
Nigel Farage says he's ‘not scared' of weekly audiences with King if he becomes PM – despite public clashes on climate
The Reform UK leader admitted he has had 'disagreements' with the monarch in the past but insists they have since buried the hatchet.
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Net Zero -sceptic Mr Farage once branded then-Prince Charles an 'eco loony' over his outspoken stance on green issues.
In an interview with The Sun on how he would handle their regular meetings, he said: 'Look, I'm not scared of anyone.
'I know the King. We've had our disagreements in the past. We've had a good laugh about it.
'He's a very decent man. There's no question. He's a very, very profoundly decent man, and I wish him well with his health. I know he's got some massive challenges on that front.'
Charles, 76, was diagnosed with cancer last year, which forced him to step back from some engagements.
Prime Ministers travel to Buckingham Palace every week for a face-to-face audience with the monarch to discuss the matters of the day.
The meetings are strictly confidential and premiers keep their conversations secret even after leaving office.
Mr Farage is currently odds-on to be the next PM after Reform leapfrogged both Labour and the Tories into first place in the polls.
One survey last week showed his party would win the most seats should an election be held tomorrow but fall short of an outright majority.
Asked if he had what it takes to be PM, he said: 'Yeah I do, I really do.
Nobody who enters UK illegally should EVER be allowed to stay – it's totally unfair on law-abiding, taxpaying Brits
'I've got more breadth of life experience than anyone that's done that job in recent times. I've lived in the real world.
'I'm part of the real world. I know what it is. I've seen life's ups. I've seen life's downs.
'I'm in politics, not because I want to be Prime Minister. I'm in politics because I'd like to use that position to change things.'
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The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
Will Corbyn's new hard-left party prove to be Starmer's mission impossible?
Allies of Keir Starmer will be tempted to dismiss the announcement that Jeremy Corbyn is set to form a breakaway party including the other four pro-Palestinian MPs elected in last year's general election, the suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana and about 200 councillors. For some Starmer aides, the formal split will usefully remind voters that Labour is in the centre ground, despite the damaging headlines about the humiliating climbdown forced by rebels over welfare cuts. After Corbyn's expulsion by Labour, Starmer won't mind another fight with the hard left. He needs to detach it from the much bigger, soft-left group at Labour's heart; the two groups joined forces to devastating effect in the rebellion against disability benefit cuts. The unnamed new party has been not confirmed by Corbyn, who seems irritated that Sultana jumped the gun by announcing she had resigned her Labour membership and would co-lead an alliance with Corbyn. It was a messy launch. 'Can a party split before it starts?' one Labour wag asked. However, Corbyn's new project could prove a headache for Starmer. It could win over 10 per cent of voters, reducing Labour's support by three points, according to More in Common. The new party would be in first place among 18- to 24-year-olds on 32 per cent. Some of its supporters will have already abandoned Labour and switched to the Greens or Liberal Democrats. But Corbyn could agree an electoral pact with the Greens to ensure they field candidates in different places. Labour will hope the Corbyn party will struggle to get lift off under our first past-the-post system. The left populists are unlikely to supplant Labour in the way Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives. But the new party could give Starmer a headache next May by winning Labour seats in local authority elections in places such as London and Birmingham, during what already looks like a difficult set of elections for him. His and the government's unpopularity could see Labour lose control in the Welsh Parliament for the first time and fail to oust the SNP in the Scottish Parliament after the nationalists' 19 years in power. Worryingly for Starmer, there are mutterings at Westminster that disastrous results could spark a move by his MPs to oust him before the next general election. Traditionally, Labour doesn't depose its leaders like the Tories. But a change of leader can no longer be ruled out after the nightmarish end to Starmer's first year in power. The Corbyn party could draw money and members away from Labour, including donations from left-wing trade unions. Amid disenchantment with the government, Labour's membership has dropped from 348,000 at last year's election to about 309,000. (Under Corbyn, membership peaked at 460,000 in 2017). Labour HQ was told before the May local elections that grassroots morale was low after the government's decisions on winter fuel payments and welfare. Although some close Starmer allies will not lose sleep over left-wingers quitting Labour, the party needs all the foot soldiers it can muster. To make matters worse for Starmer, the soft left is mobilising against his top-down leadership and wants grassroots members given more influence. The Compass think tank is drawing up a 'guiding story' to end 'the sense of drift' under Starmer's ideology-free managerialism. Neal Lawson, its director, warns: 'If Labour doesn't clarify what kind of society it aims to bring about and fails to seriously develop a programme that lights the way to it, the populist right's version of change will prevail.' Compass's initial ideas, which won't be welcomed by Team Starmer, include wealth taxes, rent controls, price caps and the 'social ownership' of water and buses. With skilful targeting, the Corbyn party could unseat some Labour MPs at the next general election. Labour insiders are already worried that 'Gaza independents' could win between 20-30 seats, including the health secretary Wes Streeting's in Ilford North. 'Gaza is a real problem for us,' one Labour insider told me. The five independents who won Labour seats last year campaigned on issues like austerity, as well as the Middle East; such candidates will have more ammunition by the next election. Although Starmer will be more worried about the threat from Reform, the Corbyn party could result in a prime minister under real pressure on both flanks, as well as from Labour members and his newly-empowered MPs. All while wedded – for now, at least, thanks to the financial markets – to a weeping chancellor, widely seen as the architect of his first-year woes. Crucially, the existence of the Corbyn party could undermine the PM's plan to urge disaffected left-of-centre voters to hold their nose and stick with Labour to keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street. Starmer has fought back before when his back was to the wall – but he will need superpowers to wriggle out of this one.


The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Crying in the Commons: why are women's workplace tears a source of shame?
Rachel Reeves's tears this week triggered a fall in the pound and attracted widespread derision from political columnists, mostly male. 'What is wrong with Rachel Reeves?' the Telegraph asked. In an article headlined 'The meaning of the chancellor's tears', a New Statesman columnist told readers that Reeves's authority was 'beginning to melt away'. The Daily Mail spoke disdainfully of her 'waterworks'. But in the longer term the chancellor's display of distress may prove to have an unexpectedly positive legacy, helpfully normalising a still hugely stigmatised phenomenon – women's tears in the workplace. Until now, tearful outbursts at work have mostly been mired in shame, the source of acute embarrassment. This week's live broadcast of the chancellor's silent tears could help shift the taboo, highlighting a little-discussed truth: sometimes women cry at work, and it's no big deal. Reeves reflected on her own tears with a shrug a day later. 'People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday. Today's a new day and I'm just cracking on with the job,' she said on Thursday. She declined to explain what had prompted her distress, describing it simply as a personal issue and refusing to go into details. Within 24 hours the markets had bounced back with the assurances of the prime minister, Keir Starmer, that she would remain in her job for the long term. Clearly it is far from ideal to be filmed in tears during the week's most-watched exchanges in the House of Commons, but ministerial jobs are immensely tough. Some of Reeves's male predecessors have exhibited the strain of their roles in more extreme ways – while attracting less attention, because their behaviour is classed as routine and acceptable machismo. When Britain's former prime minister Gordon Brown was exhausted and under pressure he was known to be prone to volcanic eruptions. One biographer described how Brown would stab the seat of the ministerial Jaguar with his pen in fury. Bloomberg reported that a new aide was warned to watch out for 'flying Nokias' when he joined Brown's team (although a spokesperson for Brown said at the time that this was 'not an account that I recognise'). Reeves's tears were widely seen as a sign that she was losing control. Brown's fury was forgiven by many as just a regrettable quirk displayed by a leader under pressure. Research consistently confirms what we instinctively know – that women cry more frequently than men. So it stands to reason that as we see more women in senior leadership roles, the sight of a powerful woman in tears should become less remarkable. It would be odd to celebrate it, since it's an exhausting and often mortifying phenomenon, but Reeves's outburst may help it to be better understood as simply a different way of expressing professional frustration or responding to pressure. Polling conducted by YouGov in the UK revealed that 34% of men claim not to have cried at all in the previous year, compared with only 7% of women; 18% of women said they cried at least once a week, compared with only 4% of men. Behaviour varies between cultures, but this remains a broadly global phenomenon: a 2011 study of 5,715 participants from 37 countries found women were more prone to crying and were more likely to have cried recently. This week, Germany's former leader Angela Merkel revealed that she 'burst out crying from the pressure' during a meeting with the then US president, Barack Obama, on how to handle Greece's mounting debt crisis in 2015. Theresa May was on the brink of tears when she stepped down as the UK prime minister in May 2019, her voice cracking and lips wobbling as she stood outside Downing Street, telling assembled journalists that it had been the honour of her life 'to serve the country I love'. Margaret Thatcher was in tears when she was driven from Downing Street in 1990s. By contrast, David Cameron hummed his way back inside No 10 after his resignation speech in 2016. Obama wept occasionally when president but these were mostly dignified occasions, prompted by the memory of tragic events, such as the shooting of schoolchildren during a speech about gun control. His tears were not the unattractive and uncontrollable, messy and humiliating variety, but were mostly seen as commendable expressions of his humanity. Vladimir Putin appeared emotional a decade ago during a soft-rock song honouring the bravery of the Russian police force, but these too were a different kind of tears. Political behaviour in Britain has been slow to change, despite the rapidly evolving makeup of the Commons. In 2024, the UK saw the election of the highest number of female MPs ever recorded. There are now 264 women in the Commons, holding 40% of the 650 seats. Since the 1997 election of the Labour party saw the proportion of women double from 9% to 18%, there has been a steady rise – but the institution's combative culture has barely changed. 'We've had years of men shouting, scoffing, braying, even sleeping in this chamber, so we shouldn't overreact to a woman showing her frustration with one tear,' said Penny East, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, a feminist campaigning charity. 'It shouldn't be interpreted as a sign that she's not up to her job. These criticisms feel riddled with sexism and stereotype.' Ask any female colleague, and they will probably reluctantly admit to having wrestled with the challenge of holding back tears at work, often prompted by professional frustration rather than sadness. I've done it, during a difficult conversation with an editor, raising my eyes to the ceiling and tilting my head back, hoping that gravity would somehow suck the tears back inside the ducts and that no one would notice. Women know it can be damaging professionally because crying remains categorised as a sign of incompetence and weakness, an unacceptable manifestation of stress. One accomplished acquaintance in a senior role was unfairly nicknamed Tiny Tears in private by her staff because occasionally she responded to challenging situations with involuntary tears. Her colleagues were less familiar with this manifestation of professional dissatisfaction than they might have been with a display of male anger. Another woman described crying on her third day at her new job as a chief executive of a large organisation. 'It wasn't live on the media, but it was in an open-plan office and I was surrounded by senior and junior staff. I'm not remotely comparing my job to the job of the chancellor, but there was a huge burden of responsibility and I was having to take difficult decisions,' she said. She was embarrassed by her own tears because she could see how uncomfortable it made her team. 'But I didn't see it as a loss of control. We shouldn't assume that displays of emotions represent a loss of control over ability to do your job.' She thinks, however, the episode may unexpectedly have helped her win colleagues' respect. 'They could see I really cared about what we were there to do.' Although there is no difference in the amount male and female babies cry, women cry more frequently than men because of a complex mix of social conditioning and biology. Ad Vingerhoets, a professor of clinical psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, has studied the science of tears, and notes that testosterone acts as a 'brake' on the crying response. Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, who specialises in analysing how emotions are expressed through laughter and tears, said: 'How we experience and express our emotions is influenced by our biology and by how we've grown up.' Scott made a distinction between tears produced as a result of sadness and tears triggered by anger, noting that these tears of frustration and fury seemed to be more frequently something experienced by women. 'If you're angry and you feel you can't do something about it, there's a helpless, frustrated feeling that pushes you to tears,' she said. Women seemed to find themselves more frequently fighting tears of frustration than men, Scott said, adding that this might be because 'angry and more aggressive responses are more acceptable in men'. Unusually, Reeves's misery was caught playing out over the 30-minute duration of the prime minister's question time session, allowing viewers a rare and uncomfortable view of someone attempting and failing to stem the flow, lips twitching and turning downwards. 'A big difference between my job and many of your viewers' is that when I'm having a tough day it's on the telly, and most people don't have to deal with that,' Reeves told the BBC. Scott said many forms of tears were hard to control, adding: 'Crying is a very truthful signal. Once it gets hold of you, it's very hard to stop it. It's involuntary.' Rosie Campbell, a professor of politics at King's College London, said she was staggered by the negativity triggered by Reeves's tears. 'In our society, women are more likely to cry. That doesn't make them worse leaders,' she said. 'I don't want to see politicians crying in the chamber every day, but if it happens a couple of times in a parliamentary career, that should be no big deal. 'I'm more worried about emotionally repressed leaders than about someone who realises that the financial security of the nation is in their hands and they feel the weight of that.'


The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Crackdown on ‘cruel' imports of kittens and puppies into UK
A Bill aimed at curbing animal smuggling and cruelty has successfully cleared the House of Commons, securing cross-party support. The legislation, championed by Liberal Democrat MP Dr Danny Chambers, introduces several key provisions. It will reduce non-commercial animal entry into the UK, ban the import of puppies and kittens under six months old or heavily pregnant dogs and cats, and halt the import of dogs and cats who have been "mutilated", including having their ears docked Dr Chambers, the Winchester MP, saw his Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill backed by the Government. It now progresses to the House of Lords on its path to becoming law. Speaking about the proposed legislation, Dr Chambers said: 'As a vet, I've seen the devastating consequences of puppy smuggling. It's unimaginably cruel to separate puppies and kittens from their mothers at a very young age, and then bring them across borders in substandard conditions where they're then sold for maximum profit by unscrupulous traders who prioritise profit over welfare.' He added: 'Careful consideration has been given to setting these limits, balancing the need to disrupt illegal trade with minimising impact on genuine pet owners. 'To underpin this, only an owner, not an authorised person, will be permitted to sign and declare that the movement of a dog or cat is non-commercial. 'Crucially, the Bill places a duty on the Government to use these regulation-making powers to first deliver three key measures – a ban on the import of puppies and kittens under six months old, a ban on the import of heavily pregnant dogs and cats that are more than 42 days pregnant, and a ban on the import of dogs and cats who've been mutilated.' He criticised the influence of social media on the increased demand for dogs with docked ears, and a party colleague hit out at the platforms' role in publishing animal abuse. He said: 'One reason that there is such an interest in dogs with cropped ears is that a lot of influencers on Instagram and other social media platforms pose with these dogs or show they have these new dogs with cropped ears. Many people aren't aware that this is a mutilation. 'They think it's how the dogs' ears normally look, and it drives a demand for dogs that look like this.' Labour MP Peter Lamb (Crawley) directly named Meta, which owns Facebook, as a company that publishes content featuring animal abuse. He said: 'There are far too many groups online which are dedicated to animal abuse. Constituents of mine have been involved in attempts to try and shut these groups down over the years. 'They'll also often find that instead of finding support on the part of social media companies, to try and address these problems, instead it is they who are reported and face their own accounts being shut down by those perpetrators.' He added: 'We cannot rest on our laurels and Meta must be made to answer for the fact that they are not acting to bring an end to animal abuse on their networks, and that they are profiting actively from the advertising which appears on that network, and advertisers must be aware that part of what they are paying for, when they pay to advertise on Facebook, is maintenance of animal abuse networks.' Environment minister Emma Hardy said: 'These measures represent a crucial step forward in our collective efforts to tackle the pet smuggling trade.' Ms Hardy added: 'We want to see fewer low-welfare operations supply pets to the GB market and fundamentally less animals to suffer because of this.' She continued: 'As set out in the Government's manifesto, we are committed to ending puppy smuggling and delivering a better future for our animals and I am pleased to say that this Bill does just that. 'It's key measures deliver crucial recommendations put forward by the Efra (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) select committee and tackle multiple concerns that have been raised by stakeholders regarding loopholes in our current pet travel rules.'