‘Not clear’ who was behind FCDO hack, says minister, amid reports of China link – UK politics live

‘Not clear’ who was behind cyber-attack

Good morning.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, according to trade minister Chris Bryant.

Details of the hack emerged on Friday in a report by the Sun that claimed a Chinese hacker group was behind the cyber-attack.

The Sun named Storm 1849 as the Chinese cyber gang responsible for the breach, which it said was understood to possibly include tens of thousands of visa details.

The group has been “accused of targeting politicians and groups critical of the Chinese government”, the newspaper said.

However, when asked if China was behind the attack, Bryant said: “That’s not entirely clear.”

“There certainly has been a hack at the FCDO and we’ve been aware of that since October,” Bryant told Sky News.

“Some of the reporting has, I think, been a bit more speculation than accurate.”

He added, “We’re fairly confident that there’s a low risk of any individual actually being affected by this.”

A government spokesperson told the Guardian: “We have been working to investigate a cyber incident. We take the security of our systems and data extremely seriously.”

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Putin says Trump is right to sue BBC over speech edit

Russian president Vladimir Putin told his annual end-of-year press conference on Friday that US president Donald Trump was right to sue the BBC over edited clips of his speech.

Trump sued Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster for at least $10bn in damages over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol.

The BBC apologised to him last month, but rejected his demands for compensation and disagreed there was a “basis for a defamation claim”.

Trump’s legal team accused the BBC of defaming him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech”.

A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case.”

They added: “We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

UK imposes sanctions on perpetrators of violence against Syrian civilians

The UK government imposed sanctions on Friday on individuals and organisations it said were “linked to violence perpetrated against civilians in Syria”, including some who financially supported former president Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The government measures were targeted at individuals involved in coastal violence in Syria in March, as well as historic violence committed during the country’s civil war, the statement said.

WH Smith will try to take back as much as £7m in bonuses from former executives after it said the UK’s financial watchdog had launched a formal investigation into a devastating accounting error linked to its US business.

Almost £600m was wiped off the books to paperclips retailer’s stock market value overnight in August after it identified errors with accounting for supplier income and provision for lost stock going back to 2023 in its North American arm.

Last month its chief executive, Carl Cowling, stepped down in the wake of the scandal.

On Friday the company said it would be “applying malus and clawback to recover overpaid bonuses” from Cowling, and its former finance director Robert Moorhead, after the restatement of profits in its 2023 and 2024 financial year.

It confirmed the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority had launched a formal investigation into the company’s compliance with UK listing, disclosure and transparency rules.

Updated at 06.15 EST

Responding to news of the FCDO hack, Conservative shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel shared a Telegraph report that said the hack was Chinese and wrote on X:

“China undermines our security, institutions and democracy but Labour is failing to protect Britain from China’s foreign interference in our country.

“Starmer kowtows to China at every opportunity and cannot be trusted to protect our national interest.”

Updated at 06.00 EST

Reform accused of blocking scrutiny of claim it saved £40m

Reform-run Kent council has been accused of trying to block scrutiny after it refused, for more than five months, to produce evidence that it had saved more than £40m by cancelling two environmental projects that did not exist yet.

Polly Billington, a Labour MP in Kent, first requested background to the claim via a freedom of information (FoI) request in July. She said the subsequent delay had not been explained and seemed to show the council was embarrassed at what the documents would show.

Kent county council said it rejected any suggestion of a cover-up, and that it planned to release the information to Billington, the East Thanet MP, later this week.

UK borrowed more than expected in November amid pre-budget pressure

Richard Partington

The UK government borrowed more than expected in November, official figures show, amid pressure on the economy before chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed public sector net borrowing – the difference between spending and income – was £11.7bn last month, £1.9bn less than in the same month a year earlier.

In the first snapshot since the November budget, the reading was above City predictions of a £10bn deficit.

The figures come a day after the Bank of England cut interest rates for a sixth time since August last year, easing some of the pressure on borrowers, in a pre-Christmas boost for the UK’s struggling economy.

Elliott Jordan-Doak, a senior UK economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, said the higher-than-expected November borrowing figure showed it was “only a matter of time before fiscal worries begin to dominate the news flow again” after Reeves’s budget.

“The public finances remain weak. Reeves has staked much fiscal credibility on chunky tax increases in the back end of the forecast period. But we think today’s figures further illustrate the shaky foundations of that gamble.”

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Reform holds on to seat in byelection

Jamie Grierson

Reform UK have held on to a seat on Cornwall council in a byelection after a turbulent time for the party in the county.

The result shows support remains for Nigel Farage’s party in Cornwall despite a flurry of resignations and suspensions as well as public infighting that many said undermined Reform’s authority in the county.

Reform’s Heinz Wolfgang Glanville was elected as the new member for St Columb Minor and Colan with 408 votes, beating independent candidate John Fitter with 325 votes.

The byelection was called after Reform UK member for the division, Christine Parsonage, resigned for medical reasons. She had come under heavy criticism for living more than 40 miles away from the division.

After May’s local elections, Reform had the most seats in the county but was unable to form an administration. However, following several resignations the party no longer holds that title and is now the second biggest party by seats on the council to the Liberal Democrats, who rule in a coalition with independents.