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Nigel Farage has repeated his claim that Reform UK is not cold calling people asking them to be candidates in the local elections – even though they are.

As Rowena Mason and Alexandra Topping report in today’s Guardian, Reform have been cold calling people who have provided email addresses to the party so they can receive updates about what it is doing.

At least one person who has received a call of this kind is a Guardian journalist. Clearly, the quality of Reform candidates would improve enormously if they did start recruiting Guardian journalists, but it is understood that the person concerned resisted Farage’s kind invitation and has decided to stick with the day job.

Asked about the story today, Farage replied:

Could you think of anything more ludicrous than going through the phone book and saying, ‘Please would you be a candidate?’ It’s absolute rot.

If one of their [The Guardian] reporters is a paid-up member of the party, masquerading as a supporter, when in fact they’re not, that’s why they would have got a phone call.

Farage is entitled to say that Reform UK does not seem to be calling total strangers, picked at random from the phone book. But it is not just paid-up members who are being approached; the cold calling extends to people on Reform’s email mailing lists.

Another person who has been approached in this way is the Lib Dem councillor Sam Webber, who posted this on social media in response to Farage claiming yesterday his party was not cold calling people.

This is a lie from @Nigel_Farage & @reformparty_uk on ‘cold calling’. They are not *just* phoning their members as why else would I have received two calls from them when I’m clearly not just a member of another party but an elected @LibDems Councillor.

And this is from Festus Akinbusoye, a Tory former police and crime commissioner.

A @Conservatives member that I campaigned with last weekend told me he got an email from Reform asking if he would consider standing in the East London ward. How are they getting random people to contest? This can only result in costly by-elections later on. Campaigning and elected office is very demanding work.

All the main parties sometimes try to get people to stand in local elections by telling them that they will be “paper” candidates, meaning they won’t be expected to do much because they will have no realistic chance of winning. But sometimes “paper” candidates do win – which can come as a shock if they are not ready for the work that comes with holding elected office.

Keir Starmer has stressed his “values”, and their impact on his politics, while sidestepping a question about whether the Iran war has wrecked his relationship with Donald Trump.

Responding to a question about Trump, he declined to criticise the US president directly. But he implied that he thought Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran was deeply flawed.

Asked if his relationship with Trump was “in tatters”, Starmer told broadcasters:

I’ve acted as you would expect of a British prime minister, which is by being absolutely focused on what is our national interest, and that’s why I’ve applied my principles and my values throughout.

And my principles and values made sure that our decisions were that we wouldn’t get involved in the action without a lawful basis, without a viable, thought-through plan.

That was the right position for the United Kingdom, and of course, that has included us taking action, collective self-defence …

I act in the British national interest, but nothing, but nothing, is going to deflect me from that.

Starmer spent the early months of his premiership cultivating a good, personal relationship with Trump and in 2025 he was able to claim this paid off when the UK was exempt from some of the US tariffs applied to other countries.

But the relationship started to sour when Starmer sided with other European leaders in firmly opposing Trump’s ambitions to annex Greenland and, over the past few weeks, Trump has frequently ridiculed and insulted Starmer in relation to the UK’s failure to fully support the US war effort in Iran.

While other party leaders have been happy to condemn Trump publicly, Starmer has mostly not responded to the president’s provocations – beyond making a virtue of not being cowed by him.

Keir Starmer has said there is a “real sense of relief” in the Gulf at the Iran ceasefire – but also that there is “a lot of work to do” to make it permanent.

Speaking to broadcasters at the King Fahd Air Base in Taif, Saudi Arabia, the PM said:

There’s work to do. It’s early days.

There is a real sense, I think, of relief you can feel it at the base here in Saudi Arabia, for 39 days, they’ve been acting in our collective self-defence. You can feel the relief.

But what they want to know, what people in the United Kingdom want to know, who will share that relief, is that this needs to be permanent, and it’s our job to work with other countries in the region, not only on the cessation of possibilities, but also on opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Because the impact on our energy prices, you can see it on a daily basis over the last 39 days, it’s our job to make sure that the strait is open, that we’re able to get the energy that the world needs out and stabilise the prices back in the United Kingdom.

So I say we’re not getting drawn into this war. We’ve always acted in collective self-defence, but my job is to protect the UK lives, of course, which is what we’ve been doing here from this place, but also to protect our interests and through our interests, our national interest, to get the Strait of Hormuz open.

Addressing British military personnel, Starmer thanked them for their work in the “collective self-defence of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom” but said there was more to do.

We now, as you’ll have seen from the news, have a ceasefire, but there’s a lot of work to do, as you will appreciate, a lot of work to make sure that that ceasefire becomes permanent and brings about the peace that we all want to see.

But also a lot of work to do in relation to the strait of Hormuz, which has an impact everywhere across the world.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero says it has approved the Springwell solar farm farm in Lincolnshsire – which it says is set to be “the largest power-producing solar farm in the UK”. The government says it could power over 180,000 homes a year, the equivalent of half the homes in the county. “The decision marks the 25th nationally significant clean energy project approved by the government since July 2024 – enough clean energy to power the equivalent of more than 12.5 million homes,” DESNZ says.

Sadiq Khan has said he can understand why some former Labour voters are “flirting” with other parties in the run-up to May’s elections, but said that they may regret seeing a Green or Reform-led council in their areas. Peter Walker has the story.

Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.

It’s a beautiful spring day in the north east, and the Reform UK press conference was of similarly sunny tone. Scottish leader Malcolm Offord employs a cheerful eyeroll strategy with media. Asked if he was a part-time leader because he took time off over the Easter weekend to take part in a yachting event, he guffawed: “Heaven forbid a man has a holiday”.

And he dismissed questions about historic offensive or Islamophobic tweets by Holyrood candidates saying it was a “slipperly slope” delving into Twitter accounts from 10 years ago and that he took the decision not too.

Interestingly, Nigel Farage told the Guardian in January that vetting had been “piss poor in the past and it won’t be in the future”, insisting the party was “doing everything we can to make sure these candidates for the Scottish parliament are vetted, and are fit and proper people to put before the electorate.” It remains moot whether historic offence falls into the “fit and proper” category or not – Offord himself likely hopes it doesn’t after that disgusting George Michael joke he made at a Burns Supper in 2018.

Many of the media questions related to the latest Ipsos polling for STV, which is really interesting to delve into. It’s pretty terrible news for Scottish Labour: they are down 5 points to 15% on constituency voting intention, neck and neck with Reform. The SNP lead on constituency VI on 39%, up 3 points from March, while SNP leader John Swinney’s approval rating has improved by 4 points.

Meanwhile Offord’s ratings have worsened, down 4.5 points since March, and not a great sign since the obvious conclusion is that this is the result of his increased visibility on the campaign trail over recent weeks.

Given the potential for tactical voting and broader voter volatility, it’s worth noting that in both constituency and regional list votes, 42% of voters say they may still change their mind before polling day. And also keep in mind that those who say they’ll vote Reform or SNP are surer of their vote than supporters of any other party.

With the prospect still very live of some sort of minority or coalition government arrangement after 7 May, I’d also draw attention to the fact the least divisive option for the public appears to be the Scottish Liberal Democrats – 32% say they would be happy to see the Liberal Democrats having influence over the Scottish government. With the Scottish Lib Dems working away to secure a few more seats beyond their heartlands this campaign, I’ve been thinking for a while that their role could be pivotal next month.

Keir Starmer has arrived in Saudi Arabia as he visits Gulf allies to push for a long-term resolution to the Iran conflict, the Press Association reports. PA says:

The prime minister is set to hold talks with Gulf leaders on how best to support the pause in fighting and ensure passage is permanently restored through the key oil and gas shipping route.

He is also expected to thank armed forces from the UK and allied countries who are posted in the region.

At the Reform UK press conference in Aberdeen my colleague Libby Brooks asked about Reform’s position on Scottish independence, and whether it would be sustainable if the May elections lead to parties in favour of breaking up the UK in power in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

Malcolm Offord, the Reform UK leader in Scotland, replied:

In Scotland we are saying that we’re the party of enough talk of referendum. We don’t want to talk about it, people have get no interest in it, there’s no appetite for it, and therefore can we just not talk about it and get on with making Scotland the most successful part of the UK.

Offord is vulnerable on this because in the past he has implied he is not 100% opposed to a second independence referendum. At their campaign launch yesterday, the Scottish Conseratives used this as an attack line, claiming they were the only party that would fully protect the union.

Asked how many Reform candidates have in the past backed independence, Offord said there were three, out of 73, “who have had that tendency in the past”.

Keir Starmer has released a joint statement on the Middle East also backed by the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Japan, and the EU.

They say:

The goal must now be to negotiate a swift and lasting end to the war within the coming days. This can only be achieved through diplomatic means.

We strongly encourage quick progress towards a substantive negotiated settlement.

This will be crucial to protect the civilian population of Iran and ensure security in the region. It can avert a severe global energy crisis.

We support these diplomatic efforts. To this end, we are in close contact with the United States and other partners.

We call upon all sides to implement the ceasefire, including in Lebanon.

Our governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Q: Do you think you should have vetted your candidates more carefully, given how many have had to stand down? And was it a mistake to choose some candidates who in the past have backed independence.

Offord says he believes in free speech.

He says some of his candidates have said things he would not have said personally. But he says the candidate are “real people who are on their journey to public life”.

He says, as long as people support the Reform project, he is not here judge people by their previous opinions. He goes on:

It’s a slippery slope going down into everybody’s Twitter account over the last ten years. And I took a decision – we’re not going to do that.

(This rather contradicts what Nigel Farage has said in the past about the party conducting a very thorough vetting exercise ahead of these elections.)

Tice says there are people who may have backed Scottish independence in the past, just as they are people who opposed Brexit who now think it is a good idea “as long as you do the job properly”.

(There are some people who opposed Brexit but are now in favour. But there are far more people who have changed their mind on Brexit in the opposite direction.)

Q: [To Offord] It has been reported that you missed campaigning to take part in a yachting race in the English channel over the weekend. Are you a part-time leader?

Offord says a man is allowed a hobby.

Q: [To Tice] Given the chaos with Reform’s campaign in Scotland, do you regret making Offord leader?

Tice says Offord is doing an “incredible”.

But he seems to acknowledge there have been problems. He says:

The job of the press is to scrutinise us. And, of course, there are potholes in the road. Some call them bumps; potholes in council campaigns [are] a key thing. And we just, we know we drive through the polls and we will fill them in.

Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, is speaking now.

He says he has a four-point plan for energy.

First, the party would approve outstanding applications to drill in the North Sea. That would cover the Jackdaw and Rosebank applications, he says.

He says he wants to extract “every last drop” of oil.

And he says he would rename the North Sea Transition Authority, calling it the Oil and Gas Authority instead, to reflect the policy.

Malcolm Offord, Reform UK’s leader in Scotland, is speaking now at his press conference. He said restricting the extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea was “madness”. He explained:

What is the number one issue in this election? The cost of living. What is one of the biggest factors in the cost of living? Energy.

You cannot have prosperity and growth with the most expensive oil prices in the OECD.

Our island is literally floating on a sea of oil and gas. We are importing 70% of our gas from Norway, from North Sea fields, over the fence from the ones that we are shutting down. It is madness.

In Wales the Senedd election is primarily a contest between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. In a statement issued after the announcement of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid leader at Westminster, said the Iran war showed why Reform UK cannot be trusted.

She said:

We all breathed a sigh of relief waking up this morning to see that Trump’s apocalyptic threats had thankfully not materialised. We hope that the ceasefire will pave the way for a permanent peace, this war has already ravaged people’s cost of living and taken too many lives in the region.

The war is a reminder that Reform UK simply cannot be trusted. The party’s leadership has for years attached itself to Trump and was gung-ho in favour of this illegal war before it became politically expedient to U-turn.

Bridget Smith, the Lib Dem leader of South Cambridgeshire district council, has ridiculed the Tories for wanting to ban councils from letting their staff work a four-day week on full pay. (See 11.02am.)

Commenting on the Conservative proposal, she told the Press Association:

Yet again, we witness the political gymnastics of this outdated and out of touch Conservative party descend into a collective swoon over the terrifying prospect of a council functioning better whilst saving the taxpayer money.

The Conservatives first tried to stop South Cambridgeshire’s four-day working week initiative when they were in power and Michael Gove was levelling up secretary.

Smith went on:

The sheer audacity of Michael Gove and his successors demanding innovation while simultaneously stamping their feet at the sight of a recruitment crisis being solved by something as radical as common sense.

To call for a ban on a proven success is to effectively declare that the Tory party prefers its local government to be traditional, expensive and perpetually understaffed, rather than modern and, heaven forbid, effective.

The Labour party has revived its attack on Kemi Badenoch for initially fully supporting the Iran war. Responding to James Cleverly’s comments this morning (see 9.28am), Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:

Badenoch’s top team can try to rewrite history all they like - the truth is that if Kemi Badenoch were prime minister, Britain would have been thrust head first into war without a plan.

That’s not leadership, that’s a fundamental failure of judgement that would have seen our armed forces put in harm’s way.

To back their case that Badenoch initially fully supported the war, Labour highlighted various quotes from the Tory leader in the opening days of the war.

On Monday 2 March in the Commons Badenoch said:

There is no point wanting action to make the world a safer place while being too scared to do anything except stand by and watch others.

On Wednesday 4 March at PMQs Badenoch said:

Why is [Starmer] asking our allies to do what we should be doing ourselves? I say to Labour MPs that we are in this war whether they like it or not. What is the Prime Minister waiting for?

And on Saturday 7 March Badenoch told her party’s spring conference:

Keir Starmer spent days consulting lawyers, plucking up the courage to say whose side he was on. Canada and Australia had the moral clarity to do so immediately and unequivocally. And even now, our prime minister is sitting on the fence. We are in this war whether Keir Starmer likes it or not.

Not “appropriate” was how James Cleverly described Donald Trump’s threat to kill off Iranian civilisation this morning. (See 10.10am.) Many people would agree that Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, was rather more accurate when he described Trump’s words on LBC this morning as “spine-chilling”.

Davey said:

What we’ve just witnessed is the classic Donald Trump cycle of destruction.

He does a really idiotic thing, stupid thing with this war, then he pretends everything’s fine, then he leaves other people to fix it, and he wants us all to praise him.

Well surely, we’ve all now seen through Donald Trump.

We’ve seen now that he’s not a reliable ally to the UK and I’m afraid a Trump-led White House will no longer be trusted by many of his allies.

Davey has been saying for some time now that Trump is not a reliable ally for the UK. The Iran war has made the claim much more plausible.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is proposing the extension of the four-day working week, as a response to AI taking over some of the work done by humans. But for the Conservative party the four-day working week, at least in the public sector, is viewed as a menace. Officially, that’s a value-for-money position, but it also overlaps with their opposition to civil servants working from home, which has some of the traits of a culture war obsession.

Today the Conservatives have announced that, if they were in government, they would ban councils from letting staff work a four-day working week on full pay. Explaining why, the Tories say in a news release:

The four-day working week, as introduced by Liberal Democrat-run South Cambridgeshire district council, has left residents with more council tax for less public service. Bin collectors and social housing officials receive 100 per cent of their pay for around 80 per cent of their originally contracted hours.

The Labour government have failed to act. As communities secretary, Angela Rayner scrapped [Whitehall opposition to the South Cambridgeshire policy]. Labour are refusing to legislate against a four-day week, giving councils an effective green light to get away with charging more for less work. Consequentially, Labour-run Cambridge City Council has become the second council to sign up to the four-day week.

The Green party want to go even further with national policy proposals for changing the full time working to 35 hours and then 32 hours, with no commensurate reduction in pay. The Scottish Green party passed a motion before Edinburgh city council calling for a four-day week, and in Wales, Plaid Cymru have pledged to roll out the four-day working week, on full pay, if they are successful in the May elections.

Last year the Telegraph revealed 25 councils were in discussions with leftwing group Four Day Week Foundation to explore implementing the programme to work less.

The Conservative Party’s proposed Ban Four Day Week and the Protection of Public Services Bill would set work conditions for public sector workers and prevent four day weeks for full time pay.

But South Cambridgeshire has defended its policy. It points to researching showing that 21 out of 24 service areas improved or stayed the same during the reduced-hours working. It says:

Those areas which saw a statistically significant improvement include: the percentage of calls answered by the contact centre; the average number of days taken to update housing benefit and council tax support claims; the average number of weeks for householder planning applications to be decided; the percentage of planning applications (both large and small) decided within target or agreed timescales; the percentage of council house repairs complete within 24 hours; [and] the percentage of complaints responded to on time.

If performance variations caused by Covid are discounted, every single service monitored either got better or stayed the same.

The chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, Brant Dunshea, has revealed that the sport will consider more direct action protests as they continue to battle against government plans to introduce affordability tests for punters, Matt Hughes reports.

Opening new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would “send a shock wave around the world”, imperilling international climate targets, undermining the UK’s climate leadership and encouraging developing countries to exploit their own fossil fuel reserves, experts have warned. Fiona Harvey has the story.

At a press conference in Aberdeen later, Richard Tice, the Reform UK leader, and Malcolm Offord, the party’s Scottish leader, are expected to say they want the applications for the Jackdaw (gas) and Rosebank (mostly oil) developments in the North Sea to be approved.

As Andrew McDonald and Bethany Dawson reports in the London Playbook briefing for Politico, this will just bring Reform UK into line with their main opponents in the Holyrood election.

[Reform UK’s position is] a framing aimed at bashing Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband, who are yet to throw their weight behind more oil and gas drilling, despite the potential for energy price pain to come. But in Scotland that position actually brings Reform in line with … the SNP and Scottish Labour. The latter’s leader Anas Sarwar has split from his party in Westminster to say he thinks they should be approved, while the former tree-huggers in the SNP have signaled they support them too. Watch out for whether Reform tries to indicate if they’re even more oily than the other contenders up north.

James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary and a former foreign secretary, told Sky News this morning that Donald Trump’s threat yesterday to wipe out Iranian civilisaton was not “appropriate”.

Asked about the comment, Cleverly said:

This is not language that we would use. I don’t think that that is appropriate language even in a situation like this.

But look, we know that President Trump uses incredibly ostentatious, hyperbolic language. We recognise that it’s not the position that a Conservative leader, whether it be Kemi or a foreign secretary, would take.

Yesterday the Scottish Conservatives published their manifesto for the Holyrood election. This morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank has published its initial response to the plans, and it says the tax cuts proposed “cannot credibly be funded” by administrative savings, as the Tories claim. To fund their tax cuts, the Tories would probably have to implement “substantial cutbacks” in services, the IFS says.

Summing up the analysis, David Phillips, head of devolved and local government finance at the IFS, says (bold type from IFS):

The Scottish Conservatives’ two flagship tax proposals are significant cuts to income tax and business rates. Together, the party estimates that these would cost £3.7bn a year by the end of the parliament in 2031–32. Over £2bn a year of additional spending on a range of priority areas takes the total cost of ‘new measures’ to around £6bn a year by 2031–32.

It is welcome that these costs are set out clearly in a costings document. But these are big tax cuts and spending increases – equivalent to almost 10% of current forecasts for Scottish government day-to-day spending in 2031. While specific cuts to disability benefits have been identified to pay for around a third of the £6bn package, history suggests there is a significant risk that the amount saved from these cuts would be lower than the £2.1bn a year pencilled in by 2031–32. The almost £4bn a year expected from various measures to reduce back-office, administration and civil service costs is very large relative to existing budgets – and relative to what Reform UK said it would aim to save from such measures …

Taking the entire package of measures together, this may be a costed plan on paper but whether it would survive contact with reality is far from clear. Scotland can have lower taxes and higher spending on some services – but giveaways on the scale proposed by the Scottish Conservatives cannot credibly be funded largely through back-office and administrative savings. In addition to the cuts to benefits set out in the manifesto, there would likely need to be substantial cutbacks to either the range or quality of some services used by households and businesses too.

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has renewed his call for the UK to ban the US military from using bases in Britain.

He has posted these messages on social media, responding to Keir Starmer’s statement about the ceasefire. (See 8.30am.)

The Prime Minister FINALLY speaks.

He says “we must do all we can to sustain the ceasefire.”

Surely that must means suspending US military from UK soil?

The President is not some abstract threat. We’ve seen repeatedly exactly who he is - and we should have no part in it.

The last 24 hours have shown what many have said for a long time.

Britain’s role as an accomplice to Trump’s America must end.

We must urgently decouple from a rogue US & seek security with allies closer to home. That starts with suspension of the US bombers on British soil.

And Polanski also posted this, commenting on a clip of an interview given this morning by Sarah Jones, the policing minister.

This Government both want us to believe they’ve played a leadership role here - and that they don’t know the terms of the agreement.

It’s simply not plausible.

While European Allies banned US use of their airspace, we’ve let bombers launch from the UK.

Yesterday Polanski was saying the government should stop letting the US use British bases for any operations against Iran. Today he seems to be calling for a more permanent ban on American warplanes being based in the UK.

Sarah Jones, the policing minister, has been giving interviews. She has been talking about Keir Starmer’s visit to the Gulf, but hasn’t said anything that really adds to the (rather limited) information about the visit put out by Downing Street.

Jones told Times Radio:

[Starmer] is going to the Gulf for a number of reasons. Firstly you will have seen last week with the foreign secretary, and this week with our officials, where we have played a real leading role bringing together about 40 countries looking at the challenge that we have in the strait [of Hormuz] and how we can make sure that opens up as quickly as possible to bring some normality back to that system. so there will be that aspect.

He wants to see the work of our brave personnel who are there in the region, of course, with our three very key principles of protecting British interests and protecting British citizens and our allies. He will want to see the work of that.

And, of course, this ceasefire is very much emerging breaking news. We need to see how that develops.

The FTSE 100 jumped by 268.28, or 2.59%, to 10,617.07 points after the London markets opened this morning, the Press Association reports. PA says traders and investors welcomed a conditional two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran. It came as the price of crude oil plunged in value, falling by around 14% in early trading.

Good morning. Keir Starmer has welcomed the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran. Here is Andrew Roth’s story about the overnight news.

And this is what Starmer has said, in a statement issued by No 10 this morning.

I welcome the ceasefire agreement reached overnight, which will bring a moment of relief to the region and the world.

Together with our partners we must do all we can to support and sustain this ceasefire, turn it into a lasting agreement and re-open the Strait of Hormuz.

No 10 released this statement in a news release saying that he is travelling to the Gulf today “to meet with Gulf partners and discuss diplomatic efforts to support and uphold the ceasefire in order to bring about a lasting resolution to the conflict and protect the UK and global economy from further threats”.

This trip was arrangement before the ceasefire was announced, Downing Street has stressed. Starmer did not decide to hop on a plane after reading Donald Trump’s ceasefire announcement on Truth Social last night.

We don’t have details of where Starmer will be going, or who he will meet. But this is what Downing Street says about the purpose of the visit.

On the visit, the prime minister will make clear his government’s commitment to de-escalation, and hold further talks on practical efforts to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz following promising progress reported as a result of the ceasefire. As announced by the prime minister last week, the United Kingdom is continuing to lead the international effort, convening allies from across the world to ensure the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.

He will also see in person the defensive support the UK has provided in the collective self-defence of our allies in the region and thank UK personnel for their brave service.

And we don’t know when we will hear or see Starmer – but, as soon as we do, you will read about it here.

Here are the other things happening today.

Morning: Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is at an event announcing funding for youth clubs.

Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Yorkshire.

Morning: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is campaigning in Edinburgh, where he is talking about culture policy. John Swinney, the first minister and SNP leader, is visiting Na h-Eileanan an Iar (the Western Isles), and Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, is on a campaign visit in Ayrshire.

12.30pm: Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, and Malcolm Offord, the party’s leader in Scotland, hold a press conference in Aberdeen.

Afternoon: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is on a visit in London.

At some point today the Welsh Liberal Democrats are launching their Senedd election campaign.

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