The Reform funding scandals could yet bring down its leader – and give Andy Burnham a head start. The biggest pitfall would be complacency

No politician is greater than their party. However bright you shine, you’re never so indispensable that you couldn’t be replaced tomorrow – or so, at least, convention has it. But there’s one man at Westminster to whom convention rarely applies, and that’s why the multiple funding scandals now engulfing Nigel Farage are such a watershed moment in British politics. For without him – should it ever come to that – what exactly would be left of Reform UK?

We’re getting ahead of ourselves here, obviously. But no further ahead than most of Westminster, now agog with speculation over Farage’s future. The parliamentary standards commissioner has yet to rule on whether the Reform leader should have declared the £5m the Guardian revealed he had taken from the British-Thai crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, never mind the extra wedge he is now alleged to have received from “Posh George” Cottrell, a longstanding sidekick formerly jailed for wire fraud in the US. (For the record, Farage insists he broke no rules because he wasn’t active in politics at the time, though the Cottrell money was allegedly spent in part on staff to beef up Farage’s social media, and MPs are obliged to declare significant benefits of a non-personal nature for a year prior to getting elected.) Perhaps the commissioner’s ruling, when it comes, can help shed some light on whether Farage simply has a lot of rich friends anxious for him to live his best life and perfectly oblivious to what he could do for them in power, or whether something rather seedier might have been going on.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

After five goals, two penalties and a 4am finish, it was a bleary-eyed start to Monday for pupils and workers

So we survived. We made it out the other side. After all the strategising about where, when, if and how we would watch England take their World Cup fight to Mexico, we pulled it off, stepping out bleary eyed into the dawn just about intact.

And boy was it worth it.

Angie did her best to not say anything controversial in a presenting gig on LBC. Let’s hope it was a one-off

It’s been quiet. Too quiet. There was a time, not so long ago, when Angela Rayner was being widely tipped to be the UK’s next prime minister after Keir Starmer. Not least by sources – ahem – extremely close to Ange herself. Just as soon as she had settled her outstanding tax bill to HMRC.

Then along came Andy Burnham. The momentum seemingly unstoppable. And Angie faded into the background. Her leadership challenge consigned to the dustbin of Westminster gossip. She was happy where she was. Turning down Keir’s offer of becoming health secretary while hoping for a more permanent promotion under Andy. They also serve who only stand and wait.

Between enemies-to-lovers and ‘shadow daddies’, BookTok has fallen in love with the spicy stories combining romance and fantasy. But there is more to the subgenre than sex, say the fans who queued for hours outside the brick-and-mortar Oxford store

‘We left Warrington at 5.15am this morning to get here,” Emma tells me, standing in a queue that stretches down Walton Street. It is just after 9am on a Saturday in Oxford, the students are still in bed and the tourists have yet to descend on the city, but this corner of Jericho is already buzzing.

Oxford is rarely short of literary pilgrims. Every year, visitors flock to the colleges and libraries that shaped writers including JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Iris Murdoch. But this crowd is here for something a little different. Instead of queueing for the Bodleian, they’re swapping recommendations for dragon riders and faerie kingdoms. Women clutch tote bags emblazoned with quotes like “hot girls read smut”, and compare their favourite “morally grey” heroes.

Volunteer force flocks to devastated region, infiltrating collapsed buildings with little more than hand tools

As the sun rose above Venezuela’s shattered northern coast, a motorbike mechanic nicknamed Culebrita (Little Snake) lowered himself into a chaotic mesh of concrete and steel and began crawling towards his objective.

“I’m not afraid – but you need to be brave to do this,” said Darwin Rodríguez, a slender 32-year-old who earned the serpentine moniker because of his ability to slither in and out of minuscule spaces.

Britain’s religious right is fuming over a document suggesting the monarch wants to be defender of all faiths. I’m with Charles: what does that make me?

We need to talk about King Charles and specifically this: is the British monarch basically a traitor? Dr Gavin Ashenden is a former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, and he says he may be. The king is attempting to change the job description of the British monarch from “defender of the faith” to the more inclusive “protector of the space for faith within the multifaith nation”, and you can see why someone who regularly appears on GB News to lament the “woke takeover” of the church and who suggests that Islam is inherently and uniquely violent would object to this. And then some.

“While the monarch cannot technically be a traitor, we might take refuge in grammar and find that the verb carries our feelings even if the noun cannot,” spluttered Ashenden. “Parliament and the oath it presented to the king as a condition of being crowned are betrayed; the Church of England is betrayed. The constitution is betrayed; Anglicans are specifically betrayed. And Christians in general will legitimately feel abandoned at the very least. Some of them too will feel betrayed.”

• Trump says he asked Fifa to review red card

• Infantino confirms Trump called over Balogun

• US president insists he did not pressure Fifa

Donald Trump said on Monday that he personally asked Fifa president Gianni Infantino to review the red card shown to USA striker Folarin Balogun, saying he believed the dismissal was unfair but insisting he did not pressure football’s governing body to overturn the suspension.

The intervention by the president of a World Cup host nation has thrust Fifa’s disciplinary process into the spotlight and prompted an angry response from Belgium, who face the USA on Monday night for a place in the quarter-finals.

PM stepped in over proposal to shift World Cup match to an earlier time, amid concerns it would benefit Mexico

Keir Starmer intervened through diplomatic channels to oppose Fifa’s plan to bring forward England’s World Cup game against Mexico, amid concerns the change would hand the hosts an unfair advantage, it is understood.

The prime minister instructed officials to argue against proposals to move the kick-off from 1am UK time (6pm local time) to earlier after being alerted by the Football Association that it would reduce England’s time to acclimatise to the high altitude in Mexico City.

Exclusive: Initial figures are yet to be confirmed by DfE, which said schools were ‘at the heart’ of the celebration

About 332,000 fewer children were in school on Monday morning than a week earlier, according to initial figures, as attendance fell after England’s 3-2 World Cup win over Mexico.

School registers were down more than three percentage points on last week, after England manager Thomas Tuchel advised parents to “write an excuse for school and let them watch”.

Militant group’s statement makes no promise to disarm unilaterally as Israel and the US have demanded

Hamas has announced its intention to hand over governing authority in Gaza after two decades in power, and has invited a US-backed interim administration to take over the running of the Palestinian territory.

It was not immediately clear how far Monday’s announcement would go towards strengthening an only partially observed ceasefire in Gaza or improving conditions in the besieged coastal strip which is still in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.