March opened with a row over two-tier justice. Robert Jenrick spotted that new Sentencing Council guidance would require pre-sentence reports for ethnic minorities. The scandal turned into a blame game: Shabana Mahmood insisted it was all down to former Tories who’d backed the consultation, while Jenrick pointed straight at David Lammy’s own report endorsing the idea. Jenrick warned he’d intervene if Labour wouldn’t, prompting Mahmood to demand the Sentencing Council scrap the policy…
The Council immediately slapped her down. Mahmood was ultimately forced to ram through emergency legislation to kill the guidance entirely. As Guido noted at the time, the measure still managed to be in force for two hours before it was binned…
A full-on Reform row blew up after Rupert Lowe told The Mail that Nigel Farage was a “Messiah” leading a “protest party”. A day later, Reform had withdrawn the whip from Lowe, citing alleged “threats of physical violence”, and referred him to the Met Police – though the CPS later said he would not face charges. Farage vowed Lowe would “never” be allowed back…
Then came Reeves’ Spring Statement – swiftly dubbed an “emergency budget” by the Tories after the carnage of the Autumn one. Ahead of the statement, Reeves unveiled a raft of “welfare reforms” designed to shave £5 billion off the welfare bill: popular enough with voters, though Labour backbenchers were far less keen. On the morning of the statement, the OBR shifted the goalposts again – downgrading growth and dumping yet another fiscal hole in Reeves’ lap. In the Chamber she ploughed on regardless, promising welfare reforms and Whitehall spending cuts. And as co-conspirators will know, those welfare-cutting plans didn’t pan out quite as intended…
It wasn’t a great month for Starmer either. In early March, fawning hacks were still swooning over his Oval Office charm offensive with Trump at the end of February, breathlessly touting his supposed “global leadership” and even murmuring about a Falklands moment. By the end of the month, his “Coalition of the (Un)Willing” had run aground. He’s still touting that coalition as this story goes to pixel…
Honourable Mentions:
- Rayner Spent £20,000 on Flights for Ethiopia Vanity Trip
- Reynolds Finally Corrects Record After Saying He Was a ‘Solicitor’ in Commons
- Reeves Refuses to Apologise for Welfare Cut Pocket Money Analogy
Headline of the Month:
Every KC Hired by Labour to Defend Its VAT Policy Went to Private School
Reform has been doing some Christmas number-crunching on how often party leaders actually face the press. Nigel Farage comes out on top…
Based on Q&As from press conferences streamed on each party’s official YouTube channel, the totals for 2025 are:
- Farage: 499 questions from the press.
- Starmer: 164 questions from the press.
- Badenoch: 130 questions from the press.
That works out at roughly ten questions a week, every week for Farage – comfortably more than Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch put together. Reform also clocked up 66 press conferences and rallies over the year. A benchmark to beat in 2026…
Labour has announced it will significantly dilute its inheritance tax raid on farmers by raising the threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million. A huge U-turn after over a year of relentless campaigning from furious farmers…
It will mean spouses can now pass on £5 million worth of assets without being hit by the ridiculous tax. Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said this morning:
“Farmers are at the heart of our food security and environmental stewardship, and I am determined to work with them to secure a profitable future for British farming. We have listened closely to farmers across the country and we are making changes today to protect more ordinary family farms.
We are increasing the individual threshold from £1m to £2.5m which means couples with estates of up to 5m will now pay no inheritance tax on their estates. It’s only right that larger estates contribute more, while we back the farms and trading businesses that are the backbone of Britain’s rural communities.”
Will Rachel Reeves apologise to farmers now? This policy was supposed to only hit the largest estates, if you believed Treasury spin…
February remained frosty for Starmer, with the month kicking off with VoiceCoachGate. Starmer was revealed to have met his personal voice coach Leonie Mellinger in person on Christmas Eve 2020, during Tier 4 lockdown… despite her claiming she was only working remotely at the time. Guido also revealed that Starmer had founded and run a death-penalty charity with Mellinger’s husband. When asked whether he followed all Covid rules, Starmer refused to say yes…
For Labour, one scandal per month is never enough: Guido exposed yet another Labour cabinet minister whose CV didn’t quite match reality. Then-Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds wasn’t actually a solicitor, despite having claimed the title in Parliament. He was only ever a trainee. He quietly edited his LinkedIn page and eventually corrected the record a month later…
Then came Rachel Reeves, who found herself in an unflattering BBC story alleging she’d once been caught up in an HBOS expenses probe featuring eyebrow-raising claims like handbags and perfume. Her spokesman denied any controversy. Which always inspires confidence…
Starmer rounded off the month by announcing defence spending would rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, funded by slicing foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3%. Leftie Labour MPs howled accordingly. Anneliese Dodds even resigned as International Development Minister in protest. Guido helpfully provided a long list of where Labour could start cutting wasteful spending…
Speaking of spending, Pat McFadden boldly declared he’d “freeze” all taxpayer credit cards. Co-conspirators will have noticed that didn’t happen “immediately”. Spending actually rose across the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, and most other departments…
In the States, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first trip to Washington since Trump returned to power took an ugly turn. Their confrontation in the Oval Office would become one of the most notorious political catfights of the year, with all of it unravelling in front of the world’s press. They’d patch things up, at least publicly, in the months ahead. But with no real progress on the ground…
Over in Toryland, Kemi Badenoch summoned her CCHQ staff for a pep talk after 100 days in LOTO. Her message was clear: “pull your weight or leave”. Staff were reminded they had exactly “two jobs: campaigning and fundraising. If you’re not doing something to make either of those happen, you’re not doing your job right”. The ‘come to Jesus’ moment upset a few staff. Another wave of redundancies rolled in…
Meanwhile Reform hit first place in a YouGov poll for the first time. And they’ve pretty much stayed there since…
Honourable Mentions:
- Full Gwynne Group Chat Leaked: ‘Drag Queen’ Thornberry and Rayner a ‘Waste of Time’
- Starmer Summons Cabinet for Secret Lancaster House Away Day
- Tony Blair Institute Shreds Red Ed’s Net Zero Growth Promises
Headline of the Month:
IN FULL: Labour’s Long List of Sleaze and Scandal Since Coming to Office
Reform is ramping up its campaign in the capital with a direct mailshot from Nigel Farage to target voters. The next Mayoral election is a long way off in 2028 but all London borough seats are up in May 2026…
The letter focuses on crime: “Police hardly dare use stop-and-search, even though they know it reduces knife crime. Under Labour and Tory mayors, the number of Metropolitan Police stations with front counters open to the public has been cut by 80%.” Both topics of conversation had a lot of traction on X earlier in the year…
Farage continues: “Nobody really knows how many hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants live in Khan’s London… thousands of undocumented young men are put up in London hotels at taxpayers’ expense and left free to roam the streets”. The direct mail (which does not come cheap) will send a shiver down the spine of Labour and Tory campaigners who are largely yet to get off the mark. Labour is defending 1,156 council seats and the Tories 404 across the 32 boroughs. The reverse of the letter includes a voter issues survey that can be used for further targeting. Reform has a professional operation underway in London, will it bear fruit in May?
The political year opened with a fresh migraine for Starmer: Guido was the first UK outlet to reveal that the Bangladeshi government was investigating Labour’s anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq over embezzlement claims following the ousting of her despot aunt. Guido then exposed that Starmer had met the Awami League multiple times, including as recently as December. Tulip was pushed into referring herself to the Standards Commissioner. She promptly resigned…
Guido then sat down with Bobby Hajjaj, the Bangladeshi politician who filed the original complaint against Siddiq. He warned she could be extradited to face the courts. She’s now been sentenced to two years in jail in absentia…
Meanwhile, another crisis detonated under Starmer as Elon Musk weighed in on the rape gangs scandal following forensic reporting by GB News’ Charlie Peters. Labour flat-out refused to open a national inquiry. Guido logged every excuse they deployed, including Starmer claiming it was “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying what the far-right is saying” for attention. Yvette Cooper eventually announced five token “local inquiries” into rape gangs. That row rumbled on throughout the year…
Across the pond, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. He signed more than 200 executive orders on his first day as President, including abolishing the Green New Deal policy, suspending DEI hiring practices in the federal government and declaring a state of emergency on the border, with a proclamation to close it. Most of what Starmer managed in 100 days was losing his Chief of Staff Sue Gray…
Mid-January, Starmer hastily called a press conference over the Southport murderer, Axel Rudakubana, the day before he was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison. The PM admitted he was updated on Rudakubana “immediately as information became available,” yet insisted “it was not my personal decision to withhold information.” He still couldn’t explain why the public had been kept in the dark. Nigel Farage branded it the “worst cover-up” ever. Guido reminded co-conspirators of all the times Starmer was remarkably quick to label past incidents “terror” when it suited him…
It wasn’t any better for Rachel Reeves. Long-term borrowing costs reached to their highest levels since 1998. That picture only got uglier as the year rolled on…
Honourable Mentions:
- Rayner Caught Using Civil Servants to Help Move House
- Labour Cuts £17 Million From Maths Support Programme on Same Day as Handing £17 Million to UNRWA
- Taxpayer Forks Out £11,000 an Hour for Starmer’s Private Jet Flights Over First Three Months in Office
Headline of the Month:
Reform MP Danny Kruger welcomed adult film star Bonnie Blue’s support for the party, adding:
“I’m not going to be judgemental about people who want to vote Reform. We want all the support we can get – quite like Bonnie Blue.”
