HMS Dragon, which was sent from the UK to protect Britain’s air bases in Cyprus after the Iran war started, has docked in the Mediterranean after suffering technical issues, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The MoD said the Royal Navy type-45 destroyer would till be able to sail at short notice “if required”.

An MoD spokesperson said:

HMS Dragon is undertaking a routine logistics stop and a short maintenance period in the eastern Mediterranean, allowing the ship to take onboard provisions, optimise systems and conduct maintenance.

HMS Dragon will remain at a very high level of readiness during this period, able to sail at short notice if required.

The UK continues to maintain a robust and layered defensive presence in the eastern Mediterranean, working in co-ordination with allies.

This includes Typhoon and F-35 jets, Wildcat and Merlin helicopters, and advanced counter-drone and air defence systems.

HMS Dragon was not ready to be deployed when the Iran war started, and had to be made ready very quickly, in a development that was seen by some as evidence that the Britain’s armed forces are not in a fit state for combat.

Anthony Slaughter, the leader of the Welsh Greens, has said his party is open to negotiations with Plaid Cymru, the Press Association reports. PA says:

Speaking at the Green party’s Senedd manifesto launch earlier today, Slaughter said collaboration is “in the DNA” of his party.

Labour has led Wales for more than two decades but, if opinion polling is to be believed, Reform and Plaid Cymru are vying to become the biggest parties after the vote on 7 May.

Launching the Green campaign last week, leader Zack Polanski said he believed his party, which currently has no members of the Senedd (MSs), could be “kingmakers” in Wales.

Today Slaughter said: “The crises that we’ve outlined and that we tackle in this manifesto are so urgent, we would work with likeminded people where there is common ground to tackle these issues.

If Reform UK are the largest party in the Senedd, God forbid, I don’t think I need to say it again and again, we would not work with Reform in any shape or form, we would not work with the Welsh Conservatives in any shape or form.

“But if it comes to pass that Plaid Cymru are the largest party, we are open to talking, negotiating.

“Any Green support for a future Welsh government isn’t unconditional, it isn’t just, ‘you’re not Reform, you’ve kept Reform out’.

“There would be key Green objectives that would have to be delivered.”

The Wales Green party manifesto pledges a scrapping of council tax, to be replaced with a land value tax, a freeze on rents and free bus travel for under-22s.

The latest YouGov poll published by ITV Cymru Wales forecasts Plaid Cymru to be the biggest party in the Welsh parliament, but without a majority.

The same poll suggests the Greens, who have never won a seat at Cardiff Bay, are on course to elect 10 MSs.

Amnesty International UK is also (see 2.22pm and 2.29pm) calling for the UK to immediately withdraw military support being offered to the US in the light of Donald Trump’s threat to destroy Iran. Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty’s crisis response manager, said:

This is a moment of extreme danger for civilians in Iran and the wider region. For President Trump to threaten that ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’ echoes genocidal language - and the UK government must urgently end military support to the US that could enable crimes under international law, including war crimes.

A US strike has already killed over 168 people, including more than 100 children, at a school in Minab, Iran. Bridges and energy infrastructure are being bombed. The decision to allow the US to use British military bases does not exist in a vacuum - it carries serious human rights responsibilities.

Amnesty International is unequivocal: threatening to systematically destroy civilian infrastructure is a threat to commit war crimes. Attacking power plants essential to the survival of tens of millions of civilians would be unlawful. The UK must be equally unequivocal.

Here are is some more reaction from politicians and others to the Home Office’s decision to ban Kanye West from entering the UK to peform at the Wireless festival.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews issued a statement saying West should never have been invited in the first place.

We welcome the government listening to the concerns of Jews in the UK and preventing Kanye West from entering the country.

It is deeply regrettable that Wireless Festival invited him in the first place and then doubled down when the Jewish community and our allies objected. We note that the festival has now been cancelled but it should never have reached this point. The situation could and should have been resolved much earlier.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, welcomed the move, but said the government should be just as tough with Islamist hate preachers.

It is welcome the government has followed our calls to block Kanye West coming to the UK.

If the Labour government is going to deny visas to antisemites, it must apply the same standards consistently. The government should now commit to refusing entry visas to extremists such as hate preachers. We must stop those expressing extremist views getting into Britain, and those already here who are not British citizens should be deported.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has welcomed the move.

I’m glad the government has listened and done the right thing by banning Kanye West from coming to the UK to peddle his hatred.

British festivals should be a place for celebration, not a platform for someone who has openly praised Hitler and promoted vile antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Graduates on lower salaries won’t benefit from the cap on the interest paid on student loans announced by the government today (see 11.16am), the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.

In a comment on the announcement, Kate Ogden, a senior research economist at the IFS, said:

In anticipation of a possible spike in inflation as a result of events in the Middle East, the government has today announced that interest rates on student loans issued to English students will be capped at 6% next academic year.

If the March 2026 figure for RPI inflation comes in at more than 3% – as seems likely – this cap will reduce the interest rate applied to outstanding plan 2 student loans held by higher-earning graduates who are subject to an interest rate of up to RPI plus 3%. It will only reduce actual loan repayments in the long run from the roughly third of graduates that can expect to repay their plan 2 loans in full.

If, for example, March RPI came in at 4%, the cap might benefit the highest-earning graduates by an average of around £500 over their lifetime.

It will do nothing for graduates who are lower-earning currently who will still see their interest rate set at RPI and therefore likely below the new cap.

Even Nigel Farage now believes that Donald Trump has gone too far. In the past the Reform UK leader has been one of the president’s biggest supporters in the UK. More recently he has started to stress that he does not agree with the president on everything. But at his press conference this morning he was still broadly supportive, arguing that the UK could not defend itself militarily without the US and saying that, if he were PM, he would allow Trump to use British bases to attack Iranian infrastructure – provided Trump could assure him he had a plan for the end game. (See 2.55pm.)

But Trump’s latest Truth Social post has pushed Farage over the edge.

During a post-press conference walkabout in Bedworth, a Press Association reporter told Farage what Trump had said in his post and asked for a response. Farage said:

I am quite shocked just to hear that. That is over the top in every single way.

Yes of course he wants to threaten – to get them to the negotiating table. But those words are … they’re way too far.

Asked if the post was befitting of someone holding the office of the US president, Farage answered:

He’s an upset, angry American president.

He’s wholly unconventional but I would remind you of what Churchill said about the bombing of Germany during the war. Some quite extraordinary things were said there as well.

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has posted this on social media about Keir Starmer’s decision to tweet about Kanye West (see 3.16pm) – but not about Donald Trump threatening to wipe out an entire civilisation (see 2.22pm).

We’re on the verge of a genocidal, nuclear war that our supposed “ally” has said he’s ready to unleash.

Would it be too much to ask for the Prime Minister to have something to say about it? Or do?

Suspend US bases now.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

The Scottish Tory leader, Russell Findlay, is seeking to claw back ground lost to Reform UK by accusing the party of being soft on independence, pointing to Reform’s conditional opposition to a second referendum.

“Reform can’t be trusted on independence; they can’t be trusted on anything,” Findlay told the Scottish Conservative’s manifesto launch in Edinburgh. They were “unionists in name only”.

The manifesto pledged to cut Scottish income taxes to match the UK’s lower rates; put more police on the beat; cut early release from prison; redouble North Sea oil and gas drilling and fix GP waiting lists and pot holes. He added the Scottish Tories would offer all pensioners a £500 tax rebate, to cope with the cost of living.

He pointed to Malcolm Offord, the former Tory peer and minister who is now Reform’s Scottish leader, saying a future referendum could be held and that he could work with “rational” nationalists on boosting the economy, and accepting ex-Scottish National party activists as Holyrood candidates.

Opinion polls consistently show the Scottish Tories face humiliation in the 7 May election, dropping from Holyrood’s second largest party at the last election to fourth or fifth, trailing Reform and Labour (vying for second place) by four to 11 points on the constituency vote, and level pegging with the Liberal Democrats.

The Tories are, however, doing better on the regional lists and Findlay is urging Tory voters to use their peach, regional vote, ballot papers to back his party. Focusing heavily on the union has historically been one of the Scottish Tories’ strongest cards, but the collapse in their support is likely too great to bridge, with only 30 days to go before the election.

Findlay said:

Reform can’t be trusted on the union. It can’t be trusted full stop. Their flimsy manifesto fell apart in less than 24 hours. The IFS think tank described key pledges as a mirage, based on fantasy figures. Their candidates have been dropping like flies. They’ve had a chaotic start. So how can they be trusted to take on the SNP if they can’t even sort their own candidate vetting process?

We are the only party that’s serious about cutting taxes and defending the union. We know where we stand. It’s in our bones and it’s in the manifesto. [We] will oppose any attempt to hold another independence referendum crystal clear. And I’m going to repeat that every day until May 7.

Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.

At his press conference earlier, Nigel Farage defended his party’s new proposal to refuse visas for people wanting to visit the UK from countries seeking slavery reparations from the UK. (See 9.56am.)

Asked if Reform UK would backdate this policy, Farage said that it would not apply to people already issued with a visa. But it was “about time we stood up and said enough”, he added.

And asked about the cost of the policy, and its impact on areas of the economy like the care sector, Farage said Reform’s costings suggested that the UK had already “given” £6.6bn to “countries that say we’re the most awful people that have ever lived on the face of the planet”.

He went on:

We’ve also opened our doors to 3.8 million of their citizens, some of whom, of course, do work in the care sector, many of whom live on benefits and many of whom yesterday, if they’ve got several children, will have seen their family income go up massively as a result of the two-child cap going, and I think it’s about time we stopped.

Farage said there “are parts of our past we wouldn’t be proud of, and there are parts of our past we’ve got every right to be immensely proud of”, including spending “four decades on the high seas, at the loss of thousands of sailors and vast amounts of money, driving slavery off the world’s oceans”.

He added:

We’re saying it happens as soon as there is a Reform government … I think you’ll find the other countries would fall into line very, very quickly.

Keir Starmer has posted this on social media about Kanye West.

Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless.

This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism.

We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.

Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.

At the Reform UK press conference today (which, at around half an hour, was considerably shorter than some epic press conferences of late), Nigel Farage was pressed on Iran and whether he would give America permission to use British airbases for attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran that Donald Trump has threatened.

Farage indicated that he would allow Donald Trump to use British bases for the attacks, if the US president gave assurances about the “end game” of the attacks.

Asked specifically if he would let America use British bases for attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran, Farage said:

If I was the British prime minister, I’d say to Trump, what is the aim? What is the objective? What is the end game? What is the way out? Provided that I received satisfactory answers to those questions, I would say the continued use of our bases was the right thing to do.

Farage’s response was interesting, not least because Keir Starmer and Labour have repeatedly tried to draw a line between the prime minister’s response to Trump’s request for military help, and what they have styled as Conservative and Reform support for the war in Iran. At the outset of the war Farage and Kemi Badenoch were quick to say Starmer was not doing enough to support the US and Israel. Farage said when the conflict began: “We should do all we can to support the operation.” He and Badenoch have since softened that stance, with Badenoch later saying: “I said that we support their actions. I never said we should join.” Farage has since stated that Britain should not actively join Trump’s war saying the military could not “offer anything of value” to America or Israel.

What’s behind the U-turns? Trump is unpopular with UK voters, even ones who support Reform. As Ben Quinn pointed out in this analysis:

The US president is now underwater in terms of his favourability even with Reform voters, who were previously the only set of UK party supporters who saw him positively, according to polling by More in Common.

Reform’s Trump problem is particularly stark among British women, with 25% of those polled last week listing “Farage’s support for Trump” as the primary reason they would not vote for his party.

Among men and women it was 23%, ahead of a range of other reasons including the party being seen as too rightwing, racism on the part of some candidates, its lack of government experience or perceptions that they only represent the rich.

During his press conference on Tuesday, Farage reiterated his previously stated remarks that the UK was dependent on the US for its national security, and tried to focus his answer on the US, rather than its president. Asked about the UK’s defence stance, he said:

What defence? It took us three weeks and one day to send a single naval vessel to defend British sovereign territory in Cyprus.

I would say our defence is in tatters. What has happened in the last few weeks should serve as a massive wake-up call. And I think the situation is absolutely dire as far as America is concerned.

We’ve refused permission to use the bases [and] an RAF base was attacked anyway. Then the prime minister U-turned and said the Americans could use the bases, but for defensive purposes, whatever that, in a situation of war, may mean.

I have a major, major worry that the relationship with America, is looking very broken. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Biden in the White House, whether it’s a Trump in the White House. You know, we’ve got to face a fact [...] that without America, we are virtually defenceless.

Farage concluded:

I think for us to finish up breaking the alliance with America, I would put this country in very grave peril. And I certainly do not believe that a European defense force or a European army would be an answer in any way at all.

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, is also calling for the government to urgently withdraw the military support it is giving the US.

In a message on social media Polanski, like Ed Davey (see 2.22pm), also indicated that he had read President Trump’s latest Truth Social message with horror. Polanski said the UK must stop American planes bombing Iran from British bases entirely.

The UK must immediately and unequivocally suspend support for the US military.

The Government have tried to appease him, then they tried to say they’re standing up to him.

Words aren’t enough - it’s time for action.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has urged Keir Starmer to stop letting the US use British military bases for some of its Iran war operations to stop the UK being “an accomplice to war crimes”.

In a post on social media, Davey said that Donald Trump’s latest “shocking” threat to Iran made cancelling American use of British bases even more urgent.

And Davey also said that, if the UK does continue to allow the US to dispatch bombers from British soil for “defensive operations” (see 1.07pm), it should published details of the conditions that apply, monitor every flight that leaves and report to parliament on where those planes actually went.

Currently the government is giving almost no details about what exactly American planes flying to Iran from UK bases have been doing.

Davey said:

President Trump’s explicit threats to target civilian infrastructure in Iran signal a clear intent to breach international law. This places the UK government in a perilous position; by continuing to grant the US access to our airbases, the prime minister risks making the United Kingdom an accomplice to war crimes.

In an open letter to the PM, jointly written with Calum Miller, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson, and signed by Lib Dem MPs, Davey says:

Liberal Democrats supported your decisions not to allow UK bases to be used by the US in the initial attacks and to limit UK involvement to that required to defend our citizens, interests and allies in the face of illegal actions against them by Iran.

We have consistently pressed you and your ministers to clarify the limited grounds on which you subsequently authorised the US to launch attacks from UK bases. We have been told by the foreign secretary that it is consistent with long-established agreements and by you that the purpose will only be “defensive”. Despite repeated requests, this has not been clarified and your ministers have refused to confirm if the outcomes of US attacks launched from UK bases are being monitored, or to state whether they are sharing any monitoring data with the intelligence and security committee.

On Easter Sunday (5 April), President Trump issued a post on Truth Social that stated: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

This followed statements by President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth on 1 April that they would bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” and a declaration on 26 March by Hegseth that US forces should use “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”.

I am sure you recognise that these remarks incite breaches of international law …

We therefore call on you, with urgency, to withdraw the access granted to US planes to use UK bases and to make a statement on how we will continue to work with our other allies to ensure protection for our citizens, interests and allies. If you will not do this, we call on you immediately to publish the conditions you have attached to this access to ensure it is only “defensive” and to commit to monitoring the outcomes of all sorties and to report these to parliament’s intelligence and security committee.

Unless you take these actions, you will place the UK and your government at grave risk of complicity with illegal actions by the US.

As Chris McCall from the Daily Record reports, the SNP performed a U-turn over John Swinney’s refusal to condemn Kanye West appearing at the Wireless festival about an hour or so ago. (See 11.50am.) Shortly before it was announced that he would not be appearing anyway because the Home Office has banned him, an SNP spokesperson said:

Having been made aware of Kanye West’s abhorrent racist comments, the first minister utterly condemns them, and stands against anti-semitism in all its forms.

Mr Swinney is clear that the organisers should reflect on their decision.

In response, Scottish Labour’s equalities spokesperson, Paul O’Kane, said:

It is inconceivable that John Swinney did not know about Kanye West’s abhorrent comments. It is either that, or he is completely out of touch and is not across major issues.

Swinney should have condemned these antisemitic and hateful remarks immediately, but he failed to do so, instead brushing them off as ‘people are going to say things’.

That is not acceptable, and it should not have required the SNP’s press office to rush out a hurried statement to cover-up for Swinney’s total failure to take a stance on this issue.

Rather than hiding behind a spokesperson, Swinney should apologise for this directly and make clear that he stands against all forms of antisemitism.

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said. Jamie Grierson has the details.

Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has denied claims by the Conservatives that his party had been cold-calling people in Birmingham “begging them to stand in local elections”, saying it would be “very, very fruitless”.

Asked about these claims at his press conference this morning, Farage said there would be a full slate of candidates across the West Midlands.

He said:

Have we called paid up members of the party to see if they want to get engaged? Yes, but of course every party does that.

All parties were “running very fast” to fill slots before the 9 April deadline, he said.

He added:

These elections would not even be taking place if it wasn’t for the fact that we’d applied and been granted a judicial review in the High Court, and the government caved in. There are 4.6 million people, including many in the West Midlands, who only have a vote because we pushed legally for it to happen.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

John Swinney and Anas Sarwar have traded attacks on their transport policies by variously using the Iran war’s impact on energy prices and Scotland’s failure to grapple with potholes and congestion to accuse each other of going to war on motorists.

With the Holyrood election campaign now emerging as a fight between the Scottish National party and Scottish Labour, both campaigns are sharpening up wedge issues to attack each other.

Swinney, Scotland’s first minister and SNP leader, accused Keir Starmer of “dithering” on fuel prices by refusing to follow the lead of other European countries by cutting the cost of petrol and diesel.

This has no direct relevance to the Holyrood election campaign, since energy policy and foreign wars are reserved issues, but Swinney has been searching for ways to leverage voter dislike for Starmer in the campaign, which has 30 days to go.

Standing beside a diesel-powered Renault van carrying illuminated signs powered by a diesel generator, he urged the UK government to scrap the next fuel duty increase and temporarily lift VAT on fuel duty to help motorists weather the surge in energy prices.

Swinney was unable to say how much those measures would cost the Treasury, saying that was for the UK government to work out. He said:

While other governments across Europe have taken swift and decisive action, Keir Starmer has done nothing – he is like a rabbit in the headlights and it is the people of Scotland who are paying the price.

Meanwhile in Glasgow, Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, accused the SNP of mounting “a war on motorists” by mooting a congestion charge for Glasgow and failing to fix potholes – normally issues for council elections.

While it appears to be edging ahead of Reform by clawing back a few percentage points in the polls, Labour still trails the SNP by around 16 points, Sarwar too is scrabbling for wedge issues to attack the SNP.

Glasgow has many of Scotland’s most polluted streets, with low local car ownership but a very large commuter belt.

He seems untroubled by the clear contradiction with his Labour counterpart Sadiq Khan’s championing of London’s congestion charge, which has heavily cut air pollution, eased traffic levels, and boosted electric car and alternative transport use.

Pledging a £350m pothole repair fund, Sarwar said:

This is what 20 years of SNP government looks like. Crumbling roads, rising repair costs and a government that has turned its back on motorists.

Downing Street has signalled that the UK will not allow the US to use British bases for American air attacks against Iran targeting infrastracture like bridges or power stations.

Given that it is widely acknowledged that such attacks, which Donald Trump is threatening, would be count a war crimes, and that Keir Starmer has made compliance with international law a priority for UK foreign policy, the No 10 briefing is not surprising.

But the issue has become more and more pertinent in the light of Trump’s most recent threats. And, while giving a clear indication of its stance, No 10 has also refused to comment in detail on how the UK would respond if the president carries out his threat to obliterate power plants and bridges in Iran.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson was asked about a report for the i saying “Britain will refuse to allow Donald Trump to use RAF bases for any strikes on Iranian bridges or power plants”.

The spokesperson said No 10 would not provide a “running commentary” on what the US was doing, including its use of British bases.

But the spokesperson then went on:

Just to point out, our position on this hasn’t changed. The agreement in place for the US to use UK bases for collective self-defence of the region, including US defensive operations to degrade missile sites and capabilities used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz …

The basis for the use of bases is clear. And we have published a summary of the legal advice behind it.

The spokesperson declined to give details of how they government ensured that UK bases were only used by the Americans for attacks that would be deemed “defensive operations”.

And, when asked to confirm that US attacks on power plants would count as war crimes, the spokesperson said he would not comment on hypotheticals and repeated his point about not wanting to give a running commentary on the war – despite journalists pointing out that the government has described Russian attacks on Ukrainians power plants as war crimes.

Asked about Trump’s most recent threats towards Iran, the spokesperson also declined to comment on them explicity. He just said that Keir Starmer’s message has been consistent. (Starmer has repeatedly called for de-escalation.)

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference now in Warwickshire. He is talking about illegal immigration, and he opened by claiming that almost every week there are cases of serious crime being committed by people who have arrived in the UK on small boats.

There is a live feed here.

He said one of the most shocking cases was the murder of Rhiannon Whyte. Here is Matthew Weaver’s story about the conviction of her killer, a Sudanese asylum seeker.

Farage introduced Rhiannon’s mother, Siobhan Whyte.

In a short speech, Whyte denounced the way “these scumbags that were allowed into this country illegally” and said that, because of what happened, she had been left without a daughter, her children had been left without their sister, and Rhiannon’s little boy had been left without a mum.

Farage then said Rhiannon’s death was “wholly unnecessary in every way”. He also said that he personally blamed the government.

Sally Weale is the Guardian’s education correspondent.

The National Union of Students has welcomed the government’s decision to cap the interest paid on some students loans at 6% – although the NUS, and other campaigners, have said that wider reform of the student loan system is still urgently needed.

Commenting on today’s announcement (see 11.16am), the NUS president, Amira Campbell, said that this was a “huge win”, but that the government needed to go further. She explained:

This government have woken up to the unfairness of student loans, and are taking action to prevent our debts from spiralling further out of control.

For too many years, we’ve been forced to weather these economic shocks, and finally a government have listened to our concerns. This is a huge win, for the over 5 million people on plan 2 loans, the NUS and students’ unions across the country.

But this change cannot come alone. For most graduates, the impact on their day to day lives is felt through the repayment thresholds, which are being frozen for three years and will get very close to the minimum wage by 2030.

We still need to see the chancellor stick by the terms we signed at 17 years old, and raise the threshold in line with our incomes. The government have said they will look into the unfairness of the student loan system, and we will continue to hold them to that.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank, said the cap would provide some certainty for graduates but the move was little more than a stopgap. He went on:

Each year’s student loan repayments are generally based on inflation in the March of the preceding year. So, until we know the inflation rate for March 2026 [which will be announced on 22 April], we do not know how significant a change this really is.

The maximum current interest rate [based on inflation in March 2025] is 6.2% so, even after this announcement, interest in 2026/27 will actually be very similar to the unpopular level it has been in 2025/26.

Current undergraduate students will not benefit as they are on plan 5 rather than plan 2. Moreover, the higher interest rates - the portion above RPI inflation - is not levied on poorer graduates, so [depending on what inflation was in March 2026] this announcement is unlikely to affect them at all.

No one is likely to oppose this new policy but it just a stopgap. It is unlikely to assuage the recently expressed deep concerns of many 20-something and 30-something graduates. So it is no accident the new policy has been made in a quiet week at Westminster, nor that it has been accompanied by a clear signal that there might be more help to come in future.

Oliver Gardner, founder of Rethink Repayment grassroots campaign for student loan reforms, said the cap announced today was not a solution to the student loans crisis. He said:

It is merely a stopgap to help protect graduates with plan 2 and plan 3 loans from some of the most egregious aspects of the system - in particular, the maximum interest rate of up to RPI + 3% that can be charged on these loans.

In contrast, Rethink Repayment is calling for “a fairer student loan system that works for young people and gives them a realistic chance of paying back what they initially borrowed, rather than watching their balances soar despite making significant monthly repayments.”

Tom Allingham, student loans expert at Save the Student, a student money website, welcomed the cap, but said the announcement was short on detail and called for more radical reform to the system. He said:

Amid the ongoing student loan inquiry [announced last month by the Commons Treasury committee] and growing cries from students and graduates for reform, we’re calling on the government to announce far more substantial changes that create a truly fair system.

The Green party is backing resident doctors who are on strike. This morning the party issued a statement on the dispute from its co-deputy leader, Mothin Ali, saying:

Rather than shifting goalposts or arm twisting resident doctors with threats over training places, Wes Streeting needs to get serious about resolving resident doctors long term concerns over pay, training and working conditions. The government’s 10-year plan for the NHS will go nowhere if the workforce feels unappreciated, devalued and demotivated.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

John Swinney has refused to back calls for Kanye West’s concert in London to be cancelled, saying people “we live in a free country ... Let’s just let people listen to the music they want to.”

The first minister was questioned about the intensifying backlash after the rapper’s booking to headline the Wireless festival despite his repeated anti-semitism and his admiration for Adolf Hitler, including offering a swastika-emblazoned tee shirt on his website.

Legally known as Ye, the rapper insists he has recanted, blamed bipolar disorder, and has offered to meet Jewish representatives in London. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, had objected to his appearance, while the Home Office is investigating a ban.

Talking to reporters at a Holyrood election campaign event in Edinburgh, Swinney was asked whether Ye should be allowed to perform in the UK or whether he’d be welcomed to appear at a Scottish festival.

He told LBC:

I think I’m going to stay out of the selection of music by different bands. We live in a free country; people are going to say things. Let’s just let people listen to the music they want to.

Swinney indicated he was reluctant to comment after coming under fire after demanding last year that the Northern Irish band Kneecap should be banned from a Scottish festival after appearing to sanction the murder of Tory MPs. Swinney indicated on Tuesday he now feels he should not have intervened in that controversy.

Pressed by reporters about that stance, he said:

People should choose their music and they don’t really they need advice from John Swinney unless they want to listen to The Jam or Amy McDonald.

Noting Ye had recorded songs praising Hitler and the prospect of a UK government ban, a Record reporter asked again: “You’re telling us that people should just be allowed to hear the music?”

Swinney replied:

Well, the government should go on and take their decisions within their powers, but I’m not going to give a running commentary on music taste.

Donald Trump’s comments about Iran have becoming increasingly extreme and unhinged. Lucy Campbell has more on that here.

Speaking to reporters at a campaign event this morning, John Swinney, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, said that the threats being made by Trump against Iran were “unconscionable”. He said:

The entire conflict in Iran should not be taking place.

This is an unwarranted and illegal intervention by the United States and Israel and what has been started by President Trump, very clearly, cannot be concluded by Donald Trump.

The threats that are now being made, of the language and of the nature of what has been suggested in recent days, is unconscionable and it will cause enormous, enormous hardship and suffering for people who are already suffering under the Iranian regime.

The need for de-escalation, for a solution that avoids any further military activity in Iran is absolutely essential, and the international community, other governments, have got to work to encourage and to enable such an approach to be taken.

The Department for Education has announced that that it will cap the interest paid on plan 2 and plan 3 student loans at 6% for the 2026/27 academic years. This will protect students and graduates from England and Wales with these loans from a potential inflation spike caused by the Iran war.

In a news release, the DfE says:

Graduates will not pay the price for a war which the UK has no direct involvement in.

This reform removes the risk of any temporary increase in inflation causing loan balances to compound at an unsustainable rate and is in line with actions taken in the past to secure stability in the student finance system.

Graduates with Plan 2 loans currently pay interest rates of between RPI and RPI plus 3%, depending on their earnings. Current students on Plan 2 and Plan 3 also attract an interest rate of RPI +3% while they are studying.

Interest on Plan 2 and 3 student loans will be capped at 6% instead of RPI+3% to protect borrowers. This will ensure no Plan 2 or Plan 3 borrower faces an interest rate of above 6%, protecting them from any short-term increase in RPI due to global shocks, such as temporary spikes in oil prices, outside the government’s control. The government is clear this is not our war and the UK will not be dragged into conflict, but the impacts will affect the future of our country.

There is further coverage here.

There are five types of student loan repayment plan in operation in the UK, and they vary depending on where in the UK people are from, when they started studing, and what sort of degree they were or are doing. There is a good guide to all five plans here.

In his interviews this morning, Wes Streeting also joined those criticising Wireless festival for its decision to invite Kanye West to peform.

Streeting told the Today programme that, given West’s history of antisemitic and pro-Hitler comments, the decision was inexplicable.

I cannot for the life of me understand why Wireless still have him as a headliner.

There are plenty of other talented artists in this country, let alone internationally, who would benefit from the exposure and who in turn would help drive ticket sales.

To provide this kind of platform and opportunity to Kanye West against this backdrop of behaviour I think is a very bad error of judgment.

Streeting also said that for West to blame what he had done on his mental health was also appalling.

When Kanye West uses bipolar disorder to justify his actions, I think that is equally appalling, by the way.

I would ask people to consider, does using bipolar disorder as an excuse to write and release a song called Heil Hitler and plaster it across T-shirts, does bipolar disorder really justify that? Or is it an excuse to justify rotten behaviour?

Here are some more lines from Wes Streeting’s interviews this morning about the resident doctors’ strike.

• Streeting said that some patients would be in pain “longer than is necessary” as a result of the strike. He told Sky News:

We don’t want strike action to put people off from coming forward if they need medical attention if they need it – emergency services are running. We’ve managed to maintain we think about 95% of planned care due to take place today, so things like tests and scans, surgeries, procedures.

But I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t consequences to this disruption, if you’re someone who’s waited for your test or scan or your operation, chances are you’ve been waiting a lot longer than I would like you to, and so psyching yourself up for that moment and then getting the cancellation can be both bitterly disappointing, and in some cases, will leave people waiting in pain or anxiety longer than is necessary.

• He claimed that the BMA did not have a proposal to end the strike when he met them last week. He said:

I have never closed the door to the BMA and their representatives.

In fact, last Friday, Good Friday morning, I met with the resident doctors committee officers and asked them directly: ‘What would it take to end these strikes? You’ve rejected the offer we’ve put to you, what is your counter proposal?’ And they didn’t have one.

• He claimed that resident doctors has been “the standout winners” amongst public sector workers since Labour had been in office. He told BBC Breakfast:

Resident doctors are, by a country mile, the standout winners of the entire public sector workforce when it comes to the pay rises they have received from this Government, and this was a good deal, they have rejected it.

The day they rejected it, they rushed straight to six days of strike action, which will cost the NHS £300m.

And in that context of the whopping pay rise they received when we came in and the generous deal that they have rejected. I’ll leave your viewers to decide who in this dispute has been most unreasonable.

• He played down the significance of his decision to withdraw the offer of 1,000 extra training places for resident doctors from this April because the strike is going ahead. He told Sky News:

There aren’t fewer jobs as a result of this, because what we were doing is converting locally employed doctor posts into training places.

The reason why resident doctors will be disappointed, and many of them are, is because those training places come with more pay and career progression opportunities for those doctors.

I have not had NHS leaders banging on my door demanding more of these places, the reason why we negotiated these training places is because I recognised there were bottlenecks affecting resident doctors.

I haven’t taken those places away. The BMA rejected them.

The Labour party has described Reform UK’s reparations announcement (see 9.56am) as “a desperate gimmick”. A Labour spokesperson said:

This is a desperate gimmick from Reform that would do nothing to restore order and control to Britain’s borders.

That’s this Labour government’s focus and that’s why we are taking decisive action to tackle surges in asylum claims by imposing an emergency brake on study and work visas from countries abusing the system, slashing £1bn from the asylum support bill, and halving the length of refugee protection to 30 months.

Nobody will take Nigel Farage seriously on this when his party is full of opportunistic Tories who failed on immigration when they were in government.

Eric Williams, who wrote a landmark history of the slave trade and who subsequently became the first prime minister of Trindad and Tobago after indepndence, once famously wrote:

British historians write almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery merely for the satisfaction of abolishing it.

He died in 1981 but he might have been gratified to learn that, more than 40 years on, his insight remains as valid as ever – at least judging by what Reform UK is up to today.

Slavery reparations are not a pressing issue in UK politics; given that none of the mainstream parties as ever proposed paying reparations, they should not even make the top 100 as a matter of pressing political dispute. But they are powerful ammunition for the right in the culture wars, and fail-safe clickbait, and today Reform UK is announcing that, if it were in government, it would refuse to issue visa to countries demaning reparations from the UK. Jamie Grierson has the details.

While the mainstream parties do not back reparations, the Green party is in favour. After the UN general assembly passed a resolution last month condemning slavery as a crime against humanity, the Green party issued a statement saying:

Many Green party activists have over the years been working hard towards establishing Reparative Justice in the UK and this United Nations motion will go a long way in supporting the global reparations movement.

It is not just problematic, but deeply sad that the countries most involved in the trans-Atlantic trafficking of African people were the countries to either vote against, or abstain from the motion, giving underhanded, loophole excuses to fight against accountability.

In his interviews this morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, accused the BMA of hypocrisy over pay because the organisation is offering its own staff far less than the resident doctors are demanding.

He told BBC Breakfast:

And here’s the real kicker; having rejected this deal because the pay offer apparently wasn’t good enough at 4.9%, the BMA are offering their own staff 2.75% on affordability grounds.

Why does the BMA think they can get away with telling their own staff they only get 2.75% because that’s all they can afford, whilst rejecting a 4.9% offer because that’s all the government can afford.

It seems to me, the BMA aren’t willing to put their hands in their own pockets to pay their own staff, but they’re very happy to try and fleece your viewers, asking them to pay even more in tax than I think this country can afford.

He made the same point in an interview on Today, explaining what the BMA was doing and adding: “There’s a word for that.”

In a separate interview on the Today programme, Jack Fletcher, chair of its resident doctors committee, said that he was not responsible for what the BMA paid its staff and that he supported their right to go on strike.

Good morning. Resident doctors in English hospitals started a six-day strike at 7am this morning. Many of them will continue to work, but there will be enough of them joining the strike to have a significant impact on the care hospitals can deliver. It is the 15th resident doctors (who used to be known as junior doctors) have been on stage since they launched a campaign in 2023 to get their pay back to the equivalent level it used to be before austerity kicked in after the financial crash.

This morning Wes Streeting, the health secretary, deployed a new statistic in his PR battle against the BMA, the doctors’ union organised the strikes. He confirmed a figure highlighted in the Daily Mail’s splash saying strikes by resident doctors have now cost the country £3bn.

In an interview with the Today programme, asked if that was an official government figure, Streeting replied:

We think that strikes cost £50m a day. And so that is, an accurate reflection of the cost of these strikes.

But, when it was put to him the BMA is saying that £3bn is about what it would have cost to give the resident doctors the pay rise they are demaning, Streeting would not accept this. He replied:

What is true is that in order to deliver a full pay restoration back to 2008 levels, using the RPI account of inflation, it would cost in the order of £3bn a year.

Let’s then assume that other NHS staff would understandably demand the same. Then that cost would be more like £30bn a year. That is more than the entire cost of the Ministry of Justice’s entire budget for running the criminal justice system.

Now, this goes to the heart of the intransigence of the BMA. Despite being the biggest winner by a country mile of public sector pay increases – since this government came in, 28.9% is what they got from us – within weeks of taking office, they still went out on strike.

Andrew Gregory and Peter Walker have more from what Streeting has been saying about the strike here.

I will post more from Streeting’s broadcast interviews this morning shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

7am: Resident doctors started a six-day strike in England. (Rather, some of them did – in the past, many doctors have chosen to work rather than to join the BMA strike.)

9.15am: John Swinney, SNP leader and Scottish first minister, holds a campaign event focused on fuel prices. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is holding a campaign event focused on pothole policy (at 9.30am), and Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, is launching his manifesto (at 2pm).

Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Newcastle.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.30pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is holding a press conference in Warwickshire.

Afternoon: Military planners from around 35 countries interested in plans to keep the strait of Hormuz open after the Iran war ends meet to discuss options at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west London.

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