Fact check: Reform UK migrants claim and minister's inflation mix-up
These figures can't tell us exactly how many have arrived under Labour, as they cover roughly six months of the last Conservative government and the first six months of Labour. The next set of figures, which will cover the year ending June 2025 and are expected to be published in the autumn, will more reliably tell us about the change under Labour.
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Leader Live
17 minutes ago
- Leader Live
Polling opens in Holyrood by-election that Swinney says is ‘two horse race'
Polling stations are now open in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse seat following a high profile campaign dominated by the rise in support for Reform. The by-election is taking place following the death of the SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, who had been receiving treatment for breast cancer. Today is polling day in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. @KatyLoudonSNP has shown she would be an outstanding MSP. This is now a two-horse race between @theSNP and Farage.#VoteSNP to stop Farage and for a better Scotland. Vote Katy Loudon. — John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) June 5, 2025 She had held the seat since 2011, winning it comfortably in the 2021 Scottish election with a majority of 4,582 over Labour. But SNP leader and Scottish First Minister John Swinney has said it is now Reform UK that are the main threat to his party there – claiming the contest is a 'two horse race' between the two parties. Mr Swinney, who has made several campaign visits to the area, has spent much of his time attacking Nigel Farage and his party. Reform have also come under attack from Labour, with a furious row prompted by an online ad which alleged Scottish leader Anas Sarwar would 'prioritise' the Pakistani community. Labour have branded that 'racist', but as the war of words between the parties escalated, Mr Farage used a rare visit to Scotland earlier this week to accuse Mr Sarwar of 'sectarian politics'. It's polling day! Great opportunity to show the momentum we have, vote @CllrRossLambie and @reformparty_uk Vote Reform. Get Reform — Reform UK Scotland (@ReformUKScot) June 5, 2025 Mr Sarwar still insists his party's candidate Davy Russell can win the seat, despite him coming in for criticism over his failure to take part in a TV debate. Speaking on Wednesday, the Scottish Labour leader branded Mr Farage a 'pathetic, poisonous little man'. Hitting out at his rivals Mr Sarwar said: 'Reform have chosen a campaign of dirt and smear, the SNP have lacked all ambition, the best they can offer is 'vote SNP to stop Farage'.' Stop SNP waste. Stop SNP incompetence. Stop SNP failures. Elect the local champion that can beat them. Vote Scottish Labour. — Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) June 4, 2025 Mr Swinney however was adamant that people needed to vote for SNP candidate Katy Loudon if they wanted to 'stop Farage'. The First Minister insisted: 'People face a simple choice in this by-election. 'They can either vote for the SNP – elect an SNP MSP – or they will end up with a Reform MSP. That's the simple choice.' The election comes as polls show a surge in support for Mr Farage's party in Scotland. While Reform have not yet won an election north of the border, one poll last month suggested they could come in second to the SNP in the May 2026 Holyrood elections. Polls are open in the constituency till 10pm, with the result expected to be known in the early hours of Friday morning.
North Wales Chronicle
19 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
MS says education system in Wales is in a 'fragile state'
MS for North Wales To put it mildly, education system across Wales is in a fragile state. One-fifth of pupils are leaving Welsh primary schools unable to read, and results from the global PISA education rankings see us lagging well behind at the bottom of the UK nations. Those PISA tests showed that the performance of disadvantaged children in England is either above or similar to the average for all children in Wales. The Labour Welsh Government have run education here since 1999, and it's fair to say the outcomes are disastrous as a result of deliberate policy decisions. Labour's most recent big idea is to reduce the number of academic qualifications, so your child will no longer be able to do separate chemistry, physics, and biology GCSEs, for example. Not only that, but there is a clear funding crisis. That is particularly acute here in North Wales, and the numbers make for sobering reading. Sixteen schools across Wrexham county are projected to end the 2024/25 financial year in deficit, which is two more than last year. Forty staff have left schools this academic year, with sixty redundancies expected in September. Those redundancy payouts for the last year came at a cost of £403,976 – the Council had originally budgeted for £200,000. This simply isn't sustainable. Education has been woefully mismanaged by Cardiff Labour for a quarter-century and they don't seem to have a coherent strategy to improve the situation. Getting education right is vitally important. It unlocks life opportunities for children and young people. It's genuinely transformative when done right, particularly for those who come from poorer backgrounds. When schooling goes wrong, it can plague that child or young person for the rest of their lives. Just think of those one-fifth who leave primary school functionally illiterate – that is a huge block in terms of accessing jobs and being a fully capable person in the modern world. A fair funding model would be a step back on the path to a great Welsh education system, but we also need to see a rigorous focus on academic achievement and proper discipline in schools. That way, schools in Wrexham, Flintshire and the rest of Wales can ensure children are ready to play their full part in society for years to come. As ever, if you'd like to get in touch then you can email me at
Telegraph
37 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The Trump foe behind Amazon's Biblical epic
Leonard Leo won his decades-long crusade to reshape the US legal system when he helped Donald Trump appoint three conservative Supreme Court justices, securing a Right-leaning supermajority in the nation's highest court. While he has since fallen out of favour with the president who last week branded him a 'sleazebag', the Federalist Society leader has quietly been fighting another battle: giving pop culture a Godly makeover. 'I just said to myself well if this can work for law, why can't it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now,' Mr Leo said in a promotional video for Teneo, a conservative networking hub he helped fund. He went on: 'Entertainment that's really corrupting our youth – why can't we build talent pipelines and networks that can positively affect those areas as well?' So far, the Christian power player's campaign to litter the streaming charts with conservative programming is another success story. Mr Leo, 59, secretly helped bankroll the studio behind House of David, a biblical retelling of David and Goliath, according to the Wall Street Journal. Like the story of its protagonist, it defied the odds by leaping to the coveted number one spot on Amazon Prime. It has already been commissioned for a second season. Mr Leo, who joined the Federalist Society as a student in the 1980s, reportedly has not spoken to Mr Trump in five years, but as his scope for influencing the president dwindled, he began yielding another power playing tool. In 2020 Barre Seid, the Chicago billionaire, donated all of his shares in his electrical manufacturing firm Tripp Lite to one of Mr Leo's conservative non-profits. It was then sold for $1.6 billion. This funding allowed him to plough millions of dollars into amplifying religious and conservative filmmakers, the newspaper reported. Mr Leo is said to have helped fund Wonder Project, a Texas-based studio founded by Jon Erwin, the Christian director, which created House of David. The studio's tagline is: 'Restoring faith in things worth believing in.' In an Instagram post announcing it had achieved number one on the Amazon Prime chart, Wonder Project said 'all glory to God for this one'. Mr Erwin is a member of Teneo which has a subgroup focused on entertainment. Its annual conference is understood to have become a nerve centre for Christian filmmakers where creatives pitch to conservative investors. The network is understood to invest in studios rather than individual movies to achieve an ongoing impact on culture, rather than producing one-hit wonders. Wonder Project has received funding from Sovereign Capital, a Christian investment firm. John Coleman, its leader, said its objective is 'to love God and love our neighbour through investing'. Mr Leo has also reportedly given money into Sycamore Studios, which focuses on children's entertainment free of views of diversity, gender or homosexuality. 'We're not going to be the Ford Foundation to be around forever,' Mr Leo told the Wall Street Journal. 'The goal is to do our work, and at some point in time to decide that we've done what we can do and move on.' The success of House of David, which more than 22 million people streamed in the first two weeks, comes amid a surge in appetite for Christian films – one of which Mr Erwin has helped spearhead. He was the mastermind behind Jesus Revolution, a 2023 film which is based on the true story of the early days of the 'Jesus People' hippie subculture in the 1960s. It left out that the protagonist, Lonnie Frisbee, who really did kickstart the Jesus movement, was gay and died of Aids in 1993, after he was excommunicated and outcast from the movement he had founded. It made more than $50 million at the box office and when it was released it was the highest-grossing film released by the Lionsgate studio since 2019. It was the 48th highest grossing film in the US in 2023. Mr Erwin's previous works include October Baby, about young mothers finding God in an abortion clinic, and Woodland, which features young mothers finding God on an equalities march. 'Within the entertainment industry specifically, I think there's an uprising on the behalf of Christianity,' Mr Erwin previously told Christianity Today. 'I think there's a resurgence in belief and a sudden increase in spirituality in America, even though church attendance is going down. It's an exciting moment to be in the business. We're at the forefront of a return to God.' He added: 'We've only scratched the surface on what faith-based entertainment can be. We're wondering, 'How can we make the Bible a cinematic universe?'' Key players continue to make inroads. In April, Angel Studios released King of Kings, an animated film in which Charles Dickens, voiced by Kenneth Brannagh, tells the story of Jesus to his son Walter, played by Roman Griffin Davis. The film made over $60 million at the box office and is number 11 of the highest grossing films so far this year in the US, according to IMDB. Angel Studios also helped launch Biblical drama The Chosen, a series about Jesus's life. When the fifth season was released this year, they put out a three-part cinematic release. All three are in the top 50 highest-grossing box office releases so far this year, bringing in more than $43 million collectively. Mr Erwin's next directing project with Angel Studios, is Young Washington, a film about the origins of America's first president. Trump attacks Leo When it comes to the origins of Mr Trump's initial electoral success, Mr Leo was certainly a player. During the 2016 election campaign he gave Mr Trump a list of potential justices he could appoint to win over support from the Republican base. He advised Mr Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. But last week, Mr Trump, who reportedly believes Mr Leo took too much credit for the judicial appointments, went from simply banishing Mr Leo to his close confidantes to publicly attacking him. 'I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges,' Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social after a US court blocked the majority of his tariffs. 'I did so, openly and freely, but then realised that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.' Responding to the jibe, Mr Leo praised Mr Trump 'transforming' the federal courts, which he said amounted to Mr Trump's 'most important legacy'. As Mr Leo moves on from Maga and begins to flex his soft power in the entertainment industry, it is clear Mr Trump was just one episode in his multi-part series on his own crusade to reshape America in his conservative, Christian vision.
