More Reform UK transactions worth millions reported to National Crime Agency
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

Exclusive: Bankers have raised potential money-laundering concerns over loans and donations involving senior party figures

• UK politics live – latest updates

A host of transactions involving Reform UK’s most senior figures and donations to the party caused bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency, a Guardian investigation has found.

On Tuesday, the Guardian revealed that the undisclosed £5m gift provided to the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, by a cryptocurrency billionaire shortly before the 2024 general election was reported to the NCA.

One relates to a £1m donation made to Britain Means Business, a fundraising organisation for Reform UK, before the last general election. Half of the £1m was then transferred by Tice, as director of the company, to Reform UK. Renamed from Leave Means Leave, Britain Means Business is a company that is used to help fund Reform. The £1m seemingly came from the aristocrat and Reform UK donor Fiona Cottrell. In this instance, the Guardian understands bank staff were not satisfied that the funds had ultimately come from her. The NCA has sought help from a foreign partner agency to trace the original source of the funds.

Two other SARs relate to a loan from George Cottrell to Tice. The loan was made shortly before Tice finalised a property purchase and made a party donation, and was not repaid until after those two transactions were completed, according to sources. George Cottrell is the son of Fiona Cottrell, and is a convicted fraudster, former deputy treasurer of Ukip and close associate of Farage.

A fourth relates to the £5m gift from the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne to Farage, which was first revealed by the Guardian in April.

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Oil prices rise sharply after Iran launches attacks on tankers near strait of Hormuz
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

Brent crude benchmark rose to more than $78 a barrel, its steepest increase since ceasefire began

Oil markets have recorded the sharpest price rise in nearly two months after a series of attacks on fossil fuel tankers near the strait of Hormuz led Donald Trump to declare that the ceasefire deal with Iran was “over”.

Meanwhile UK short-dated bonds suffered their worst day since the end of March, as the prospect grew of a Bank of England rate rise to cope with the renewed inflationary pressures.

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Treasury yet to do due diligence on finding extra money for UK’s Nato spend
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

How to hit the 3.5% of GDP defence spending promise would be a matter for ‘the next prime minister’, MPs told

The Treasury has as yet carried out no analysis of the trade-offs necessary for the UK to hit the 3.5% of GDP defence spending promise made to Nato, the department’s chief secretary has said.

Under robust questioning in a joint session of the Treasury and defence select committees on Wednesday, Lucy Rigby repeatedly said that how to fund additional defence spending would be a matter for “the next prime minister”.

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Port of Dover faces ‘utter chaos’ under struggling EU entry system, MPs say
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

UK government urged to apply pressure on France to fix system or suspend checks by next week

• Business live – latest updates

Cross-Channel ferry passengers and the port of Dover face “utter chaos and miles of tailbacks” under the EU’s entry/exit system (EES) unless the technology is fixed or checks are suspended by next week, MPs have said.

The home affairs select committee chair, Karen Bradley, urged the government to “apply maximum pressure” on the French authorities to act on the EES before peak holiday traffic arrives at the port.

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Revealed: landmark Scottish AI project has no prospect of meeting renewables promise
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Exclusive: Government and developers privately acknowledged Lanarkshire datacentre site had power provision ‘issue’

• ‘It’s smoke and mirrors’: hope turns to fear in Scottish village chosen for AI datacentre

• What are Britain’s AI growth zones and are the plans feasible or ‘complete bunk’?

A landmark AI development billed as delivering jobs and prosperity has misrepresented its plans to channel a nuclear reactor’s worth of power to a site in rural Scotland, a Guardian investigation has found.

When it was announced in January, the government promised that an £8.2bn AI datacentre complex in Lanarkshire – built by the US firm CoreWeave and the Scottish company DataVita – would be powered entirely from on-site renewables and built by 2030.

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AI altering meaning of users’ drafts on issues from abortion to climate, study finds
Posted on Monday July 06, 2026

Researchers say small changes in drafting could spread rapidly and create long-term shifts in public opinion

AI tools are twisting online messages on sensitive political topics about everything from abortion to climate change in ways that could snowball to reshape long-term public opinion, experts have said.

As tech companies push AI tools as convenient ways to redraft and summarise the massive influx of daily messages, many inject their own political biases – some leaning distinctly rightwing, others more liberal, according to a study from Oxford and Potsdam universities.

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Wimbledon 2026: British wildcard Fery sails past Cobolli into semis; Zverev, Noskova and Kostyuk through – live
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

Updates from Wednesday’s last-eight action in SW19
Arthur Fery: wildcard carrying GB hopes | Mail Daniel

Paolini bursts out of the blocks with as much speed as she shows when charging around the court, racing to 40-0 and taking the game to 15. This match pits two of the best athletes in the women’s game against each other, and while Kostyuk possesses more power than the counterpunching Paolini, it’s Paolini who has the greater experience at this stage of grand slams, having reached not only the Wimbledon final but also the French Open final two years ago. Which could be to her advantage, if this comes down to who handles the moment better.

Three more games, three more holds, but it’s been fairly tortuous on serve for Mertens, who has to save three break points to scramble to 2-2, just as Paolini and Kostyuk make their entrance on Centre. I’m really, really looking forward to this one … Paolini, after losing the opening set of her first-round match 6-0, has been a player transformed, finally rediscovering the form that took her to the 2024 final and made her a fan favourite, while Kostyuk, after reaching the French Open semi-finals last month, has carried her form from the clay on to the grass, and has won 20 of her past 21 matches.

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Olav Kooij claims Tour de France stage five with Tourmalet test looming large
Posted on Wednesday July 08, 2026

• The 24-year-old beat German Max Kanter into second

• Norway’s Torstein Træen keeps leader’s yellow jersey

Olav Kooij, teammate to Paul Seixas at Decathlon CMA CGM, emerged out of the heat haze in Pau to win stage five in the Place de Verdun. The first sprint finish in the 2026 Tour de France saw Kooij, who won three stages in last year’s Tour of Britain, win with ease from Max Kanter of XDA Astana.

“After a couple [of] hard days already, we had to wait to today to get this first chance to sprint in the Tour, and to immediately win is unbelievable,” the Dutch rider said. “It means quite a lot. I had a pretty tough spring, and I think just to get back to this level and to keep believing in yourself – and just a few people who believe in you as well – is all you need.”

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