Afternoon briefing Friday 27th December

This is the Times afternoon briefing for Friday 27 December. The prisons overcrowding crisis could be solved by moving inmates to open prisons, according to a senior government adviser. The former Conservative Justice Secretary David Gork is leading a sentencing review that says the lack of prison space is an opportunity for change. He told Times Radio, reoffending rates are lower in Spain, but 25% of inmates are in open prisons.

There will be some people who, you know, a closed prison is the right thing, but nearly everybody is released at some point. And open prisons can prepare people for being reintegrated into society, and less likely to commit further crimes with fewer victims.

Leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties are in a war of words over membership numbers. Kemi Badenok has accused Nigel Farage of faking a surge in membership of his party. She says a ticker that now shows more than 139,000 people have joined reform is coded to tick up automatically. The pollster Peter Kelner told Times Radio the number of Tory members has been falling for years.

That direction of trouble, I think, is significant. And it means that we are in an era of some doubt as to whether the Conservatives or Reform will be the principal right of centre or position to labour at the next election." Meanwhile, Sikhi Starmer is now more unpopular than Nigel Farage, according to new polling for the Times. Ugov found 25 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Prime Minister, compared with 28 percent for the Reform Party leader.

The United Nations was expressed to alarm a desolation between Israel and Yemen, as Benjamin Netanyahu vows he's just getting started. World Health Organization head Tedros Adnaman Gabriasos was at Yemen's international airport, as it was hit by Israeli airstrikes. Houthi-controlled media say at least six people were killed in attacks that struck multiple targets. The Iran-linked Houthis say they've been firing missiles at Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. At times his Middle East correspondence, Samera Al-Trush is in Damascus.

This is in the first time that Israel carried out airstrikes against the Houthis in response to grouping the files against Israel, but I think what they're trying to do now is to expand their target bank and hit more of their infrastructure.

So the previous air strikes focused on the ports, the time we're seeing them and some are as low as really officials have been saying that they will continue the strikes and I've been keep escalating them until they really stop firing the tiles. Two sailors have been killed in separate incidents in Australia's Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Organizers say that the first deaths in the prestigious 722 mile ocean race in 25 years. David Jacobs is vice-cometer of the cruising yacht club of Australia.

The sailing community is a very close community and there's about a thousand sailors on the water in this race and to lose two in this seppassion it's just devastating. As I'm sure you all know there were two separate boats and in both cases we believe that the member of crew was hit by a boom. A third sailor was rescued after being blown overboard in strong winds.

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