My colleague is at the Reform UK event. He has posted these about Angus MacIntyre.

I am at a Reform UK event at which they are about to unveil their new armed forces [spokesperson], a just-retired RAF officer called Angus MacIntyre. As someone who ended a 40-year military career just last week he has no apparent social media presence, which must be useful for Reform.

Note he is armed forces spokesperson, not the main defence brief. Two years-plus from the election, that brief for Reform is still unfilled, as are a few other fairly key ones eg health.

MacIntyre seems like a real believer. This is him on asylum: "Uncontrolled illegal migration has brought hundreds of thsouands of undocumented fighting-age males, many with combat eperience and operatives from hostile states into the heart of our communities."

He also says that zet zero has "collapsed our industrial base, and they put our energy sovereignty at risk". He is a confident speaker, so my guess is we'll see a fair bit more of him. But he is also a complete political novice, so there is always a risk of something going wrong.

is speaking now. He says he joined Reform UK because he can think of "no better way to continue my service to our great nation".

He goes on:

Forty years ago, I joined a military that numbered 330,000 troops.

The army had three armoured divisions, eight armoured brigades. I was in one of them as a 19-year-old.

The navy had a surface fleet numbering nearly 50 frigates and destroyers, and the Royal Air Force had over 500 fast jets, fighter jets.

Last week I left a military that has less than half as many men and women under arms than when I joined. It has one armoured division that cannot train because there's no budget, and just two armoured brigades. The Royal Navy has just 13 frigates and destroyers, and the RAF, my own service, has less than one third of the fighter aircraft that it had when I joined up.

MacIntyre blames the Conservatives and Labour for allowing the size of the armed forces to shrink. He particularly criticises the Tories for cutting the size of the military while spending more money on foreign aid. And he says illegal immigration has brought "hundreds of thousands of undocumented fighting age males [into Britain], many with combat experience".

Reform UK can turn this around, he claims.

is now introducing Wing Commander Angus MacIntyre.

Describing him, he says:

He was never a member of the Oxford Union. He's never worked in a think tank, but he has served in battle conditions.

MacIntyre may not have been a member of the Oxford Union, but the Reform UK press release points out that he "completed the Changing Character of War Course at Pembroke College, Oxford, and has lectured on Nato deterrence at All Souls College, Oxford". (See 9.41am.)

is now complaining about the government spending too much on welfare and not enough on defence.

We as a country this year will spend £330bn on benefits, but will only spend £60bn on defence.

But without defence against potential threats, there will be no community, there'll be no society, there will be no benefits. We have got our priorities wrong. We've got things back to front.

Farage complains about the prosecution of military veterans. And he says the prosecutions are a particularly an attack "one of the things that we can still just about as a nation be very proud of, and that is our special forces".

is speaking now. He starts with a tribute to military veterans. And, from there, he launches into a familiar Reform UK theme – that conventional politicians have no experience of real life. He says:

We've got a problem with people in politics that run government departments. It would seem, if you want to run health or defence or any other big department, the qualifications are you must have gone to Oxford University, you must have worked in a research department, you must have become an MP very, very young. And God forbid you've had any experience of a real job or a proper job in the real world.

You're given a job as a minister. And after 18 months, when you're just about getting your feet under the desk and getting a grasp of your brief, you're moved on somewhere else.

You wouldn't run a company like this. You wouldn't run the army like this. And we should not run the country with people with no experience of real life in any way at all.

He says today's announcement (see 9.41am) is an example of favouring someone with real experience.

confirms that Angus MacIntyre is the party's new armed forces spokesperson.

He goes on:

Here's another thing that Nigel and I agreed. When Nigel walks into Downing Street, he's not going to take his orders from the top brass like recent prime ministers have done.

He's going to say to the top brass, here's our plan for national security, go and execute it. And to get that plan right.

The Reform UK press conference has started now.

, the MP who is in charge of the party's preparations of government, is speaking now. He says that Britain is broken and that when Nigel Farage gave him this job, he told him that the solutions to Britain's problems would not come from Westminster. He goes on:

Britain is broken because the people who run Britain don't believe in Britain, not the Britain that we know and love, and because they put party politics before country.

Kruger, of course, spent more than 20 years, on and off, working for the Conservative party before he defected to Reform UK.

has claimed that he regards falling behind in the opinion polls as "perfect".

Speaking on GB News, the Reform UK leader argued that it was easier for a party to campaign when it was not in first place.

For about 15 months from the spring of 2025 Reform UK had a clear lead in the polls. For much of that time, it was more than 10 points ahead of the party in second place (mostly Labour). But Labour regained its lead in most polls after Andy Burnham became PM and the Politico poll of polls now show Reform UK in joint second place with the Tories.

Commenting on this on GB News, Farage said:

What I do know in politics is, it's much easier being slightly behind than being ahead. When election day is eight furlongs away, you want to come up on the rails …

Let me assure you, I have led parties that have been ahead and behind and being tucked in behind, if that's what the public think, it's absolutely perfect … Being ahead was terribly difficult.

In his Economist interview, also said that he would not be inviting Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Manchester next year. Donald Trump has invited Putin to the G20 summit in Miami later this year.

But Burnham did say he was hoping Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, would attend. writes:

[Burnham] points out that Mr Xi visited Manchester in 2015, and promises that "he will see a big difference". The city has developed quickly, thanks in part to Chinese cash. This economic collaboration could be a pattern for future UK-China dealings, the prime minister suggests: "We proceed carefully, but I'm sure there is a real opportunity there."

In his interview with the Economist, said he wanted to "recast the arrangement" that the UK has with Mauritius for the transfer of the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.

Quite what this means remains unclear. , who interviewed Burnham, says the PM sees "the US-Denmark deal over Greenland as one possible model for the fate of Diego Garcia". But that deal was about expanding the US military presence on Greenland. At the moment the US already has full access to Diego Garcia, which is much more of a US military base than a British one (although its use for bombing missions is subject to UK approval).

Keir Starmer's government agreed to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in return for guarantees that the UK and the US would still be able to use the Diego Garcia military base for at least 99 years. Starmer judged this was the best way of ensuring the base (the only asset of value to the UK on the otherwise mostly unoccupied Chagos Islands) could survive in British hands. Without a sovereignty deal, there is a risk of international courts ruling Britain's claim to the Chagos Islands is unlawful.

Originally Donald Trump approved this deal. But he changed his mind after the Starmer refused to support his war against Iran, in part because British rightwingers like Nigel Farage were urging him to veto the deal because they object in principle to sovereignty of UK territory being surrendered.

Burnham met the prime minister of Mauritius, , at the Commonwealth summit. In a readout of the meeting, Downing Street said:

During the discussion, the prime minister underlined his commitment to working with Mauritius and the United States on a way forward that secured the operation of the Diego Garcia base and protected national security for all three countries. They agreed to work on a shared plan to make further progress by the end of the year.

has confirmed that his long-awaited 10-year plan may be delayed.

In his speech outside No 10 on the day he became PM, Burham declared that "later this year" he would "bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be". The document has been described as the core policy statement coming from No 10 this year, with some insiders briefing that the budget was relatively low-key because key announcements were being held back for the 10-year plan.

But we may have to wait a little longer then expected until we see it. In an interview with from the Economist, when asked when it would appear, said:

We may go into the new year, to be honest ... December or January, I think we will need to leave that open.

Burnham was speaking after in the New Statesman published an article yesterday suggesting that, even when the initial 10-year plan announcement comes at the end of this year (or in January), that won't be the final word. Rea said:

Yet, with expectations high, some familiar with the process are already worried that the Ten-Year Plan may be another kicking of the can. I can reveal that it may not be the long, comprehensive document that we might have expected, and will be the beginning – not the end – of a long consultation process.

It will be a speech, delivered by the prime minister before Christmas, to tick the box of a plan delivered "later this year", accompanied by a document that may be "slimmer than expected". It will mark the beginning of a six-to-nine-month process of consulting with the public, think tanks and everybody else about government priorities – as well as kickstarting work across government to define what some of its plans will look like in more detail. That process, in turn, will set the priorities for the spending review, itself a procedure that will take months. Suddenly, critics fear, we are looking at a government spending well over a year discussing its plans without taking the major action to address them.