Reform UK repeatedly cold-called journalist Lucy Gape asking if she would stand as a local candidate. When she looked into it, it revealed a world of poor vetting and murky data practices bylinetimes.com/2026/05/05/r...

🔴 ‘Reform UK Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone’: My Experience Being Hounded to Stand for Nigel Farage’s Party Reform UK repeatedly cold-called journalist Lucy Gape asking if she would stand as a local candidate. When she looked into it, it revealed a world of poor vetting and murky data practices

🔴 Plaid Cymru Leader Says Party Is Prepared for Government as Labour Dominance Collapses in Wales Rhun ap Iorwerth claims to @bylinetimes.bsky.social only Plaid Cymru can stop Reform taking power in the Senedd, as he urges Labour & Green voters to back him in “straight fight” against Farage’s party

"Reform UK has taken out a wraparound cover on a weekly newspaper [the Abergavenny Chronicle] ahead of this week’s elections imploring voters to ‘get Labour out'." Playing with fire, here. Reform are no friends of a free and independent media. www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2026/news/re...

Reform's candidate in Lillie, Hammersmith & Fulham, is a Buddhist author on "yoga, weight loss, [and] yogic breathing" His bio says he "counsel[s] celebrities" inc Simon Le Bon & he says he's worked on Made in Chelsea From India buts runs an anti-migrant TikTok account called "Common Man UK"...

Cool project. Solar panels over canals in California "recorded evaporation reductions of 50-70% beneath the solar arrays and an 85% decrease in algae growth" www.pv-magazine.com/2026/05/04/s...

On Reform's announcement today, to put deportation centres in Green-voting areas, a Green spokesperson says: “Reform keeps making abhorrent announcements...to distract voters from the fact they want to privatise our NHS, roll back workers rights & hand out tax breaks to their billionaire backers."

In April 2024, Gullis took a £10,000 donation from JCB

The Palestine Coalition has today written to the Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley calling on him to retract his "scurrilous and defamatory" claims that they "set out with an intent to march near synagogues”. The letter describes these claims as “incomprehensible" and calls for a retraction.

Hard to see how this is not corruption. Just because it's out in the open does not make it any less so www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

In the spirit of treating Bluesky like 2013 Twitter: I'm planning to get an electric bike to carry our little one at some point. Any tips or recommendations (inc. firms to seek out/avoid)

Extremely fitting house boat on my kayak trip this morning

Meant to say - it was really fun helping with this. But there is another more serious point - that it took setting up a fake right-wing outlet in order for Reform UK people to actually respond to us. Have sent dozens of requests for comment to Reform in the past few years and had maybe 3 replies.

It's British Cider Week. Since I'm in Somerset now I thought I'd try some ones I hadn't had before (over more than a week, worry not) Reviews in alt text, TLDR in next comment. (Sandford Orchards Devon Red, not pictured, was lush too) Hope you all have a peaceful bank holiday.

How informed are Reform UK's new hopefuls about their own party? Chris Atkins set up a fake channel, 'Patriot News UK,' and engaged in some mild subterfuge to find out.

Farage is in Essex today apparently. Wonder if he'll be meeting Cllr Journet again?

Thanks to Politico for the shout out this morning on this @bylinetimes.bsky.social investigation bylinetimes.com/2026/04/30/r...

"Solar capacity increased by 11.7% over the past year, adding 2.3 GW of clean, homegrown electricity to Britain’s energy mix. This growth means more British renewable power is being generated domestically" protecting against oil shocks Fun to play a very small part in it through installing panels!

Lots of stuff became law on Tuesday. Including the children's bill (now act): "Families could see up to £1000 a year back in their pockets as measures to expand free school meals, roll out free breakfast clubs, and cut the cost of school uniform become law" in England www.gov.uk/government/n...

🔴TUC Deputy Leader Says Labour Must Shout Louder About Workers’ Rights in Order to Beat Reform Kate Bell says Nigel Farage’s party plans to roll back the Employment Rights Act and Equality Act are deeply unpopular bylinetimes.com/2026/04/28/t...

Grimly laughing at Farage saying "there's no money in politics" around the time he received a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire bylinetimes.com/2025/08/11/f...

Here's Reform UK's group leader in Basildon, Cllr Sam Journet. In the video, he gleefully tells officials he is filming them with his Meta-style camera glasses. (He's running for re-election next week and is also standing for Essex County Council) Full story: bylinetimes.com/2026/04/30/r...

If the consequences for Farage's undeclared mega-donation aren't justifiably severe, Parliament really won't have a standards system to speak of. Every action like this that goes unpunished is a big incentive for politicians (of all parties) to break the rules.

"Reform UK’s pledge to gut existing climate and green policies would cause 500,000 jobs losses, rising to more than 1.4 million people put out of work by 2040, according to new research." www.edie.net/reforms-anti....

So, I've got some questions for Nigel Farage, about his £5m gift. Here's one: "You have previously stated that on police advice, you hold no parliamentary surgeries…Given that we now know you have a large private security budget, why are you unable to hold constituency surgeries?" Here's the rest:

Reform UK’s Basildon Leader Accused of Bullying After Filming Council Staff and Residents With Meta-Style Smart Glasses EXCLUSIVE: Cllr Sam Journet, who is leading Reform's bid to take two Essex councils, was arrested last year following multiple complaints about him filming in private areas

This Reform councillor films people via 'smart' glasses, without seeking consent, and has done so in areas where filming is not permitted, as part of a pattern of bullying behaviour. And he has failed to attend required training. ✍️ @josiahmortimer.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/04/30/r...

Reform councillor Sam Journet, who is leading Reform’s bid to take two Essex councils, was arrested last year following complaints about him filming in private areas. Byline Times can reveal he has continued to film council officials using camera glasses and faces multiple bullying allegations.

Solar Power Portal: "March 2026 saw 27,000 new solar installations completed in the UK, the highest monthly deployment since 2012. "Across all deployment types (domestic rooftop, commercial and industrial and ground-mounted solar plants), the UK surpassed two million solar installations in March."

Interesting/scary point from Sameer Padania, a Fellow at the think tank Demos, at a UCL event on the BBC today... Currently, if the Government fails to renew the BBC's charter, the BBC as an institution ends. "In the charter there are clauses [on this] to wind-up the BBC...Those should go."

At an ERS briefing today, Prof Rob Ford pushed back on the framing of the local elections from Labour as a "usual midterm knock" Govts historically lose around 1/6 of their seats mid term. Labour are more likely to lose 2/3rds, potentially breaking records for both absolute seat losses & share lost

Electoral Reform Society briefing just now notes that last year, Reform won roughly two-thirds of seats on a third of votes in some areas. FPTP doing its thing... This year, watch for possible Reform landslides in former Labour heartlands like Barnsley, Sunderland, Wakefield (strongly Brexit areas)

Politico: "Most Brits want the government to end arms sales to Israel, according to polling from YouGov" "54% supported cutting off weapons, with 22% opposed. The Govt suspended some export licenses in Sep. 2024 — but C4 found the value of U.K. arms exports to Israel reached a record high in 2025."

Jesus. Politico today: "Former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox was paid £93,000 to provide legal services to a Luxembourg-based company whose shareholders include two sanctioned Russian oligarchs." Cox really seems to view being an MP as a second or third job.

John Ball, who is running for Reform in Llandrindod South in Powys, posted a video on Facebook about a building in his constituency saying: “The concern is that it may be used as a migrant hotel and the council have so far refused to confirm or deny this” It's going to be used to house... veterans

"Make an appointment, announce the appointment, then carry out vetting after the announcement. Leaving aside questions...who knew about it, it is clearly a sequence of events that invites disaster." Some v sensible points here from @markpackuk.bsky.social

In Wales they now do a cool thing where candidates have to list their recent party membership history. It throws up lots of interesting findings for voters. Like Dai Richards (bottom) - 'independent' candidate who has been a member of four far-right parties in the space of a year...

Feel like Farage failing to declare a £5 million donation from 'Bitcoin billionaire Christopher Harborne' before standing in the 2024 general election should be a bigger story

A good friend has just been issued a Section 21 notice - days before the renters' rights act comes into force banning it. Anecdotally I'm hearing a lot of these rushed evictions going on right now.

Politico: "Today is curtains for the 88 remaining hereditary peers who have had their sitting rights axed by Labour. It’s a moment in history, poignant or otherwise, 27 years after Tony Blair promised more reform." See ya! 👋🏼

Here's the reforms to Right to Buy in England announced today www.gov.uk/government/n...

Got some interesting stories on Reform coming out later this week @bylinetimes.bsky.social. I hate to be a tease but do keep your eyes peeled...

🔴 Robert Jenrick’s Alleged £40k Donor Pled Guilty to Wire Fraud in California Ponzi Scheme Police are examining allegations that the Reform UK MP’s Conservative leadership campaign was unlawfully funded by a US-based investor who pled guilty to fraud. bylinetimes.com/2026/04/28/r...

Sadiq Khan met with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at a bilateral in Madrid earlier today. Prime Minister Sánchez apparently reiterated that Spain would welcome the UK back into the EU (Khan has made clear he wants to rejoin).

New rules to stop new council homes being sold off for 35 years (after being built, I think) will "help restore fairness to the system for locals," the Housing Sec has announced. After consulting on changes last year, Steve Reed has confirmed that the Labour Govt will reform the Right to Buy scheme

🔴 TUC Deputy Leader Says Labour Must Shout Louder About Workers’ Rights in Order to Beat Reform Kate Bell says Nigel Farage’s party plans to roll back the Employment Rights Act and Equality Act are deeply unpopular bylinetimes.com/2026/04/28/t...

"I got it wrong" says Morgan McSweeney on pushing Mandelson to be the UK's Ambassador for the US. He says it was a "serious error" and that he has apologised to the PM

Ex-No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee now parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...

Elusive ex-No 10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is in front of the foreign affairs committee from 11. As Politico notes, it will be the first time many people (even in Westminster) have heard his voice. He'll be battling claims he put pressure on civil servants to ram through Mandelson's vetting.

"Two-fifths of Labour members consider the Green Party Labour’s biggest electoral threat, with the numbers of those concerned at the challenge they pose almost doubling in two months" labourlist.org/2026/04/labo...