@CatNeilan and I have been working on this for the past few months. What started as quite a forward-looking commission turned into the story of the moment as we were making it - so now feels like a perfect time for it to be out there!

Investigation with @TheDetailTV & the Guardian this morn. We reveal how British security services were involved in formulating the Legacy Act, despite the fact the act was supposed to investigate killings carried out by the state thedetail.tv/articles/secret… & theguardian.com/uk-news/2026…

Reform's Robert Kenyon said abortion was a "cowardly act of murder" and implied that people falsely claimed to have been raped “Don’t dole out the ‘what if someone is raped by their brother’ arguement... don’t want babies? Use contreception! [sic]” observer.co.uk/news/national…

🗣️ "The commission has created a giant regulatory black hole that we're now proposing to fill before it does untold damage.” Steve Goodrich with @catneilan on MPs from @taxinparliament pushing to have donations from before being elected reported. observer.co.uk/news/politics…

Without the Guardian, the public, most members of Reform, parliament (and the Daily Telegraph), would still be in the dark about the £5m gift Nigel Farage received. Now, parliament’s standards watchdog is taking a formal look. It will be really interesting to see the outcome of this process. theguardian.com/politics/202…

Graham Brady, longtime holder of the Tory letters, gets in touch, offering to support Catherine West, "Always available to help out 😂," he says

The Observer issue no. 12,231 The man who bought Britain Christopher Harborne funded the Brexit party, put £5m in the pocket of Nigel Farage and bankrolled Reform to become a national party. He is a crypto billonaire who lives in Thailand Featuring: Keir Starmer interviewed by @RSylvester1 @DAaronovitch on the biggest donor in British political history @CatNeilan on the coming investigation into Nigel Farage Pick up a copy today, available nationwide. Subscribe to get a copy of The Observer delivered right to your door every week: observer.co.uk/subscribe

Billionaire benefactor Christopher Harborne now says that, having seen how exposed Farage was, the gift was ‘to support Nigel’s security for life’ The Observer has learned the police judged one crucial incident to be less serious than Farage himself reported, write @CatNeilan and Ceri Thomas bit.ly/4cZB4TX

This week, Nigel Farage said an undeclared £5m donation was essential for security He cited an "outright arson attempt" on his house. But @ObserverUK has established that police are investigating the incident as a burglary

Questions raised about ‘security risk’ to Farage in row over £5m gift from crypto tycoon @CatNeilan and Ceri Thomas report: The claimed reason for Christopher Harborne’s unprecedented and undeclared donation to the Reform leader is facing scrutiny bit.ly/4cZB4TX

The Observer issue no. 12,228: Bad chat by @paticlarke How unregulated AI is causing a new mental health crisis Featuring: Spring cravings: @NigelSlater and @Tomos_PP recipes in @ObsMagazine American prayer: Megan Nolan on the Pope v Trump and The US is no longer our friend by Max Hastings Typhoid Mandy: @CatNeilan on the casualties of the Mandelson appointment and Rachel Sylvester on the civil service turning on Starmer Plus: Mind the gap: Arsenal go into City showdown with title hopes on the line The true confessions of Will Self, as told to Seán O’Hagan in @ObsNewReview Luella Bartley's art of survival @ObsMagazine Pick up a copy today, available nationwide. Subscribe to get a copy of The Observer delivered right to your door every week - link in bio.

We covered an important (and upsetting) story on the last Radio 4 #TheNakedWeek of the series, all about forced adoption and a drug called DES. You can read about it in @ObserverUK today, written by our very own @CatNeilan observer.co.uk/news/national…

An ideological purge does not make for good government. As I said to @CatNeilan, you would lose experience and institutional memory, but you would also send a message to the rest of the civil service that they are not trusted. observer.co.uk/news/national…

Are criminals using your number plate? Our Whitehall Editor @catneilan explains the rise of two types of illegal licence plates - “ghost” plates and “cloned” plates. Our team bought a cloned plate with ease- and found that the UK’s driving and vehicle licensing agency has at best just six people carrying out checks. Roughly 1 in 15 vehicles are estimated to have ghost plates or cloned plates. Watch the video here to see how this has an unsuspected effect on congestion to criminal activity.

Jonathan Powell, National Security Advisor, said Mandelson's appointment was "weirdly rushed" confirming a scoop from @Richard_AHolmes and me inews.co.uk/news/no-10-fast-…

One more — @CatNeilan actually got in there first with the scoop about the independent adviser launching an investigation, in a post over on Bluesky ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/catneilan.b…