In the headlines

Tony Blair has warned that Labour risks consigning Britain to “relegation from the Premier League of nations” as he cautioned the party against a leftward shift. In a 5,700-word essay, the former PM argued for the government to make AI a serious priority, crack down on welfare spending and abandon Net Zero, and called any potential leadership change “irrelevant” without a coherent policy plan. The price cap on British household energy bills will rise by 13% from July to the highest level in more than two years, triggered by the energy shock from the Middle East war. Regulator Ofgem says that the maximum annual energy bill for a typical household will rise by £221 to £1,862. Nasa says it will begin building a $20bn moon base this year with the aim of establishing a semi-permanent crew presence there as soon as 2032. The American space agency hopes to oversee 81 launches and 73 landings over the next six years as it undertakes what it called “one of the most ambitious engineering and exploration efforts in human history”.

Comment

Missing in action? Farage on election day earlier this month. Dan Kitwood/Getty

Why is Nigel Farage so quiet?

Where on earth is Nigel Farage, asks Sonia Sodha in The Independent. After his party’s massive success at the local elections, the Reform UK leader has been uncharacteristically quiet. He hasn’t attended Prime Minister’s Questions, and broadcasters complain that they cannot get any Reform front benchers to come on their programmes, “let alone Farage himself”. The most likely explanation? Farage is rattled by the announcement that the parliamentary standards commissioner will be investigating his financial affairs, after it emerged that he received a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

Harborne has long backed Farage’s political ventures. He has donated some £22m across seven years to Reform and its precursor, the Brexit Party, including a £9m crypto payment last August that was the single largest donation ever made to a British political party. But these were all declared political donations. The “hefty” £5m present, which came shortly after Farage told friends he wouldn’t stand in the 2024 general election because of the “financial toll” of politics, was not a matter of public record. The Reform leader has maintained that personal gifts don’t need to be declared, but he has struggled to get his story straight. He initially said the cash was to help with personal security costs, then described it as a “reward” for Brexit. If he is found to have broken parliamentary rules, sanctions could include suspension from the Commons or even a recall petition, potentially triggering a by-election. His abrupt retreat from public view suggests he’s “all too aware of the choppy waters ahead”.

Advertisement

Two tariff wins for Scotch in three weeks.
On 30 April, the US dropped its tariff on Scotch whisky entirely. Weeks later, the UK-India trade deal is days from entering force, cutting India’s 150% tariff on Scotch to 75% on day one and 40% by year ten.

Scotch’s two largest export markets just opened up at once. Demand for aged stock follows. A cask is how you own that story at the start, not the end.

See what a cask costs.

Quirk of history

Barbara Bach and Roger Moore on the set of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Hulton Archive/Getty

Here’s a bizarre fact about Roger Moore, says Jacob Simmons in Far Out Magazine: the late, great James Bond star basically “invented the Magnum ice cream”. According to the journalist Chrissy Iley, an interviewer asked Moore in the 1960s who he would most like to meet and what question he’d ask them. He replied that it was Mr Wall, of Wall’s ice cream, and that he’d ask why his company had never put a choc ice on a stick to make it easier to eat. The firm apparently sent him a prototype, before launching the product some 20 years later in 1989.

“Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.”

So said the American science fiction writer Robert Heinlein (above), and we tend to think he’s right. So, here’s something to tempt you:

🚨 The Knowledge, at half price for a whole year 🚨

Come on, that’s only £4 a month. So yield to temptation.

Click here to subscribe

Let us know what you thought of today’s issue by replying to this email
To find out about advertising and partnerships, click here
Been forwarded this newsletter? Try it for free
Enjoying The Knowledge? Click to share