The Scottish Greens have to broaden their appeal beyond middle-class urbanites by talking to voters in industrial towns facing wholesale job losses, a Green leadership candidate has said.

Gillian Mackay is one of four Scottish Greens bidding to win two co-leader posts after Patrick Harvie, the UK’s longest-serving party leader, quit as co-convener earlier this year.

The pro-independence Scottish Greens are currently Holyrood’s fourth largest party, with seven MSPs, and could play a key role in the devolved parliament after next year’s elections.

The Greens prop up the Scottish National party government in Edinburgh, which does not have a majority at Holyrood and is expected to form a minority administration again next year. Recent polls place the Greens as high as 15%, suggesting they could win several more seats.

Mackay said her area around Falkirk had been devastated by industrial decline, including the closure of Grangemouth oil refinery earlier this year, yet the Scottish Greens historically had failed to connect with local voters.

The Scottish and UK governments knew Grangemouth would close, affecting several thousand jobs in the region, but had failed to put in place an industrial strategy to guarantee green jobs, she said.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has said that plans have already been formed to deploy a “reassurance force” once a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia has been agreed.

The prime minister said the UK was also drawing up further sanctions on Russia as part of an attempt to squeeze Vladimir Putin.

He said: “We’ve made some real progress today. A very important call with president Trump earlier on in relation to security guarantees, as Emmanuel [Macron] has just set out. As we’ve said all along, we the coalition, stepping up, showing what we will do, but plans we’ve put forward, credible military plans alongside that with the backing of the US. We stand ready as a coalition to support the meeting on Friday and everything I hope can flow out of it.”

He added: “We’re ready to support this, including through the plans that we’ve already drawn up to deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased. It is important to remind colleagues that we do stand ready also to increase pressure on Russia, particularly the economy, with sanctions and wider measures as necessary.

“You can see the effect of those measures already, and we in the UK are preparing our next packages of strong sanctions in that regard.”

US vice-president JD Vance has said the UK and the US “make it easier to achieve peace and prosperity all over the world”.

In a speech to American troops stationed in the UK, he said: “If you look at the long sweep of history, every time something big happens for the world, every time a great victory is won for freedom and for peace and for prosperity, it is almost always the Brits and the Americans that do it together, and we win every single time we go to war together. You guys know that as well as anybody.

“But it’s not just about going to war, and it’s not just winning when we do.

“When we work together, when we fight together, when we make it clear that we always approach every situation with an open hand - but if things go poorly, we’re willing to do what we have to do - we make it easier to achieve peace and prosperity all over the world.”

Donald Trump’s interventions over the Ukraine war have created a “viable” chance of a ceasefire but the UK stands ready to “increase pressure” on Russia if necessary, Keir Starmer has said.

In a call with allies on Wednesday, the prime minister said the meeting between the US president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin is “hugely important” with the prospect of a truce in sight, PA reported.

Co-chairing a meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” - a European-led effort to prepare a peacekeeping force to monitor any potential ceasefire in Ukraine - Starmer said: “This meeting on Friday that president Trump is attending is hugely important.

“As I’ve said firstly to president Trump for the three-and-a-bit years this conflict has been going on, we haven’t got anywhere near a prospect of actually a viable solution, a viable way of bringing it to a ceasefire.

“And now we have that chance, because of the work of the president.”

The UK readout from the European leaders’ call issued by Keir Starmer’s spokesperson stressed the “unwavering” support for Ukraine as the leaders “agreed this week marks an important moment for the future of Ukraine,” and thanked US president Donald Trump “for his efforts in bringing Putin to the table in pursuit of a ceasefire to end to the ongoing bloodshed.”

The statement added:

“The prime minister was clear that our support for Ukraine is unwavering – international borders must not be changed by force and Ukraine must have robust and credible security guarantees to defend its territorial integrity as part of any deal.

“Europe stands ready to support this and will continue to work alongside president Trump and President Zelenskyy for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine …”

It noted that the leaders would speak again after Friday.

Britain’s data protection watchdog has warned facial recognition does not operate in a “legal vacuum” and police must use it with “appropriate safeguards”, as it prepares to share findings from an audit of two Welsh forces.

A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said: “Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) does not operate in a legal vacuum.

“It is covered by data protection law, which requires any use of personal data, including biometric data, to be lawful, fair and proportionate.

“When used by the police, FRT must be deployed in a way that respects people’s rights and freedoms, with appropriate safeguards in place.

“FRT is a priority for the ICO due to its potential benefits and risks.

“We play an important role ensuring police are compliant with data protection law and that people’s rights are protected, including by providing clear guidance on the use of FRT and undertaking regular audits of police forces, so that the public can have confidence in how the technology is used.

“We have recently concluded our audit of South Wales Police and Gwent Police and will be sharing our findings shortly.”

The next mass protest in support of the banned group Palestine Action will aim to be twice the size of the last, organisers have said, as they increase pressure on the government to lift its proscription.

Last Saturday’s protest in Parliament Square was predicated on 500 people signing up but the next one, announced on Wednesday for 6 September, is conditional on 1,000 people agreeing to take part.

Defend Our Juries, the pressure group behind the protests opposing the proscription of Palestine Action, said it believed a turnout of 1,000 would be enough to get the ban lifted.

A total of 532 people were arrested at Saturday’s demonstration, all but 10 under section 13 of the Terrorism Act for carrying placards saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”

The number of people arrested for peaceful protests, their age profile – half of those arrested were 60 or older – and the strain it is putting on the criminal justice system have led many to question the ban.

A Defend Our Juries spokesperson said:

With all the real challenges facing the country, it’s crazy that the Labour government has generated a political crisis over people quietly holding cardboard signs against genocide in Parliament Square. This won’t be forgotten.

The vitriol faced by scouts and charity rowers mistaken for migrants was not an “innocent mistake”, a race equality campaigner has said, as she warned that toxic rhetoric could lead to more vigilantism and violence.

A wave of anti-migrant protests outside asylum hotels in recent weeks has been followed by growing reports of vigilantism, with people facing abuse after being mistaken for migrants.

Police have launched an investigation into an incident at a scout camp in Wales, where children were allegedly filmed and subjected to racial abuse amid unfounded speculation the site was being used to house immigrants.

Last week, Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe – formerly of Reform UK, now an independent – was accused of being part of a vigilante effort after he reported a charity rowing crew he mistakenly thought were possible “illegal migrants”.

“We’re in a really dangerous situation and the government really needs to step up to the challenge,” said Dr Shabna Begum, the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust.

We’re in quite a desperate place of despair and gloom, and that breeds the division and type of activity that we’re seeing.

We are looking at a really bleak future where, if the government doesn’t address some of the deep-seated inequalities in the country, we are likely to see more of these vigilante groups, which just breed more violence.

Reports of a vigilante group in Bournemouth have been met with alarm. More than 200 residents have supposedly signed up to Safeguard Force, which claims it will carry out uniformed patrols in the seaside town to protect “women, children and the elderly”.

Begum said this type of behaviour had been triggered by a “breakdown of the social contract” and a failure of politicians to deal with economic deprivation.

Keir Starmer has spoken with his Dutch counterpart Dick Schoof and agreed “there should be no decisions about the future of Ukraine without Ukraine” in a call on Wednesday, Downing Street said.

A Number 10 spokesperson said:

The prime minister spoke to the prime minister of the Netherlands Dick Schoof earlier today.

They discussed their sustained support for Ukraine and the ongoing work to end Russia’s barbaric war. They agreed that there should be no decisions about the future of Ukraine without Ukraine.

They looked forward to discussing further in this afternoon’s meetings alongside President Trump and President Zelensky.

It was a celebratory multimillion pound scheme to mark the beginning of King Charles III’s reign. Free portraits of the king were offered to all public bodies – every town hall, university, hospital and even jobcentre – so the new monarch’s visage could gaze down on his subjects.

The initiative would provide “a reminder of the example set by our ultimate public servant”, said the then Tory deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden.

But the current government is proving coy about where exactly any of the images of King Charles ended up after it admitted more than 46,000 public institutions had showed no interest. In what has been described as an “absurd” decision about a scheme to distribute large portraits of the king to be hung in public view, it is refusing to say which schools, hospitals and job centres did request them, saying it could “give rise to controversy” and create “negative public perception”.

More than £2.7m was spent meeting requests for the pictures and while take-up was patchy, more than 20,000 images of Charles in a medal-laden Royal Navy uniform were sent out – a 31% hit rate.

But the reluctance to reveal where they ended up has emerged from a Guardian freedom of information request which the Cabinet Office has been resisting for many months. Last October it rejected the request for the information by arguing disclosure would be an “actionable breach of confidence”. In effect it implied a public authority which requested a portrait of the king to display in public might sue the government for revealing that it had done so.

When the Guardian appealed on the grounds that “requesting a portrait of the king funded by the taxpayer for the express purpose of being publicly displayed cannot reasonably be considered a confidential matter”, it dropped that justification and changed tack to claim release would “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs”, a different exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.

It said disclosure “would be likely to trigger questions about why certain organisations requested the portrait and (by extension) why others did not” and that organisations would be distracted from operational activity by having to answer them.

The Treasury is looking at ways to increase the money it collects through inheritance tax (IHT), sources have told the Guardian.

Ideas on the table include a review of the rules on giving away assets, with one possibility being the introduction of a lifetime cap on how much an individual can donate.

Any changes would come on top of other moves the government has already made to close IHT loopholes. The Guardian’s money and consumer editor, Hilary Osborne, has written this explainer on how IHT works and what might be changing:

The former judge leading the public inquiry into the death of a black man in custody has refused to step down after the Scottish Police Federation and Scotland’s solicitor general accused him of bias.

Responding to Lord Bracadale’s decision to remain in post, the lawyer for the family of Sheku Bayoh, who died in Kirkcaldy in 2015 after he was forcibly restrained by officers, in turn accused the federation of “a deliberate and cynical attempt to evade scrutiny”.

Aamer Anwar, who has represented the Bayoh family for a decade, also said that the position of Ruth Charteris, the solicitor general who made the unprecedented intervention, was “untenable”.

Charteris and the federation had argued that Bracadale unfairly held private meetings with the Bayoh family, which indicated “apparent bias”, a claim that would have significant ramifications for other UK public inquiries if it had been accepted.

But, after a hearing that cost the taxpayer £2m, he concluded that the meetings were “private but not secret” and did not breach the right of other participants in the inquiry to be heard.

Yvette Cooper insisted there would be “safeguards and protections” governing the use of live facial recognition as she was questioned about whether its deployment could infringe on privacy.

The PA news agency reports that when Cooper was asked whether the rollout was an infringement on people’s privacy, the home secretary said:

Well, the way this technology is being used is to identify people who are wanted by the court, who maybe should be returned to prison, or who have failed to appear before the court, or who have breached things like sexual harm prevention orders, so serious criminals.

And I think being able to identify them, alongside having proper legal safeguards and a legal framework in place because there do have to be safeguards and protections, but we also need to be able to use the technology to catch dangerous criminals and to keep communities safe.

Former Holyrood presiding officer George Reid has died at the age of 86, his family have announced. He died in the early hours of Tuesday at Strathcarron Hospice near Denny, just a few miles from where he was born in Clackmannanshire, reports the PA news agency.

Flags at the Scottish parliament he helped to complete have been lowered as a mark of respect, current presiding officer Alison Johnstone announced.

First minister John Swinney led tributes to Reid, crediting him as being one of the voices that brought him into politics as a teenager.

“I am desperately saddened by the loss of the remarkable George Reid,” the first minister said in a statement on Wednesday. He added:

His passion for Scotland, his principled internationalist worldview, and his empathy for the plight of people everywhere made him a voice that could not be ignored across five decades.

As an MP, he was a trailblazing member of the SNP’s breakthrough victories of 1974. He became, for me, one of the compelling voices of the campaign for a Scottish parliament in 1979.

His was one of the voices that brought me into politics and kindled my belief in independence that has driven my adult life. I feel so privileged to have been shaped by his influence and inspiration.

George was a founding member of the Scottish parliament. More than that, after Holyrood’s difficult early years, he put aside party and provided emphatic national leadership as the presiding officer, ending the controversies over the new building and cementing the institution’s place in modern political life.

Throughout it all, his articulation of the case for Scotland deciding her own future was as compelling to me when I sat with him in his home just four short weeks ago, as it was when I was a teenager.

A Chinese firm is reportedly a leading contender to buy Thames Water if the heavily indebted company collapses in coming weeks.

Hong Kong’s CKI, which invests in power and other utility companies in the UK, is among those lining up to acquire the water and sewerage supplier if it enters a special administration regime (SAR), according to the Times.

It has reportedly said it would be prepared to operate under tougher penalties for environmental breaches than Thames’s class A creditors, who have put together their own purchase bid.

The creditor group has said the company cannot afford to operate with an expected £1bn of fines coming down the track, which are levied by the regulator for breaches such as illegally dumping sewage. In May, Thames was hit with a record £104m fine over environmental breaches involving sewage spills.

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has in recent months stepped up preparations for the possibility of putting Thames into SAR – effectively a form of temporary nationalisation.

On Tuesday the government confirmed it had appointed FTI Consulting to make contingency plans for a potential collapse. The appointment indicates that FTI is the first choice to act as administrator if the government enacted an SAR, although a court would ultimately approve such a step.

Thames, which supplies 16 million customers in London and south-east England, has been racing to pull together a deal to avoid financial collapse.

The government has been trying to avoid such an outcome, with the Treasury threatening that a potential £4bn bill from the SAR could be forced on to Reed’s department. This process would ensure that the taps stayed on for customers but would heap immediate costs on to the government.

However, the government’s Water (Special Measures) Act contains a provision for SAR costs to be recouped from customer bills further down the line.

Responding to reports that Nigel Farage would be meeting US vice-president JD Vance today, leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said last night:

Nigel Farage could use his meeting with JD Vance to tell the White House that in Europe we stand together against Putin’s aggression. But Farage won’t do that because he’s much more interested in pleasing Trump than in standing up for British values and European security.

Nasar Meer, a professor of social and political sciences at the University of Glasgow, has written an opinion piece for the Guardian today on the topic of routinely disclosing the ethnicity of police suspects.

Supporters say more “transparency” will prevent malign forces from flourishing – but the argument is profoundly flawed, he writes:

In an interview this morning, the policing minister, Diana Johnson, said she had seen facial recognition technology in action in Croydon, London, where the Metropolitan police had put together a watchlist of wanted individuals, and the list was deleted after the exercise. “So it was very tailored,” Johnson told BBC Breakfast.

She added:

There are laws about how this has to be done in terms of human rights, equalities law, data protection laws.

I think one of the concerns people, perhaps rightly, have is the need to consolidate that into one piece of legislation or one law, and that’s something we’re going to consult on later in the year, about how live facial recognition technology should be used and the oversight of it to make it as transparent as possible for the public to really feel this is something that the police are using properly.

Johnson had earlier told Times Radio:

There is quite a lot of misinformation out there about what this actually does and how it’s used.

She said:

And I know in the past, there’ve been concerns about bias, particularly around certain ethnic groups or genders or age. And the way that this is now structured, the algorithms that are being used have been independently tested, so I’m confident that the live facial recognition that we’re rolling out today actually is within the law and does not have the bias that has happened previously.

According to the Home Office, the technology will be used to track down high-harm offenders. Seven English forces will have access to 10 vans equipped with cameras, across Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire, following on from recent deployments by London’s Met police and South Wales police, reports the PA news agency.

Ch Supt Tim Morgan of South Wales police said the technology had “never resulted in a wrongful arrest in south Wales, and there have been no false alerts for several years as the technology and our understanding has evolved”.

But human rights campaigners have “concerns” about “this incredibly intrusive technology”, Shami Chakrabarti, a former director of the civil liberties advocacy group Liberty, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The former shadow attorney general said:

Some would say this is yet another move towards a total surveillance society – challenges to privacy, challenges to freedom of assembly and association, and problems with race and sex discrimination because of the higher likelihood of false matches in the context of certain groups.

She said that “the public generally understand that police powers are governed by statute, so there’s a public conversation, there are parliamentary debates and votes”, but warned there was no law specifically covering live facial recognition to gather evidence. “It’s particularly odd that this has all been developed pretty much completely outside the law,” she said.

Chakrabarti said she “welcomed” plans to consult ahead of possible new legislation, but warned that to date, “it’s been a bit of a wild west – the police procuring technology from whichever companies they see fit, the police drawing up watchlists of who they’re looking for and what level, what severity of crime should be sufficient for deployment, and pretty much marking their own homework”.

In case you missed our news story on the topic:

Police forces should consider disclosing the ethnicity and migration status of suspects when they are charged in high-profile and sensitive investigations, according to new official guidance.

After a row over claims that police “covered up” the backgrounds of two men charged in connection with the alleged rape of a child, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing have backed plans to release details of nationality when there is a “policing purpose” for doing so.

This could be to reduce the risk to public safety, “where there are high levels of mis- or disinformation about a particular incident”, or in cases of significant public interest, senior police said.

The decision to release new guidance has been praised by a former senior prosecutor, who said it could help counter rumours and disinformation which spread on social media.

But it will also anger some anti-racist campaigners, who have expressed concern that such proposals could risk framing violence against women and girls as an issue of ethnicity instead of misogyny.

The decision comes after Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, urged police to release the details of ethnicity last week.

Forces are already encouraged to publicise charging decisions in serious cases, the NPCC said.

Decisions on whether to release this information will remain with forces, an NPCC statement said, with wider legal and ethical considerations.

The Home Office will decide if it is “appropriate in all the circumstances” to confirm immigration status of a suspect, the guidance said.

Facial recognition will be used “in a very measured, proportionate way”, the policing minister has vowed.

Asked about allegations a wider rollout of facial recognition was the “thin end of the wedge”, leading to a “total surveillance society”, Diana Johnson told BBC Breakfast:

With the greatest of respect, that’s not what this is about. This is about giving the tools to our police officers to enable them to keep us safe. And the live facial recognition results in London, where it’s been used, in the past 12 months, over 580 arrests were made, and these included people who were wanted for rape, for GBH (grievous bodily harm), for robbery, for domestic abuse, and also for sex offenders who were breaching their conditions of being out in the community.

So I think this is a really powerful tool for policing.

And it’s actually a tool, it’s not an automated decision maker. So, the police officer has to look at what’s being put up on the screen and decide what to do next, so there’s that human involvement, but it is a really powerful tool, which I think the public would actually be supportive of being used in a very measured, proportionate way to go after those individuals that the police are looking for for these serious offences.