The Daily Telegraph - 04.10.2026 — 2026-10-04

---

MATT

Sunday 4 October 2026

Rowan Pelling

In defence of my

family's pub Sunday

telegraph.co.uk

No 3,406

£4.00

Kane leads

England to

7-0 victory

---

The Sunday Telegraph

Tories to restore free childcare to high earners

---

Hijacker's hate rants while at UK university

Calls for greater vetting of international students after co-pilot advocated violence

By Janet Eastham, Camilla Turner and Lily Shanagher

THE co-pilot accused of an attempted jihadist terror attack on an Israel-bound passenger plane advocated violence against women and called for severe religious punishments while studying aviation at a British university, The Telegraph can reveal.

Hamam al-Hammami, 29, who is being held in Abu Dhabi after the alleged attempted hijacking on Sept 30, said women should be “stomped on” and praised giving a woman a “preemptive slap” in posts made while he was enrolled at Buckinghamshire New University. He also appeared to praise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Omani national was studying for a three-year distance-learning degree in aviation management at the university in High Wycombe, graduating in 2023.

On the day of the attack, Buckinghamshire New University said its licence to sponsor international students had been suspended by the Home Office over concerns about its compliance with sponsorship duties.

It said “many of the issues raised by the Home Office relate to historic international student recruitment activity”, and it has been given 20 days to respond before it is officially revoked.

Both the Home Office and the university told The Telegraph that the suspension was unrelated to Mr Hammami or the Flydubai attack. The Telegraph understands that there were no concerns raised or complaints made about Mr Hamammi during his time at Buckinghamshire New University.

However, the university told The Telegraph that, in response to the “material now emerging” about Mr Hammami, it would be conducting a review of his time there.

The Conservatives have now called for greater vetting of international students enrolled in online courses following the attack.

The suspected Islamist is accused of using the Boeing 737 Max's crash axe to attack Smit Machchhar, the plane's

Indian pilot, in what the United Arab Emirates prosecutor general has described as an attempted terrorist attack last week.

Israel's defence minister called it an "attempted jihadist terror attack". On Thursday, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Mr Hammami had discussed killing Jews online, saying: "His social media accounts [say] clearly that he has been radicalised into jihadist ideology. He talks about killing Jews."

The Telegraph has analysed more than 2,000 posts published between Nov 28 2021 and Aug 10 2022 by an X account which appears to be strongly linked to Mr Hammami.

Using the name “Pilot Hamam al-Hammami” and handle @PilotHamam, the account described its owner as an Omani civilian pilot from Muscat and contained biographical details matching Mr Hammami, including that his mother was Syrian.

The posts include repeated endorsements of violence against women, support for severe punishments justified by reference to Islamic law, homophobic abuse and sexual humiliation.

In one exchange, the account told a woman: “I’d stomp on your head, wipe the floor with you, make you an example to others, and then divorce you :).”

In another post, the account appeared to express support for Russia while endorsing violence against a woman. Replying to a discussion about a man striking a woman, it said: "He gave her a pre-emptive slap so she would redefine her boundaries, just as Russia slapped Ukraine to adjust its borders :)."

In the same exchange, the account linked to Mr Hammami said that if the woman “so much as breathed” around the man, he would “stomp on her head”.

In a separate post, a man said he had discovered his wife talking “badly” about him to her boss and asked whether he could make a complaint. The account responded: “Yes, but first you have to stomp on her head, make her life miserable and make her taste the bitterness of what she did.” Elsewhere, Continued on Page 6

Supporters greet Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. The Tory leader says she wants to ease the burden for those earning over £100,000

By Camilla Turner

SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR

KEMI BADENOCH has pledged to restore free childcare to high earners if she wins the next election.

The Conservative Party leader said the rules leave parents thousands of pounds worse off when their earnings exceed £100,000, meaning that working harder does not always pay.

Under the “absurd” cliff edge rules, when one parent’s earnings increase by £1 to over £100,000, a working couple could lose their entire entitlement of up to 30 hours a week of childcare support.

They also lose access to the tax-free childcare scheme, which provides working parents with financial support of up to £2,000 per child each year towards approved childcare costs.

In an interview with The Telegraph before the Conservative Party conference, Mrs Badenoch said high earners were being let down by the tax system, adding: “I want the people who get up every day, work hard – the people who are earning and are being treated as if they’re all billionaires when they’re actually just about able to get by – I want those people to know that we are on their side.” She said that Labour was the “welfare party” and it “doesn’t care about the aspiring middle classes”.

The childcare policy, which was introduced by the previous Conservative government in 2017, is one of a number of measures in the tax system that penalises those who earn over £100,000, including the removal of the personal allowance.

An estimated two million taxpayers earn above this threshold, a number that will rise to 2.3 million over the next three years, according to HMRC. Analysis shows that the number of high-earning parents keeping their income below £100,000 to retain free childcare is set to rise by almost 1,000 per cent by the end of the decade. The Tories said their policy to extend free childcare to high earners would cost £700m per year, paid for by cuts to public sector jobs.

However, they said they hoped that the cost would be much lower thanks to the extra taxable income generated. According to the think tank the Centre for British Progress, the policy could

---

‘We want to be able to free people to actually work as hard as they want to and earn as much as they can’

garner between £130m and £425m in extra revenue in 2029-30.

Mrs Badenoch told The Telegraph she “understands” the plight of so-called Henrys, which stands for “High Earner, Not Rich Yet” and has been described as the “most overlooked group in British politics”. The term refers to young professionals who are well paid but are unable to save at the end of the month owing to high tax and other expenses.

"We want to be able to free people to actually work as hard as they want to and earn as much as they can," Mrs Badenoch said. "And that actually means taking some of some of the burdens off these people - energy costs, housing costs, the cost of buying a home - all of these things are getting more and more expensive for people who earn you know from very little to middle-class income."

Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, will also announce plans to cut student loans to foreign students, which the Conservatives estimate will save taxpayers nearly £1bn each year.

A Labour spokesman said: “Labour is already helping parents with 30 hours of government-funded childcare and expanding free primary school breakfast clubs.”

Interview: Page 5

Editorial Comment: Page 17

---

Streeting: Trump right to demand Britain spend more on defence

By Rozina Sabur

NATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR in Iceland

DONALD TRUMP is “absolutely right” to demand more of the UK on defence spending, Wes Streeting has said.

The Defence Secretary said Britain must be war-fighting ready by 2030 after Nato warned that Russia could strike a member of the transatlantic alliance by that date.

In an interview with The Telegraph after a summit of defence ministers in Keflavik, Iceland, Mr Streeting said: "We want to be deterring Russia, and we want to make sure that if deterrence fails, we're ready to defeat our enemies.

“It’s why the Nato alliance is absolutely critical. Nato-first is our policy, but also it’s why I’ve been really keen to make clear to our friends in the United States of America that, as far as we’re concerned, President Trump and his administration have been absolutely right to demand more of the UK, more of Europe. We’ve got to step up and carry more of the responsibility for defending our own continent.”

He made the comments in the lead-up to the first Budget of Andy

Burnham's premiership, with Labour MPs split over calls to cut the soaring welfare bill to find the money to boost defence.

John Healey, the Chancellor, has refused to chart a path to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 despite resigning as Defence Secretary over the issue during Sir Keir Starmer's premiership.

Mr Healey has signalled he will fully fund the Government's defence investment plan in the upcoming Budget, but deferred outlining a pathway to 3 per cent to the 2027 spending review.

Despite that, Mr Streeting, his successor at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), insisted that Labour was “well on our way” to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence.

He said: “Bear in mind that when Labour came in, we were at 2.3 per cent. By next year, we’ll be at 2.7 per cent. That’s good going in a relatively short space of time.

"I totally understand the scrutiny on this issue. I'd say two things, though. Judge us by our actions: we are already investing more and more quickly. And secondly, as much as it is important that we argue for more, we also need to focus on making sure the money we already receive is well spent.”

He argued that his department needed to “focus” on productivity and providing value for taxpayers, particularly regarding defence procurement.

Mr Streeting said he felt the MoD would have “a more than sympathetic hearing” from the Chancellor.

“But at the same time we can’t be complacent and just assume that we can send John Healey’s resignation in as our spending review submission and not justify to him, to my colleagues across Government and to the public, why that investment is necessary," he said.

The Defence Secretary was speaking at the end of a week in which police arrested and later bailed a 25-year-old British-Iranian national in connection with a suspected terror plot targeting RAF Fairfield, and two Iranian small boat migrants were charged with plotting a terrorist attack against the Jewish community in Manchester.

He said Britain should be “in no doubt” about the risk the Iranian Continued on Page 4

🔗 [系统已自动跨页缝合转版续文：《Russia ‘increasingly engaged in state-sponsored terrorism’》]

Wes Streeting and Porgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, Iceland's minister for foreign affairs

regime poses to the UK and its allies, describing it as “a malevolent force”.

The Prime Minister has confirmed that the Government believes Iran played a part in the incident at RAF Fairfield, a military base shared with US forces who use it to conduct strikes on Iran.

Mr Streeting warned: “Once we’ve made concrete determinations, we will then consider very carefully what an appropriate, proportionate response would be.”

"The investigation continues by following a number of leads, but it is extremely serious," he said.

While he declined to elaborate on a potential response, the Government could consider further sanctions on Tehran, including on any individuals specifically linked to the incident.

The Defence Secretary was speaking to The Telegraph on a flight back from Iceland, where he attended a summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led coalition of 10 northern European nations dedicated to securing the High North and Baltic region.

The summit largely focused on escalating Russian threats in the region, including to critical undersea data and energy cables.

“Russia is increasingly engaged in what can only be described as acts of state-sponsored terrorism,” Mr Streeting said, arguing against the use of “anodyne terms like hybrid threat” which “sounds more benign than it actually is”.

Mr Streeting said that against the backdrop of Moscow's sabre-rattling, as well as the events of the last week, the argument for Britain to bolster its defences was clear. "I think the public can see the increasing threat picture facing the UK," he said.

“Particularly in relation to RAF Fairfield, it underscores the centrality of our relationship with the United States of America,” he said.

“That relationship makes the UK more safe, not less safe.”

---

---

Labour ‘betraying veterans to boost EU ties’

INSIDE | News Focus | 20 | Business | 23 | TV listings | 30 | Weather | 32 |

By Camilla Turner

LABOUR has been accused of “betraying” special-forces veterans in an attempt to secure better relations with the EU.

Former military generals said senior ministers were acting with “duplicity” towards the Armed Forces by trying to “ram through” the Troubles bill in Parliament while disregarding their serious concerns about its wording.

They have claimed that Sir Chris Bryant, the Northern Ireland Secretary, is prioritising the UK's relationship with the Republic of Ireland over the interests of British veterans by blocking proposed amendments to the bill, which would give former soldiers greater protection against future legal battles related to the Troubles.

In a letter to The Telegraph, four of the Army's most senior former officers accused the Prime Minister of treating veterans who served in Northern Ireland as “expendable pawns in political manoeuvres”, and warned that the Government must not “break the vital bond of trust between the soldier and the state". Legislation passed under the Tories – the Legacy Act – granted veterans conditional immunity from prosecution for their actions during the Troubles, and ended all new civil cases and inquests.

But Labour has introduced plans for an independent commission that has powers to investigate. Veterans' groups have warned that the bill leaves former soldiers vulnerable to vexatious legal claims that former terrorists do not face. One stumbling block that has emerged in discussions between Sir Chris and the retired generals is the legacy framework, which was agreed with Dublin last year. It formed part of Labour's broader charm offensive towards the EU under Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister at the time.

Ministers are understood to have advised the retired generals in recent days that parts of the Troubles bill were non-negotiable because of their Continued on Page 2

Letters: Page 17

'A May election and another Brexit referendum. With any luck AI will have wiped out humanity before then'

🔗 [系统已自动跨页缝合转版续文：《Labour ‘acting with duplicity towards Armed Forces’》]

agreement with Dublin, which aimed to “[enable] truth for families of the Troubles”. But the retired generals explained in their letter that if the legacy framework agreement needed to be adjusted, then “so be it”. adding: “It may be hard but it is also necessary.”

A source close to Sir Chris added that the framework was “markedly similar to the Stormont House agreement” negotiated in 2014, and that it was “nothing to do with resetting relations with the EU”.

They added: “It is about enabling answers for the more than 1,000 UK families who lost loved ones and still don’t know how they died, and ensuring the Irish authorities play their part in this, including through sharing information held by the Gardai.”

Staff from 2010 to 2014, said: "The framework is something that was pulled together to enable us to start to foster better relationships with the EU.

“Various measures have been put into the agreement to satisfy the Irish government, who take a republican stance. What we are told by Chris Bryant is that to revisit it would mean starting negotiation all over again.

"He has said it would take too much time. So essentially, what you've got is the government relationship with Dublin taking primacy over its sense of duty to our veterans and its future soldiers."

Sir Peter added that the “motivation to forge better relations with the EU is overriding any sense of duty” to Northern Ireland veterans, many of whom served in the SAS.

"They were operating in a civilian environment and they did some very courageous things. They were operating absolutely legitimately against the IRA's intentions," he said.

“They were thwarting some of the most extreme acts of terrorism, and they did it very successfully and eventually brought the IRA to its

Sir Chris Bryant said that veterans who had served in Operation Banner were owed ‘a huge debt of gratitude’

knees. The motive for Sinn Fein is to rewrite the campaign in history as an essential freedom-fighting response to British oppression."

Gen Sir Nick Parker, who was Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces, of the British Army from 2010 to 2012, explained that he and other retired military chiefs had spent the past year working with ministers in an attempt to secure what they believed were critical amendments to the bill.

"It is becoming very clear to us that we are not being treated as seriously as we believe we should be," he told The Telegraph. "It makes me feel that the Government doesn't understand its responsibility for the security and defence of its people.

“It doesn’t understand its contract with those who serve it.”

Sir Nick was responsible for overseeing the withdrawal of troops from the streets of Northern Ireland for the first time in more than 30 years when he served as General Officer Commanding in the UK region.

The letter is also signed by Sir Richard Barrons, Commander of Joint Forces Command from 2013-16, and

Gen Sir Chris Deverell, Commander of Joint Forces Command from 2016-19.

Sir Chris said that veterans who had served in Operation Banner were owed “a huge debt of gratitude”, adding: “There is no equivalence whatsoever between the acts of soldiers doing their lawful duty, and those of terrorists.”

He said: "The commitments we have secured for information to be shared by the Irish authorities are unprecedented, and do not in any way prevent us from doing what is necessary to safeguard our former service personnel.

“We are aware of the strength of feeling within the defence community on this topic. We remain in close, constructive dialogue with former senior officers, representatives of Regimental Associations, and the third sector, to ensure that their views and experiences are taken into consideration as this bill progresses through Parliament.”

Scan the QR code

NEWS BULLETIN

---

---

Your favourite podcast has a new YouTube channel

and

Tim STANLEY

---

ADHD fuels surge in extra time for exams

‘Victim culture and over-psychologising of society’ to blame for rise, says Cambridge professor

By Lucy Frewin and Albert Tait

THE number of University of Cambridge students awarded extra time and other exam provisions for having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has almost tripled in four years.

Some 865 of the university's students were given “reasonable adjustments” during their exams after claiming they had ADHD in the 2025 Easter term.

Adjustments can include extra time, rest breaks, or use of a computer. The number has risen from 320 in the same term in 2022, a 170 per cent jump that one Cambridge academic described as a sign of “absurd mollycoddle culture”.

Douglas Hedley, a professor of the philosophy of religion at Clare College, said: "Exams are meant to be unpleasant, no one enjoys them, but they are important in testing both knowledge and character, teaching students the ability to withstand pressure.

“This combination of the victim culture and over-psychologising of society is having an alarming effect on the workings of the university.”

Cambridge said any student who requested adjustments had to “provide evidence of a disability”.

The university also claimed that a neurodiversity screening service it had introduced for students in 2023 had contributed to the increase. The latest report by the university's exam committee revealed that almost one in four students received Examination Access Arrangements (EAAs) in the 2024-25 academic year. The number had risen to 3,507, from 2,075 in 2021-22.

EAA measures include awarding a blanket 25 per cent extra time for exams, rest breaks and the use of personal computers in handwritten exams.

The upward trend is being driven by large numbers of students receiving EAA measures for ADHD, as well as anxiety and other conditions, for which awards of EAA have soared from 473 in the Easter term of 2022 to 616 in that of 2025. Some 112 students were given adjustments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the same term in 2025, up from 52 in 2022.

Easter term is the main examination period at Cambridge.

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, who has previously written a book about the spread of “therapy culture” in society, said: “It’s now normal for people to ask for extra time, whereas 10 years ago it was seen as very rare and it would be decided on at great length because of the implications for the exam procedure. It's not surprising that people are seeking to take advantage of this and I don't see this stopping any time soon.

"In the long run, people who become so reliant on this kind of dispensation are not developing themselves academically compared to students who can work under time pressures."

University data obtained by The Telegraph through a freedom of information request have revealed that law is the subject with the largest proportion of students with EAAs. More than one in three law pupils received the adjustments in 2024-25.

A University of Cambridge spokesman said: “[A] growing recognition of non-visible disabilities such as neurodivergence and mental health issues has led to more diagnoses.

“Students at Cambridge who request any access arrangements have to provide evidence of a disability.”

In a league of his own Sir Kevin Sinfield salutes the crowd at the rugby league Super League Grand Final at Old Trafford yesterday, after delivering the tournament trophy. Sir Kevin has completed seven ultramarathons in seven days to raise another £1m to add to the millions he has already raised for motor neurone disease causes in memory of his Leeds Rhinos teammate Rob Burrow.

SWPIX.COM/SHUTTERSTOCK

---

Green-led council to introduce four-day week

A Green-led council will be the first to trial a four-day week in London.

Martin Abrams, Lambeth council leader, said he believed the policy would ensure a “better work-life balance” for employees as well as “increased productivity [and] better workers’ rights”.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "It is not government policy to support a general move to a four-day working week for five days' worth of pay.

“Councils are responsible for deciding how to use their resources, provided they are delivering the services local taxpayers need.”

---

Teenager charged after shopping centre fracas

A teenager has been charged after a 19-year-old was taken to hospital following a disturbance inside a shopping centre.

Police were called to a report of a disturbance involving a number of males in the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow city centre at around 3.35pm on Friday.

A 19-year-old man was taken to hospital following the incident. Police said a 17-year-old male has been arrested and charged following investigations into the disturbance.

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "He has been released on an undertaking and will appear in court at a later date."

---

Dutch woman wins porridge making title

A Dutch porridge champion used water she brought from the Netherlands in her recipe to claim the World Porridge Making Champion title in Scotland.

Gina Saarberg, 28, was named champion and won the Golden Spurtle at the World Porridge Making Championship, which took place in Carrbridge in the Highlands yesterday.

Ms Saarberg followed the same recipe she used to win the Netherlands championships in July, with organic pinhead oats from Dutch company De Halm, water that she had brought from the Netherlands, and salt.

This year, 30 competitors representing 14 countries took part in the competition.

---

The Sunday Telegraph

is a member of the

Independent

Press Standards

Regulated

Organisation (IPSO) and we subscribe to its Editors' Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content, please visit www.telegraph.co.uk/editorialcomplaints or write to 'Editorial Complaints' at our postal address (see below). If you are not satisfied with our response, you may appeal to IPSO at www.ipso.co.uk.

The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT

The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 4 October 2026

---

Grant told me he ‘just went mad’ on Traitors, says ousted Rajan

Former BBC presenter was ‘murdered’ in the second episode of the show by the actor and Maya Jama

By Tim Sigsworth

RICHARD E GRANT told Amol Rajan that he “just went mad” on The Celebrity Traitors.

In the first episode of the hit BBC series, the actor admitted to fellow contestants that he was a traitor, a player who attempts to “murder” others on the show while pretending to be an ordinary participant.

The declaration was a major faux pas, given Grant's primary role in the show is not to be unveiled as a traitor by other contestants.

Rajan, the former BBC Radio 4 Today presenter who was murdered by Grant and his fellow traitor Maya Jama in the show's second episode, said

Richard E Grant told Amol Rajan that he eliminated him from the show 'to protect myself'

the actor told him he “just went mad” on the programme.

He wrote in his newsletter that he asked Grant why he chose to eliminate him from the show. "To protect myself," Grant was quoted as having replied. "And that's a compliment!"

Rajan replied: "But if you really wanted protection, you should have recruited me. That would have been a compliment!"

“Ah yes, that makes sense,” Grant said. “But I think I just went mad.” Speaking on the show about his confession, Grant attributed it to “unguarded excitement” about being a traitor.

He said: “I was so thrilled to be chosen as a Traitor that, in my unguarded excitement, I said, ‘Of course, I'm a traitor.' I clearly need to diffuse all the heat that's coming in my direction."

Grant, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for his performance in the film Can You Ever Forgive Me, added: "Well, the game had actually started, I was so relieved that it started because I had been so blatant about saying I came into this thing and it's called Traitors, because I wanted to be a traitor.

“So when I walked into the bar, somebody said, ‘so you’re a faithful or a traitor?’, and I said, ‘I’m a traitor’, of course.”

Sarah Fay, the programme's executive producer, said Grant's admission was the first of its kind on the show.

“We’ve never had anything like that happen before,” she said. “I mean, within five minutes of being out of the round table, you’ve already mucked up. I still can’t believe it now. Richard E Grant, how iconic.”

Rajan was murdered on Friday's episode of the BBC reality game show, while James Acaster, the comedian, was recruited to become the series' third traitor. In Thursday's episode, Acaster and Rajan met Jama and Grant to plead their case to become a traitor rather than be murdered.

Speaking on The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked on Friday, Rajan said: "It's hard not to watch it and think I, obviously, with 20/20 hindsight, I played the wrong game. That was a crazy, crazy once-in-a-lifetime [opportunity]."

He added: “I think I would have been quite a good traitor because I’d actually known what it was like to be a faithful.”

Speaking about Grant's gaffe, Rajan said: "What was that about? I mean no one's ever done that. I mean who knows? I think the one tactic that you should try to abide by is to keep a little bit, you know, fly under the radar a little bit for the first few days. Just shut up for the first few shows."

The show's first episode became the most-watched debut episode of any of the programme's series, with an average of 8.9 million viewers.

In the series hosted by Claudia Winkleman, 21 celebrity contestants try to seek out the traitors among them who “kill off” players in the middle of the night. The first series of the celebrity spin-off debuted last autumn with an overnight audience of 6.1 million, according to the BBC.

It was a ratings winner for the broadcaster and its nail-biting finale hit a peak of 15.4 million viewers – the biggest TV audience of 2025.

The Celebrity Traitors will return on Thursday at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

News

GILBERT FLORES/WWWVIA GETTY IMAGES

Bring your daughter to work day Modelling royalty Heidi Klum, 53, and her 16-year-old daughter, Lou Sulola Samuel, at the Vivienne Westwood fashion show as a part of RTW Spring/Summer 2027 in Paris.

---

Backlash against UPFs is ‘forcing women back into the kitchen’

By Laura Donnelly HEALTH EDITOR

THE backlash against ultra-processed food risks forcing women back to the kitchen, a leading nutritionist has said.

Ian Marber, the founder of the Food Doctor, a wellness brand, said the movement against convenience foods overlooked the freedom they had given women from spending hours preparing meals for their families.

He said ultra-processed foods (UPFs) had been unfairly demonised, despite many providing affordable and useful nutrition. “I think this is a feminist thing,” he said. “UPF and processed food has allowed women not to be tied to the kitchen.

“People can get out and do other things and live your life another way, rather than being a provider for the family and cooking the whole time.”

Mr Marber said that alarm about UPFs was also giving people “one more thing for us to worry about, which we don’t need”. He said vegan burgers, nut cutlets and protein shakes could all be classed as ultra-processed, but could have a perfectly legitimate place in a healthy diet.

"There's no such thing as a bad food, only a bad diet," he told a health event in Brighton, supported by cholesterol-lowering food brand Benecol. "Some ultra-processed food is absolutely fine."

The comments come amid a heated debate about whether industrial processing itself damages health, or whether the problem lies with particular foods. Foods classified as ultra-processed generally contain ingredients or additives rarely used in domestic kitchens and include many ready meals, cereals and packaged snacks.

A 2024 review of data from almost 10 million people linked higher UPF consumption with 32 adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and premature death.

However, most of the evidence was observational, making it difficult to establish whether processing itself was responsible or other dietary and lifestyle factors explained the findings.

Britain's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) has also urged caution about the evidence. Its latest review found some types of UPF were associated with poorer health, while others, including vegetarian alternatives, were not. Results were mixed for categories including breads and cereals, dairy products, ready-to-eat foods, sauces and spreads. SACN said it was difficult to separate the effects of processing from factors including calories, nutritional quality, obesity and socioeconomic circumstances.

However, another controlled experiment found those offered an ultra-processed diet ate more calories than those given minimally processed foods.

Mr Marber said people should instead concentrate on the basics, including having enough protein and fibre, while eating food they enjoyed.

"If you don't enjoy what you eat, you won't do it for very long," he said. He also warned against obsessively tracking food through apps, suggesting they should be used only briefly, to understand calorie, protein and fibre intake.

“Then delete the app,” he said. “Otherwise, you become obsessed.”

---

Paris makes no bones about coveting the success of our Natural History Museum

By Henry Samuel in Paris

FRANCE'S 400-year-old natural history museum is looking to Britain for salvation amid warnings its historic Paris home is crumbling while its old London rival races ahead.

Founded in 1626 and located in Paris's Left Bank Jardin des Plantes, it was once the envy of the world.

But today, the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle has fallen into disrepair and needs about €1bn (£85m) for its rescue and modernisation, Gilles Bloch, its president, told The Telegraph.

While London's Natural History Museum is going from strength to strength, its Paris counterpart attracts half as many visitors and is barely on the map for foreign tourists, he lamented. "It's as if we don't exist," Mr Bloch said.

A huge bone of contention is funding: nearly three-quarters of its buildings require urgent attention. In the abandoned reptile pavilion, the ceiling is caving in, the floor is subsiding and 35 staff were evacuated from rooms above. Roofs leak, walls crack and mould threatens collections. Mineralised bones have deteriorated in heat and humidity so badly that they can “literally explode”.

The famed gallery of palaeontology and comparative anatomy has been

The National History Museum in London, above; Paris's venerable equivalent, far right, was founded in 1626

shut for a two-year programme of works after falling short of modern safety standards. Even before then, heatwaves could turn the air conditioning-free gallery into such a furnace that it closed to stop visitors keeling over.

“I could cite dozens,” Mr Bloch said of other problem areas.

He said €500m was needed simply “to preserve what we have” and reopen shuttered spaces, with another €500m required to modernise the estate.

Meanwhile, across the Channel, Britain is spending £20lm on a new Natural History Museum science and digitisation centre near Reading, housing 28 million specimens, plus £155m on digitising natural-science collections nationwide.

"The UK is a country with roughly the same population and roughly the same GDP as France, and has regarded natural history for quite a few years now as ‘big science’," Mr Bloch said.

"The British are accelerating," he said. "First of all because the British state is at their side. That's what inspires confidence."

Unless France acts, he warned, “we’ll be overtaken by the UK and the Americans”.

It is the latest setback in a centuries-old Anglo-French contest shaped by war and empire. Paris had a head start: its museum was founded 255 years before London's opened.

The Revolution and Napoleon then helped it surge ahead, filling the new national museum with specimens from expeditions and the spoils of conquest.

But after Waterloo the tide turned. Some captured collections had to be returned, while Britain's expanding empire began funnelling specimens into London on an enormous scale. By the later 19th century, London had become Paris's great rival. Today

London has more than 80 million specimens to Paris's 68 million. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC has 148 million.

London also welcomed a record 7.1 million visitors last year, roughly twice the French institution's 3.5 million. That grates because Mr Bloch insists Paris remains an “exceptional” museum, unmatched in the combination of its collections, gardens and architecture. While he “loves” London,

'The [UK is] accelerating because the British state is at their side. That's what inspires confidence'

it is “tiny, hemmed in and absolutely crammed full”. He wants five million visitors within five years and to catch London within 10. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t achieve that,” he said.

One Briton already needs little persuading. Mr Bloch welcomed the King during the 2023 state visit and the royal visitor spent about 45 minutes examining plants and discussing botany.

"He's charming," Mr Bloch said. "He really knows his stuff."

Home is the hunter HMS Agamemnon, the latest of the Royal Navy's six Astute-class hunter-killer submarines, has arrived at her home port of HM Naval Base Clyde. Since leaving Barrow in Cumbria, the crew of about 100 Royal Navy submariners have been putting the hi-tech vessel through her paces at sea. HMS Agamemnon's keel was laid in July 2013.

Cabinet raises alarm over bank tax proposal

---

Ministers fear Chancellor's plans for a windfall raid could flatten growth and damage businesses

By Camilla Turner

SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR

CABINET ministers have raised concerns about higher taxes on banks, warning they would damage business and dampen growth.

John Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is considering the policy as the Budget approaches in an attempt to plug a £4.7bn hole in the public finances while seeking to avoid direct tax increases on individuals.

He has summoned banking chiefs to a summit on Tuesday, which will be their first in-person meeting since he entered Noll.

The chief executives of lenders including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest Group have been invited to the meeting. Mr Healey will be in “listening mode” during the summit, according to Treasury sources who said the event forms part of his regular engagement with the sector.

But there are growing fears in the banking industry that Mr Healey will launch a billion-pound tax raid on the sector to fund public spending. Senior ministers told The Telegraph they are against a tax on banks, as they believe it would send the wrong message to businesses looking to invest in the UK.

They also think it would be unhelpful for the Prime Minister's drive to boost growth, particularly given the widespread tax increases at the last Budget.

One minister cautioned it was unwise to tax “everything at once”, noting that businesses were already struggling with the increase in business rates and National Insurance contributions.

The Telegraph has also learnt that Treasury officials are preparing a series of “good news” stories to be announced in the run-up to the Budget. These include measures that banks have been lobbying for, leading some insiders to suspect an attempt to shore up goodwill before a major tax raid on bank profits.

Hitting companies while shielding

---

Tax burden expected to hit new highs

SOURCE: OFFICE FOR BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY

‘One minister cautioned it was unwise to tax everything at once’

individual taxpayers would allow Mr Healey to regain fiscal headroom damaged by high gilt rates and the impact of the war in Iran, while also raising a few billion pounds to spend on defence and other priorities.

One option under consideration would be for the Treasury to launch a time-limited “windfall” tax on banking profits, modelled on a similar policy that has been applied to oil and gas giants since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Rachel Reeves resisted calls for more tax on lenders during her spell as chancellor, calling financial services “the crown jewel in the UK economy”, and encouraging regulators to relax rules in the City.

UK Finance, the financial industry's trade association, has urged Mr Healey not to launch any further taxes on banks, warning they could drive investment away from the City of London.

In a letter to the Chancellor in August, the sector warned against a “damaging” raid on the industry.

British banks already pay one of the highest tax rates in the world at nearly 47 per cent, according to UK Finance.

It pointed out that banking “accounts for over £1 in every £25 of economic output”, and that the UK tax environment played a “meaningful role in decisions about where individual banks invest, deploy capital and allocate jobs”.

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan, has also warned Mr Healey that raising taxes on UK banks could trigger staff to move abroad. He said in

‘The chief executive of JP Morgan has warned that raising taxes could trigger staff to move abroad’

an interview earlier this year that there would be “adverse consequences” if Labour targeted lenders with fresh windfall taxes.

Sir Howard Davies, the former chairman of NatWest, also cautioned against a move that he believes risks sending banking activities abroad.

The top four UK banks have dramatically outperformed the rest of the economy in the past year, posting an average 21 per cent increase in profits in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.

Treasury officials said the Government kept bank taxes “under review”, and that Mr Healey was “fully focused” on his priorities, which were to give families and businesses “a bit of breathing space”, as well as backing British jobs and growth. These priorities would be underpinned by a commitment to meet fiscal rules, they added.

A Treasury spokesman said: “As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the Chancellor to set out at fiscal events, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals.”

---

PM has already run out of ideas, says Badenoch

EDDIE MULHOLL AND FOR THE TEL EGRAPH-

Camilla Turner

SUNDAY POLITICAL

EDITOR

---

Tory leader says Burnham has blown any chance of negotiating with the EU by showing his hand too early

KEMI BADENOCH has many words to describe the Prime Minister and his plans to reverse Brexit: he is “lazy”, he is “living in the past” and his attempt to turn back the clock shows that, despite only having been in Downing Street for 10 weeks, he has already “run out of ideas”.

But perhaps her most damning criticism of all is that, on top of everything else, Andy Burnham has shown he is a poor negotiator.

In an interview with The Telegraph ahead of the Conservative party's annual conference in Birmingham, Mrs Badenoch did not hold back in her criticism of the man she hopes to unseat at the next election.

“He has not had to do a single international trade negotiation. As a former trade secretary, I can tell you that he has already ruined his negotiation hand by telling the EU everything that he wants to do. So he doesn’t even know how to negotiate,” she said, adding: “He’s not going to get Margaret Thatcher’s rebate back.”

Last week, Mr Burnham announced to rapturous applause from Labour's party faithful in Liverpool that he plans to review Britain's relationship with the European Union, arguing that "Brexit has done more harm than good" and revealing he would set out "different options" to bring the UK closer to Brussels later this year. The following day, he used an interview with the BBC to go even further, declaring that the UK could go "all the way" towards rejoining the EU.

Speaking to The Telegraph from her office in parliament, Mrs Badenoch delivered a withering verdict on his plans. “Andy Burnham is living in the past. I wasn’t even an MP when we voted to leave the European Union. I voted Leave. The country voted Leave. And what they want politicians to do is make it work rather than still trying to go back into the EU,” she said. “It is lazy. It is lazy thinking from somebody who has run out of ideas and wants to refight the battles of the past.”

The Tory party leader said that, meanwhile, she will be “fighting every step of the way to make sure that we’re focused on the future”, adding: “We’ve left the European Union. End of story.”

Reversing the Brexit vote is not the only aspect of Mr Burnham's vision for Britain that Mrs Badenoch opposes. The Prime Minister's plan to rip up the triple lock by 2030 to pay for an NHS-style care system is another major area of disagreement.

"My thinking has not changed," Mrs Badenoch said. "The triple lock was brought in because in 2010 the

Ahead of the party conference, Kemi Badenoch wants to present the Conservatives as a changed party with fresh ideas and fresh faces

coalition government saw a lot of pensioner poverty. If we were growing at two or three per cent, nobody would even be talking about the triple lock. It is a symptom of something more fundamental, which is that our economy is not growing. So I want to deal with the root cause, not the symptom. The root cause is people who can work are not working. Our economy is being sluggish and unproductive."

Mr Burnham initially presented axing the triple lock as something which he would put in his manifesto, and enact if Labour won the next general election. But No10 then said that the Government will legislate for the change during this parliament.

"I think the fact that Andy Burnham's words are already being clarified shows that he hasn't thought them through," Mrs Badenoch said. "He claims that he wants to use that money to set up the national care system. It won't even touch the sides. The amount that he will get from the triple lock between now and 2050 is less than what he would get from sorting out welfare in this parliament.

“Welfare is going to be increased during this parliament far more than the triple lock bill up till 2050. But either way, what he is saying shows that his sums don’t add up.”

It is not just Labour's domestic policies that Mrs Badenoch is troubled by. She noted that the Government's decision to launch sanctions on the West Bank came “the day after Israel had just warned them about threats to the lives of British people”.

She added: "Israel is one of our closest security allies. They save lives, and the Government pretends that doesn't happen. What worries me more is that it's one thing to not want to be close to Israel. It is another thing to ignore the threat from Iran. This is a country that has made threats to the UK. The Government has just talked about how the RAF Fairfield plot was actually something that the Iranians were organising.

"Why was our Foreign Secretary shaking hands with the Iranian foreign minister like they were best buddies? I think that that's wrong."

Mrs Badenoch's overarching mission is to present her party as one which is looking forward, and presenting well thought-through policy solutions to Britain's problems. She wants voters to know that she is changing the Conservatives, with fresh ideas and fresh faces sitting around her

‘It is lazy thinking from somebody who wants to refight the battles of the past’

shadow cabinet table. She would not, for example, allow former prime minister Liz Truss to run as a Tory MP under her watch. Earlier this year, Ms Truss said she wouldn't rule out a political comeback.

But Mrs Badenoch was quick to shut down that possibility, saying: "I think that Liz Truss is someone who is a figure from the past. I want people to see that the Conservative Party has changed, and so we are looking to the future. There are many things that happened over the years that people were disappointed by.

"I want them to see a party that is moving forward with new people, fresh ideas, but holding on to the long-standing principles that have meant that we have been the longest-serving political party in the history of Western democracy."

🔗 [系统已自动跨页缝合转版续文：《Co-pilot lost Oman airline job over ‘extremist views’》]

the account called a man a “coward and a scoundrel” for failing to violently assault his wife after catching her speaking to another man. “Anyone else would have stomped on her head and made her an example to others,” he said.

In another exchange, the account said women had become emboldened because they were “safe from punishment”, before saying that in parts of the Middle East a woman who displeased her husband would be “put to sleep with a slap and woken up with a slap”.

In an exchange in August 2022, one woman challenged stereotypes about Syrian husbands assaulting their wives. The account told her to “shut up” and marry a Syrian if she disliked Saudi men. He wrote that he had lived in Syria for seven years, before writing: “a Syrian [man] gets you up with a slap and puts you to sleep with a slap.”

It added that such a husband would “make you see stars in broad daylight and wipe the floor with you”, before adding: “And this is the appropriate way to deal with your type.”

The account also invoked Islamic law to argue for severe criminal punishments. In one post, its user argued that a man accused of blackmailing women deserved execution rather than five years in prison. He then quoted a passage in the Koran referring to offenders being “killed or crucified” or having their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides.

In one exchange, another user said a husband should take his “marital right” to sex “by force” and, if his wife objected, make her seek a divorce. The account linked to Mr Hammami replied that the husband had allowed his wife to become domineering and wrote: “If he had stomped on her head she would have been obedient with him.”

It also described women he disapproved of as “cheap meat devoured by anyone and everyone”.

All of these posts were published during the period in which Mr Hammami was studying remotely at Buckinghamshire New University.

A former lecturer who taught aviation courses at the university during that time told The Telegraph that Mr Hammami's name "doesn't ring a bell at all". "When we do all this online, a lot of people don't show up," he said, adding this was particularly true for working pilots. Lectures were recorded so students could watch them later, meaning some distance-learning students could have very little direct contact with lecturers, he added. The former lecturer said the distance-learning course had an international intake, with students from countries all over the globe.

According to the university's website, the course covers “background operations, logistics, security and management of the aviation industry.”

Captain Smit Machchhar, who helped foil his co-pilot's attack on the Flydubai plane last week despite being badly injured, is thanked by Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Latest official figures show Buckinghamshire New University had 1,530 non-UK students enrolled in 2024-25, accounting for eight per cent of its 18,490 student population. Of those, 1,240 were from outside the EU.

Yesterday, CNN reported Mr Hammami was removed from a previous job at Oman's national airline last year following concerns about his extremist views. A LinkedIn profile matching the attacker's identity seen by CNN states he worked at Oman Air until February 2025. It reported that two posts published on his profile nine hours after the attack contained terrorist images. A video of Israeli airline jets was played before a photo montage which includes a suicide bomber and Ayman Al Zawahri, who has led al-Qaeda since the death of Osama bin Laden.

It is not clear how the posts were published, or whether they had been pre-scheduled.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, told The Telegraph: "Our national security requires universities to be more vigilant about who is studying with them. Even those on online courses can influence others and use their British university credentials. Universities should therefore do more vetting as part of their admissions process."

The alleged hijacking has also been seized on by al-Qaeda supporters for propaganda purposes, although there has been no claim of responsibility.

The latest edition of Al-Bayan, a weekly publication produced by al-Qaeda supporters in the Arabian Peninsula, leads with the Flydubai incident under the headline: “Between 11 September and 30 September.” It describes the incident as an attempted hijacking of a “Zionist-Emirati” aircraft carrying dozens of Israelis. The comparison refers to the Sept 11 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Mr Hammami had reportedly come to the attention of aviation and security authorities before the Flydubai attack.

Hamam al-Hammami studied aviation management at Buckinghamshire New University

It has emerged that in 2024 Mr Hammami was barred from flying by Oman over security concerns. US media reported that he had been found with extremist material and had visited radical Islamist websites, although he continued working for Oman Air in an administrative role.

He later trained with Royal Air Maroc in 2025, but the airline said his application to work there was rejected. He is believed to have joined Flydubai in early 2026.

The Telegraph has approached Oman Air, Flydubai and Royal Air Maroc for comment.

A Buckinghamshire New University spokesman told The Telegraph: "As a matter of policy, the university does not comment on the records, activities or circumstances of individual current or former students beyond information already in the public domain.

"This individual completed a distance-learning course focused on aviation operations including mergers, acquisitions, sustainability, and financial performance. He did not undertake any pilot training at Buckinghamshire New University.

“Admission to this distance-learning programme was based on standard university entry requirements.

“Separate vetting and clearance requirements apply to pilot training involving access to Security Restricted Areas (SRAs) at commercial airports. Comprehensive security, regulatory and employment checks are undertaken separately as part of pilot training, airport accreditation and applications to fly for an airline or commercial operator.

"The university has safeguarding, Prevent and student conduct policies in place and takes its responsibilities in these areas seriously. We keep these policies and procedures under regular review and work closely with relevant statutory agencies where appropriate.

“In light of the material now emerging, the university will take appropriate steps to review any relevant information relating to the individual's period of study.”

In response to the suspension of the university's licence to sponsor international students, a BNU spokesman said: "Since the appointment of a new vice-chancellor and executive team in 2025, the university has strengthened its governance, compliance and oversight arrangements, with many improvements implemented before the UK Visas and Immigration audit took place this year."

---

---

Farage's safety concerns have been ignored for years, says Tice

By Sabrina Miller

WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT

NIGEL FARAGE has “not been listened to” over his safety concerns, Richard Tice has said, after the man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe was also charged with a terror plot against the Reform leader.

Joshua Kerry, 28, has been charged with one count of preparation of terrorist acts relating to alleged activity between May 31, 2024 and July 8, 2026, Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) said.

Mr Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader, said the allegations were “upsetting for those of us in and around [Mr Farage]”, and would make politicians take potential threats against them more seriously.

Ms Widdecombe, 78, the Reform spokesman and former Tory minister, died on July 8, after she was hit over the head with a hammer 21 times at her home in Haytor on Dartmoor, Devon, a court previously heard.

Mr Kerry, of Rotherham, South York-

Richard Tice, Reform's deputy leader, said politicians would have to take potential threats more seriously

shire, is accused of her murder, and is due to appear at Westminster magistrates' court on Wednesday.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Tice said: "When, actually, things occur that are very close to home, so to speak, it's pretty shocking. [Mr Farage's] security and the risks to it, he's talked about over many times... over many years.

“And I think what’s particularly upsetting for those of us in and around him is sometimes he’s not being believed, not being listened to.”

Asked if Mr Farage had met the Home Office to discuss his security, Mr Tice said: "The information and intel I now get about the threats in and around myself and others is a very significant shift in the approach taken by the authorities, and we appreciate that."

In August, CTP reopened a year-long investigation into an alleged firebomb attack at Mr Farage's home in south London.

CTP London said it identified a line of inquiry which had not been “identified and pursued by them at the time”.

---

Tories pledge £1m to remove 'dangerous' floating bus stops

By Steve Bird SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

THE Tories have promised to ban new floating bus stops and remove the most dangerous ones.

The party's election pledge would strip councils of funding for the controversial stops, where pedestrians have to “run the gauntlet” by crossing a cycle lane to reach a bus.

Under the proposals, communities will be invited to nominate “the most dangerous” bus stops, with up to 100 being removed within four years.

The bus stops were designed to prevent cyclists from overtaking buses, but research has shown that most cyclists do not give way at the zebra crossings on each side of the stop. Elderly and disabled people have complained that they risk being hit by cyclists. Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said: "Anyone who has watched a blind passenger with a guide dog try to cross a stream of bikes... knows these designs should never have left the drawing board.

“Labour have been told to stop build-

---

£10,000

The estimated cost to remove a single floating bus stop, including rerouting or closing the cycle lane

ing floating bus stops, yet they have allowed them to carry on. Cyclists deserve safe roads, but not at the expense of the blind pensioner who simply wants to get into town."

He added that he would enforce statutory guidance which stipulated that pedestrians should not have to cross a cycle lane to board or alight from buses.

The Telegraph revealed in February that the British Standards Institution said in 2018 that “pedestrians should have access to and from the bus stop without crossing cycle routes”.

The Tories said they would set up a £1m “community-led” fund to identify which stops posed the most risk. Others would be phased out when local authorities carried out routine road repairs.

The party would set aside £250,000 a year for four years to fund the removal of as many as 100 floating bus stops. It is estimated it would require £10,000 to remove a single bus stop, including rerouting or closing the cycle lane.

Councils would then be required to review other stops and “repair or redesign” them “whenever practicable”.

---

Cleverly: I'll fight Burnham's war on London

By Sabrina Miller

WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT

SIR JAMES CLEVERLY has taken aim at Andy Burnham's “war on London” with a pledge to fight the Prime Minister's new tax policies.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the prospective Tory candidate for Mayor of London has said he will challenge Mr Burnham if he lowers the threshold for the so-called mansion tax from £2m to £1.5m in the Budget.

Sir James, who resigned from Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet to launch a long campaign for City Hall, also urged the Chancellor, John Healey, not to increase capital gains tax (CGT) or to impose a windfall bank tax, warning that measures such as these would disproportionately “squeeze London”.

He also criticised the introduction of a tourist tax, which has been proposed by Mr Burnham and backed by Lord Khan, the current London Mayor.

Sir James, the Tory MP for Braintree, said: “The new Prime Minister is scrambling around for new taxes to raise because he has no plans for growth, but his proposals will hit London hardest. CGT, banking taxes,

hotel-room tax and family homes tax will all fall disproportionately on London, the engine of our country's growth. He must not keep squeezing London."

Mr Burnham and Mr Healey are understood to be considering a range of new tax measures in the run-up to their first Budget later this month.

Among the options being considered by Labour include the equalising of CGT with the top rate of income tax (45 per cent), a windfall tax on banking profits and the lowering of the mansion tax threshold.

Mr Burnham is also expected to give England's mayors the power to impose an uncapped levy on tourists staying overnight in their regions.

Sir James said: “Ultimately, everything that I’ve heard from Andy Burnham and everything that I’ve seen this government do indicates to me that he is demonstrably anti-London.

“What London needs is someone that will be a passionate champion. And the truth is – and we’ve seen this, now, with Sadiq Khan – is that a Labour mayor will not stand up for London if it means standing up to Andy Burnham.

tourist tax. London is the most visited city in Europe. We should be building on that, not undermining it."

He added: “Andy Burnham looks at London and only sees a cash cow. Londoners already give almost £5,000 each a year in taxes to provide public services to the rest of the country.

“Labour’s unfair funding formula takes yet more money out of well-performing councils to give to

---

'Everything I've heard from Andy Burnham indicates to me that he is anti-London'

worse-performing ones elsewhere, on top of tax hikes that disproportionately hit London again.

"I will do whatever I can to ensure London gets to keep more of its own money, and to lift the arm of Whitehall off Londoners' backs.

"If Andy Burnham really believes in devolution, he should let London keep more of the money it raises."

Sir James has also promised to crack down on crime by recruiting more

police officers and rolling out more technology, including live facial recognition, predictive crime-mapping and AI.

“My plan is to have more police officers... and to make sure the police officers we have are out policing and doing so effectively,” he said.

The former home secretary also claimed he would “demand” that security guards and Transport for London (TfL) staff “take action” to root out petty theft and criminality.

He said: “When they see people skipping fares, when they see people [committing] antisocial behaviour, when they see people breaking the rules, they should feel that when they take action – and I’m going to demand that they do – that I’ve got their back.

“So whether it’s a member of the TfI staff, or whether it’s a member of the security in shops, I want people to know that if they do the right thing, that I will have their back.”

When asked if he would personally stop a shoplifter, Sir James said he would, but acknowledged that he was a 6ft lin, rugby-playing, former Army member, and would not necessarily encourage everyone to do the same.

EDDIE MULHOLLAND FOR THE TELEGRAPH

Sir James Cleverly wants London to be able to keep more of the money it raises

---

[The Telegraph] Stay perfectly informed at home

Read the full Telegraph newspaper on your phone or tablet, free for your first month - then half-price for your next three months.

Download our Digital Edition app to enjoy all the trusted, award-winning journalism that you would in our printed newspaper, from expert coverage of health and politics to all of your favourite supplements, including Stella and Travel.

Start your free trial today at

---

The Daily Telegraph

Scorchio! The coolest way to beat the heatwave

In Features

Third time lucky

Our wedding was

corona-cancelled ...

again

In Features

Lockdown blues

Has Covid given you

'low-grade depression'?

In Features

---

Exam U-turn as pupils win reprieve over appeals

Schools will be allowed to challenge unfair grades after backlash over marking system

< Editions

---

EDUCATION EDITOR

challenge "unfair" A-level and GCSE or changed its stance in the face of a

ble to appeal against results in

ieve students are incorrectly marked

selling being used to calculate the

wake of the Scottish results fiasco

ted grades were downgraded by the

ity.

Graph revealed that head teachers in pupils faced being handed a "life owed to appeal.

Id break loose" on A-level results day permitted.

lations and Examinations Regulation as softened its stance.

Education Secretary, said he welcomed system, adding that no pupil should receive unfair grades.

---

Who needs Stokes when you've got Woakes!

Mr Motivator

Boris Johnson works out at The Gym in his Uxbridge constituency after urging people to 'have the confidence' to return to their workplaces, and to send their children to school to aid the UK's economic recovery

England pull off another miraculous comeback as all-rounder and Buttler inspire astonishing run chase to defeat Pakistan

Rugby is back

Your complete guide as the RFU confirms the season restart

Pep talk

'This is Manchester City's World Cup'

---

rising Covid cases in

1 Chazan IN PARIS

ow of illegal migrants in

Hardy

MATT

---

Call to scrap jail discounts for offenders who plead guilty

By Charles Hymas HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

Windsor Castle opens its secret garden after 40 years

By Victoria Ward

Gunman dies in crash after village shooting

A parish councillor was shot at his home in a quiet Hampshire hamlet before the summer fled

Bank says jobs outlook is better than expected

Fewer jobs will be destroyed by the coronavirus crisis than first feared, but Dritain's fragile

---

[telegraph.co.uk/pressreader] Terror plot suspect's ‘asylum bid in Germany’

Iranian migrant arrived in UK on small boat before alleged plan to hit Jewish community in Manchester

By Patrick Sawer

SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

AN Iranian small-boat migrant accused of plotting a second terror attack on Manchester's Jewish community on Yom Kippur previously claimed asylum in Germany, a court has heard.

Salam Ahmadyan, 36, and Rahman Salehi, 34, were held by counter-terrorism police in Manchester on Sunday, Sept 20, the day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The men, who came to Britain illegally, appeared at Westminster magistrates' court yesterday morning, charged with engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts.

It was also alleged that the two suspects, one of whom was based in

Salford, the other in Liverpool, were communicating about the plot with a third party, who might be in Iran.

There were fears that any alleged plot may have been timed to coincide with the anniversary of last year's terror attack at Heaton Park synagogue, in which two worshippers died.

Mr Salehi arrived in Britain via small boat in 2020 after having previously claimed asylum in Germany, where he spent five years, the court heard.

He was granted asylum in the UK in 2023. He currently has leave to remain until July 2028.

Mr Ahmadyan also arrived via small boat in 2023. He has an outstanding asylum claim, the court heard.

Mr Ahmadyan and Mr Salehi appeared in the dock wearing grey prison-issue sweatshirts and tracksuits, speaking only to confirm their names, ages and addresses.

The charges state that on or before Sept 20, 2026, Mr Ahmadyan and Mr Salehi communicated with others using encrypted applications to acquire com-

Salam Ahmadyan, left, and Rahman Salehi were remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey

ponents to build a homemade explosive device, and acquired a document entitled “Steps for making [a] powder chlorine and car brake oil/fluid bomb”.

It is also alleged that they acquired liquids, components and equipment required to manufacture or assemble an improvised explosive device; used the internet to identify and research potential targets for attack; acquired images, plans and maps of potential targets for attack; and conducted reconnaissance of potential locations in the Jewish community for attack.

These included Heaton Park synagogue, the Jewish Museum in Manchester and a Jewish school in Salford.

Mr Ahmadyan and Mr Salehi were arrested on Sept 20, in Newton Street, Manchester and were subsequently taken to a London police station.

Referring to the plot allegations against Mr Ahmadyan and Mr Salehi, Mark Luckett, prosecuting, told the court: "They were in contact with a third party who is alleged to have provided information on how to assemble a homemade device. It is assessed that this individual is also an Iranian national operating within Iran."

District Judge Nina Tempia remanded the two men in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on Oct 23.

Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, confirmed earlier that both men

‘They were in contact with a third party... it is assessed that this individual is also an Iranian national operating within Iran’

had come to Britain on small boats and said that the country faced “serious threats from the Iranian regime”.

A government spokesman said that the Home Office was monitoring the criminal proceedings closely, and would take any appropriate immigration action once they had concluded.

Dept Asst Commissioner Vicki Evans, the senior national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing (CTP), said: "This investigation has led to the disruption of what we believe to have been a plot targeting the Jewish community in Manchester. I would like to reiterate that we do not believe there to be any ongoing threat to the public."

She added: “This week also brought into sharp focus some of the wider threats being projected into the UK from Iran. While this incident and the investigation into the RAF Fairford incident are not connected in any way, I want to reassure the public that CTP, working with our national security partners, are using the full range of our capabilities to protect the UK.”

---

Civil servants help charity that backed lying migrants

Home Office staff were volunteering with group who worked with asylum seekers posing as children

By Noah Eastwood MONEY REPORTER

CIVIL servants working for Britain's immigration system volunteered with a charity that helped adult migrants posing as children to enter Britain.

Home Office staff spent two days in February with Care4Calais, a British asylum charity that separately tried to persuade judges that balding and wrinkled asylum seekers were children.

The visit was organised by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) as part of a campaign to give asylum seekers in the Channel the same rights as Ukrainian refugees.

In a video promoting the volunteering trip, one PCS official called for Labour to introduce a plan to end the “humanitarian disaster” unfolding at Britain’s borders.

Trade union representatives in the video, who are employed by the Home Office, criticised dehumanising “rhetoric” about migrants that focused on the “numbers” of people on small boats.

On Facebook, the union had sent that its members to spend their time “volunteering alongside Care4Calais”.

About eight PCS members cooked meals and handed out fleeces at a migrant camp in Calais during the trip.

Karen Alderson, a union representative and Passport Office worker, said in the video that migrants were living in “desperately sad” conditions.

She added: “It’s important that we have a presence here. A lot of our members work in asylum and the way we hear it reported in the media, it’s all about numbers [but these are] people.”

Jordan David, another participant from the Home Office, says: "We often find ourselves in meetings talking about the asylum situation in the UK and

France in particular, but none of us has that real hands-on experience of what it's like to work with refugees."

Civil servants who volunteered were representing the PCS, rather than the Government, using trade union rules that allow public-sector workers to participate in union activities.

They were joined by full-time PCS staff who are not civil servants, including Fran Heathcote, the union's general secretary, and Mike Jones, group secretary for Home Office union members.

Last month, The Telegraph uncovered a string of cases in which Care-4Calais helped dispute official assessments of migrants' ages. In one case, a Sudanese man in his 20s was put in children's accommodation after the charity referred him to a council. The PCS is lobbying ministers to adopt its

---

‘We talk about asylum but none of us has the hands-on experience of working with refugees’

“Safe Routes” policy, which it developed with Care4Calais, which would implement a “Ukrainian-style” visa system for Channel migrants that would give them the right to live, work and claim benefits in Britain.

A PCS spokesman said: “The purpose of the visit was to allow PCS representatives working within the Home Office, including those representing PCS members working in the asylum and immigration system, to gain a better understanding of the realities facing refugees, asylum seekers and the organisations providing support.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We expect all employees to meet the highest standards expected of them.”

A Care4Calais spokesman previously defended the charity's work and said "the real scandal" was cases in which child migrants were incorrectly judged to be adults by the state.

Cuban zeal Jaime Winstone and Carlos Gu perform a cha-cha to Oh, Pretty Woman from the 1990 film, Pretty Woman, for movie week on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing last night.

---

Sixth man bailed over alleged RAF base terror plot

By Telegraph Reporter

AN Iranian man who was held in connection with a suspected terror plot at RAF Fairford has been released on bail.

The 25-year-old, a UK-Iranian dual national, was arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

He was arrested on Thursday in Westminster, London, where searches of two properties have now concluded. The investigation is still ongoing, Counter Terrorism Policing added.

Five British nationals, all in their mid-20s, had previously been arrested on suspicion of explosives offences and terrorism and then bailed, after three suspicious vans were seen near the military site in Gloucestershire.

Andy Burnham, Prime Minister, has said there were “strong indications” that Iran had played a part in the incident near the base.

Britain's ambassador to Tehran had a

---

‘We gave the Brits the intel that there was going to be an attack... and they slapped sanctions on us’

meeting at Iran's foreign ministry on Thursday at the Iranians' request.

RAF Fairford has been used in recent months by US bombers for “defensive” strikes against Tehran.

Counter-terror police have said a quantity of petrol but no explosive devices were found in the vans, which prompted an alert near the air base.

After Donald Trump criticised the decision to release the suspects, the Prime Minister insisted the UK was working closely with the US and that the authorities had the situation under “the strongest grip”.

On Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel had handed Britain intelligence about the suspected plot.

The Israeli prime minister said that his country had warned UK authorities about the “Iranian-sponsored attack” shortly before Britain’s announcement of a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In an interview with US broadcaster Fox News, Mr Netanyahu said: “We gave the Brits the intel that there was going to be an attack, and it’s an Iranian-sponsored attack, and pretty much the next day they slapped sanctions on us... it’s wild.”

BATTERSEA

---

LIE DOWN? WE NEVER LEARNED THAT ONE.

We don't roll over either. Not when it comes to standing up for every dog and cat.

We campaign to improve the lives of pets and their owners – like fighting for renters to be allowed to have pets, so that no-one is forced to give up their best friend if their living arrangements change.

Whatever the issue, we'll keep raising our voice for those who don't get heard – and we'll never, ever lie down.

Because we're all in, for them.

---

Leave a legacy that saves lives.

Diagnosing brain tumours in children often takes weeks. Now, it could take minutes with an MRI technique co-developed by our researchers – a breakthrough supported by gifts left in Wills.

Gifts in Wills fund over a third of our work to beat cancer.

Find out more:

cruk.org/giftsinwills

CANCER RESEARCH UK

---

'It's like The Da Vinci Code': Public asked to help solve church's labyrinth mystery

By Ed Baker

EXPERTS left baffled by a recently uncovered church labyrinth are turning to the public for help in decoding its mystery.

The labyrinth – a single, winding path designed for walking meditation and prayer – was discovered at St Mary's Church in Itchen Stoke, Hampshire, after being hidden by an altar table.

Located within the chancel at the east end of the Grade II listed church, it is believed to be the only historic walkable church labyrinth in the country.

At certain times, sunlight streaming through the high stained-glass windows create what appears to be an arrow across the tiles, pointing towards the yellow centre of the circular floor. Some have speculated that the labyrinth could also function as a calendar.

"We believe the example at St Mary's is the only walkable labyrinth in the country," said Victoria Green, a local community officer with the Churches Conservation Trust, the organisation that maintains dormant churches.

"Because it was covered by an altar table, its existence has slipped from people's memory. It was also wrongly described as a maze.

“Having removed the altar and started to research it, more questions have arisen than answers.”

Ms Green said: "We believe the labyrinth was based on the one at Chartres Cathedral in France. It is an 11-circuit labyrinth containing 1,500 glazed tiles and there is one continuous route to its centre.

Victoria Green, of the Churches Conservation Trust, on the recently uncovered labyrinth floor at St Mary's. At certain times of day, the light forms an arrow, left, pointing to the middle of the tiles

"Quite what laby-

St Mary's in Itchen Stoke was built in 1866 rinths are for is debated and they might predate Christianity. They are a path to follow that takes you to the centre, but unlike mazes they are not puzzles.

“Visitors use it for prayer or contemplation – and children just race or dance around. It’s delightful.”

The church was built in 1866, and designed by Henry Conybeare, brother of the vicar, the Rev Charles Ranken Conybeare. The architect previously designed St John the Baptist church and various other municipal works in Bombay, now Mumbai, in India.

Regular church services ceased at St Mary's in 1971 and it is now looked after by the trust.

The labyrinth is 16ft 6in across and is made from green and brown tiles by Maw and Co.

"There used to be 600 historic turf labyrinths across the country – cut into grass fields – but only about eight remain," Ms Green said.

St Mary's was influenced by the unfinished Catholic Beauvais Cathedral

In Paris and possibly Exeter College, Oxford. It is now visited by pilgrims on the 66-mile St James' Way, from Reading Abbey to Southampton via Winchester Cathedral.

"When the sun shines through the windows, it creates a kaleidoscope of colour on the labyrinth," said Ms Green.

“We are making ongoing observations to see if there is anything significant or symbolic.

"We'd love the public to help us – it'll require observations at all times of day from sunrise onwards.

"Sometimes it feels a bit like being in The Da Vinci Code."

News

---

Bowen: Trump incited US Capitol violence

Veteran reporter backs BBC over controversial Panorama edit and says president ‘lies all the time’

By Samuel Montgomery and Gordon Rayner

THE BBC's international editor has accused Donald Trump of inciting violence at the US Capitol.

Jeremy Bowen described the US president as “terribly corrupt” and claimed he tells “lies the whole time”.

Responding to questions as part of his public speaking tour, he told London's Royal Geographical Society: "Why did the BBC edit Trump's Capitol speech after he lost to Biden to make it look and sound like it was inciting violence? Look, it was a really... They should have had little flashes to show where the edits were. But he was inciting violence, guys. I'm sorry, he was."

Mr Trump filed a \$10bn (£7.4bn) lawsuit in December after The Telegraph revealed that BBC Panorama had misleadingly edited his Jan 6 address before the Capitol riots in 2021.

The president's speech had been spliced together for the documentary, making it appear as though he encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” and storm the US Capitol after he lost the election.

The BBC apologised to Mr Trump last year for its “error in judgment” and subsequently removed the documentary from all platforms. Tim Davie resigned as director-general of the BBC

‘They should have little flashes to show where the edits were. But he was inciting violence’

as a result of the scandal, as did head of news Deborah Turness.

Mr Trump later accused the broadcaster of defamation and demanded compensation for damages, although his lawyers have dropped a complaint the BBC had caused financial harm. He now alleges only that the documentary caused him reputational harm.

The broadcaster has denied it defamed the president and a trial date has been set for February 2027 in Florida.

Elsewhere in his “Truth Under Fire” talk last month, Mr Bowen recalled the president falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war.

“There I was on our live position overlooking the golden domes in Kyiv and I thought it was very important to say that Trump had told lies,” he said, adding: "Now it is much more common to say the guy lies the whole time and he is terribly corrupt – both things are true. But then people said 'this is the way he rolls, he says something outrageous and then he pulls it back and then you get a deal'.

“No, he is the most powerful man in the world, he’s in the Oval Office and he’s telling lies, so say he is telling lies.”

The BBC editor said he was “amazed” by the reaction, claiming to have received messages from colleagues and the public saying: “Thank God you said it.” He added: “It’s absolutely obvious but you need people in positions like I was in on that day, on that roof, to say it.”

Mr Bowen's comments risk further inflaming the personal spat between the president and the broadcaster.

'The most powerful man in the world is in the Oval Office telling lies, so say he is telling lies'

Mr Trump has previously accused the BBC of harassing his family after the broadcaster tried to subpoena his children.

The BBC's lawyers have argued that Mr Trump must prove he did not "foment or incite" the Jan 6 riots.

But the broadcaster has been blocked from summoning a former White House aide and forcing Mr Trump to hand over financial documents.

The BBC has filed a motion to dismiss the amended case, arguing that it was never broadcast there and could not be accessed via its iPlayer streaming service.

If anyone had managed to watch it using a virtual private network (VPN), which disguises the location of the viewer, Mr Trump should be suing the VPN provider, the BBC said.

---

Rees-Mogg accuses Carlson of 'verging on defending' Hitler

Tucker Carlson, left, and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg on the former Fox News host's podcast

By Steve Bird SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

SIR Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News presenter, of “verging on defending” Adolf Hitler.

The former Conservative minister was involved in an increasingly bizarre series of exchanges on a podcast with the Right-wing broadcaster.

Carlson repeatedly suggested that Britain had been “destroyed” and “lost self-respect” after beating Nazi Germany in 1945.

In the show, titled “Tucker Confronts Britain’s Most Pro-War Advocate”, the firebrand broadcaster also appeared to suggest that Britain’s involvement in the war was unnecessary because Hitler had repeatedly claimed that he did not want to fight the UK.

Sir Jacob said: "You seem to be putting more trust in Hitler than I would. He said all sorts of things."

Following a brief history lesson about Neville Chamberlain's promise of “peace for our time” shortly before Nazi forces invaded Poland, Sir Jacob offered the American a little advice.

"I'm very surprised you're verging on defending Hitler. I think this is not really what you want to be doing," he said, explaining that it was essential that "we should learn from history".

Carlson replied: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi. I’m actually not a secret Nazi… and hardly a public Nazi.”

Sir Jacob, 57, responded “I’m reassured”, before explaining that, if the UK had not gone to war, “Germany would have invaded us”.

The short clip from an hour-long episode of The Tucker Carlson Show has generated significant interest online.

Carlson, 57, also suggested that the Second World War was still being “presented” by Britain as a “good thing”, despite it having “destroyed” the empire.

"It was the classic good-versus-evil. We did the right thing," Sir Jacob said.

---

Students ‘being given language lessons how to speak woke-ish’

By Tom McArdle

ing through social structures and power dynamics".

UNIVERSITY students are being told to stop using the term “ethnic minority” and instead say “racialised minority” or “global majority”.

First-year students at the University of Warwick have been told to be “mindful that each person and community may choose to describe their identity and experiences in different ways”.

Teenagers are being taught the alternative vocabulary on the optional “foundations in racial equality” e-learning course as part of their induction for freshers’ week.

The university said the learning material had been “co-created with students” to create “inclusive learning environments”.

However, critics have described it as “gobbledygook” and say it has “nothing to do with equality”.

Under the heading “marginalisation and othering”, the course tells participants how language is often “perpetuating the separation of certain groups from the dominant culture”.

It goes on to condemn the term “ethnic minority” because it ignores that it is “society itself that does the minoritis-

“It fails to acknowledge that groups are often made into minorities not just numerically, but through deliberate processes of marginalisation that keep them in less powerful positions,” it adds.

“Rather than simply recognising groups, the term can reinforce their otherness, implying that the dominant

'Fluency in gobbledygook is now a hallmark of the educated, like speaking Latin 100 years ago'

(often white) group is the default or norm, while those who are not white are exceptions." It then suggests using alternative terms such as "racialised minority", "minoritised (ethnic) communities" and "global majority".

Lord Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union, said: "It seems the University of Warwick is now offering a language course to all its first-year students – how to speak woke-ish. Being fluent in this gobbledygook is now a hallmark of being a member of the educated class, like being able to speak Latin or French 100 years ago.

"It's got nothing to do with equality. On the contrary, saying ‘racialised minority’ instead of ‘ethnic minority’ is a way to differentiate yourself from the uneducated hoi polloi."

The guidance justifies the use of “global majority”, claiming that it shows “power and privilege don’t align with numerical representation on a global scale”.

Elsewhere, it describes “white privilege” as being “the unearned advantages awarded by society based upon skin colour”.

A University of Warwick spokesman said: “The resource is part of our community efforts to create inclusive learning environments at Warwick and is linked to our wider university dignity principles.

“We pride ourselves on the rich diversity of our community but we do not mandate particular terms to describe ethnicity. We encourage everyone to be respectful and mindful that each person and community may choose to describe their identity and experiences in different ways.”

---

Muslim Greens say anti-LGBT laws is fault of British Empire

By Genevieve Holl-Allen

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

GREEN Party guidance has claimed anti-LGBT laws in Middle Eastern countries are the fault of the British Empire.

The Muslim Greens, an affiliate group of the Left-wing party, made the claim in guidance that outlines how members can identify Islamophobia.

The group says “queerphobic legislation in many Muslim-majority countries is deeply tied to colonialism”.

It claims that suggesting Muslims are “uniquely queerphobic because of Islam denies acknowledging how modern-day queerphobia is strongly rooted in the British Empire”.

It states that the idea that Islam “is in some way based around hating and marginalising queer communities” is itself a form of anti-Muslim hate.

It continues: “The British Empire’s ambition to transform different cultures and societies into ones that mirrored the forms of violence and oppression that existed in the UK at the time produced the vast majority of queerphobic legislation in colonies in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.”

Wendy Morton, shadow Foreign Office minister, said: “Blaming the British Empire is a curious excuse when Iran and Saudi Arabia were never part of it.”

More than half of the 70 countries in the world that criminalise homosexuality today are former British colonies.

Only Jordan and Bahrain repealed their colonial-era anti-gay laws, in 1951 and 1976 respectively.

Afghanistan, Brunei, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates impose the death penalty for consensual same-sex relations.

A Green Party spokesman said: “This is a sensible and thorough document that deserves to be read in its entirety.”

Easy riders Two men relax into their journey and pose for pictures on London Underground's Piccadilly line after bringing their own sofa on board.

---

Polanski to skip ‘Zionism is racism’ vote

Green leader will miss 'divisive' motion in order to campaign for Holborn and St Pancras by-election

By Genevieve Holl-Allen

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

ZACK POLANSKI will skip voting in the controversial “Zionism is racism” vote at Green Party Conference, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Green Party leader will be campaigning in the London borough of Holborn and St Pancras ahead of next week's by-election, where he is standing for the party.

A party spokesman confirmed that he will be on the campaign trail in north London when the vote is expected to take place today and will therefore not be participating.

The revelation that the Green Party leader will not be voting either for or against the motion is likely to anger members on both sides, who wish for him to take a firm stance on the issue. The Green Party's spring conference in

March was overshadowed by a row over the motion, tabled by grassroots activists. Mr Polanski, who is Jewish, has failed to condemn the motion, which would define Zionism – the belief in Jewish people's right to self-determination – as "racist".

It also demanded the abolition of the state of Israel and the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine”, while supporting “resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation”.

Caroline Lucas, the former Green Party leader, told the BBC yesterday she thought the motion was “divisive” and seen “as a sign that Jewish people aren’t welcome in the party”.

Rachel Millward, one of the party's deputy leaders, said that the unamended motion as it stands was "problematic" and declared she "certainly would not be voting for that".

Adrian Ramsay, the Green Party MP for Waveney Valley, told The Times earlier this week that he would vote against the motion saying it was “not needed” and “not helpful”.

Mr Polanski appeared on the first day of the Brighton conference to give his keynote speech, before departing for London around two hours later.

Addressing conference delegates on Friday, he called for Palestine Action to be de-proscribed and for an end to what he described as a “genocide” in Gaza.

At a hustings in Holborn and St Pancras last month, Mr Polanski suggested that Jewish people are to blame for rising anti-Semitism in Britain.

He said that by claiming it was anti-Semitic to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza, “we are making ourselves as Jewish people less safe”. Sir Keir Starmer resigned as prime minister in

June and then resigned as MP on Sept 1, and Mr Polanski instantly came under pressure to declare his candidacy.

He had told reporters in April that he would “almost certainly be running” if there was a by-election in Holborn and St Pancras. The Greens leader has gambled his political future on an attempt to beat Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali, Camden council leader, in a seat Labour has held since 1983.

A Greens spokesman said that Mr Polanski had “made it clear that his leadership is not dependent on the outcome of the by-election”.

---

Restore activist claims ‘Jewish ideas destroying our country’

By Patrick Sawer

SENIOR NEWS REPORTER

HARD-RIGHT activists are at the centre of Restore Britain's campaign to win Sir Keir Starmer's former constituency, it can be revealed.

They include a campaigner who claims “Jewish ideas are destroying our country” and another who openly backed the recent blockades of ports in Dover and Portsmouth by masked vigilantes.

Campaigners who have been accused of links to hard-Right and white supremacist parties have thrown their weight behind Tyler Johnson, the candidate for Restore Britain in Thursday's Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

A number of those canvassing for Rupert Lowe's party have links to the British National Party (BNP), the National Housing Party (NHP) and Homeland Party.

Mr Johnson's nomination paper shows he was proposed as a candidate by Patrick McGinnis, a hard-Right activist who has published a video called “Jewish ideas are destroying our country, not Islamic ideas”.

Mr McGinnis, 54, is the leader of the NHP, which claims British society is now “vicious anti-white and anti-Christian”. The party is calling for an end to “permanent-settlement immigration” and campaigns to repeal all hate crime and anti-discrimination laws, along with the Equality Act 2010.

In the video, posted on the Odyssey video-sharing platform, Mr McGinnis blames “Jewish ideas” for feminism, anti-white prejudice, the declining influence of Christianity, public debt and the supposed weakening of the police, Armed Forces and legal system.

In the video he states: “All these ideas, which have destroyed all these institutions... come from Jewish ideas.”

Mr McGinnis also claims that the economy and the media are controlled by Jewish people, a common anti-Semitic trope.

He said: “The economic ideas – they are also Jewish ideas. Our country is bankrupt economically. We’re in masses of debt. Every council in the country is in debt, and at the end of the day, it’s not Islamic ideas, these are Jewish ideas.

“Who controls the media? Everyone knows that there’s an anti-white agenda coming out of

Rupert Lowe, Restore leader, left, and activist Lewis Holmes

the media. They're not Islamic ideas. The media is owned by Zionists, and you know these things have got to be said."

He also says that he is opposed to the permanent settlement of Muslims, Africans, Asians, Poles and Russians in Britain although he maintains he does not believe in deporting migrants who have put down roots in the UK.

Mr McGinnis ran as a candidate for the NHP in last May's elections, before backing Restore Britain before Thursday's poll.

A photograph published by the BNP in 2018 also showed him standing alongside activists from the extremist party canvassing in the Home Counties.

Mr Johnson, a corporate lawyer at a Chinese state-owned oil and gas com-

Patrick McGinnis claims the economy and the media are controlled by Jewish people, a common anti-Semitic trope

pany, and Mr McGinnis recently appeared alongside Michael Newland, a former BNP official, to address Restore Britain supporters during the Holborn & St Pancras campaign.

ing about the lack of democracy in the party, and founded the short-lived Freedom Party.

A social media post, published on X on Sept 5 showed Mr Newland distributing Restore leaflets on Camden High Street, in the heart of the constituency.

Mr Newland, who has backed "humane repatriation" of all migrants, split from the BNP in 2000, complain-

He was successfully sued by Scotland Yard in 1999 after the BNP altered a Met Police “Race crime is a hate crime” leaflet in what senior officers described as a “particularly offensive manner”.

Restore Britain was founded in June last year after Mr Lowe, its leader and sole MP, fell out with Reform's Nigel Farage over policy and personality differences, accusing him of “going soft” on race and migration.

Another activist with roots in the hard-Right prominent in the Holborn & St Pancras campaign is Lewis Holmes who reported on Sept 5 that approximately 50 volunteers had distributed about 8,000 leaflets.

Photographs show Mr Holmes, understood to be Restore's by-election campaign manager, addressing activists through a megaphone and standing with a clipboard while Mr Newland apparently spoke to them.

Mr Holmes, who has shared material describing Tommy Robinson as a “national hero”, backed attempts by masked and black-clad members of Patriot Platform to prevent rescued Channel migrants from being transported through Portsmouth. He claimed the port had been “blocked by patriots”.

He has demanded that “every single” migrant be removed from the UK and described small-boat migration as an “invasion”. In one post, following an alleged attack by a migrant in Northern Ireland, he wrote: “Third worlders need to be deported.”

Anti-racism campaigners confronted hard-Right-wing activists in Camden on Sept 19 while they were canvassing in the constituency.

Asked about the role of hard-Right activists in its campaign, a Restore Britain spokesman said: "If The Telegraph spent half as much time and energy attacking this dangerous socialist government as they do on Restore Britain."

ernment as they do on Restore Brit-

ain, the country would be in a far

more informed place.

"Rupert Lowe is more than happy to speak to The Telegraph about Restore Britain's comprehensive policy platform, yet the paper entirely ignores his offer. Why not play the ball, not the man, for a change?"

Mr McGinnis declined to comment. Mr Holmes, Mr Newland and Mr Johnson were approached for comment.

---

Classic car collector sues over ‘fake’ Aston

Businessman's legal claim says £880,000 vehicle is a worthless 'bitser' cobbled together from other cars

By Patrick Sawer and Sarah Limbrick

IT may have been James Bond's car of choice, but it should not take 007's attention to detail to establish whether this particular model is the genuine article.

Or at least that is the contention of one classic car collector, who claims the Aston Martin he was sold was in fact cobbled together from parts from other cars.

Michiel Hehenkamp, a retired Dutch businessman, paid £880,000 for a replica of the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, styled and modified by the renowned Italian coachbuilder Zagato between 1960 and 1963.

The car was advertised by Hatfield-based dealers Nicholas Mee & Co as having been recently rebuilt to the full 1961 DB4 GT Zagato specifications by reputable Aston Martin restorers.

But Mr Hehenkamp, 75, claims that he has discovered that the car he bought is not a genuine Aston Martin DB4 replica – which should use only Aston Martin parts – but had been assembled using old and new parts from other cars to “resemble an Aston Martin DB4 in GT Zagato specifications”.

In legal documents submitted to the High Court in London, he described the vehicle as a worthless “bitser”, cobbled together from different parts from other cars which were not Aston Martins.

Mr Hehenkamp maintains the car does not have the chassis number DB/217/L claimed in its sale advert, which he says belongs to a different vehicle currently registered in Belgium.

He further claims that the car he bought does not even have an authentic Aston Martin engine or gearbox.

Mr Hehenkamp and his company USG Invest NG are suing Nicholas Mee & Co for the cost of the car, as well as the cost of taking the car to his home in Belgium and the import duty he paid on it.

His legal team at Wilmot & Co Solicitors said: "The car has been assembled from old and/or new parts so as to resemble an Aston Martin DB4 in GT Zagato specification. The chassis number stamped on the car is not a genuine Aston Martin chassis number which belongs to the car. The car does not have an authentic Aston Martin engine or gearbox.

"The car is therefore not even a real Aston Martin. It is worth far less than any Aston Martin DB4, if it has any value at all. It is, colloquially, a 'bitser'.

£10m

Price that genuine surviving DB4 GT Zagato models can command – only 19 were built between 1960 and 1963

The car cannot be registered for lawful road use in Belgium.

“Accordingly, the representation that the car was a 1959 Aston Martin DB4 with chassis number DB4/217/L rebuilt to GT Zagato specifications was false.”

Genuine DB4 GT Zagatos are very rare, with just 19 built by a partnership between Aston Martin and Zagato. Sur-

Mr Hehenkamp, below left, is a well-known figure on the continental classic car scene, taking part in many famous rallies

viving examples can command more than £10m and a market has developed for genuine replicas of the originals.

Mr Hehenkamp had planned to drive the left-hand drive model in Belgium, where he now lives, after spotting it in an online advert, which was accompanied by a YouTube video.

On top of his costs and return of the price he paid, his legal team is also seeking damages for loss of use of the car.

Mr Hehenkamp is a well-known figure on the continental classic car scene.

In August 2008, he and his wife Liesbeth drove a vintage car from the Netherlands to Beijing, crossing the Gobi Desert.

He has also taken part in many of the world's most famous classic car rallies, such as the Tulpenrallye (Tulip Rally) in the Netherlands - driving a 1968 Alfa Romeo 1750 GTV - and the Mille Miglia (1,000 Miles) that loops from Brescia to Rome and back in Italy, this time in a 1955 Alfa Romeo 1900 SSZ Zagato.

Nicholas Mee & Co said it was unable to comment owing to ongoing legal proceedings. The firm has lodged a defence and it is understood it will contest Mr Hehenkamp's claims.

The car Michiel Hehenkamp claims is worthless, which was advertised as a genuine replica Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato

SECURE

AFFORDABLE

ELECTRICITY

The image contains no text. The OCR result "9

---

Victims waiting on live tracking of domestic abusers

By Charles Hymas

HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

THOUSANDS of domestic abuse victims will have to wait until the end of the year to receive “real-time” alerts when their offenders enter protected zones near them.

Currently, only victims in London, the West Midlands and eastern England are protected by a new system that gives probation officers access to live tracking of a perpetrator via their electronic GPS ankle tag after their release from prison.

Victims in other areas have to rely on the current system, under which Serco, the tagging contractor, sends an email to probation officers when it detects that an offender has entered an exclusion zone around a victim or left their "restriction" zone – the area they are required to remain within.

This can lead to delays in probation officers being alerted because they can only pick them up when they are in the office during their 9am-5pm working day.

It means an alert sent by Serco outside office hours may not be acted upon by probation until at least the following day, by which point data on the perpetrator's movements could be hours, if not days, out of date.

The system, which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) aims to roll out nationwide by the end of the year, allows probation officers to use a portal to get a “near real-time” record of an offender’s movements in no more than 15 minutes. The move came as the first 700 prisoners were released early from jail after serving just a third of their sentences. Some 4,500 are due to be freed under the early release scheme by next June.

Ben Cockburn, chairman of probation officers' union, said he was concerned that victims may not understand that they are subject to a "postcode lottery" over the way their offenders were monitored.

He said: “It has always been retrospective and always will be retrospective. It is being sold as a real-time, constant access which misrepresents what is happening.” A recent

---

'Survivors tell me that they don't trust that there are “eyes on” their abuser'

report by Martin Jones, the chief inspector of probation, found that just under half of tags were not being fitted promptly to offenders and one in 10 had had to wait up to five months.

Dame Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said: "Survivors are telling me they are installing extra security at home, changing jobs and reshaping their daily lives because they do not trust that there are eyes on their abuser or that they will be protected should the worst happen."

An MoJ spokesman said: "Those who break the rules of their tag know they risk being thrown swiftly back behind bars."

Ofgem estimates that investment in the UK's electricity grid could save households around £80 a year by 2031 compared with not making those network investments, while improving system reliability, resilience and energy security. In 2025/26, SSE's electricity generation output was 49% renewable and 51% non-renewable. Sources and further information: sse.com/change

---

STARTS AT HOME

It's time to upgrade Britain's electricity system.

We have the natural resources to generate more secure, affordable electricity at home.

That's why we're investing £33bn in homegrown energy, upgrading the grid and connecting more renewables to strengthen energy security, power growth and deliver reliable electricity across the country.

WE POWER CHANGE

sse.com

---

TRAILFINDERS THE TRAVEL EXPERTS Ultra Luxury Small Ship Sailings with SILVERSEA®

Slow the pace, kick off your shoes, and surrender to the Caribbean's soothing rhythms. Dive into reefs teeming with life, trek lush, tropical interiors, and explore buzzing waterfronts, bursting with colourful architecture. Sail from Barbados to Miami, weaving through volcanic peaks and white-sand beaches. Each day brings new adventures: swim with sea turtles in Bonaire, sip Curaçao's blue liqueur, and stroll cobblestone streets to jazzy plazas in Puerto Rico.

---

Days 1-2 Barbados

Barbados is synonymous for blissful beaches and a charming atmosphere, it's little wonder that this incredible island holds an enduring appeal.

Day 3 Board Silver Spirit

Day 4 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

---

Day 5 Grenada

Curving around a horseshoe harbour, St. George's is one of the Caribbean's prettiest capitals, distinguished by colourful hillsides, spice-scented markets and a lush volcanic setting.

---

Day 7 Curaçao

Curaçao greets the eye in brilliant colour, its Dutch facades lining the waterfront is one of the Caribbean's most distinctive urban scenes.

---

Day 8 Aruba

Aruba brings together Caribbean charm, multicultural attractions, and local craft shops, creating a port of call with a strong sense of character from the moment you arrive.

---

Day 9 Bonaire

Day 11 British Virgin Islands

Day 12 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Days 15-16 Fly home

Disembark in Miami and catch your overnight flight home.

Days not listed are spent relaxing at sea

---

Your exclusive TRAILFINDERS holiday includes

Saving over £4,000 per couple

---

- Direct flights

• 2 nights 5★ Barbados hotel

\- 12 night cruise all inclusive cruise aboard Silver Spirit incl butler service, fine dining & drinks (incl Champagne, select wines & spirits), onboard gratuities & wi-fi

\- Private transfers

---

16 day holiday from

SUPERIOR VERANDA

£5,699pp

DELUXE VERANDA

£6,099pp

Ask us about Business Class upgrades Based on 5 Mar 27 departure. Ask us about alternative dates.

---

Silver Spirit

SMALL SHIP

Guest Capacity: 636

Crew Capacity: 415

---

Japan Discovery

Experience Japan as autumn begins to emerge, departing Tokyo's electric skyline for an overnight stay in Kobe to taste its famous beef, or wander among nearby Kyoto's spiritual temple gardens. Explore Kochi's original feudal castle before heading for Busan, across the Korea Strait. Returning to Japan, follow in the footsteps of samurai and elegant geishas in Kanazawa. Ease north to admire the views that spread out from Mount Hakodate before returning to Tokyo.

---

Day 1 Fly to Tokyo, Japan

Days 2-3 Tokyo

Japan's capital, Tokyo, is a city of striking contrasts. From the charm of Asakusa to the sleek shops of Ginza, and the bold, fashion hubs of Shibuya and Harajuku, the city offers rich and varied experiences.

---

Day 4 Board Silver Muse

Days 6-7 Kobe

Sample the legendary local cuisine and perhaps opt for an excursion to explore Kyoto.

Day 8 Kochi

Kochi Castle, one of only twelve original castles remaining in Japan, commands views over the city and mountains.

Why Cruise with TRAILFINDERS?

Here you can explore Haedong Yonggung Temple, dating to 1376 it perches on a dramatic cliffside above the East Sea, while Beomeosa Temple, established in AD 678, glitters with lanterns at the foot of Mount Geumjeongsan.

---

[Day 10 Busan, South Korea | Day 11 Sakaiminato, Japan] Day 12 Kanazawa

The Higashi Chaya Gai Geisha District, the city's largest, is a National Cultural Asset with houses still used as geisha establishments.

---

Day 14 Hakodate

Days 16-17 Fly home

Disembark in Tokyo and catch your overnight flight home.

Days not listed are spent relaxing at sea

\- We work with most major cruise lines & our expert consultants will help pick the perfect cruise for you

\- Trailfinders can tailor make arrangements around your cruise, from a beach stay to a private tour

---

Your exclusive TRAILFINDERS holiday includes

\- Flights

Saving over £4,000 per couple

• 2 nights 5★ Tokyo hotel

\- Selected private transfers • 12 night cruise all inclusive cruise aboard Silver Muse incl butler service, fine dining & drinks (incl Champagne, select wines & spirits), onboard gratuities & wi-fi

---

17 day holiday from

SUPERIOR VERANDA

£6,599pp

DELUXE VERANDA

£7,249pp

Ask us about Business Class upgrades

Based on 22 Sep 27 departure. Ask us about alternative dates.

Silver Muse

SMALL SHIP

Guest Capacity: 632

Crew Capacity: 415

\- We'll help you find your ideal flights across a huge range of airlines at the best prices

\- Benefit from unrivalled financial protection – your money remains in our ATOL approved independently operated Trust Account until you return home

ALL YOUR TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS TAKEN CARE OF IN ONE PLACE

Call TRAILFINDERS Cruise Team on 020 7938 0264 or visit your local Travel Centre

Hotel, cruise, tour and flight prices are dynamic, fluctuating in real time according to consumer demand and the season of travel. Offers are subject to availability & restrictions may apply. All information was correct at time of going to print on 1 Oct 26.

CHRIS WARDE-JONES FOR THE TELEGRAPH

Boy, 15, ‘used flamethrower’ in school protests

---

Police make arrest as footage shows hooded youth launching burst of fire at woman

By Memphis Barker SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT in Paris

FRENCH police have arrested a 15-year-old boy after video from the student protests showed a hooded suspect firing a makeshift flamethrower at a woman's face.

The assault occurred on Friday in Marseille, one of several cities hit by violent protests that forced the closure of hundreds of schools and led to clashes with police, teachers and firefighters.

In one of the most shocking pieces of footage to emerge from the riots, a person wearing a hood uses an aerosol can and a lighter to launch a burst of flame at a woman calling for an end to the vandalism. The woman, dressed in a blue suit, appears to have been shoved against a bus stop by youths holding a yellow pedestrian barrier.

As she recovers, the hooded individual calmly walks forward and sprays fire at her face, causing the woman, who is holding a shopping bag over one arm, to cower away and raise her other hand in an effort to block the attack.

French police made the arrest on Friday night and took the suspect into custody, according to the French TV news channel BFMTV. It was reported in Le Parisien that the woman had suffered first-degree burns.

Speaking to BFMTV, the prosecutor's office said police were investigating an intentional attack that had caused a temporary incapacity to work of eight days or less, with three aggravating factors: the use of a weapon, wearing of a mask, and participation in a group.

Protests spread last month from impoverished French suburbs where students complained of overcrowded classrooms and absent teachers. But much of the sympathy for the protesters

The wooden interior of Nelson Mandela school in Nantes has been damaged by arson

has evaporated after chaotic scenes were caught on camera, including a police officer being beaten while unconscious and teachers being assaulted. In further footage, a young person wearing a hood runs up to a teacher attempting to put out a tree fire and douses him with petrol.

Nearly 2,000 secondary schools have been affected by the disturbances, according to Édouard Geffray, the education minister. At least 65 school staff, including 40 headteachers, have been injured since the protests began on Sept 21, he added.

About 170 students and 300 police officers have also sustained injuries.

In the eastern city of Belfort, students knocked an undercover police officer to the ground and then kicked him in the head as he lay unconscious.

“Everything will be done to identify the authors of this abject act,” said Laurent Nuñez, the interior minister, adding that there had been 1,747 arrests on Friday for offences.

An arson attack on the Nelson Mandela high school in Nantes caused extensive damage to much of the wooden interior of the eco-friendly school, which was built at a cost of €54m (£46m) in 2014.

Intelligence agencies reportedly told a crisis meeting on Thursday that the movement had been initiated by La France Insoumise (LFI), a hard-Left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is running for president in 2027. Senior LFI legislators rejected the allegation, accusing the government of politicising the protests in advance of the French presidential election on April 18.

On Thursday, Mr Mélenchon called on students to use “only non-violent methods of struggle”, while other party officials said the protests had arisen from anger at “educational conditions that are completely unacceptable”.

Yesterday, Mr Mélenchon urged parents to attend the protests when they restart as schools open next week, wearing a “helmet or a white armband”. He said this would help protect students from police brutality.

Marine Le Pen, who is leading the polls in the run-up to next year's presidential election, said National Rally, the hard-Right party she leads, would criminalise participation in riots.

“This is no longer about high-school student protests,” she said in a TV interview. “It is about riots organised by professionals and overseen by deputies from La France Insoumise.”

---

Roman cabbies declare war on tourist golf buggies

By Nick Squires

ROME CORRESPONDENT

THE soft whirr of their electric motors and tiny wheels may not seem troublesome, but a boom in the number of golf carts shuttling tourists around the cobbled streets of Rome has set off a toxic turf battle in the Eternal City.

Operators who rent the carts say they provide a low-emission, environmentally friendly and quiet way for tourists to get to the Colosseum, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain.

But critics say they are often illegally parked, hold up normal traffic and operate in a regulatory grey area.

The golf carts' arch enemies are Rome's combative taxi drivers. Allied with them are the city's chauffeur-driven black vans and its tour guides, who fear that they too are losing business to the newcomers. Tensions

---

‘It’s the taxi lobby that are really against us. Taxi drivers can be aggressive, verbally and physically’

sometimes spill out onto the streets, with golf-cart guides and cabbies exchanging aggressive gestures.

There is big money at stake. A four-hour tour in an eight-seater golf cart, with driver, can cost €1,000 (£850).

"It's the taxi lobby that are really against us. Taxi drivers can be aggressive, verbally and physically. They cut us up on the road," said Fabrizio Bortoli.

Taxi drivers accuse the golf carts, which are open-sided, of being unsafe.

"Tourists ride on these carts without protection and often without seat belts," said Riccardo Cacchione, from Usb-Taxi, a union representing cab drivers. "There is a risk that tourists could fall out of the carts while hanging out to take photographs."

Golf-cart businesses strongly deny that their vehicles are dangerous. "We avoid the main roads and take the back roads. And our top speed is just 23km/h. We have had no serious accidents at all," said Mr Bortoli.

A golf cart is driven near the Pantheon in Rome. Tensions are running high in the city with golf-cart guides and taxi drivers exchanging aggressive gestures

---

Ivy League campus where plagiarism is ‘worse than rape’

Iona Cleave

US CORRESPONDENT

in Ithaca, New York

IN a large Gothic hall adorned with the flags of one of the leading US universities, female students stood behind a microphone one after another and described their own experiences of sexual assault on and off campus.

“We are all Jane Doe,” said one, Marie, referring to a lawsuit filed on Sept 16 by a “Jane Doe”, who claimed she was drugged and gang-raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity members at Cornell University in 2024.

The lawsuit alleges the accused men were given temporary suspensions and were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays”. The university disputes this.

The victim said Cornell University had failed to protect her.

There were sobs and cheers from the several hundred gathered at the public hearing at Cornell University on Thursday night. Anger and rage hung heavy in the 100-year-old room where many blamed the university for its perceived institutional failures in addressing sexual violence.

“God knows this institution upholds traditionalist bulls---, so to hell with its reputation,” cried a male student.

The New York state attorney's office has taken over the criminal inquiry.

The renewed scrutiny has thrown the Ivy League university into a crisis and reawakened a debate about sexual assaults on university campuses. In interviews with The Telegraph,

Cornell students described a culture at the elite university of protecting men with bright futures at the cost of silencing women.

Along with the students, tens of thousands across social media are demanding answers as to whether enough was done to prosecute and punish the accused men.

Anthony, a first-year student, claimed: “I feel extremely guilty staying here, staying in an atmosphere where rape has been protected.”

According to the lawsuit, Ms Doe, then a 20-year-old undergraduate at Cornell, was pressured to drink high-proof rum and snort ketamine, and was incapable of consent. A fraternity member allegedly invited others to join on a group chat with a message saying there was “free p---y” alongside a picture of Ms Doe. Another added: “Like you can walk in and whip it out.”

Around 1.45am, another message was sent, reading: "Shop still open?"

According to an investigation report compiled by Cornell last year, seen by ABC News, an individual at the fraternity house overdosed on ketamine a day before the alleged rape.

Campus police arrested an unnamed individual at the fraternity over a drug-related offence shortly after lam on the night of the alleged rape, CNN reported.

After she reported the assault, Cornell closed the Chi Phi fraternity chapter, but no criminal charges were brought against any of the accused men – who have become known online as the Cornell Seven.

'I feel extremely guilty staying here, staying in an atmosphere where rape has been protected'

Two were expelled, five were allowed to graduate, and Ms Doe dropped out.

Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said on Friday that Ms Doe had been failed at “every turn” by “people and institutions with an obligation to protect her”.

Lawyers for at least three of the accused men have publicly denied criminal wrongdoing, while others have not publicly addressed the claims or have disputed specific details.

A Cornell spokesman said: “We fully support the appointment of a special prosecutor and efforts to change New York State’s rape law and are committed to an independent external review of all aspects of how Cornell has handled this case.”

On Cornell's cobblestoned campus in Ithaca, upstate New York, students could talk of little else.

Katie, 24, who is studying for a PhD, said: "Wherever you walk here, people are talking about it."

She said she first heard about the incident two years ago, adding: "It was very much brushed under the rug at the time and it kind of dissipated, and I think that's partly why people are more angry now." She, like many, blamed the university for failing Ms Doe.

‘This isn’t just a Cornell problem. Universities everywhere protect men, it’s always like that’

She said: “It shows the double standard of how this university chooses to selectively discipline – even plagiarism feels like it’s treated more seriously than, like, rape.”

Another student, who did not want to be named, works on The Cornell Daily Sun, a student newspaper that has doggedly pursued the allegations since 2024. It broke the story of the new lawsuit last month.

She said the newspaper brought to light what she felt was a scandal buried by the university in an effort to keep its reputation untarnished.

“It’s disgraceful,” she said. “I feel very let down.”

According to a transcript of Ms Doe's original interview with Cornell's

Students give their testimonies during the public hearing at Cornell. Many blamed the Ivy League university for failing to protect women

campus police, recently obtained by CBS New York, she said: "I can say with 100 per cent confidence I was raped."

She went on to say that “there was really no escape” and described being “physically hit very, very hard”. Cornell allegedly condensed the hours-long interview into a six-page report for prosecutors that omitted the rape allegation, according to the local district attorney.

In a 2025 Cornell survey, 35 per cent of undergraduate women reported experiencing sexual assault during their time on campus.

Almost all the students The Telegraph spoke to described hearing various horror stories about the fraternities on campus.

One student recalled an older girl taking her on a driving tour of the 24 fraternities and advising her “which not to go to, which parties she could attend, which ones women had been violated in”.

Tyler, a 23-year-old third-year student, said he never wanted to be part of a fraternity, calling it a “hypermasculine space associated with drinking and partying”.

Some students passionately defended frat life, pointing out that it provided a community and family-like support system. Others were keen to point out this issue is not unique to Cornell, but part of the wider fraternity culture at American universities.

The issue isn't isolated to the US, said an exchange student from Sweden, adding: "Do you remember the Warwick University rape chat?"

In 2018, female undergraduate students at Warwick University discovered a Facebook group chat where male students shared highly explicit messages, graphic rape threats and racist abuse against their female peers. Several of the men were allowed to return to campus, prompting a public backlash.

“This isn’t just a Cornell problem, or an American problem; universities everywhere protect men, it’s always like that,” said the student.

---

How Ukraine's tanks cracked Russia's kill zone

Verity Bowman

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Armoured vehicles are making a comeback on the battlefield after suffering at the hands of drones

FOR more than two years, any tank that ventured near Ukraine's front line was hunted by drones and destroyed.

But, against the odds, Ukrainian tanks rolled towards the battlefield again this summer and survived.

A sophisticated strategy of targeted attacks by Ukrainian drone units and commandos helped push Russian troops back and clear the way for the heavy armour.

The tanks – some of which are believed to be British-made Challenger 2 tanks – became central to the major counter-offensive in Oleksandrivka that saw Ukraine regain 288 square miles of territory.

Moving the tanks there took eight months.

First, Ukraine went after supply lines, hitting Russian convoys up to 100 miles behind the front and starving the drone crews and gunners who made the kill zone so deadly.

Then Kyiv started listening: Ukrainian units hacked into Russian soldiers' phones and read their panicked messages saying "that was close" about a nearby blast to work out where they were positioned and adjust their artillery accordingly.

At the same time, drone teams hunted Russian crews until they fell back. Only then did the Ukrainian infantry move in, slipping through enemy lines on foot and clearing the way for the tanks to roll in behind them.

The tank units fired at the Russian positions and helped keep the ground that Ukraine had won back.

The approach is spreading beyond Oleksandrivka. This week, Ukraine's 475th assault regiment, known as Code 9.2, released footage of two tanks attacking Russian positions in Vilkhuvatka, Kharkiv.

The tanks, fitted with extra armour against drones, were escorted by Vampire heavy bomber drones, first-person view aircraft (FPV) and reconnaissance drones.

They drove over light mines, fired directly into buildings where Russian infantry were sheltering, then withdrew under repeated FPV attacks. According to the regiment, the tanks returned undamaged.

It was a raid rather than an advance, but it showed armour surviving where, until recently, it would almost certainly have been destroyed.

Analysts said the strategy showed that heavy armour still had a place on the battlefield when units were able to starve the kill zone close to the front.

The Oleksandrivka counter-offensive – one of the most successful since the full-scale invasion – began when Kyiv learned that Russia was massing for an offensive against Zaporizhzhia.

Instead of waiting, Ukraine struck first, hitting a weakly defended stretch of front nearby and forcing Moscow to scramble troops from elsewhere to defend ground they had assumed was safe. The Russians were caught off guard and fought half-blind as a result of sweeping internet blackouts after SpaceX blocked Russian forces' unauthorised use of Starlink satellite technology.

Some Russians spent days unaware that Ukraine was moving in on their positions. And when they did discover Ukraine's progress, they were too afraid to tell their commanders, leaving Vladimir Putin and his military hawks in the dark.

At the same time, Ukrainian units struck supply lines around 10 miles behind the front to stop fresh drones and batteries from reaching the crews flying them. Further back, around 20 to 25 miles, strikes starved Russia's artillery. At around 60 miles, relentless bombardments started to ground the reconnaissance drones that spotted targets for Russia's rocket launchers.

In May alone, there were more than 200 Ukrainian strikes on Russian logistics vehicles. Some of the targets were more than 100 miles behind the front on the main highways feeding Russian forces in the area.

“It’s essentially a dismantling of Russian forces’ ability to sustain their combat power,” said Robert Tollast, a researcher in the land warfare team at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi).

For the Russian soldiers at the front, the effect was grim. Short of water,

'Tanks haven't disappeared from the battlefield. Drones have changed the method of deployment' food and ammunition, “life just becomes a lot more miserable”, Mr Tollast said.

Ukraine then hunted the Russian drone units, shooting their Shahed drones out of the sky and destroying the radars and electronic warfare systems that helped them find targets.

It was slow work: Ukrainian units sent up drone after drone, with rows of operators watching the feeds. Each time one was shot down, its location was logged in a central system and fed into the planning for the next mission.

In time, Russian crews pulled back to avoid being killed, and their electronic warfare kit went with them, moving the kill zone further back.

“It’s not that [the kill zone] is gone altogether,” said Sam Cranny-Evans, an armour specialist at Rusi. “It’s that the area where it was a problem for [the Ukrainians], they can now move through a bit more safely.”

Ukraine had also hacked into the messaging apps Russian troops used to talk to one another, reading what they were saying as the Ukrainian shells landed.

“We can afford to adjust artillery fire using their messenger app,” a Ukrainian officer said. “The company commander shouts: ‘S---, that was close.’ We keep working on him further.”

Experts believe Ukraine managed this by deploying drones carrying fake mobile phone masts, which tricked nearby handsets into connecting to them and sharing its data. “We have a phrase in electronic warfare: find the emitter, find the asset," said Dr Thomas Withington, an expert in electronic warfare, radar and military communications.

"The minute you switch your cell phone on, you have to assume you're lighting up like a Christmas tree."

With the kill zone pushed back, the infantry moved in on foot. Small

A Ukrainian soldier covers his ears as a howitzer is fired in Dnipropetrovsk, above. Left, a Challenger 1 Main Battle Tank

groups of Ukrainian paratroopers and assault troops slipped through gaps in Russian lines and pushed deep behind them. Where Russian positions were well dug in, they often went around them rather than engaging in conflict.

Some Russian soldiers hid. Others, exhausted, stayed in their hideouts and did not notice the Ukrainians passing.

That left pockets of Russian troops stranded behind the Ukrainian advance, which reconnaissance units had to go back and clear.

Russia tends to counter-attack hard to retake lost territory, and often keeps throwing men at a failing attack rather than pulling back, according to analysts. Heavy armour gave Ukraine something to absorb those blows.

The tanks are “held up in a hole... firing at the Russians”, Mr Cranny-Evans explained. “They’re not used in these broad, sweeping offensives that everybody wants to think about.”

Not every tank made it. Ukraine lost at least one American-made Abrams tank in early February, and Russian footage from the offensive showed Ukrainian vehicles being hit.

But Western tanks have shown they are able to take a battering from small drones and keep going, according to Mr Tollast, and Ukraine has added extra armour to many of them.

“I don’t necessarily think conventional armour has disappeared from the battlefield because of drones,” said Dr Withington. “I think drones have changed the method of employment.”

Personal

Text for the day

AND ON the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Genesis 2.2 (AV)

Messages

General personal

The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph

While we take reasonable steps to check our advertisers are bona fide, readers should carry out their own checks before entering into any contract or arrangement.

GRATEFUL THANKS to St Jude for prayers answered. CW.

Online Ref: W0053204

---

Pensioner, 102, dies in flash floods that send cars floating in Spanish streets

By Lily Shanagher

A 102-YEAR-OLD woman has died in flash floods that have devastated parts of Spain.

The elderly woman was found dead by firefighters in her house in Madrigueras, a small town in the southeastern region of Castilla-La Mancha, where the water had risen to more than 3ft.

Cars were seen floating in the streets, and about 90 people were extricated in a large-scale rescue operation in the town, regional authorities said yesterday, after 142 litres of rainfall per square metre fell on the town of 4,760 inhabitants.

Heavy rain fell in many areas of south-eastern and north-eastern Spain on Friday. More rain is expected in eastern Spain in the coming days.

The flooding follows the hottest summer on record in Spain, where almost 2,150 people are thought to have died from heat-related causes in August.

Madrigueras, in Albacete, was battered by an intense storm that swept cars away

Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, expressed condolences to the dead woman's family as he urged citizens to take care.

"The torrential and persistent rains of the last few hours have caused severe

'Torrential and persistent rains have caused severe damage in many areas'

damage in many areas of our region," he said. "All my affection to the family of the woman who has passed away due to the flooding, and all our support and solidarity to the affected neighbours."

More floods are predicted in eastern Spain in the coming days, with up to 300mm of rainfall possible in some areas. Models showed that Valencia and Castelló de la Plana were among the cities most at risk from heavy rain.

Catalonia has put three towns under lockdown, and Valencia has shut schools for nearly half a million children.

Valencia also suffered two years ago in the deadliest flooding to hit Spain for three decades. Some areas on or near Spain's Mediterranean coast got a month's worth of rain in a day. Flights due to land in Valencia were diverted to other cities and a further 10 cancelled. All train services were suspended in the Valencia region by ADIF, the national rail infrastructure operator.

Then last year Ibiza Town, the capital of Ibiza, had to urge residents to avoid travel and outdoor activities and warned against approaching streams, low-lying areas or basements. Ibiza and the island of Formentera were placed under red alert.

---

Sex and money scandal taints Brazil's elite politicians

Adrian Blomfield

SENIOR FOREIGN

CORRESPONDENT

in São Paulo

Remorseless drip-feed of allegations implicates almost every party as nation heads to polls

THE man who is tearing Brazil's establishment apart came dressed as Dracula.

He was ostensibly a devout man. Before becoming the country's notorious banker he had presented a gospel music show on an evangelical television station. His family had even helped fund, build and lead a 2,000-seat mega church.

But it was at Madame Satā's nightclub, with its crystal chandeliers and velvet chaises longues, that Daniel Vorcaro was apparently in his real element. The guest list had been carefully selected. The women, 120 of them, were all beautiful and all paid. According to a police report leaked to Brazil's Piaui magazine, his instructions were specific: "Only young girls. Half from abroad."

But it was the men at his São Paulo Halloween party that Mr Vorcaro really cared about. There were just 20 of them, but they represented the cream of Brazil's political, judicial and corporate elite. From senior senators and supreme court justices to and supreme court justices to corporate heavyweights, everyone on the guest list held a key to what the arriviste banker wanted most: insider access and protection that gave him the cover to perpetrate what investigators say is the biggest banking fraud in Brazil's history.

implicated almost every political party and national institution in South America's biggest country, stunning a society that has experienced so many scandals it thought itself injured to them.

Day after day for months a remorseless drip-feed of allegations has

It is against this backdrop that Brazilian adults, legally required to vote, will troop sullenly to the ballot box today.

There are multiple names on the presidential ballot, but only two matter: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the 80-year-old incumbent known as Lula, and his Right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, whose father Jair ruled Brazil from 2018 to 2022 but now languishes in prison. Victory for the younger Bolsonaro would cap a near clean sweep for pro-Trump Right-wing populists in South America's "blue wave".

Lula's campaign team has accused Mr Trump of meddling in the election to secure victory for his rival, yet most

'The women hired were allegedly forced to hand over their phones before entering the bash'

Brazilians care less about outside interference than the scandal that has tarnished both candidates.

Their anger perhaps explains why the raucousness of past elections has vanished. The campaign has been almost invisible, with few posters

-AP PHOTO/SILVIA IZQUIERDC

Daniel Vorcaro of Banco Master

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the incumbent Brazilian president, waves his nation's flag during a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro

World news

evident or rallies held, as though

Brazil's politicians had slunk away in shame to hide themselves from their people.

As well they might. Mr Vorcaro's alleged Banco Master fraud enriched an already privileged few. But the price was borne by those at the bottom of society. The

Ponzi scheme Mr

Vorcaro is accused of constructing was built, campaigners and

investigators say, on the

misery of hundreds of thousands of poor pensioners and state employees who watched as money was siphoned from their accounts every month without their permission.

“I am the anarchy of the system,” Mr Vorcaro boasted in a leaked WhatsApp message to his fitness influencer fiancée Martha Graeff. In that, if on little else, a divided nation agrees.

The women he hired for his Halloween bash and other parties were allegedly forced to hand over their phones before entering. Mr Vorcaro's messages show he insisted on foreign women, often flown into Brazil on his fleet of private jets, so they could not understand the Portuguese used by

the VIPs. Mr Vorcaro could afford it. Picasso and Basquiat hung on the walls of his properties, including a £64m waterfront villa in Miami, according to court documents submitted by Banco Master's liquidators. Even by the standards of Faria Lima, São Paulo's Wall Street, his lifestyle stood out. His Halloween party at Madame Satã's cost £3.5m, the documents claim – yet that paled beside the £28m party in Sicily featuring Coldplay, Andrea Bocelli and other A-listers.

And as Mr Vorcaro splashed out, Banco Master's assets soared 23-fold to nearly £13bn in the six years since he bought it in 2019. Despite red flags raised by auditors, no one in authority at Brazil's central bank, its security

regulator or its state-backed deposit insurance fund asked any questions.

Yet Mr Vorcaro's influence-peddling net was cast far wider. Luring judges and politicians with lavish parties, monthly kickbacks and hefty contracts with family firms, he allegedly wove layers of protection around his bank.

As the scandal gathered momentum in the wake of Banco Master's closure last November, it was the Bolsonaro campaign that suffered most. With months to go before the election, Lula opened up a commanding lead in the opinion polls. But it soon became clear the rot was not confined to the Right.

By June, Operation Compliance Zero, the police investigation into the scandal, had turned its attention to

some of Lula's key allies, including Jaques Wagner, government leader in Brazil's senate, and the president's chief of staff, Rui Costa. Both men deny the allegations and Lula himself has not been implicated.

Whatever the truth, Brazilian anger against the Bolsonaro campaign is now equally directed at the president, whose lead in the polls has evaporated. The momentum, if anything, is with Mr Bolsonaro.

Mr Vorcaro, who remains in custody, faces a slate of charges, all of which he denies, claiming he has been set up by competitors. There may be some truth in this, campaigners say, although so far there has been little appetite from authorities to investigate.

The UK's favourite travel insurance

More 5-star Trustpilot reviews than any other provider

Cover for pre-existing medical conditions, and all ages

Free 24/7 access to an English-speaking online doctor\*\*

TrustScore accurate as of May 2026

531.6K+ reviews

Trustpilot

defaqto

2015-2026

EXPERT RATED

Nine Time Winner

BRITISH TRAVEL AWARDS 2025

BEST COMPANY FOR TRAVEL INSURANCE

Dream Big Staysure™

VISIT STAYSURE.CO.UK OR CALL US ON

0333 049 7121

---

[THE 5★ ADULTS-ONLY 2027 | Luxury Caribbean] SALE EVENT

UPGRADE TO PREMIUM ECONOMY FLIGHTS FROM ONLY £699PP

FREE HOUSE DRINKS PACKAGE $^{++}$

OR UP TO \$600 SHORE EXCURSION CREDIT++

EXCLUSIVE SAVINGS OF UP TO 35% $^{±}$

FREE

GRATUITIES, WI-FI &

SPECIALITY DINING++

\$250 FREE ON BOARD CREDIT FOR ALL BOOKINGS\*

---

14 NIGHTS DEPARTING 31 $^{ST}$ JANUARY 2027

---

JANUARY 2027

Sun 31 Fly from London to Miami, Florida, USA Upon arrival, transfer to a hotel for your overnight stay

---

[FEBRUARY 2027] Mon 1 Miami, Florida, USA

Mon 1 Miami, Florida, USA

Transfer to the port and embark the elegant Oceania Marina for your 12 night voyage

Thu 4 Oranjestad, Aruba

Fri 5 Willemstad, Curaçao

Sun 7 Kingstown, St. Vincent

Mon 8 Castries, St. Lucia

Tue 9 Basseterre, St. Kitts

Wed 10 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Thu 11 Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

Sat 13 Miami, Florida, USA

Disembark and transfer to the airport for your overnight flight to London

Sun 14 Arrive in London

Dates not mentioned will be spent relaxing at sea

YOUR EXCLUSIVE ROL CRUISE SALE FARES | STATEROOM/SUITE | GRADE | FULLFARE (PP) | ROL CRUISEFARE (PP) | Inside | G | £5,189 | £3,369 | Veranda | B4 | £6,499 | £4,289 | Concierge Veranda | A4 | £6,759 | £4,459 | Penthouse Suite | PH3 | £8,709 | £5,789 | Solo fares are available on request

Flamingos, Aruba

---

WHAT'S INCLUDED YOUR HOLIDAY WITH OCEANIA CRUISES

√ Pre-cruise overnight hotel stay in Miami, Florida, USA

√ 5★ luxury cruising on board the elegant Oceania Marina, including\*\*:

\- FREE House Drinks Package including Champagne, wine & beer with lunch & dinner

OR

\- FREE up to \$600 Shore Excursion Credit

\- \$250 FREE on board credit for all bookings\*

• FREE gratuities & Wi-Fi for all bookings

\- FREE speciality dining for all bookings

\- Experience 'The Finest Cuisine at Sea $^{®}$ ' with multiple open-seating speciality dining venues at no additional charge

\- FREE soft drinks, bottled water and speciality coffees

• FREE room service 24-hours a day

\- FREE shuttles from the pier to city centre in most ports of call

√ Return flights from London (regional and premium class flights may be available on request\*) and overseas transfers

√ PLUS, book by 8pm 10 $^{th}$ October 2026 to receive an EXCLUSIVE FREE Champagne Gift $^{+}$

---

SAVE EVERY TIME YOU BOOK -

worth up to £115 off your next booking with ROL Cruise $^{††}$

---

The Pinnacle of Contemporary Comfort Oceania Marina blends sophistication with a contemporary flair to create a casually elegant ambiance.

---

Contemporary Luxury

The spacious dimensions of the suites and staterooms offer the ultimate in luxury. Plump the goose-down pillows of the Prestige Tranquility Bed, an Oceania

Cruises $^{®}$ exclusive. Feel at home on the plush couch, watching live news or a classic film on the flat-screen television. Share quiet moments taking in beautiful vistas of the sea on your private teak veranda, a feature that graces the majority of accommodations.

---

Culinary Masterpieces

Memorable dining begins with open-seating, as it allows you to dine when you are ready and with whomever you choose. Regardless of which restaurant you select, there are no dining surcharges. Enjoy Toscana's authentic Italian dishes, Polo Grill's steakhouse fare, Continental cuisine in the Grand Dining Room, Jacques' exquisite French bistro, Red Ginger's contemporary Asian cuisine, and made-to-order American favourites in the Terrace Café.

---

UPGRADE TO PREMIUM ECONOMY FLIGHTS FROM ONLY £699PP

\- A separate, smaller cabin with wider seats and more legroom

\- An enhanced meal service and complimentary bar service

More free baggage allowance

More free baggage allowance

Priority boarding

---

12 NIGHTS DEPARTING 12 $^{TH}$ FEBRUARY 2027

---

FEBRUARY 2027

Fri 12 Fly from London to Miami, Florida, USA Upon arrival, transfer to a hotel for your overnight stay

---

Sat 13 Miami, Florida, USA

Transfer to the port and embark the elegant Oceania Marina for your 10 night voyage

---

Tue 16 Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Wed 17 St. John's, Antigua

Thu 18 Philipsburg, St. Maarten

Fri 19 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sat 20 Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

---

Mon 22 Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas

Tue 23 Miami, Florida, USA

Disembark and transfer to the airport for your overnight flight to London

Wed 24 Arrive in London

Dates not mentioned will be spent relaxing at sea

YOUR EXCLUSIVE ROL CRUISE SALE FARES | STATEROOM/SUITE | GRADE | FULLFARE (PP) | ROL CRUISEFARE (PP) | Inside | G | £5,259 | £3,299 | Deluxe Ocean View | C | £5,709 | £3,599 | Veranda | B4 | £6,229 | £3,899 | Concierge Veranda | A4 | £6,449 | £4,049 | Penthouse Suite | PH3 | £7,529 | £4,739 | Solo fares are available on request

Miami, USA

ESTABLISHED 1961

---

Badenoch is right to end the war on ambition

For 30 years, Britain's political class has been in agreement: tackling inequality is the great moral challenge of the age. High-earners – people who have worked hard, taken a risk and succeeded – are not to be encouraged but rather squeezed for all they are worth. The state's primary role is to seize wealth and redistribute it. As Kemi Badenoch says in today's Telegraph, welfare has become “the central organising principle of the Government”.

This consensus has immiserated Britain. Far from lifting all boats, it has left us with an ever more intrusive state, ever higher taxes and a perversely contorted tax system that punishes people for getting on and creating wealth.

Perhaps in no area is this better exemplified than the absurd childcare cliff edge. Currently, a working couple in which one parent earns £99,999 receives up to 30 hours a week of childcare support, plus access to the Tax-Free Childcare scheme. Should that parent earn a single pound more, both are withdrawn. This has led to the ludicrous scenario that a parent with two children at nursery in London would need to earn nearly £150,000 to be better off than they were on just under £100,000.

The consequences of this are catastrophic. Parents turn down promotions and cut their hours to stay under the threshold. Couples delay having children. Talented people stay put when they might have moved into more productive areas. Every one of these choices leads to less revenue for the Exchequer. Every one leaves the country poorer in the name of “fairness”.

That is why Kemi Badenoch's pledge to abolish the cliff edge rather than tinker with it deserves such credit. It is a brave, bold policy. She will no doubt be accused by her opponents of favouring the well-off. But at the Conservative Party Conference this week, Mrs Badenoch must rebut this.

By scrapping the threshold, thousands more parents will have reason to work hard and receive the wage increases that, currently, risk leaving them worse off. More people will take on greater responsibility, earn greater amounts, pay more tax and produce more. Mrs Badenoch's plan rewards the very behaviour on which a healthy economy and society depends.

The policy is estimated to cost £700m per year on a static basis, which the Conservatives say will be covered by paring back to 2016 levels the number of officials working in quangos. That is encouragingly prudent: some estimate that it will actually increase revenues as a result of the greater taxable incomes.

And while some will argue that the state ought not to be providing childcare at all, as long as the state does provide support, it should not do so in a way that discourages working harder. Mrs Badenoch deserves to be applauded for fixing an iniquitous failure of the system. But her announcement signals something greater than merely a sensible economic adjustment.

In her first conference speech as leader, Mrs Badenoch argued that “Labour fails when they follow their principles. We fail when we don’t follow ours”. For 14 years in government, the Conservatives appeared to do just that. They accepted Labour’s premise that success was a problem to be managed, and presided over some of the highest taxation seen in this country during peacetime. They raised taxes where they should have scrapped them and introduced regulations where they should have

removed them. Since entering office, Labour has continued this desperate trend. Overall taxation is at a post-war high. Fiscal drag has pulled millions into higher tax brackets, and the 60 per cent marginal income tax rate on earnings between £100,000 and £125,000 has helped crush the very people Britain needs to power its economy. It should come as little surprise that Britain is suffering a wealth exodus.

Mrs Badenoch's pledge marks a break with that way of thinking. Coupled with her commitment to abolish stamp duty – another iniquitous tax on getting on – it signals that a Conservative government would refuse to treat aspiration as something to be penalised. Instead, people would be free to make the most of their lives and create a legacy for their children.

This puts clear blue water between Mrs Badenoch and Andy Burnham, whose vision of the future is to return us to the tax-and-spend miseries of the 1970s. But it also creates a dividing line on the Right. While Reform UK has announced policies designed to cut taxes for average earners, the Conservatives are increasingly focused on supply-side reforms and improving incentives to work hard and be ambitious.

Andrew Griffith, the shadow chancellor, declared that “removing this childcare cliff edge is the first step in our mission to deliver lower, simpler and fairer taxes across the board”. That is encouraging. The Conservatives have further to go to regain the trust of the electorate.

Much of what they propose undoes work they themselves did in office. But under Mrs Badenoch, there is now a sense that the party is starting to rediscover who it is for, and what it believes.

---

[LETTERS to the EDITOR] The Government's help-to-buy scheme looks set to repeat the mistakes of the past

SIR – The Government’s new “Your First Home” scheme promises a 2.5 per cent deposit and a 20 per cent equity loan, on the premise that it will encourage builders to construct more homes (report, September 27).

We have been here before. Help to Buy was criticised for inflating house prices and enriching developers, yet we are now dusting off the same idea and giving it a new name.

Perhaps the Government should concentrate less on helping people bid for houses and more on making sure that there are enough houses to bid for.

Jamie Lines

Southampton

SIR – I think we all agree that first-time buyers should be given every assistance to get on the housing ladder. Indeed, every government in the past 40 years has put forward proposals specifically designed for this purpose.

The problem that Andy Burnham will face is that there are not enough houses being built and his Government is already so far behind with its projected 1.5 million new builds that it is unlikely his tinkering will achieve the laudable objective. Des Morgan

Swindon, Wiltshire

---

A threat to veterans

SIR – The Government is addressing its manifesto commitment to revise legislation that deals with the awkward legacy issues from the Northern Ireland “Troubles”, as the 2023 Act has been deemed unsuitable by some.

Its approach talks about truth and reconciliation, but the proposed legislation will generate only blame and retribution. There are grave implications for today's forces, too.

The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill aims to enable “victims” to seek the truth about what happened to their loved ones. This is admirable – but, as drafted, the Bill falls down on three vital counts.

First, there is an absence of records about the activities of the IRA, in contrast to those kept by the Government and Security Forces. Investigations are therefore inevitably biased.

Secondly, there has been a sustained effort by parts of the Republican movement to use litigation to reshape the narrative of the Troubles. They portray the IRA campaign as a response to British oppression, rather than a terrorist campaign. The Bill must stop veterans being the vehicle for this.

Thirdly, the legal process appears to feed upon itself: taxpayer-funded case follows taxpayer-funded case, while offering neither the state nor those caught up any realistic prospect of finality. Veterans must no longer be the fuel for this.

Victims may get comfort from the Bill, but we are sure that the Security Forces, who countered the IRA's campaign of violence, will suffer. The Bill removes the protection afforded to them by the current legislation and reopens numerous cases.

Several veterans' associations have been campaigning to sustain protection for former soldiers who have been proven to have no case to answer. They, like us, have invested in expert legal advice to challenge the Government's Bill. We joined this campaign 18 months ago and wrote to Sir Keir Starmer's administration about it, receiving assurances that we would be kept abreast of the Bill's progress. Instead, we remain in the dark. It is now about to go to Parliament and we are convinced that, in its current form, it will enshrine profound injustice.

Recently we attended formal discussions with both secretaries of state for Northern Ireland and the Ministry of Defence. Ministers gave us a decent hearing. The Government side refused to share its position in any detail but did assure us that there could be scope for a compromise. We agreed that the “rinse and repeat” legal actions to which veterans had been subjected were unacceptable.

However, we have not yet succeeded in having the legal standard of “new and compelling evidence” adopted to prevent meritless cases. We believe that anything less will enshrine “rinse and repeat” as a permanent threat while continuing the betrayal of all those in the Security Forces who spent many years countering the IRA’s violence. This has been totally dispiriting, but the Government could afford more time for amendments to the Bill to be considered. The Bill being rammed through will only ensure the disdain of those who will be affected by what it does to veterans and erode the confidence of those who protect us today. On its current path the Government will fail its veterans and undermine our future security.

Gen Sir Peter Wall

Gen Sir Nick Parker

Gen Sir Richard Barrons

Gen Sir Chris Deverell

---

Back to the 1970s

SIR – Andy Burnham's first keynote speech to the Labour conference as Prime Minister was billed as a radical break from the “flawed thinking of the last 40 years”, but it offered nothing more than a depressing slide backward into the failed dogma of the 1970s.

While the Prime Minister attempts to dress up his plan to seize control of utilities and nationalise water companies as “breaking the mould,” it is merely the same old state-monopoly playbook that historically crushed British productivity.

Forcing the taxpayer to shoulder the massive liabilities of these industries will do nothing to foster the economic growth this country desperately needs.

Chris Learmont-Hughes

Caldy, Wirral

---

Stripping citizenship

SIR – The Conservative Party's proposal to dramatically expand the UK's use of “citizenship stripping” (report, September 27) would entrench the principle of two-tier justice for anyone with foreign heritage in the UK.

Stripping citizenship from people if they commit serious offences is not a crime prevention strategy; it is a political tool that gives the Home Secretary sole power to remove a person's nationality, what the political philosopher Hannah Arendt called "the right to have rights". It is therefore deployed based on politics rather than law – as in cases we've already seen where politicians have called for people's citizenship to be stripped on the basis of social media posts. What's more, the citizenship stripping power is fundamentally racist – it discriminates between people with no foreign ties, who cannot be stripped, and people with overseas heritage or links whose nationality remains contingent.

These proposals are discriminatory, divisive and risk fundamentally undermining the principle of equal citizenship.

Citizenship isn't a reward for good behaviour. It's a right, and suggesting otherwise cheapens our justice system. Maya Foa

---

London's super-hub

SIR – Given that the third runway at Heathrow is unlikely to open until 2039 (report, September 27), perhaps we should look again at the “Boris Island” proposals for the Thames estuary.

A purpose-built set-up on the Isle of Grain, starting from scratch, with appropriate infrastructure and transport links, has much to offer in

terms of practicality and a boost to the local economy.

A challenge indeed, but the time is over for a cobbled together Heathrow-based solution for London's much needed super-hub airport. Tim Lovett

SIR – The Prime Minister has suggested that it might be better to make greater use of Manchester Airport before Heathrow is allowed to expand.

How about considering the East-West as well as North-South?

There is a magnificent runway at Doncaster that can accommodate any plane flying today and is ripe for development.

That would repudiate the criticism that “you can take a man out of Manchester but cannot take Manchester out of the man”. At the same time it would bring growth to an enormous number of postcodes. Andrew Coombe Sheffield, South Yorkshire

---

Help not hand-outs

SIR – The Conservatives want to prevent young people under 25 who have worked for fewer than six months from claiming Universal Credit (report, October 1).

Young people who are out of work or not in continuing education should be supported, but not by hand-outs. Give them pride in achievement by working with charities or voluntary groups, therefore earning the benefits that they receive.

This may also help them decide what they want to do with their lives.

Ann Tomline

Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire

---

Radical young women

SIR – Zoe Strimpel hit the nail on the head in her article on the young women whose politics effectively put them “in league with those who would undo all their rights” (Comment, September 27).

This is not new. I recall the time that the Shah of Iran was deposed and control was seized by Ayatollah Khomeini, who was welcomed by cheering crowds.

I particularly remember the large numbers of young women dressed in black robes shrieking their welcomes. Those same women may think differently now.

John McErlean

Elstow, Bedfordshire

---

Something wicked

SIR – Gill Clark's letter (September 27) on carving Hallowe'en vegetables echoes Indians stringing neem leaves, lemons and chillies to ward off evil.

Line of defence: the Churchill War Rooms first opened to the public in 1984

I went for the first time a few weeks ago and found the Churchill Museum itself tired, with dated displays that did not match the significance of the site or Churchill's legacy. With well over half a million visitors a year, I would expect there to be enough revenue to warrant an exhibition of the highest standard. I wrote to the IWM's director-general after my visit; her team replied that there were "no plans to change the

SIR - Your report on the Imperial War Museum's rebrand ("Imperial War Museum 'turns its back on the past'", September 27) will not surprise anyone who has visited the Churchill War Rooms recently.

Global demon-dodging methods are wonderfully bizarre, from Germans hiding kitchen knives to the Irish baking coins, rings or rags into barmbrack cakes and the Bhutanese painting giant phalluses on house walls. Ramesh Nayak Louth, Lincolnshire

SIR - When naming our robotic lawnmower (Letters, September 27) we held a family competition. The winning suggestion was Mo (after Farah, as it is quite nippy). The runner-up was RoboCrop.

Paul Martin

Nyewood, West Sussex

---

A quick trim

SIR – I haven't yet named my robot lawnmower; I am still trying to get to grips with the app on my phone so I can tell it what I want it to do.

A call to invest in the Churchill War Rooms

museum exhibition space at the Churchill War Rooms" owing to "limited funds". That is hard to square with an IWM rebrand which is expected to cost up to £1m.

The justification offered is that younger visitors “do not relate” to the First and Second World Wars. A recent poll found only 34 per cent of Gen Z adults recognise the significance of VE Day, an argument for better teaching of that history, not for retreating from it.

The Churchill War Rooms hold lessons too important to be shelved.

Alan Coppin

Former CEO, Historic Royal Palaces

Bourne End, Buckinghamshire

have control over what it's doing, but it's usually back at base by the morning.

It does have a tendency to crash into the same bit of wall and needs to be rescued, but it seems to have seen off the rabbits, either because the grass is too short or because they're not keen on something that must appear to them like a tank patrolling their dining area. Andrew Wands Freswick, Caithness

We accept letters by post, fax and email only. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers. III Buckingham Palace Road, London SWIWODT FAX 020 79312878 EMAIL dtletters@telegraph.co.uk FOLLOW Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk

Comment

---

SAM MATTHEWS BOEHMER Headphones are turning my Gen Z peers into idiots

Small,

spontaneous

chats once

defined

public life

– then came

ear buds

Over the past decade, headphones have moved rapidly through various cultural phases. They began as an accessory, became a fashion statement, then a trend. Now they are a necessity: so fundamental to daily life that those without them look bizarre.

Surrounded by my head-rocking, heedless fellows, I've begun to feel like an oddity. I don't wear headphones anymore. I stopped because I lost mine. Yet since, going about my day with open ears, I've understood more clearly the distortions and disconnections that come along with the fad.

Recently, on public transport, I sat opposite a man in his mid-20s who was both using his phone and listening to music. As he reached his stop, he stowed away the phone and reached for another – apparently the device he uses for work. He then removed his headphones from each ear and, fumbling a little desperately, inserted a new set to pair with his work phone. He stood up in the middle of the aisle, bobbing his head, unaware of the people trying to push past him.

This is no longer unusual. Earbuds have become a kind of garment, as essential for a walk down the street as a shirt or trousers. We are constantly told of the dangers of our screens – for our attention spans, our sleep, our mental health – but headphones get off lightly. Why?

Perhaps it is because there are aspects to headphone-wearing that are faintly amusing: the individual who walks down the street, madly if cutely talking to themselves; the plaintive shouts across to someone within earshot but oblivious to anything around them.

Yet even these mild incidents have consequences.

The most obvious and probably most important detail is that we are funnelling so much of our attention through our ears. That would be worthwhile if we were imbibing material that we could value. From what I've heard – they're not soundproof, you know – the majority listen to music while they commute. Music is fabulous, but we are nostalgic creatures, and more often than not these will be tunes we already know, and can mouth along to. It feels good, but how can we notice what we are hearing in the rush of the Tube, or traffic?

Podcasts are no better. The great cultural theorist Walter Ong writes how difficult it is to convey intricate chronologies and complex relationships orally. Generally, auditory media are more distancing than involving, as we are cut off from the rest of the world. Reading, the obvious alternative, is a formidable neurological feat, intertwining value judgments and necessary empathy. Headphones in, we isolate ourselves from the full environment indispensable to human responsiveness. A colleague might tell you what they were talking about on The Rest is History last week; now enjoy their wide-eyed panic when you query a single specific detail.

My friends are fiends for constant distraction. Useful boredom

Here, the major, pitiable folly is that our headphone obsession seems to induce a collective act of avoidance. Those who wear headphones are scarcely impulsive, clutching for them and sliding them on ahead of a five-minute walk because it is easier than walking along with their thoughts. Many of my friends can't read without a headphone in one ear. They are fiends for constant distraction. Useful boredom – Nietzsche's “unpleasant calm of the soul” – is being eliminated.

– Nietzsche's ‘unpleasant calm of the soul’ – is being eliminated

This has annoying consequences for all of us. Rudeness, chiefly, and the dying away of the small, valuable conversations that now can't be had without an awkward gesture and the mouthing of “take them off”.

Worse still, for many, the sounds of the world around them have virtually vanished, drowned by the voices and noises in their ears.

To order prints or signed copies of any Telegraph cartoon, go to telegraph.co.uk/prints-cartoons or call 0191 603 0178 ♦ readerprints@telegraph.co.uk

---

[JANET DALEY] Burnham's plot to impose Left-wing rule on Britain forever

The Prime Minister's cynical desire for electoral reform is the antithesis of democratic duty

READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

You may have had a bemused moment when Andy Burnham was reaching the end of his list of aspirations in that marathon speech. Where did the unexpected commitment to “electoral reform” come from? And what exactly did he mean by advocating a new system in which “every vote counts”?

For those who do not make it their professional business to recall every nuance of political history, the reference might have been mystifying. What he was referring to was that voters in “safe” seats where one party has such a secure majority that it is likely never to be displaced might feel effectively disenfranchised. Campaigners for “electoral reform” imply that this means that our present situation is deeply unjust: that some voters are denied the democratic right to determine who represents them in Parliament and are, therefore, deprived of any influence over who governs them.

But people who voted for a losing candidate have participated fully in the electoral process, as is their right. They just didn't win because more people in their constituency wanted a different candidate, which is the legitimate outcome of democracy as we practise it. So the “electoral reform” lobby demands that the principle of parliamentary constituency election itself be dismantled to be replaced by a system of proportional representation.

This is generally interpreted to mean that the overall vote tallies for the entire country would determine what proportion of seats went to which parties, and those seats would be allocated by the parties. So there would no longer be a direct relationship

between any member of parliament and voters in a particular constituency.

You would, in other words, no longer have elected a local MP. Your community's particular concerns would not have a committed representative in government. Any specific complaints that you or your neighbours might have about the impact of Westminster decisions on local conditions would presumably have to be referred to a national authority, rather than someone directly elected by, and answerable to, you.

This would be quite an extraordinary break with the historic structure of Parliament and its relationship to the population. It was probably the single greatest factor in the overwhelming defeat of this policy when it was proposed in a referendum more than a decade ago.

So we must ask: why bring it back now? What on Earth made the new, unmandated Prime Minister resuscitate such a radical revision of the electoral process at a time when his Government has so much to worry about that seems more urgent?

To put it bluntly, what could he and his party have to gain from proposing such a change, when they have a clear majority in the existing Parliament and a reasonable chance of securing another one? Answer: they are attempting to construct a political future that would guarantee monopoly power to Left (and Leftish) parties: a permanent coalition of Labour and its congenial fellow travellers that would lock out any radical free-market-based alternative.

Even if Labour were never again able to command an outright majority in the Commons, the party could see to it that their ideological opponents were blocked by whatever hotch-potch of minority groups could be cobbled together in the aftermath of a noisy, incoherent election campaign.

But surely, the advocates might say, that is not the unavoidable outcome of proportional representation. Its objective is greater accountability to the electorate, not less. A government that is a more statistically accurate representation of the people's wishes must surely be more democratically legitimate. Your opinion should count even if you happen to be outnumbered in your community, shouldn't it?

The answer to this, technically, is no. Democracy is defined as government determined by the majority (which is why Plato castigated it as mob rule). So the question must be, if minorities are discounted in constituency elections on the sound reasoning that they do not represent what most voters want, why should they be given what might be a critical position of power in national government?

It is easy to see where this model ends. There are examples of its consequences all over the world where coalitions must be formed that involve abandoning electoral promises and party principles. What follows after the voters have had their say is a cynical round of trade-offs and backroom stitch-ups between professional players that can become absurdly prolonged, as it was in Belgium in 2010 when it took 541 days to form a government. Most to the point, it is often the little guys – the parties that gained only a small proportion of the popular vote – that end up holding the balance of power.

Burnham's Labour is obviously prepared to take the risk of being in power with the support of the Greens – who are now little more than a front for the Palestine lobby – the Lib Dems and perhaps even Islamist independents, for the sake of permanent Leftist hegemony. Indeed, we already have a hint of this. Zack Polanski, in his party-conference speech, bragged about the phenomenon: “Vote Green and watch Labour move.”

This behind-the-scenes game is not only the antithesis of democratic accountability – giving disproportionate influence to parties with very little public support – but it breeds precisely the thing it was supposed to prevent: extremist activism. What was intended to ensure permanent moderation and inclusivity will end up infuriating alienated voters further.

The great source of discontent on the angry Right is that all the major parties are too centrist, too mushy liberal, to take the action needed on migration, woke doctrine and wealth creation. If their votes simply become cards in a deck to be dealt by forces beyond their control, they will become increasingly dangerous.

But there is a deeper flaw in the promotion of government by consensus: democratic politics is all about argument. Without disagreement and challenging opposition, there is no choice. And without choice, there is no freedom.

Some political leader has to make it clear that people are being heard, that their discontent is being taken seriously and that it can be contained within the bounds of a rational civil society. There are promising signs that Kemi Badenoch is about to do just that.

---

[ZOE STRIMPEL] Cambridge is gorging on social-justice foolery, and ruining its reputation

The great university has sacrificed rigour and excellence for ‘inclusivity’ doctrine

As a girl, Cambridge utterly bewitched me: it was the most magical place I'd ever seen. It never crossed my mind that I'd actually make it there myself. Surprisingly I did. And while the actual Cambridge experience, at least as a student, had its enchanting moments – how could it not in such a setting? – it was also difficult, especially academically.

The work was hard. Everyone else seemed to grasp concepts naturally that I couldn't make head or tail of at 18 (turns out there are lots of “isms” even in the study of English literature), and there was absolutely no hand-holding.

But unlike the institution today, the university was still a titan. It belonged more to the past than the present – deep, layered, unique, cruel at times, a magnet for the best the world over. It hadn't yet begun its lurch, at least not obviously, to the horrific vacantness of today's elite educational culture. Indeed, since #MeToo, Cambridge seems to have shifted course, replacing the basics of excellence such as creativity and rigour with forces that systematically work against them.

The university has leaned utterly into the social justice and DEI regime, lapping up all its most ridiculous aspects, like renaming old buildings and following the prescriptions of a Legacies of Enslavement Advisory Group to rename future buildings after black graduates and abolitionists. Departments and staff are at liberty to pursue the “decolonising” of curricula, while pro-trans ideology is integrated into reading lists across some subjects.

Even all this would be tolerable if it didn't also mean that anyone questioning these nasty orthodoxies would be socially and sometimes institutionally punished. The academic consequences of embracing ever-madder woke groupthink are predictable: after decades of general dominance, Cambridge has now slipped to fifth in the 2027 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, with Oxford at number one.

Instead of pulling back, Cambridge is going deeper, with initiatives and pressure coming not from on high but from the students themselves.

Recently, mandatory inclusiveness training was reportedly announced at Gonville and Caius College, to the horror of civil liberties and free speech groups. Students are to learn that they must always display “positive attitudes” and “use respectful and kind language that will not cause harm or offence”. Free speech should be “restricted by other duties, responsibilities, and legislative and contractual obligations” and “opinions,

READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

attitudes and prejudice are influenced and shaped by unconscious bias, media bias, fake news...”

In my day, there was a lot of anti-war yelling and shouting from students because of the Iraq War. There was also the mandatory quotient of anti-Israel rhetoric and burbling about class war. But it was easy to ignore all this, and most people did, or argue back, in whatever terms we liked.

There was no institutional censor, whether from the student body or the university – policing thought and language, creating self-consciousness, dampening the courage to ask questions or make bold statements, or inducing paranoia that one would be punished for holding a verboten thought.

Would I dream of going to Cambridge if I were a girl today? Unclear. It's certainly hard to imagine getting anything like what one used to get out of the experience. Still, all is never quite lost. There is now a non-silent minority emerging who aren't putting up with the anti-truth mandates. One example is Thea Sewell, a philosophy student at Christ's College who finally snapped after hearing Julie Bindel and Helen Joyce rebuff trans ideology with bravery.

Sewell began speaking up and found herself immediately ostracised. She left Cambridge for a while under this stressful cloud, but returned and, along with Maeve Halligan and Serena Worle, started a group called the Cambridge University Society of Women, which fights for freedom of speech.

Let's hope the plain-spoken courage of these girls is just the start, as there needs to be a wide-scale refusal to accept the rollout of all tenets of social justice, not just trans.

DANIEL HANNAN

---

Undoing the hard-fought Brexit settlement is the sign of an unserious country

That we

have not

yet made

the most

of our

freedoms

is not an

argument

for

abandoning

them

Do we need the distraction right now? With welfare bills ballooning, bond vigilantes prowling and an all-out kinetic war on the horizon, is this really the moment to start a debilitating decade-long debate about our relationship with the EU?

EU negotiations are never speedy. Our first application was launched by Harold Macmillan in 1961, and we did not get in until 1973. Yes, we had De Gaulle's two vetoes to contend with, but the timescale was by no means unusual. Some countries managed the process a bit more quickly (Spain, Slovenia), and some took longer (Cyprus, Malta). Turkey has been waiting since 1987. The average span from application to acceptance is nine years.

A new British bid would be accompanied by the nastiest kind of culture war. Have we forgotten what it was like after 2016? The strained friendships, the family feuds, the political paralysis? Why do it to ourselves again? Where is the pressing need?

We keep being told that we must “resolve” our relationship with the EU, but that is begging the question. We have a resolution now. Indeed, we have the closest trading relationship that the EU has ever signed with a state not in the process of joining, and we have managed to agree it while retaining full regulatory autonomy (except, disgracefully, in Northern Ireland).

It is true that our deal is imperfect, but its chief flaws are products of EU resentment. There remain a few areas where Brussels is prepared to hurt its 27 members because it believes it is inflicting greater pain on the UK.

A general agreement on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, for example, would benefit the EU more than Britain, given the relative number of workers on each other's territories; but Eurocrats hang back for political reasons. Ditto refusing to recognise each other's food safety standards, something the EU agreed easily enough with New Zealand. Ditto not reciprocating on equivalence for financial services. Ditto passport e-gates. Ditto... oh, you get the gist.

Now ask this question: is the prospect of British membership, even if it were never realised, likely to facilitate agreement on those issues? Think about it. If the EU were reconciled to British independence, it would seek the best deal for itself, rather than pursuing revenge over a referendum that was fading into memory. But as long as it thinks it can pull Britain back in, it has every incentive to leave in place the petty

annoyances that were designed to make non-membership uncomfortable.

I happen to think that the chances of Britain voting to reverse the 2016 referendum are, to a first approximation, zero. It is true that Leavers are unable to point to the radical improvements that more ambitious governments would have pursued after Brexit. We have been slow to deregulate. We have passed the powers we took back from Brussels, not to Parliament, but to risk-averse and bureaucratic British regulatory agencies.

In some areas, we made things worse, adopting harsher eco-targets than when we were members, for example. The very first use we made of our regulatory freedom in financial services was, incredibly, to increase the capital requirement of British banks. We decided to make agriculture (which employs 1.3 per cent of our workforce) the test of every trade deal, handing an effective veto to the Euro-fanatical NFU.

---

It is true that our deal is imperfect, but its chief flaws are products of EU resentment

Still, the fact that we have not yet taken advantage of our freedoms is not an argument for abandoning them. Indeed, some of the strongest advantages of Brexit have been negative, in the sense that we have not had to adopt useless Brussels rules imposed in our absence.

Among the 10,000-odd EU legal acts adopted since 2020 are heavy restrictions on AI, tech in vehicles and gene editing, which no one in those industries – and, in fairness, no Labour minister – wants to copy. Some of the things we have swerved are small (rejoining would mean lowering the contactless limit at checkouts from £100 to €50, for example) and some are large (Britain was not forced to join the €577bn Covid recovery fund). The EU budget, meanwhile, has risen from around €150bn when we voted to nearly €200bn now.

None of these things has properly penetrated our collective consciousness. Nor has the lack of growth in most of Western Europe. Nor has the immigration crisis in the Mediterranean. Nor have the cases of fraud and corruption, one of which saw MEPs arrested after banknotes worth millions of euros were found in their homes.

As non-members, we don't have to pay attention. Once talks began, those things would enter our debate, and the polls would turn drastically.

The single biggest advantage that Remain had in 2016 was status quo bias. Almost all referendums see a swing to the anti-change option during the campaign, and this one would see it in spades. People would remember how the EU set out to humiliate Britain after the 2016 vote. They would recall the way, after all their bellyaching about the Irish border, Eurocrats ordered that border be closed in a fit of pique because Britain's vaccine rollout was faster than theirs.

They would recall the threats to cut

A new British bid for EU membership would be accompanied by the nastiest kind of culture war

---

Section #110

FOLLOW

Daniel Hannan

on Twitter

@DanielJHannan;

READ MORE at

telegraph.co.uk/

opinion

off electricity to the Channel Islands and even, when Britain sought to assert itself in the talks, to close European airspace to British flights. They would realise how abject it would be to back down after years of such treatment.

Here's the thing, though. We don't actually need to join the EU to suffer the ill effects; we simply need to be talking about it. What country will agree a trade deal with us if it thinks we might hand control of all our commercial policy to Brussels? Who will invest in a British AI or biotech firm if they believe their work might soon be outlawed?

When the EU says it will do everything possible to bring Britain back in, it means that it might let us keep the pound and stay out of Schengen. Eurosceptics are making a mistake by building up these things as obstacles. It is hardly a concession to carry on with exactly what you have, but it will be presented as such by Rejoiners.

That, though, is as far as it will go. When it comes to accepting the supremacy of Euro-judges, the budget contributions, the further steps towards integration that have happened in our absence – especially on tax and defence – we should expect no exemptions.

The idea, peddled by Tony Blair, that we should join a looser, more effective, reformed EU sounds terrific. Had such a deal ever been on offer, we wouldn't have left. But it was never on the menu.

Once the actual membership conditions become clear, public opinion will swing solidly against the humiliation of begging to come back in

---

We don't actually need to join the EU to suffer the ill effects; we simply need to be talking about it

on worse terms than before. In the meantime, all the urgent reforms we need will go neglected. And, trust me, those reforms are urgent.

This week, the cost of borrowing spiked again, with 30-year bonds above 6 per cent. To some extent, it is a global phenomenon; but it also reflects a growing belief that Britain's leaders have no plan to slow the rise in government spending.

A wise government would find immediate ways to boost growth. It would freeze benefits as a prelude to abolishing some categories of payment altogether. It would remove those taxes that do the most damage to growth while bringing in the least revenue, especially taxes on savings, investment and inheritance.

It would massively reduce the civil service, allowing AI to improve the productivity of state employees as it has in the private sector. It would make the NHS more responsive to patients. It would lure back the global rich.

Andy Burnham could do these things without his motives being questioned. Instead, he seems determined to fritter away the years arguing about a settlement that was reached after a once-in-a-generation vote in 2016. That is not the behaviour of a serious leader, nor of a serious country.

---

[HOWARD JABOBSON] I am obsessed with the utter ignorance of the Jew-haters

Anti-

Semitism

finds its

fiercest

home at

universities,

where

students

might be

expected to

have read a

little history

I need a new hobby to take my mind off my obsession. The catch, of course, if you happen to have an obsessive personality, is that you become obsessed with your new hobby. In my teenage years, on my father's advice, I played table tennis to take my mind off falling in love with every girl I met. I was quickly obsessed. I lived and would willingly have died for the game.

Even in my dreams I played table tennis, competing against faceless, impregnable opponents. Back the ball came no matter how hard I hit it, until I woke in the early dawn, defeated and exhausted. When I described my condition to my doctor, he advised me to find a new hobby. "What, like falling in love with every girl I meet?" I asked with a twisted laugh. He put a stethoscope to my chest. "That would certainly be more normal," he said.

The obsession I need a hobby to take my mind off today is Jew-hating. Its omnipresence. Its implacability. Its inexplicable rage, as though it's the Jew-hater rather than the Jew-hated who has reason to be aggrieved. Above all what obsesses me is the paradox of its uncouth ignorance appealing most to the educated.

Not in the wild or in a zoo do Jew-haters find a home but on the campuses of our best universities, where they might be expected to have read a little history or know the meaning of simple words. Could it be that the ultimate aim of education is anti-Semitism? I serve the question into the darkness, but only a ball comes back, twice as hard as I hit it.

As in my table tennis years, the nights are the worst. The minute my eyes close the Jew haters appear, not marching - my bed is not big enough to accommodate any sort of demonstration - but sitting packed tight in lecture theatres, wearing black armbands and that closed expression favoured by people who never question themselves. "Shalom aleichem," I begin. Peace be upon you. They don't chant the customary "Aleichem shalom", in return.

Jew and would certainly have been a Zionist had he been alive when the Jews were being killed in their tens of thousands in pogroms throughout eastern Europe. I tell them what a pogrom was.

I explain that Zionism was a movement of liberation and self-realisation of the sort they support when it's for Palestinians. Zionists didn't turn up out of the blue in tanks firing Kalashnikovs. They came carrying shovels and works of philosophy. Some were idealists and dreamers, poets and utopists, others, no doubt, would have been opportunists.

There wasn't just one kind of Zionist. An early supporter of Zionism, for example, was George Eliot. The name rings no bells, though in my dream at least, a sizeable proportion of the Jew-haters are reading English literature at university. Not the kind of

---

Could it be that Jews are begrudged the Holocaust for the pity it earned them?

English literature I studied. Not Keats and negative capability. More Edward Said and settler-colonialism.

“She wrote Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda,” I explain. The “she” throws them. Didn’t I say George Eliot? The possibility that this early proponent of Zionism might have been trans causes a brief perplexity. It would be a good idea for me to wake up at this moment. Count their confusion a victory. But my obsession forces me to continue throwing words and ideas into the unresponsive blackness.

I move on to genocide. The genocide, they invariably call it. The definite article is not accidental. We are talking about a genocide like no other. “This is not just genocide, this is IDF genocide.”

Seldom can that little word “the” have been sent on so deadly an errand. Not only does its definiteness brook no question as to the genocide’s existence, it reduces in significance

and atrocity, indeed it replaces, any other genocide we might have heard about. Out you go, Jews. We have new, more deserving victims.

I set the grammar to one side and contest the definition. I know about genocides. They were once another of my obsessions. Most Jews of my acquaintance are the same. We know that a genocide is not determined by the numbers of people killed in a cruel war.

Until you understand the history and moral atmospherics of genocide, until you've been hounded out of every country, herded on to death trains, seen your civilisation defamed, your every thought ground to nothing, the very principle of your existence eradicated, wiped forever (had the genocide succeeded) from the slate of history – and I would not wish that experience upon a single Palestinian – until then, you who march and demonstrate against Israel have no business with the word.

Could there be such a phenomenon as Shoah-envy? Could it be that Jews are begrudged the Holocaust for the pity it earned them? Why else this attempt to render them unworthy of their history? Why else want it expunged? And now consider this: even as you march to denounce the genocide, you are wishing that very eventuality upon the Jews. I have seen posters calling on someone to finish the job. Not just from the river to the sea, but wherever and whenever Jews have been respected, you want them gone.

Even in the darkness I see the gleams of hatred in your eyes. You are excited. A flame has been lit and you want to ensure it goes on burning. I saw you pull the posters of hostages from walls and lampposts, laughing as you did so. Out you go, Jews. There's a lesson here: speak not loosely of genocide lest it recognise itself in your words and deeds.

As things stand, a number of London universities are planning a march to commemorate Oct 7, 2023. Think of that – a festive parade to celebrate the killing of Jews. It might not go ahead as grandly as its

organisers hope, but the much-abused right-to-protest argument will surely prevail against jittery authorities. Quite what the students will be protesting against is hard to grasp, given that they've been delighting openly and freely in the bloodbath since the hour it happened.

But no one wants to question a marcher unless he marches with his face covered and goes down the street shouting in a manner which Angela Rayner has just observed she finds “intimidating” and would like not to be allowed. So just when exactly, I wonder, can a march be deemed intimidating. When the marchers cover their faces with balaclavas. And when isn’t a march intimidating? When it intimidates me.

Only a few months after Sir Keir Starmer stepped down, the Labour Party is already a different beast. In the rush to apologise to party members for not listening to them earlier, Ed Miliband leads the pack. Sorry about Gaza, he says; we should have listened. Ask “Listen to whom exactly?” and the answer would seem to be, those calling for a ceasefire even before Hamas had finished dragging the last hostages over the border and those who want not to mention Hamas at all.

With regard to his own failure to hear these voices, Miliband drips contrition. He has even brushed up on the vocabulary beloved of those he wants to please. Ethnic cleansing - tick. Settler terrorism - tick. Apartheid - tick. Illegal occupation - tick, tick, tick.

Quite how a country founded on such illegality was able to offer his traumatised grandmother the shelter and sanctuary he often talks about, he doesn't say. But when he starts to enter my dreams I will remind him of what Israel has existed against all the odds to do. You say you are grateful, Foreign Secretary, but gratitude should be more than a word. You should feel it in that part of yourself you describe as "proudly Jewish".

No one asks you to lie, prevaricate or whitewash. I agree that a true friend of Israel will not flinch from being critical. But the word critical has many meanings, and a true friend of Israel will not embrace the propaganda of its enemies. Seek the approval of the baying mob if you must, Mr Miliband – that's a question for your conscience – but don't mistake its words for "just criticism".

Truth is a precious commodity. You won't find it paying lickspittle to the Left of your party, many of whom, had they been around, would have smothered in its cradle the Israel that helped your grandmother. You allude to the Hamas massacre but can only scrape together a perfunctory sentence about it.

You stand emphatically, you say with weak emphasis, against those who seek Israel's destruction, but you call Israel's response to that barbaric massacre "a stain on the conscience of the world". And the precipitating massacre itself? Do you not consider such barbarity a stain on the

---

Zionism was a movement of liberation of the sort protesters support for Palestinians

READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

conscience of those who encouraged and then applauded it?

But if you can't bring yourself to go that far, for fear of incurring the wrath of backbenchers who don't accept the concept of a terrorist, tell me how exactly you intend to help keep Israel safe for future grandmothers fleeing Jew-hatred. Or do you think Hamas will take care of them?

I bat the questions into the night but there are no answers. Somewhere in the darkness is a gooey-eyed, self-pronouncing proud Jew who can't find a good word for the Jewish state and so must borrow all the bad ones from Jew-haters of every stripe, from armed jihadis to elderly suburban anti-Semites who can't wait to be arrested for sitting on the grass in support of Palestine Action.

What say you, Mr Miliband? While we're talking stains on consciences, how clean is yours? I wait, but only a little white ball comes back.

2026

---

Speeches, slogans and strategies won’t deliver reindustrialisation

Experts fear Burnham strategy will fall at energy hurdle. By Matt Oliver, Emma Taggart and Szu Ping Chan

A giant “muncher” crane slowly eats its way through vast, derelict buildings at the Llanwern steelworks.

At its peak, the site on the outskirts of Newport was a crucial cog in one of the biggest industrial hubs in the world.

Now, workers can only watch as the complex is torn apart. “We’re literally watching as the place we work is destroyed in front of us,” says one veteran employee.

The facility, owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, today produces galvanised steel but has seen its role dramatically reduced over time.

More recently, the steelworks has been threatened by high energy costs and an influx of cheaper, foreign steel that has followed a loosening of tariff restrictions. As of August, it was only operating at half-capacity with hundreds of jobs feared to be at risk. "It feels like a perfect storm," frets the employee.

Further along the Welsh coast, in Port Talbot, Tata has also cut some 2,000 jobs as part of plans to close its historic blast furnaces.

These struggles – and those of Britain's wider steel industry – are among the most visceral examples of the UK's fading industrial power. In the face of global competition, domestic businesses in carmaking, chemicals and other foundation sectors have warned that they are struggling to compete.

But at Labour's annual conference last week, Andy Burnham and John Healey vowed to buck this trend with a “new era of industrialisation”.

They have talked up manufacturing, arguing it is vital for national security in an age of instability, winning a rapturous reception from the party faithful.

But what does it mean in practice? And is it just a ridiculous fantasy? Stephen Phipson, chief executive of manufacturing body Make

UK, warns that far from a resurgence, industry is currently facing threats from “every direction.” “Reindustrialisation won’t be delivered through speeches, strategies or slogans from Whitehall,” he says.

“It will be delivered by thousands of individual businesses making decisions to recruit, invest and expand. And right now too many of those decisions are being postponed.”

---

Dramatic decline

In the 19th century, Britain was at the heart of the industrial revolution that unleashed an era of breakneck economic growth. But in the post-war period, the nation's industrial muscles have gradually atrophied as the global economy's centre of gravity has shifted.

In the 1970s, manufacturing made up around 30pc of all jobs domestically. That has since dwindled to 7.8pc of workers.

The dramatic decline has transformed bustling industrial towns into hotspots of joblessness after major employers shut factories and moved overseas.

Now some fear Healey's pledge to usher in “a new age of industrialisation” risks harking back to a bygone era.

Reindustrialisation would need to reverse a trend “that has been going on for decades”, says Paul Johnson, the former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, when “actually, our strength is as a service-based economy”.

The data reflects just that. Last year manufacturing made up 8.3pc of total UK economic output (GVA), compared to an 81pc contribution from the services sector.

As the fortunes of the country's manufacturers started to turn in the 80s, a rare bright spot for the sector was Margaret

Thatcher's lobbying to bring in Japanese car manufacturers, with Nissan opening its first UK factory in Sunderland in 1984.

But China's emergence as a manufacturing superpower have put further pressure on British industry since then, along with skills shortages and soaring energy costs.

Today, even Nissan's highly-efficient Sunderland plant has been reduced to running at 50pc capacity.

Executives blame rising costs as a key reason for the idleness, warning the plant “pays more for electricity than any other Nissan plant in the world”.

“Ultimately, the UK is not a competitive place to be building cars today,” said Alan Johnson, a senior vice president for manufacturing at Nissan, in a parliamentary hearing last year. There are few signs that the decline is slowing.

Stellantis closed its historic Vauxhall plant in Luton last year putting around 1,000 jobs at risk. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) – Britain's biggest domestic car maker – is cutting 4,000 jobs over the next two years as it struggles with tariffs and tough competition overseas.

Against this backdrop, ministers have been courting Chinese brands such as BYD, Jaecoo -owner Chery and SAIC Motor, the owner of MG, in the hope they will invest. But industry sources say even they are wary about the costs of doing business in Britain.

Meanwhile, western brands fear the Chinese will undercut them on price – partly thanks to state support from Beijing.

It has prompted questions of whether Britain should embrace China's carmakers fully or follow the European Union and impose tariffs to protect domestic industry – a demand Brussels has reportedly made a condition of any deal on its “Made in Europe”

supply chain standards. But automotive is just one area where competition from China has dramatically altered the landscape.

Since China transformed itself into an export powerhouse and joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the UK, like many western economies, has simply failed to keep up with the influx of cheap imports, leaving many domestic manufacturing companies falling behind.

British petrochemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe last month warned that China was “overbuilding” factory capacity for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – used in sanitation, food packaging, healthcare and construction – and then “dumping” the excess output on Europe.

"The result is an accelerating rate of closure of our chemical industry," said Sir Jim, whose company Ineos has filed an official complaint with Europe's competition regulators.

Chemicals used to be the crown jewel of UK industry. But industry leaders have since found themselves issuing desperate warnings to the Government amid a wave of factory closures – 25 and counting since 2021.

This has been accompanied by a collapse in the sector's output, falling 60pc over the same period, according to the Chemical Industries Association. Some economists, nevertheless, suggest the flow of ultra-cheap Chinese goods is ultimately to Europe's benefit.

However Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, warns the West's "dangerous" dependency on imports is one of the main reasons US and European policymakers are pushing for reindustrialisation – with Beijing seen as a far from benevolent trading partner.

"There is a deeper geostrategic rationale underlying the desire to reindustrialise," Tordoir adds. Unlike UK car manufacturers, a number of other industries have survived and even kept growing.

“We have a very strong pharmaceutical base and a broader life sciences industry that isn’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon, in part because it’s so research and development intensive,” says Liam Sides, director at Oxford Economics.

The defence sector and aerospace engineering are also held up as parts of UK manufacturing growing significantly thanks to new advancements.

Yet for many other companies the question remains: will Burnham's plan to boost industry really work, or are they stuck on a path to irrelevance?

---

Innovation nation

As thousands of Labour apparatchiks mingled at the party's annual conference last week, the merchandise shop in Liverpool was stuffed with memorabilia commemorating former leader Harold Wilson.

It has been 60 years since Wilson's second election victory in 1966 – and 63 since he vowed to reforge British industry in the “white heat” of technology.

The plan ultimately rested on a sweeping, state-led reorganisation of manufacturing that created behemoths including carmaker British Leyland, the General Electric Company (GEC) and International Computers Ltd, which collectively employed more than half a million people.

Wilson's policy is now largely seen as having failed on its own terms.

The boost to economic growth he hoped for never turned up, while all three of the big firms created through government-

'I cannot think of an advanced economy less suited for an industrial resurgence'

Liam Sides, Oxford Economics

Llanwern steel works being demolished, left, thriving, below, and Burnham charged with rebooting UK manufacturing, bottom

Shrinking feeling

orchestrated mergers had gone bust or been broken up 40 years later.

Meanwhile, the Government's shaky finances in the face of global headwinds also put a ceiling on Wilson's ambitions – forcing the former PM into a humiliating devaluation of the pound in 1967.

Under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, much of the British state's involvement in industry was unwound with privatisations that included British Aerospace, British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, Rolls-Royce and British Steel.

Ironically, however, Burnham and his Chancellor, John Healey, are now pushing for the Government to resume a more muscular role in a “new era of industrialisation.”

In his Labour conference speech, Healey gave a nostalgic account of the “industrial heartlands” that once powered Britain’s economy while stressing some sources of employment, such as coal mining, were “not coming back.”

Instead the Chancellor chose to channel Wilson with an argument that manufacturing had to be “remade for the modern world”. He has also set out plans for the Government to stimulate demand by “buying British”. “This is the new age of industrialisation,” he told delegates. “Don’t tell me it’s not possible.”

Andy Burnham similarly argued that Britain should seek to lead the world in the deployment and regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), while name-checking Gordon Brown's proposal for an “innovation nation” that supports start-ups.

“We led the world first’s industrial revolution from the Midlands and the North of England,” Burnham said. “So why can’t we lead the next?”

As critics have pointed out, however, the plan for reindustrialisation so far looks somewhat scattershot.

The most expensive announcement was £6bn for domestic shipbuilders to construct new floating submarine docks – important infrastructure, no doubt, but hardly the technologies of the future.

There are also signs of a mismatch between what ministers are pitching and the more sweeping ambitions of Labour's union backers. Unite, the GMB, Unison, the RMT, the Communication Workers Union and the Trades Union Congress have variously called for the nationalisation of the energy, water, transport, postal, telecoms, shipbuilding and steel sectors.

“If they pull it off, reindustrialisation should mean reinvigorating the working-class communities and industrial heartlands of the UK,” says Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, the GMB’s national officer for manufacturing.

"It means apprenticeship opportunities for kids that can't go to university and communities like Scunthorpe, where I'm

from, thriving rather than just managing decline." She believes the decline of British industry since the 1980s is proof that privatisation hasn't worked, leaving "foreign entities owning some of our most strategically important industries".

However, nationalising more of the economy could initially cost the Government hundreds of billions of pounds and risk saddling taxpayers with huge losses if the investments go bad.

A decision to nationalise British Steel, for instance, is already proving costly – with accounts showing the struggling business is losing almost £700,000 a day.

Turning the situation around will require time, commitment and hefty investments, says Gareth Stace, director general of lobby group UK Steel – as well as a decision on when to close the last of the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe and replace them with newer electric arc furnaces.

The Government has so far committed £2.5bn to support the steel sector and on Tuesday Blair McDougall, the steel minister, said officials viewed it as “important for our national security”.

“There will be difficult decisions ahead,” he told attendees at an industry drinks reception. “But our commitment... is to make sure that we do move on... that we do invest, and that we take those decisions we need to take to make sure this is a profitable, resilient and again world-class industry.”

Yet again, there is ambiguity about what Labour really wants to achieve.

Last month, MPs on the public accounts committee said the Government had so far failed to set out a plan for British Steel beyond simply “propping up” the business.

One model for success ministers have pointed to is a cluster of businesses that have based themselves in South Yorkshire.

There, the focus of the econ from coal mining to high-tech manufacturing with top businesses including Rolls-Royce, Boeing and McLaren now located in a business park built on top of the former Orgreave pit. This is also about the

This is also where the

This is also where the University of Sheffield opened the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in 2004, aiming to bring together academics and companies to develop cutting-edge production techniques

Read, head of Rotherham City Council, says these partnerships are the bedrock of the AMRC's success.

“None of those partners on their own would have been able to do it,” he says, adding that “kids who live in my borough can now get apprenticeships with companies they’d never be able to work for otherwise” in industries such as clean energy.

But he also believes the era where “you’d have tens of thousands of men” working in traditional industries is probably gone – even as crises including Covid and Donald Trump’s trade wars provide a case for onshoring more production.

Ministers claim they're on the same page. Last week, Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, insisted the Government wanted to focus on “future-facing” technologies.

He also said the state wanted to play a more active role supporting innovation, using data to proactively identify businesses that deserve investment from the British Business Bank.

A source close to Reynolds disputes suggestions the Government's plan lacks substance, arguing that Labour stands by the “industrial strategy” ministers published under Sir Keir Starmer in summer 2025.

Yet businesses say that the document did not go far enough and was sparse on detail, pointing out that Burnham's promised "10-year plan" for Britain may also diverge from it in significant ways.

In the resulting vacuum, some of Labour's

Gordon Brown will next week gather business titans in Manchester for a conference to discuss his “innovation nation” idea, while fellow former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair is calling for the rapid embrace of AI. Like Wilson, Burnham has vowed to make sure Britain helps to steer the coming technological

revolution instead of

But experts warn there is another, less comfortable parallel between the two leaders: namely that

Burnham's promises depend on forces that are not all under his control.

---

Hampering investment

On the banks of the Humber in Hull, the sprawling Saltend chemicals park has been a vital hub of manufacturing for more than a century.

Yet in recent weeks, three factories there have fallen silent – potentially putting some 4,000 jobs at risk. Ineos, the owner, has laid the blame on one of the Government’s biggest headaches: Britain’s soaring energy costs.

“I’m sure people will find it hard to believe that we are being forced to mothball some of the most efficient plants in Europe,” said Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the founder of Ineos.

“But with gas prices now 12 times the level in the US and eight times that of China, we just cannot compete.”

It isn't just gas, either. Across the board, British businesses electricity prices have reached crippling levels. Official statistics published have previously shown that industrial businesses in Britain faced higher power costs than those from any other developed country.

Separate data from the International Energy Agency also shows that wholesale electricity prices in the UK have been nearly 200pc higher than in the US, 45pc higher than Japan and 41pc higher than France over the past year.

This is a particularly potent threat because cheap electricity is needed to operate many of the “future-facing” industries ministers want to cultivate, from electric arc-forged steel to battery production and electric vehicle manufacturing, says the CER’s Tordoir.

He believes the correct approach is for the UK and European governments to provide targeted support to promising areas, for instance Britain's semiconductor and aerospace sectors.

Others are more sceptical that Labour's focus on industry is the right approach, however. Sides, at Oxford Economics, last week warned: “I personally cannot think of an advanced economy less suited for an industrial resurgence.” Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Liberum, also warns that there will be “no reindustrialisation” unless Labour can improve the country's economic fundamentals more broadly, including the costs of energy, capital, construction, and employment.

Many businesses complain Starmer and now Burnham are doing the opposite – raising taxes and imposing onerous employment laws and regulations. “If you don’t get the pre-conditions for economic growth right, no amount of industrial planning will get over that,” French says. Any attempt by ministers to focus on specific sectors or companies, rather than fix these basic foundations, “will fail miserably”, he adds.

Former IFS boss Paul Johnson is similarly sceptical of the focus on manufacturing specifically. “A growth strategy is a growth strategy for the economy as a whole, rather than for metal bashing,” he says.

He argues that the nation's convoluted planning rules and building regulations are hampering investment and making it harder for businesses to expand.

Andrew Sentance, a former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, also believes the plan for reindustrialisation risks “heading in the wrong direction” and that Britain would be better off focusing on the “knowledge industries” that it excels at today.

"There was at the time when manufacturing was a third of our economy back in the 60s," he says. "But we can't pretend we're still in that world." Businesses are nevertheless lobbying hard for relief.

The Confederation of British Industry, will warn next week that British companies are paying 45pc more to power their businesses than those in other rich nations. Research by Britain's biggest business group will show that energy bills have doubled.

Phipson, of Make UK, also warns that before ministers can reindustrialise Britain, they must “first stop making it more expensive to manufacture here”. “The Autumn Budget therefore presents a simple test.”

Yet that is a big ask as Healey prepares for a difficult Budget on Oct 28.

According to economists, the war in the Middle East has blown a £10bn hole in the public finances that the Chancellor will have to plug to keep the bond markets happy.

He has already warned Labour delegates in Liverpool that “the money New Labour had in the nineties is simply not there now”.

It raises further questions about whether Burnham can afford to back up his government's soaring rhetoric on reindustrialisation with action. But a failure to meet his party's expectations will carry its own costs ahead of the next general election, warns the GMB's Brumpton-Childs.

"If they don't follow through on what they've promised, then it'll be electoral suicide," she says. "The most important thing about hope is delivering, isn't it?"

Back in Llanwern, the stakes feel all too real for the workers whose jobs are on the line.

Here, Labour's promises to revive the steel industry have gone down well.

But there are real doubts about whether a plan will materialise in time.

"You don't want to sound too blue about everything," says the veteran worker. "But it feels like we've got some tough times ahead before anything starts improving."

---

The Sunday Interview

When, aged 11, Suella Braverman won a place at an independent girls' school near her home in north-west London, the school's headmistress told Braverman's mother: "We can't promise you the next Margaret Thatcher, but we do produce good wives."

Suella Braverman

Funnily enough, the tall, striking brunette who comes dashing into her kitchen on a Sunday morning, beaming and still aglow after a David Lloyd spin class, and running after two excited children (George, 7, and Gabriella, 5), grew up to have quite a lot in common with the Conservatives' first woman prime minister.

Like Thatcher, Braverman, born Sue-Ellen Fernandes, came from a modest home and relied on her brains and hard work to get into Oxbridge and then the Bar. Like Thatcher, she was patronised by Tory grandees who winced at her “extreme” (Right-wing), lower-class opinions.

When she told David Cameron, the former prime minister, that she was going to vote Leave in the EU referendum, he sneered: "You wouldn't want to be on the same side as Nigel Farage and that lot, would you? You're far better than that, Suella." Cameron, along with several former Tory colleagues, including Theresa May, Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak, are unlikely to be fans of Braverman's new book, Patriot: Empire, Betrayal and Hope.

“We were from the same country, David Cameron and I, but such different worlds,” she says, “David personified one kind of upper middle class, privileged, elite, luxury beliefs brigade. He rolled his eyes when I mentioned sovereignty. He didn’t see a problem with immigration. You were vulgar – and racist – if [like me], you wanted less immigration.”

This is the conundrum of Braverman. The only child of immigrants – her mother and father arrived separately in the UK in the late 1960s, her mother to be a nurse in Aberdeen, her father to work in a paint factory – Braverman became notorious as one of the most outspoken critics of excessive immigration. The Left hated her for it. She was a race traitor, a “witch”, an Uncle Tom, a coconut (dark on the outside, white on the inside) because brown people such as Braverman are all meant to support Labour.

In her case, the daughter of two immigrants – one a Hindu from Mauritius, the other a Roman Catholic from Kenya via Goa – secured a place at Cambridge, became a barrister and a Tory MP, ascended to attorney general and ended up as home secretary, one of the great offices of state.

Reform UK's education champion talks to Allison Pearson about Islamist ‘bullying’ on the Left, schools ignoring British culture and how motherhood helped forge her inner steel

---

Compared to my parents, I'm a snowflake on immigration

Doesn't that suggest that immigration can work remarkably well? Yet here Braverman is denying that same opportunity to others. Reform wants to restrict the number of foreign healthcare workers. Braverman, the party's education and skills spokesman, gave a barnstorming speech at the recent party conference in which she criticised the number of overseas doctors in the NHS. Given that her own mother was a foreign healthcare worker, I ask what's different now.

“Scale is the big difference, really,” she says. “We’ve got a real unfairness in our training systems right now. Last year alone, there were 25,000 young Britons who applied to study medicine, many of whom will have satisfied the grade requirements, yet only 8,000 were allowed a place to study.

"I don't think it's right that we are importing thousands of foreign doctors to plug gaps in our NHS and suppressing, artificially, the number of home-grown doctors. That wasn't a problem when my mum came over 60 years ago. More people were emigrating than arriving. We've got millions of Britons who are on out-of-work benefits right now, and we should start training them up."

She thinks we have to start being honest about the consequences of the open-door immigration policy, and she doesn't hold back. When I mention Angela Rayner's encomium at the Labour Party conference to care workers from overseas, Braverman is scornful. "There are too many people who are not qualified," she says. "Who don't speak the language properly, who don't have the right bedside manner and are more prone to negligent behaviour because standards have slipped when it comes to letting in people." She cites a horrific recent example of an elderly lady who turned out to have been fed dog food by her care workers.

Braverman's book is a lot more compelling than your average PPE-at-Oxford-to-PMQs political memoir. Spanning more than two centuries, it tells the story of her ancestors, beginning with her great-great-grandfather, who moved from India to Mauritius to work on the indentured labour scheme on a sugarcane plantation. Typically, Braverman is determined to present a positive picture, but I ask whether her ancestor, Appaswamy, was effectively a slave. "Yes, he was, but I wanted to challenge this prevailing narrative on the BBC, in some of our universities, institutions and museums, for goodness sake, that says the British Empire was purely evil. For my ancestors, it actually emancipated them. It gave them a livelihood and a wage, and it eventually gave them land. Generation after generation, they progressed with the British Empire. Yes, they started off in abject poverty, and illiterate... I'm not sugar-coating the conditions or the way they were treated. But eventually, there was opportunity and progress."

Without the Anglo-Saxon schooling and British influence in Mauritius, Braverman says her mother, Uma, would have had an arranged marriage and babies by the time she was 20.

“Even though it was at odds with Hindu culture, my mum studied and worked, became independent and made it to Britain, where she eventually became a Tory councillor.”

If her family's history helps to make a political point that chimes with Reform UK supporters, so much the better. “This book is written for people who are fed up with being smeared as far-Right racists when they want to defend British history, the British Empire, our culture and heritage or wave the national flag.”

Braverman's father landed at Heathrow in February 1968, the year of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, and she admits "the fear of Pakibashing was never far away". In general, however, her parents were made to feel very welcome. A more nuanced point is that her father was fleeing Kenya, where Asians were then a hated minority, and the president was enforcing a type of Kenyan loyalty test, prefiguring today's ethnonationalism in the UK. Braverman caused controversy last year when she said: "I'm not English... For Englishness to mean something substantial, it must be rooted in ancestry, heritage and, yes, ethnicity – not just residence or fluency." Her heritage "is something distinct", she added, describing herself as "British Asian".

The contrast with many of today's immigrants, she says, is that her parents wanted to fit in to the British way of life and were grateful to the country that had taken them in. "My dad was very proud he didn't go on the dole. He wanted to support himself. He had benefited from a British education in Kenya, and he was intelligent and capable, but he knew he had to start at the bottom of the ladder. “Too many people come to this country to take today. They come here for the free housing. They come here to use our legal aid against the state to thwart their deportation. They come here to harm our women and girls. They come here to commit terrorism. The character and scale of immigration today have changed our country for the worse.”

She says getting British citizenship has become “a perfunctory, administrative, box-ticking exercise”. After being here for a relatively short amount of time, contributing very little, you can suddenly call yourself a British national. Such laxness infuriates Braverman’s parents. “Oh, compared to them I’m a complete snowflake when it comes to immigration,” she laughs.

We are talking in the house the Bravermans use when they stay in her Hampshire constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville – they spend most of their time in the family home in north London. Her husband, Rael, a sales director, lures the children away with the promise of a trip to a chocolate shop so Braverman and I can talk. Rael is droll about being a book widower. “I haven’t seen her for two years while she’s been writing it,” he jokes, but he is clearly very supportive. For a time, when his wife was home secretary, the Bravermans had two children under two. Indeed, I can recall Braverman texting me despairingly during the 2024 general election campaign, which she fought as a Tory candidate. “Every other street today was Reform,” she lamented. She confessed she wasn’t sure how to answer voters’ complaints about Sunak’s government because she privately agreed with many of them. Her attempts to staunch the Boriswave had been rejected by Cabinet colleagues who were concerned about the loss to GDP if migration numbers were cut.

In the end, because of her personal popularity, she hung on to the seat with a majority of 6,000 – a far cry from the stonking 26,000 majority she secured in the 2019 election when voters (and Braverman) still had faith that Brexit was going to mean Brexit.

Theresa May gets an absolute roasting in this book that some may think is long overdue. “For someone with such a prim persona, Theresa could have as feline a relation with the truth as any of her more notorious male peers,” says Braverman, who can be pretty feline herself.

She clearly resents the fact that her prime minister “never had any intention of keeping her promise, as it turns out, and her deal that she ultimately presented – the Chequers deal – was hatched together with mandarins and in cahoots with [Michel] Barnier in a pretty sordid way, undermining the legitimately elected David Davis, who was Brexit secretary”. She reserves some opprobrium for Olly Robbins, the senior civil servant accused of running a parallel negotiation with Brussels at May’s behest.

May, says Braverman, “came across as a markedly sanctimonious politician, always keen to lecture us on her rectitude and love of propriety”, yet she “let a minister be usurped by a mandarin who dictated the most consequential policy affecting the UK in decades. It was a betrayal as well as disastrously inept.” Well, I think that’s clear. In Braverman's telling, the Conservative Party emerges as two warring tribes. “I was part of this tribe, you know. We were on the Right, we were Eurosceptic, we wanted sovereignty, we wanted fewer immigrants, we wanted to stop the boats and we were sceptical of the worship of international human rights law. On the other side were people who were utterly detached from the raw struggles of modern Britain.”

She describes one colleague who rebuked her as “the embodiment of that peculiar British strain of entitlement and Conservatism that dresses itself up as moderation”. Her creed, says Braverman, “was Cameroon centrism, of not being the Nasty Party, packaged in the form of polite condescension”. For many of those Conservatives (some of whom are still in the shadow cabinet), she says the primary goal is to be nice. “They shy away from taking some of the necessary but difficult decisions, like leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, like cutting visas and like taking a stance against Islamism or grooming gangs.”

Sunak sacked Braverman for accusing the Metropolitan Police of “playing favourites” over its handling of pro-Palestine protests. In politics, you don’t get sacked for saying the wrong thing. You get sacked for saying the right thing at the wrong time. Braverman has tended to be unacceptably early with pointed observations. She was criticised for using the word “invasion” to describe the small boats crisis and “fifth column” to describe Islamists working in the UK to undermine our way of life. Both expressions are becoming less

controversial by the day. The curious thing is that Braverman, 46, is not a natural rebel. She strikes me as a bit of a goody-two-shoes. It was all the skulduggery, the political backstabbing and what she saw as a betrayal of the votes of 17 million people by opening the immigration floodgates that radicalised her. She actually cares, you see.

And for good reason. Born in April 1980, Braverman was the much-longed-for only child of parents who had waited years for a baby. She grew up in a pebble-dashed semi in the suburb of Kenton, near Wembley, in north-west London. From the outside, it was the picture of stability and lower-middle-class respectability. But in her book, a much darker picture emerges.

Braverman writes with devastating honesty about the effect of her father losing his job during the 1990s recession and being unemployed for five years. (It's revealing how many successful political leaders have suffered a significant upset in their family's fortunes – Tony Blair, John Major, Kemi Badenoch.) Her parents had horrible, raging rows about whether to keep their daughter in private school. Plates were thrown, and her mother would yell: "Be a man, get a job, you useless bastard." Somehow, amid the threats of repossession, her mother worked hard enough to scrape together the money needed to pay the fees.

Hardship had a salutary effect on the “ugly duckling” schoolgirl who had been drifting until then. She applied herself to her work and got nine A\*s in her GCSEs, the best anyone at her school had ever done. She got into Cambridge to read law, joined the Conservative Association and studied for a master's degree in Paris. She then worked ceaselessly for the next 15 years – initially as a barrister, then as an MP from 2015 – pretty much until George was born in July 2019.

Motherhood changed her, and this new chapter gave rise to some of the memoir's most affecting passages. She thinks women “can have it all, just not at the same time”. The law was specially altered during her second pregnancy

---

'People are fed up with being smeared as far-Right racists when they want to defend British history'

to allow a Cabinet minister to take maternity leave. She calls it Gabriella's Law after the enchanting, spirited little girl who looks so like her mother at the same age. Does Braverman now regret her lack of anything approaching work-life balance? "I left the house to go to the Home Office at 7am, and sometimes I wouldn't leave until 11pm. I FaceTimed the children, and I told myself they were so young that they wouldn't notice my absence, but the look in their eyes..." Momentarily, she wells up.

It was no surprise when Braverman defected to Reform UK in January. She would surely have jumped sooner, but she felt she owed a debt of loyalty to the Tory constituency workers she clearly adores. “It became undeniable to me that if we’re serious about fixing the country, the profound systemic crises that we face right now, we do need a party that has conviction and courage. It’s about realism over sentimentality in a way.”

Farage, she believes, has what it takes at a time when the country needs a lion to steer it through multiple crises. Andy Burnham “is more pet hamster than lion”. Braverman helped set up the hugely successful Michaela Community School, giving her a natural affinity with the education brief. It might seem like a step down from the excitement of running the Home Office but, after those long days away from the children, she is happy to be more low-key for a while. She also appears to take a relaxed, even slightly amused, view of the occasional clashing of male antlers within her new party.

She asked Farage for the education portfolio as she believes there is an “epidemic of tolerance” promoted by the Left in which children end up being taught about every culture except British culture. She wants this country’s traditions, history and the Christian religion to be at the core of the curriculum. She warns about an aggressive form of Islamism “bullying the Labour Party, the police and even government bodies into submission. What we are witnessing is a slow-motion cultural capitulation, one school at a time”. Cameron was wrong all those years ago when he scolded her, asking whether she really wanted to be “on the same side as Nigel Farage and that lot”. Well, she does, and she seems happy to finally have found a tribe that has no problem with her “language”. (Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, praises his colleague’s “conviction” and “courage”; he regards her as “formidable”).

Braverman is one of the most misrepresented politicians I can think of. Everyone who meets her expecting a tough egg or an angry witch is startled by her niceness. That sweetness undoubtedly has an inner steel. She needs it. There are some who say that a blokey Reform party hasn't given this huge female asset enough exposure. The truth is she feels that time, especially when George and Gabriella are still little, is precious and she doesn't want to regret missing it.

Being a mother matters, and that feeling is guiding her to think of policy for millions of women voters who feel as she does. Braverman's passion for her country remains undimmed, and it is vividly present on every page of Patriot. Plenty of time to be the next Thatcher.

The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 4 October 2026

Online

Sign up for our free daily

Business Briefing

▶ telegraph.co.uk/business-briefing

---

[Business & Money] Labour mulls pandemic-era laws to rescue TalkTalk

Fears of public health crisis over vulnerable customers' use of medical devices linked to copper network

By James Warrington and Tom Saunders

LABOUR is considering invoking pandemic-era laws to allow BT to take control of TalkTalk amid concerns the broadband provider could collapse and trigger a public health crisis.

Ministers are understood to be concerned about potential disruption to internet services in the event that debt-laden TalkTalk collapses into insolvency.

TalkTalk is Britain's fourth biggest broadband provider with around 1.5 million customers, tens of thousands of whom are thought to be vulnerable.

Industry insiders said ministers are particularly concerned about the number of TalkTalk customers who use medical devices connected to Britain's legacy copper network.

Thousands of disabled and elderly people rely on wearable pendants known as telecare devices, which enable them to trigger alerts in the event of a medical emergency.

Any disruption to the copper network on which this technology relies could trigger safety fears. Two vulnerable people died in 2023 when their telecare devices failed during the switchover to digital landlines, forcing the industry to pause the transition.

Any move by BT to seize control of TalkTalk would attract significant competition concerns owing to the market power of the combined company. Rival broadband businesses are expected to mount significant opposition to any such deal, warning that it would effectively re-establish BT's monopoly power.

Tom O'Hagan, a former TalkTalk executive who is leading a takeover bid alongside Epiris, warned yesterday that the former state-owned entity would regain “near-total dominance” in the market if it was allowed to buy TalkTalk’s PXC.

Mr O'Hagan said: "For years, successive governments and regulators have worked to create precisely this kind of competition in a market historically dominated by BT. Allowing BT to take control of PXC would move decisively in the opposite direction."

On Friday, The Telegraph revealed that TalkTalk's lenders were also threatening to launch legal action if BT was given the green light to take over its rival.

But the Government is considering overriding competition considerations by using emergency laws introduced in June 2020 in response to the pandemic.

These laws enable ministers to intervene in mergers and acquisitions “to maintain in the UK the capability to combat, and to mitigate the effects, of public health emergencies”.

Lawyers for BT at Clifford Chance are also said to have pointed to legislation brought in to clear a rescue deal for HBOS during the 2008 financial crisis as precedent for a TalkTalk takeover.

This created a new public interest consideration for the stability of the UK financial system, paving the way for further expansion of the Government's emergency intervention powers.

This suggests that existing legislation could also be expanded to create a new public interest consideration specifically for broadband.

The public health concerns come on top of fears that a TalkTalk collapse would put Britain's national security at risk. Government systems crucial for defence rely in part on the company's services. National security laws allow the Government to overrule competition regulators if doing so would be in the public interest.

BT declined to comment. A DCMS spokesman said: "This is a commercial matter and we do not comment on speculation."

Stage fright One of Europe's biggest music-festival organisers has seen its losses and debts climb after being hit by a series of pro-Palestine boycotts. Superstruct, which organises UK festivals including Boiler Room, above, raised €109m (£92.7m) in extra debt in the year to December 2025, bringing its total borrowings to €392.5m. Losses rose from €77.6m to €111.3m.

---

Regulator to warn supermarket giants over supplier mistreatment

By Jonathan Prynn

SUPERMARKET chiefs are to be warned they risk enforcement action if they treat farmers and factories unfairly, as inflation inflames tension between shops and suppliers.

Mark White, the government-appointed Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), will this week meet executives from 14 of the country's biggest food retailers to warn them against mistreating the firms that feed Britain.

Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Marks & Spencer are among those who have been summoned.

They have all signed up to the GCA's "seven golden rules", a set of voluntary guidelines on the fair treatment of suppliers. The meetings come at a time when suppliers are facing what has been called a “brick wall” of resistance from supermarkets when it comes to requests to pass on legitimate increases in the cost of production.

While this is limiting price rises for consumers, it threatens the finances of the businesses producing the food and drink on shelves all over the country.

The head of one family-owned confectionery-maker said: “I don’t know why I bother any more. I’m not even making the minimum wage.”

Mr White has said he will “push hard” against supermarkets dealing unreasonably with any suppliers. The

GCA has powers to arbitrate in disputes and order payment of compensation. It can also launch investigations into suspected breaches of the code and, in the most serious cases, impose a fine.

A survey from retail consultancy The Retail Mind last week found that only one in five supermarket suppliers had been able to pass on raised costs, such as higher fuel and energy bills as well as hikes in the minimum wage, by charging higher prices.

Mr White said in a GCA conference speech this week he was looking closely “at how retailers are negotiating cost price increases during this period of increased cost pressure”.

He added: "I expect retailers to

---

7.8pc

Amount farm costs rose in the year to September. Supermarket food inflation is running at 2.5pc, squeezing suppliers

negotiate fairly and in good faith, so they are not exposing suppliers to excessive risk or unexpected costs."

Latest data show the cost of food production is rising far more quickly than prices in stores, indicating a painful squeeze for suppliers.

Farm costs rose 7.8pc in the year to September, according to figures from analysts Andersons. But food inflation in supermarkets is running at just 2.5pc say the latest figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) – amid a blizzard of promotions and intense competition between supermarkets.

Ali Capper, the incoming chairman of the trade body British Berry Growers, said: "It's a very difficult situation. Of course, the Government is trying to keep inflation under control and is putting massive pressure on retailers to keep prices down.

“That is being passed on to suppliers, who are being told, ‘We want a lower price than last year.’ It’s not realistic.”

Karen Betts, the chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said:

“Across the supply chain, everyone is doing all they can to keep prices low for consumers in a very competitive grocery market. But food producers’ backs are against the wall.

“We must pay a fair price to our farming suppliers, but companies often struggle to pass on their own costs in full. This is a brutal time, with food business insolvencies on the rise.”

Andrew Opie, at the BRC, said: "Retailers understand the pressures on farmers and other suppliers.

“However, retailers are also facing their own additional costs and are working incredibly hard to limit price increases for shoppers, many of whom are struggling to afford the essentials.”

---

Mortgage interest bills reach 17-year high

By Melissa Lawford

MORTGAGE interest bills for home movers have hit a 17-year peak as the higher borrowing costs make it harder to move up the property ladder.

People who moved house in July spent 14.4pc of their income on mortgage interest, up from 13.5pc a year earlier and the highest proportion since November 2008, according to figures from UK Finance.

This was double the 7.8pc of their income they spent on mortgage interest four years ago. The data tracks borrowers who have previously held a mortgage, which means they are not first-time buyers but are upsizing or downsizing. Their average age was 41, suggesting they are primarily families moving house.

These buyers will also not benefit from Andy Burnham's new Your First Home scheme, launched in an attempt to boost activity in the housing market.

Your First Home is focused on first-time buyers, offering them a 20pc government-backed equity loan when purchasing a new-build. Lucian Cook, of Savills estate agents, warned that “second-steppers” – people who are looking to move on from their first home – are having “real difficulty trading up the housing ladder”.

These buyers are facing not only rising mortgage costs, but have largely failed to accumulate any housing wealth, Mr Cook said, “particularly those who have been living in flats where actually they may have seen some of their equity eroded”.

Bank of England data last week showed interest rates on new mortgages climbed to 4.65pc in August, the highest level in nearly two years.

---

Slot machine tax rises ‘will close casinos’

By Jonathan Pynn and Tom Haynes

THE boss of one of Britain's biggest casino operators plans to shut more than a third of its venues if John Healey presses ahead with a proposed increase to taxes on slot machines in the Budget.

Paul Willcock, chief executive of Genting UK, which runs 32 venues, warned 13 of them would be “unprofitable or unsustainable” if the tax raid goes ahead and would have to be closed.

The Chancellor is said to be considering doubling the standard rate of machine games duty (MGD) from 20pc

MARKETING COMMUNICATION to 40pc when he delivers his first Budget in the Commons on Oct 28.

This is levied on fixed-odds terminals typically providing games such as roulette and blackjack. Mr Healey is said to look favourably on the option after it was first proposed by the Social Market Foundation, a think-tank, in July.

Doubling the tax rate could increase revenue raised by MGD for the Treasury from £600m to as much as £1bn.

But Genting's casino closures would put 900 roles in jeopardy.

A doubling in the duty would cost the company around £16m, more than its entire £13.5m post-tax profit last year. Genting is the second big operator in a week to warn of mass casino closures.

Rank Group, the biggest player in the sector and owner of Grosvenor Casinos, said it would have to close up to 16 of its 47 venues with the loss of 1,800 jobs.

Both operators have told officials at the Treasury and Department for Culture, Media and Sport what locations would be shut – largely in less affluent areas in the North and Midlands.

Physical casinos operate with high fixed costs because of large bricks and mortar premises and high staff costs.

---

Be a hunter. In a volatile investment channel actively. If you only track and some unpleasant surprises, our Hunters have always taken the instincts of a hunter, no

In a volatile investment climate it can pay to hunt Profits actively. If you only track an Index, there's a danger of finding some unpleasant surprises mixed in with Profits. That's why our Hunters have always taken the selective path. Relying on the instincts of a hunter, not a tracker. Your capital is at risk.

Talk to your financial adviser or scan to find out more.

Issued by Artemis Fund Managers Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Oil price, Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate (\$/barrel, monthly average)

MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK—

Matthew Lynn

---

City should be rolling out the red carpet for UBS

London must make itself a contender if the world leader in private banking moves from Switzerland

IT COULD be through a merger. Or else it could simply shift its domicile. Whatever method is chosen, the possibility of UBS leaving Switzerland is growing all the time.

In the wake of a row over capital requirements, the board has reportedly started considering it, while some of its major shareholders have started publicly backing a move.

But perhaps Zurich's loss could be London's gain? There are plenty of obstacles in the way, and it may never happen. And yet the City should surely be rolling out the red carpet for UBS, and so should the British Government. It would be exactly the boost that London's financial centre needs. It could turn into the most seismic shift of power in global banking since HSBC switched its base from Hong Kong to London in the 1990s. By any measure you care to look at, UBS is one of the world's most powerful financial institutions, with a market value of \$146bn (£110bn) and \$7tn in its wealth management accounts.

It is the world leader in private banking, in many ways the most lucrative part of the industry these days, as well as a powerhouse in commercial and investment banking. Following its takeover of its great rival, Credit Suisse, three years ago, it has grown even stronger. Indeed, UBS is now pretty much synonymous with Swiss banking and all the heritage of privacy, expertise and security it represents.

Until recently, it would have been unimaginable that UBS could ever leave Switzerland. No longer. The bank has spent more than a year in a stand-off with legislators and regulators over demands that it increase its capital ratios. It might have to commit \$20bn or more in fresh capital to its business. That will hurt a lot, especially at a time when the Trump administration has been lowering the capital requirements for American banks, making them a lot more competitive.

Either UBS has to accept a big hit to its profits or, of course, it can simply move to somewhere where the rules are a little less strict. “We can live with a black eye, but two black eyes and a broken nose is too much,” said Sergio Ermotti, its chief executive, acidly after the latest capital rules were passed.

After news leaked that the board was actively considering leaving, its shareholders were immediately supportive.

In an open letter to the board, the American fund manager Artisan Partners, one of its

'Capturing a bank of the size and reputation of UBS would be a coup for the UK'

10 largest shareholders, argued that “the simple fact is that Switzerland is no longer an attractive or desirable location for UBS. Aside from the temporary friction and cost of changing domicile, there is no compelling reason for UBS to remain a Swiss company”.

It is likely that many of its largest shareholders are saying something very similar in private. After all, the capital demands will damage its profits significantly, and while the Zurich stock market is hardly undervalued, it looks certain that UBS would be more valuable somewhere else.

Of course, UBS may well be bluffing. If you wanted to put pressure on the Swiss government to back down, then threatening to leave the country would be a pretty good place to start. But if it does resolve to leave, then surely the City should be doing everything possible to persuade it to choose London.

There will be no shortage of rival financial centres trying to tempt the bank. New York is surely the most obvious destination. Taxes are low, the economy is booming and Trump would surely do everything he could to make it feel welcome.

Singapore would be an option, with impeccably solid regulation and easy access to the booming Asian market. Frankfurt would put it firmly inside the eurozone, where much of its business is done, although the regulations would hardly be less burdensome. Dubai might have been a candidate a year ago, but the war in the Gulf has surely put paid to that. Yet London should surely be a candidate as well.

The City has a few points in its favour. It is, or unfortunately perhaps was, one of the great banking centres anywhere in the world.

UBS has deep roots here. Swiss Bank Corporation, with which it merged in 1998, bought SG Warburg, one of the City's oldest merchant banks, several years earlier, while Credit Suisse was one of the most aggressive players in the Big Bang reforms that transformed the City a decade before that.

It is well regulated, the rule of law is trusted and it is still a huge market for foreign exchange, derivatives, as well as wealth management, and it is a global leader in fintech. It is inside Europe, but outside the EU, just like Switzerland. It has been going through a rough patch but there are some signs that it is turning around, with Airtel Money planning a £5bn-plus float in London and Revolut confirming last month it would list here as well as New York. It is not finished yet.

A lot will depend on how UBS leaves. One obvious route is a merger. JP Morgan has been mentioned as one candidate, and that would take it to the United States. Deutsche Bank is another, and that would take it to Frankfurt.

Intriguingly, Standard Chartered has also been mentioned, and that of course might well mean moving its domicile to London. Alternatively, if it simply decides to shift its home base, then it will have a wide range of options.

Capturing a bank of the size and reputation of UBS would be a coup for the City. It would end all the talk of decline with one bold move and turn London back into a global leader. Whether it is tax breaks, regulatory concessions, or simply high-level schmoozing, London should be doing everything possible to tempt UBS – it would be a huge prize for the City.

Business comment

---

America's billionaires turn their backs on Trump ahead of midterms

JEREMY

WARNER

---

President's loss of political momentum has given Jamie Dimon the cover to start talking his mind

AMONG the titans of global finance, none is more powerful and influential than Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase. So when he turns against Donald Trump, and criticises the 47th president's repudiation of the old, multilateral, rules based order, we should sit up and take notice.

The more so in that Dimon's intervention comes just a month before the congressional midterms, where the Republicans are expected to receive a hammering.

A lifelong Democrat, Dimon has admittedly never been part of Trump's inner circle, and over the past year relations between the two have deteriorated precipitously.

He played no part in the undignified and fawning scramble for presidential favours after Trump's election two years ago and, according to accounts, wisely rebuffed soundings on serving in Trump's second administration as Treasury secretary.

In January, moreover, Trump launched a \$5bn (£3.8bn) legal case against Dimon and JP Morgan for allegedly debanking him.

The bank says the president's case "has no merit".

For his part, Dimon has been highly critical of Trump's mooted plan to cap credit card interest rates at 10pc and he has refused to help fund Trump's White House ballroom.

But he has also been careful not to overstep the mark and to give credit where he thinks it is due. "Take a step back, be honest," Dimon said in the run-up to Trump's second stab at the presidency. He "was kind of right about Nato, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. He wasn't wrong about some of these critical issues".

Dimon's remarks played a key role in rehabilitating Trump among the general run of US business leaders after the ignominy of the Capitol Hill riots. If someone as worldly wise and seasoned as Dimon thinks Trump is basically right, then it sanitises and promotes what he stands for.

Be that as it may, judging by an oped he wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week, he now seems to have changed his mind. "A strong America with robust military and economic alliances is the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful world," he wrote in an apparent rebuff of Trump's Maga-driven approach to allies, trade and international relations.

Nor is he the only critic among those who have hitherto been relatively supportive; in a recent interview, Peter Thiel, a long-standing Trump backer and Republican mega donor, said he wished the president had chosen more competent people for his administration. In an interview with

Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Telegraph owner Axel Springer, Thiel accused Trump of “overcorrecting for the mistakes of the first term with all these loyalty tests. You got sort of an administration staffed by not very smart, but very loyal people.”

This is potentially dangerous territory for Thiel. Palantir, the company he co-founded, is still highly dependent on US government contacts. But in another sign that the tide is turning against Trump-style politics, he said it anyway. Not his words, but the sycophancy of Trump's cabinet is worthy of a banana republic.

Dimon's suggestion is that a grand alliance be struck with European and other like-minded democracies such as Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and Mexico. In return for free trade with the US, Europe would agree to full implementation of proposals by Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president, for countering loss of economic competitiveness, turbo-charging a virtuous circle of rising prosperity for both jurisdictions.

If this sounds very much like the old, post-war, pre-Trump contract, that is because it is; it would be the Western alliance reborn, and a very welcome development all round.

Obviously, it would be unwise to count on this happening in practice; political opposition in Europe to some of Draghi's key recommendations remains strong.

But Dimon's suggestion shows that the US is not yet entirely lost to the cause of multilateral solutions. It is similar to what Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has been

Jamie Dimon at the White House with Donald Trump. The JP Morgan chief executive has called for a grand alliance with Europe

suggesting, only with the US at its centre, not as a potentially hostile force kicking in the other direction.

Does Trump's presidency mark a permanent change in the geopolitical/economic weather, or is he just a temporary aberration? From the very start of his second term, that has been the big question. Dimon's musings suggest the latter.

And so do the polls ahead of next month's midterms. The US economy is in many respects booming, but it is not an electorally friendly form of growth. The leaders in this boom, the hyperscalers of the AI arms race, are generally unpopular with the voters, and though their investment spending binge generates plenty of jobs, it disguises a great hinterland of economic grievance and frustration.

Much higher petrol, diesel and mortgage costs are wreaking havoc with the Republican vote, and it is Trump who is getting the blame. Ridiculously, Trump gives himself an $\mathrm{A + }$ for everything that has happened in his second term. Sadly for him, voters do not appear inclined to agree.

The president promised no more wars, but then promptly started one. No matter; the Iranians would be crushed and it would be over in weeks. Seven months later, it is still going, with little sign of a lasting resolution.

The president promised lower interest rates and lower gas prices, but all he has managed so far is the reverse.

It is true that Gulf producers have found lots of workarounds for the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Exports of crude from the region are now said to be back to virtually pre-war levels. But in all likelihood, it has come too late to save the Republican vote in the midterms.

There is still a month to go, admittedly, but scarcely anyone thinks this is time enough to reverse either current cost of living pressures or the electoral fortunes of the Republican Party.

A cynic might say that all JP Morgan's Dimon is doing by aligning himself with the Mark Carney view of the world is recognising this change in the political weather.

Business leaders tend to bend with the wind. If they sense that things are going against the political incumbent, they nuance their position to fit. But Dimon, a philosophical as well as a practicing globalist, has never bought into Trump's "America First" nationalism. Trump's loss of political momentum has given him cover to start talking his mind.

Even if he does lose both houses, Trump will presumably still attempt to govern as before through use of executive order. All the same, he will be tied up in legal knots for the remainder of his term and his room for manoeuvre fiscally will be tightly restricted. This should at least begin to reduce the upward pressure on interest rates.

A year ago, it looked as if Trump might be one of the most consequential presidents in US history. As the months pass, that judgment looks ever more doubtful. To succeed, the West must pull and act together. Tearing it apart was never the right path.

---

Burnham's promises are detached from fiscal reality

Crude awakening

LIAM

HALLIGAN

---

The bond markets know the PM's sums on welfare savings and social care spending do not add up

“THE fasten seat belts sign is on”. I received this message last week from an experienced and widely respected financial trader. Someone I have come to know and trust over several decades.

Attached was a graph showing the UK's 10-year gilt yield surging sharply following Andy Burnham's Labour party conference speech, from 5.35pc to almost 5.5pc – a 28-year high.

After the Prime Minister had addressed his party faithful on Tuesday, the annual cost to the British government of borrowing over 30 years also increased, topping 6pc for the first time since January 1998.

Now, following last week's Labour conference and ahead of the Tory one starting today, the UK's political and media class is focused on party posturing and folksy rhetoric.

We're largely ignoring the slow-motion car crash that's been unfolding on the UK's sovereign bond markets for at least 18 months – which will, unless we drastically change course, spark a fully blown market meltdown.

Praise was lavished on Burnham for his oratory. His pledge to abolish the triple lock in 2030, after the next general election, was particularly well-received.

By suggesting a Labour government with a fresh mandate would end the mechanism which uprates the basic state pension each year by either the growth of wages, inflation or 2.5pc, whichever is greater, Burnham

presented himself as a responsible leader, prepared to tackle the UK's burgeoning welfare bill – even if it meant upsetting elderly voters.

State pension spending is set to surge from £130bn in 2024 when Labour took office to £170bn by the end of this decade. Welfare spending as a whole is forecast to balloon from about £330bn to £405bn over the same period.

Ending the triple-lock in 2030 would, on official estimates, save £11bn a year in today's prices by 2040. Yet still, bond yields rose during and after Burnham's speech, with the UK's creditors becoming more, not less, worried about our fiscal outlook.

Because Burnham wasn't pledging to save money at all but was instead proposing a deal to the UK's soon-to-be elderly – and perhaps their children who might be looking to inherit.

While proposing to remove the triple lock, he also floated the idea of billions of new spending on “free” social care – which will appeal to families worried about parents being forced to sell homes to pay for care bills often running to thousands of pounds a month.

As such, Burnham's social care proposals come with a price tag of at least £18bn a year, far more than any potential pension-related savings.

Not least because the Prime Minister wasn't actual saying he would scrap the triple lock altogether. Mindful of incurring the wrath of the ranks of Left-wing MPs and activists who installed him in Downing Street, Burnham's proposals were actually to index the state pension to inflation or 2.5 per cent - whichever is higher

\- with further adjustments maintaining a link to average wage growth over the medium term. So any savings will be far less than those floated by government spin-doctors - and will be more than outweighed by spiralling social care costs that would by then be falling on the state.

Yes, Burnham deserves credit for talking about the future of the triple lock – which has, since being introduced in 2011 by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition, done much to restore the UK's basic state pension, alongside targeted additional benefits, to a level comparable with international norms.

The Prime Minister is also right to place the future of social care firmly on the political agenda – although I would personally back a private insurance model. This works well in some other G7 nations, with workers paying compulsory premiums from middle-

'The priority of any UK government should be to fend off a now looming sovereign bond crisis' age, followed by further payments capped as a share of total care costs.

This would be an efficient, market-based solution for the majority, again with a suitable safety net for the vulnerable – in contrast to the NHS-like care service Burnham is proposing.

But while policy discussions are good, the overwhelming priority of any UK government at this stage should be to do everything in its power to fend off what is now a looming sovereign bond crisis.

Burnham delivered his speech 50 years on to the day from when Jim Callaghan's Labour government applied to the International Monetary Fund for the UK's calamitous 1976 bailout. Yet during Labour's Liverpool conference, neither he nor the Chancellor, John Healey gave global financial markets the slightest indication that they recognise, or intend to do anything to reverse, the relentless march of the UK economy towards the fiscal cliff edge.

The Government borrowed £18.3bn in August alone, a fifth more than August 2025 and £3.5bn higher than official forecasts. Over the course of this Parliament, Labour is set to borrow, again on official numbers, 80pc more than was projected when the party took power in July 2024 – with four fifths of state borrowing now being spent on debt interest payments.

Yet, still, the Labour Left wants more. Alongside fiscal profligacy, geopolitical turmoil is pushing up energy prices, with seaborne Brent crude prices north of \$100, way above US-produced crude

\- a reflection of ongoing shipping concerns. And high UK inflation pushes up gilt yields, which remain way above those of other G7 nations.

Britain is rapidly approaching the point where we won't be able to borrow enough money to finance our already spiralling debt interest bill – bailout territory. Remember: “The fasten seat belts sign is on”.

---

Crown Estate called ‘culturally ignorant’ in eviction row

Michelin-starred Veeraswamy's chairman says Asian food being treated as inferior to European, writes Tom Haynes

THE boss of Britain's oldest Indian restaurant has accused the King's property manager of treating its cuisine as inferior to European food.

Ranjit Mathrani, chairman of Veeraswamy, claimed the Crown Estate was trying to evict his business in part because it does not view Indian food as “very important in their lexicon of gastronomy”.

The row comes after the Crown Estate refused to renew the Michelin-starred restaurant's lease last year. The dispute goes to court in November as the restaurant fights to stay open.

The Crown Estate, which manages a £16bn portfolio of property, intends to renovate Victory House, on Regent Street, which houses Veeraswamy, turning the building into offices and pushing the 100-year-old restaurant out in the process. But Mr Mathrani, the 83-year-old restaurateur who chairs Veeraswamy's parent company MW Eat, told The Sunday Telegraph the establishment had been treated unfairly because it serves Indian food, rather than European fare.

“Perhaps they didn’t actually pay much regard to Indian food being very important in their lexicon of gastronomy,” Mr Mathrani says.

“French and European cuisine are somehow regarded as being at a different level from, say, Indian or Japanese or other cuisines of the world. Had it been Gordon Ramsay or Michel Roux, that would be different.”

The legal row comes at one of the hospitality industry's lowest points in decades, with restaurants and pubs battling falling demand, rising costs and escalating tax bills. “This is the worst economic environment we have experienced in 36 years, apart from

Covid," said former investment banker Mr Mathrani, whose family rescued Veeraswamy in the 1990s. "Hospitality is on its knees. This is a great living restaurant. It's very successful, attracting tourists. They will wipe it out for a period of time."

Veeraswamy was opened in 1926 by Edward Palmer, an officer in the British Indian Army, serving curries popular in the British Raj.

The restaurant survived the Blitz, operating throughout the Second World War. It has served generations of Londoners, often providing their first experience of high-end Indian food. The establishment has attracted royalty and celebrities, including the late Queen and Marlon Brando, and has catered for state occasions at Buckingham Palace.

The custom of enjoying a lager with a curry was established by one of its earliest patrons, the King of Denmark, who was once such a regular a cask of Carlsberg was kept there for his visits.

In 2016, Veeraswamy was awarded a Michelin star. But the dispute with the Crown Estate has threatened to dislodge it from its historic home.

The Crown Estate is independent and manages King Charles III's property on behalf of the Treasury. The King has no control over how it is managed. The landlord has argued a comprehensive refurbishment of Victory House is needed to bring it into full use, after a flood in 2023 which damaged its upper offices.

It plans to use Veeraswamy's space for a large office reception. The restaurant would not be able to return after the renovations are complete.

“We understand how disappointing this is for MW Eat and have offered help to find new premises on our portfolio so that the restaurant can stay in the West End as well as financial compensation,” a spokesman said.

"The Crown Estate has a statutory responsibility to manage its land and property to create long-term value for the UK and return its profit to the UK Government for public spending."

However, Mr Mathrani says his attempts to find a compromise that would allow the restaurant to remain open have been refused. This has

included an offer to buy the building outright and pledging to match the rent the landlord could receive from office tenants, as well as taking responsibility for the building works.

Veeraswamy also offered to redesign its restaurant to create a shared reception area. After meeting The Sunday Telegraph for lunch, where Mr Mathrani delivered a menu spanning Nadan-style grilled scallops, spicy egg roast masala, roast duck vindaloo, roasted coconut chicken curry and fresh pineapple curry, the restaurateur insists his offers had met the Crown Estate “99pc of the way”.

Yet the overtures were met with “a polite brick wall”. The attempt to buy the property came through MW Eat’s parent company Fairfax Financial, a Canadian insurance group run by

billionaire Prem Watsa. The group has been attempting to take Veeraswamy, and some of its other establishments, global. But Mr Mathrani said the proposals were all but ignored.

He adds that discussions over an alternative site were cursory and ended more than a year ago. “No suitable premises have they put forward to us of any type,” he said. The restaurateur believes the Crown Estate’s refusal to compromise reflects a desire for a uniform office building rather than any practical obstacle.

“They want a neat, simple arrangement,” he said. “Almost, they want to just whitewash or cleanse it.”

More fundamentally, Mr Mathrani argues its decision raises questions about who gets to determine the cultural character of one of London's

Business

most recognisable streets near Piccadilly Circus. “It is the heart of London,” he said. “It gives you a great sense of history, of place.”

While the Crown Estate has insisted it has a legal duty to effectively manage public money, Mr Mathrani argues the financial case for closing the restaurant is difficult to understand.

MW Eat estimates lost rent and legal fees have already cost about £1.7m, with the total potentially reaching £2.2m by the time the case is heard.

A Crown Estate spokesman added: "This is not a decision we've taken lightly. With external advice, we have reviewed alternative proposals including those put forward by MW Eat, and unfortunately there isn't an alternate scheme which meets our responsibilities as stewards of this

Veeraswamy

Down the years

1926

Restaurant opens,

serving curries

popular in the

British Raj

1927

Staff pose outside

in Regent Street

(below middle)

Approaching 50th birthday, it's a firm favourite with royalty, celebrities and public (left)

2016

Under Uday

Salunkhe (below),

wins Michelin star

2026

20,000-signature

petition is

delivered to

Buckingham Palace, requesting that the King intervenes to stop Crown Estate's plan to close Veeraswamy

heritage listed building, our legal obligations and our responsibilities to manage public money.”

The dispute is now heading for a courtroom showdown, provisionally scheduled for Nov 4. “Our loins are fully girded,” Mr Mathrani said. “This is going to cost us a much more significant part of our net worth. But that is what we believe in doing.”

Despite his frustration, Mr Mathrani hopes senior government or City figures will encourage a settlement.

He is also considering writing to the Prime Minister and Chancellor, arguing the restaurant is a successful tourist destination being threatened at a time when hospitality businesses are already under pressure. “We keep hoping that they will see more sense,” he says, and save the restaurant.

Ideas Happen Here™

Some ideas are

too important to

leave as just ideas.

Our advisers help you build a plan around the future you have in mind.

Capital at risk

Wealth

Management

Housing scheme will fail where it's needed most

---

Andy Burnham's Your First Home programme will be useless in much of London, reports Melissa Lawford

HOUSEBUILDERS are all too aware that London is ground zero when it comes to Britain's housebuilding crisis.

“Nothing is viable in London at the moment,” says Andy Hill, the chief executive of housebuilder the Hill Group.

In 2024-25, housing starts plummeted by 72pc year on year in the capital, with London on track for its lowest delivery rates since the Second World War.

"We're building at the slowest rate we've ever developed at," says Hill.

While some might have been hopeful that Andy Burnham's revived Help to Buy scheme, announced last weekend, could provide some relief to the industry, they have since been sorely disappointed.

The plan appears likely to fail to increase building rates meaningfully in the capital.

The Prime Minister's new first-time buyer support scheme – called Your First Home – will provide prospective homeowners with a 20pc government-backed equity loan on a 2.5pc deposit to purchase a new-build property.

It is similar to the Help to Buy programme launched by George Osborne in 2013 to help the housing sector in the wake of the financial crisis. That scheme resulted in 387,000 transactions until it ended in 2023. But there are some key differences, which are particularly problematic for London.

Under the previous scheme, to account for far higher property prices in the capital, London buyers had access to an equity loan that was twice as large, at 40pc.

There is no suggestion of any such treatment this time around.

Analysts warn that London property prices are so wildly out of kilter with earnings that even access to a 20pc equity loan will not meaningfully improve affordability for first-time buyers.

“I don’t believe that a 20pc equity loan is enough to make a huge difference,” says Hill.

Savills analysis, based on local incomes and mortgage affordability criteria, found that in half of London boroughs no more than 10pc of privately renting households will be able to purchase an average-priced new-build home with a 5pc deposit – there is an expectation that developers will be asked to make a 2.5pc contribution – and a 20pc equity loan.

The share of renter households that will benefit is particularly low in the expensive boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster - at 1pc and 3pc respectively.

But the trend is also evident across cheaper outer boroughs, where households typically have lower incomes. In the London Borough of Enfield and in Barking and Dagenham, for example, the shares

Help to Buy gave thousands their first home

London's house prices stand above every other region's – and have only increased

John Healey, the Chancellor, is expected to announce the Your First Home loans will be subject to household income caps

SOURCE: LAND REGISTRY

were also exceptionally low, at just 1pc and 3pc respectively.

"The announcement was a really good move in the right direction, but it is in the North where I think it will move the dial," says Hill.

Developers are nervously awaiting October's Budget, when John Healey, the Chancellor, is expected to outline the details of another key difference with the previous Help to Buy scheme.

Your First Home loans will be subject not only to local property price caps but also to household income caps.

Emily Williams, who leads Savills' planning research, warns that the lack of the larger 40pc equity loan means that these caps will need to

be set high in order to boost building in London.

Under Help to Buy, the equity loans were available in London on new-build homes up to the value of £600,000 – and there was no income cap.

Banks typically only allow buyers to borrow up to 4.5 times their income when buying a home. To buy a £600,000 home with a 5pc deposit and a 40pc equity loan, a buyer would need to take out a £330,000 mortgage. This means they need to have a household income of at least £73,000.

This time around, with the smaller 20pc loan, the Government would need to set an income cap of around £120,000 for anyone to actually be able to use it in London, says Williams.

This is because a buyer purchasing a £600,000 home with a 5pc deposit and a 20pc equity loan would need to borrow £450,000, leaving them needing a £100,000 salary to have it signed off by the bank.

'I don't believe that a 20pc equity loan is enough to make a huge difference'

Few analysts think Burnham is likely to announce a policy giving handouts to households earning £100,000 per year.

"As a Left of centre Labour government, it is unlikely that they're going to set a significant price threshold in London," says Marcus Dixon, the head of residential research at JLL. "I hope that they realise that setting that price threshold too low

will exclude a lot of people from buying in the majority of London."

Developers are also worried that the price caps for the properties will be set too low.

Building in London is often more expensive than other parts of the country, partly because there are much more stringent regulations on high-rise blocks.

If the cap were set at £500,000 it could be useful in London's outer boroughs, but it would do nothing to boost building rates in the centre of the city, says Bob Weston, the chairman of Weston Homes.

"Not central London, just forget it. Zone one is out, zone two is out, zone three is probably out," he says.

James Moody, the chief operating officer at property developer Seven Capital, says the price cap would need to be as high as £800,000 for the policy to have an impact in central London.

"It is very difficult to build anything in [central] London below £1,000 per sq ft in sales value. That's giving you a one-bed flat in zones two or three for £550,000 and a two-bed probably at £750,000," he says.

This all matters even more because high mortgage rates have hammered buyer affordability.

For most of the duration of the previous Help to Buy scheme, mortgage rates hovered around 2pc. Since then, they have more than doubled. Bank of England data show average new fixed-rate mortgages hit 4.65pc in August.

This means that, since the start of 2022, the monthly cost of borrowing £450,000 – the mortgage necessary to purchase a £600,000 home for a buyer with a 5pc deposit and a 20pc equity loan – has increased from £1,817 to £2,540.

The Ministry of Housing was contacted for comment.

Hill welcomes Your First Home, but he is far from optimistic that it will help him build more homes in the capital.

“We don’t have that many homes on our books for less than £500,000. For a lot of what we do, it is not going to touch the sides.”

---

As Zelensky's war chest runs dry, Ukraine braces for winter of austerity

The president is calling for help as Putin steps up attacks on civilian targets. Hans van Leeuwen reports

RUSSIA'S relentless bombardment of civilian targets in Ukraine took a fresh turn this week, as bridges across Kyiv's Dnipro river were hit for the first time.

Two nights of strikes brought traffic to a halt on two key crossings. Chaos ensued for the half a million people living on the city's east bank who commute across the Dnipro each day.

As Vladimir Putin drops any restraint in targeting civilians, everyday life in Kyiv is more precarious than ever. Yet even as Ukraine's government faces this renewed threat, officials in Kyiv are struggling to maintain a war economy that is increasingly parlous.

Putin may be straining to fund his war machine but Volodymyr Zelensky is similarly battling to bankroll his country's defence. This week, the Ukrainian president took his begging bowl to Brussels with a dire warning: Ukraine is running out of money. Without another round of Western aid, Ukrainians could face a bitter winter of austerity, compounding the misery of the war's aerial bombardments, blackouts and cuts to water supplies.

blackouts and cuts to water supplies. But many European governments.

though notionally supportive, are cash-strapped. They are also demanding that Ukraine press on with promised economic and political reforms. These are a precondition for loans from the EU and the International Monetary Fund.

Volodymyr

Zelensky on a visit to Germany. He is lobbying Brussels to release more of a promised €90bn loan

Ukraine's war-weary parliament, though, is either unwilling or unable to crunch through the required legislation, putting Zelensky's existing fiscal lifelines in greater jeopardy.

"I believe this will be fixed, but we are running out of time," warns Yuliya Markuts, at the Kyiv School of Economics.

But it won't be easy. On the front line, the cost of fighting the war is rising. On the home front, Putin's escalation has punched a hole in the government's tax receipts.

"The war has become more expensive. We need more resources for military personnel, for drones, for ammunition, for air defences," Markuts says. "On the other side, the Russian attacks are weakening our budget revenue. They have damaged energy facilities, ports, railways, industrial enterprises. We're seeing reduced production, exports, employment - and that directly affects our tax revenues."

Ukraine's financial position is hard to pin down exactly but Serhii Marchenko, the finance minister, confirmed some worrying numbers this week. In

'If we fail to rein in Moscow, the Russian war machine will, sooner or later, turn against us and Nato'

September, tax revenues were £341m less than expected, he said. Meanwhile, Russia's Black Sea blockade means only 40pc of grain can be exported.

Marchenko said that Ukraine's land counter-offensive in the Donbas region had also come at a steep cost. And the price both of sending long-range drones to Russia, and of improving Ukraine's air defences, is accelerating.

The economy won't ride to Zelensky's rescue either, as Putin disables ports, railways and power networks.

The government previously expected gross domestic product to expand 2.4pc this year but has cut that forecast to 0.6pc. This has left Zelensky's government floundering. Serhii Koretskyi, the prime minister, recently put the budget shortfall at \$27bn (£20bn) for this year alone.

The government might be able to find cost savings of \$7bn, he said, but that still leaves a \$20bn black hole.

Capital spending has already been frozen for the rest of the year. Marchenko said in Brussels that it might be possible to “manage” the deficit this year, but “unfortunately we still have an uncovered gap for 2027”.

Zelensky's most urgent mission in Brussels was to speed the disbursement of a €90bn (£77bn) loan from the EU, which was agreed in April. Half was supposed to reach Ukrainian hands this year, but so far just €15bn has been sent.

After a tense few days in Brussels, Zelensky seemed to secure what he needed. Ukraine and the European Commission agreed to “move forward swiftly” with releasing next year’s €45bn tranche of funds. Ministers also asked Brussels for more leeway on delivering the reform programme, saying war makes it hard to rush policies through. It was unclear how much rope Brussels has offered. But on Friday Ukraine received €2.9bn from the EU's 2026 loan allocation. This was a reward for getting at least a few of the reforms through parliament.

The EU's €90bn was only meant to cover two thirds of what Ukraine needs this year and next, with the rest coming from individual countries. So far only Norway has come through, offering \$9m for next year.

Timothy Ash, of the think tank Chatham House and fund manager RBC Bluebay, says bankrolling Ukraine is a short cut to Europe's own defence against Putin's aggression.

“Europe needs to step up and move to an autonomous defence capability. We need to buy time, and the Ukrainians buy us time,” he says. “It costs us about \$100bn a year to fund Ukraine in this war. That’s a cheap investment, given that if Russia wins we’re going to have to move quickly from spending 2.3pc of GDP on defence to spending probably 3pc or 4pc.”

Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, made much the same case in a speech on Thursday. “If we fail to rein in Moscow, the Russian war machine will, sooner or later, turn against us and against Nato,” he said.

But in a recent poll, 42pc of Germans said military support for Ukraine had gone too far.

Ash says the obvious answer is to use the €210bn of frozen Russian assets held in the EU. A push to tap this pool was blocked last year by Belgium. It hosts Euroclear, the custodian of €185bn of the immobilised funds.

If the Europeans can't even agree to spend other people's money, there seems little prospect they will stump up the cash themselves.

But Oleksandra Myronenko, of the Kyiv-based Centre for Economic Strategy, says beleaguered Ukrainians cling to the hope that the West has their back.

“Hope is the one thing we have to rely on,” she says. “Because if we do not have hope, what else do we have?”

---

Plan to pay for BBC with tax on broadband gets top billing

'Baffling' proposal would increase internet costs regardless of viewing habits, writes James Warrington

AS THE clock ticks on the BBC's future, one idea for how to fund the public service broadcaster is gathering momentum. Ministers are considering scrapping the licence fee and replacing it with an £11 monthly tax that would be added to broadband bills.

Proponents of the proposal, which was put forward by the Social Market Foundation, a think tank, see it as a way of putting the BBC on a sustainable footing amid a decline in the number of people willing to pay for its upkeep.

Under the scheme, everyone with a home internet connection would have to chip in, regardless of whether they consume the BBC's services or not. But

---

‘This funding model does not exist anywhere else... raises serious questions over enforcement’

at £11 a month, the annual cost of £132 would be almost £50 cheaper than the current £180 licence fee.

Ministers are now weighing up the plans as part of the BBC's Charter review, which will lay out how the corporation will be governed and paid for from 2028. Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, has only ruled out “direct” taxation for funding the broadcaster.

MPs threw their weight behind what they described as a “household levy” this week, saying it also would lower the BBC’s collection costs by £190m. But experts warn that a new tax on broadband bills could stymie Britain’s shift to the streaming age.

With entry-level broadband prices in the UK standing between £20 and £25, an £11 surcharge would represent an increase of more than 50pc for some customers. James Barford, at Enders Analysis, describes this as “quite a dramatic increase if you’re trying to spend as little money as possible”.

Naturally, broadband providers are unhappy at being the target of such a charge. Companies such as BT and Virgin Media O2 have long complained that low prices have left them unable to make investments in network upgrades.

"It's somewhat ironic that the Government may not mind hiking broadband bills when it's to solve a political problem on the licence fee, yet the slightest sniff of a price rise by operators investing billions of pounds in a market with some of the most competitive prices causes a ministerial hissy fit," says one industry executive.

The executive adds: “Using telecoms bills as a mechanism for licence fee funding is baffling, especially as debates over the digital TV switch off and universal broadband access rattle on. This funding model does not exist anywhere else, raises serious questions over implementation and enforcement, and could hinder fibre take-up while piling more costs onto millions of households.”

The potential knock-on effects of a broadband tax go well beyond the bottom line of Britain's telecoms companies. Growth in the broadband market is stalling, with subscriber numbers declining in 2025 for the first time ever. This has been driven by consumers opting for alternatives such as Elon Musk's Starlink. Others, especially younger Britons, are simply connecting devices such as laptops and TVs to their smartphones.

Any move to pile additional costs on broadband bills would risk driving yet more customers towards mobile-only packages. This in turn could accelerate the shift among younger viewers towards watching social media videos on smartphones, driving away an audience the BBC is desperate to win.

"People could potentially drop broadband and end up watching

less TV, or at least less TV on their main TV set," says Barford. "It's a huge issue if people start dropping broadband because of the levy."

It's not just young people, though. Older people who are marginal broadband users may choose to make do without. Moreover, any decline in

broadband take-up would result in what Barford brands a “doom loop”. If fewer people pay for a wired connection, the BBC tax would probably have to rise, while providers would have to raise prices to cover the cost of running the infrastructure.

All of this comes as the BBC and other broadcasters push for the switch-off of terrestrial TV signals and a full switch to streaming in 2034. Yet ministers have been clear that such a change can only happen if superfast broadband connections are available at affordable prices. A new tax on broadband could delay the move.

So what are the alternatives? The growing use of mobile-only connections raises the question of whether a surcharge could be applied to mobile bills instead of fixed broadband.

But analysts warn that ramping up the cost of mobile connectivity, which starts at as little as £5 a month, would damage digital inclusion. Instead, the tax could be linked to a truly essential utility such as water or energy.

The BBC argues that spreading the cost of funding the corporation is essential to its survival, pointing to figures showing that while 94pc of adults use its services each month, fewer than 80pc of households pay the licence fee. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg last week, Matt Brittin, the BBC director-general, hinted at support for a household tax. “I think the principle is: if we want a BBC that’s for everyone, then it needs to be funded by everyone,” he said.

However, the BBC refuses to be drawn on whether it thinks broadband bills would be the best target for such a surcharge. A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: "The BBC must be funded by a model that is sustainable and fair to all those that are paying it. Through the Charter review, we are looking at a range of options, including how the BBC can operate more efficiently, generate more commercial revenue and how the licence fee could be reformed."

Ultimately, discussions over where to deploy a levy overlook a fundamental flaw underpinning any form of new tax on households at a time when living costs are soaring.

At the moment, if you do not watch TV and do not use the BBC, you can avoid paying the licence fee. Ministers know that forcing a new monthly cost on to people's household bills, regardless of whether they watch the BBC or not, will be a hard sell.

---

The YouTube influencers being paid to spread fear about AI risks

Tech insiders worried about existential risks want to engage the public, James Titcomb reports

BEFORE this summer, Avalon Warren's TikTok account resembled that of many young influencers. Her one million followers saw clips of her trying on clothes, changing hairstyles and applying makeup.

Warren still posts these clips, but some now have a distinctly ominous tone. "Day 8 of dressing up because if the AI apocalypse is coming, might as well dress nice" reads one video.

Another shows a clip from an AI protest in San Francisco, captioned: "The future is still ours to shape."

Warren's change of tone came as she attended a month-long boot camp near San Francisco that called itself Plzdontkillus. The programme for content creators provides influencers with food, boarding and a stipend.

One requirement: attendees must post one video a day, or they are kicked out. Influencers receive talks about the dangers of AI from the likes of Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent doomsayer, and Grimes, the musician and former partner of Elon Musk. In the background, a robot dog pads around.

If the world is going to wake up to the threat of superintelligence, so the theory goes, they will learn about it on TikTok and YouTube. “People prefer listening to arguments made by attractive people,” one of the organisers wrote.

A group of researchers, philosophers and former tech executives have spent the pay years attempting to convince AI companies and politicians that the technology is an existential threat, fearing it could lead to a cyber incident or biological terrorism that could wipe out humanity.

But much of the debate has been held on obscure internet forums, Twitter and long-form podcasts – which don't reach the majority of the voting public. Becca Lair, a singer who attended the bootcamp, says: "It was [about]

bringing in ‘normal people’. Having them speak on AI and AI safety to shift the Overton window to something that would be a more comfortable dinner table conversation.”

ControlAI, a UK-based AI safety organisation funded by Jaan Tallinn, the Skype founder, claims to have secured more than 6.3 million views of videos about superintelligence and extinction risk by sponsoring creators.

They include a video by Hank Green, the prominent science YouTuber, headlined “We’ve lost control of AI”. The video directs viewers to a page helping them write to their MP to support a superintelligence ban. “The experts have known about these risks for years,” says Andrea Miotti, ControlAI’s founder. “We just see it as our mission to inform the public.”

Not all social media influencers agree with this mission. ControlAI, whose work has led to “kill-switch” legislation being proposed in the UK and US, received a terse rejection from Sabine Hossenfelder, a German physicist and YouTuber.

“They wanted to tell me what the video was supposed to be about and what I was supposed to say down to the sentences I should read,” she said. “Political lobbying is spilling over into science and tech reporting where it encounters in audience that isn’t used to it.” In response, the organisation said it controlled only a small sponsored

insists creators disclose the support.

Miotti says ControlAI's work is on a small scale compared with the budgets enjoyed by tech companies. OpenAI, for instance, hosted influencers at a luxury "summer club" in

Protesters in San Francisco call for a pause in the development of AI. YouTuber Avalon Warren, below, joined the camp Plzdontkillus

upstate New York and spent a reported \$100m (£76m) buying the tech-focused talk show TBPN earlier this year.

"Our job is to inform people, not to tell them what to think," Miotti says.

Nonetheless, bringing YouTubers and TikTokers on board has become an established part of the AI safety playbook. Another programme, the Frame Fellowship, gives creators a \$10,000 stipend and puts them in a shared house in San Francisco's trendy Mission District. The fellowship's funders include Tallinn and an AI-safety fund run by an adviser to the former Google boss Eric Schmidt.

The Future of Life Institute, an AI-safety organisation that organised a “pro-human summit” last month featuring Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, runs a digital-media “accelerator” designed to “spread the word to new audiences”.

Critics of these AI safety groups point out that a relatively small group is promoting this worldview. Funding tends to come from a tight-knit group of wealthy individuals linked to the effective altruism movement, which concentrates on existential risk.

Whether it is because of social media or because creators are tapping into existing concerns, AI safety fears have become mainstream. Three quarters of Britons believe that AI companies face too little regulation, according to YouGov, and a recent Quinnipiac poll found a quarter of Americans think AI systems could threaten human survival. MPs are increasingly demanding regulation.

As for the influencers, it is questionable whether telling us we are all going to die makes good content. Several of those who made AI TikToks through the Plzdontkillus bootcamp have returned to more conventional matters. “Wasn’t my thing,” one said.

Other charges, such as trading fees, apply related to your account activity. Full details on barclays.co.uk/direct-investing-fees.

Barclays Investment Solutions Limited provides wealth and investment products and services. Authorised and regulated by the FCA (No. 155595). Registered Office: 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP (No.02752982).

---

'The rich are being attacked everywhere'

The owners of Broughton don't have hoards in the bank and are anxiously awaiting the Budget. By Eleanor Doughty

Great Estates

Estate name: Broughton Sanctuary

Location: Broughton Sanctuary,

Skipton, BD23 3AE;

broughtonsanctuary.co.uk

Year founded: 1597

Acreage: 2,500

Down in the bowels of Broughton Sanctuary - eight miles from Skipton, North Yorkshire - is a framed newspaper cutting. Behind the glass, a photograph of a young boy and his father peers out below the headline: "The seven-year-old heir to 3,500 acres."

That little boy is now 63-year-old Roger Tempest – businessman, father and squire of Broughton – the 32nd in his line since his family settled there in 1097.

By the time Roger was born - the elder of Henry and Janet Tempest's two sons, with three older sisters - Broughton was run by his bachelor uncle, Stephen. When Stephen died suddenly in 1970, Broughton passed straight to Roger, but was run by Henry until his son came of age.

It was an appalling time to inherit anything. Not only were 65pc death duties levied on the estate, but Grade I-listed Broughton was too wet to catch fire.

Henry faced a nightmare, in every sense. As an officer in the Scots Guards, "he was shot in the head on his 21st birthday, having crossed the Rhine, and parachuted into places three weeks after the release of the concentration camps," says Roger.

“Such deep trauma... I didn’t have a close relationship with him.”

But they were aligned on one thing: "This place is worth keeping going. He struggled with it a lot, so I was brought up in that atmosphere, saying: 'I'm going to bloody sort it out.'"

So it has proved. In 1982, Henry converted part of the Georgian stable block into office space. Roger took up the gauntlet and founded estates regeneration company Rural Solutions in 1990 and, between 1987 and 1995, converted Broughton's old works department buildings into a thriving business park. Today, more than 600 people work on the estate every day.

Henry died in 2017, having lived to see his son's success – even if he found it hard that “a place that was one thing became something else”.

As a result of Broughton's transformation, Roger has become something of a sage within the estates community. After lunch in Utopia, the bistro in Broughton's walled garden, he reflects on the sector.

"I know lots of places which I could virtually guarantee will be dead in 10 years. We're going to see a lot of estates disappearing because they haven't diversified, and because they haven't planned their taxes right. There's going to be more fragmentation – we're 2,500 acres now, but we were 40,000 originally."

Having restored the big house – now in work as an exclusive-use property, retreat base and filming location – Roger and Paris, his wife, have turned

47%

Income tax

Labour raised the

tax on property

and savings

up 2pc since

April

their focus to its surroundings. For the past five years, they have been engaged in a nature-recovery project, having planted 240,000 trees – “not just for us, on behalf of everybody” – reintroduced beavers and de-fenced the “billiard table” fields.

Where the farmland had been intensively managed, it is now more natural, dotted with birds of prey and endless rabbits – alongside many holiday lets. This pays better than farming, says Roger, given their 178 bed spaces. The previously monoculture fields no longer flood “because the rain comes down and sits in the trees instead”.

There's no shooting or hunting on the estate, not that Roger is anti - “definitely not!”, and they've changed the estate's name to “Broughton Sanctuary”.

“I love this idea of a sanctuary for humans and for animals,” he says.

If this sounds a bit “out there” for a man from one of England’s oldest families, Roger is keen to assert it isn’t. Such steps are key to the estate’s survival.

"The rich are being attacked everywhere," he says. "You see the Green Party saying things like 'the rich are hoarding money'. But who is actually

▲ Roger Tempest, pictured with wife, Paris, is the 32nd in his line to run Broughton

‘We pay 76 people every month ... The cheapness of the ideology going around is shocking’

hoarding money? We pay 76 people every month – it takes huge effort. We don't have hoards in the bank, we have mortgages!

"The cheapness of the ideology going around is shocking. We've reduced ourselves to this extraordinarily prejudiced thinking."

Paris – with whom Roger has a daughter, Aya, – didn’t grow up in this world, but first came to Broughton to photograph a family party.

"I'm from Birmingham, a Peaky Blinder," she says.

The pair started dating soon after. "I was a bit keen," says Roger, explaining that when he married Paris, now 36, his wedding present was "a reduction in my life insurance policy!".

Laughing, she defends her husband's so-called status. “People can look at Roger and say ‘he was born with a silver spoon’, and of course there are the assets (the liabilities!) that he was born into, but he has worked like hell to bring in investment and regenerate it.

"He's had to think really deeply about how we can keep this place alive."

Broughton remains a financial challenge. Things are not “yet” working.

“We're on the way but we're frightened of the new Budget,” says Roger. “The Government put up income tax on property and savings by 2pc in April – that's 47pc now – and they've got rid of the holiday cottage capital allowance. They're extracting so much out of every system now. The outer state is becoming this destructive force.

"If [only] they looked at it from a different perspective and said, 'These estates are growth centres'. If they try to tax us more, our tax revenues will diminish. If they want to tax the capital then there will be nothing. We've put on hold a load of projects because we don't know what's happening."

He is not unaware of noblesse oblige, of course. “Privilege comes with responsibility, but most people (in this situation) are grafters. I’m 63, and I’ve never stopped. It can get intense … and then you get politicians trying to open up the eyes of envy.”

Together, Roger and Paris make Broughton as open to all as they can. "We have loads of free community events," says Paris, "and people come and walk the Odyssey route - a 30km walking trail. At the same time a lot of hard work and personal investment has gone into making that happen. People need to realise that in order to park your car somewhere, someone is taking care of that land."

In time, that person will be Aya, now six. Roger, who loves being a “girl dad”, describes his daughter as “a cool girl, a dude”.

Like her father, she knows what's coming: "she's going to have to take care of Broughton," says Roger. "I think she could run it better than me already."

---

Polar Capital Global Healthcare Trust plc

---

Led by science, driven by returns.

Polar Capital Global Healthcare Trust invests in the innovative leaders of healthcare – from disruptive biotechnology to global pharmaceuticals.

The diversified portfolio combines defensive growth with emerging innovation, capturing multi-decade themes while navigating near-term volatility.

Discover the specialist Trust backing the future of healthcare.

---

polarcapitalglobalhealthcaretrust.co.uk

This is a marketing communication. Investors may not get back the original amount invested. This advertisement should not be construed as advice for investment. Important Information: This announcement constitutes a financial promotion pursuant to section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and has been prepared and issued by Polar Capital LLP. Polar Capital is a limited liability partnership with registered number OC314700, authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA").

Capital at risk.

The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 4 October 2026

---

How to tackle the cost of private fertility treatment

Telegraph Money answers your questions on paying for treatment and whether your funds are protected. By Rachel Lacey

You're probably aware that it costs thousands to raise a child, but what about the potential added cost of private fertility treatment?

Roughly one in 31 babies born in the UK is conceived as a result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) – approximately 21,400 in 2024, according to the latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the independent fertility regulator.

While the NHS does provide some access to fertility treatment, it's getting much harder to come by, with just 28pc of IVF cycles funded by the health service, down from 35pc in 2019.

Increasingly, people who are struggling to conceive, or aren't able to have children naturally, are turning to private fertility clinics – a decision that could land them with an enormous bill and no guarantee of a successful result.

If that's a journey you (or your child) is considering, here's what you need to know about the costs first.

Can I get treatment on the NHS? Eligibility for NHS-funded fertility treatment is a postcode lottery. While 51pc of IVF cycles in the North East are funded by the NHS, it's only footing the bill for 20pc in the South West.

In Scotland, 54pc of cycles are paid for by the NHS – more than twice the proportion for England (25pc).

Although eligibility varies between Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), the criteria they are likely to consider include: your age, your body mass index, whether you smoke, the length of time you have been trying to get pregnant, a fertility treatment history and whether either partner has children already.

Some ICBs will only pay for one cycle, while others will offer up to three. Therefore, you'll need to read up on the criteria and treatment on offer in your area to determine whether or not you're likely to qualify for any NHS-funded treatment. "One of the biggest challenges is the lack of consistency and equity in access to NHS-funded fertility treatment across the UK," said Gwenda Burns, the chief executive of The Fertility Alliance, a charity that provides support and education.

---

How much does it cost?

In London, with Guy's and St Thomas' Specialist Care, one cycle of IVF costs £4,550. But that doesn't include the £300 fee for an initial consultation, £700-£1,200 for medication and £840 to freeze any surplus embryos.

The Fertility Foundation says you can expect to pay between £5,000 and £8,000 per round of treatment, plus a further £600-£2,500 for medications and further tests.

IVF success rates are, thankfully, rising – the average birth rate per embryo stood at 30pc in 2024 (up from around 20pc a decade earlier), rising to 38pc for women aged under 35. Most individual cycles will fail.

Ms Burns said: “It’s important to understand that it may take more than one cycle of treatment to achieve a pregnancy. People can find themselves spending considerably more than they initially anticipated.”

---

Paying for treatment

If you do find yourself needing to pay for treatment, it may not make sense to start saving at this point, with treatment success rates declining with age.

If you don't have the money to pay for treatment upfront, most clinics will offer finance packages, often interest-free. Some providers will also sell “shared risk” packages that let you “bulk buy” multiple cycles for a discounted price, with refunds of up to 100pc if you don't have a baby.

It's important to think about how much you can realistically afford to invest first. Sarah Coles, the head of personal finance at AJ Bell, said: "One of the most difficult decisions any

Money

30%

Success rate

The average birth rate per embryo in 2024 (latest figures)

£8k

prospective parents will have to face is when to stop the cycles. It's an incredibly emotional decision, and can bring real grief for a couple, so there will often be a drive to try one more time.

However, you also need to weigh it up against whether this is something your finances can really take.”

---

Getting help with costs

Treatment

The cost of treatment is between £5,000 and £8,000

If you are likely to struggle with costs, or fear it rules you out of private fertility treatment altogether, it's worth finding out whether you might be entitled to any grants.