Nigel Farage is on his way to the US to talk about free speech. Yet he remains curiously silent about the attack on free speech by the ruling Reform group at Nottinghamshire County Council. Its leader, Mick Barton, has banned Reform’s 41 councillors from all contact with Nottinghamshire Live and its sister print title the Nottingham Post after it published an article on internal party differences. Farage is in Washington to give evidence to the House judiciary committee on the impact of European online safety laws on billionaire tech companies/to suck up to JD Vance (delete as appropriate).
The Times’s former royal correspondent Valentine Low tells in his new book, Power and the Palace, of Boris Johnson’s anger when he learned that the King (then Prince Charles) regarded his Rwanda deportation plan to be “appalling”. Low claims the then PM responded in an off-the-record briefing to journalists saying he hoped to change “condescending attitudes towards Rwanda”. What isn’t revealed is the depth of his fury, which led to a “showdown”. “Obviously they weren’t squaring up to each other, but Boris rightly challenged an unelected royal attacking a key government policy,” recalls Johnson’s former media chief Guto Harri. “They had a pretty frank exchange… I don’t think relations ever fully recovered.”
Journalists at the Mirror, Express, Daily Star and regional titles such as the Manchester Evening News, all of which are published by Reach, are bracing themselves for details of mass redundancies due to be announced on 8 September. Reporters worry there will be a cull of writers not deemed to be adding to sluggish digital revenues, and there is fear print production will be slashed. Insiders say the three weeks of waiting since the outline of the plan was stated have been “torturous”.
Others are putting their hopes in rumours that a consortium is interested in buying Reach. “There is a small group of well-funded, well-organised individuals who fear the risk to democracy is too great to allow any more damage to Britain’s only left-leaning tabloid and, even more crucially, to so many local titles,” says someone close to the discussions.
Just three years ago, the Daily Telegraph was Liz Truss’s most enthusiastic supporter, deeming her “competent and proficient”, and “ready to assume the highest political office”. Which will make for an interesting reminiscence between its editor, Chris Evans, and his new hire Jon Clark, the former editor-in-chief of the Daily Star… and the brains behind the Liz lettuce stunt.
Farewell to the UK arm of Refinery29, the online women’s magazine once beloved by celebs. The site has been quietly laying off staff in London and plans to shut down, declining like other start-ups such as the Pool and Buzzfeed, which once offered so much hope but slumped due to dwindling advertising and Google dominance.
Snout line: Got a story?
Write to tips@newstatesman.co.uk
[See also: The age of deportation]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 03 Sep 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Age of Deportation