A blow to Reform UK which has received about £12m in last year from Thai-based investor Christopher Harborne and other donations from donors based in Monaco.

BREAKING: Political funding from British citizens living abroad should be capped at about £300,000 a year and donations in cryptocurrency temporarily banned, a government review has recommended.

Rycroft review looks sensible, but I don't understand why a moratorium on crypto donations to political parties is preferable to a straight ban, not least because a future government could (it looks like) scrap the moratorium whenever it wanted.

Biggest comeback of the year just dropped

White working class voters are not a homogenous political bloc as some would have you believe.

Labour lost white working-class voters to Greens in Gorton and Denton, party analysis finds www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Keir Starmer's 'Love Actually' moment after insults from Trump. “A lot of what is said or done is undoubtedly to put pressure on me. I understand what is going on. “But I am not going to waver on this. I am the British PM and my job is to be absolutely focused on the national interest."

from Fraser Nelson:

Cabinet ministers have been studying a blueprint for Labour to radically overhaul its economic offer and messaging, including devolving tax powers, abolishing national insurance, and major property tax changes. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Exc - Ministers believe Keir Starmer is not prepared to give govt time in the next session to save the assisted dying bill. I’ve talked to some of the most senior ministers who are proponents of the bill, all of them do not believe the PM has the capacity or political capital to bring it back.

- nods to disgruntled MPs saying they need to “rebuild this party” as well as the country. - says it’s “un-British” to move the goalposts on indefinite leave to remain - puts her at odds with govt’s key immigration policy. - attacks Reform saying they’re on side of those who rigged the system.

The prevalence of nominally reasonable organisations discussing the increasingly wild, radicalised claims of the right as if they were real cannot be good for democracy.

More than 100 Labour MPs have called on Keir Starmer to stop the House of Lords from blocking the assisted dying bill and give it more time to return to the Commons, with the legislation now certain to fall owing to lack of time. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Good stuff going on on Threads

Hear me out:

What if we compromised and had a badger dressed up as Winston Churchill

If anyone is interested, this is what Polanski told me at the time.

When I asked Zack Polanski about his brief if memorable career as a breast size-enhancing hypnotherapist, he told me that it was never about actual breast size, just body image. This was not the case, and this new BBC article - and audio clip – makes that plainer. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Mandelson was offered highly classified briefing before he finished vetting process www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

NEW - Mandelson was offered a "higher tiers" briefing on January 6, before his developed vetting was confirmed on January 29, emails appear to show. This mean he was offered highly classified briefing from the FCDO as US ambassador before he finished the formal vetting process

Badenoch said if she was prime minister HMS Dragon would have left a week ago. Presumably with its doors hanging off and with no weapons onboard.

Culture war latest: the Bank of England has announced that after a public consultation, to which it received 44,000 responses, the next new banknotes will feature native wildlife. Tories: "It is deeply depressing that under Lab our national heroes are considered too 'divisive' to be on bank notes."

NEW - The Hereditary Peers Bill has passed in the House of Lords, finally passing the government’s major reform that has been fought every step of the way, despite being manifesto pledge. It passes now only because the government offered the Tories more life peerages.

EXCL: Home Office rejected appeal from foreign secretary Yvette Cooper that would have protected outstanding students in some of the world’s most dangerous countries from changes to UK’s immigration system. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Impressed that Kemi Badenoch now seems to be calling for an ... independent British war on Iran?

A lot of people on Bluesky sneering at this. But Russia has no interest in helping Iran, apart from the fact they're a key regional ally, they sell them Shahed drones, and that a prolonged war and with it rising energy costs help the Russian economy.

Excited to read Morgan’s book on the second referendum campaign, which was never more than a hubristic fantastical collective delusion by some of our most senior political figures. Astonishingly, many of its architects remain major players in public life, including advising on political strategy.

The political and media voices calling for the government to instantly and unquestioningly get behind Donald Trump’s plan-free war are increasingly out of step with UK public sentiment, it seems.

Really interesting re Reform's benefits messaging that Reform tend to overperform in seats ranked higher for worklessness and Greens in seats with more in-work poverty. By @warringfictions.bsky.social

Ministers are discussing the possibility of intervening to protect the public against soaring household energy bills if the Middle East conflict drags on. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, is understood to believe that prices cannot be allowed to rise substantially.

One beer, bed, then back on duty – the British pilot who made RAF history shooting down drones www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

The defence secretary, John Healey, has accused opposition politicians of deliberately undermining the UK’s relationship with Donald Trump, saying it was “unpatriotic” for MPs to seek to turn the US against Keir Starmer. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

NEW - I’m in Cyprus this morning as John Healey flies in to speak to his Cypriot counterpart amid rising anger on the island over the drone which hit the British base - officials are still to determine if it came from Lebanon or Western Iraq

NEW: John Healey has flown into Cyprus to calm diplomatic fallout over drone that evaded detection and hit RAF base prompting fury from local ministers - @jessicaelgot.bsky.social is with him www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Exc from @pippacrerar.bsky.social - The partner of a sitting Labour MP is among three people who have been arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of spying for China, the Guardian understands. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Whatever you think the response to Iranian missiles be fired on British citizens and British allies in the Gulf should be, I don't think that 'it might hurt Labour electorally' should be part of your answer.

Radical parties of the right and left in top two slots. Legacy parties getting only a third of the vote between them. A whole new world.

Keir Starmer has issued his strongest rebuke yet of Donald Trump’s action in Iran, saying the UK did not believe in “regime change from the skies”. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Trump does this routinely and he also just calls and texts other world leaders from his personal mobile, often without warning

Breaking - UK moving families off the base in RAF Akrotiri as a precaution. Bases in Cyprus are not being used by US bombers.

We just finished this extraordinary Oscar-nominated documentary which is currently on iPlayer - a truly unique insight into the life of young Russians made only possible by the bravery of one teacher www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ja...

‘Coalition of socially Conservative working class voters and with middle class social liberals cannot survive an election campaign’. What does Keir Starmer think the Labour coalition is, or has ever been?

The Green victory in Denton is the result which will have the biggest effect on Labour, far more so than a Reform win. The blithe assumption progressives have nowhere else to go has been proved catastrophically wrong. Can’t help thinking of this quote from a Labour minister, a year ago…

Pretty downbeat messaging at close of polls from Labour…

This goes to something @jillongovt.bsky.social taught me soon after I joined IfG - no matter how long something has been discussed and played around with in government, the only test is how it is received in the real world.

I do find it very hard to take either Labour or Green indignation at the other’s activities seriously. By-elections are often dirty fights, and this one has been no exception. Neither of the parties can sincerely claim to have fought cleanly. Spare us the phony righteousness.

What happens if Labour, the Greens or Reform win in Gorton and Denton? The three outcomes for this knife edge vote and what they mean for British politics. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

NEW - Matt Pound, Rachel Reeves’ political secretary, is leaving government. This is the very last of the team loyal to McSweeney. That influence is now gone from government - remains unclear what will emerge next with big roles still unfilled.

Ministers are examining ways to ease the burden of student loans after weeks of pressure over a policy pulling more people into repayments, the Guardian understands. www.theguardian.com/money/2026/f...