryptocurrency donations endanger the integrity of the electoral system because it is difficult to establish where they come from. Farage’s party became the first to accept donations in crypto earlier this year.
Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said in July that banning cryptocurrency donations was “definitely something that the Electoral Commission should be considering” and that it was “very important that we know who is providing the donation”.
However, ministers have so far shied away from legislating to limit political donations after last year assessing a proposal by the Institute for Public Policy Research for a £100,000 cap.
Like other major parties, Labour relies on private fundraising to fund its campaigns. Its biggest donors in recent years have included the former Autoglass boss Gary Lubner and the green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince.
The letter also called on ministers to legislate to introduce automatic voter registration, which is being piloted in Wales. The measure, which Labour officials have been exploring since they were in opposition, would mean voters are added to the electoral roll automatically without needing to actively register.
Campaigners say the move would improve voter turnout and increase electoral participation by renters and people from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, who are less likely to be registered to vote.
Finally, the letter urged ministers to safeguard the Electoral Commission’s independence after the Conservatives legislated to allow ministers to set strategy and policy for the regulator.
The signatories warned that the Tory move “creates serious risks of interference and political capture” and that “while it may seem politically expedient to maintain this power while in government, it is essential that independence be returned”.
Campaign groups that signed the letter to Reed and Dixon included Generation Rent, The 99% Organisation, Make Votes Matter, the Black Equity Organisation and the website Byline Times.
With all the parties reliant on large donations I am not optimistic that any changes will be radical enough, but the government must listen to these campaigners if the integrity of our democracy and electoral systems is to be protected.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
The history of Britain's best large indoor market
I make a point nowadays of visiting markets whenever I go to a new place. I grew up revelling in the delightful chaos and colour of Birkenhead market, only to see it now relocated and constrained within sterile, shuttered bunkers without any real atmosphere. Swansea market, however, has so far resisted such modernisation and continues to convey the sort of bustling activity and liveliness which I have always associated with such destinations.
According to the council website, this is the third market to be located on Oxford Street, having opened over 50 years ago, but the history of Swansea market goes back much further.
The archive service tells us that the earliest covered market dates back to 1652, and was located under the shadow of the Castle, but the first purposely built market building was known as Market House and erected in 1774:
Market House was situated at the Castle end of Wind Street with the wonderfully named Butter and Potato streets leading down either side of the building with Island House in front which dates back to Medievel times.Market House was a low roofed, one floored building supported by pillars and had no outer walls. Surrounding streets were stood cheek by jowl and lack of space meant traders would spill over on each others pitches.
They record that by the 1870's Island house was demolished to make way for the new street trams and Market House followed suit:
Swansea had also outgrown its Castle located market and by the end of the 19th century expansion was needed as the town population mushroomed from around 13,000 in 1830 to over 90,000 by the 1890s.
The archives site tells us that the new market was much larger:
It boasted entrances on Oxford Street, Union Street and Orange Street. A modest rubble wall punctuated with chimneys ran alongside the Oxford Street face, enclosing the stalls and encircling an area measuring 320 by 220 feet (98 by 67 metres). A market house was situated in the centre with a prominent clock tower which was built with stone from the old market hall by the Castle.
However, by late Victorian times, massive improvements were urgently needed and, as the archives site records, the market was modernised and expanded:
On 22 June 1897 (the same day as Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee) a brand new red Ruabon brick-fronted building was opened to the public by the mayor, Councillor Howell Watkins. It covered the same two-acre site as its predecessor, but with a grand façade built around the Oxford Street entrance with two 60ft high towers greeting you to a new shopping experience. This time a roof covered the whole market, and was at the time the largest structure of glass and wrought ironwork in the UK.
In December 1897 electricity was introduced to the market and by 1900 the corporation's new power station at the Strand lit the whole building. History was in the making.
The second Oxford Street Market was an impressive and important building in Swansea's architectural history and housed an incredible 597 stalls by the end of the 1920s. As always many stalls sold fresh produce from the Gower peninsula which made the market very desirable to visitors and tourists. It was boom time.
The picture above shows the impressive frontage, but it was not to survive the second world war. The archives site takes up the story:
During the 3 Nights' Blitz of February 1941, the Luftwaffe devastated central Swansea. The bombs showed no mercy to the market.
The external walls remained, but the roof and interior was completely destroyed, leaving the iron structure in ruins. The market would have to be replaced along with the majority of the town centre, but as it was such a mammoth task to rebuild the town after the Blitz, the rebuilding of the market had to be put back by several years.
Nonetheless it was essential to keep supplying the people of Swansea with food in these testing times. Action was taken with a temporary market, set up on the upper floors of the bus garage in Singleton Street. The market stalls were reinstated in Oxford Street in October 1941 where it remained as an open-air market through the 1940s and 1950s. Temporary sites were at Whitewalls (the site of the present Primark store) and between Orange Street and Wassail Square (now the area covered by the Quadrant Shopping Centre).
Like a modern Phoenix from the ashes, and almost 20 years since the loss of the red-brick behemoth, our current market was opened on 18 May 1961 at 11.30am by the Mayor Councillor Sidney Jenkins JP, and the Chairman of the Estates Committee Alderman Francis Charles Jones, who said it was a historic occasion, "a day of accomplishment and pride."
Friday, December 26, 2025
Another u-turn just adding to the chaos
The paper says that under the plans, announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves last year, farmers were to be charged 20 per cent on agricultural assets above £1m from April 2026, but on Tuesday, Labour said it was raising the threshold from £1m to £2.5m, meaning that most farms would not have to pay it.
This u-turn follows months of protests and campaigning, with farmers fearing that family-run farms would be worst affected:
The climbdown comes after crunch talks between National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw and the prime minister last week, The Independent understands, following a year of protests about the measures.
Gareth Wyn Jones, a farmer from North Wales who was one of the leaders of the protests against the tax, told The Independent the announcement was “great news”, while former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who has also been very critical of the policy, welcomed the climbdown.
Meanwhile, a farmer whose father killed himself the day before last October’s Budget amid worries over the inheritance tax changes said the government’s climbdown was “the best Christmas present for a lot of farmers”, but he accused ministers of demonstrating “a complete lack of understanding and compassion” in relation to rural communities.
Jonathan Charlesworth, who found his father John Philip Charlesworth dead in a barn on their farm in Silkstone, Barnsley, said: “It’s a welcome U-turn that won’t bring back the lives lost over the last year or so due to the anxiety caused, but will hopefully prevent a flood of suicides running up to the commencement in April.”
He added: “The flip side is, it should have been researched and put out to review before any announcement was made.”
The higher threshold, which will take effect in April, will allow spouses or civil partners to pass on up to £5m in qualifying agricultural or business assets between them before paying inheritance tax, on top of existing allowances, Defra said.
In addition, farmers will get 50 per cent relief on qualifying assets above the threshold, paying a reduced effective rate of up to 20 per cent rather than the standard 40 per cent.
The number of estates facing higher inheritance tax will be reduced from around 2,000 under the original plans to around 1,100, meaning it will affect only the largest farms, according to the government.
Although this u-turn is very welcome, one can't help having the feeling that all of this embarrassment for Labour ministers could have been avoided if they had done their research in the first place and listened to those affected by the changes.
Instead, we get the impression of a government veering from crisis to crisis, never fully in control of their own agenda.
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Merry Christmas everyone
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Reform under fire on special needs education
The paper says that the schools standards minister Georgia Gould has slapped down comments from Reform party figures, which have included claims of children being “naughty”, bad parenting and an overdiagnosis of SEND issues:
She fiercely rejected the idea of parents doing something wrong and warned such claims impact children’s sense of identity and belonging at school.
Asked about Reform, Ms Gould told The Mirror : “I've seen comments about over diagnosis, comments about parents being the issue, about these being just naughty children.
“I think that when I speak to parents and young people, those comments have a real world impact for how they feel about themselves and their communities, how children feel with their sense of identity and belonging at school. I completely reject the idea that this is something that parents are doing wrong.
“Any parent - I would do the same - would want to get what's best for their child and I think we should be working alongside parents, listening to them and changing things together, not blaming them for the system failures we're seeing.”
In recent months, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has spoken out multiple times about the SEND system. He has claimed there has been an “over-diagnosis” of kids with SEND and said it was “insane” to see children wearing ear defenders in classrooms.
The Boston and Skegness MP also suggested some parents were trying to make money through the SEND system. He said middle class families were “playing the game” by allegedly trying to save VAT on private school fees by getting an exemption through the SEND system.
Earlier this year, Nigel Farage similarly claimed there is an overdiagnosis of mental illness and other general behavioural disabilities within children that is “creating a class of victims”.
Dr David Bull, Reform's chairman, was later criticised by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for claiming that “many of these kids are naughty kids, bad parenting”.
Day after day, Reform demonstrate just how unfit for government they really are.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Has Starmer declared war on the lobby?
Heale explains that Downing Street has announced a major overhaul of the ‘lobby’ briefing system:
Currently, accredited political reporters are invited to twice-daily briefings with No. 10 spokesmen. But Tim Allan – the newly-appointed executive communications director – wants to change all that. He plans to scrap afternoon briefings and host ‘occasional’ morning press conferences in place of morning briefings. ‘Content creators’ are to be invited along too. Allan claims these changes will ‘better serve journalists and to better inform the public about government policies.’
Naturally, most lobby journalists disagree.The current and outgoing chairmen of the parliamentary press gallery have declared that they are ‘furious’ at the changes, unceremoniously announced, without consultation, just before the Christmas recess. In a statement, David Hughes and Lizzy Buchan pointed out that ‘Downing Street has promised more ministerial press conferences – but they will obviously control the timetable for those and will no doubt seek to choose who they take questions from.’ Such questioners are usually chosen well in advance, in contrast to lobby briefings which offer every journalist an equal chance to probe No. 10.
So, what is Keir Starmer’s team thinking? They are concerned that their message to the public is not currently being heard. Allan is one of those who has been pushing the ever-expanding New Media Unit, which aims to meet voters where they are in 2025: increasingly, online. It follows that briefings should therefore be opened up to influencers who can help ‘micro-target’ government messaging. The lobby, by extension, is regarded as less of an influence than it once was. Some of Starmer’s allies regard it with disdain, complaining that journalists are obsessed by gossip and hounding ministers from office. Curbing opportunities for interrogation therefore makes sense.
Complaints about political journalists are nothing new in Whitehall. The last time that Downing Street declared ‘war on the lobby’ was under Boris Johnson in early 2020, when selected journalists were banned from briefings. Back then, Labour was happy to pose as the champions of press freedom. ‘Those gaining access to such important information should not be cherry-picked by No 10’, said Tracy Brabin, the-then Shadow Culture Secretary. Eighteen months into this embattled government, the mood has clearly changed. It fits with a wider authoritarian bent too, with military chiefs now gagged, ID cards adopted and jury trials scrapped.
Some of what Allan is proposing seems sensible. He is right to call for more specialist reporters and offer them additional background briefings. The expansion of new media means there is a decent case for content creators to attend lobby briefings, with the likes of Guido Fawkes and GB News obtaining their own accreditation in recent years. But pretending that a hand-picked ministerial press conference offers the same level of transparency as the existing set-up is clearly disingenuous.
Were today’s changes to be announced at the beginning of an administration, they might have been seen as a sign of strength and wisdom. Yet with Starmer’s polling at record lows, they smack of deflection and shooting the messenger. The government’s communications might be poor – but much of their policy offer has been equally unsound. Curbing access for political journalists is unlikely to end Starmer’s woes – nor win back a public clearly souring on him either.
Once a government adopts a siege mentality like this then we know it is in trouble.
Monday, December 22, 2025
No more political appointees after Trump sues BBC
The paper says that she has told them that "political appointments to the board have undermined the sense of independence and trust from the public":
Nandy herself has previously been accused of leaning on the BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, to get rid of director general Tim Davie over the Bob Vylan Glastonbury episode, a move she denies. She insists “my job is to make sure that the BBC remains independent, remains free from political interference, but is far more accountable to the public that it belongs to”.
The charter review green paper – which is open for public discussion and will set out the terms for the next 10 years of the BBC’s future – was released on the day news broke that Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10bn. The US president is claiming damages over a 2024 episode of Panorama in which his 6 January speech was edited in a way that, according to the BBC’s subsequent apology, gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
The edit sparked uproar only recently, following the leak of a critical memo sent to the BBC board by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the corporation’s standards committee. This in turn prompted a row over political board appointments, as Robbie Gibb, a BBC board member with links to the Conservative party, amplified the report, leading to the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness.
“The BBC has consulted lawyers. They’ve been very clear that there is no basis for a successful claim. They’ve made clear today that they intend to contest this,” Nandy said, giving the government’s firmest backing yet to the corporation’s response to the Trump lawsuit.
The 33-page suit has been filed in Florida, where the courts’ jurisdiction will be contested, not least because the Panorama film in question was never broadcast there in the US and was viewable online only with the help of a virtual private network (VPN).
Trump has sued two major US networks so far this year for what he claimed was unfair reporting. Both CBS and ABC paid his foundation multimillion-dollar settlements rather than fight the White House, even though legal experts said both cases were without merit.
“We’ve been absolutely crystal clear that although the BBC has made mistakes in a number of areas over recent years, it remains one of the most important institutions in our country, alongside the National Health Service,” Nandy told The Observer. “Any legal action that the BBC faces will not affect decisions that we make about the future of our national broadcaster.”
Doing away with political appointees must be the bare minimum in ensuring that the public retain confidence in the corporation. Further work is needed however to help their news and current affairs department understand the concept of balance, something that has been lacking in their headlong rush to promote Farage and Reform.
Sunday, December 21, 2025
A long overdue inquiry
The BBC report that the review will be led by former senior civil Philip Rycroft and will report back in March:
Speaking in the House of Commons, [Communities Secretary Steve] Reed said: "The facts are clear. A British politician took bribes to further the interests of the Russian regime, a regime which forcefully deported vulnerable Ukrainian children and killed a British citizen on British soil using a deadly nerve agent.
"This conduct is a stain on our democracy. The independent review will work to remove that stain."
Earlier this year the government published its strategy, external for "modern and secure elections", which Reed said "will close loopholes that should have been closed long before we entered office".
"However, in the time since that strategy was published, events have shown that we need to consider whether our firewall is enough," he added.
He said the findings of the review would inform the government's Election and Democracy Bill, which it plans to publish next year.
The government said the review would conduct an "in-depth assessment of the current financial rules and safeguards and offer recommendations to further mitigate risks from foreign political interference".
It will also examine whether rules are in place to "protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptocurrencies".
The government described the review as "a response to the evolving threat posed by political interference to British democracy, including the shocking cases of former MEP Nathan Gill and Christine Lee".
In 2022, MI5 issued a rare warning alleging that Ms Lee was a Chinese agent who infiltrated Parliament and made donations to politicians.
Ms Lee has previously said the MI5 alert "wrongly accused her of knowingly engaging in political interference" on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Last month, Gill became the first politician to be jailed under the Bribery Act.
He is thought to have received up to £40,000 to help pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.
He was an MEP when he accepted money from Oleg Voloshyn, a man once described by the US government as a "pawn" of Russian secret services.
However, Liberal Democrat spokesperson Zöe Franklin is also right in calling for the government to introduce a cap on political donations because "a small number of extremely wealthy individuals now wield disproportionate influence over British politics - that includes overseas donors".
Saturday, December 20, 2025
Alcock and Brown and the first transatlantic flight
The RAF commemorated the occasion with an exhibition in Swansea Museum and a very swanky dinner, which I wrote about on my Mayoral blog, here.
As Wikipedia recalls, together with John Alcock, Arthur Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. The two men flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.
The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by aeroplane in "less than 72 consecutive hours". A small amount of mail was carried on the flight, making it the first transatlantic airmail flight. The two aviators were awarded the honour of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) a week later by King George V at Windsor Castle.
The original plane is housed in the British Science Museum, hanging from a ceiling. The picture is of a replica produced for the exhibition.
The Swansea link comes from the fact that Sir Arthur Whitten Brown lived here for most of his adult life, working at the Vickers office in the town centre. There is though, no official blue plaque on Belgrave Court, as this letter to the Guardian in 2019 makes clear:
Jan Wiczkowski (Letters, 16 June) claims Arthur Whitten Brown as a Manchester man, although Brown was originally from Glasgow and died in Swansea in 1948. However, it is certainly true that he, John Alcock and their pioneering flight are largely ignored these days.
My mother was a neighbour of Whitten Brown when he lived in Belgrave Court in the Uplands district of Swansea. From what he seems to have told her the historic flight was at times terrifying, yet this was a man who would not go to the air raid shelter during the three-night blitz on Swansea in February 1941.
Your correspondent is right: “courage tempered with a little wild and optimistic madness” deserves to be remembered and celebrated, yet there is only a small, inconspicuous memorial on Belgrave Court. If anyone deserves a proper blue plaque, it is Whitten Brown.
Rev Dr Peter Phillips, Swansea
Time for that to be put right.
Friday, December 19, 2025
Keir Starmer's democratic deficit
They are in the process of restricting the right of people to demonstrate, proscribing protest groups like Palestine Action, proposing a crackdown on what demonstrators can chant, ramping up the use of facial recognition, introducing compulsory ID cards, and doing away with jury trials.
Now, as the BBC reports, elections in some local councils are facing further delays, amid an escalating blame game over Labour's planned overhaul of local government in England.
The BBC website says that ministers have indicated they will agree to postpone elections due next May until 2027, if authorities request it by mid-January. Polls in nine such areas have already been postponed once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025:
The government plans to get rid of the two-tier system of district and county councils, creating a swathe of new authorities that will be responsible for delivering all local services in their areas from 2028.
Ministers have now asked all 63 councils affected by the reorganisation that are due to hold elections in May to say whether they require a delay.
In a statement, Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said "multiple" authorities had asked for a postponement, after expressing concerns about their ability to run "resource-intensive" elections alongside the transition.
Others had questioned the cost to taxpayers of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished, she added.
Speaking in the Commons, she added that those seeking a suspension were only a "minority" of affected councils, without offering further details.
The announcement of further potential delays, made on the last day before Parliament's Christmas break, comes just two days after Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told MPs scheduled elections "will go ahead".
Conservative shadow local government minister Paul Holmes said local leaders should not be blamed for further delays, adding that Labour's reorganisation had been "rushed and deeply flawed".
He accused Labour of "pausing the democratic process to serve their own political interests".
Whilst there is a precedent for cancelling elections to councils that are about to be replaced, the slow progress of the reorganisation has seen Labour face accusations it is acting undemocratically.
Local polls in nine areas, including Suffolk, East and West Sussex, and Essex, have already been put back once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025.
If elections are delayed again in any of these areas, it will mean some councillors will have sat for seven years without facing local voters.
Elections for new mayors in Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton have also ready been delayed two years until until May 2028, it was confirmed earlier this month.
The question is, have they delayed these elections as stated, because of administrative reasons or because they are running scared of losing thousands more seats? I was a member of a transitional authority in 1995, and there were no problems in accommodating elections as part of the reorganisation process.
Why are Labour always taking the policy route favoured by dictators rather than that preferred by democrats?
Now, as the BBC reports, elections in some local councils are facing further delays, amid an escalating blame game over Labour's planned overhaul of local government in England.
The BBC website says that ministers have indicated they will agree to postpone elections due next May until 2027, if authorities request it by mid-January. Polls in nine such areas have already been postponed once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025:
The government plans to get rid of the two-tier system of district and county councils, creating a swathe of new authorities that will be responsible for delivering all local services in their areas from 2028.
Ministers have now asked all 63 councils affected by the reorganisation that are due to hold elections in May to say whether they require a delay.
In a statement, Local Government Minister Alison McGovern said "multiple" authorities had asked for a postponement, after expressing concerns about their ability to run "resource-intensive" elections alongside the transition.
Others had questioned the cost to taxpayers of holding elections for councils that are due to be abolished, she added.
Speaking in the Commons, she added that those seeking a suspension were only a "minority" of affected councils, without offering further details.
The announcement of further potential delays, made on the last day before Parliament's Christmas break, comes just two days after Local Government Secretary Steve Reed told MPs scheduled elections "will go ahead".
Conservative shadow local government minister Paul Holmes said local leaders should not be blamed for further delays, adding that Labour's reorganisation had been "rushed and deeply flawed".
He accused Labour of "pausing the democratic process to serve their own political interests".
Whilst there is a precedent for cancelling elections to councils that are about to be replaced, the slow progress of the reorganisation has seen Labour face accusations it is acting undemocratically.
Local polls in nine areas, including Suffolk, East and West Sussex, and Essex, have already been put back once, having originally been scheduled for May 2025.
If elections are delayed again in any of these areas, it will mean some councillors will have sat for seven years without facing local voters.
Elections for new mayors in Greater Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton have also ready been delayed two years until until May 2028, it was confirmed earlier this month.
The question is, have they delayed these elections as stated, because of administrative reasons or because they are running scared of losing thousands more seats? I was a member of a transitional authority in 1995, and there were no problems in accommodating elections as part of the reorganisation process.
Why are Labour always taking the policy route favoured by dictators rather than that preferred by democrats?
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Farage under pressure to apologise
The paper says that some 25 former pupils and one ex-teacher have come together for the first time to express "dismay and anger" at the Reform UK leader's reaction to the allegations in recent weeks:
Mr Farage has been facing increasing pressure to apologise after his former peers alleged he made racist and antisemitic remarks at school. Claims include Mr Farage saying “Hitler was right” and making references to Nazi gas chambers at his private secondary school Dulwich College.
Mr Farage has repeatedly denied the allegations, with Reform UK suggesting the claims are part of a smear campaign against him.
In a powerful letter, the 26 signatories said it is "false" to suggest their allegations are politically motivated, as they "represent a broad swathe of professional backgrounds and political opinions".
They added: "Most of us have had no contact since we left Dulwich. Until writing this letter, we have not acted as a group. We have neither plotted nor conspired. All we have in common is that we either directly experienced or witnessed your racist and antisemitic behaviour."
The signatories also said it was "not true" they had only come forward since Reform began leading in the polls, pointing to previous reporting from as far back as 2013 in which similar allegations were made.
Elsewhere, they said Mr Farage's recent denial "disturbs us" and said it is important people seeking high office "own their past". The letter continued: “While we agree that no one should be judged in later life on the basis of what they have said or done in their youth, those seeking high office need to own their past and demonstrate honesty.
“Your denials have caused dismay and anger, and compelled us to come forward. None of us has taken lightly the decision to speak up. It has been deeply troubling to revisit our memories, let alone to share them with journalists and the broader public.
“However, what disturbs us is less what happened years ago, hurtful as it was, but rather your refusal to acknowledge your past behaviour or apologise for it.”
The group also countered Mr Farage's suggestions "that the kind of language we recall you saying was typical of the cultural climate of Britain at the time".
While they said there was "some truth to this", they added: "However, these personalities did not make direct or personal remarks. They did not intimidate Jewish boys with references to perishing in gas chambers, as you did. They did not order a Black child of nine to ten years of age to go back to Africa, as you did. They did not chant vile racist ditties, as you did. Your behaviour was exceptional, even for those times."
However much the Reform leader wants it to, this issue is not going to easily go away.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Another slippery slope?
His stance comes following the appalling attack by two gunmen on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on Sunday, killing 15 people and injuring a further twenty-seven:
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said that while “free speech is an important right in this country, that can’t extend to inciting hatred or harassing others”, saying the police will use their powers “more robustly” to tackle the proliferation of antisemitism.
Starmer and the Chief Rabbi are, of course, absolutely correct that hate speech has often led to unacceptable and horrendous atrocities against Jews, but also against other minorities, and where there is a clear causality then the police need to act.
But at the same time, in enforcing any new rules, care must be taken to distinguish between, for example, rhetoric criticising the actions of the state of Israel, which is not anti-semitic, and language that is clearly discriminatory.
There are inherent risks in asking the authorities to police what people can and cannot say when demonstrating. The ban on supporting Palestine Action for example, has led to hundreds of unnecessary arrests and overreach on the part of the police, with some people being arrested for displaying perfectly legal wording on placards.
The police already have powers to deal with hate speech and incitement. A new directive in which officers are asked to make a judgement call on what is anti-semitic and what is not, could well act as a severe restraint on people's basic democratic rights and lead to more confusion and inconsistencies in the way that peaceful protest is policed.
It would be a further step down a very slippery slope and one that should be considered very very carefully before it is taken.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
TUC brand Reform as a threat to Welsh industry
The paper says that the TUC believe that thousands of jobs in Wales are at risk under Reform and Tory policies that could revive Margaret Thatcher's "industrial destruction":
Ahead of crunch Senedd elections next year, analysis for the TUC found Nigel Farage's party poses the biggest threat to Welsh industry. Reform has vowed to scrap net zero and proposed cutting renewable subsidies, which risks making clean industrial upgrades unviable.
Analysis found this could starve Welsh industry of investment and deny factories vital investment, threatening 39,873 industrial jobs. Reducing investment in home-grown clean power will also make the UK more reliant on imported gas, which means bills can be hit by global shocks like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It comes after years of Tory neglect pushed factories, car plants and manufacturing sites in Wales to the brink. Last year, thousands of steel workers in Port Talbot lost their jobs when Tata closed its blast furnaces.
The Conservatives would threaten similar numbers of jobs, but researchers said the likelihood of the party enacting their policies was less likely. By comparison, Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the Lib Dems have all made stronger commitments to retaining or expanding clean industrial upgrades.
Flintshire, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire are the local authorities most at risk from job losses, with over 2,000 industrial jobs at risk in each, the analysis found. 7,765 auto workers are threatened, as are 7,544 metals workers and 5,813 plastics and rubber workers, both directly and indirectly in the supply chain.
TUC Cymru President Tom Hoyles said: “Welsh industry needs urgent action from all parties to survive and thrive in the 21st century. Policies which seek to turn back the clock and revive Thatcher’s industrial destruction would put thousands of Welsh jobs at risk.“
Industrial workers and the TUC are launching the “Save Welsh Industry – No More Site Closures” campaign this week. They are calling on politicians in Westminster and Cardiff Bay to bring forward measures to slash industrial electricity costs and to accelerate clean energy investment.
The campaign also demands work to prevent offshoring of jobs and emissions and to promote domestic industry, as well as a commitment to buy Welsh-made steel, cement and materials for big infrastructure projects.
It is about time the consequences of Reform's policies were spelt out in this way.
Monday, December 15, 2025
Labour MPs on alert over disabled jobs cuts
The paper says that MPs raised concerns over possible changes to the Access to Work (ATW) scheme, and hailed it as a vital lifeline for young people with learning disabilities and autism. Established in 1994 , the ATW scheme is designed to help people with disabilities or conditions get into employment or stay in their jobs.
The group, which includes Sir Jeremy Hunt, Daisy Cooper, Vicky Foxcroft and Rachel Maskell, has now written to the Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden, raising concerns further reforms could see unemployment rates soar.
In a letter, they said: “It is vital that we do all we can to support these young people into meaningful, sustained employment. One of the most effective ways to do this is through supported internships.
“However, recent changes to Access to Work funding, specifically the 26-week cap are putting these programmes at risk. Supported internships follow the academic year, and the final phase of the programme is critical.”
It comes with 948,000 individuals aged 16–24 not in education, employment, or training between April and June 2025. Young people with Education, Health and Care Plans are also 80% more likely to be unemployed compared to their peers.
The letter adds: “We recognise the government faces difficult decisions, and that Access to Work is in need of reform. However, we strongly urge you to reconsider this cap for supported internships. Enforcing it will jeopardise the long-term employment prospects of young people with learning disabilities and autism. Unless addressed, the policy changes risk driving up unemployment rates among young people across the UK”
With the Labour government intent on cutting spending on welfare it is not surprising that MPs are on alert, however this scheme is important in helping people get into work and should be protected.
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Labour under fire over tackling violence against women
The paper says that important voices in the violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector have privately accused ministers of sidelining first-hand expertise and expressed concern that the strategy will not be sufficiently radical to achieve the government’s flagship manifesto promise to halve the rate of VAWG in the UK in a decade:
Initially expected in spring, the VAWG strategy was delayed until summer and then autumn.
On Friday it emerged that schoolboys would be the target of the strategy, which the BBC reported would be built around the pillars of preventing radicalisation of young men, stopping abusers and supporting victims.
But multiple sources from organisations working in the VAWG sector said they had felt sidelined during the devising of the strategy.
One figure in the sector, comparing the past 18 months with the process before the strategy produced in 2019 by the Conservative government, said: “It is worse than under the Tories. In fact, we were so much better off under the Tories, you could get a meeting, they engaged with you. This whole process has been incredibly haphazard.”
Another figure in the sector noted that after the murder of Sarah Everard, the Conservative government reopened a public consultation. “We saw more senior ministers and had more contact with the secretary of state under the last government,” they said. “Ministers like Alex Davies-Jones and Jess Phillips have clearly worked hard on this, but it feels the machine has worked against them.”
Further concern is that the publication of the strategy, which is expected just before parliament closes for the Christmas recess, will be lost. “They’ve had 18 months and now they’re scrabbling around in the last week of parliament. It just feels like an afterthought,” said one source. “It hasn’t felt like it’s been a properly considered process where they’ve really sought the expertise in a considered way. It’s been slightly haphazard.”
On Tuesday Karen Bradley, the chair of the home affairs committee, wrote to Phillips and Davies-Jones to complain that “there has been poor engagement and transparency with VAWG stakeholders throughout the development of the VAWG strategy”. She noted that the VAWG advisory board – which contained experts to guide policy – had met only twice in person and once online and its role had been limited.
Andrea Simon, the director of the End Violence Against Women and Girls coalition, said there had been positive moves from the government, including £550m of funding for victim support, and proposed law changes to improve the fair treatment of victims in rape trials and ban depictions of strangulation in pornography. She called on the government to commit to a monitoring and evaluation structure for the strategy, to ensure accountability.
“Without that, the government will potentially fall foul of the lack of oversight we’ve seen in previous, underresourced strategies,” she said. “There has been a lot of rhetoric about commitment to halving VAWG through a cross-government approach, but that won’t stand up unless they are willing to be open, transparent, and bring in external scrutiny.”
While stories were emerging about the strategy in the press, a different figure said a full document had not been shared with even a small number of trusted parties. “You have to ask how a cross-governmental, strong strategy is being built if none of the experts are at the table,” they said.
Karen Ingala Smith, a co-founder of the Femicide Census, said it was “disappointed” not to have been invited to join the VAWG advisory board, adding that the two wider meetings she or her co-founder, Clarrie O’Callaghan, had attended felt like “box-ticking” exercises.
“It felt like it wouldn’t have mattered what we said, it wasn’t going to make any difference to what was written,” she said. “It felt perfunctory and tokenistic.”
Who knew Labour could make a bigger mess of this issue than the Tories?
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Swansea's link to the development of radar
Near the end of the war, he moved to Australia, where he used this knowledge to carry out research that he headed as Chief of the Radiophysics Division of CSIRO:
These programs, which included his enduring personal interest in cloud physics, artificial rainmaking, and the causes of natural variability in rainfall, were undertaken in the stimulating environment that he fostered at the radiophysics laboratory.
Wikipedia adds more detail about the revolutionary work carried out by Bowen in fitting radar into an aircraft, which they describe as difficult because of the size and weight of the equipment and the aerial:
Furthermore, the equipment had to operate in a vibrating and cold environment. Over the next few years Bowen and his group solved most of these problems. For example, he solved the problem of the power supply in aircraft by using an engine-driven alternator, and he encouraged Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) to produce the first radio-frequency cables with solid polythene insulation.
Further refinements continued until September 1937, when Bowen gave a dramatic and uninvited demonstration of the application of radar by searching for the British Fleet in the North Sea in poor visibility, detecting three capital ships. Bowen's airborne radar group now had two major projects, one for the detection of ships and the other for interception of aircraft. Bowen also experimented briefly with the use of airborne radar to detect features on the ground, such as towns and coastlines, to aid navigation.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Bowen's unit was moved to St Athan. One of the first things that Bowen did there was to try to detect a submarine by radar. By then, the cavity magnetron had been improved by John Randall and Harry Boot, making airborne radar a powerful tool. By December 1940, operational aircraft were able to detect submarines at up to 15 miles (24 km). This technology had a major effect on winning the Battle of the Atlantic which eventually enabled forces to be built up by sea for the invasion of Europe.
In April 1941, RAF Coastal Command was operating anti-submarine patrols with about 110 aircraft fitted with radar. This increased the detection of submarines both day and night. Few of the attacks were lethal until the introduction in mid-1942 of a powerful searchlight, the Leigh light, that illuminated the submarine. As a result, the U-boats had to recharge their batteries in daylight so that they could at least see the aircraft coming. The radar and the Leigh light cut Allied shipping losses dramatically.
It is fair to say that this work would have proved fairly significant in helping the Allies win the war in the Atlantic.
Wikipedia adds more detail about the revolutionary work carried out by Bowen in fitting radar into an aircraft, which they describe as difficult because of the size and weight of the equipment and the aerial:
Furthermore, the equipment had to operate in a vibrating and cold environment. Over the next few years Bowen and his group solved most of these problems. For example, he solved the problem of the power supply in aircraft by using an engine-driven alternator, and he encouraged Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) to produce the first radio-frequency cables with solid polythene insulation.
Further refinements continued until September 1937, when Bowen gave a dramatic and uninvited demonstration of the application of radar by searching for the British Fleet in the North Sea in poor visibility, detecting three capital ships. Bowen's airborne radar group now had two major projects, one for the detection of ships and the other for interception of aircraft. Bowen also experimented briefly with the use of airborne radar to detect features on the ground, such as towns and coastlines, to aid navigation.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Bowen's unit was moved to St Athan. One of the first things that Bowen did there was to try to detect a submarine by radar. By then, the cavity magnetron had been improved by John Randall and Harry Boot, making airborne radar a powerful tool. By December 1940, operational aircraft were able to detect submarines at up to 15 miles (24 km). This technology had a major effect on winning the Battle of the Atlantic which eventually enabled forces to be built up by sea for the invasion of Europe.
In April 1941, RAF Coastal Command was operating anti-submarine patrols with about 110 aircraft fitted with radar. This increased the detection of submarines both day and night. Few of the attacks were lethal until the introduction in mid-1942 of a powerful searchlight, the Leigh light, that illuminated the submarine. As a result, the U-boats had to recharge their batteries in daylight so that they could at least see the aircraft coming. The radar and the Leigh light cut Allied shipping losses dramatically.
It is fair to say that this work would have proved fairly significant in helping the Allies win the war in the Atlantic.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Starmer adds more peers than he has removed
They say that the prime minister has put forward 25 new members for the House of Lords, including his former director of communications Matthew Doyle and Rachel Reeves’s ex-chief of staff Katie Martin:
The list of potential new Lords follows staunch opposition from peers to Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill.
A Labour source said: “The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off. This needs to be corrected to deliver on our mandate from the British people. “
Women’s rights activist Sharron Davies was nominated by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, alongside ex-Tory cabinet minister John Redwood and journalist and historian Simon Heffer.
Another Labour aide Carol Linforth, seen on stage removing Sir Keir’s jacket when he was glitter-bombed during his 2023 Labour conference speech, is also on the list, as well as Sir Michael Barber, who served in No 10 during Sir Tony Blair’s premiership.
Last year, he was appointed an adviser to Sir Keir to help him drive forward the delivery of his five “missions”.
At least Starmer avoided the faux pas of nominating former Welsh First Minister, Vaughan Gething, a move that would have really undermined Labour's Senedd campaigning.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats made a total of five nominations, including former MP and coalition government minister, Sarah Teather.
How anybody can justify the continuation of this over-bloated institution is beyond me, it needs fundamental reform to democratise it. As the Electoral Reform Society says it's 'ridiculous' that Starmer has created more peers than he's removed.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers:
Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it is deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber.
Firstly, it is absurd for the Lords, which at more than 800 peers is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress, to be getting even more members. It is also patently ridiculous that the government has now added more peers into the Lords than the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing.
The ending of the remaining hereditary peers is a step in the right direction, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But [the new peerages] highlight just how unsustainable a wholly unelected and unrestrained chamber is.
I can understand why Ed Davey nominated additional peers, but really, he and the rest of the party should be fighting tooth and nail to abolish the Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers:
Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it is deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber.
Firstly, it is absurd for the Lords, which at more than 800 peers is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress, to be getting even more members. It is also patently ridiculous that the government has now added more peers into the Lords than the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing.
The ending of the remaining hereditary peers is a step in the right direction, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But [the new peerages] highlight just how unsustainable a wholly unelected and unrestrained chamber is.
I can understand why Ed Davey nominated additional peers, but really, he and the rest of the party should be fighting tooth and nail to abolish the Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber.
Thursday, December 11, 2025
How UK aid cuts have consequences for our security
The article points out that major reductions in development funding from the US, Germany, France, and the UK mark the biggest contraction in aid spending in decades, adding that by some projections, aid spending by the top donors in the world will decline by $67 billion (£50bn) from 2023 to 2026, a drop of almost a third:
This is driven primarily by Donald Trump's administration shuttering the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and cancelling 80 per cent of its foreign aid programmes. Its sudden and chaotic decision to cut USAID has been coupled with an increasingly uninterested, if not adversarial, approach to multilateral cooperation in general – skipping G20 meetings and calling the language of the Sustainable Development Goals (the global, UN-set targets for addressing poverty) "adverse" to American interests.
Cuts and disruption at this scale will have human consequences. By some projections, 100,000 deaths so far, and potentially millions in future. But as my colleague Jerome Puri and I outline in the report "Rethinking UK aid policy in an era of global funding cuts," they will also have security and geopolitical implications that we should not ignore.
The international organisations through which much aid spending is channelled – particularly UN agencies –– work on global challenges which affect UK security too. This includes controlling infectious diseases, pandemic monitoring and preparedness, and biosecurity.
An analysis by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of its 108 country offices’ work through March–April 2025 found that 70 per cent reported disruptions linked to aid cuts since the start of 2025, particularly for systems needed to monitor, prepare for and respond to outbreaks of preventable diseases. Analysis by Germany’s Kiel Institute has found there is evidence of significant returns for aid donors who invest in health in poorer countries, particularly in controlling and managing infectious diseases which if left unmanaged would result in wider crises. Preventing pandemics is more cost-effective than responding to them.
The UK government cut Britain's aid budget earlier this year not for the ideological reasons of the Trump administration, but because it wanted to find tactical cuts to provide more funding to defence. Parliament's Defence Select Committee has rightly said it is critical and urgent that the UK improve its readiness to fight a war to defend itself. But one of the biggest risks to UK security in the past five years was the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning the structures for controlling and addressing risks to global health are critical to our security too.
The government has sought to preserve – even as it cuts spending – part of its contributions to major global health funds. But it has nonetheless cut funding for some initiatives, including those focused on critical but less attention-grabbing issues, such as combatting anti-microbial resistance – and it will be affected by the wider reduction in resources for international health institutions.
This year’s cuts in aid spending are also likely to particularly hit countries most affected by conflict – recent trends in spending suggest what aid remains may well be channelled to more stable countries where impact is easier to measure, or reserved for short-term emergency responses.
Countries like Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Palestine have all already been hit by the UK’s cuts to aid it spends directly in specific countries. The difficult work of preventing conflict in the first place, or trying to reduce the likelihood it spirals out of control into wider regional wars is likely to lose out from wider cuts too. Uncontrolled conflict creates fertile ground for illicit finance, organised crime, and refugee flows. And, most refugees fleeing conflict head for more stable neighbouring countries, many of which – Kenya, Bangladesh, and Jordan, for example – have been hosting massive refugee camps for years. Reduced UN capacity and funding will make it harder for these countries to manage these situations – without sufficient international support, these governments may face domestic pressure to restrict rights or push refugees back, in ways that could affect regional security too.
As the article says, aid and defence spending are often described as opposed "soft" and "hard" power tools, but it might be better to see investment in global public goods such as health security or climate action not as soft power – but as practical and direct investments in collective security.
It adds that ensuring some resources are concentrated on neglected conflicts also has wider benefits, in guarding against those conflicts spiralling out of control in ways which can have long-run effects on regional stability and irregular migration.
These are wise words that the government would be wise to take note of.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Covid fraud under the Tories cost the taxpayer £10.9 billion
Hayhoe's report says that the response to the pandemic had led to "enormous outlays of public money which exposed it to the risk of fraud and error", with employment support schemes set up by the previous Conservative government, including furlough and help for the self-employed, suffering £5bn of fraud:
Many of the support measures were credited with propping up the economy throughout the Covid lockdowns. However, Mr Hayhoe said the "outrage" at fraud, abuse and error was "undiminished".
Mr Hayhoe had been asked by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to investigate the amount of public money lost to fraud given his experience in procurement as the former chair of an NHS trust.
The near £11bn lost to fraud and error is close to what the government spends on the UK's justice system. The report said £1.8bn had been recovered, although: "Much of the shortfall is now beyond recovery."
However, it added that there were still areas "where investing in recovering money paid out incorrectly is worthwhile and work should continue".
The report said weak accountability, bad quality data and poor contracting were among the main reasons for the losses.
Most public bodies were unprepared for "a crisis that required spending on such a scale and with such urgency".
"Consequently, some measures to protect against potential fraud were inadequate."
This applied to the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) where the volume of orders "overwhelmed the newly created supply chain and involved measures that invited mistrust, opportunism and profiteering".
It found £13.6bn was spent on PPE procurement, with 38 billion items purchased - although 11 billion were unused by 2024. Losses were estimated at £10bn from over-ordering and £324m of fraud.
The support for small businesses was also criticised, where "lending relied on self-certification with inadequate checks to prevent abuse".
It said the design of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme "created specific vulnerabilities to fraud and error", with the programme estimated to have incurred fraud and error losses of up to £2.8bn.
The report acknowledges that the schemes were designed and rolled out at speed but Mr Hayhoe says that fraud prevention should be more embedded into future disaster responses.
What adds to the feeling of outrage about this lost cash is that in many instances it was facilitated by people who should know better, through fast track VIP streams that failed to deliver.
That was the main reason, in my view, why pandemic-era PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer £1.4bn on undelivered contracts and unusable gowns, masks and gloves, with only a small fraction of that - £400m - having been recovered.
The government must continue to try and recover this money, while ensuring that lessons are learnt for the future.
Tuesday, December 09, 2025
Labours energy price cut could be swamped by rising costs
The paper says that in her Budget last week, the chancellor promised to take £150 off household bills by scrapping the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, but the former Labour donor and green entrepreneur Dale Vince has now claimed that the impact of paying for building nuclear energy capacity will largely wipe out the £150 because of the £1bn cost in the first year and ongoing costs for nuclear power:
Further analysis shows that, under plans announced by Ofgem, levies on bills to fund gas pipelines and the high-voltage electricity grid are set to rise £40 from £222 a year in April when the government’s £150 discount is due to come into effect.
The levies are due to rise for the following four years - reaching £338 a year by April 2030, according to Ofgem’s impact assessment.
Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) also revealed in its report with the Budget that £1bn a year will be added to household energy bills to fund energy secretary Ed Miliband’s next auction for renewables projects, known as “allocation round 7” (AR7).
The concerns are that instead of reducing household bills by £150, energy bills will instead rise.
Mr Vince told The Independent that the chancellor’s much-publicised £1bn in energy bill savings will be entirely wiped out by the costs of the Sizewell C nuclear project — costs the government is forcing households and businesses to pay years before construction even begins.
He claimed that the £150 discount is almost identical to the total annual charges that will hit homes and businesses through the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) nuclear levy, created to fund Sizewell C.
He said: “The chancellor’s energy savings will be wiped out overnight by the cost of Sizewell. From November, the government has decided to load the financial risk of this project straight onto our energy bills — before a single shovel hits the ground. And this isn’t some one-off charge.
“We’ll be subsidising Sizewell for at least 10 years, maybe longer — nuclear projects always run late. And we could still be paying for decommissioning well into the 22nd century.
“Imagine ordering a car and the dealership starts charging you before they’ve even built the factory — that’s what’s happening here.
“EDF say Sizewell will be ready in 2035, but Hinkley Point is running 14 years late and its price has jumped from £18 billion to £46 billion. Sizewell won’t bring bills down or help us get to Net Zero in time — but it will cost us for years.”
He claimed that the extra cost would be at least £35 and grow to £140 for a small hairdressing salon.
The government of course denies it. But realistically, raising expectations of a cut in bills, when extra costs are being added to them and when many of the factors leading to price rises are out of the government's control is a big gamble.
Monday, December 08, 2025
Following the Russian playbook
The paper says that three more British MEPs from Nigel Farage’s bloc are alleged to have “followed the script” given to Gill, who was being bribed by an alleged Russian asset, according to prosecutors, as a police investigation into the affair continues:
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has named Jonathan Bullock, Julia Reid and Steven Woolfe, saying they followed the script provided to Nathan Gill by Oleg Voloshyn when giving interviews to 112 Ukraine, a pro-Russian TV channel in March 2019.
In all, at least eight MEPs elected for either Ukip or the Brexit party are now known to have been the focus of efforts by Reform UK’s former Wales leader Gill to co-opt them into fulfilling tasks set for him by his Kremlin paymasters.
The claims that the three followed Gill’s talking points – disclosed in CPS documents in Gill’s case – are among those which have raised fresh questions over the extent of Gill’s influence since his jailing last month. There is no suggestion that any of the three committed criminal acts or had been aware Gill took bribes to promote Russian interests.
Amid the continuing police investigation, the Labour party has called on Farage to voluntarily offer to help investigators, who have already spoken to MEPs he led in the European parliament.
The chair of the Labour party, Anna Turley MP, said: “He must order an urgent investigation into pro-Russia links in Reform, and he should voluntarily go to the police for interview and help them with their inquiries.”
Last week, another former leading member of the group of MEPs headed by Farage denied taking money as part of a campaign to promote Russian interests.
David Coburn, who was also the leader of Ukip in Scotland for four years, was mentioned in WhatsApp messages between Gill and Voloshyn – a former Ukrainian MEP who is accused of the bribery – that were released by prosecutors.
The messages showed Gill and Voloshyn apparently discussing how much should be set aside for Coburn, who was also an MEP for Reform UK’s precursor the Brexit party. Coburn denied taking any payment when confronted by BBC journalists outside his home in France.
The messages were sent in April 2019 before a meeting at the European parliament of the editorial board of 112 Ukraine, whose membership included Gill and Coburn, and which was connected to Viktor Medvedchuk, Vladimir Putin’s ally in Ukraine.
The case for an investigation into foreign interference in UK politics is becoming compelling. The focus at present is on associates and former associates of Nigel Farage, but there are suggestions that others may well have been approached from other parties.
I don't believe that we can rely on Reform to conduct an investigation into its own affairs, this has to be a UK government inquiry, and an all-embracing one at that.
