Greens responds to Reform’s £9 million donation
Responding to news that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has received a £9 million donation from a single donor, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said
“Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy. When a single party can be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy individuals, it drowns out the voices of ordinary people and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites.
“This is exactly why we need a cap on political donations. Democracy should never be for sale. Every party should compete on ideas, not on the size of their donor spreadsheet.
“While Reform pockets eye-watering cheques, Greens are building a movement powered and funded by people through thousands of new members.
“When we win elections, it will be because of the tens of thousands of people volunteered, not the people who donated tens of thousands. If we want a politics that serves the public, not billionaire backers, then capping donations is essential. Let’s end the influence of big money and put democracy back where it belongs: in the hands of voters.”
UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record
Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded
Record heat and drought cost Britain’s arable farmers more than £800m in lost production in 2025 in one of the worst harvests recorded, analysis has estimated.
Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020, leaving some farmers asking whether the growing impacts of the climate crisis are making it too financially risky to sow their crops. Farmers are already facing heavy financial pressure as the costs of fertilisers and other inputs have risen faster than prices.
This year Britain had the hottest and driest spring on record, and the hottest summer, with drought conditions widespread. As a result, the production of the five staple arable crops – wheat, oats, spring and winter barley, and oilseed rape – fell by 20% compared with the 10-year average, according to the analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). The harvest in England was the second-worst in records going back to 1984.
Supercharged by global heating, extreme rainfall in the winters of 2019-20 and 2023-24 also led to very poor harvests, as farmers were unable to access waterlogged and flooded fields to drill their crops.
“This has been another torrid year for many farmers in the UK, with the pendulum swinging from too wet to too hot and dry,” said Tom Lancaster at the ECIU. “British farmers have once again been left counting the costs of climate change, with four-fifths now concerned about their ability to make a living due to the fast-changing climate.”
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/04/record-heat-drought-2025-cost-uk-arable-farmers-estimated-800m-climate-crisis-grain-harvest
Farage turns on broadcasters over racism allegations as number of claims hits 28
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/farage-turns-on-broadcasters-racism-allegations-bbc
Reform leader suggests he would boycott BBC, saying he has had letter from Dulwich pupils defending him
Nigel Farage has turned on broadcasters for questioning him about his alleged teenage racism and antisemitism as the number of school contemporaries who recalled such behaviour to the Guardian reached 28.
In an angry performance at a press conference in London, the Reform leader suggested he would boycott the BBC and said ITV had its own case to answer, as he repeatedly shouted “Bernard Manning”.
Manning, a comedian from Manchester who died in 2007, was a regular face on British television in the 1970s but he drifted from the public eye after claims that his material was racist and misogynistic.
The intemperate performance by Farage, whose party has slipped in the national polls in recent weeks, came as a further five school contemporaries came forward to the Guardian with allegations that they had witnessed deeply offensive racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/04/farage-turns-on-broadcasters-racism-allegations-bbc
dizzy: Is Farage’s current flavour of argument that there were other blatant racists and misogynists at that time so that it’s fine?
He’s said that he wants an apology “for everything”. I can try, might take a few goes.
I’m so sorry that everyone is not as perfect as you Nigel. You’ve obviously been taught all your life that you’re so special and it’s so unfortunate that there are so many inferior people and races affecting your absolutely perfect being and experience. I’m so sorry that you’re so obviously always in distress, I can see you shouting it at every opportunity.
… I’ll have to work on it.
What we told UK leaders about climate and nature at a national emergency briefing
Paul Behrens, University of Oxford
I joined eight other experts to deliver a national emergency briefing in late November on the climate and nature to around 1,200 of the UK’s leaders — across politics, business, faith and culture — in Central Hall Westminster.
Much like the televised national briefings delivered during COVID, the aim was to deliver sober, science-based overviews of the various climate and nature crises that the UK faces. Chaired by the academic and author Mike Berners-Lee, the aim was to set off a tipping point of engagement among politicians, faith leaders, CEOs, sport and cultural figures. TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham opened the event.
The alignment among the scientists speaking was clear. Several of us had never met before, yet our research all linked to tell a story of unprecedented threat and opportunity.
Nathalie Seddon, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford, laid bare the nature crisis. Nature, she emphasised, is not a luxury. It is critical infrastructure, and the state of depleted nature across the country is a national security issue.
Kevin Anderson, a professor in energy and climate change at the University of Manchester, presented the clear carbon arithmetic of how quickly we need to cut emissions. He pointed out what our political discourse studiously avoids: “It is now too late for non-radical futures.”
Hayley Fowler, spoke about how Valencia-style flooding is perfectly possible in the UK. Tim Lenton, a professor of Earth system science at the University of Exeter, spoke about how climate-driven changes in ocean currents may impact the UK.
I spoke about food security and the great food transformation that’s needed, including dietary change, waste reductions, production improvements and increased resilience. I explained how more plants in our diets are necessary to reduce climate and nature impacts, improve our health, increase food resilience and reduce reliance on imports.
Hugh Montgomery, chair of intensive care medicine at UCL, said: “You don’t respond to an emergency with talk and homeopathy. You respond with genuine action. … Climate change is the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century.”
Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, a retired senior British Army officer, spoke on national security implications and how the energy transition means greater stability and security for the UK, as the country would be less vulnerable to petrostates and the inherent volatility of fossil fuels.
Angela Francis, director of policy solutions at the environmental charity World Wide Fund for Nature, spoke about how innovation is the key to productivity and healthy economies. She highlighted how faster energy transitions are cheaper, and the cost of the UK energy transition is now 73% cheaper than what was thought five years ago. Had we made the transition already, recent inflation would have been 7% lower.
Tessa Khan is an environmental lawyer and the co-founder of the Climate Litigation Network: a global coalition of organisations using litigation to compel governments to ramp up their climate mitigation ambition. She described how the price of renewables has dramatically reduced, their efficiency has soared, and how investment in renewables pays dividends.
The science was news to many
The message was consistent: these are not distant projections but rapidly accelerating realities that will profoundly affect every aspect of British life.
There was anger too. Frustration at vested interests blocking action, and at the inequality of climate impacts. The UN’s annual climate summit, Cop30, had just concluded in Belém, Brazil, attended by a record 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists.
The words “fossil fuel” were removed from the final Cop30 text. Our current collective response could not be more inadequate.
Some people I spoke to suggested that the panel at this event was preaching to the choir. It’s important to remember that MPs radically underestimate the urgency of the situation. Fewer than 15% of the 100 MPs surveyed in one study knew that global emissions needed to peak by 2025 to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
The science was news to many present. The planet is heading into dangerous overshoot above 1.5°C within the next few years. As Anderson pointed out: for the UK to meet its fair share obligations in emissions reductions without relying on highly speculative and costly carbon dioxide removal, we would need to see roughly 13% year-on-year reductions for just 2°C – let alone 1.5°C.
There was a catharsis during the briefing. Knowing that people with the power to act were finally hearing the full picture: the health effects, the extreme weather, the collapsing nature, the food insecurity, the economic and geopolitical risks. As Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism (a traditional movement for modern Jews), wrote afterwards in the Observer: “Those facts were hard to hear, but I also felt thank goodness, we’re being told it as it is.”
A just, equitable transition to a clean economy would improve countless aspects of our lives, from creating jobs and improving health to strengthening communities and increasing resilience. We will look back on this moment bewildered that we did not act sooner, if we are able to act in time.
This is why we are calling for a televised national emergency briefing, so that what happened in Central Hall Westminster can reach the public. Anyone can sign this open letter, calling on the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the heads of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, S4C and the media regulator Ofcom, for urgent, honest communication about the scale of the crisis and the solutions available.
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Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor, Future of Food, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
