Bankers have raised potential money-laundering concerns over transactions involving senior Reform UK figures

The Guardian reports that a host of transactions involving Reform UK's most senior figures, and some donations to the party, have led bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

According to the newspaper, finance industry figures have raised at least four suspicious activity reports (SARs) relating to transactions involving senior figures in Reform. It names them as:

• One relates to a £1m donation made to Britain Means Business, a fundraising organisation for Reform UK, before the last general election. Half of the £1m was then transferred by Tice, as director of the company, to Reform UK. Renamed from Leave Means Leave, Britain Means Business is a company that is used to help fund Reform. The £1m seemingly came from the aristocrat and Reform UK donor Fiona Cottrell. In this instance, the Guardian understands bank staff were not satisfied that the funds had ultimately come from her. The NCA has sought help from a foreign partner agency to trace the original source of the funds.
• Two other SARs relate to a loan from George Cottrell to Tice. The loan was made shortly before Tice finalised a property purchase and made a party donation, and was not repaid until after those two transactions were completed, according to sources. George Cottrell is the son of Fiona Cottrell, and is a convicted fraudster, former deputy treasurer of Ukip and close associate of Farage.
• A fourth relates to the £5m gift from the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne to Farage, which was first revealed by the Guardian in April.the 

The Guardian says Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, has declined to answer any of the questions put to him and, via lawyers, threatened to injunct the paper prevent the publication of these details.

Earlier this week, the same paper the Guardian revealed that the undisclosed and much-discussed £5m gift to the Reform's leader, Nigel Farage, from a cryptocurrency billionaire shortly before the 2024 general election had been reported to the NCA.

As far as Farage is concerned, this week is resembling the scene late in Shakespeare's King John where messengers arrive from all directions with bad news. And it's only Wednesday.

Later. The Guardian has published a second article with more details of the transactions in question.

The Joy of Six 1536

"Wes Streeting was always meant to be their Labour prime minister. The plan, hatched by a tiny clique of right-wing faction fighters, was this: find a candidate on whom they could fake a continuation Corbynism project to win the leadership. Then kick the ladder away from the people who backed them and the promises they made. At the next general election, given the scale of the Tory majority after 2019, get Labour back in the ring with more MPs and then hand over to Streeting. The real grown ups would then be in charge and the subsequent election would be secured." This seems a good day to air again this Neal Lawson theory.

Prem Sikka on the curse of the finance industry: "Private equity takes over existing businesses with finance from banks, insurance companies, pension funds and wealthy individuals seeking higher returns. It acquires control but injects little share capital. Takeover targets are loaded with the secured debt, often routed through opaque offshore entities, and are expected to pay it off."

Matt Gallagher says the Online Safety Act is forcing us to hand over personal data to unregulated overseas corporations with questionable privacy records.

"Behind every great director ... is a great editor – and as the tributes paid earlier this month to the late Marcia Lucas, Oscar-winning editor of Star Wars: Episodes IV to VI, and former wife of creator George Lucas, reminded us, that editor is often a woman." Bethany Elliott investigates a familiar dynamic in male-dominated Hollywood.

Carrie Marshall goes to see the B52s.

"She grows smaller. Was she approximately human-sized in her wearing-a-pinny-and-doing-the-laundry phase, but then hedgehog-sized at the end? In the final image, she is a completely naturalistic hedgehog4. She looks like a little brown aubergine. So it's possible that at the end of his story – shudder – Samuel Whiskers has grown bigger." Sam Leith is worried: how big are Beatrix Potter's animals?

Consumer protection against online fraud may soon be slashed

I've expressed before my surprise at the way the banks have been able to walk away from the high street with barely a comment, let alone criticism, from politicians.

The result of this move has been to force people into banking online, some of whom have little knowledge of the digital world and are not street smart, web smart or whatever we want to call it,

At least, I have thought till now, the banks are good at reimbursing customers who've been the victim of fraud.

Now come news from the Guardian that an organisation called the Payment Services Regulator is poised to slash the amount it was planning to require banks to refund the victims of fraud - from £415,000 to about £85,000 "after strong lobbying from lenders, fintechs* and some politicians", the paper's report says.

The Guardian goes on to say:

Consumer groups and others have been eagerly awaiting the regime’s October start date and the higher threshold, and any decision to cut it after lobbying by banks is likely to trigger a major row.

But will it? The politicians who have been lobbying for a less generous scheme include, not only wicked old Tories from the last government, but Labour figures in the new one.

With Labour determined upon higher economic growth, without having a strategy for achieving it beyond establishing 'stability', there's a danger that the policy will come to mean giving business whatever it asks for.

We saw how that ended last time Labour were in power.

And if people put off financial transactions because they are afraid of being defrauded, that can only slow growth. So let's hope Labour finds the courage to support banks' customers rather than bankers.

* 'Fintechs'? I believe this is a running together of 'financial technology companies'.