What was Kemi Badenoch thinking defending a convicted neo-Nazi? | The News Agents

UPDATE: Since publishing, the convicted antisemite Joshua Bonehill-Paine has withdrawn as the Tory candidate, saying that if he carried "other political parties will spend all their time focusing on my past rather than the work I'm doing today, or even fighting antisemitism in their own midst". This morning, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch was in the slightly surreal position of trying to defend why she was encouraging a convicted Neo Nazi to stand as a Conservative councillor in Somerset. She and he say that he's a reformed - not Reform- candidate who's served his time (behind bars) and is now educating others on the ills of antisemitism. Can an abusive misogynist racist change in a decade? And should he be allowed to seek public office even if he has? Later - the Thames Valley police chief has threatened to take the government to court over the early release of the killers of PC Andrew Harper. Is Prime Minister Burnham feeling his first political heat over this contentious policy of early release? And how does he transition from being the emotionally connected campaigner to being the one size fits all policy maker? The News Agents is a Global Production. # #Podcast #UKPodcast #PoliticsPodcast #News #Politics #NewsAgents #EmilyMaitlis #JonSopel #LewisGoodall Download The News Agents with Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall from 5PM every weekday on Global Player: https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/42KuVj/ Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@thenewsagents The News Agents website: https://www.thenewsagents.co.uk/ The News Agents is a Global Player Original podcast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with us on the Socials! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/newsagents.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenewsagents/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thenewsagents Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenewsagentsofficial Twitter: https://x.com/TheNewsAgents