The Reform leader complained of a ‘dishonest Question Time audience’, while his party also reported Channel 4 to the Electoral Commission

The Conservative party deputy chair Angela Richardson called the sewage crisis a “political football” and claimed opposition parties and activists had put Tory MPs in physical danger by campaigning on the issue.

Richardson, who is standing for re-election in Guildford, where the River Wey was recently found to have 10 times the safe limit of E coli, also suggested the only reason people were talking about the problem was “because the Conservatives let everyone know it was happening”.

Protest is in response to a recent supreme court decision ordering young religious men to enlist for military service

A ship’s captain reported that five missiles had landed close to his vessel in the Red Sea, 150 nautical miles (172 miles) northwest of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitor said on Friday.

After posting earlier that it had received the report and that authorities were investigating (9.32am BST), the UKMTO said the ship had reported no damage and was heading northward. It gave no information on the ship or its cargo, reports Reuters.

Representatives from DUP, Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP and Alliance to face off from 9pm

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Speaking at a Reform UK event in Boston with party leader Nigel Farage, chairman of the party Richard Tice said that the racist comments discovered by a Channel 4 investigation during the Reform campaign were “inappropriate”.

Tice said:

We put a statement out and it’s all self-explanatory in the statement.

The reality is that we’re a fast-growing movement, and when you’ve got unpaid volunteers, some people behave inappropriately. And they’re gone.”

We’ve had one or two candidates that have said things they shouldn’t have said. In most cases they’re just speaking like ordinary folk.

They’re not part of the mainstream political Oxbridge speak, we understand that. In some cases one or two people let us down and we let them go.

Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP).

Chris Hazzard, Sinn Féin MP candidate.

Colum Eastwood, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP).

Naomi Long, leader of the Alliance party.

Robbie Butler, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party (UUP).