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A YouTube star has been hired by a thinktank supportive of Reform UK as it looks to strengthen Nigel Farage’s policy agenda, Sky News can reveal.

Archie Manners, a comedian and magician who has performed high-profile pranks on celebrities and Just Stop Oil activists, has been hired by Resolute 1850, which is planning to change its name to The Centre for a Better Britain.

It is understood the 32-year-old, whose YouTube channel with fellow influencer Josh Pieters amassed more than one million subscribers, has been hired full-time and will provide social media and communications advice.

The hiring of Mr Manners, who worked for Mr Farage during the general election campaign, indicates Reform is hoping to expand its already significant reach with young men.

While most of Reform’s supporters are still older white men, post-election analysis by YouGov found Reform was the third most popular choice for men aged 18-24, alongside the Green Party.

Reform has also been quick to engage with social media platforms, including TikTok, which are popular with Gen Z.

Nigel Farage on the campaign trail on Wednesday. Pic: PA
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Nigel Farage on the campaign trail on Wednesday. Pic: PA

The party now boasts nearly 400,000 followers – more than any other major political party – while Mr Farage’s own personal TikTok now has over a million followers.

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While independent of Reform, Resolute 1850 has strong links to the party through leading figures, including Jonathan Brown – the thinktank’s chief executive and former Reform chief operations officer – who will also seek to raise funds through UK, and possibly, US donors.

In its first guise as Resolute 1850 – which the Financial Times reported is a reference to the HMS Resolute Royal Navy ship whose timbers were used to make the US president’s desk in the Oval Office – the thinktank said its mission was to “foster stronger transatlantic relationships and more effective governance”.

Mr Brown told Sky News that Resolute 1850, which is due to launch formally by the autumn, was changing its name to the Centre for a Better Britain because “we wanted to be clear on what it did on the tin”.

“What we hope to do is set a policy agenda for the centre right which acknowledges the dire financial state the country is in and the errors that have been made around net zero and pretty much every policy the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are pushing forward, and actually have a desire for a radical break with the consensus of the last 20 years,” he added.

“Our desire is to build up a proper policy base and not be fixated on culture war issues – but to actually look at proper economic fiscal policy, foreign affairs and defence.

“There’s been a lot of enthusiasm around it.”

Mr Brown sought to downplay comparisons between his outfit and equivalent US thinktanks that are independent but supportive of US President Donald Trump, saying the UK had its “own challenges and political climate”.

He said calling Resolute 1850 a British version of MAGA (Make America Great Again) was “easy” but that he “disagreed” with the comparison.

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Meet the young Reform voters

“The idea that we are some sort of UK branch of a US organisation is not true,” he said. “We are independent.”

Mr Brown added that Resolute 1850 currently had no US donors and that most of its fundraising – understood to be in the region of £1m – had been secured domestically, but that he was open to donations from across the Atlantic.

Rumours of US donations to Reform began circulating last year when it was reported that Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and X, who has just left his role at the White House, was considering offering $100m (about £80m) to the party.

However, the donation has not materialised and the relationship between Mr Farage and Mr Musk appears to have fractured after the tech tycoon called for Rupert Lowe, the ousted Reform MP, to replace Mr Farage as leader.

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Starmer’s strategy to tackle Reform UK could backfire

The impending launch of the Centre for a Better Britain comes as Mr Farage looks to build his policy platform following his success at the May local elections, where Reform won control of 10 councils and picked up more than 670 councillors.

At a speech on Tuesday, the Reform leader vowed to reverse cuts to winter fuel payments and scrap the two-child benefit cap while also outlining his ambition to increase the personal allowance from the current £12,750 to £20,000 year – something the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggest could cost between £50bn to £80bn a year.

Mr Farage has argued such policies can be paid for through scrapping net zero commitments and by ending the use of asylum hotels – but Sir Keir Starmer said they would be “Liz Truss all over again”.

“He set out economic plans which contain billions upon billions of completely unfunded spending,” the prime minister said last Thursday.

“Precisely the sort of irresponsible splurge that sent your mortgage costs, your bills and the cost of living through the roof.”

Sky News has approached Mr Manners and Reform UK for comment.

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Jeff Stewart: Actor who played Reg Hollis in The Bill helps police arrest shoplifter

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Jeff Stewart: Actor who played Reg Hollis in The Bill helps police arrest shoplifter

The actor who played PC Reg Hollis in hit TV series The Bill has been praised by officers after helping them arrest a shoplifter.

Jeff Stewart stepped in when a thief attempted to escape on a bicycle in Southampton on Wednesday.

In a statement, a Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said: “The thief, 29-year-old Mohamed Diallo, fell off the bike during his attempts to flee, before officers pounced to make their arrest.

“To their surprise, local TV legend Jeff Stewart, who played PC Hollis for 24 years in The Bill, came to their aid by sitting on the suspect’s legs while officers put him in cuffs.

The Bill actors, from left to right; Jeff Stewart, Roberta Taylor, Mark Wingett, Trudie Goodwin and Cyril Nri
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(L-R) Jeff Stewart, Roberta Taylor, Mark Wingett, Trudie Goodwin and Cyril Nri celebrating The Bill’s 21st anniversary in 2004. Pic: PA

“In policing you should always expect the unexpected, but this really wasn’t on The Bill for this week.”

The Bill was broadcast on ITV between 1984 and 2010 and featured the fictional lives of police officers from the Sun Hill police station in east London.

Mr Stewart, who was among the original cast, appeared in more than 1,000 episodes as PC Hollis.

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Still of police footage of actor Jeff Stewart who played PC Reg Hollis in The Bill helping arrest a shoplifter in Southampton
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Police released footage showing their pursuit of a shoplifter in Southampton. Pic: Hampshire Constabulary

Still of police footage of actor Jeff Stewart who played PC Reg Hollis in The Bill helping arrest a shoplifter in Southampton
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As the suspect falls to the floor, PC Hollis (aka Jeff Stewart) sits on his legs. Pic: Hampshire Constabulary

In praising Mr Stewart’s actions, the force said: “Long since retired from Sun Hill station – but he’s still got it.”

Police from the Bargate Neighbourhoods Policing Team were alerted by staff at a Co-op store in Ocean Way to a suspected shoplifter on Wednesday.

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Mohamed Diallo, 29, of Anglesea Road, Southampton, was subsequently charged with five offences of theft relating to coffee, alcohol and food from the Co-op and two other Sainsbury’s stores on three dates in April and July.

He pleaded guilty at Southampton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday and was bailed to be sentenced on August 29.

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Oasis photographers remember the early days: ‘The journalist had to take a week off afterwards!’

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Oasis photographers remember the early days: 'The journalist had to take a week off afterwards!'

It was a cold, typically rainy Manchester evening, October 1993, when Michael Spencer Jones set out to meet a new guitar band he had been commissioned to photograph.

The weather was miserable, he didn’t know their music, wasn’t totally in the mood. “I had to drag myself from home, thinking: is it going to be worth the trouble?”

On the drive to the Out Of The Blue studio in Ancoats, on the outskirts of the city centre, a song he’d never heard before came on the local radio station. “It was like, wow, what is that?” The track was Columbia, by Oasis, the band he was on his way to meet.

He started to get excited.

Oasis star Liam Gallagher. Photo: © Michael Spencer Jones
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Liam Gallagher at the Out Of The Blue studios in October 1993. Photo: © Michael Spencer Jones

Spencer Jones had previously met Noel Gallagher during the musician’s time as a roadie for fellow Manchester band Inspiral Carpets. But not Liam.

“As a photographer, obviously, the aesthetic of a band is massively important,” he says as he recalls that first shoot. “I’m just looking down the camera lens with a certain amount of disbelief.”

In front of him was a 21-year-old, months before the start of the fame rollercoaster that lay ahead. And yet. “I was looking at a face that just seemed to embody the quality of stardom.”

Liam Gallagher pictured in one of the outtakes for the Be Here Now cover shoot. Pic: © Michael Spencer Jones
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Liam Gallagher pictured during the shoot for the cover of Be Here Now. Photo: © Michael Spencer Jones

‘Success was inevitable’

It was the start of a partnership that continued throughout the band’s heyday, with Spencer Jones shooting the covers for their first three albums, their most successful records, and the singles that went with them.

“You work with bands pre-fame and there’s always that question: are they going to make it? With Oasis there was never that question. Their success was inevitable.”

There was a confidence, even in those early days. “Incredible, intoxicating confidence. [They were] not interested in any kind of social norms or social constraints.”

It wasn’t arrogance, he says, of a criticism sometimes levelled at the Gallaghers. “They just had this enormous self-belief.”

Spencer Jones was one of several photographers who followed the band, capturing the moments that became part of rock history.

Oasis in Paris on the banks of The Seine in 1995 (L-R). Pic: Jill Furmanovsky
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Tension on the banks of The Seine in Paris in 1995. Photo: © Jill Furmanovsky

‘Noel had an uncanny intuition’

Jill Furmanovsky, who started working with Oasis towards the end of 1994, a few months after the release of debut album Definitely Maybe, says Noel always seemed aware their time together should be documented.

“An uncanny intuition, really, that it was important,” she says. “I think Noel has been aware right from the start, because for him that’s what he used to look at when he used to buy his Smiths records or Leo Sayer or whatever, he would stare at the covers and be fascinated by the pictures.”

Contrary to popular belief, Furmanovsky says the brothers got on fairly well most of the time, “otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to function”.

Oasis around the release of Be Here Now in 1997. Pic: Jill Furmanovsky
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This image was taken around the release of third album Be Here Now in 1997. Photo: © Jill Furmanovsky

She picks one shoot in 1997, around the release of their third album, Be Here Now, as one of the more memorable ones. Noel had shared his thoughts about the band on a chalkboard and “they were having such a laugh.”

But when things did erupt, it became significant. “There were tensions in some shoots but they never started hitting each other in front of me or anything like that. I used to complain about it, actually – ‘don’t leave me out of those pictures where you’re really arguing!’.”

In Paris in 1995, tensions had boiled over. “It’s one of my favourites,” she says of the shoot. “It reflects not just the band but the family situation, these brothers in a strop with each other.”

What is notable, she says, is that they were happy for photographers to take candid shots, not just set up pictures to show them “looking cool”. Pictures that on the surface might sound mundane, showing “what they were really like – tensions, mucking about, sometimes yawning… This was the genius of Noel and [former Oasis press officer] Johnny Hopkins.”

Furmanovsky also notes the women who worked behind the scenes for Oasis – unusual at a time when the industry was even more male-dominated than it is now – and how they kept them in line.

Read more on Oasis:
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Oasis stars Liam and Noel Gallagher during a break from the Wonderwall video shoot September 1995. Pic: Jill Furmanovsky
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The brothers pictured during a break from the Wonderwall video shoot September 1995. Photo: © Jill Furmanovsky

“They got on well working with women,” she says. “Maggie Mouzakitis was their tour manager for ages and was so young, but she ruled. For a band one could say were a bunch of macho Manchester blokes, they had a lot of women working in senior positions.”

This is down to the influence of their mum, Peggy, she adds. “Absolutely crucial.”

Furmanovsky has been working with Noel on an upcoming book documenting her time with the band, and says she initially wanted to start with a picture of the Gallagher matriarch. “Noel said to me, ‘Jill, you do know she wasn’t actually in the band?'”

Oasis stars Noel and Liam Gallagher in Portland Street, Manchester, in August 1995. Pic: Kevin Cummins
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The Gallaghers in Portland Street, Manchester, in August 1995. Photo: © Kevin Cummins/ Iconic Images 2025

Touring with Oasis – ‘the journalist had to take a week off’

Kevin Cummins was commissioned to take pictures when Oasis signed to Creation Records, and it “kind of spiralled out of control a little bit”, he laughs.

“I photographed them for NME, gave them their first cover. I photographed them in Man City shirts because we were all Man City fans, and City were at the time sponsored by a Japanese electronics company, Brother. It seemed a perfect fit.”

The early days documenting the band were “fairly riotous”, he says. “They were quite young, they were obviously enjoying being in the limelight.

“I remember we went on tour with them for three days for an NME ‘on the road’ piece, and the journalist who came with me had to take a week off afterwards.

“I dipped in and out of tours occasionally – I’ve always done that with musicians because I cannot imagine spending more than about seven or eight days on tour with somebody, it would drive you nuts. They’re so hedonistic, especially in the early days. It’s very, very difficult to keep up.”

Photos of Oasis taken by Kevin Cummins are on display at Wembley Park throughout the summer. Pic: Kevin Cummins/ Iconic Images 2025
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Photos of Oasis taken by Kevin Cummins are on display at Wembley Park throughout the summer. Photo: © Kevin Cummins/ Iconic Images 2025

Cummins says the relationship between Noel and Liam was “like anybody’s relationship, if you’ve got a younger brother – he’d get on your nerves.”

During the shoot for the City shirt pictures, he says, “Liam kicked a ball at Noel, Noel pushed him, Liam pushed him back. They have a bit of a pushing match and then they stop and they get on with it.”

Another time, following a show in Portsmouth, “as soon as we got [to the hotel] after the gig, Liam threw all the plastic furniture in the pool. Noel looked at him and said, ‘where are we going to sit?’ And he made him get in the pool and get all the furniture out. So there were like attempts at being rock and roll, and not quite getting it right sometimes.”

Cummins says he has “very affectionate” memories of working with Oasis. “I’ve got a lot of very sensitive looking pictures of Liam and people are really surprised when they see them,” he says. “But he is a very sensitive lad… it’s just he was irritating because he was younger and he wanted to make himself heard.”

Photographes taken by Kevin Cummins are on display at Wembley Park throughout the summer
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Photo: © Kevin Cummins/ Iconic Images 2025

Getting ready for the reunion

All three photographers have yet to see the reunion show, but all have tickets. All say the announcement last summer came as a surprise.

“There was an inkling of it, I suppose, just in the thawing of the comments between the brothers, but I still wouldn’t have guessed it,” says Furmanovsky, who has a book out later this year, and whose pictures feature in the programme. “It’s wonderful they have pulled it off with such conviction and passion.”

Cummins’ work can be seen in a free outdoor exhibition at Wembley Park, which fans will be able to see throughout the summer until the final gigs there in September.

“I think the atmosphere at the gigs seems to have been really friendly… I like the idea that people are taking their kids and they’re passing the baton on a little bit,” he says. “Everyone’s just having a blast and it’s like the event of the summer – definitely something we need at the moment.”

Noel and Liam Gallagher returning to the house where the cover for Definitely Maybe was shot. Pic: © Michael Spencer Jones
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The Gallaghers returning to Bonehead’s former home, where the cover for Definitely Maybe was shot. Photo: © Michael Spencer Jones

Spencer Jones, who released his second Oasis book, Definitely Maybe – A View From Within, for the album’s 30th anniversary last year – adds: “They really seem to be capturing a new generation of fans and I don’t think a band has ever done that [to this extent] before. Bands from 20, 30 years ago normally just take their traditional fanbase with them.”

But he says his first thought when the reunion was announced was for the Gallaghers’ mum, Peggy. “I think for any parent, to have two children who don’t talk is pretty tough,” he says. “It’s that notion of reconciliation – if they can do it, anyone can do it.

“The fact they’re walking on stage, hands clasped together, there’s a huge amount of symbolism there that transcends Oasis and music. Especially in a fractured society, that unity is inspiring. Everyone’s had a bit of a rough time since COVID, battle weary with life itself. I think people generally are just gagging to have some fun.”

Brothers: Liam And Noel Through The Lens Of Kevin Cummins is on at Wembley Park until 30 September. Definitely Maybe – A View From Within, by Michael Spencer Jones, available through Spellbound Galleries, is out now. Oasis: Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere, by Jill Furmanovsky and edited by Noel Gallagher, published by Thames & Hudson, is out from 23 September.

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Govt ‘shadowy’ to reveal Rayner warning about social cohesion in ‘readout’, Harriet Harman says

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Govt 'shadowy' to reveal Rayner warning about social cohesion in 'readout', Harriet Harman says

It was “shadowy” of the government to reveal Angela Rayner warned about the threat to social cohesion in a “readout”, Harriet Harman has said.

On Wednesday, Downing Street released a “cabinet readout” saying the deputy prime minister told ministers the government “had to show it had a plan to address people’s concerns” to defuse community tensions.

She said immigration was having a “profound impact on society” and noted 17 out of 18 places where protests broke out last summer after kicking off in Southport were the most deprived areas in Britain.

This was widely interpreted as a warning that riots could happen this summer.

But Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that announcing it in a “readout” – given to journalists after a cabinet meeting – was not the way to do things.

“These are quite huge issues – the potential for disorder, social integration, the public mood, and ahead of summer,” the Labour peer said.

“I don’t know whether I’m just a bit old-fashioned about this, but I think it’s better when government are making statements like that they give people an opportunity to ask questions rather than this kind of sort of rather shadowy way of doing it.”

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Read more: Essex Police say Farage claims about migrant hotel protest are ‘categorically wrong’

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Essex Police chief denies Farage claims

The former minister added that cabinet meetings are supposed to be secret so that everybody around the table can speak and say “anything they want because there is this protected thing”.

“You don’t say what’s happening at cabinet,” she added.

“And if anybody asks in the House of Commons or anywhere else, what happened in cabinet, the automatic response is ‘we don’t talk about what’s happened in cabinet, it’s private’. And they’ve sort of slightly breached that now.

“So is it now a situation where anybody can be asked, what did somebody say in cabinet?

“Or is it only that the prime minister can say what happened in cabinet?

“It’s a bit puzzling.”

Baroness Harman’s comments came after protests in Epping last week outside a hotel housing asylum seekers turned violent.

More than 1,000 people gathered outside The Bell Hotel in protests over two nights after an asylum seeker was arrested and charged on suspicion of alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in the town.

Counter-protesters joined, and this week Reform UK leader Nigel Farage accused Essex Police of bussing them in, which the force said was “categorically wrong”.

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