Summary

  • UK pilots take part in air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria

  • New Lib Dem leader Tim Farron sets out his plans for the party

  • Michael Gove announces plans to improve education in prisons

  • MPs Tom Watson and David Davis win High Court battle over data retention

Live Reporting

Mario Cacciottolo and Brian Wheeler

  1. Data requests

    Two judges at the High Court in London rule that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act is "inconsistent with EU law". The BBC's legal correspondent, Clive Coleman, says it permits Britain's security agencies and some other public bodies to gather information about who suspects contact by telephone or email. 

    This does not include content but does include the fact that calls and emails are made, by whom, to whom and how often. Some half a million requests are made each year for this data. 

  2. Data retention laws challenged

    The legal action was brought by former Conservative minister David Davis and Labour's Tom Watson. They challenged the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, which was fast-tracked through Parliament in three days last July. 

    It allows Britain's intelligence agencies to gather people's phone and internet communications data. 

    You can read more about this legal ruling here, and catch up on what the laws cover here.

  3. MPs win 'spying' legal battle

    Tory MP David Davis and Labour's Tom Watson, and other campaigners, have won a High Court battle against the government over laws which they say allow the police and security services to "spy on citizens" without proper safeguards.

  4. MoD's 'smokescreen'

    UKIP defence spokesman Mike Hookem MEP says the Ministry of Defence is using a "smokescreen to deceive the British people after MPs voted against British involvement in Syria". 

    He adds: 

    Not only that, but it shows the government don't want a proper debate on the long term strategy against Islamic State which requires international cooperation. Enough British soldiers have been sent to foreign wars. We need a grand coalition including the Arab nations, Russia and China."

  5. Syria strike support

    A US F-18E being refuelledAFP

    Sir Michael Graydon is a former chief of the air staff. He says that, in military terms, it made sense for British armed forces personnel, who are embedded with other nations, to take part in operations against the Islamic State group in Syria. 

    We are already engaged in Syria. We are providing intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and all sorts of things for quite some time. I think it is pretty rich to say for one moment you can be doing an armed reconnaissance in that area, somebody fires at you - 90 seconds is what it would take, possibly to go back into Iraq, where you are actually allowed to do it. My personal view is that what the government has decided, in this particular case, under these circumstances, is right."

  6. Farron's faith

    Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, newly elected yesterday, had previously revealed he had consulted God when considering whether to stand for the party leadership. He was asked on the Today programme how his religious faith would influence his thinking if his new role required him to make difficult foreign policy decisions. 

    He said: 

    It is hardly surprising that somebody of faith says prayers. But I am also of the view that everybody comes to every situation with a set of value judgments, and mine are liberal. Mine are the view that when go you into these sorts of circumstances, the decisions you make there are not based on some sort of overall theological sense of what you should do. It is based on what is right. Is it right for us to attack a sovereign country? Is it right for us to overstep a mandate that we have not been given by the electorate or by parliament?"

  7. Syria strikes an 'insensitivity'

    The news that a small number of British military pilots have been carrying out air-strikes in Syria, while working for allies in the US-led coalition, has come to light this morning. John Baron, Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay and a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, says this shows "at the very minimum an insensitivity to parliament's will". 

    He goes on to say: 

    We voted in 2013 when Parliament had been recalled from recess that there should be no British military intervention in Syria. We were told that Number 10 had got the message and any future intervention would be subject to a vote. Here we are learning that we have British military personnel engaged in air-strikes."

  8. Trident a 'Cold War relic'

    Trident submarinePA

    When asked about Trident on Today, Mr Farron said the country should have a nuclear deterrent, but it should not be "blowing £100m on a Cold War relic", adding that the money should be "invested more wisely, in more troops".  

  9. Liberal opportunities

    Tim Farron earlier told BBC Breakfast he believes there is an area of opportunity within the British political landscape for his party to move into. 

    People see that the undoubted need today is for a liberal force in British politics, and our job now is not to take our survival and our revival as something for granted that's inevitable, because it's not, but to realise that there's a massive space for us."

  10. 'Morally wrong'

    Tim FarronReuters

    The new Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, tells BBC's Radio 4 Today programme that "youngish families" on low incomes were worse off following the Budget, while the top 6% wealthiest people were better off due to a cut in inheritance tax. 

    He added: 

    That's not about making tough decisions, that's about redistributing the damage caused by the financial crash towards the poor and away from the rich. That's just morally wrong, and societies that are unequal, they're not just morally failing, they're failing in terms of their output as well."

  11. The day ahead

    Good morning and welcome to Friday's Politics Live page, keeping you up to date with the day's political developments. 

    We'll be starting off by hearing from the new Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, reporting reaction to the news that UK pilots have been involved in bombing raids in Syria, and covering a speech on prison reform by Justice Secretary Michael Gove.