UK Politics

Nigel Farage is facing calls to sack his right-hand man Zia Yusuf after the senior Reform UK figure said that a member of his team “accidentally pressed like” on an antisemitic post which attacked the wife of Tory MP Robert Jenrick. The former Reform chair, who now heads the party’s Doge unit, has apologised for the incident, which comes after an anonymous X user posted a video that appeared to show Mr Yusuf liking a tweet which said: “Reminder that Jenrick is a traitorous Zogbot with a Jewish wife and family. I’m sure it’s unrelated that he imported infinite brown savages to rape our women and children.”Zogbot is a derogatory term for a Zionist.The anonymous account that shared the screen recording of Mr Yusuf’s interaction with the post described it as “absolutely horrifying antisemitism”.Since last summer, likes on X have been privatised, so that only the liker and the poster can see them, rather than a wider audience.In response, Mr Jenrick said he “called bull****” and pointed out that Mr Yusuf had been calling him a “traitor” for the previous 48 hours over the Afghan data breach in what had become an ugly spat.Zia Yusuf with Nigel Farage last month More

Nigel Farage is facing calls to sack his right-hand man Zia Yusuf after the senior Reform UK figure said that a member of his team “accidentally pressed like” on an antisemitic post which attacked the wife of Tory MP Robert Jenrick. The former Reform chair, who now heads the party’s Doge unit, has apologised for the incident, which comes after an anonymous X user posted a video that appeared to show Mr Yusuf liking a tweet which said: “Reminder that Jenrick is a traitorous Zogbot with a Jewish wife and family. I’m sure it’s unrelated that he imported infinite brown savages to rape our women and children.”Zogbot is a derogatory term for a Zionist.The anonymous account that shared the screen recording of Mr Yusuf’s interaction with the post described it as “absolutely horrifying antisemitism”.Since last summer, likes on X have been privatised, so that only the liker and the poster can see them, rather than a wider audience.In response, Mr Jenrick said he “called bull****” and pointed out that Mr Yusuf had been calling him a “traitor” for the previous 48 hours over the Afghan data breach in what had become an ugly spat.Zia Yusuf with Nigel Farage last month More

Britain has hit more than a dozen Russian spies with a wave of sanctions, targeting those it accused of running a “sustained campaign” of malicious activity against the UK. The Foreign Office named 18 officers from Russian spy agency the GRU, as well as hitting three of its units with measures aimed at cracking down on Vladimir Putin’s increasing aggression abroad.It said the military intelligence officers targeted were “responsible for spreading chaos and disorder on Putin’s orders”, and included those who had targeted the family of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. Members of the spy agency GRU to have been sanctioned include (clockwise, from top left) Aleksandr Osadchuk, Evgeny Serebriakov, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko, Anatoliy Kovalev, Yuriy Fedorovich Denisov, and Aleksey Sergeyevich Morenets More

A senior Tory has warned 16 and 17-year olds should not be allowed to vote because it will distract them from their exams. Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said if the voting age is lowered teenagers, will face choosing between focusing on their studies or “staying up to watch political debates”. The senior MP said elections are often in May, June and July and warned pupils do not need “this added pressure of being dragged into politics”. Claire Coutinho said voting would distract 16-year-olds from their studies More

There has been a mixed reaction in Britain to the government’s announcement that it will lower the voting age from 18 to 16 before the next national election.The Labour Party administration says it’s part of a package of changes to strengthen British democracy and help restore trust in politics. The opposition says it’s a power-grab by the left.Experts say it’s complicated, with mixed evidence about how lowering the voting age affects democracy and election outcomes. The biggest change since the 1960s Britain’s voting age last fell in 1969, when the U.K. became one of the first major democracies to lower it from 21 to 18. Many other countries, including the United States, followed suit within a few years.Now the government says it will lower the threshold to 16 by the time the next general election is held, likely in 2029. That will bring the whole country into line with Scotland and Wales, which have semiautonomous governments and already let 16- and 17-year-olds vote in local and regional elections.A handful of other countries currently have a voting age of 16, including Austria, Brazil and Ecuador. A few European Union countries, including Belgium, Germany and Malta, allow 16-year-olds to vote in elections to the European Parliament. The case for votes at 16 Supporters argue that 16-year-olds in Britain can work and pay taxes, so should be allowed to vote.“If you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.Pro-democracy organizations welcomed the lower age, and a move toward automatic voter registration, saying it would help increase voting rates. Turnout in the 2024 election was 59.7%, the lowest level in more than two decades.The age change is part of a package of electoral reforms that includes tightening campaign financing rules and broadening the range of documents that can be used as identification at polling stations.Supporters argue it will increase democratic participation by getting teenagers into the habit of voting at a time when most are still in school.“Younger people who are in full-time education and often still live at home can make for better, more engaged first-time voters compared with 18- to 20-year-olds, who often experience their first election in a highly transitory phase of their lives,” Christine Huebner, a social scientist at the University of Sheffield who has studied youth voting, wrote in The Guardian. Critics call it a cynical move Opponents argue that 16- and 17-year-olds should not be given the vote because in most ways they are not considered adults.“Why does this government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket, an alcoholic drink, marry, or go to war, or even stand in the elections they’re voting in?” Conservative lawmaker Paul Holmes asked Thursday in the House of Commons.Mark Goodwin, a senior lecturer in politics at Coventry University, agreed the move could seem paradoxical, because “socially, if anything, we’re moving in the opposite direction.”“Increasingly the age of majority, the age at which you become a fully capable and responsible adult, is moving more towards 18,” he said.The government’s political opponents on the right argue that Labour hopes to benefit from 1.5 million new potential young voters who generally lean to the left.Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right party Reform UK, said Labour was trying to “rig the system.” Conservative former foreign secretary James Cleverly said the government had cynically announced the change because it is “tanking in the polls.” Labour can’t take youth votes for granted Experts say enfranchising 16- and 17-year-olds is unlikely to dramatically change election results, because they are a relatively small group with diverse views. And it’s far from clear that Labour will reap most of the benefits of a bigger youth vote.U.K. politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, is becoming increasingly fragmented. Polling suggests younger voters lean left, but they are split among several parties including Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. Farage’s embrace of TikTok has built his brand with youth, and Reform has some support among young men.Goodwin said that in many parts of the world, “young people are abandoning the center-left in droves.“And in many cases, they’re lending their support to parties of the populist right, or challenger parties, outsider parties, independents, more alternative parties,” he said.“If it is a cynical ploy to get more Labour votes, there’s certainly an element of risk about where those votes would ultimately be cast.” More

The water regulator is expected to be scrapped next week as a government review concludes it is not fit for purpose. Ofwat is reportedly to be abolished on Monday under recommendations from the review led by former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe.Multiple reports suggest the review has concluded and Ofwat should be abolished as ministers look to replace it with a new regulator for the beleaguered industry. The regulator employs about 300 people.Thames Water saw serious pollution incidents double from 14 to 33, the Environment Agency said (Andrew Matthews/PA) More

Hundreds of Ministry of Defence (MoD) data breaches have been revealed as questions intensify over its ability to keep sensitive information safe in the wake of the Afghan data breach.The latest MoD data shows there were 569 incidents in 2023-24 – up from 550 the previous year – which included electronic devices being lost and protected documents not being disposed of properly.In one incident last year, the details of 272,000 staff – including names and bank details – were breached when one of its systems, run by an external contractor, was hacked by a “malign actor”. In another case, the MoD was fined £350,000 by the Information Commissioner for a breach related to the handling of emails linked to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) – the scheme to bring Afghans with links to British forces to safety in UK.Lord Beamish, the chairman of the powerful Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), has demanded the MoD explain why high-security information is being held on low-security systems.It follows the revelation this week of a catastrophic data breach, which exposed 100,000 Afghans to potential reprisals from the Taliban, costing the UK taxpayer billions and prompting a three-year cover-up through the use of an unprecedented superinjunction.Further concerns emerged on Thursday after it was revealed that British spies and special forces soldiers were also potentially exposed by the incident.John Healey (Lucy North/PA) More

Rachel Reeves’s plan to encourage savers to move their cash into investments has sparked a lively reader response, especially among older people who say they have neither the time nor appetite for risk.Many commenters questioned the wisdom of urging people into the stock market, arguing that fixed-rate savings accounts and tax-free ISAs already offer attractive returns of 4–5 per cent, with none of the potential losses. “Why would I want to invest in something that could lose money?” asked one 78-year-old pensioner, summing up a widely shared sentiment.Others pointed to personal experience with underperforming stocks and shares ISAs, and noted that at a later stage in life, there simply isn’t time to recover from a market downturn. Still, a few acknowledged that younger savers with time and discipline could benefit from regular investing, provided they get the right guidance.Here’s what you had to say:It was not worth the anxietyInvestment products are not for everyone, especially people who cannot afford top-end financial advice, which costs too. I once had an investment-only mortgage, which kept me awake for years, every time the markets underperformed. In the end, we cashed it when the markets were doing quite well and paid off the mortgage 8 years earlier. To be honest, it was not worth the anxiety and sleepless nights over 17 years. So, carefully consider what type of risk resilience you have and how you would cope if your investments underperform, or if you lose it all, or a considerable chunk of your money. For me personally, never ever again. I feel safer with my Cash ISAs and, for the moment, sleep a lot better!CecinhaWould you move your savings into investments for the chance of bigger returns, or are you sticking with the safety of cash? Let us know in the comments below.I wouldn’t take the riskEach to their own, but if I have a decent amount of cash to invest, then I always fix it with a non-UK high street bank that’s based in the UK and protects funds up to £85k, and do my homework on them first, also checking for decent UK-based customer service.High street banks offer poor interest rate returns because they need to allegedly “cover their costs”, despite most banks now having closed down. But there are plenty of other banks out there that can give you a decent rate.For me personally, if it’s a decent wedge of money, then I wouldn’t take the risk in investing in stocks and shares.But that’s just me. If you’re rich and can afford to take the risk and the loss, then go for it.AmyThe risk factorI’ve a mate who’s far more well off than me, but she doesn’t have a scooby about all this stuff so she’s got £300k just sitting in her bank. It’s only in the last couple of years that she bothered getting an ISA and sorting out a higher-rate account, but when I said maybe she should invest or something, she simply wasn’t fussed. She said she doesn’t like the risk factor and is happy to just get a wee bit of interest and have it all to hand if she needs it.If people really aren’t interested in investing, particularly due to risk, I don’t really see what you can do to persuade them. I feel like this is another duff idea from the increasingly hapless Reeves.Elsie DOptimisticAssuming a 9 per cent return is pretty optimistic.I was advised years ago never to make long-term plans based on more than a 5% return – that would double your money in just under 15 years and quadruple it in 33 years – and to treat anything higher as an unexpected bonus. That advice has served me well for over 40 years.YorkshiremanRemember the caveatRemember the caveat: “Your capital is at risk and you may not get back the amount you invested.” Remember the ads asking if you’d lost money in a stocks and shares ISA? I know people who lost or didn’t make anything on their portfolio. Don’t forget Labour will want to tax any gains.samuel smithPeople don’t understand their own risk toleranceMost people don’t understand their own risk tolerance and should not put money into any assets that they are not comfortable with seeing a 30–50 per cent drawdown on. That’s why Reeves, who is not a financial adviser, is giving bad advice.PeakyBooThere are far more attractive places to investThe problem for Reeves is that there are far more attractive places to invest. For me, in the last 10 years, NASDAQ has been the only place to be. Some UK stocks have become attractive in recent years because of cheap valuations—cheap valuations because of a lack of confidence and the flight of deep pools of money from the UK, mainly due to Brexit and the mismanagement of baboons running the economy into the dust.I hope Reeves succeeds – there is no alternative politically.NotRedorBlueMy stocks and shares ISA has grownAfter a year, my stocks and shares ISA has grown by the princely sum of 1.28%. Stocks can dive very quickly and take ages to bounce back.samuel smithRelaxing regulationsRachel Reeves is relaxing regulations which were introduced after 2008 to prevent another financial crash. For that reason, I would be very cautious about investing.STIDWDon’t buy a car… investA lot of people, when they retire, use their lump sum to buy a car or a camper van. That is serious money just thrown away on a fast-depreciating asset. Just buy an old banger and invest the money in the stock market.Pomerol95Why would I want to invest in something that could lose money?I am 78 years old with an adequate pension and no mortgage.My savings are about 50 per cent kept in fixed-term ISAs earning around 4–5 per cent tax-free.I have an emergency fund in instant access. The remaining savings earn 4.55 per cent or more.Why would I want to invest in something that could lose money?Tony CaveIf you are in your “later years” you don’t have time to wait for falling stocks and shares to rise again. I have one stocks and shares ISA and, averaged out over 15 years, it’s not done any better than a cash ISA.HeatherRisk profilesIf you get yourself a reputable financial adviser (check their qualifications), they will do a risk assessment for you and agree on your risk profile before deciding where to invest.We have a relatively modest amount invested with a single ‘platform’ and used to be medium risk, but as we are getting on now, we’ve gone medium/low—less time to recover from any nasty, unexpected events that cause sudden drops in value (e.g. Covid, Russia invading Ukraine).WokeUpThe key word is ‘could’And the key word is could. Investments could increase in value, but they could also decrease – unless the government is underwriting losses.rEUjoinIs the public expected to fill the investment gap?Does this mean that major investment in the British economy is so low that the government is resorting to exhorting the people of this country to fill the void – hmmm.ClaudiaMaking the leapIf they haven’t put the money into a better savings account, then I’d doubt they’d make the leap. It would be convenient if the interest rate had to be at least adequate—that was the law.TheRedSquirrelTwenty years is a long time in investmentTwenty years is a long time in investment. During this period, companies can go bankrupt, geopolitical turmoil and wars can affect investments, and services and products can become obsolete due to disruptive technologies, and so on.OpinatorSome of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.Want to share your views? Simply register your details below. 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