When asked about his plans to visit the crash site, Trump made a joke: ‘The water? You want me to go swimming?’

Every day, the world seems to get stupider and stupider and our leaders seem to get nastier and nastier. Nobody expects empathy or accuracy from Donald Trump but, even by the extremely low standards to which he is held, his reaction to the tragic mid-air collision in Washington DC that killed 67 people on Wednesday night was shocking.

James McMurdock, who did not publicly disclose before election his conviction 18 years ago, meets party vetting standards

A Reform MP who was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend 18 years ago will not be suspended and would pass the party’s new vetting process, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Richard Tice has defended James McMurdock’s assault on his ex-girlfriend as a “mistake” and said his fellow MP was “doing brilliantly”.