Nigel Farage did not appear on BBC Question Time on 26 March. This is despite the latest edition being filmed in ‘his’ Clacton-on-Sea constituency.

More lies from Farage

The excuse from Farage — now been exposed as a lie — was an alleged BBC policy forbidding the show from hosting MPs if the programme is held in their own constituency.

Skwawkbox found no supporting evidence for the claim that BBC Question Time bars MPs from appearing in their own constituencies.

This was confirmed by Starmeroid MP, Mike Tapp, who appeared on the show back in December 2025 when it was broadcast from his Dover constituency.

BBC Question Time’s racist darling

Farage has loomed over BBCQT like a Shakespearean ghost, even when he has not been physically present. The BBC has invited Farage onto the show 38 times, and accused of platforming his hateful, populist discourse, to drive engagement.

His absence was mocked by several users from Clacton. One user wrote:

Farage has been on Question Time more times than he has been at Clacton. At a rough guess probably 30 times.

In a simpler message, another clacton resident wrote:

He is called Nigel Mirage in Clacton.

“Nigel Mirage”

And it seems Farage, reeling from tumbling ratings for his party, was not open to the idea of putting forward a Reform MP for the show in his place.

I seem to remember being on Question Time, a few months ago, in Dover…my constituency.

You were too scared to even put a Reform MP up for tonight it seems.

Weak. https://t.co/ZgHOvF8puH

— Mike Tapp MP (@MikeTappTweets) March 26, 2026

The attempts by a few to defend Farage and his lies did not go well:

What’s your point? He was an MP on QT in his own constituency. This proves Farage is lying again.

— boatnoise (@boat_noise) March 26, 2026

Farage’s absence in Clacton isn’t exactly surprising, and the public reaction says it all. He’s usually absent from Clacton, and hardly ever mentions it in Parliament. Many angry constituents took to social media to express this and mock the bigoted Reform leader.

One user, responding to the question, would Farage “relish the chance to answer questions in his own electorate eh?” wrote:

Of course not. That would mean he’d have to actually go to Clacton.

Still, it’s nothing short of embarrassing to be caught out so quickly—though, honestly, what else could anyone have expected?

Featured image via the Canary

4 min read33 min

The government aims to add 1.5m new homes by the end of this Parliament, with Pennycook insisting that, despite a slow start, major changes to the planning system will lead to a ramping up of developments.

Speaking to host Alain Tolhurst about the new towns announcement, he said: “We know we’ve got an acute and entrenched housing crisis. We also know that lots of our towns or cities are constrained.”

Labour first announced plans to build “the next generation of new towns” in the run-up to being elected at its 2023 party conference. After entering office, it asked a task force to recommend a list of locations where new towns should be built. This week, the government whittled down that list of 12 places to seven.

They are Tempsford in Bedfordshire, Leeds South Bank in West Yorkshire, Crews Hill and Chase Park in north London, Manchester Victoria North, Thamesmead in south London, Brabazon and West Innovation Arc in Gloucestershire, and a site in Milton Keynes.

The government says these new towns will be designed for modern living, close to train stations and easy to drive around, with green spaces and vibrant high streets.

Speaking to PoliticsHome, Pennycook, who is the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, said many communities are “unable to realise their full economic potential” at the moment, arguing that the programme, which aims to get several schemes started ahead of the next election, will deliver a financial benefit, and a sense of place, as well as thousands of new houses.

Previous administrations have been stymied by groups campaigning against building, commonly known as nimbys, but Pennycook said that “we are taking it on” through “the full use of our intervention powers” in the government’s recently passed planning legislation.

“For example, when it comes to local plans, we’ve taken new powers to be able to call in applications where local authorities are minded to refuse them, and we want to take another look,” he said. 

“There are powers that central government can use when it comes to the new towns. We’ve been really clear that in the final analysis, we’ll make decisions in the national interest. 

“We want to bring communities along with us where possible. In the cases of the seven sites we’re proposing, and many others across the country, it wasn’t the case that communities were resisting. We had lots of appetite for new towns, places coming to us, not least in the call for evidence in the new towns task force’s own process, saying, ‘please consider us’.”

The minister acknowledged that there is a “small cohort of people” in the country who want “no kind of development anywhere near them of any kind”, but said there is a “much larger group that wants good development”.

“They don’t want bad development that’s not well planned, that doesn’t have that infrastructure, whether it’s GP practices, or new schools, all of that stuff that sometimes in the planning process can be an afterthought or delivered right at the end once the homes are in.

“We have a chance here to show that we can do really good development in a different way and ensure these are exemplary communities, and I think therefore we’ll reduce, not eliminate, but reduce, some of the opposition there.”

Later in the episode, a panel discusses a whole host of issues around these proposed settlements, featuring the Labour MP Sean Woodcock, who sits on the Commons housing select committee, alongside Vicky Spratt, housing and society correspondent at The i newspaper.

Joining them are Professor Susan Parham, director of the University of Hertfordshire Urbanism Unit, and Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight at the National Federation of Builders.

The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

• Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.

I mentioned to Nigel Farage a fortnight ago that it was odd feeling to have ended up “in opposing trenches” firing pot shots at each other these days. I’m not sure what he thought but what he said with a smile was:

“You should come over. mine’s a better trench”.

To be fair to him he absolutely has to stand on his expressed positions, even in private. We’ve often ended up discussing things in these terms because of a shared passion for the history of the First World War.

No, I won’t be crossing no man’s land. To lose one Editor of ConservativeHome to Reform UK might be considered unfortunate to lose two looks like carelessness.

When I venture into no man’s land however I find people I very much recognise and talk to quite regularly. I don’t always agree but I definitely listen to them.

They are mainly – still angry and disappointed former Conservatives, who felt completely let down by the party’s last stint in Government finding them weak rudderless and incompetent. They’ve seen people cross to Reform and yet deep down aren’t convinced the Farage show really does have the answers, or the ability to do anything but protest, and aren’t convinced on some of the economic stuff or the characters he has around him.

Before either side get angry – too much of that in this arena as I will come on to – those are not my views, but a cocktail of many a conversation with these voters about both sides. The no man’s landers, sometimes shift slightly one way or another but don’t feel the need, or in some cases the desire, to make a choice, yet.

These dug in positions have been reinforced ever since hostilities really broke out at the beginning of this year with a concerted push from the Reform front trying to overrun what they saw as still weak Conservative lines. They still think those lines are terminally weak but the whole operation in January was inspired by the fact despite filling 2025  with shouts that the Tories were dead, their trenches abandoned, “it’s over”, the people in Reform HQ knew that it wasn’t, and Badenoch’s position as leader had solidified in a way they hadn’t anticipated. There was frustratingly for them, still fight in them and especially under their new general.

By January of this year, their mole inside at the top was in discussions about defection. There was a four month run to May’s local elections. These have to – and probably will – establish a bridge head for Reform and their building of a national spread of local party structures. It was the right move in terms of timing to try and bully the Tories off the pitch if they could. That’s definitively their plan.

Either by vote, by gaslight, by out sloganing, convince both Tory and electorate to cede the field.

I’m not criticising here. Tactically it’s what I would have done.

Badenoch and Farage don’t like each other much, or more accurately find dealing with each other tricky. She was the leader he didn’t really want them to choose, and he finds her unnecessarily abrasive and sub-par. She thinks he’s fundamentally a charlatan and an  unserious bar room blowhard. That’s not a combination that makes for constructive discussions.

Both have long ruled out any chance whatsoever of any ‘deal’.

However I have recently had a number of occasions, away from the ‘bubble’, or the arenas of political combat, where solid Conservative supporters and Reform supporters and yes, no man’s landers have been gathered together. They’ve been talking . I’ve been listening to them talking to each other. Lots of them.

Not the angry back and forth of online skirmishing but looking each other in the whites of their eyes, and talking. Talking for some time, and that’s the key here.

Let’s talk about anger first. Lots of it about. It’s where a lot of people, regardless of alliegence, start in this discussion.

Frustrated anger about years of supporting a party that you feel let you down badly, and it feels raw, almost like betrayal. Anger that when Starmer is so awful as PM, Ed Davey is comically ineffective and Zack Polanksi is not just comic but actually dangerous, Reform still want to give the Tories, and just the Tories, a kicking. Anger at a stubborn refusal from die hard Reformers that the Tories are under new leadership that has changed them. Anger at Tories for looking down on Reform, and thereby insulting their voters.

Anger, like that which has spread across the country, and applies to a lot of things, that there’s nothing they can do about this fight, except watch, or sigh, and join in.

And then, when they’d got it out of their systems, you started to hear the notes of a different tune. And what struck me was how similar those notes were, whoever produced them.

They all agreed the Starmer project must be stopped for the good of the UK. That the Greens might say they loath Labour but if they could drag a wounded Labour way over to the left and get co-operation with a party sans the Starmer project then they could do a deal that kept Tories and Reform out and the whole socialist doom circus rolling on.

At this point there was an up bubbling of the old battle cries – ‘that’s why you have to move out of the way, stand down and let us advance’ – awkward use of that word in this context but we’ll leave that. But it was a brief moment because  now these two sides – and undecideds were talking, another truth, I have long predicted, came out: a recognition that ultimately neither Tories nor Reform are going to be able to kill the other off.

They can keep slugging it out if they wish but it will be a wearisome watch because it won’t work and the Left will love it, a satisfaction to be honest I’m not inclined to give them.

So where did this 1914 style meeting in the middle end up?

An acceptance, and just an acceptance, that one and the other might not be the enemy here. That, whether they want it or not, at some point it is likely electoral maths and right-leaning voters will demand they have, at least, ‘a conversation’. And, and I was surprised at this, it was probably better to have a ceasefire soon, and if necessary, ignore each other for a bit.

Timing is everything. Ahead of the local elections – and haven’t they just zoomed into stark focus – you won’t hear a single thing like the above coming out of any spokesperson, leader or candidate. Battle is raging on all fronts, it’s just when it’s quiet, and away from the clash, you can now start to hear if you listen closely, as I do, the sound of how things might play out.

Not yet, but at some point.

Peter Franklin’s column last week came in just as I had had these conversations. It’s worth reading again.

There is no inevitability about any kind of deal. There are a range of strong arguments on both sides for not doing any ‘deal’ or ‘pact’ or whatever. If either side believes it can go it alone if it just holds out, they absolutely will do that. Neither party needs to do this now, there is still a long way to go until 2028/29.

But there’s a shift in the debate, for those who are willing to have it. More are, and mercifully without the wearisome ‘screaming’ at each other that marked the start of hostilities.

Neil Garratt is the London Assembly member for Croydon and Sutton.

In 1959, Winston Churchill observed to his Woodford constituents:

“Among our Socialist opponents there is great confusion. Some of them regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is: the strong and willing horse that pulls the whole cart along.”

Seventy years on, we find the tiger shooters have taken over the Green Party while the milkers fill the Labour Cabinet but the essential truth remains: employers feel drained, people are losing their jobs, and the economy is sadly going nowhere. What is to be done about all this?

I decided to get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth by convening a roundtable discussion of London business: what’s working, what’s not, and where do we go from here? What I heard shocked me.

What stood out most was a common theme that cut across every sector and every size of business: a sense that London has lost its oomph. There is a lack of ambition and zest that attendees felt was the single biggest force holding the city back. From City Hall to Whitehall, Labour is light on business experience and it shows. To them, successful companies are just another source of tax.

The biggest alarm bell is the brain drain. London is packed with talent and an impressive list of unicorn startups; every year dozens of companies reaching a $1 billion value. But the story behind the story is that these ambitious companies are increasingly lured abroad, where financial backing is easier to find. US funders then insist companies make plans to relocate, taking future British wealth and jobs to America.

Retail theft is another big worry and it’s up despite the Mayor’s selective stats on crime. Staff safety, profitability, and wages all suffer when brazen shoplifters march out the door with an armful of stock. Some businesses are even weighing up whether to continue trading in a city where not only is retail crime increasingly common but seemingly legalised. It is hard to maintain confidence in a city when the basic compact that the law will be enforced is visibly failing.

Tax and bureaucracy came up repeatedly. Labour’s jobs tax is predictably cutting firms’ willingness to hire, as it now costs nearly £30k to employ someone on minimum wage. Business Rates are crippling what remains of profitability for some hospitality businesses, a cruel gut-punch after Chancellor Reeves trumpeted a cut to hospitality Business Rates in her Budget speech. People were stunned when the Treasury website told them their tax bill would double. And now Khan is delighted to announce a holiday tax on top of everything else, an overnight charge on every visitor. There’s only so much people can afford to pay for a meal, a drink, or an overnight stay, at which point businesses will just go pop.

The short-termism is glaring. By trying to pump as much tax as possible from the private sector, from the point of sale to the back office costs, Labour are blocking companies from achieving the long-term success that would generate natural increases in tax revenue. Not to mention creating jobs, selling goods and services to willing buyers, and inventing the products of the future we’ve barely dreamed of. Churchill’s willing horse can pull the cart a long way, but not if you keep loading it with rocks.

The capital deserves a Mayor who knows in their bones that prosperity does not come from slicing the pie ever-more finely, but from letting people bake more and bigger pies. A Mayor who sees that when businesses succeed, the benefits flow to everyone: to the companies in their supply chains, to the employees who see their pay rise, to the wider economy that benefits from their spending. My report, which you can read here, shows how Sadiq Khan could be more pro-business and unlock the abundant potential in London. Or, on the off-chance he chooses not to listen, how a future Conservative Mayor can bring London galloping back.

Georgia L Gilholy is a journalist.

Generally speaking, you will be hard pressed to find something that myself and Ed Davey agree on. But this week, the jolly but rather juvenile Liberal Democrat leader, told MPs that “Antisemitism and those who fuel it have no place in our society,” and urged the government to finally proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as terrorists.

His remarks come mere days after four ambulances belonging to the Jewish Haztola volunteer service, which charitably helps local Jews and non-Jews in need of paramedics, were set on fire in Golders Green. Police understandably remain cautious about assigning a motive, but the Iranian terror proxy “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya” quickly claimed responsibility for the attack- the latest in a long line of Islamist plots against Jewish organisations.

​This is the grim backdrop against which Britain is still having an oddly timid argument about the IRGC, the financial and strategic backbone of the Islamic Republic’s global and domestic terror apparatus. It is this ideological army that has played a vanguard to Iran’s theocratic regime since the 1979 revolution, and which has played its part not only in overseas attacks but in the slaughter, rape and torture of much of the country’s own population.

​For years now, British ministers and officials have warned that Iranian state actors and their proxies pose a real threat on our soil. MI5 director-general Ken McCallum said last year that the service had responded to more than 20 Iran-backed plots in the UK. The point is not that every alarming incident can be pinned on Tehran before the evidence is in. It is that the wider threat picture is already well established. Last Summer our security services foiled an alleged Iranian plot to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Kensington mere hours ahead of time. Earlier this month four Iranians in London were arrested on suspicion of spying on Jewish communities.

​A new Labour Friends of Israel paper, launched in the House of Lords on Wednesday, puts the case starkly. The report, authored by senior United Against Nuclear Iran research analyst Jemima Shelley, correctly frames  the IRGC as “Iran’s primary exporter of terrorism abroad” and the regime’s “iron fist against domestic dissent”. It also makes a point that ought to embarrass ministers: sanctions may “create friction”, but proscription “creates criminal liability and fundamentally alters operational ability” to root out this dangerous force.

​​The standard excuse is that the IRGC is part of the Iranian state, and that the Terrorism Act 2000 was not really designed for bodies such as this . Indeed, Joshua Rozenberg KC noted earlier this month that Jonathan Hall KC’s 2025 review concluded Parliament had never intended the 2000 Act’s proscription regime to apply to state entities, which is why Labour promised a new state-threats power instead. The trouble is that, almost 12 months after Yvette Cooper’s commitment to create that new power, there is still no timetable for legislation.

​So the government is caught in the worst of both worlds. It says the existing law is the wrong tool, but has not yet produced the replacement tool it promised. This is despite the fact that Labour’s manifesto specifically pledged to ban the group. It is interesting that Sir Keir Starmer seems much more keen to allocate swathes of parliamentary time to the highly controversial Private Member’s Bill on assisted suicide-which was not part of his party’s election platform-than to a clampdown on specific element of the antisemitic, Islamist terror threat that he promised voters he would execute? Perhaps he simply cares much more about the former issue, than he does about the latter, regardless of public opinion?

​Even now, Lord Blunkett is arguing that the government could immediately proscribe the IRGC’s external operations arm, the Quds Force, under existing terror laws, while bringing forward legislation to deal with the IRGC in full. He points to Canada’s example: ban the Quds Force first, then move wider later. That feels a great deal more serious than the government’s present position, which seems to consist mainly of saying the matter remains “under review”.

The political pressure is plainly building. On Thursday, The Telegraph reported that retired MI6, MI5 and GCHQ chiefs have taken the uncharacteristic step of publicly criticising Keir Starmer’s failure to proscribe the IRGC, calling it a “necessary step” and warning that continued hesitancy risks leaving Britain yet further “strategically exposed”.

​There are, of course, some reasons ministers may hesitate. Proscription would carry diplomatic consequences. It could further narrow Britain’s room for manoeuvre with Tehran, and there are concerns about British nationals who have been arrested in Iran-generally on false charges-and about whatever residual value remains in maintaining channels. But these are arguments about costs, not arguments that the threat is unreal or that endless delay is sustainable.

​But as the former intelligence chiefs reportedly argued, Britain’s leverage in today’s Tehran is already minimal, and ministers should have the honesty to say so. We are not calling the shots in the region, nor will we be capable of playing a serious role again if we continue to deplete our military and industrial capacity.

​The Tories mulled over a ban and failed to deliver. Labour was happy to condemn that hesitation in opposition, but in power, its approach has been equally lacklustre.​

For decades, Britain has tolerated violence intimidation from the IRGC and its proxies within our borders.  In 2023, pro-democracy news channel Iran International, whose staff have suffered violent attacks from pro-regime partisans, abandoned its historic London studio because our police could no longer guarantee its safety in a “free” country.

​Leaving the IRGC somewhat to its own devices in Britain makes a mockery of our country and puts real people’s lives in danger. The government must either proscribe what they can now and legislate fast for the rest, or explain their cowardice to the public.

Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE is the Chief Strategy Officer at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and author of A Greater Britain: Rethinking UK Grand Strategy and Statecraft 

Let me be blunt about what is happening in the Middle East because our government has been anything but.

The joint American and Israeli campaign against Iran is not a skirmish. It is not a limited operation. It is a fundamental restructuring of the regional order one that has already shuttered Dubai International Airport sent Iranian drones over Gulf cities that once felt as safe as Zurich and left tens of thousands of British nationals asking themselves a question they never expected to ask is it time to go home? The answer for many of them is yes. The question for this government is whether it is ready to say yes and were ready for you.

Right now, it isn’t. And that needs to change urgently imaginatively and with the kind of political boldness that this moment demands.

I have spent the better part of two decades advising governments on security policy in Washington in Whitehall at the G7. I was an adviser to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review. I know what a genuine strategic opportunity looks like and I know just as clearly when governments are about to sleep through one.

This is that moment.

There are an estimated 250,000 British nationals living and working across the Gulf states in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, Kuwait City, Bahrain, Muscat. They are not for the most part oligarchs or tax exiles. They are engineers keeping the lights on in Jeddah. Teachers in international schools in Dubai. Nurses architects project managers bankers. Hardworking British people who chose the Gulf for opportunity and the sunshine and who have over years sometimes over decades accumulated savings in a zero tax environment that the UK could only dream of.

Many of them want to come home. The war with Iran has focused minds in a way that even Covid never quite managed. What they need from the British government is not a Foreign Office travel advisory telling them to avoid non-essential travel. They need an active positive financially intelligent welcome. Here is what I am proposing and what I have reason to believe is already being considered in Treasury circles.

It’s a three-month Remittance Tax Holiday.

Any British national abroad who remits savings to a UK bank account during a defined window would be exempt from UK income tax and capital gains tax on those funds provided they invest a minimum of 25000 in one of two new government backed bonds. Two bonds. Both sovereign guaranteed. Both tax free on interest payments for subscribing investors. The first a British Defence Bond paying 4.0 per cent fixed over five years with every penny of proceeds ring fenced for defence procurement missiles ships autonomous systems the domestic manufacturing base that two decades of peace dividend eviscerated. The second a GB Housing Bond paying 4.5 per cent fixed over five years directed entirely at building the social and affordable homes this country so desperately needs.

After meeting the 25,000 minimum the remainder of what they bring back is theirs to spend on a house a business a savings account their children’s school fees. No strings. No bureaucratic labyrinth. No Whitehall working group deciding how they should allocate their own hard-earned money. The economics are compelling. If 250,000 British nationals each remit an average of 100000 a conservative figure for professionals who have spent a decade in the tax-free Gulf the total inflow is 25 billion. The mandatory minimum subscriptions alone guarantee 6.25 billion in bond proceeds. If investors go further and the tax equivalent yield of 4.5 per cent tax free is over 7 per cent gross for a higher rate taxpayer making it one of the most attractive retail savings instruments in living memory total bond capital could reach 12 to 15 billion. Split roughly equally between defence and housing that is a transformational sum for both national priorities.

Let us talk about defence first because this is where the urgency is most acute.

The 2026 Iran conflict has exposed the brittleness of NATO and Western munitions stockpiles in a way that should alarm every serious policymaker. The UK has deployed assets in support of operations across the region. Those stockpiles do not replenish themselves. The government has committed to 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence roughly 75 billion a year but that commitment is stretched across a thousand competing demands and the Treasurys conventional borrowing appetite is not infinite. A British Defence Bond changes the equation. It is not borrowed money. It is voluntary private capital offered by citizens who want to see their country strong in exchange for a guaranteed return. This is how Britain financed two world wars. It is time to dust off the model.

And then there is housing.

The GB Housing Bond is if anything even more timely. We have a chronic decades long failure to build enough homes. Every returning British national who brings capital back and eventually wants to buy a property will find a market in which demand already vastly outstrips supply. The Housing Bond funds the supply side social housing affordable homes brownfield development so that the returning wave of expatriates does not simply inflate prices further but lands into a market that is expanding to meet them.

These two bonds are not in competition. They are complementary instruments addressing two of the three greatest challenges Britain faces security and shelter. The third growth is addressed by the investment activity of returning nationals themselves.

I am aware that some will say this is too generous. That it rewards people who left. That it amounts to a tax break for the comfortable classes.

I disagree forcefully.

These are British citizens. They built careers abroad because Britain frankly did not give them the opportunities they deserved at home. They paid taxes in their host countries they contributed to those economies, and they did so as ambassadors for British expertise and British values. Now they want to come back. Penalising them for doing so slamming them with a tax bill on savings they accumulated abroad in a crisis not of their making would be not just economically foolish but morally wrong.

Britain has long had an uncomfortable relationship with its diaspora. We either ignore them or we treat their return as a tax opportunity. This policy proposes a third path genuine welcome mutual benefit and a clear national purpose. You come home you invest in the country the country invests in you.

The window will not stay open forever. The conflict in the Gulf is fluid. If Iran stabilises or if regional economies recover faster than expected the incentive for British nationals to repatriate their savings will diminish. The government has perhaps six months to seize this moment.

The bonds are ready to be designed. The statutory instruments are straightforward. NSI can build the subscription portal. HMRC can process the certifications. British embassies in Dubai Riyadh Doha and Abu Dhabi can set up the advice desks tomorrow.

What is needed is political will. A Prime Minister willing to stand up and say we see you we want you back and here is what we will build together.

Two bonds. A tax holiday. A homecoming.

It is the simplest most elegant most patriotic economic policy this government could announce. The question is whether anyone in Number Ten is bold enough to announce it.