newiceberg

Reform UK leader banked £1.2m from role as presenter on GB News and payments from social media

Nigel Farage appears to have become the highest-earning MP, having made almost £1.2m a year from GB News.

In the first register of interests of the new parliament, the Reform UK MP declared that he was earning £97,900 a month as a presenter for GB News, the channel co-owned by the hedge fund billionaire Paul Marshall.

Farage also revealed that his visit to the US on 17 July – in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump – cost £32,000 and was funded by Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto investor who previously gave millions to the Brexit party. The purpose was recorded as “to support a friend who was almost killed and to represent Clacton on the world stage”.

Progressive film-maker says he’s more optimistic than he’s ever been since Trump announced first run eight years ago

Two-tier policing

“The exhibition’s title is intentionally provocative,” said Katerina Gregos, the museum’s artistic director, who smiles at the prospect of visitors probing the “hypothetical question” of how different the world could be: “What we are asking visitors to do is try and take a leap of the imagination and think what it would be like if governance and decision-making were in the hands solely of women.”

In such a world, would there have been so much war and conflict, or less chest-beating, more compromise and considered discussion, she asks.
“In short, would the world be a better place? We’re not advocating for the establishment of a matriarchy. Rather, we’re inviting reflection on whether there is an alternative. Because, let’s face it, with wars raging and the senseless violence that we see – mostly generated by men almost every day – you can’t say we’re in the best of places.”

Every day for the last two weeks, Johannes-Harm Hovinga has sat at a raised table in Museum Arnhem, using a two-hole page puncher to systematically perforate the 7,705-page sixth assessment report produced by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He has printed it out on coloured paper and the result is a vibrant heap piling up at the artist’s feet.

Hovinga remains completely silent during each performance in the Netherlands-based museum. He drinks water, but doesn’t eat, with bathroom breaks his only intermission.

“We are at a crucial turning point in history,” says Hovinga, “where the consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly evident. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and microplastics are just some examples of what our planet faces.”

The artist calls his living piece The Elephant in the Room. It is an artistic protest, meant to illustrate the lack of urgency by policymakers and global leaders. Hovinga believes in the power of creative expression to help raise awareness and persuade people to take a stand.

The scale of efforts by oil companies and public bodies to protect their premises from environmental protesters can be revealed in new BBC analysis.

More than 400 demonstrators are named in court orders that restrict protests at more than 1,200 locations, the data gathered by File on 4 shows.

The civil injunctions - in force at places like oil terminals, petrol stations and racetracks across England and Wales - also apply to “persons unknown”, meaning anyone could be prosecuted.

The enforcement of civil injunctions has been reported before, but our analysis is the first time the extent of their use has been calculated.

To use the Montreal subway (the Métro), you tap a paper ticket against the turnstile and it opens. The ticket works through a system called NFC, but what's happening internally? How does the ticket work without a battery? How does it communicate with the turnstile? And how can it be so cheap that you can throw the ticket away after one use? To answer these questions, I opened up a ticket and examined the tiny chip inside.