Reform party leader promoting gold for Direct Bullion alongside his jobs as MP and presenter for GB News

Nigel Farage has been working as a paid brand ambassador for a gold bullion firm in a third job alongside his roles as an MP and a GB News presenter.

The MP for Clacton and Reform party leader promoted gold on behalf of Direct Bullion on a podcast sponsored by the company in November, hosted by a fellow brand ambassador and influencer Rob Moore.

This is what happens when power over public services is stripped from local councils and handed to Whitehall

Every day in Britain the police are failing to arrest about 670 shoplifters . Down the road, your median wait in A&E is three hours . Meanwhile the number of care home beds has fallen by 18% in a decade , and the recent budget will cut them further. Prisons are bursting. Schools are turning away autistic children. Meanwhile, the Treasury is promising to spend £1.6bn filling in 7m potholes on England’s roads – presumably with gold.

Something is badly wrong with Britain’s public sector. In the US in the 1990s, “ broken windows theory ” was used to explain New York’s sharply rising crime rate and a fall in the public’s sense of security. The trouble was said to lie in the city’s visible environment. Walls were covered in graffiti, trains were dirty, beggars harassed passersby. New York’s police chief, Bill Bratton, ordered the city to get to work. So called low level crime was given more attention by police. Graffiti was cleaned, litter cleared, youths made to behave and beggars moved on. The effect was extraordinary: felonies such as assault and burglary fell by more than 40% .

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

With a role in the Oscar-tipped reform school drama, the actor continues to pick parts that align with her activism. She recalls how the resilience of her grandmother – and the racism faced by her grandfather – has shaped her

There is a scene in Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s new film in which she gives a hug unlike any other hug you’ll see on screen. The film is Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel based on the real-life horror of Florida’s Dozier School for Boys, with Ellis-Taylor playing Hattie, the grandmother of Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a boy incarcerated there. In the scene, she is prevented from visiting her much-missed grandson, but encounters a friend of his (Brandon Wilson), who becomes a kind of emotional proxy.

What makes this hug so special, though, is not just the intensity of the human moment, but the way it exemplifies the power of the first-person perspective, which director RaMell Ross utilises throughout his film. Watching it, you the viewer feel as if you are also being enveloped in Hattie’s arms. “RaMell is a scholar, you know what I mean?” says Ellis-Taylor, an enlivening sight this morning, with her cropped, bleached hair, red lipstick and warmly engaging manner.

Vice City returns, but there are plenty of new games and reboots, from Monster Hunter Wilds and Atomfall to Civilization VII and DOOM: The Dark Ages

Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate: the rules of Civilization haven’t changed, but this devilishly compelling strategy series has long been due an overhaul. Next year’s instalment lets you pick and choose between many more different leaders and peoples to guide to world domination, from antiquity and through the age of exploration to the modern era – peacefully, or otherwise.
• Released 11 Feb 11; all platforms

Female prison officer faces misconduct investigation after footage reportedly shared with inmates at HMP Five Wells

A prison officer has been arrested after she was allegedly filmed having sex with an inmate at a Northamptonshire prison.

Footage of the female guard and male prisoner was shared with other inmates at the privately run HMP Five Wells, the Sun newspaper reported. The officer was suspended from her role and arrested, while the inmate was transferred to another jail.

“A prison custody officer has been suspended and arrested by Northamptonshire police on suspicion of misconduct in a public office,” a spokesperson for the prison said. “It would be inappropriate to comment further while they investigate.”

HMP Five Wells, a category C prison that opened in 2022 at a cost of £253m, is run privately by the operator G4S. It houses about 1,700 male prisoners.

The brief video was allegedly filmed by the inmate as the pair had sex in his cell, and was also shared by prisoners with friends on the outside, with it being unclear whether the woman knew she was being recorded.

Move to secure electricity supply comes as Finland investigates tanker that sailed from Russian port

Estonia has begun naval patrols to protect a cable supplying electricity from Finland after the suspected sabotage of another one on Christmas Day, the Estonian defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said.

“We’ve decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland,” he posted on X.

Deal under which Family Action takes over Relate’s counselling services will save up to 185 jobs, say administrators

Britain’s biggest relationship counselling charity looks set to be rescued from insolvency under plans for it to be taken over.

Last month, Relate was put into administration after a collapse in its funding from NHS, school and local authority contracts.

Flaky pastry filled with seafood delicacy gains cult status and draws crowds to sleepy beach community

Celebrities have raved about them, politicians have bulk-ordered them, local people line up and tourists drive hours for them. The legendary pāua pie – a flaky pie filled with a New Zealand seafood delicacy – is enticing crowds to a remote cafe on the isolated East Coast.

The savoury pie may be one of the closest things New Zealand has to a national dish. From the basic mince pie found in corner stores and petrol stations to the more inventive gourmet pies offered in cafes and fine dining restaurants, wherever you go, there are pies.