The Reform man in the pay of Russia

PLUS: When AI tried to save its own bacon | Buy your own Scottish lighthouse! | And all the best film, TV and televised sporting action to enjoy this weekend.

Author

Neil McIntosh
November 22, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

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👋 Good morning! It’s Saturday 22 November 2025. I’m Neil McIntosh, editor of The Early Line, and it’s great to have you here.

📣 You’re reading the weekend edition of The Early Line. Paying subscribers get the full version, with all six talking points and film, TV and sporting recommendations for the week ahead.

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Have a wonderful weekend, all!

🌦️ The weekend’s weather: Today looks brighter and milder across the board, and largely dry. Not so tomorrow: rain hits Glasgow early on, Edinburgh around 9am and Aberdeen all day from 7am. Inverness is expected to stay dry. London will see rain on both days. (Here’s the UK forecast).

SIX THINGS TO TALK ABOUT
The extraordinary tale of Nathan Gill and his Russian paymasters | AI and its fight to stay ‘alive’ | UEFA backs down in Scotland fan spat | You, Chancellor | Buy your own lighthouse

🍸 If you enjoy spy thrillers, and don’t have much time for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, here’s a long read for the weekend which is going to be right up your street. It’s all about Nathan Gill, jailed for ten years yesterday for taking bribes to make pro-Russia speeches during his time as a member of the European Parliament.

Gill used to be leader of Reform UK in Wales, and admitted the charges. Nigel Farage will doubtless be saying more this weekend about how he and Gill weren’t too pally - he’s already called him a “bad apple” - but according to the Guardian “multiple sources who worked with them in Brussels have told the Guardian that the two men used to be close”.

What did Gill actually say? “Looking back on them now, the public statements appear subtle,” the title reports, “but they provided the mood music in the west for a propaganda war being waged by the Kremlin to paint Ukraine’s pro-western leaders as repressive.”

So often, claims that figures are in the pay of Russia, or suggestions that events are influenced by Russian money, are dismissed as tittle-tattle: just nasty smears. Not, clearly, this time.

Upgrade to read the full Party Line, including an extraordinary tale about an AI system that tried to coerce human colleagues into not switching it off, why UEFA has said sorry to Scotland fans, ruminations on why American counterculture has turned to the right, and your chance to buy a lighthouse for less than the price of a city flat.

PLUS: find top TV, film and sporting picks for the weekend - including a multinational derby day on Sunday.

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