Alex Chisholm, who led business office during Hinkley Point C negotiations, appointed UK chair of energy firm

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One of the UK’s most senior civil servants, Alex Chisholm, has been revealed as the new UK chair of the energy company EDF, after having previously run the department that struck a deal for it to build a new nuclear power station.

Chisholm was permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, and before that led the business department, which worked on the government deal for EDF to go ahead with the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset. The agreement was struck in 2016 with UK bill payers bearing the cost of the construction over a 35-year period.

George Cottrell, who was jailed in US for wire fraud, has been seen at Reform UK leader’s side over the last week

Nigel Farage is facing questions over why he is being accompanied on the campaign trail by an aristocratic friend who spent eight months in jail in the US for wire fraud.

Known as “Posh George”, George Cottrell was a volunteer for Farage in 2016 before his arrest in the US on money-laundering charges and ultimate guilty plea to one count of wire fraud in a case unrelated to his work at Ukip, Farage’s party at the time. The crime was committed in 2014, before Cottrell worked for either the anti-EU party or Farage.