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Adele Walton: The Online Safety Act is supposed to make Britain’s internet a safe space – yet it can’t touch the site linked to my sister’s death. Stylised image of hands typing against a dark background

The Nerve Hotlist: the best culture to see and enjoy this week. Bright yellow background. Picture in the middle: portrait of Nia Archives in a fluffy coat, with colourful jewellery and purple nails

Natasha Walter: We’ve gone from climate denial to something worse – climate fatalism. Image of ostriches sticking their heads in the sand while the Earth burns around them

Text card saying: "As I get older, I find that spring is ever more galvanising...Every year I feel like I've taken a barrel-load of mushrooms, but I haven't. It's just May" Max Porter

Text card saying: 'We’ve been here before – bizarre men naming themselves king and behaving horribly': with author Max Porter, pictured in black and white holding his hands to the side, and the words 'on hope, history, and his dog'

Farage the money launderer and me: a decade of denial

In a world full of Farage’s ‘pure cold rage’, are we surprised that politicians are being killed? Stewart Lee on the Ann Widdecombe investigation. Farage pictured holding a wreath

The Nerve weekend dish: Richard Makin’s spicy tahini lime noodles, pictured with cucumber, carrot and edamame in a blue and white china plate with two spoons, on a blue tablecloth

Review of the Week: Film: The Odyssey. Dir. Christopher Nolan. In cinemas now. 5 stars. Image of Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena on a sandy beach, wearing light, flowing linen robes

Backdrop to Liz Truss walking on stage at the UK’s CPAC conference featuring the words “Liz Truss: formal Prime Minister””

The Nerve Hotlist: the best culture to see and enjoy this week. Bright yellow background. Picture in the middle: Kit Connor and Joe Locke in Heartstopper Forever, embracing at a party with balloons in the background

“Patagonia is ideal for data centres – far from complaining residents, near fresh Andean glacier water and with abundant energy from shale gas on top”

Thiel’s famous quote – “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible’ would not be out of place alongside the blathering of Argentina‘s generals

“Argentina, Milei said, will become the first nation to create “entities operated by AI agents or robots… human shareholders may participate, but are not required”

Peter Thiel, precogs and ‘non-human corporations’. Welcome to the wild world of AI Argentina

Hats off to Farage for an incredible achievement: he’s turned the rightwing press against him, by Sangita Myska. Image of Farage looking downcast

“At the heart of change is always protest”

Misan Harriman on Gaza, George Floyd and activism

Text card saying: "Burnham's constant quoting of a band rich in references to books, film and wider pop culture also stands him far apart from Farage. Farage said in a 2015 BBC interview that he was 'too busy' to read" writes Jude Rogers

Text card saying: He was looking for a job and now he’s found a job: how the Smiths and Manchester are shaping Burnham's politics, alongside a photograph of Andy Burnham, after launching his mayoral re-election campaign in April 2024, posing in front of a green door outside the Salford Lads Club

The recommender: Greentea Peng, singer-songwriter, pictured in an acid green top, sunglasses and embroidered woollen hat

Move over, Nigel – it’s time for the Bin Supremacy: Stewart Lee on the Clacton byelection. Pink tinted image of Count Binface striking ‘peace’ signs

Review of the Week: Film: Rosebush Pruning, in cinemas now. Pictured: Lukas Gage, Callum Turner and Riley Keough, reclining louchely in the film

The Nerve Weekend Dish: Zena Kamgaing’s one-pan Thai curry salmon with coconut rice, pictured in a pan and two plates on an orange tablecloth

We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth. Image of dry, cracked earth with a data centre in the background

Deborah Frances-White: No, Nigel: not all men are misogynist, and not all pubs are either. Farage, pictured drinking a pint against a black background

Sangita Myska: Burnham’s vow to deport the Rochdale gang leader is fraught with obstacles and risk. Blue and black stylised image of Shabir Ahmed

The Nerve Hotlist: the best culture to see and enjoy this week. Bright yellow background. Picture in the middle: Madonna, in a silver jacket, against a glittery silver backdrop, photograph by Rafael Pavarotti

Text card with the words ‘If these social media apps were an air fryer, they would have been recalled’: digital campaigner Beeban Kidron on Big Tech, with a picture of Beeban in a white shirt against a grey background

Neither Johson nor Harborne responded to any of the Nerve’s queries. Harborne, through his lawyers, Schillings, refused to answer our questions and threatened us with defamation proceedings, while refusing to note what, if any, of the underlying statements we sent were potentially defamatory. When the Guardian previously reported on the leaked documents Johnson said: “Your pathetic non-stories… seem mostly to be derived from some illegal Russian hack job.”

By 5 June, the story had caught the Telegraph's attention. It announced Harborne had “become [Qinetiq’s] third-biggest shareholder in less than a month” and now held 7.1% of the company, having acquired 41m shares worth £150m.

It described the company as making “robots for the military and developing top-secret laser weapons technology”.

But the Telegraph’s headline and introduction are wrong, or at least incomplete. It describes Harborne as a “major donor to Nigel Farage’s political party Reform UK” (the successor to the Brexit party). In fact, we now know he was donating – substantially – to the Conservatives, but the Electoral Commission’s quarterly reporting schedule meant that this wasn’t yet public.

But what has gone under the radar until now is Johnson and Harborne’s mutual and joint interest in advanced military technology and a British company that’s been described as the British military’s experimental testing lab: QinetiQ.

This is the backstory of how Harborne came to be not just Farage’s golden goose, but Johnson’s too. And, as with Farage, it raises the question of whether this was a relationship that went beyond politics. Because, as with Farage, they had financial ties that appear to continue after Johnson left office. In fact, two months after Johnson stepped down as prime minister, as has been reported previously, Harborne also gave him a personal gift – of £1m.

There is no public explanation from either Johnson or Harborne as to why.

Just one day earlier, he’d donated £500,000. By the standards of UK politics, this made him a whale.

Harborne owns 12% of Tether, according to US legal filings – an issuer of a so-called “stablecoin” cryptocurrency that, on paper, is worth between $45bn and $60bn. The Sunday Times Rich List estimates Harborne is worth £18.2bn, so, by his standards, £1m is less whale, more tadpole. Nevertheless, it appears to have secured him a solo Chequers lunch.

“A prominent flag-hanger has just been charged with making indecent images of children – as if the campaign’s relationship with the law wasn’t fraught enough already”: Stewart Lee on fake grassroots organisation Raise the Colours

The recommender: Tahmima Anam, novelist, pictured in a park

The Festival of Britain’s boldest dream has been forgotten. By Phineas Harper. Image: Festival of Britain site on the South Bank, London, 1951

Review of the Week - Exhibition: Ai Weiwei, pictured in front of his artwork, at Factory International, Manchester

The Nerve Weekend Dish: Jim Moore’s coconut and lime shrimp skewers, pictured served on three plates with rice and salad

Philippa Perry, against a black background: Prime ministers change, but the problems stay the same. Here’s my advice for Andy Burnham