Markus Andrews

Reform UK has been mocked after announcing their latest defection to the party – a police and crime commissioner who is an expert on ghosts, aliens and UFOs. Rupert Matthews, who holds the post in Leicestershire and Rutland, was introduced on Monday as having joined the party from the Conservatives.Before being elected in 2021, he served two years as as a European Parliament member for the Tories. He has also written a number of books about ghost sightings, UFOs, cryptozoology and other paranormal subjects.Rupert Matthews speaks at a Reform UK press conference in London More

The new pornography taskforce will propose legislation aimed at banning a type of content produced by porn star Bonnie Blue, known as “barely legal”. It comes after Channel 4 broadcast a documentary about the porn star, called: “1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story”, which followed her for six months.The show attracted significant criticism, with the children’s commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, accusing the show of “glamorising and normalising” extreme pornography.Channel 4 aired a documentary about Bonnie Blue More

A Home Office minister has hit back at those taking part in anti-migration protests across the UK, warning “anger doesn’t get you anywhere”.While Dame Angela Eagle said that those are worried about migration have an “absolute right” to demonstrate peacefully, she warned: “People don’t have a right to then have a pop at the police, which has been happening in some isolated cases outside hotels.”It comes amid escalating protests across the UK opposing the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, with a number of people arrested after a protest outside a hotel in Canary Wharf in London on Sunday. Dame Angela Eagle criticised people for ‘having a pop at the police’ More

Jess Phillips has joined criticism of Reform UK’s pledge to repeal the Online Safety Act, suggesting such a move would empower “modern-day Jimmy Saviles”.Ms Phillips, the Home Office minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, appeared to accuse Nigel Farage of being more concerned about “clicks for his monetised social media accounts” than children’s safety online.She backed her colleague Peter Kyle after his row with the Reform UK leader last week.The Technology Secretary said Mr Farage was putting himself on the side of “extreme pornographers” and people like Savile by opposing the law.Under rules that came into effect on July 25 as part of the act, online platforms such as social media sites and search engines must take steps to prevent children from accessing harmful content such as pornography or material that encourages suicide.Mr Farage has said the legislation threatens freedom of speech and open debate.Writing in The Times, Ms Phillips said: “Farage said it’s the biggest threat to freedom of speech in our lifetimes.“My colleague Peter Kyle said he was siding with modern-day Jimmy Saviles preying on children online.”She said she would like to speak to Mr Farage about “one of those modern-day Saviles, Alexander McCartney”.McCartney, who posed as a teenage girl to befriend young females from across the globe on Snapchat and other platforms before blackmailing them, “just needed a computer” to reach his targets, Ms Phillips wrote.Believed to be one of the world’s most prolific online offenders, McCartney abused at least 70 children online and drove one girl to suicide.Ms Phillips said the Online Safety Act exists to try to provide a “basic minimum of protection, and make it harder for paedophiles to prey on children at will”.She said police have told her that paedophile networks use “normal websites where their parents assume they’re safe” to coerce and blackmail young people.“Perhaps Nigel Farage doesn’t worry about that — there’s no political advantage in it, and no clicks for his monetised social media accounts. But I do.“I worry about what it means now and what it will mean when boys reared on a diet of ultraviolent online child abuse are adult men having children of their own. I can’t ignore that, neither can Peter Kyle, and, most importantly, nor can millions of parents across the country.“I defy Nigel Farage to tell me what any of that has to do with free speech.“I defy him to meet even one parent who has lost a daughter to suicide because she was being blackmailed online and tell them that is just the price of civil liberties. Maybe he’d feel differently after that kind of meeting, or maybe he wouldn’t care.”Her comments echo those of Mr Kyle, who said last week: “Make no mistake about it, if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he’d be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he’s on their side.”Mr Farage demanded an apology from the Technology Secretary, who refused to withdraw the remarks. More

The government will pour an extra £100m into efforts to tackle migration as pressure piles on ministers to crack down on small boat crossings. The money will support the pilot of the new “one in, one out” returns agreement between the UK and France, paying for up to 300 more National Crime Agency (NCA) officers and new technology and equipment to step up intelligence-gathering on smuggling gangs.There will be more overtime for immigration compliance and enforcement teams as well as funding for interventions in transit countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the government said. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour was planning a ‘major overhaul’ of the asylum appeal process (PA) More

Labour does not deserve to win the next election if it does not succeed in changing the country, Rachel Reeves has said, acknowledging that some voters were disappointed with the party’s time in office. Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, the chancellor said she is “impatient for change” but ministers “can’t do everything straight away, all at once”.It comes amid growing concern over the direction of Sir Keir Starmer’s government from voters on both the left and the right, with the prime minister’s approval rating hitting an all-time low last month.Speaking to Iain Dale, Ms Reeves said: “The reason people voted Labour at the last election is they want to change and they were unhappy with the way that the country was being governed.“They know that we inherited a mess. They know it’s not easy to put it right, but people are impatient for change.Chancellor Rachel Reeves took aim at Jeremy Corbyn’s new party (Yui Mok/PA) More

British pork will be served up on Mexican tables, after the government signed a new £19m deal with the country. After eight years of negotiations between Mexican and UK authorities, twelve businesses across England and Northern Ireland have secured approval to export quality British products to Mexico with the UK securing new access specifically for Northern Irish exporters, ministers said on Sunday. The businesses will now be able to export pork, offal and edible by-products, bringing British pig farmers a return on parts that are less popular in the UK but which Mexican consumers enjoy as part of classical buche meat dishes. Businesses across England and Northern Ireland will now be able to export quality British pork products More

As Ursula von der Leyen left Scotland last weekend with the ink still drying on the US/ EU trade deal she had just signed with Trump, the reception in European capitals was beyond gloomy.After all the posturing, threats of counter tariffs, Ms von der Leyen had signed a deal which was roundly criticised by a long line of leaders including German chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the agreement would “substantially damage” his nation’s finances, and French prime minister Francois Bayrou, who described it as tantamount to “submission”.Hungary’s Viktor Orban, an outspoken critic of the EU leadership, said Trump “ate von der Leyen for breakfast”.But there was one question which diplomats and government heads were asking all over Europe: “How did Keir Starmer get a better deal than us?”Trump and Starmer land in Aberdeenshire for a private dinnerNot only is the EU still paying 15 per cent tariffs, but it now has agreed to spend billions purchasing energy resources from the US. This compared to the 10 per cent tariffs for the UK.‘Featherweight’ Ursula von der LeyenA seasoned diplomat of an EU member state told The Independent that there was “anger” about what had happened.The fact that the UK “appears to be rewarded for Brexit” also really stung.But what was more worrying was that the EU supposed collective muscle had failed to produce the goods.Much of the blame has fallen on Ms von der Leyen herself and she is now being referred to as “the featherweight”. “She was just not strong enough to take on Trump,” said the diplomat.rump and von der Leyen agree their trade deal More