Senior foreign and defence correspondent @POLITICOEurope politico.eu/author/esther-we…
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I'm back on this website after a brief interruption. Sadly I wasn't able to recover my House of Lords content archive, but we'll have to make new memories 💖
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Esther Webber retweeted
🔴 UK PM Andy Burnham is preparing his first visit to Berlin since taking office, with talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz planned for early October
It comes as London seeks fresh momentum with Germany, including on defense
w/ @Masonboyowen & @estwebber
politico.eu/article/burnham-…
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Esther Webber retweeted
Scoop: The White House has asked OpenAI and Anthropic not to share their AI models with the U.K. government’s testing agency until the models have gone through U.S. testing.
“Because they’re American companies and this has been our policy with every new frontier model that comes out,” the senior admin official told me.
WH wants this sequence: U.S. review -> secure U.S. systems -> share models with U.S. partners
Anthropic appears to have complied but OpenAI has not said if it will.
w/ @JoeBambridge1
politico.com/news/2026/09/24…
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Esther Webber retweeted
EXCL - Andy Burnham asked Donald Trump to bring up Jimmy Lai’s case when he speaks to China’s Xi this week
By @DashaBurns me and @PhelimKine
politico.com/news/2026/09/22…
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Esther Webber retweeted
One explosive scene from our @POLITICOMag cover story on 85 days that changed White House AI policy :
Dario Amodei offered to tutor Bessent on jailbreaks the day of export controls.
Amodei: “Would it be helpful for you to go into a little detail? I think we need to keep risks in perspective.”
Bessent: “Well, I don't think that's really necessary, Dario…”
Amodei tried again as the company believed the risks remained within the range it had previously described to the gov.
Bessent wasn't persuaded. The admin had believed Anthropic's self certification abt Fable. Now there was a problem.
“It’s not really helping your case when you're saying everything it does was expected,” Bessent told Amodei.
Amodei: “I think any decision to de-deploy Fable would basically set a precedent that models above a certain level of capability cannot be deployed commercially at all,”
Sean Cairncross cut him off. “Dario, what I need from you is: Anthropic, will you be closing off access to Fable or not?”
Amodei said he could not shut Fable down just an hour
Bessent: That is a bad decision.”
story w/ @cheyennehaslett
edited by @sissenberg
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Esther Webber retweeted
NEW inside the relationship between Dan Jukes & JL Partners ⬇️
w/ @estwebber
EXCL: Farage aide Dan Jukes went on an all-expenses-paid trip to Egypt with pollster JL Partners in December 2025, weeks before the firm released high-impact polls without disclosing that they were financed by Reform.
w/@saschaosullivan
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EXCL: Farage aide Dan Jukes went on an all-expenses-paid trip to Egypt with pollster JL Partners in December 2025, weeks before the firm released high-impact polls without disclosing that they were financed by Reform.
w/@saschaosullivan
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Jukes joined a JL Partners staff retreat and gave a talk for the company, receiving travel, meals and accommodation.
Asked what a Reform government would want from a polling company, Jukes replied: “Showing that we’re winning”
politico.eu/article/reform-a…
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Esther Webber retweeted
And in something of a sequel to this ... I understand multiple requests from MPs for an Urgent Question on AI in the Commons today were not granted by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle
Hoyle did grant a UQ on the protected status given to English whisky 👍
What is the UK government’s response to the dire AI warnings?
Several days since AI leaders warned of the risk of a catastrophic event, there has still been no significant intervention from any senior minister
That’s despite the UK being seen as the third global player in AI after the US and China, and it being the biggest story in the world right now
At 11pm on Sunday night, AI minister Kanishka Narayan posted a thread on X in which he briefly referenced the warnings but didn’t substantively address them, saying only that the UK would be “robust” on safety
This morning, Louise Haigh’s office has sent a one-and-a-half line statement from her saying the UK will work with partners on AI safety. There is no detail beyond that
Meanwhile Trump and China are loudly opposing AI guardrails
Yet the extent of the UK’s view - the country that likes to pitch itself as the third major player in the world - is a Twitter thread that says nothing and a handful of words in a press release…
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Esther Webber retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: OpenAI is for the first time calling for the U.K. to introduce binding rules on frontier AI.
In an exclusive interview, the company's European policy lead told me that the government should “take advantage of this political window” to legislate.
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Esther Webber retweeted
EXCL: Unions are talking about backing a dual system of capping donations, where wealthy individuals *and* unions would each be subject to a cap ... but it would be calculated differently for each group. So unions would face a different cap mechanism to wealthy individuals 👀
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Esther Webber retweeted
If you haven't read it yet ... I really recommend getting your teeth into our investigation into the transparency questions for the polling industry after last week's excellent Channel 4 sting on Reform UK
I've spent years fielding requests to write polls that often have a whiff
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Esther Webber retweeted
ICYMI: JL partners (& others) found to have published polls without disclosing who paid for the surveys
w/ @estwebber & @danbloom1 ⬇️
EXCL:
JL Partners — the pollster in the Reform donations scandal — carried out other polls where the funder was not declared.
The firm ran surveys in 2022 and 2024 Tory leadership races which received press coverage without disclosing who paid.
w/@saschaosullivan @danbloom1
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Esther Webber retweeted
📊 IN LONDON PLAYBOOK PM TONIGHT ...
📊 "Moment of reckoning" for pollsters as @estwebber and co reveal more apparent rule breaches
📊 One pollster warns the sector needs to shape up or risk government regulation
🗳️ PLUS: Kemi Badenoch talks snap election plan with top team
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EXCL:
JL Partners — the pollster in the Reform donations scandal — carried out other polls where the funder was not declared.
The firm ran surveys in 2022 and 2024 Tory leadership races which received press coverage without disclosing who paid.
w/@saschaosullivan @danbloom1
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POLITICO also discovered several instances of other pollsters failing to cite their clients. Transparency campaigners have said it is time that polling firms were held to tougher standards.
politico.eu/article/nigel-fa…
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Esther Webber retweeted
BREAKING Met police announces investigation into Reform donations following undercover sting broadcast last week.
Met: "Detectives have assessed the information provided and determined that there are potential offences requiring investigation."
No arrests have been made
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🇬🇧 🇫🇷 NIGEL FARAGE x JORDAN BARDELLA
Bardella is poised for a love-in with Farage at Reform conference, when they will deliver a joint message on tackling migration.
Months of preparation has gone into his appearance, with the French populist even expected to speak in English.
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But behind the scenes, advisers to Bardella have poured cold water on the prospect of a French government turning back small boats.
Two aides said it would simply not arise because they would so dramatically reduce immigration into France there would no longer be any small boats
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One aide to Bardella cautioned that France and the UK would first have to sign a treaty and share the burden of sending migrants back to their country of origin.
Story w/@cleacaulcutt @TimRoss_1 politico.eu/article/nigel-fa…
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