The Daily Telegraph - 05.11.2026 — 2026-11-05

Thursday 5 November 2026

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Vance turns on Trump

Vice-president blames Iran war for midterm election rout but defiant leader says: I'd do it all again

By Connor Stringer

CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

JD VANCE has clashed with Donald Trump over the Iran war, blaming the conflict for the Republicans' humiliating midterm election defeat.

The vice-president argued that the war was not worth losing the House of Representatives and the Senate, distancing himself from Mr Trump in a first move towards a possible 2028 White House run.

"The reason we lost is the war," Mr Vance said. "The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest."

Mr Trump responded by saying that the war was worth it during a tour of the construction site of the new White House ballroom.

A senior Republican figure close to Mr Trump said the vice-president was desperately trying to distance himself from the war, which he has privately expressed disdain for.

Mr Vance listed four priorities for voters that read like an early manifesto: ending the war, putting America first, focusing on cost of living and “changing our relationship with Israel”.

Mr Trump, on the other hand, left the door open to restarting the conflict, saying the war would end “whenever I want it to”.

The disagreement erupted after a record-breaking night of defeats in elections across the country. Democrats took not only states that had backed Mr Trump by significant margins in 2024, but also won states for the first time in decades. Kansas had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

Mr Vance's intervention was praised by some of the president's allies, including his eldest son Donald Trump Jr, who convinced his father to pick Mr Vance as his running mate in 2024. Mr Trump swept back to power that year promising no more wars and an end to inflation "on day one". Yet Americans went to the polls with inflation higher than it was two years ago, and a fresh war raging in the Middle East.

Yesterday, the president acknowledged the conflict that he launched alongside Israel in February had played a part in the defeat but remained defiant, insisting that he would do it again.

Asked about Mr Vance's comments, he said: "I think it's largely true because

Donald Trump, the US president, said he would accept the result of the midterms as he spoke to workers at the White House Ballroom construction site in Washington

Democrat -

Democrats sweep both Senate and House in midterms

+7 seats

SENATE

51 to win

54

\- Republican

44

Democrat

-HOUSE

+29 seats

237

-Republican

139

218 to win

"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night... If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so"

it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term. But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I'd have to do it again. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon."

@JD Vance

Last updated 9:45pm

As well as the cost of living and the Iran war, Republicans are also angry about Mr Trump's handling of the Epstein files, his obsession with the White House ballroom, the aggression of his immigration agenda and how he has enriched himself while in office.

Mr Trump appeared to have been blindsided by Mr Vance's public rebuttal, but defended the war. "I know how he feels about it. I think it was fine. I thought it was good. We knew that. I know that. I knew that when I went in," he said in brief remarks to the press at the ballroom site.

Yesterday, Iran threatened to use “new weapons” against the US if Mr Trump decided to “betray” voters and launch fresh strikes. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and the country’s chief peace negotiator, said: “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.”

A number of senior Republicans voiced anger at the midterm results, as the Democrats carved deep inroads into Republican heartlands including Texas,

INSIDE

Trump nightmare Pages 4-6 Allister Heath Page 16 Editorial Comment Page 17

Mr Trump is reportedly considering whether to fire Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, in a cabinet reshuffle. But the president insisted yesterday he had no plans to do so.

Kansas and South Carolina. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is touted as a 2028 presidential candidate, said the results were “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans”.

Mike Johnson, the House speaker, announced he would not seek to become minority leader when Democrats take control of the chamber in January.

The president was not on the ballot, but he repeatedly told voters to pretend he was – a move that he quickly walked back from after the blue landslide. “I wasn’t on the ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LAND-SLIDE!” he insisted.

Bosses risk jail if staff use wrong pronouns under gender law

CAMPAIGN

By Daniel Martin

DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

BOSSES risk being sent to jail if their staff use the wrong pronouns to address trans people under the Government's new conversion therapy law, campaigners have warned.

The contentious Draft Conversion Practices Bill states that company directors and leaders of other organisations can be held liable if one of their employees tries to suppress or change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity, its opponents have said. Unless they can show they have taken “all reasonable steps” to stop this from happening, directors could face up to five years in prison and their company could be hit with an unlimited fine.

Campaigners have said that the law could be used by activists to prosecute an employer who fails to stop their staff from repeatedly using the wrong pronouns, such as by referring to a biological man as “him” when they have transitioned and want to be referred to as “her”.

The Government has admitted that British firms and the public sector will be hit with a combined £61m bill to change workplace practices to comply with the new law. MPs, peers and experts have joined a Telegraph campaign to scrap the proposed legislation because of fears that the bill could criminalise parents who question whether their children are trans.

The legislation proposes that people who use physical and psychological abuse to put pressure on people to abandon their gay or transgender identities could face up to five years in jail.

The Government insists it will not outlaw the expression of beliefs about LGBT identities or ban explorative conversations about identity. But opponents warn that the law could criminalise honest conversations by doctors, teachers and parents with children about whether they wish to change gender.

The legislation would also place what critics describe as onerous responsibilities on companies to prove that they are taking all reasonable steps to ensure staff do not engage in conversion therapy.

A spokesman for the Government insisted that the law was intended only to apply to companies that provide conversion therapy, but nowhere does the legislation say this. They also said that misgendering someone would not meet the threshold for a conversion practice.

The bill says that the law applies to a “relevant officer” of the company or organisation who “authorises or permits, participates in, or fails to take all reasonable steps to prevent the commission of the offence".

Dennis Kavanagh, director of the Gay Men's Network, said: "This bill covers every single workplace I can think of with a wide list of legal personality types. It certainly covers every company and most charities. It extends liability from just the company itself to the directors or equivalent officers. That's very, very wide."

The Government was wrong, he added, to insist that misgendering would not be in the scope of the bill. Mr Kavanagh, a criminal barrister, said the proposed legislation “includes words as potential abuse”. He also notes that the former minister who introduced it to Parliament “approvingly cited a Galop report” as evidence. The report by Galop, a charity which campaigns against conversion practices, “says ‘misgendering is abuse’ and there is absolutely nothing in the bill to say that it is not”.

A government spokesman said: “It’s completely untrue that this Bill will burden businesses, unless your business is pushing abusive conversion practices... Misgendering an employee is not an abusive conversion practice and therefore not touched by our draft bill.”

Reports: Page 8

INSIDE

NEWS

NEWS | Puzzles | 18 | Obituaries | 27 | TV listings | 28 | Weather | 31 |

Welfare cuts may not be in PM's 10-year plan

Labour has failed to guarantee that welfare cuts will be included in Andy Burnham's 10-year plan for Britain. Standing in for Mr Burnham at PMQs yesterday, Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, did not say whether Labour would act to tackle the soaring benefits bill. Asked whether the 10-year plan would reduce the welfare bill, Ms Haigh replied: "We are taking steps already to bring the welfare bill down and we will take further [steps]. We've committed to legislate." Page 2

Cricketers caught out by women's team rule

A school's old boys' cricket club have been demoted for not having a girls' team. Old Hamptonians, who played in Division One of the Surrey Championship, were unable to meet the criteria set by the England and Wales Cricket Board. The ECB's gender inclusivity rules require tier-one clubs to have a cricket programme for five-to 11-year-olds, junior teams and a girls' section. Old Hamptonians' is largely made up of alumni of Hampton School, an all-boys independent school.

Page 3

'I was in favour of livestreaming an execution, but they shouldn't have shown the shocking midterm results on TV'

NEWS

Commuters ‘looked on in migrant sex attack’

A girl aged 14 has told a court that commuters stared at their phones while an Afghan migrant sexually assaulted her on a train. She said Baryalai Rahimi, 25, and Mirebadurahman Sadat, 29, lured her on to a train at a station in Kent before attacking her. She alleges Rahimi sexually assaulted her in the carriage while other passengers gazed at their phones. He walked past commuters as he lured her into a lavatory and raped her three times, it is alleged.

Page 11

BUSINESS

M&S accuses Labour of tax ‘onslaught’

The boss of Marks & Spencer has accused Labour of unleashing “one of the biggest tax grabs in history” in an outspoken attack on the Government. Stuart Machin, the chief executive of M&S, said the retailer was having to navigate an “onslaught” of higher costs and stricter regulations as a direct result of the three Budgets delivered by Rachel Reeves and John Healey. Mr Machin said the retailer faced an extra £150m in costs this year, mostly from Labour’s 2024 Budget.

Page 19

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Labour won't commit to cutting welfare

PM's deputy refuses to guarantee reduction when challenged over Burnham's 10-year plan for Britain

By Dominic Penna

SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

LABOUR has failed to guarantee that welfare cuts will be included in Andy Burnham's 10-year plan for Britain.

The Prime Minister will set out his decade-long vision before the end of the year and is expected to draw up an ambitious list of policies. But, while standing in for Mr Burnham in the Commons yesterday, Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, would not say Labour would act to tackle soaring benefits.

Asked by Alex Burghart, the Tory deputy leader, if the 10-year plan would cut welfare, Ms Haigh replied: "We are taking steps already to bring the welfare bill down and we will take further [steps]. We've committed to legislate."

Mr Burnham has said that he wants to reduce the welfare bill but he insists he will aim to do so by helping a million young people not in education, training or employment into work. He has repeatedly said he will not make “crude cuts”.

Mr Burnham and John Healey, the Chancellor, took no action to tackle the ballooning welfare bill in their first Budget last week. Their decision not to act was taken despite the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting benefit spending would jump to £43lbn – almost 30 per cent up – by 2032.

Responding to Ms Haigh, Mr

Burghart said: “The welfare secretary said every meeting he had with Labour MPs was about ‘who can we tax in order to pay benefits’ and it’s very likely the honourable lady was one of those MPs.”

Mr Burghart appeared to refer to a message that Pat McFadden, who served as an enforcer in Sir Keir Starmer's Cabinet before becoming the Work and Pensions Secretary, sent to Peter Mandelson, the disgraced peer. Mr McFadden wrote that every meeting he had with Labour members had concerned the question: "Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?"

As a back-bench MP last summer, Ms Haigh played a key role in orchestrating a Labour rebellion against a Starmer plan to cut disability benefits by £5bn a year. Sir Keir was ultimately forced into a humiliating climbdown. Mr Burnham, the then mayor of Greater Manchester, was also opposed to the cuts.

Last week, Mr Healey was forced to admit there will be no cuts to welfare before the next election, after initially appearing to suggest there would be. At yesterday's Prime Minister's Question, Ms Haigh also refused to commit to the benefits bill being cut in this Parliament, saying only that Labour was committed to bringing it down.

She also declined to rule out raising taxes to cover more welfare costs. “We cannot afford to pay for failure and must invest in success ... that is how we will bring the welfare bill down,” she said.

Mr Burghart said “the Labour way” would amount to “more tax, more welfare and more borrowing”.

The publication of much vaunted 10-year plan by Downing Street is a further indication that the Prime Minister, who was absent while at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua, could hold a general election earlier than 2029.

Asked what people might expect from the 10-year plan, Mr Burnham said: "It will be about public control. So, getting stronger control of the essential things that shape people's lives and drive the economy. Energy is very much at the heart of that."

UK aid worker with Ebola is flown home from Congo

By Michael Searles

DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR

A BRITISH national is to be flown home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) having tested positive for Ebola.

On arrival in the UK, the patient, understood to be an aid worker, will be taken by ambulance to a specialist "high-consequence infectious disease" unit. It is the first time that a Briton has tested positive for Ebola since the DRC's latest outbreak began in May. It is now the second-largest outbreak on record.

The Foreign Office said there were “well-established procedures for dealing with cases like this and those processes have been activated”.

Ebola is a severe viral disease spread through direct contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is fatal in half of cases on average, though mortality rates vary between outbreaks.

The Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus is behind the current outbreak. As yet there is no treatment or vaccine for this strain.

The DRC outbreak is the second-largest on record and the most lethal in its history. The WHO has reported 10,444 cases and 5,376 deaths up to Oct 20. The unnamed Briton is the first to be infected in the current outbreak. Several other Europeans have tested positive.

Imported cases are rare in Britain, with only four confirmed since 1976, said the UK Health Security Agency.

The deadliest Ebola outbreak ever occurred in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, killing more than 11,325 people. People from the UK, Italy and United States were also infected.

All three confirmed British cases then were health workers.

VIA REUTERS/KIN CHEUNG

Mili's band Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, and Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, sat in with a steel drum band in St John's in Antigua and Barbuda. Mr Miliband, in particular, looked like he was having a simply marvellous time.

Bravo, sir! Burnham has a sense of humour after all

Sketch

By Tim Stanley

DONALD TOAD, king of the swamp, has been drowned in a blue wave so deep it contains some stunning historical firsts: this year, several Democrats were returned to Congress who are not technically insane.

Contrast with the UK Liberal Democrats – out and proud barmy - who interrupted PMQs yesterday to ask what the Government is doing to jail the Prez? Dotty Cooper, all teeth and trainers, said: "Will the Government commit to assisting any and all inquiries that the new Democratic

Congress may launch?" One wanted to put an arm around the poor lady and say softly: "You realise you are in Westminster, not Washington DC?" Lib Dem madness takes the form of believing they are American. Or European. Occasionally Palestinian. Anything but British – until someone threatens to build a flat over a Gail's, in which case they morph into a provincial and belligerent Nimby MP.

With the Prime Minister abroad, falling flat on his face in the wretched earth, Louise Haigh filled in for Labour, Alex Burghart for the Tories.

They were okay. It had the vibe of two supply teachers having a row in public. As in real life, the class first stared, thunderstruck that adults can talk to each other like this, but as the argument drifted to who is taking PE on Thursday, the kids started talking noisily among themselves. In the balcony, the visiting Grand High Executioner of Cote d'Ivoire (pronounced Coat Davour by the Speaker) fell asleep. A tall, thin, terrifying man nudged him in the side. He awoke, cast an unimpressed eye

‘Liz Truss, it seems, is to blame for debt, crime, war, poverty, Uncle Ted’s haemorrhoids’

over the shambles of democracy, and returned to his slumber.

What did he miss? Pass boo-coop. Burghart asked how much Britain spends on benefits, and will Labour ever cut them? Haigh, sporting a Farah Fawcett flick, retorted that welfare is indeed high - thanks to the Tories. It was a twist few saw coming. Liz Truss, it seems, is to blame for debt, crime, war, poverty, Uncle Ted's haemorrhoids and the transatlantic slave trade.

On that subject, it's very funny that Burnham has responded to demands for reparations with the offer of “green energy projects”. Bravo, sir! The PM has a sense of humour after all.

As the Caribbean contemplates a future of expensive blackouts, the Commons briefly considered “what is a working person?” These are people, said Haigh, who “don’t have savings to dip into” and “rely on good public services”.

I see ... but, please Miss, don't people with savings use services, too? And don't citizens who ride buses have a bank account? Labour seems to have narrowed the definition of its core voter down to a penniless tramp who spends much time in A&E, while anyone with a piggybank is technically not a worker and thus liable for more tax.

Finally, the sport.

Lorraine Beavers (real name) said: "I'm sure the whole House will join me in congratulating Fleetwood Town on thrashing Arsenal last week" - frustrating for the PM, she laughed, as "Everton has been drawn to fight the mighty Cod Army in the quarter-finals".

Lorraine then performed an astonishing shift of tone and of subject to report that many of her constituents might be living on “contaminated land”.

In newspapers, we call this burying the lead.

NEWS BULLETIN

New NHS agency formed as quango faces the axe

The Health Secretary is creating a new NHS agency after ministers struggled to dismantle “the world’s biggest quango”.

Yvette Cooper said NHS England's seven regional teams would move into a temporary special health authority rather than the Civil Service.

The arrangement avoids pay structure complications. Average NHS England packages are £9,500 higher than those at the Department of Health and Social Care, according to Health Service Journal analysis.

NHS England's abolition remains scheduled for April 1.

Sir Keir Starmer promised its abolition last year, criticising duplicated bureaucracy.

McQueen's Le Mans suit expected to fetch £750k

Actor Steve McQueen's race suit from the 1971 film Le Mans is expected to fetch at least £750,000 when it is sold at a Texas auction.

The distinctive cream-coloured Gulf racing overalls worn by the character Michael Delaney, accompanied by a pair of fire-resistant woollen long johns, was first donated to the German magazine Bravo as a competition prize after filming.

It has since passed through private collectors and is tipped to spark a worldwide bidding war when it goes on sale at Heritage Auctions in Dallas.

Since his death in 1980, personal and screen Steve McQueen memorabilia have attained astronomical prices.

Officer ‘put hands in colleague’s trousers’

A police officer sexually assaulted a male colleague after a night out, a court has heard.

Lewis Black, 27, allegedly put both hands down the back of the man's trousers after an evening of drinking in Watford in 2023.

The complainant told police he felt “numb” and “froze”, jurors at Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday. He said Black also grabbed his crotch over his trousers.

In a second alleged incident, Black approached him in a locker room, pulled his shirt down and touched his back. Black, a Hertfordshire Constabulary officer denies two counts of sexual assault. The trial continues.

Lorry driver's tip led to £80m cocaine haul

Police recovered more than £80m worth of cocaine after a tip-off from a lorry driver who had stopped for a cup of tea at a burger van.

Two men and a woman were jailed for a combined 47 years after police swooped on a lay-by in Northampton in November 2021. They recovered 18 holdalls of cocaine – totalling 780kg.

The HGV driver reported his container, supposedly carrying steel furniture, was broken into and items taken. It had left Mexico a week earlier

Craig Le-Mare, 36, was sentenced at the Old Bailey yesterday to 20 years for conspiracy to supply cocaine. Kelly Robertson, 46, and Michael Weston, 57, were sentenced earlier at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

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Old boys' club demoted ... for having no girls

Cricket team cannot meet ECB inclusivity regulations because their school has no female students

By Jake Goodwill and Will Macpherson

A LONDON school's old boys' cricket club have been demoted from their league for not having a girls' team and a junior division.

Old Hamptonians, who played in Division One of the Surrey Championship last season, were unable to meet the criteria put in place by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to remain a tier-one club.

The ECB's youth development and gender inclusivity regulations require tier-one clubs to have a cricket programme for five- to 11-year-olds, at least three hard-ball junior teams and a girls' section. This applies to tier-one clubs across the country.

Old Hamptonians' membership is largely made up of alumni of Hampton School, an all-boys independent school in south-west London that has produced several England internationals.

The club appealed against the decision to demote them, first to Surrey, who rejected their appeal. An appeal to the ECB was also rejected after it upheld Surrey's decision.

Old Hamptonians argued that it is almost impossible for an old boys' club to meet the requirements since the school has no female students and that the school essentially functions as their junior section.

The ECB's tier-one club regulations have been in place since last year, but are now being enforced before the 2027 season after a grace period.

Any club across the country playing in the top divisions of their county league structure is classified as a

Old Hamptonians' membership is largely made up of alumni of Hampton School in south-west London

tier-one club. Old Hamptonians first XI will now be forced to play in Surrey Division Two, a league that does not require tier-one club regulations to be met, despite coming seventh in Division One last summer.

Division One is the second-highest league in Surrey, with only the Premier

Division above it. As it stands, Old Hamptonians would not be allowed to be promoted out of Division Two even if they were to win it.

A Surrey cricket foundation spokesman said: "It is an ECB requirement that teams who play in the top two divisions of ECB-accredited Premier Leagues run cricket programmes for five- to 11-year-olds, have junior teams, as well as a girls' team as part of their club. At the Surrey Cricket Foundation, we are fully supportive of this and believe it is an important part of making sure that cricket is truly a game for all."

Old Hamptonians, who play their home fixtures on the school grounds, have four teams that play in Saturday league competitions, though only the first XI is affected by the ECB regulations.

Hampton School has produced a number of professional cricketers in recent years, including England internationals Toby Roland-Jones and

‘It is a

requirement that teams who play in the top two divisions... have a girls' team'

Zafar Ansari. Three of Middlesex's fast-bowling crop went to the school, including Roland-Jones, Blake Cullen and Naavya Sharma, who was recently selected for the England Lions.

Paul Farbrace, the former England coach and new Lancashire director of cricket, worked at Hampton before coaching in the professional game.

The ECB said: “In exchange for ECB funding, accredited Premier Leagues need to meet specific criteria which are designed to promote strong and sustainable clubs.

"These criteria include having a junior and girls' section.

This has been communicated for the last two seasons, with support available for clubs via local Recreational Cricket Boards to help with implementation. Clubs failing to comply by 31 Oct 2026 are ineligible to play in the top two divisions of an ECB Premier League."

Old Hamptonians declined to comment.

Knockin' on Heaven's door

Few people would choose to wear a black hoodie, coat and gloves for a trip to the Vatican. But Bob Dylan has made a career out of confounding expectations and his private audience with Pope Leo was no exception. The 85-year-old musician was received at the Apostolic Palace yesterday by the pontiff, who is a self-confessed Bobcat – the term used to describe Dylan's devoted fanbase. He quoted a 1963 anti-nuclear protest song from the singer, Go Away You Bomb, in a preface of a book released in July.

VATICAN MEDIA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Writer's block: Waller-Bridge offers rent-free apartment to new authors

By Telegraph Reporter

PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE is offering a rent-free flat in London for writers early in their careers.

The Fleabag creator, writer and actress, 41, has bought and donated the flat as part of the new theatre initiative Writers' Block – which aims to address the cost of London accommodation for playwrights from underprivileged backgrounds. She bought the flat for writers early in their careers to use rent-free, paying only for bills, and has also given a “generous financial contribution”.

Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne – who wrote the films Wonder and Enola Holmes, as well as the Harry Potter And The Cursed Child stage play – is also providing financial backing to the scheme. He said: "I was lucky when I started out, my brother lived in Croydon and was able to put me up. He did so, rather selflessly, for five years, before I moved to Luton and he got his peace.

"For many writers the need for a roof makes writing impossible, which is why this pilot is so important. If we want stories told about our complicated world, we need writers of every background. If you're from privilege your biggest problem is what to fill a page with, if you're not, so much of your struggle is about the need to survive." Other backers include playwright and screenwriter James Graham – who wrote stage shows including Ink, Quiz and Dear England – as well as Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright, and The Crown's Peter Morgan.

Waller-Bridge's partner Martin McDonagh is also involved. He is best known for writing and directing films including Oscar- and Bafta-winning The

Banshees Of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Graham said that the scheme tackles the class barrier facing writers and helps them avoid “giving up completely”. “The industry’s urgent pursuit of representation is still letting down the biggest area of under-representation of all, which is class,” he said. “Every spare room a scheme like this can give to writers starting out in London, not only helps them write but saves them from giving up completely."

Writers' Block was born from the Adopt a Playwright Award initiative, which was founded in 2008 and offers affordable accommodation to writers from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Both schemes were created by Sofie Mason and Diana Jervis-Read, who started The Offies, the Off West End Theatre Awards.

Ship's combination lock finally cracked after 400 years

The lock from the 16th-century ship has a possible 1,296 combinations. Only four of the rings were turnable

By Tom McArdle

A 16TH-CENTURY lock found by a detectorist on a beach in Wales 27 years ago has been opened after a CT scan revealed the code.

Researchers used the scanning technology to work out the four-letter combination needed to open the brass lock.

Peter Hughes found the hoard from the Ann Francis merchant ship on Margam Beach near Port Talbot in 1999. He said he was “delighted” the experts had cracked the code – the letters “A-N-C-E” – after he had spent years trying to decipher it himself.

Mr Hughes said: “I tried to unlock it for about 20 years, I tried moving the dials, finding the right combinations, and I failed. But with the aid of modern technology, we’ve been able to crack what’s like the Da Vinci Code, really. For me, it’s like opening the Ark of the Covenant, and I’m delighted, truly thrilled.”

The vessel was shipwrecked in a storm on Dec 28 1583, while returning from Spain. Researchers from Museum Wales and Cardiff University, who carried out the scan, believe the lock, found near a number of Spanish silver coins and two coin weights, once protected these objects or secured a chest.

The lock has four rotating rings, each bearing six letters, giving 1,296 combinations. Dr David Williams, a research associate at Cardiff University's School of Engineering, said he had been "sceptical" when asked to use a scanning device to find the secret word.

“Micro-CT scanning allowed us to look inside the lock without damaging it. By creating a detailed 3D image of the internal mechanism, I could see how the notches lined up with the letters.

“We normally use this technology to study bones and other biological structures, so investigating a 400-year-old padlock was certainly a first for us.”

Chalet where Dickens wrote his final works faces hard times

By Telegraph Reporter

A WRITING chalet where Charles Dickens wrote some of his novels and rehearsed for public performances is under threat, heritage experts have warned.

The two-storey Swiss chalet, which once stood in Dickens's garden at Gad's Hill Place in Higham and is now in the gardens of Eastgate House in Rochester, Kent, is among the historic sites added to the latest heritage at risk register amid concerns about its decaying timbers and structural problems.

William Shakespeare's daughter Susanna's home, Grade I listed Hall's Croft in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire - which has also hosted literary figures such as George Bernard Shaw - has also been added to the list this year over the major conservation challenges it faces.

But government agency Historic England says there is better news for other significant pieces of heritage, including the hut where Gloucestershire doctor Edward Jenner performed the first vaccinations against smallpox, which has been saved after it was added to the register last year. There are close to 5,000 buildings, places of worship, archaeological site, parks, gardens, conservation areas, battlefields and protected wreck sites on the register which shows they are at risk of neglect, decay or inappropriate change.

New entries include Dickens's hut, which was originally a Christmas gift to the author in 1864, serving as a quiet spot where he was able to work on

‘Every part of the UK is bursting with history, so it is vital we protect the heritage sites’

several works including Our Mutual Friend, The Uncommercial Traveller and his final unfinished novel The Mystery Of Edwin Drood.

It is also believed the upper floor of the timber-framed building was lined with mirrors so that he could rehearse for his public appearances, in which he performed dramatised readings from his own novels.

But now the Grade I listed building – moved to its current location in the 1960s – is in poor condition, with timber decay and structural instability preventing public access and leaving it in need of repair. Medway council has secured a £240,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, in addition to £40,000 of council funding and £5,000 from the Dickens Fellowship, to develop plans to restore the building and create a garden setting.

At Hall's Croft, where Shakespeare's daughter lived with her husband Dr John Hall, funding is needed to save the 17th-century building's exterior, including repairing damage caused by a vehicle hitting the front of the structure.

It has already benefited from a £1m donation from playwright Ken Ludwig, but more funds are needed for the next phase of work.

Other sites added to the heritage at risk register include Hastings Castle in East Sussex.

Heritage minister Baroness Twycross said: “Every part of the UK is bursting with history, so it is vital we protect the heritage sites at the heart of communities which help tell the stories of our nation.”

News

Where the midterms were won How the toss-up states turned blue

IOWA

51% 46%

Previously: 45% vs 52%

● Democrats ● Republicans

KANSAS

51% 46%

Previously: 41% vs 53%

MAINE

54% 46%

Previously: 42% vs 51%

MICHIGAN

53% 45%

Previously: 49% vs 48%

THANK YOU MICHIGAN

Abdul El-Sayed and his wife, Sarah Jukaku, enjoy his victory in Michigan, while, right, supporters of James Talarico celebrate his historic win in Texas

Arabic taunt in victory speech heralds a new radical Left

By Benedict Smith and Poppy Wood

El-Sayed's celebrations anger his opponents as winning Democrats stoke the culture war

ABDUL EL-SAYED appeared to have the last laugh as he addressed supporters in Michigan in the early hours of yesterday morning.

He had survived an ugly election contest, smeared by the president, his opponent Mike Rogers and the Republican establishment with claims of being a jihadist supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood who approved of 9/11.

Even his former Democrat primary rival, Haley Stevens, endorsed Dr El-Sayed's Maga rival in a bombshell announcement on the eve of the vote.

After that, the first Muslim senator in US history was probably entitled to a celebration, but a midterm elections victory speech supposedly meant to thank his supporters seemed calculated to rile his enemies instead.

Dr El-Sayed said: “Up until right about now, you might have noticed I always say ‘inshallah’ or ‘God willing’ whenever the outcome of this race was mentioned. But today – tonight, we can turn that, inshallah, into an ‘alhamdulillah’ [praise be to God].”

Speaking Arabic after a campaign marred by baseless claims about his religion seemed like a move designed to provoke his political opponents.

Fox News piled in. Joel Pollak, the California Post opinion editor, said: "You don't start your speech with a kind of message to your Muslim supporters at first. I thought that was really grating."

Dr El-Sayed is acting like a man permanently in campaigning mode. And in a sense, who could blame him? He has won the fight of his life, and it's hardly as if the Maga movement has ever been a magnanimous one.

However, it means that he, and other like-minded Democrats, risk handing their opponents the tools of their destruction at the moment of what seems total triumph. Triumph is giving way to

Donald Trump

ominously posted

the below image on

social media after

the Republican

Party lost control

of both the House

and the Senate

triumphalism after crushing Democratic wins, including Senate breakthroughs in Republican strongholds, such as Texas and Kansas.

They saw one blue wave and decided it was time for a beach party.

In doing so, Democrats are making themselves easy to caricature. They won back the House and Senate because, for the most part, they did not act like the “radical Left lunatics” that Donald Trump complains they are.

James Talarico, the first Democrat to win a Senate election in Texas since 1988, recognised that.

His politics was doggedly centrist, his speeches swaddled in religious and homely language, about “loving thy neighbour” and securing the border with a “welcome mat out front and a lock on the door”.

Despite this, he was cast by the White House as a vegan liberal pervert. Attack ads centred on his 2021 Texas floor debate, in which he claimed God was “non-binary”, while JD Vance offered insinuations about his sexuality and his interest in transgender children.

The former teacher, who eats meat but has a vegan girlfriend, described his own past comments as “cringey”.

At a dour Republican election party in Detroit, this stale brand of Maga politics was on display.

"He's a freak! Talafreako!" one woman shouted, using the president's nickname for Mr Talarico. "What the f--- is wrong with people! Do people want socialism?"

At Mr Talarico's watch party in Texas, his supporters chanted “U-S-A, U-S-A” – hardly signs the senator-elect was a harbinger of Marxism.

Taking to the stage after his shock victory over Mr Trump's handpicked candidate Ken Payton, whose campaign

late, Ren Paxton, whose campaign was supported by almost \$160m in Elon Musk funding through outside groups, Mr Talarico proclaimed: "Tonight, we defeated Goliath!"

Delirious Democrats ran around taking selfies, and hugging their friends. “I’m ecstatic … it feels unbelievable, I’m not going to lie,” said Iris Romero, a 30-year-old tech engineer.

In Ohio, Sweet Caroline belted out after Amy Acton defeated Vivek Ramaswamy, the former presidential candidate and brief archi-

tect of the ill-fated Doge project. The

death knell for his campaign was airing

an attack ad about his opponent's sexual

abuse, featuring her estranged mother.

He said he had attempted to offer his concession to Ms Acton, but his call had gone to voicemail. Mr Ramaswamy said: "We left her a message. It's a tough night for us here in Ohio."

The voters' message was clear, however: they want a candidate, not a culture warrior.

Even Mr Trump struck a rare conciliatory tone, conceding that the Democrats had done a “good job” and he would accept the results.

At Butterworth's, Maga's bistro of choice, the party soon became a funeral. Staffers bolted as results came in.

A party organiser told Vanity Fair after Mr Paxton lost: “I’m not trying to crash out. But we nominated Hitler with Down Syndrome. And guess what!? He lost! He lost! And now we lose a Supreme Court Justice. It is a f---ing disaster.”

The obituaries are already being written for Trumpism. Democrats, though, would do well to remember why they succeeded: they refused to play Mr Trump at his own game. And yet.

Ro Khanna, the Democratic congressman, lauded the wins as a victory for the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes that the Trump administration has sought to dismantle.

“Tonight, DEI is back as America celebrated diversity and inclusion,” he said in a social media video.

"I love this America."

‘DEI is back as America celebrated diversity and inclusion. I love this America’

That will be music to the ears of the Democratic socialists entering Congress for the first time but this is comfortable territory for Maga. Officials, such as Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, are accused of having nothing to talk about except the culture wars.

If Democrats insist they want to keep fighting this battle, they will lose as they did in 2024.

Mehdi Hasan, a Left-wing commentator who broadcast from Dr El-Sayed's election night party, shouted himself hoarse celebrating and listing political enemies.

"I just want to say to Donald Trump, and Mike Rogers, and Elon Musk, and JD Vance," he said, not even a quarter of the way through his enemies' list. "Abdul El-Sayed, a Left-wing Muslim anti-Zionist, is heading to the United States Senate. And so, for all of you, I have two words. Two words: cry more."

Some of this may be a simple sugar rush experienced by Left-wingers finally witnessing wide-scale blue victories after so many disappointments.

Some is probably more cynical. Clever politicians, such as Dr El-Sayed and Mr Khanna, who is rumoured to be considering a 2028 presidential run, have learnt from Mr Trump and know they can raise their own profiles by stoking social media outrage.

Dr El-Sayed has a six-year term ahead of him. Mr Khanna represents deep-blue San Francisco, where he has just been re-elected with more than 70 per cent of the vote.

Democrats are at a crossroads. If they choose to forget the warnings of 2024, and the lessons of 2026, they will have a rude awakening in 2028.

Five blue-wave winners who may mount

By Ben Stockton

AS THE dust settles on a barnstorming night, the Democrats have turned their eyes to 2028 and their next target: the White House.

While the Republican machinations may have begun – with JD Vance publicly breaking with Donald Trump yesterday – the Democratic ticket remains wide open.

Here are the five Democrats who could be making presidential moves.

Jon Ossoff – senator, Georgia

Perhaps one of the most talked about 2028 candidates is Jon Ossoff.

The charm of the Georgia senator has led some to call him “the next Barack Obama”. For his part, the former president has said he could be mistaken as a member of the Kennedy dynasty. Mr Ossoff has been in office since 2021, when he narrowly beat the Republican incumbent in a race overshadowed by Donald Trump's claims of election fraud.

His re-election on Tuesday night was expected, but even though Georgia is a swing state, his race was one of the first to be called. And with most of the votes now counted, he looks likely to win by about 18 points.

Mr Ossoff kickstarted a media whirlwind in Washington DC earlier this year over the relationship between Mr Trump and his aide, Natalie Harp.

Mr Trump didn't want to be president, Mr Ossoff told supporters in August, "he wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie".

At just 39, Mr Ossoff will have plenty of opportunities to decide when is the right time to throw his hat into the ring for a possible presidential run – whether that's in 2028 or beyond.

Whether that's in 2023 or beyond. During his senate campaign, he said he had "zero interest" in running. But his dominant performance at the midterms could change that.

Keisha Lance Bottoms

Kelsha Lance Bottoms

• governor, Georgia

His fellow Georgia Democrat could

turn out to be another winner.

Keisha Lance Bottoms was among a number of firsts in a historical night in US politics – she became the first black woman elected state governor.

Ms Bottoms, the former mayor of Georgia's largest city, Atlanta, beat billionaire Republican businessman Rick Jackson, who pumped his own money into his campaign.

Ms Bottoms, 56, enjoyed the support of Mr Ossoff and Mr Obama, successfully tying her opponent to the president, who she said wanted to be “Trump’s favourite governor”.

She was tipped as a possible running mate for Joe Biden in 2020 and then reportedly declined a position in his cabinet later that year.

Her rising star within the party made her decision not to seek reelection as Atlanta mayor in 2022 all the more surprising.

At the time, she chalked it up to the challenges she had faced during the pandemic and the protests following the killing of George Floyd.

Abdul El-Sayed

\- senator, Michigan

Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday night became the first Muslim senator in American history after winning his race in Michigan and keeping the seat

Rivals for top job Democrat contenders

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez NY James Talarico Texas

OHIO

50% 45%

Previously: 47% vs 53%

TEXAS

55% 43%

Previously: 43% vs 54%

ALASKA

48% 51%

As of 10pm last night

Previously:

41% vs 54%

MISSISSIPPI 49% 49%

As of 10pm last night

Previously:

44% vs 54%

VP triggers fall

Oil prices down

after Vance post

Oil prices fell sharply after JD Vance blamed the Republicans' election rout on the Iran war. The price of a barrel of Brent, the global benchmark, fell as much as 10pc to \$93 a barrel by yesterday evening. It marks the first time since Oct 7 that Brent has fallen below \$100. The vice-president said voters left the party owing to dissatisfaction with Donald Trump's Middle East war.

This has boosted traders' hopes that the US president may de-escalate the conflict, which would increase global oil supplies.

On social media, Mr Vance said: "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."

Mr Trump later admitted Mr Vance's comments were "largely true". He said he expected oil prices to "go up a lot more" than they did because of the war. He said: "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again, because long term, it's the only answer. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. I thought the oil would go up a lot more, and I did it on that basis. You have no choice. You have to do it. You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon, or everything that you see here someday might not exist."

Traders also responded to the prospect of a cut in funding for the war. Claudio Galimberti of Rystad Energy said the president is now likely to come under “greater institutional pressure” to strike a peace deal with Iran.

Democrats will now take revenge on Trump and his ilk

John Bolton

THE day after America's 2006 midterm elections, George W Bush said at a White House press conference that the result for Republicans “was a thumping”. As head of the party, he added: “I share a large part of the responsibility.” Bush told legislative leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, that he looked forward to finding common ground with them in the next two years. Very little of that will take place in Donald Trump's Washington after the 2026 results.

Trump said repeatedly during the campaign: “Pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” Predictably, Trump

wanted a referendum on Trump. Voters took him at his word and now he, and increasingly disaffected Republicans, will pay the price, unable to escape the damage he has done to the party and the nation.

But Trump will not accept responsibility; he will point the finger at others for defeat. His most important international response could come in renewed attacks on Iran, likely again in cooperation with Israel, in the coming days, now that polls are closed. Whatever the strategic arguments for resuming strikes, and there are powerful reasons to do so, the triggering factor in Trump's decision will be to show that he is still “relevant”.

As Democrats take full control of the legislative branch, Washington's next two years will be filled with stark partisanship. Democrats have planned how to wield their new control of Congress, using every committee. Endless congressional hearings will scrutinise all aspects of Trump's last decade, not just the prior two years, but also his first term and the Mar-a-Lago interregnum. Every committee, within its jurisdictional lane, will dissect Trump's actions, looking for wrongdoing.

Many of the investigations will focus on governmental operations, material fascinating to Washington's denizens, but tedious to normal people. One set of issues, however, will undeniably cut through, namely the mounting allegations of personal corruption, self-enrichment, conflicts-of-interest and ethical violations. Indeed, current polling shows that the panoply of "corruption" issues was on voters' minds before Nov 3. If Democrats can stay on a steady, evidence-based path, perceived as fair and not a witch hunt, they could considerably damage Trump and his ilk. Impeaching Trump for the third, fourth, etc time is undoubtedly on many Democrats' minds.

They would be well advised to stay away from impeachment, which in the first term hardly deterred or constrained Trump. If anything, the impeachment saga emboldened and enabled him to do even worse.

Despite this historical record, Democrats will probably be unable to restrain themselves. They will contend that the near certainty of Trump pardoning “everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office],” himself included, requires aggressive use of Congress’s impeachment authority, which the constitution excepts from the president’s pardon

power. The constitution prescribes impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” which allows enormous play for political factors, all of which are present here.

Impeachment proponents remain highly unlikely to garner two-thirds majorities in the Senate, the constitutionally required margin to convict Trump. His Cabinet members and lesser officials may not be so lucky. Even Trump family members who ostensibly hold no government position will be in the line of fire.

Vulnerability for officials will also certainly extend beyond corruption issues, as defence secretary Pete Hegseth, already the target of Democratic impeachment threats, could find out in short order. All those engulfed in the impeachment turmoil will face not simply the risk of being removed from office, but having to expend the time and personal resources for legal services they may need. The struggle will be brutal.

But what of high policy, affairs of state, war and peace? Assuredly, policy issues will figure in the political fratricide that is about to begin. Especially in foreign affairs, however, the president's is constitutionally predominant, checked primarily by Congress's power of the purse. That won't change, however weakened politically Trump becomes. Indeed, frustrated lame-duck presidents often turn more to international affairs to escape the drudgery of domestic policy. Think how much of the world's geography remains to be renamed.

John Bolton is a former US National Security Advisor (2018-2019)

a challenge for White House in 2028

Keisha Lance Bottoms Georgia

Jon Ossoff Georgia

blue. A feud with Haley Stevens, a Democrat who ran against Mr El-Sayed in the primaries, ended with her endorsing the Republican candidate.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump repeatedly referred to Mr El-Sayed as a “jihadist” and said Congress would have to “get a special metal detector for Abdul”.

A gleeful Mr El-Sayed was quick to call out the president following his victory. "Donald, look, I know you struggled with my name, so after JD swears me in January, you can just go on and call me Senator," he said.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - representative, New York

The New York representative known as AOC was once a thorn-in-the-side of establishment Democrats.

But in the nearly eight years Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been in

Washington, she has become something of a grandee on the progressive wing of the party, reportedly helping build bridges between the democratic socialists and DC's more moderate politicians.

Still only 37, her House seat was never in doubt and she spent as much time backing liberal Democratic hopefuls across the country as she did campaigning for herself.

Rumours about a 2028 presidential bid have been swirling for a while. And perhaps her efforts to appeal to more centrist parts of the party are signs of her laying the groundwork for a run.

She has even reportedly been meeting in recent months with key influencers in the Make America Healthy Again movement as part of a bid to try and steal some of the independents who voted for

Mr Trump after Robert F Kennedy Jr endorsed him in 2024.

But she has not yet formally announced that she will run, with some observers thinking she might have an eye on fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer's senate seat.

James Talarico - senator, Texas

One of the most stunning results came when James Talarico was declared the winner in Texas.

History was against him – Texas had not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since the 1980s.

But in the end, it wasn't even close. More than a million votes clear of his Republican rival Ken Paxton, Mr Talarico had an unassailable lead before the day was even done.

Mr Talarico rebuffed criticism of his stance on issues such as gender and

immigration. “We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love,” the former schoolteacher and seminarian said during his victory speech.

He first ran for office in his late 20s to become a state house representative. He walked 25 miles in a single day, knocking on doors in his district and hosting town halls. Exhausted, he was later taken to hospital and diagnosed with Type I diabetes.

But his efforts proved successful and in office he helped lead a bill capping the price of insulin.

At just 37 years old, he joins a growing group of young Democrats on the national stage. If he does make a bid for the White House, he can count on the popular podcaster Joe Rogan – who endorsed Mr Trump in 2024 – who urged him to run.

Defeated Trump will vent his fury on the world

Donald Trump will probably be even more vengeful and wayward on the global stage

David Blair

CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

COMMENTATOR

As power wanes at home, president will double down on foreign policy, including closer ties with China

DONALD TRUMP reacted to his defeat in the midterms by paying an unlikely tribute to the “good job” done by his opponents. Yet the president who suddenly posed as a model of humility is unlikely to be the same president whom the world will have to deal with now that American voters have delivered their verdict.

On the contrary, Trump after this election will probably be even more vengeful and wayward on the global stage than before. Partly, that is down to the US Constitution. Having lost control of the House and the Senate, Trump's domestic agenda is effectively over. He cannot pass any laws, spend money or cut taxes unless he can win over enough Democrats. But his presidential dominance of foreign

policy, as well as his status as commander-in-chief of the mightiest armed forces in the world, will remain unchanged in all respects save one. Anything that requires Congressional approval, like repealing sanctions legislation on Russia, will almost certainly become impossible.

Even so, the natural response will be for Trump to devote more time to international affairs, where he can still make a difference, as he passes the halfway mark of his presidency. That will have consequences for all three of the most burning issues. The first is the unfinished war against Iran, which Trump started as a supposedly brief and decisive campaign more than nine months ago. After the votes were cast, Trump admitted that the Iran war and its economic repercussions – in the form of higher gasoline and diesel prices for ordinary Americans – were “part of” the reason for his defeat (his vice-president JD Vance agrees, writing yesterday afternoon: “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night”). But Trump still insisted to The Wall Street Journal: “I did the right thing.”

Iran's leaders, meanwhile, instantly claimed credit for Trump's electoral drubbing, with Mohammad Bagher

Ghalibaf, a key figure in the regime, declaring: “Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.” He also threatened a “nightmare” for Trump. The danger is that Iran’s leadership, emboldened by Trump’s political weakness, will become yet more intransigent. At the same time, Trump will surely be more impatient to achieve something, anything, that he might present as a victory. For now, the US navy is grinding down Iran's economy and the capabilities of the regime by enforcing an embargo that has choked off the country's seaborne oil exports virtually to zero. At the same time, American firepower has reopened the Strait of Hormuz to more or less the pre-war level of oil exports from the Gulf states.

That combination might compel Iran to resolve the war on American terms, but only if Trump has the patience to see this strategy through, which could mean waiting for months. Now that he is a politically wounded leader, he will be sorely tempted to restore his image of strength by bombing Iran all over again, even if this means risking another escalation in the Middle East when the regime hits back by firing missiles at its neighbours. Trump may conclude that renewing his onslaught against Iran is the best way of showing that he remains in control.

The second issue where Trump could be even more beguiled by the illusion of a quick fix is the war in Ukraine. Despite occasionally being swayed by European leaders, Trump's settled instinct is that the fastest route to peace is for Ukraine to be bullied into surrendering and for the US to normalise relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia. Trump's problem is that neither half of that solution is entirely within his gift. Europe is shielding Volodymyr Zelensky from American pressure by supplying Ukraine with money and weapons.

The toughest US sanctions on Putin can only be repealed by Congress, which is not going to happen with the Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate. Trump could try to ease the burden by using presidential waivers to suspend some sanctions, but much of the legislation is not open to being bypassed in this way. The outcome is that Trump will probably have another push at his strategy of punishing Ukraine and indulging Putin, with plenty of furious rhetoric, but his hands will be more firmly tied after this election than before.

When it comes to dealing with America's foremost adversary, however, Trump will retain huge discretion. China has been emboldened by his willingness to cage the hawks in his administration, boast of his “fantastic relationship” with Xi Jinping and extend the trade truce between the two countries, even though deferring the reimposition of tariffs must diminish American bargaining power. If a post-election Trump feels free to follow his instincts even more, then he will prolong the tariff truce that is otherwise set to expire on Jan 10 and double down on his personal indulgence of Xi.

All of which means a higher risk of renewed war in the Middle East, less American pressure on China and more on Ukraine, at least so far as possible. None of that will be good for the world.

US midterm results

Democrats tidal wave in Congress

Swing in the House of Representatives, 2024 to 2026

VOTES STILL BEING COUNTED IN SOME STATES

Trump's rating was sliding before gas prices surged due to Iran war

Republicans lose in Texas for first time in decades

Trump has seen significant swings against the Republicans

Change in Senate vote share between 2020 and 2026

Blue tsunami What we learnt from the midterms

Polls got it right

The expected "blue wave" crested on Tuesday night, with Democrats flipping House seats across the country and achieving the unthinkable: turning Texas and

Kansas blue. Before midnight on Tuesday, the party had taken House seats in Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the battleground Senate races,

Democrats made an early, but crucial gain with North Carolina, followed by unexpected wins across GOP heartland including Texas, South Carolina and Kansas. In Texas, James Talarico

prevailed, the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas since 1988, while Adam Hamilton's victory in Kansas was historic. He is their first Democrat to become a senator there since 1932.

The socialists excelled

Socialist candidates on the ballot were propelled to victory. Their wins more than double the number of socialist or socialist-leaning

Democratic representatives that make up a bloc of hard-Left Democrats. In New York, two candidates endorsed by Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist mayor, secured wins: Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, and Claire Valdez, 37.

‘DEI is back’

Ro Khanna, a leading progressive Democrat in the House, had already made the

statement by midnight. "Tonight DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is back as America celebrated diversity and inclusion." "I love this America," he

added, projecting that Democrats had secured three black governors, the first Latina governor in Texas, the first Muslim-American senator and the first gay male senator. In Georgia, Democrat

Keisha Lance

Bottoms became

the first black

woman elected

governor in United

States history,

while Texas

elected Democrat

Gina Hinojosa as

its first Latina

governor.

Voter machine

malfunctions

Glitches fuelled

unfounded

theories that the

election was being

rigged. The

seemingly

innocent issues

triggered an

outpouring of

conspiracy theories.

Katie Miller, a conservative podcast host and wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, wrote: "This is how the Left steals elections."

This crushing rejection of Maga will haunt party leaders for years

By Connor Stringer

CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT DONALD TRUMP built his political empire promising to put America First, ending foreign wars and restoring the US to its former glory.

Yet a costly decision to lead America into a conflict with Iran has left Republicans reeling from a devastating midterm election result that raises questions about the future of the movement he created.

The result is a crushing rejection of Mr Trump's political agenda, which has been largely shaped by the conflict in the Middle East and the resulting rise in the cost of living.

Mr Trump will have plenty of excuses for the GOP's bloodbath. He has already said he would have won if he were on the ballot, blamed candidates – including Texas's "Rino" (Republican in name only) governor Greg Abbott – for being weak and even pointed the finger at Fox News.

But there is another, simple, explanation that even officials and allies of the president are beginning to admit — he abandoned the base that made him a political giant.

It puts whoever replaces him as the scion of the Maga movement in an increasingly difficult position.

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and JD Vance, the vice-president, have long been considered potential successors. But even they would do well to distance themselves from the broken promises of Mr Trump's second term.

Mr Trump's greatest achievement in 2016 was not just coming out of nowhere to defeat Hillary Clinton. It was persuading millions of Americans that he was a change from the political swamp they had come to distrust.

He attacked the Iraq War, criticised Republicans for their foreign policy blunders and promised to end the cycle of endless military interventions that had made America poorer. It was America first. And it was seemingly unbeatable. He twice ascended to become kingmaker of the GOP, leading the party to two historic – and unexpected – election wins. But the fatal decision to lead America to

war has revived many of the same arguments about American intervention that Mr Trump had swept to power on. And this result shows it.

Democrats carved deep inroads into the GOP's heartlands to win both chambers. The party not only won states that had backed Mr Trump by significant margins in the 2024 election, some by double digits, but took victories in states for the first time in decades.

The majority of the candidates anointed by the president were left out in the cold, a further sign of the revolt against Mr Trump. And so, the most important question emerging from the smoke and debris is: can Maga survive?

Mr Vance and Mr Rubio's best chance lies in these election results. Democrats who won big campaigned on a message of affordability and the end of foreign wars.

The appetite for America First is still alive. Mr Trump did not lose the midterms because he failed to deliver enough. He lost because he abandoned the very ideology that made Maga possible.

‘Lawyer up’ – Republicans told they will face flood of lawsuits

By Lily Shanagher

DEMOCRATS have told Republicans to “lawyer up” as they prepare to launch investigations into the Trump administration after their resounding victory in the midterm elections.

Robert Garcia, the Democratic representative who is set to become the next chairman of the House's oversight committee, made a statement after Republican strongholds such as Texas and South Carolina fell to the Democrats.

The committee has broad authority to call witnesses, request government documents and issue subpoenas.

Before the polls opened, Democrats had threatened to indict Donald Trump and his associates over allegations of corruption.

Mr Garcia pledged that, should the Democrats win, he would lead investigations into Elon Musk's role in the former department of government efficiency, Mr Trump and his family's business dealings, abuses allegedly committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Epstein files. He made an unannounced visit to an ICE processing centre in California on Oct 16, where he promised to “demand accountability” for the agency’s tactics. Other Democrats hinted at potential investigations on social media.

Ron Wyden, the Democrat senator who is set to lead the Senate finance committee, posted a single word: "Subpoenas." Senator Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, was even more explicit. "They are going to need to plant new forests

‘They are going to need to plant new forests for all the subpoenas that we will be printing’

for all of the subpoenas we'll be printing," he wrote on social media.

Asked whether Democrats plan to investigate companies that have done business with the Trump administration, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, told CNBC: "You have to go after the corruption." The Oversight Democrats' X account wrote yesterday: "Good morning to everyone except: the

Trump crime family; Crony corporations ripping off the American people; corrupt Trump admin officials profiting off the presidency; associates of Jeffrey Epstein; Corey Lewandowski.”

Investigations could be held into Trump administration policies, including on immigration, the gift of the Qatari private jet to serve as Air Force One and those in Mr Trump's inner circle profiting from cryptocurrency trading, deals with foreign entities such as in Doha and negotiating pardons.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, said his party intended to "hold the crooks accountable".

Earlier this month, sources told The Telegraph they planned to impeach Pete Hegseth, with Pentagon officials ready to "spill their guts" to the House of Representatives about the US defence secretary. They said they had already made contact with potential whistleblowers and planned to subpoena his inner circle. Some sources believe Mr Trump would drop his defence secretary to stem the flow of embarrassing stories from his administration.

Brosnan backs Turner to step into Bond's suit

Former 007 star claims Masters of the Air actor is ‘so strong’ as studio pares down shortlist for role

By India McTaggart

ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT

PIERCE BROS NAN has backed Callum Turner as the next James Bond.

The fifth actor to play the spy said Turner was “so strong”, but described all the leading candidates as actors he admired.

Speaking to Vanity Fair about the Bond casting speculation, Brosnan, 73, said: "All the men who are on the list now are actors I admire.

“Callum Turner is someone I’ve worked with, and he’s so strong. They all have a voice and a physique, and a presence on film. They all have longevity as actors, all of these young men.”

The pair worked together on the 2017 film The Only Living Boy in New York, in which Turner played Brosnan's son

Turner has subsequently appeared in hits such as Masters of the Air and The Capture.

Brosnan, who starred as 007 in four films from 1995 to 2002, said of the speculation that he was "just an audience member now".

"I'm just the man in the street who is eager to see who is going to play this epic role of cinematic history," he added. His comments come as the shortlist to be the next Bond has reportedly been narrowed down to four

Pierce Brosnan played James Bond four times actors, including Turner, Slow Horses star Jack Lowden, The Crown's Josh O'Connor and one more - unknown - name. The final screen tests are said to have taken place for the 007 role, which has been vacant since the departure of Daniel Craig in No Time to Die five years ago.

There remains no timeline for the decision to be made by Amazon MGM Studios, Bond's new co-proprietors, but most in the know believe it will be announced by the end of the year.

Speaking about Denis Villeneuve's vision as director for the franchise, Brosnan simply said: "I think we are going to be blown away. [Villeneuve] is such an iconoclastic director. His work is visionary, and his stealth and imagination of camera work and storytelling is so visceral and sensuous. It's going to be great... truly magnificent."

Earlier this week, Lowden claimed in an interview that James Bond speculation is flung at any young actor “in a suit”. Speaking to British GQ, the 36-year-old said the rumours about him

taking on the mantle from Craig had been "all very flattering", but he refused to "add to the noise".

He and Turner have emerged as the two favourites for the job of taking the British spy into the next generation. The Slow Horses star said: "As a young male actor,

generally, the minute you're

not playing a zany artist type, the minute you're in a suit, people fling it at you."

Asked for his advice to the next 007, Brosnan said: "I wish him the very best of life and strength and courage. You know, it's hard to tell who it

hard to tell who it would be, but I eagerly await to hear the news and the celebration of the next James Bond."

News

LIU JO/LACHLAN BAILEY

Winslet and Cox join cast of Pelicot play... for one night only

By Telegraph Reporter

KATE WINSLET, Brian Cox and Lennie James will star in the The Pelicot Trial, a one-off stage production.

The play will feature accounts from the case of the 51 tried for raping Gisèle Pelicot with police files, social commentary and psychiatric reports of the men who were prosecuted.

The play, created by Milo Rau, a

Swiss director and playwright, will be performed by 30 actors and public figures as part of the Young Vic Theatre's final shows of its 2026-27 season.

Others joining the cast include Lindsay Duncan, a Scottish actress, George MacKay, the 1917 star, and Ambika Mod, who took a leading role in One Day.

Suzy Eddie Izzard, the comedian, will also take part along with Baroness Helena Kennedy, The Crown's Tobias

Menzies, Life On Mars actor John Simm and Indira Varma, who appeared in The Other Bennet Sister.

It will also feature countertenor Hugh Cutting, activist Ellie Wilson and Harriet Wistrich, a solicitor and founder of the Centre for Women's Justice.

Dominique Pelicot, Ms Pelicot's ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, as well as allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious, a pattern of abuse that lasted nearly a decade.

Ms Pelicot waived her right to anonymity as a survivor, and said the shame should fall on her abusers, not her.

The play was developed in collaboration with journalists and local feminist organisations in France.

The production premiered at the Vienna Festival and has toured with a different company in each city.

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Waves of support

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, and Sharron Davies, the former British Olympic swimmer, join Save Women's Sport campaigners during a rally in London. The movement advocates for preserving single-sex categories in athletics based on biological sex rather than gender identity.

SHUTTERSTOCK/ANDY RAIN/EPA

'As an angry, gay teenager, I would have called police to make my parents accept I was right'

CAMPAIGN

Lauren Tague, who came out aged 15, fears the dire consequences of the Conversion Practices Bill I REALISED I was gay when I was 15 years old. Coming to terms with it was really hard.

I'd always been a naughty child. I was bullied a lot at school, got in fights and was sent for anger management counselling aged 10.

But the year I went to college to study animal management, my dad was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and everything came to a head.

Struggling to cope with this as well as my sexuality, I was kicked out of school. That's when me and my dad had a massive falling out and I left home. He's not homophobic, but he'd ask me questions about me being gay and he didn't fully understand.

Looking back now aged 34, my parents had far bigger things to worry about and just wanted to support me. But for me at that age, being gay and worrying that they didn't accept me, it felt like everything.

After a massive shouting match, I packed a bag to go and went to live with a friend for a few days before moving into a hostel. I hardly saw my parents for three years. At the time, if you'd presented me with a magic option of calling the police so my parents would have to bow down and accept I was right, I absolutely would have taken it. That's why I'm terrified by this Conversion Practices Bill.

I was a young, angry teenager who blew up my family and ended up as a ward of the state. My worry is that if this bill becomes law, other kids like me will use it against their parents, and they'll lose their relationship with their families for good.

I managed to stay in college throughout these years, but I witnessed horrifying things in the hostels where I stayed. There were a lot of drugs, prostitutes, people who'd just come out of prison and some who were very mentally unwell. My own mental health deteriorated and I was diagnosed with depression.

I saw a man get stabbed in the entrance area to the first hostel. At another place, someone broke into my room while I was away and smashed all my stuff.

After I was burgled again – this time by my housemates in a shared accommodation – my parents begged me to come home.

Being gay, at the beginning you feel you are always going to have to live life on hard mode, so you can see why parents worry how their child is going to be affected. That doesn't mean they are homophobic. It just means

Lauren, now 34, has reconciled with her parents. Right, The Telegraph report yesterday

sometimes they are going to have questions and want to understand.

In my family, we didn't speak enough, but if this bill goes through, it could mean those conversations never happen organically for other kids. This means families risk being torn apart.

I was already not in a good situation. To have then added layers of police and court rulings and potentially allowing my parents to be prosecuted, you are cutting off any path towards reconciliation.

Although I never identified as transgender, people have called me an egg before – that's when you're trans but don't know it. I was more of a typical lesbian: I'm a tomboy with short hair.

However, I see a lot of kids now suffering similar mental health problems to me and not looking as girly as everyone else. I can see how identifying as trans would have been alluring if I were a teenager now.

My concern is it presents a toxic idea to a young person, saying “What you don’t like about yourself you can change.” I remember saying to my first girlfriend “I’d chop my right arm off if it meant I wasn’t gay.” It’s a dark thought, but I think so many young lesbians are being convinced by charities and doctors that they won’t chop your arm off, but there are other bits they can remove.

My biggest problem with this bill is there is no room for nuance. The terms they use are “distress” and “alarm”, but teenagers get distressed about strange things sometimes – it’s not enough of a reason to introduce all this mayhem into their lives.

With my therapist, we've talked about being gay and being told I'm trans, and the idea that we may not be able to have these conversations if this

Calls to scrap 'chilling' trans law

Labour's trans law is a disaster for young girls

bill becomes law is quite scary. Young kids who are trans or questioning their sexuality are the ones who need this most. If this bill leads to therapists not seeing them, that would be disastrous.

Suzanne Moore

Page 16

When people hear the term “conversion therapy”, the average person thinks of electro-shock therapy and torture – which are both already illegal. This isn’t what the bill is addressing; I think the title of the bill is deliberately manipulative.

I live with my parents in the countryside in Cambridgeshire now, and our relationship is much better. My dad's probably never going to be the guy standing at Pride with a rainbow flag, but you have to accept as an adult that your parents supporting you doesn't look how it does on the internet. That's just now how the real world works.

I love my parents, and I'm glad everything is better now. If this bill goes into law, other families like mine won't be so lucky.

As told to Cameron Henderson

'I would have been arrested for questioning my daughter' Normal parenting would be criminalised if new bill becomes law

My daughter was 13 years old when she first told me she wasn't sure if she was a girl. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the start of five years of challenges I never knew existed.

During these years, my daughter froze me out of her life. Her friends' parents thought I was evil and I was flagged to social services on two occasions after her school accused me of abuse.

If the conversion practices bill were law at the time, I one hundred per cent could have been arrested.

I would present facts, laws and regulations to her school, but no one cared. In their

eyes, I wasn't a normal mother protecting my teenage daughter from harm, I was an abuser committing what they thought should be a crime.

Before my daughter came home that day, I had heard stuff about children transitioning gender, but I hadn't given it too much thought and never thought it would happen to me. So, when she started asking questions, my instinct was to say: "That's not true." But I remember being 13 and know how impressionable kids are at that age, so I said: "Thank you for telling me, I love you."

Around six months after that first conversation, the requests started coming in. First she asked for a breast binder. Then she said she wanted to change her name and use male pronouns.

later that I learned a so-called "diversity role model" had gone into her school and spoken about having wanted to kill herself until gender reassignment surgery saved her life.

I said okay to the pronouns but didn't act on it. But when I said no to the binder on health grounds, she said she might kill herself. That was a frightening thing to hear. How come my quirky, smart, creative child was all of a sudden contemplating suicide?

After going away and doing my research, I noticed emails from my daughter's school had begun referring to her by the new name she had asked me to use. I asked why they were doing this without my consent, and from then on, I became a bad parent for not being "supportive".

When I asked where she'd heard about killing herself, she said it was at school. It wasn't until much

Not long after, she came home telling me that she had learned in

school that I was committing hate crimes and that I was abusing her by not agreeing that she was a boy with another name. It felt like I'd entered this parallel universe where my child was receiving lessons in school telling her that I was committing crimes in our house.

When I asked the school why they hadn't contacted the authorities if they thought I was abusive, I was reported to social services for the first time.

We moved school the following year, but again, they started calling her by a different name, explaining they were a “Stonewall champion” school who supported children in their chosen gender identity. They also gave my daughter therapy, despite my objections.

want in the moment.

This led to a second call from social services. Except this time, they came to our house, went through our fridge and drawers and interviewed my other children. They were really scared and didn't understand what was happening. They also felt ashamed.

If the conversion practices bill becomes law, I'm terrified it will criminalise normal parenting, which involves saying no to things teenagers really

It sounds strange, but throughout those years, social services and police felt like the only sane people I spoke to.

Once I explained, it was pretty obvious to them that we were a normal family providing a safe and loving home.

But if this bill becomes law, they won't be allowed to apply such a common sense approach.

I'm concerned that could lead to a situation where children like

mine are denied reconciliation with their parents. I don't blame my daughter for any of it – she was a child failed by the institutions that were meant to protect her.

But having your parents sent to jail would stay with you for the rest of your life. How are you meant to come back from that? In a last ditch effort, we

changed schools again, this time to one that didn't actively promote policies on trans and gave her the space she needed to grow up.

Stonewall has supported children in their chosen gender identity at school

It was a slow process, but over the next couple of years, she grew out of it and we gradually started speaking again. We haven't addressed what happened, but I don't need that cinematic moment. What I have is my daughter alive, intact and thriving, and to me that feels like a miracle. Stonewall was approached for comment.

Veterans face 5am bus trip to Cenotaph as trains axed

Major calls rail disruption 'latest mark of disrespect' to those who served in Britain's Armed Forces

By Joe Burgis

DEPUTY LETTERS EDITOR

VETERANS have been offered a rail replacement bus at nearly 5am to reach Remembrance Sunday events in London.

Major Christopher McLean, 67, from Wiltshire, said the arrangements were “not good enough” and would prevent fellow veterans attending memorials.

In an email seen by The Telegraph, the Royal British Legion warned Cenotaph Parade ticket-holders that rail engineering works would bring disruption on Nov 8.

The charity advised veterans that South Western Railway and Network Rail Wessex were offering limited one-way bus travel from Winchester and Salisbury railway stations that were departing at 4.45am to arrive at London Waterloo at 8am.

Scheduled replacement bus services are also operating, requiring changes between rail and bus services to arrive in London on time.

Major McLean, who lives outside Salisbury, told The Telegraph that the disruption meant he would have to get up at 3.45am, which was not ideal at his age.

“No one seems to have thought this through,” he said, adding: “If I had planned like that in my Army logistics career, I would have been sacked.”

Major McLean said that veterans would be prevented attending events in the capital because of the disruption.

He said: “Lots of us are in our 70s. What about the implications for people who are infirm? It’s not good enough. Most of the guys I know are going to have to make other arrangements.

“Luckily, I can go up the night before and stay with relatives in Surrey. If I hadn’t had family there, I would have pulled out.

“Others are looking at paying for two nights in a London hotel, which is expensive. The Royal British Legion does a great job getting this all together, but the wider logistics haven’t been considered properly.”

Veterans would have been able to leave closer to 7am if the trains were running on a normal schedule.

This would still have allowed them enough time to arrive in Whitehall, pass through police security procedures and form up on the Cenotaph for 10.30am.

Major McLean said that the rail disruption was the latest woe to be bestowed on veterans.

He said: “Prosecutions of veterans, underfunding of defence – it’s one thing after another, which is really upsetting this community. This is the latest mark of disrespect.”

Veteran's fiercely oppose Labour's Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, which is currently in the House of Lords, arguing that it does not adequately protect former service members.

Col Richard Kemp, a retired British Army officer who served from 1977 to 2006, criticised the lack of foresight by the railway operators.

“This is probably the most important day of the year when people can come together and pay respects to the war dead,” he said.

"It should be given priority above other events.

“Veterans should be treated with the utmost respect, including by the railway companies. This clearly isn’t good enough.”

Last month, the Government announced that it was extending free railway travel on Remembrance weekend, which currently covers serving military staff, veterans and one next of kin of a service-person who died while serving.

However, networks across the country will be disrupted by engineering work on Nov 7 and 8.

South Western Railway, the first operator to be renationalised by Labour in May 2025, apologised to the veterans whose journeys would be affected by the disruption.

A spokesman said: “South Western Railway is proud of its commitment to the Armed Forces community and this year received the Ministry of Defence Gold Award.

“Unfortunately, long-planned and essential engineering works this weekend mean veterans will need to use a combination of train and rail replacement services to travel to London Waterloo.

“We investigated whether the engineering works could be rescheduled, but this would have meant deferring essential track maintenance to maintain the long-term safety and reliability of the railway.”

A spokesman for the Royal British Legion said: “We’ve worked with the rail authorities to contact veterans affected by planned engineering works so they know a rail replacement service has been arranged.”

REUTERS/TOBY MELVILLE

Money to burn Andrea Deans with her effigy of Fifa chief Gianni Infantino ahead of Bonfire Night in Kent. Also going up in smoke are Donald Trump and a Manchester City shirt.

Tourist tax threatens Scout camps and Duke's awards

By Daniel Martin

DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

ENGLAND'S mayors will be able to impose Labour's new tourist tax on campsites and caravan parks.

They were given permission to introduce an “overnight visitor levy” on hotels, holiday lets and bed and breakfast accommodation under plans unveiled by the Prime Minister last month.

But ministers have now confirmed that the tax could also hit families camping in tents, festivalgoers, Scout jamborees and young people on Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.

Holidaymakers who take their caravans or motorhomes on the road could also face the charge if they spend the night in a campsite. However, mayors will be barred from taxing authorised transit sites, where members of Gypsy, Roma and traveller communities can pay to stay for several weeks.

The Visitor Levy Bill, introduced in Parliament on Wednesday, gives eligible regional mayors and strategic authorities the power to impose an overnight charge on tourists.

Ten Labour mayors, including those in London, Liverpool and the North East, have pledged to cap the levy at 5 per cent of an overnight stay. But the Tories say it will pile further pressure on family finances.

David Simmonds, the shadow communities minister, said the inclusion of tents, caravans and motorhomes in the scheme would hit families trying to enjoy a low-cost holiday as well as community groups surviving on “shoe-string budgets”.

Written parliamentary answers from Jim McMahon, the communities minister, confirmed that tents, caravans, motorhomes and camper vans would be subject to the levy by default, unless mayors chose to exempt them. The same option would apply to Scout camps, hostels and other accommodation. Dwayne Fields, Britain's chief scout, has called for an exemption for jamborees. Earlier this year, he said: "Accommodation for youth development falls within scope of the levy despite being run for charitable purpose by volunteers, on minimal budgets."

In a separate parliamentary response, Mr McMahon said the levy would not apply to legal traveller transit sites.

A statement from the ministry for housing, communities and local government said the legislation, which will come into force in 2028, represented “the most significant step in making fiscal devolution a reality. Money raised through the levy will stay in the local area, giving communities investment in the places and services used by visitors and residents.”

The levy will only apply to the first 28 consecutive days of a stay, as longer periods will count as long-term accommodation. People who rent out a spare room occasionally will only pay the levy if they earn above a set amount, with local leaders able to adjust the threshold to reflect the local tourism market.

Crunch time for smoky bacon crisps in PM's post-Brexit EU deal

By James Crisp and Joe Barnes

SMOKY bacon crisps face being banned from British supermarket shelves under Andy Burnham's post-Brexit EU deal.

The flavour will fall foul of planned European laws banning “meaty” terms to describe vegetarian food. The rules are designed to avoid consumers being confused, despite almost all smoky bacon crisps being made with flavourings, not real meat.

Vegetarian “steak”, “pork” Pot Noodles and “chicken”-flavoured crisps would also be banned, as the UK has agreed to align with the EU’s rules on food. Crisp manufacturers, such as Walkers, face being forced to change their recipes, making them no longer suitable for vegetarians, or change the names of their classic flavours to remove references to any meat. Adding beef extract to a crisp recipe would increase costs, shorten shelf life and make them not suitable for vegetarians.

Mark Francois of the European Research Group of Brexiteer Tory MPs, said: "Yet again, we see the practical drawbacks of Labour's cosying up to the EU. When 17.4 million UK citizens voted to leave the EU, it wasn't so they could subsequently tell us what to put in a Walkers crisp packet. Why on earth is Andy Burnham so desperate to rejoin an organisation that wants to dictate to us like this, whenever they get the chance?"

The UK and EU have agreed a food and drink deal, intended to increase trade, before a reset summit in Brussels on Nov 20. Britain has agreed to align with EU plant and animal health rules, including on labelling, to reduce border checks and certificates.

The commitment to align with Brussels' regulations means changing British law to match the EU's over time, without having any say in their drafting.

By becoming an EU ruletaker, the Government will need to sign up to a Brussels list of 31 banned terms for plant-based food. The list, drawn up under pressure from the agricultural lobby, and being amended, includes "steak", "fillet", "ribs", "chicken", "beef"

and “bacon”. It means products such as “vegetarian steak” will need to be renamed when the rules come into force three years from now. The rules will also probably affect manufacturers of meat-flavoured snacks, although, as things stand, veggie “burgers” and vegan “sausage” rolls will be spared.

Under a compromise struck by EU governments and members of the European Parliament, the banned terms refer to specific cuts or terms or species of animals. Sausages and burgers were deemed to represent a shape rather than a specific animal.

Animal rights campaigners have criticised the new laws as unnecessary. Dawn Carr, of People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals, said: “If lawmakers were not kowtowing to industry but being serious about truthful food labels, they’d require dairy milk to be labelled ‘cow lactation fluid’, eggs ‘chicken ova’, and meat ‘flesh’. It doesn’t matter to animals what we call vegan foods; it matters only that we choose them over the fleshy, bloody alternatives.”

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said it supported the UK-EU deal as it would ease barriers to trade and reduce red tape. However, it warned that British concerns about planned laws should be given due consideration. “The deal will mean that all businesses will need to comply with the EU’s food laws, whether they trade with the EU or not,”

said Kate Halliwell of the FDF. “Meat protections are an example of a new EU rule that UK businesses will need to comply with, but which the UK was not involved in developing.

“Moving forward it is important that UK interests are considered in EU decisions. There's a risk this specific policy could stifle growth in the UK's plant-based sector, while bringing little [consumer] benefit.”

Quorn, Beyond Meat and Linda McCartney foods were among a group of plant-food manufacturers calling on Brussels to abandon the labelling rules.

A government spokesman said: “A food and drink deal could deliver up to £5.1bn a year for the UK economy.”

Chopper path? Rude helicopter flight not deliberate, say police

By Tom McArdle

THE police air service has denied one of its helicopter pilots deliberately flew a flight path in the shape of a penis.

Residents living below the flight path said they were shocked to see the phallic shape when checking online flight tracking data.

However, the National Police Air Service (NPAS), which provides aerial support to forces across England and Wales, said the helicopter was airborne for a “legitimate policing purpose” and denied the “unfortunate” shape of its flight path was deliberate.

Gordon Bird, 53, of Fleet, Hampshire, said his two-year-old daughter had been woken about 11pm on Monday because the aircraft was circling overhead for about 20 minutes.

He said he had been shocked by the flightpath, telling the BBC: “I happened to have my computer on, so I just looked it up on the tracking. The buzzing around our estate lasted for 15 or 20 minutes, the drawing of the phallus ... took about half an hour, and the overall flight an hour. I’m not angry. I am upset at the waste of resources.”

directed to as part of the search for a vehicle that had failed to stop for police". In an email to Mr Bird, it said it understood his frustration that his daughter's sleep had been disrupted and that it was "unfortunate that the flight path shown on public tracking apps resembles a particular shape".

The police helicopter appeared to draw the phallus in the sky above Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire

A spokesman said: "Flights do not follow defined or predetermined flight plans as they, by their very nature, are dynamic and respond to ever changing, and unpredictable, circumstances on the ground. The flight was conducted for a legitimate policing purpose, in support of Thames Valley Police."

Earlier this year, Finnish air force cadet pilots were reprimanded for drawing penises in the sky with their flight patterns. Students on the pilot reserve officer course flew two Grob G 115 training aircraft during an exercise.

Dropping dairy milk for oat or almond is bad for you, study warns

By Telegraph Reporter

REPLACING dairy products with plant-based alternatives, such as oat and almond milks, could lead to people missing out on vitamins and minerals, a study suggests.

Even a partial swap may lead to a deficiency in nutrients such as iodine, which is essential for thyroid function and healthy brains, research for The Lancet Planetary Health journal found.

The study also found that children, teenagers and women appeared to be worst affected by swaps to plant-based milks, yogurt and cheese.

Researchers looked at 146 plant-based milks, 76 yogurts and 67 cheese products to examine their effect on micronutrient intake for iodine, calcium and vitamins B2 and B12.

The researchers also found the extent to which plant-based foods were fortified with added vitamins varied.

Some 12 per cent of plant-based items examined contained added iodine, 61 per cent had added calcium, 46 per cent had added vitamin B12 and 19 per cent had added riboflavin, or vitamin B2.

The team, from the University of Surrey and Queen's University Belfast, found that even modest replacements of dairy intake with plant-based dairy alternatives, including fortified ones, led to declines in all four micronutrients, but particularly iodine.

Replacing 20-35 per cent of dairy increased the inadequate intake of iodine among girls aged 14-18 from 54 to 65 per cent, and from 32 to 42 per cent in women aged 19-49.

If all dairy were replaced, iodine inadequacy rose to 80 per cent in teen-

'It is important that shifts towards more sustainable diets do not compromise on public health'

age girls and 72 per cent in teen boys.

Elsewhere, if all dairy were swapped, inadequate calcium intake rose from 30 per cent in the usual diet to 47 per cent among boys aged 14-18. Among girls of this age, it rose from 54 to 70 per cent.

Calcium is vital for healthy bones and teeth as well as regulating muscle contractions, including the heart.

For riboflavin, if all products were swapped, inadequate intakes in men aged 19-49 rose from 14 per cent to 26 per cent, and from 29 per cent to 50 per cent for women. Vitamin B12 helps keep the nervous system and blood cells healthy, while B2 is important for skin, eyes and the nervous system.

Dr Sarah Bath, at the University of Surrey and lead author, said: “People are unaware that dairy products are a major source of iodine, particularly in the UK, and that plant-based alternatives, unless fortified, have a very low iodine content.”

The study used data from more than 3,500 people in the national diet and nutrition survey. It suggested mandatory rules to fortify plant-based foods would help increase nutrient intake, although iodine would remain inadequate in 59 per cent of teenage girls.

Dr Katie Nicol, a co-author of the study at the University of Surrey, said: "It is important that shifts towards more sustainable diets do not compromise on public health."

Emily Angus, a senior dietitian at The Vegan Society, said “Unsweetened and fortified plant-based dairy alternatives can provide people with a valuable source of calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and other micronutrients, as well as iodine, and are a source of protein in the case of sova milk.”

The society was asked to comment.

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Commuters ‘ignored migrant raped girl, 14’

Teenager assaulted after being lured into loo on train as passengers stared at their phones, court told

By Telegraph Reporter

A 14-YEAR-OLD girl has told a court that commuters stared at their phones while an Afghan migrant sexually assaulted her on a train.

She said Baryalai Rahimi, 25, and Mirebadurahman Sadat, 29, lured her on to a London-bound train at a rural station in Kent before attacking her.

She alleges Rahimi kissed and sexually assaulted her in the carriage while other passengers gazed at their phones.

He then walked past several commuters as he lured her into a lavatory and raped her three times, it is alleged.

Sadat allegedly sexually assaulted her after she had been raped. Inner London Crown Court heard the migrants laughed when she told them she was 14.

Rahimi complimented her appearance and repeatedly tried to put his coat around her, while Sadat observed from a distance, it was said.

She said in her police interview, which was played to the court: "At the start I thought he was being nice, but then he kept saying it. I thought, you're getting a bit too much now."

She said Rahimi tried to lure her somewhere else while they waited for the train before forcibly kissing her. She described Rahimi putting his arms

'I thought he was being nice, but then he kept saying it. I thought, you're a bit too much'

around her and kissing her on the mouth, saying: "He was standing over me, and I was trying to say no. I felt like the kiss was a bit much."

Asked by officers whether she wanted him to put his arms around her, she replied: "Not really," adding she said she had never seen either of the men previously. She told police Rahimi asked her to sit on his lap just five minutes after they got on the train. Asked why she did so, she replied: "I don't know. It's a bit hard for me to say no to men. He's bigger than me, stronger, and I can't do anything. I like to do what people want so it keeps me out of a dangerous situation."

Asked what she thought might happen if she refused, the girl said: "They get mad. They might hurt me." She said Rahimi kissed and sexually assaulted her while she sat on his lap, and she felt she “can’t really say no”.

Asked what the passengers on board the busy Southeastern service were doing, she said: “No one was really looking at us. Everyone was just on their phones.”

Jurors earlier saw on-board CCTV footage showing Rahimi brush past several commuters as he led the girl to the lavatory, where she was allegedly raped three times.

The girl told police when Rahimi suggested going to the cubicle, “I was trying to tell him no”, and described becoming upset during the alleged assault because it “really, really hurt”. She said Rahimi apologised before raping her again. Following the assault, the girl said Rahimi then washed his hands

'He was standing over me, and I was trying to say no. I felt like the kiss was a bit much'

and told her to wait for two minutes before following him out.

But she said Rahimi took her back to the toilet again, leaving her with Sadat, who allegedly assaulted her.

The girl said Rahimi had said of Sadat: "We share everything. We share girls, we share drinks."

Rahimi, of Southall, west London, denies three counts of rape, two of sexual assault, one of assault by penetration and six alternative counts of sexual activity with a child.

Sadat, of Cricklewood, north-west London, denies two counts of assault by penetration, two of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent and four alternative counts of sexual activity with a child.

The trial continues.

Girls exercising less than boys over fears for their safety

By Michael Searles

DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR

TEENAGE girls are exercising less than boys because of fears for their safety, experts have warned.

Just one in eight girls aged 11 to 17 in the UK are meeting daily targets to exercise for 60 minutes, compared to more than one in five boys, a new study has found.

New estimates from the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, published in The Lancet, draw on surveys involving 3.2 million adolescents across 140 countries and territories.

The researchers called for more to be done to improve access and address safety fears facing girls.

Previous research by Sport England revealed that more than half of women felt unsafe exercising after dark, facing a “hidden curfew” during winter.

The WHO said policies “focused solely on individual behaviour change are unlikely to be sufficient without parallel action to address barriers to girls’ activity”.

These included “restrictive gender norms, safety concerns, and lack of opportunities that meet girls’ needs and preferences”.

‘Teens need safe routes to walk, cycle, wheel or scoot to school... They need green spaces to explore’

Overall, 17 per cent of UK adolescents reported reaching the study's 60-minute threshold on all seven days of the week, compared with 14 per cent globally.

Worldwide, one in four did not reach that threshold on any day. UK teenagers averaged four such days a week.

Dr Tessa Strain, the lead author from the University of Edinburgh, said teenagers “need safe routes to walk, cycle, wheel or scoot to school”.

“We need to make being active the easy and enjoyable choice,” she said.

“They need green spaces to explore. They need opportunities to be active throughout the school day, not just in PE.”

The authors said there had been “no improvement in adolescent physical activity since 2010 globally and in most regions.”

In 2018, global health officials set a target to reduce teenage physical inactivity, but the authors said that no country is on track to meet the 2030 target.

Girls and older teenagers were least likely to be active.

On average, 11-year-olds reported 4.6 active days each week while 17-year-olds reported 3.6, researchers found.

2026 UNDER CONSTRUCTION

BIG LADDER/CHRIS GORMAN

Henman Hill gets a makeover

Wimbledon's fanzone, known as either Henman

Hill or Murray Mound, is being remodelled. The All-England Club will build a pergola around the oak tree and make the hill more accessible for wheelchair users. It will be ready for the 2027 tournament.

Santander must cough up after gambler blew £25k payout

By Alex Marsh

SANTANDER has been ordered to pay back a customer who gambled most of a £25,000 house sale payout.

The customer - known only as Mr R - received the cash from the sale on July 18, 2025. Within a month, he had spent around £16,000 on gambling.

Mr R contacted the bank on Aug 15, 2025 to disclose his addiction, but his accounts were not fully blocked for a further six weeks, by which time he had gambled most of the proceeds.

He later took his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which ordered Santander to repay him some of his losses plus £500 in compensation.

In a written decision, the ombudsman said: "Mr R had told the advisers he was experiencing financial harm and mental health problems from compulsive spending, and asked for help.

“In my view a reasonable response would have been to make it clear only an online block would have prevented the transactions he was undertaking.”

It added: “None of the evidence we’ve been sent by Santander and Mr R shows that once the correct blocks were put on the account, he gambled again.”

Under the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) consumer duty, firms have to take extra care where a customer is considered vulnerable. The FCA's guidance refers to providing gambling blockers as an example of good practice.

In Mr R's case, he had gambling blocks on his account, but he was able to bypass the controls by making payments to an overseas casino.

Six days after his first call to Santander, the bank blocked online transactions from Mr R's main bank account. However, he was able to continue gambling by moving money to his top-up card account, which had not been blocked. Controls were not imposed there until Oct 1, 2025.

Santander argued that the onus was on Mr R to put the necessary gambling blocks on. However, the ombudsman said that the bank had the ability to apply the restrictions for him.

Santander was ordered to refund all of Mr R's losses incurred from when he first notified the bank of his addiction until Sept 17, 2025, when he referred his complaint to the FOS, plus 8pc interest.

Raminta Diliso, of gambling support charity GamCare, said: “Sudden access to a large sum of money, such as proceeds from a house sale, can increase the urge to gamble for people already struggling to control their gambling.

"We would encourage anyone concerned about their gambling to activate gambling blocks through their bank." Santander was asked to comment.

British Iron Age king was actually a queen, claims archaeologist

By Telegraph Reporter

AN influential Iron Age British ruler who was long thought to have been a king might actually have been a queen, according to new research.

Verica, who was central to the Roman invasion of Britain in AD43, was previously thought to have been a man because of the “patriarchal mindset” of 19th-century historians, according to Dr Miles Russell, director of archaeological fieldwork at Bournemouth University.

He has highlighted that the ruler's name and depiction on a coin from the era as a “slender, feminine, bare-breasted figure riding on horseback” point to a female.

Verica was a ruler of the Atrebates, a tribe whose territory covered much of modern-day Hampshire and West Sussex, before they were ousted from power in 40AD and fled to Emperor Claudius in Rome.

According to Roman historian Cassius Dio, the invasion of Britain only happened because Verica persuaded Claudius – depicted as “weak-minded and ineffective” – to cross the Channel.

Dr Russell, who led the research which is included in a new book called Caratacus: Great King Of Britain, said: "Verica was not only critical to the special relationship between Britain and Rome in the early first century AD but was indisputably female."

Dr Russell said a key clue to Verica's gender is that the name ends with the letter ‘a’ which was common for female names at the time, such as Cartimandua of the Brigantes (in Yorkshire) and Boudica of the Iceni (in East Anglia).

An artist's impression of British ruler Verica

assume she was a he because of the term ‘rex’ on coins, but rex is a nongender specific title, both male and female kings were recognised by Rome – Cleopatra of Egypt being the most famous. The use of the Latin title rex on coins shows that Verica ruled with the full authorisation of the emperor.” Dr Russell said his theory was strengthened by the imagery used on coins from the time and explained:

“Whilst other coin-producing British Iron Age leaders portray obviously male warriors, Verica is depicted as a slender, feminine, bare-breasted figure riding on horseback.”

He added: "The story of Claudius committing to something only because a woman told him to fits the trope of this emperor as being submissive and henpecked. In effect, Dio was saying that the campaign was undertaken solely because of the whisperings of a barbarian femme fatale.

"Verica's role was rather more cen-

tral to the British expedition.

Having her onboard ensured the project was a success as she provided tactical information and support on the ground.

"The invasion was Claudius's great triumph - it being the only chance he had to prove he was a successful military leader.

Dr Russell said that Verica was a major political player of the time whose story had been largely overlooked. He added: "We should take the archaeological evidence at face value and remember Verica as a female-king. Had she not been deposed, fleeing to Claudius for military support, Rome may never have invaded Britain in the first place."

London's bridges are falling down as funding dries up

By Christopher Jasper

and Joe Sledge

MORE than half of London's bridges could face the threat of closure without hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer funding, the city's official engineering adviser has warned.

Six of the 30 bridges over the Thames are in “good” or “fair” condition, according to the London Technical Advisory Group.

The rest are in a “poor” or “very poor” state, Satbir Gill, the group’s chairman, told the London Assembly’s transport committee.

Those include Hammersmith Bridge, which has been closed to motor vehicles since 2019 and may soon be forced to shut completely without £128m from government funding, the committee heard.

It comes after Westminster council warned in September that Waterloo Bridge could face closure without emergency repairs to cracks in its foundations caused by water damage.

The bridge, which is about 1,500ft long and used by 25,000 vehicles a day, faces curbs that could include weight limits and “ultimately full closure”.

Albert Bridge closed to motor vehicles in February and will not reopen until next year after inspectors saw a crack in a cast-iron component requiring £8.5m in repairs.

In July, Vauxhall Bridge also introduced an 18-ton weight limit because of structural wear, resulting in the biggest

London bridges in a ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ state

trucks being diverted to other bridges. Such diversions have increased the weight-related stress on remaining crossings, a situation exacerbated by an increase in the number of heavier vehicles, such as electric buses.

Andrew Burton, highways director at Kensington and Chelsea council, said the trend towards bigger cars and SUVs was also adding to the wear and tear, with “a lot more cars coming towards three tons in weight”.

Officials remain locked in talks over repairs to Hammersmith Bridge, with the council seeking support from a £1bn fund launched by the Government earlier this year to upgrade bridges across England and Wales. Without an agreement, the wrought-iron suspension bridge – built in 1887 – will be a danger even for cyclists and pedestrians, the Assembly was told.

Mark Averill, highways director at Hammersmith & Fulham council, said the bridge was “slowly getting worse” even after it spent £1.1m on the bridge this year to keep it open.

He said worn bearings and 172 hangers that support its deck need replacing, and that “without the investment being made, the bridge will have to close for safety reasons”.

Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP for Putney, previously said that the continued closure of the bridge presented unacceptable daily challenges for her constituents.

She wrote on social media: “I am deeply disappointed that Hammersmith and Fulham Council has opted to pursue a £128m repair plan in collaboration with the Department for Transport, rather than advocating for the full £300m needed to restore the bridge for buses and other vehicles.

"I have fought hard for the reopening and will carry on. Commuters face long bus delays, making travel frustrating and unreliable for thousands every day."

The capital's boroughs have responsibility for 15 of the bridges, while Transport for London, which answers to Sir Sadiq Khan, oversees 10. The City Bridge Foundation runs five.

The Department for Transport is expected to announce its funding awards later this autumn.

Birmingham to review its financial ties with Israel

By Pieter Snepvangers

POLITICAL REPORTER

BIRMINGHAM city council has voted to review its financial ties to Israel.

Councillors shouted “Free Palestine” as they passed a motion on Tuesday tabled in response to the war in Gaza.

The review was proposed by two independent councillors from the Better Birmingham group, which runs the authority in coalition with the Green Party and Liberal Democrats.

The Tories branded the decision a “complete disgrace” and urged the coalition to concentrate on ending Birmingham’s 20-month bin strike.

The motion calls for an “ethical review” of Birmingham’s banking arrangements and investments held within the West Midlands Pension Fund, with the option to withdraw them on human rights grounds.

Birmingham is the biggest council in Europe and pays into a pension fund managed by seven councils. The fund involves more than 300,000 workers and holds around £21bn in assets.

The city will ask the other authorities to support a review that could lead to divestment of assets linked to Israel.

Katie Lam, the shadow communities secretary, said: “In just the past few years, people in Birmingham have suffered nearly two years of bin strikes, and watched their council go bankrupt.

“Yet, in an effort to stoke up group-based grievances, the Greens and their Liberal Democrat enablers are spending their time grandstanding about foreign affairs.”

PRESS ASSOCIATION/BEN BIRCHAL

Badenoch says migrants must pay their way to stay in the UK

Illuminating Ross Meikle, Missioner for Young People at Salisbury Cathedral, watches a new light and sound show from Luxmuralis called Sarum Lights: Great Journeys. The show features the development of transport, mapping and exploration.

By Charles Hymas

HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR

KEMI BADENOCH said a future Tory government would strip migrants of their right to live in Britain if they did not contribute enough to the UK.

In an article for The Telegraph online, the Tory leader pledged that migrants granted indefinite leave to remain under Shabana Mahmood's immigration reforms would have their status revoked if they took more than they paid in.

“Contribution should be something continuous, not something you do as a quick fix to gaining long-term residency and the right to claim benefits for the rest of your life. It might seem harsh, but it’s a responsible and common-sense way to keep spending under control,” she said. “And if Labour go ahead with this climbdown, we are putting people on notice.

"When we get into power, we will review the settlement granted under these Labour rules and revoke it where people are not contributing more than they take out. I will not allow Andy Burnham's capitulation to cost your family more money."

Ms Mahmood recently announced that up to 300,000 foreign care workers would be spared from her crackdown on migration despite warnings that this could cost the taxpayer £10bn.

They are among 1.4 million “Boris-wave” migrants who will be allowed to settle after five years in the UK rather than the 15 years originally proposed by the Home Office last year.

Don’t report pupils if ‘they’re just anti-Semitic’

DfE says teachers should refer pupils to Prevent only if beliefs expressed as part of ‘extremist world-view’

By Amy Gibbons

POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

ANTI-SEMITISM by a pupil “in and of itself” should not warrant a referral to the Prevent programme, according to government guidance for teachers.

The Department for Education (DfE) document, released last month, urges teachers to refer pupils to the anti-extremism scheme only if anti-Jewish beliefs are expressed as part of a “broader extremist world-view”.

Sources close to Lucy Powell, the

Education Secretary, insisted it was the correct advice for staff with responsibility for safeguarding in schools, colleges and universities. They said anti-Semitic views on their own were not necessarily a matter for Prevent.

Leading British Jewish groups criticised the guidance, released after a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, as “discriminatory”, and called for it to be amended or withdrawn.

They said they feared it might result in staff failing to refer to Prevent students who had peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and tropes.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "After a wave of terror attacks against the Jewish community across Manchester and London, including the deadly attack at the Heaton Park Synagogue last Yom Kippur, the link between anti-Semitism, extremism and terrorism cannot be considered speculative. The Prevent programme should be used to tackle this poison in our society."

The DfE updated its guidance for teachers last month, including a reference to anti-Semitism for the first time.

It states: “Antisemitism, in and of itself, is not a Prevent concern. Prevent is concerned with the risk of individuals being drawn into terrorism or supporting terrorism, rather than with prejudice or discrimination alone.

“However, antisemitism is a feature of a range of extremist and terrorist ideologies, including some forms of Islamist terrorism, extreme right-wing terrorism and other radicalising narratives. Where antisemitic beliefs, rhetoric or behaviours form part of a broader extremist world-view that may contribute to radicalisation or support for terrorism, a Prevent referral may be appropriate.”

The updated guidance was issued before a review, led by Sir David Bell, a former Ofsted inspector, revealed widespread anti-Semitic abuse in schools.

After the review, Ms Powell called anti-Semitism an “ancient evil” and accepted the report’s 27 recommendations. They included a call to work with the Home Office to “expand Prevent advice for schools and colleges” and to “provide clarity and support decision-making on when antisemitism ... may be indicators of radicalisation risk”.

That work was expected to take place over the next year, DfE sources said.

The Prevent programme is designed to address the risk of people being radicalised and supporting extreme ideologies that could lead to acts of terrorism.

Front-line public sector workers, including NHS staff, social workers and teachers, have a statutory duty to refer anyone they believe may be at risk. An average of 7,000 cases a year are referred for initial assessment.

Referrals can either be discharged with no action taken or provided with education and mental health support to prevent a slide into extremism or terrorism. Government sources insist the new Prevent guidance for teachers makes clear that “no single behaviour demonstrates radicalisation”, and as such “would not be a Prevent concern in and of itself”.

Accompanying case studies suggest "prejudiced views" such as hostility towards immigrants would not warrant a referral. However, that example is not written into the main body of the guidance. The DfE states the case studies do not “establish referral thresholds”.

Anti-Semitism campaigners warned the change could exacerbate the “unprecedented” risk faced by the Jewish community. Claudia Mendoza, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “Anti-Semitism is not only racism. It is also an extremist conspiracy theory about ‘Jewish power’.

“Its expression should always set alarm bells ringing.”

A DfE spokesman said: “Our guidance is absolutely clear that anti-Semitic beliefs, rhetoric and behaviours can warrant a Prevent referral where there is a risk of radicalisation into terrorism.”

Noisy fireworks are often frightening for dogs and cats, but our expert advice can help keep them relaxed this Bonfire Night.

Because we're all in, for them.

Mahmood under fire over plan to merge police into nine ‘mega forces’

By Charles Hymas

A POLICE war of words has broken out over Shabana Mahmood's plan to slash the number of forces in England and Wales from 43 to as few as nine.

lead to a “decline” in crime-fighting standards.

Police and crime commissioners (PCCs) from five forces on Wednesday criticised the plans to create “mega-forces” as a costly distraction from crime-fighting that will distance policing from communities.

They include Emily Spurrell, the Labour commissioner in Merseyside and the chair of the Association of PCCs, who has written to Andy Burnham urging him to rethink the plans.

Ms Spurrell told The Telegraph: “Creating larger ‘mega-forces’ risks weakening local accountability, disrupting local partnerships and distancing policing from the communities it serves.

“Any changes to force boundaries should align with mayoral geographies wherever possible to maximise the benefits of public service integration and maintain democratic accountability.

"At a time when power, funding and responsibility are being devolved from Whitehall to local leaders, the Home Office must ensure police reform captures the full benefits of devolution, rather than cutting across it."

The criticism comes before five police chiefs including Sir Mark Rowley, the UK's most senior police officer, declare their backing for a major reduction in the number of forces at an event tomorrow in Manchester, home to No 10 North and Mr Burnham's former mayoral power base.

In a speech, Sir Mark, the Met Police commissioner, will warn that “the criminals will win” unless the waste from operating 43 separate headquarters, IT systems, HR departments and procurement pipelines is scaled back.

In recent weeks, two senior police chiefs - Stephen Watson, Manchester's chief constable, and Matt Jukes, the deputy Met Commissioner

\- have told The Telegraph they are in favour of the reforms. Mr Watson warned that failure to act would

Before entering No 10, Mr Burnham was known to have had reservations about cutting the number of forces. Ms Mahmood's proposals were said to have been delayed because of concerns that they could clash with the Prime Minister's devolution agenda, which will see the creation of up to 40 mayoral strategic authorities.

The PCCs - set to be scrapped - have entered the fray after learning of Sir Mark's intervention.

Most support a national FBI-type service, handling terrorism, fraud and serious crime.

However, they oppose mergers into a dozen larger regional forces that would tackle complex crimes such as murder and drug offences with local policing boroughs for everyday crimes such as shoplifting.

Ms Mahmood has police chief support

The Home Office said a “National Police Service” would mean local forces are “no longer distracted from their job of serving their communities”.

War veteran quits RAF to take Reform role

By Danielle Sheridan DEFENCE EDITOR

A DECORATED war veteran has left the British military after 40 years to join Reform UK.

Wing Commander Angus MacIntyre, 58, served his last day as a staff officer with the RAF on Friday before taking up his role as the party's Armed Forces spokesman on Monday.

He told The Telegraph: “There is no vanity involved in this, no financial reasons, I spent 40 years in defence and the last five years have been personally quite frustrating for me.”

Successive governments have come under fire for what has been described as a “hollowed out” and “under funded” Armed Forces. John Healey, the Chancellor, quit as defence secretary earlier this year after he claimed Sir Keir Starmer was “unable” and the Treasury “unwilling” to spend the money needed on defence of the realm.

In his maiden budget last week he set a “target date” to spend 3 percent of GDP on defence within the decade.

However, Wing Commander MacIntyre said that “watching the money for defence being reduced” when set in real time against rising foreign exchange rates and inflation had left the Ministry of Defence with “less money” at a time when it is desperately needed.

"I am a massive supporter of Regular

Wing Commander Angus MacIntyre has left the military to become Reform UK's Armed Forces spokesman

and Reserve forces, our service personnel, they are the best of us and they are getting the thin edge of the wedge," he said. "I'm here for service men and women and veterans."

Nigel Farage, the Reform party leader, said: "Having someone of Angus's stature and calibre speak for us on defence shows how seriously

Reform UK takes protecting the interests of Britain's military. Angus has more experience than the entire government defence team combined.

“He is representative of our drive to bring into politics people with high-level and real-world experience – as opposed to career politicians – to run government departments.”

The party has been criticised for its engagement with defence issues and has only today announced a spokesman for defence matters, despite having been formed five years ago. Reform MPs have taken part in fewer than a third of defence debates in Parliament.

Luke Pollard, Labour's defence minister said: “Reform has treated defence as an afterthought – but in this volatile world, there are no second chances. Nigel Farage simply can't be trusted to keep Britain safe.”

Wing Commander MacIntyre said he had decided to answer the “call” from Mr Farage, who invited people from outside of the world of Westminster to join his party’s senior ranks.

Human lens grown in lab in cataracts breakthrough

Scientists hail stem cell development as ‘major step forward’ that can solve genetic diseases

By Michael Searles

DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR

A HUMAN lens has been grown in a lab for the first time using stem cells.

Scientists said the breakthrough could pave the way for new treatments for cataracts and other eye conditions.

British researchers were able to grow “mini lenses” that they say closely resemble the natural lens inside the human eye. The lens is transparent and sits behind the pupil, focusing light on to the retina to produce the image the eye sees.

In people who have developed cataracts, the lens becomes crystalised, reducing the clarity of vision and making it “cloudy”.

The researchers from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cardiff University and the University of Osaka, Japan, said the lab lenses would help to test new medicines and better understand eye diseases. They said these lenses could also help develop “future regenerative treatments” after finding the cells could multiply and form more lens-like tissue.

The eye's key components

Professor Barbara Pierscionek, from the Centre for Biomedicine and Health Innovation at ARU, said: "This is a major step forward as it is very difficult to obtain and study human eye lens tissue while it is developing.

"We've now successfully grown miniature human lens tissue from stem cells in the laboratory and identified the conditions needed for it to closely resemble a natural human lens.

"As the technology develops, these lab-grown tissues could help us test new medicines, better understand diseases that affect vision, and potentially contribute to the development of future regenerative treatments."

The researchers explained, writing in the journal npj Regenerative Medicine, that they had used adult cells that have been reprogrammed into a stem cell-like state. ARU said the scientists then developed a growth method that encouraged the cells to organise themselves into lens-like structures. This involved growing the cells for eight weeks in a special mixture of nutrients and a growth-promoting protein, encouraging them to form mini lenses.

The authors reported that the lenses possess many of the key biological features seen in real human lenses. They said the cells from these mini lenses could generate new lens-like structures and the technique could potentially help researchers investigate genetic lens disorders children are born with.

The researchers hope the results could one day help develop treatments for conditions like cataracts, reducing the need for total replacement.

The current treatment for cataracts is surgery – the most common procedure done on the NHS with about 650,000 cases per year – which involves replacing the cloudy natural lens with an artificial lens.

POOL/GETTY IMAGES / KIN CHEUNG

Well I never! The King seems quite taken by his conversation with Marie-France Van Heel, the wife of Prime Minister Andy Burnham, at an official dinner at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in St John's, Antigua and Barbuda.

Badger saved from starvation at centre of custody battle

By Jacob Freedland

SCOTTISH REPORTER

AN ECOLOGIST is fighting for custody of a badger he saved from starvation.

NatureScot turned down ecologist Graeme Wilson's request for an educational licence to keep the animal.

The badger, called Harriet, was found stuck in a cattle trough in April around 300ft from its sett.

Mr Wilson, who runs an animal rehabilitation centre in Denholm in the Scottish Borders, nursed the creature back to health but believes it would be impossible to return it to the wild because it may have been raised by humans. Instead, he applied for a licence to protect it himself. “I have cared for injured badgers before and never have I seen something like it," Mr Wilson said. "It was clear then she couldn't be released back into the wild."

However, NatureScot, the public body responsible for Scotland's natural heritage, told him the animal should be returned to the wild or sent to a zoo. He told BBC Scotland badgers “are a social animal and unfortunately for Harriet she has decided that humans are her social group. Can you imagine Harriet approaching someone on a dog walk or in the street? There is only one way that would end.”

Mr Wilson also claimed a zoo would cause problems because “she needs human interaction, not to be put behind glass and stared at”. The ecologist says he is as an “experienced and trained wildlife rehabber" who has cared for a variety of wildlife.

Mr Wilson helped the cub called Harriet after she was found in a cattle trough

Mr Wilson said an educational licence would allow better public understanding of badgers, wildlife rescue and care for protected species.

A NatureScot spokesman said: “We are continuing discussions with Mr Wilson and other relevant organisations to try and find a pragmatic solution to this individual situation.

"The welfare of the badger is, of course, key while we consider the circumstances of the case."

Badgers are protected by law, meaning that it can be illegal to kill, injure or capture them.

The Scottish SPCA urges individuals not to touch sick badgers and instead call for a rescue officer.

Badger saved from starvation at centre of custody battle

By Jacob Freedland

SCOTTISH REPORTER

AN ECOLOGIST is fighting for custody of a badger he saved from starvation.

NatureScot turned down ecologist Graeme Wilson's request for an educational licence to keep the animal.

The badger, called Harriet, was found stuck in a cattle trough in April around 300ft from its sett.

Mr Wilson, who runs an animal rehabilitation centre in Denholm in the Scottish Borders, nursed the creature back to health but believes it would be impossible to return it to the wild because it may have been raised by humans. Instead, he applied for a licence to protect it himself. “I have cared for injured badgers before and never have I seen something like it," Mr Wilson said. "It was clear then she couldn't be released back into the wild."

However, NatureScot, the public body responsible for Scotland's natural heritage, told him the animal should be returned to the wild or sent to a zoo. He told BBC Scotland badgers “are a social animal and unfortunately for Harriet she has decided that humans are her social group. Can you imagine Harriet approaching someone on a dog walk or in the street? There is only one way that would end.”

Mr Wilson also claimed a zoo would cause problems because “she needs human interaction, not to be put behind glass and stared at”. The ecologist says he is as an “experienced and trained wildlife rehabber" who has cared for a variety of wildlife.

Mr Wilson helped the cub called Harriet after she was found in a cattle trough

Mr Wilson said an educational licence would allow better public understanding of badgers, wildlife rescue and care for protected species.

A NatureScot spokesman said: “We are continuing discussions with Mr Wilson and other relevant organisations to try and find a pragmatic solution to this individual situation.

"The welfare of the badger is, of course, key while we consider the circumstances of the case."

Badgers are protected by law, meaning that it can be illegal to kill, injure or capture them.

The Scottish SPCA urges individuals not to touch sick badgers and instead call for a rescue officer.

Meloni clashes with Brussels over cap on foreign students

By Nick Squires ROME CORRESPONDENT

BRUSSELS has warned the Italian government over capping the number of foreign students.

The conservative coalition, led by Giorgia Meloni, recently passed a law that restricts the number of pupils who have limited Italian language skills in each classroom to 30 per cent.

The European Commission said it was scrutinising the new law and that it might be found to be discriminatory.

"The EU treaties prohibit any form of discrimination based on nationality, whether direct or indirect," said Roxana Minzatu, vice-president for social rights. "Discrimination based on nationality is permitted under EU law only in the presence of a derogation provided for in the treaty, for example, for reasons of public order, public safety, or public health."

The Democratic Party said the cap on migrant children was “not only contrary to common sense but also contrary to European treaties”.

However, the Meloni coalition swiftly hit back at the prospect of interference from Brussels.

"There's no problem and the government will proceed without hesitation," said Giuseppe Valditara, the education minister.

He said newly arrived migrant children were put in different classrooms “in the majority of European countries” to encourage integration.

The Meloni government also introduced a ban on the wearing of burkas and niqabs in schools, with fines of up to €1,000 (£870) for parents of minors who violate the rule.

Ms Meloni said the aim of the new laws was to prevent the ghettoisation of Italian classrooms.

Giorgia Meloni shares a lighter moment with senior government figures at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Rome to mark National Unity And Armed Forces Day

Ireland proposes options for reunification

Taoiseach Micheál Martin to examine paths from ‘unitary republic’ to keeping the status quo

By James Crisp EUROPE EDITOR

IRELAND has proposed options for the unification of the island, including the break-up of the UK.

Sinn Fein, the main opposition, has heaped pressure on the government to make preparations for a united Ireland and wants unity referendums to be held by 2030. On Tuesday, Micheál Martin, the Taoiseach, set out the plans to establish an initiative on the future of the island in a meeting of his Fianna Fáil party in Dublin.

He wants a chairman appointed to a new Futures Study Initiative (FSI), which would research options for unification. These would include a “unitary republic”, with Northern Ireland being folded into the Republic, being governed largely from Dublin and the six counties being treated like all the others.

An alternative would have a united Ireland or “all-island state” with Northern Ireland keeping Stormont and devolved government but leaving the UK for the Republic. Or the status quo could continue, with Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK and a continuation of the current constitutional arrangements set out in the Good Friday Agreement.

A policy paper shared with back-benchers said the FSI would “seek to provide an objective, independent knowledge base which can be used to inform specific proposals”.

Irish political parties and activists will be invited to make submissions. Unionists, loyalists and unity-support-

The Irish question Dublin rules it all, halfway house or status quo

Unitary republic

Northern Ireland

being folded into

the Republic, being

governed largely

from Dublin.

All-island state

Northern Ireland

would keep

Stormont and

devolved

government but

leave the United Kingdom for the Republic.

Continuation

Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK with no change to the constitutional arrangements set out in the Good Friday Agreement.

ing nationalists in Northern Ireland will also be offered the chance to have their say. “In this it would provide a good-faith opportunity for those outside the nationalist tradition to participate,” the paper, which was obtained by BBC News NI, says.

“Critically, it would challenge all traditions to move from making general assertions about the future to engaging with hard evidence.”

Lord Nigel Dodds, a Democratic Union Party peer, said that the proposal represented “a backwards step for relations between north and south”.

“With the government parties at historic levels of unpopularity, this is classic distraction politics.

"It demonstrates no respect for their unionist neighbours in Northern Ireland where support for unification is no stronger today than it was at the time of the Belfast Agreement."

After attending an event on Irish unity on Tuesday, Cathal Mallaghan, the Sinn Fein Mid Ulster MP, said: “Increasingly, people from all backgrounds are engaging with the conversation around constitutional change and considering what it could mean for them, their families and their communities.”

CHRISTMAS APPEAL 2026

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Liberte, egalite, banalite: Macron 'bored stiff' by EU meetings

By Henry Samuel

PARIS CORRESPONDENT

Emmanuel Macron will end his 10-year reign as French president next April

EMMANUEL MACRON is “bored” stiff by meetings with European counterparts that he thinks are “depressing and utterly lacking in creativity”, according to private messages revealed in a new book.

The French president also confirmed that he called France's disastrous snap election in 2024 partly to catch Marine Le Pen's hard-Right party unprepared.

The remarks are among hundreds of private exchanges on the encrypted Telegram app over two years with Françoise Degois, a Left-wing journalist, publishing them without the president's permission.

The Élysée reportedly learnt only on Monday of the existence of Vous êtes tous trop durs avec moi (You're all too hard on me) which is published tomorrow.

Their correspondence began after Mr Macron thanked Ms Degois for defending his wife Brigitte Macron against spurious claims that she is a man.

One message, sent during a European meeting, reads: “I’m bored. It’s depressing and utterly lacking in creativity. I miss (former Italian prime minister) Mario Draghi and (ex-German Chancellor) Angela Merkel terribly.”

Explaining the snap election, he said the National Rally (RN) “was ready for autumn but not June. That’s one of the reasons I chose” to dissolve parliament.

The gamble backfired. RN secured its biggest-ever parliamentary group, the Left formed the largest alliance and support for his party plummeted, plunging France into political instability.

However, when Ms Degois remarked that “the dissolution is a total failure”, he replied laconically: “I disagree.”

Mr Macron expressed contempt for his political allies and rivals alike.

He criticised Gabriel Attal, his former prime minister and now a potential presidential contender. “We’ve given Attal too much. All the time,” he wrote.

He accused mainstream conservatives of “galloping headlong towards RN’s feeding trough” and dismissed RN officials as “mad and dangerous”.

When Ms Degois asked if he was considering resigning, he said: “Resign? Never! Not for any reason! Never. I have no intention of deserting.”

Asked whether he had the blues about leaving the Élysée after 10 years, Mr Macron wrote: "The blues? No, but yes, you pour your heart and soul into it, and yes, ten years is an era, so it is, after all, a little death."

On whether he would work for French billionaire Xavier Niel after leaving office, he said: "I won't be joining anyone. If I do go into business, it will be my own."

Kim Jong-un's sister rejects talks with US

By Allegra Mendelson

ASIA CORRESPONDENT

KIM JONG-UN'S sister has rejected a meeting with the “hostile” United States, two weeks before possible talks between Donald Trump and the North Korean leader.

Kim Yo-jong, who is becoming one of the most vocal members of the regime, pushed back against a meeting with the “unreasonable” US government yesterday morning.

In her second statement in two days, Kim Yo-jong, who also serves as a director of North Korea's ruling party, said that Pyongyang had "no need to sit face-to-face" with people "who refuse to abandon their policy of confrontation while talking about dialogue" and "prefer war drills and strengthening of military alliance to peace". While she added that the "choice for peace includes dialogue", most of the statement was centred on rebuffing any kind of engagement.

Kim Jong-un and Mr Trump were expected to meet on the sidelines of the

'Pyongyang has no need to sit face to face with people who refuse to abandon a policy of confrontation'

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China in two weeks, though experts said this was looking increasingly unlikely.

The pair met three times during the US president's first term, but fresh efforts for a summit since his re-election have been unsuccessful.

Last month, the US president said that while his relationship with Kim Jong-un was “very good”, no one had asked for a meeting.

The White House has reportedly tried to contact Pyongyang through its ambassador to the UN in New York, but North Korea has rejected any attempt at dialogue until Washington stops pushing for denuclearisation.

Kim Yo-jong referred to these calls for denuclearisation as well as recent joint military drills between South Korea and the US, and American sanctions against Pyongyang, as examples of a “hostile policy” towards North Korea.

In September, Mr Trump said North Korea's nuclear arsenal was “pretty large” but not as large as the US's.

17 NOV. 2022

le mous belain d'une épaulé, d'un

d'une tendrassé, d'une présence qui

ble ole me d'unner-

but he couldn't care less," Mr Guazzini said.

hum Emour, mni baccin viscared d'un

colu pagmi qui me rende as emour

qui portage me 1000, nea paine immenses

qui m'accompagne Sue mon dernier

Chemin de vie, qu s'sr heureux avec m'si

en burant un cefi, en ruont un coup de

25ape avec des ours, qui portage me vie -

qui m'ommene paure un tour en visture pour

me changer les idées, qu s'sr sourient de le

vie que le lui oppre. SOURIANT !!!

Qujourd'hui le suis au bour de me détrele-

fu m'as d'attre partement l'oue après l'oue

plus 30 ans.

He claimed that Bardot's Mini Moke, her microcar, had “disappeared”. “He’s put it in a safe place, he told me.”

Guyslaine Calmels-Bock, the foundation's director, said it had blocked Mr d'Ormale's access because he was regularly taking bags out of the property and

Bardot's 2022 letter to Mr d'Ormale, above, with translation, right. The couple together in 1994, top left. Below: Bardot on the set of 1969 comedy Les Femmes

17 Nov 2022

Bernard, it's a failure!

was “in the process of emptying it”. Mr d'Ormale denies trying to clear the house.

In September, Mr d'Ormale described the foundation's decision to auction Bardot's personal belongings as “scandalous”.

Ms Vieugué, his lawyer, told AFP that her client did not deny the foundation now owned the property, or that a

I gave you everything 30 years ago — my love, my deep-seated need for a partner who would return that love, who would share my life and my immense sorrows, who would walk with me on my final journey through life, who would be happy with me over a coffee or a glass of red wine with friends, who would share my life — who would take me for a drive to take my mind off things, who would be SMILING at the life I offer him. SMILING!!!

Today I am at the end of my tether — You have patiently destroyed me, day after day, for 30 years — I so desperately need a shoulder to lean on, some support, some tenderness, a presence that you are incapable of giving me

Brigitte

CHECKMATE!

six-month deadline had been agreed to allow him to move his belongings. But she said he had been unable to move out on time because he “is overwhelmed by the situation”.

"At 85 years of age, having lived there for 35 years, with just his little car and having to pack everything up on his own, it's simply not possible," she said.

Is it a bomb? Is it a threat? No, it's a novelty wine bottle (says China) Hackers set French blood bank storage rooms to boiling point

The 130mm artillery shell was found in a shipping container in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea

By Allegra Mendelson

ASIA CORRESPONDENT

CHINA claims it is a wine bottle, but no one in Papua New Guinea dares open it. The object, which resembles an artillery shell, has caused a diplomatic row between the two nations.

On Friday, the 32kg green object was found in a commercial shipping container in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Police arrested four Chinese nationals at a construction site after the object was found.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a police report that was finalised on Tuesday confirmed that the item was an undetonated 130mm Type 59 artillery projectile containing chemical explosives and a fuse.

However, Beijing has denied these allegations. The Chinese embassy claimed that while it was awaiting official findings, the object was a “shell-shaped wine bottle”, which poses “no danger at all”.

The embassy also said that because of China's strict gun control laws, "it is virtually impossible for an illegal military-grade artillery shell to be smuggled out of China to PNG".

Post-Courier, a media outlet in PNG, first reported the item on Friday after it had been found in the container at a construction site. Police and the PNG military launched a joint investigation, dismissing claims that the item could be a dummy, according to David Manning, the police commissioner.

PNG police have not yet responded to the claims made by the Chinese embassy. However, social media users expressed scepticism. One user asked: "What sort of wine bottle weighs 32kg?"

Last October, PNG signed its first defence deal with Australia, which has also done the same with Vanuatu and Fiji and reportedly the Solomon Islands and Tonga.

By Lily Shanagher

HACKERS have targeted France's national blood bank, raising the temperature of its cold storage rooms to boiling point.

Facilities at Coolworld, a service provider for the country's national service, were heated to 110C overnight on Sunday after hackers gained access to the temperature settings remotely, French weekly Le Canard enchaîné reported.

The rooms are normally kept at -30C to preserve donor blood samples.

The French Blood Establishment (EFS) said an on-duty technician had detected the unusual rise in temperatures at the facilities on Sunday night.

The worker then notified the EFS of the rising temperatures, helping to prevent wider disruption.

The Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region was the worst affected, but France's health ministry said there had been no consequences for patients and no plasma had been destroyed.

The EFS had initially said the affected blood samples were part of a health monitoring system connected to blood transfusions. Cyber criminals have been hacking refrigeration systems across Europe, including a British organic food retailer, causing chaos.

Langridge Organic, a wholesaler in west London that supplies retailers including Whole Foods Market, Riverford and Able & Cole, said hackers had taken control of six of its 10 cold-room

[110C] Temperature at which Coolworld facilities were heated to on Sunday night after hackers gained remote access

refrigeration systems. The hackers remotely activated defrost cycles and set the maximum temperatures to 66C.

On Monday night, cyber security experts from GCHQ warned British food companies that their refrigeration systems were vulnerable.

The National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ, said on Tuesday that it was aware of “instances where vulnerable technology has been exploited in the UK". Hundreds of grocery stores in France and about 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected as well as shops in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland.

Ikea was among those affected. Hackers gained control of the in-store fridge units via remote access and turned temperatures up to 80C, causing food to spoil. That led to millions of euros worth of food having to be thrown away last month.

In Flanders, northern Belgium, a Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart told news website Het Laatste Nieuws it had lost €100,000 (£83,500) worth of produce.

CERT-FR, part of France's National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI), issued a security alert on Oct 12 reporting hacks into multiple refrigerator systems and cautioned companies against leaving system management accessible via the internet.

Vincent Strubel, the director general of ANSSI, told a senate hearing on Oct 21 of the risks to refrigerators from cyber attacks.

Mystery of British archaeologist's murder solved after 90 years

By Max Stephens

INTERNATIONAL CRIME

CORRESPONDENT

WHEN James Leslie Starkey, the British archaeologist, was advised by colleagues to leave Palestine amid the chaos of the Arab Revolt, he brushed off their concerns with a smile.

“But I have only friends among these people,” he said.

On Jan 10, 1938, a week after his 43rd birthday, Starkey was shot dead by gunmen near Hebron while travelling toward Jerusalem.

For decades, his death was attributed to a random act of violence, or even a case of mistaken identity.

Starkey's large, dark beard, grown during excavations at Tel Lachish, an ancient Canaanite city, fuelled speculation that his attackers killed him because they thought he was Jewish.

Sir Charles Marston, one of Starkey's archaeological peers, championed this theory, prompting the Grimsby Telegraph's headline: Beard May Have Caused Tragedy. Starkey himself has be quoted by the British colonial authorities at the time as saying: “I look rather like a Jew myself, but I am all right in that area because all the Arabs know me.”

However, a new study argues his murder was a targeted assassination arising from land disputes with villagers affected by the excavations.

Prof Yosef Garfinkel, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Dr Roy Marom, of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, identify Arab rebel commander Issa al-Battat as his killer.

Their findings draw on colonial records, intelligence documents, and surviving oral testimonies from descendants of the village. The study, published in the academic journal Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, builds on Prof Garfinkel's 2016 research.

Starkey's life and death in Palestine have also been chronicled in a series of internet blogs by Wendy Slaninka, his granddaughter.

An Egyptologist and First World War veteran, Starkey led the Lachish expedition, which began in 1932 with financial backing from pharmaceutical tycoon

James Leslie Starkey was murdered while travelling to Jerusalem

'He always refused to carry firearms in Palestine, for he felt they might impart a wrong impression'

Sir Henry Wellcome. From the 1937-38 season, he travelled without his wife Marjorie (known as Madge) who was left to raise his three children, aged eight, six and two.

By then, the revolt against British rule had brought attacks on Jewish settlements and shootings targeting British troops. Yet Starkey wrote to his wife: "All here is quiet so far - plenty of troops in Jerusalem...heaps of love, Leslie".

Starkey and his team had tried to buy or rent the agricultural plots at Tel Lachish from peasants in the neighbouring village of al-Qubayba.

When negotiations broke down, the British Mandatory authorities seized the properties to allow the excavations of the ancient Judah site to begin.

One farmer, in a petition submitted to the British Department of Antiquities, complained he had been given none of the compensation promised to him.

"I am a poor and weak man, and my livelihood depends entirely on the yield of this land," Salih al-Haji Hamad Abu Awwad wrote. The researchers found that compensation for expropriated land was not finished until 1943, five years after Starkey's murder. The researchers argue that aggrieved landowners sought revenge through local rebels.

At about 4:15pm on Jan 10, Starkey set off for Jerusalem where he planned to help inaugurate the Palestine Archaeological Museum (now named the Rockefeller Museum).

About an hour into the journey, armed men wearing white keffiyehs stopped his car on the Beit-Jibrin road.

The gunmen fired into the air and demanded Starkey's driver pull forward. They ordered Starkey out of the car and told the driver to leave.

Despite attempts to explain who he was, Starkey was shot in the abdomen and chest. The driver saw him fall in his mirror.

The Telegraph was the first to report his death on Jan 11 1938.

“It was characteristic of him that he always refused to carry firearms in Palestine, for he felt they might impart a wrong impression,” one line from the report reads.

Comment

Farewell ‘worm man’ – who will teach us about the countryside now?

PATRICK GALBRAITH

Some two decades ago, when I was about 14, there was a man in my village who farmed tiger worms. He kept them in a large mound of earth, in a darkened shed next to his chicken coop, and he'd sell you a tub for £2.

I often spent the afternoon, during the school holidays, chatting to Martin "the worm man" about ferrets, rabbit snares, and hounds, and every half an hour or so a customer would appear. I have no idea whether the worm-farming venture stacked up as a business, but Martin was a keen angler and every sale gave him a chance to talk to fellow anglers. He would often give me a tub, usually on the house, and I'd try my luck on various local rivers.

I don't think I ever thanked him, but over the years, I learnt a huge amount from Martin. When I look back now, though, I realise he is the sort of person who is fast disappearing. The sea trout his customers once caught have mostly gone, the local pack of hounds in that part of the country disbanded when hunting was made illegal, and even rabbits are increasingly thin on the ground.

On account of a lack of quarry and a succession of governments with a love of banning things, people like Martin – who is now in his 60s – are the last of a generation. And they really mattered. They mattered because they were a way for young people to engage with and understand the countryside. A couple of villages over, there was an elderly lady called Daphne who kept her rabbit-hunting basset hounds next to the primary school. At break time, the children would lean on the railings to chat to them.

And just as these sporting village figures disappear, so too do gun shops and fishing shops across the country. The local tackle shop I used as a teenager closed years ago and my nearest gun shop in Norfolk was recently told that, after four decades, they are no longer permitted to sell guns or ammunition. The police do not deem it safe. It's an annoyance for me, but it's a tragedy for all those little boys who can no longer browse the racks and dream about one day being out on the marsh under skeins of geese at dawn.

There has always been change in the countryside, but at the moment we are witnessing something tragic: the evolution of a place that we once engaged with into something to only be looked at.

A little over a year ago, I had the uncanny experience of giving a talk on a book I'd written about rural culture

\- from fox hunting to pig farming - at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire. I felt I was talking about the real, the earthy and the bloody in a place that is the apotheosis of our Disneyfied countryside.

The trouble with this direction of travel is that when links are lost and there cease to be “ways in”, we no longer have anybody to nurture rural culture or to care. Near me, in Walsingham, there used to be a big eel fishing scene. People cared about the river and all that swam it, but it’s been years since anybody dangled a piece of bacon on a hook by the weir. Where the children in Walsingham once thought of the river as generative, I suspect they now don’t think of it at all.

Currently, the Government is working through its pledge to ban trail hunting. The very thing introduced to allow people to continue engaging with the countryside after fox hunting was banned is being issued its last rites. And on Sunday, Labour's consultation on game shooting closed. It's early days, but it's grim to think that at some point in the future, children might be told that they aren't able to go beating on the local shoot with their spaniels and Labradors. Instead, I guess they'll be able to watch more telly while outside the window, the land lies quieter still.

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King Trump has descended into madness and betrayed the Right

JD Vance blames the Iran war for the Republicans' defeat in the midterms. But the truth is closer to home

ALLISTER HEATH

These elections were a referendum on a president who appears to be losing his capacities, who is terrifyingly detached from reality, who has fallen foul to narcissism, megalomania, delusion, impetuousness and mood swings. This was a verdict on Donald Trump's Emperor Nero tribute act, on his White House ballroom-sized ego, on his court of sycophants, on his increasing incompetence, erraticism, impulsiveness, irrationality and capriciousness.

This was a repudiation of Trump the man, his cultish movement, his penchant for rogues, his peculiar style of misgovernment, not an embrace of socialism, of wokery or of Left-wing nostra. Above all, this was punishment for saying one thing, and doing another, and seemingly not caring. Trump promised lower prices; he delivered higher inflation. He pledged the end of illegal immigration; instead, he produced ICE vans, masked snatch squads and random deportations. He promised jobs; instead, he threatened to invade Greenland and Canada. He promised peace and waged war.

Trump notched up successes, from energy security to women's rights to the capture of Nicolas Maduro to his confrontations with universities in breach of civil rights rules. But even when Trump was right – the war on Iran was to prevent an evil regime from obtaining nuclear weapons – he failed to explain himself, didn't involve Congress and eventually botched everything.

Whatever a self-serving JD Vance might think, the Iran war was moral and necessary, but abysmally executed by a president who believes his own propaganda, doesn't plan adequately, changes his mind incessantly, assumes he can take out a powerful regime costlessly, treats social media as a substitute for strategy and grit, and who, unbelievably, trusts Recep Erdoğan, the Pakistanis and the Qataris.

Trump was brought in to fix problems nobody else would touch and yet all too often created new ones. The electorate could tolerate his foibles, his norm-breaking, his untruths, but he abused their trust. He acts like an absolute monarch, but America is a republic. He has been cut down to size.

The feeling is bittersweet: many of the worst people are celebrating Trump's humiliation, including the mullahs in Tehran, but then so are some of the best, disgusted by Trump's dismissal of ordinary folks' concerns, his betrayals of friends and allies (including Britain), his moral corruption, his beastliness towards Ukraine, his deranged, sickening penchant for Putin, for Xi, for evil dictators as long as they are powerful or oil rich.

For conservatives, Trump's shellacking will prove to be a short-term calamity, leading to a tsunami of state-level Leftist idiocy, threatening the tech-bubble and further debilitating the federal government.

But it is also a longer-term opportunity: this election breaks the Maga spell and demonstrates Trump Inc has become the problem, not the solution. You don't have to put up with its malicious, immoral ways to win; in fact, it will cost you. Conservative ideas remain popular: the billionaire tax was rejected in California, anti-woke plans are ahead in Colorado and Florida's anti-property tax motion triumphed.

A competent, radical but mainstream Republican could win in 2028. Trump's defeat does not make the case for isolationism (pace JD Vance) or a Tucker Carlson-style woke Right.

In Britain, Trump's fate serves as a warning to Right-wingers: don't ape his worst traits, focus on the cost of living, don't assume mass deportations would be popular, avoid extreme language, don't be cavalier with facts, resist sleaze.

Trump's tragedy is that he showed what could have been. Two years ago, he assembled a pro-prosperity, pro-growth, anti-woke, cross-racial coalition of suburbanites, Hispanic and white, younger and older, working-class and middle-class voters, proving demographics needn't be destiny, that it was possible to defeat progressivism.

It was all for nought. His coalition is unwound. Trump was meant to defeat wokery, to terminate net zero, to eliminate illegal immigration, to fight anti-Semitism and Islamism, to strengthen the military, to bolster capitalism; instead he made the Democratic party great again, presided over a massive deficit, handed Texas and Kansas to the Left and has given critical theory, socialism and antizionism a new lease of life.

He passed almost no legislation. He governs like a Middle Eastern potentate, with whom he shares garish tastes, hiring on the basis of looks, loyalty and family ties; he rewards those who genuflect to his every whim.

Section #67

He couldn't even release the Epstein files properly. His protectionism, economically illiterate and imbecilic, was implemented in the dumbest possible way, targeting friendly countries, ruining farmers and impoverishing Maga voters. Yes, the US

FOLLOW Allister Heath on X @AllisterHeath READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

In Britain, Trump's fate serves as a warning to Right-wingers: don't ape his worst traits

needs to detach itself from China, and develop advanced manufacturing, energy, tech and military resilience, but that was not what Trump was doing when he was threatening Ottawa.

The war is a big reason for his failure, sadly, but Trump started to lose public support in his second term's first 100 days. Many of his executive orders were popular, including his war on woke, but his obsession with tariffing friendly countries, especially Canada and Mexico, was the original sin. "Liberation Day", the stock market volatility, the recession fears: all tanked support permanently.

Elon Musk's Doge anti-waste project, launched on Inauguration Day, was a good idea absurdly implemented. Trump's net approval flipped negative in March 2025. His mishandled migration crackdown became an increasing drag from May, and especially over the summer. By early 2026, Trump was already very unpopular. His critique of Ukraine and threats to allies didn't go down well either. He did little about his unpopularity, ranting at the Fed and spending time on decadent projects such as his ballroom.

Then came the Iran war, which further damaged his approvals, sent petrol prices soaring and, when it dragged on inconclusively, sealed his fate. JD Vance's analysis, which blames the war for everything, is simplistic, self-serving, blatantly ignores the administration's blunders and contains a vicious dig at Israel.

King Trump's defeat was a verdict on his and Maga's madness. Vance would be even worse. The Republicans' future lies with Marco Rubio, if he isn't too tainted, or Ron DeSantis, the outgoing Florida governor whose state resisted the Democratic invasion. The Right must ignore Vance and draw the proper lessons from Trump's shellacking.

Labour's trans law is a disaster for young girls

SUZANNE MOORE

CAMPAIGN

When one of my daughters was a teenager, she told me she had formed a pop group at school. They were called Not Like Other Girls. I didn't ask too much about it. She and her two friends practised some songs apparently, but I never got to hear them. It was but a phase.

Teenage girls are a law unto themselves. I was one once and have brought up three of them. They have at various times all laid on their beds crying that they wanted to be special and not like everyone else and also fit in and be the same as everyone else.

This is the cri de cœur of every girl going into puberty. Becoming a woman is not easy, especially in today's pornified hall of selfies. It is no wonder then that some would prefer to opt out.

They want to refuse a female identity, pronouncing themselves as non-binary or male. When I was young, there seemed to be many more ways to escape the straightjacket of femininity than there are now. Androgynous stars and punks gave us ways out.

There is now a huge and online subculture where kids can find labels and instructions on how to avoid being simply - girls. They may be genderqueer, they may be demi-girl. They may identify themselves as "cat-gender". A large degree of social contagion is at work here.

A parent may not go along with all this, perhaps by “misgendering” their daughter or saying “I am limiting your internet access”, or even, “You are not a boy.” But, shockingly, the muddled law being discussed under this Labour Government could mean that they might end up in prison for such actions.

I am not making this up – as The Telegraph has made clear with its campaign to scrap the Conversion Practices Bill. Part of the Labour manifesto at the last election, it could mean that if a parent questions their child about being trans, they might be suppressing their child's “gender identity”. Doing so runs the risk of being a criminal act.

Perfectly ordinary conversations in the family home could be seen as part of a “conversion practice”. Saying: “You were not born in the wrong body” would be seen as coercive and abusive. Telling a child that their feelings of gender dysphoria may just be a phase

would be criminal. How did we get here and why on earth is Labour backing it?

The impulse to ban conversion practices – where gay people are told they must be straight by therapists or doctors or religious bodies and are punished – is a sensible one. Such practices belong to another era.

The issue with Labour's bill is that it speaks of gender identity as equivalent to sexual orientation. No one has ever defined gender identity in any way other than an innate feeling.

Making legislation around inner feelings is impossible, but it is something that trans activists have been pushing for years. Self ID failed in Scotland but, here in this ill-thought-out bill, it rears its head again.

There is no understanding in this proposed legislation that a parent has a right to question their child's self-expression. There is no understanding of safeguarding either: a parent may well not want their child buying hormones on the dark web.

It is as if the last few years – not least the scandal involving the NHS's Tavistock clinic – have not happened. Baroness Cass, in her review of Tavistock, highlighted the dangers of puberty blockers and was concerned about the increase in young girls being put on these irreversible medical pathways.

FOLLOW Suzanne Moore on X @suzanne\_moore READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion

So the Labour fools who like to present themselves as trans allies are no friends to teenage girls. If they were, they would say that we are our bodies and our inner feelings can never simply override biology, however much we want them to. We would accept too that girls can be as gender non-conforming as they like without being trans.

Instead, NHS England is spending £6.5m a year on “trans mastectomies”: the cutting off of the healthy breast tissue of women who identify as men. There has been a 52 per cent increase in these operations since 2023.

This is obscene. And so is this bill. It is clear that most Labour MPs do not understand it, as it fundamentally brings the state into family life in a way that no one is asking for. It is both authoritarian and unworkable.

The state has no right to police our conversations with our children. Of course, there will be difficult conversations because growing up is difficult.

Parents are (or should be) allowed to set boundaries for their children. It is not suppressing a child's identity to tell them they are not in fact a cat just because they say they are.

Anyone who thinks that we need legislation about this is deluded. This bill is a waste of time and money. Hasn't the Government got better things to do?

ESTABLISHED 1855

Trump's rejection is no Left-wing victory

Donald Trump's name wasn't on the ballot for Tuesday's midterm elections, though it might as well have been. American voters gave a stinging rebuke to his Republican Party, handing the Democrats control of Congress by some margin. But the electorate wasn't repudiating conservative ideas: it was punishing the man they backed in 2024 to deliver them.

Mr Trump even told voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot, in an effort to drive up turnout among his Maga base. This didn’t stop moderate Republicans and independents from abandoning him in their droves, including in the party’s strongholds. Exit polls indicate that 63 per cent of voters disapprove of how the president has been doing his job.

The causes are not hard to identify: Mr Trump's erratic behaviour; his chaotic tariff policy and the damage it has done to the American economy; rising fuel costs as a result of his poorly prosecuted war against Iran; and perceptions of corruption in Washington, DC. As Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, put it, the Republicans stopped listening to the American people.

While the Iran war has clearly played its part, the president's tariffs were a self-inflicted wound

In particular, she says, they stopped listening to them on the cost of living. One irony of the

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Republicans' rout is that it happened at a time when the US economy is growing at an enviable clip, particularly when compared to its competitors in Europe. Mr Trump's energy revolution, his efforts to free American enterprise, and the AI boom, including huge investment in data centres, have delivered huge economic returns.

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But inflation has weighed on wage growth, and economic anxiety has fuelled a backlash against AI. Mr Trump appeared to forget the role of price rises in the unpopularity of his predecessor, Joe Biden. While the Iran war has clearly played its part, the president's tariffs were a self-inflicted wound: pushing up costs at home without the significant reshoring of industry to the United States that Mr Trump so hubristically promised.

The danger for the Democrats now is that they fall victim to their own form of hubris. Voters might have preferred a Democrat-controlled Congress, but a recent poll found that just 29 per cent of people have a favourable view of the party. So this was no mass endorsement of their agenda, such that one exists, apart from opposing Mr Trump. It was a loveless landslide not unlike the one Labour won in Britain two years ago.

There is certainly no widespread enthusiasm for the return of the Leftist overreach and rampant identity politics of the Biden years, when Democrats sought to transplant the worst ideas Europe has to offer – including big increases in government spending and an unhealthy fixation with renewable energy – into the United States.

The big question is whether the Democrats will be able to restrain themselves. They now have the opportunity, should they wish, to revive the tactics they employed at the tail end of Mr Trump's first term. Certainly, many observers expect them to use their control of Congress to launch investigations into the president, his Cabinet and his advisers. Some will no doubt be itching to instigate impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump himself.

Would the American people thank them for that? Doubtless there has been wrongdoing over the past two years. But there is a difference between

The Democrat situation is complicated by the rise of the Left and its increasingly extreme agenda

scrutinising the White House or holding the administration to account and weaponising Congress to pursue a witch-hunt against Mr Trump and his team.

The Democratic establishment's situation is complicated by the rise of the Left, with voters returning an increased number of Democratic Socialists and

their fellow travellers, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. The hard-Left doesn't just want a showdown with Mr Trump. Its increasingly extreme agenda extends to vicious opposition to Israel, the abolition of federal border enforcement, the radical redistribution of wealth, and the replacement of America's free market economy with a socialist one.

At the very least, the world can look forward to two years of political deadlock in Washington, DC, with no party able to fully advance their agenda. Some have speculated that Mr Trump will turn his attention back to foreign affairs, perhaps including renewed strikes on Tehran in an effort to remain relevant.

Not, it seems, if JD Vance has anything to do with it. The vice-president's extraordinary intervention yesterday afternoon – blaming his party's defeat on the Iran war – was couched in the language of loyalty. "The president said so himself," wrote Mr Vance. It remains to be seen whether Mr Trump sees it that way. But it points to a nasty battle ahead for the Republican nomination in 2028.

Both sides will have to decide whether they will be consumed by their own narrow ideological struggles or focus on the interests of American voters. It is hard for Republicans to be optimistic. But as Ms Haley says, a lot can change in two years.

American voters punished Trump for taking his eye off the economy

SIR – The US midterm elections have shown that the cost of living trumps everything else, and that politicians cannot hoodwink voters on this issue (“Trump crushed in midterms, telegraph.co.uk, November 4).

Hugh Ellwood

Great Harwood, Lancashire

SIR – President Trump asked

Americans to vote as if he were on the

ballot. They did.

John Bath

Clevedon, Somerset

SIR – As a Texan beef farmer put it: President Trump has run out of bulls--t.

Michael Fabb

Shaftesbury, Dorset

SIR – No doubt psephologists are poring over the midterm elections to determine what lessons should be learnt, but it does not take an expert to identify the most important one: ignore those who elected you at your

Labour school spite

peril. President Trump betrayed his Maga supporters: despite saying he would never do so, he has waged a foreign war in Iran.

Storrington, West Sussex

In the UK, the Conservatives took their voters for granted and implemented policies that were anathema to them, such as the "Boriswave" of immigration. They were kicked out, suffering a massive loss to Labour at the last general election. President Trump is receiving the same punishment. Sandy Pratt

SIR – The decisive Democrat victory in the midterms is a win for American democracy, with its checks and balances. It was not just the economy that swung the vote, but also concerns about corruption and attacks on democratic institutions.

SIR – Another private school, Leweston, has closed (report, November 3), adding to the misery caused by Labour's attack on the independent sector.

I recently entertained some American friends in Windsor. They loved the town and its history, as well as a performance of The Mousetrap at the Theatre Royal. They constantly felt the need to apologise for their country, and a president who has humiliated them in the eyes of the world.

At least now they can hold their heads high.

Stan Labovitch

Windsor, Berkshire

SIR – The midterm elections are a stark reminder that a country with five times the UK population has a lower house of 435 members and a Senate of 100.

The Prime Minister has made clear his ambition to rejoin the EU, yet the irony will be lost on him that, under EU rules, charging VAT on education is illegal, and therefore Labour's policy would have to be reversed.

However, the damage will already have been done. Labour will have harmed tens of thousands of displaced pupils – and will be proud of it.

ACH Irvine

With UK government finances in such a parlous state, do we really need 650 MPs and a whopping 797 sitting members of the House of Lords? Not to mention the Scottish parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies.

Great Humby, Lincolnshire

Given the urgent need to reduce excessive government borrowing, surely it's time for the turkeys to vote for Christmas and demonstrate some real political leadership. Andy Fawcett Great Harwood, Lancashire

SIR – For evidence of this Government's muddled thinking, one need look no further than Andy Burnham's approach to slavery reparations.

Burnham's muddle

First he argued that the Government cannot be held responsible for wrongdoings centuries ago, and rejected the idea of paying a lump sum. Then, however, he pledged £40m for critical infrastructure in the Caribbean (report, November 3), including renewable energy. No wonder Ed Miliband appears to support the move.

On what evidence was this decision made? Was Mr Burnham unaware that, in the past, debts owed by a number of these countries were cancelled?

Does Mr Burnham honestly believe that Caribbean governments, after initially demanding trillions of pounds, will see this as an end to the matter? I fear he has opened a can of worms.

Stephen Howey

Woodford Green, Essex

No 1 Talyllyn, a steam locomotive built in 1864 by Fletcher, Jennings & Co

A soldier's spirit

SIR – Over the course of his career, Ed Miliband has pledged to “cut the deficit every year and balance the books as soon as possible in the next parliament”; that net zero will cut household electricity bills by £300; and that an apology for slavery will not cost British taxpayers anything (telegraph.co.uk, November 4).

Can I detect a pattern here?

Trevor Jones

Sidmouth, Devon

Striking consultants

SIR – Only one in five consultants employed by the NHS voted for strike action (report, October 26).

SIR – My uncle, Gunner Norman Alec Hall, was killed during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 (Letters, November 4). He was a 21-year-old conscript. Alec, his second name, was given in memory of his cousin Alec Taylor, who was killed at Flanders in 1917.

A Welsh paradise for railway pilgrims

Surely there should be a rule that any strike has to be agreed by at least 50 per cent. Those 20 per cent should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are obviously in the wrong profession.

I still have my uncle's final letter, which he wrote to my parents a few weeks before his death. Re-reading it, I was struck by one passage that perfectly captures the spirit of the young combatants whose memory we honour. Telling my father not to worry about his impending call-up, he writes:

"As an old soldier, may I advise you to take things as they come, and live a day at a time; and note also that life, even in the Army, is only what you make it! Don't forget the old saying Dum spiro spero – While I breathe, I hope!"

SIR - Your article (telegraph.co.uk, November 1) on walks in Wales mentions Tywyn as the home of St Cadfan's first church. This is well worth a visit as it contains the Cadfan Stone, which bears the earliest known Welsh inscription.

The small Welsh town has another claim to fame, however: it is the birthplace of the worldwide railway preservation movement. In 1950 a group of interested people, led by the author Tom Rolt, formed the

Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society to take over the Talyllyn Railway, which was about to close following the death of its owner, Sir Henry Haydn Jones.

His closing words were: "Cheerio for the time being, and keep smiling! Bags of love, Norm".

British wool deserves to be celebrated

The railway was to be run by volunteers (as it still is) and was the inspiration for the film The Titfield Thunderbolt. A trip on the line up the unspoilt valley would make a wonderful prelude to the walk. Jonathan Mann Gunnislake, Cornwall

Belper, Derbyshire

SIR – Many of us who have a poppy on our car throughout the year do so not to irritate (Letter, October 31), but to demonstrate our gratitude to those who served and lost their lives on our behalf.

Renewed annually, it is a way of saying that the sentiment of the poppy is forever, not just November.

Jeremy Mantell

West Lavington, Wiltshire

SIR – In autumn, it is my custom to pluck rosehips as a treat for our goats. Yesterday, wearing my poppy, I bent over to tickle Willow's chin as I fed her. It was immediately consumed, and with a wicked glint in her eye.

SIR – Peta's criticism of Claudia Winkleman for wearing wool on The Celebrity Traitors (report, November 1) shows a complete misunderstanding of this fibre.

Produced by 30,000 sheep farmers across the country, British wool is renewable, biodegradable and a by-product of sheep that must be shorn annually for their welfare. It supports rural jobs, communities and farming families.

Perhaps there could be a new line of vegetable-based poppies, which would be sustainable.

Robin Croslegh

Hartland, Devon

Ms Winkleman's fashion choices influence millions. By wearing wool, she is helping inspire a new generation to choose natural fibres over fast fashion's throwaway culture, which is causing so much environmental harm.

So much for placing patients' wellbeing above all else.

Wendy Steel

Horley, Surrey

The stunning landscapes showcased in The Traitors are no accident. They have been shaped and maintained over generations by grazing livestock, with sheep providing active landscape management while supporting the rural economy. Rather than criticising those who choose British wool, we should be celebrating this stylish, sustainable product that supports our environment, our countryside and the people who care for it. Clare Wise

Livestock Board Chair, NFU Kenilworth, Warwickshire

SIR – Sheep have been a vital part of this country's economy. Peta should come to Norfolk and see our wonderful churches, built on the back of the wool trade. Where is the evidence of suffering when the animals are shorn? I should think there were baas of relief this summer.

What should Claudia Winkleman be wearing? Man-made fibres are not warm enough in a bitter east wind. We can't just wear cotton in winter, and furs are frowned upon. Wool is the best warmer.

Avril Wright

Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk

Fast-acting vet

SIR – Natasha Bowler might grumble about her British vet practice (Features, November 4), but it appears to have been very efficient in issuing an animal health certificate at such short notice to enable her to travel with her dog to Belgium.

It's such a time-consuming document to complete correctly that most practices require about a week's notice.

Kineton, Warwickshire

SIR – After our local vet was assimilated into a larger practice 10 miles away, the lady who had always been “our vet” set up a mobile service nearby.

Our cat recently needed an annual check-up, so she made a home visit, staying 30 minutes, and it cost £80, plus any medications - very reasonable for a personal service. Duncan Rayner Sunningdale, Berkshire

A better Christmas ad

SIR – I'm not a fan of the John Lewis Christmas advertisement (report, November 4), with its “spoilt brats”. Many grandchildren do actually love their grandparents, and wouldn't be so rude and dismissive.

Moreover, some parents would tell their little horrors to be more respectful in granny's house, and not to assume that she would entertain them.

This granny should tell her family to take a hike and spend their inheritance on a holiday.

Jo Marchington

London W11

Jolyon Maugham is back, as shameless as ever

The chief of the Good Law Project, having failed in many challenges, is now focusing on anti-Semitism

NICOLE LAMPERT

The self-satisfied, fox-bashing ambulance chaser Jolyon Maugham has long best been seen as a ridiculous figure. Once a lawyer who helped people legally minimise their tax, he re-invented himself as the champion of desperate Remainers by promising to hold the government to account in the Brexit years. It was during that fight that he forged the self-image of himself, sword in hand, righting the wrongs of society. He has likened himself variously to a gladiator, Mandela and Gandhi.

Motivated partly (as he has opened up about) by a difficult upbringing – a stepfather who was allegedly violent, a real father who he only met aged 17 – and because “the child in me wanted to be heard”, in recent years his Good Law Project (a misnomer) has ricocheted around the culture wars like a drunk man in a prison cell. From trans issues, to Covid and climate change, he’s got involved with all of them.

former barrister Barbara Rich attacked him for using a petition to fund-raise and grow his organisation's database, he labelled her "a classic internet troll – even if dressed in the sort of polite white grandmother clothes that those who have never bothered to examine their biases assumes equates to civilised".

And other times it is ridiculous: he announced plans to campaign against the Christmas lights on Oxford Street because they were based on Harry Potter, and the wizard hero's creator JK Rowling is deemed beyond the pale by the likes of Maugham. The campaign is called: "Pull the plug on transphobia".

Almost every time he makes a pronouncement, it's accompanied by a "donate" button. In January, his company reported an income of more than £6m, with nearly £4m of that coming from public donations. A big funder of the Good Law Project is Dale Vince, the well-connected "pro-Palestine" eco-millionaire whose keffiyeh appears to be glued to his neck

So perhaps it was no surprise that Jews and anti-Semitism would come into Maugham's orbit eventually. But his latest campaign is truly beyond the pale. Even for him.

Last month, a government-commissioned report by former Ofsted chief Sir David Bell uncovered the full and nasty extent of hatred against Jewish children in schools.

Sir David said he had been shocked by what he had heard and how the modern manifestations of anti-Semitism were “having a pernicious impact in too many places”.

Among those he heard from was a group called Parents Against Antisemitism, who had collated stories of abuse. These ranged from pupils doing Hitler salutes and turning on Bunsen burners while whispering “all Jews should be gassed”, to children excluded from play because they refused to say they were “Team Palestine”.

Most shocking of all was the discovery that hostility was coming from teachers too, including those who told their pupils “I am for a Free Palestine” and who starting to wear Palestine badges the Monday after the October 7 massacre.

Sir David made 27 recommendations to try to remove this scourge from our schools. All were accepted by the Government. And that is when parts of the Left went crazy, desperately trying to pick apart the report. It was shocking to see how low they were willing to go.

Most controversial of all was Sir David's call for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism to be adopted by schools and colleges. The IHRA definition is the most detailed definition of anti-Semitism, but Israel haters despise it because it was devised, over a torturous period of more than a decade, to try to take in the newer form of anti-Semitism: anti-Zionism or obsessive hatred of Israel and of Zionists, alongside more conventional Jew hatred.

This week the nasal-voiced Maugham – who once described on Twitter how he had bludgeoned a fox to death in his garden while wearing his

wife's kimono – announced he was thinking about suing the Labour Government for accepting the IHRA definition as a starting point for schools to fight anti-Semitism.

The tenor of his fund-raising appeal seemed to be that it should be fine to call Jewish kids Nazis and racist (two things IHRA says are anti-Semitism). "Students whose innocent family members have been killed by Israel's destruction of large parts of Gaza will not be able to say that Israel is a racist state or that its actions are reminiscent of the Shoah," he raged, while insisting there had to be "space for criticism of Israel's appalling actions. We think those criticisms are important, are necessary in a moral society."

The problem for him is two-fold: schools are meant to be politically neutral places. That doesn't mean that Israel will never be criticised in schools, simply that it has to be done in a neutral way. Sir David's report emphasises this.

The other is that harassing Jews, in particular children, is not conducive to a moral society. In fact, it breaks the Equality Act.

The only possible glimmer of light comes in the knowledge that almost all Maugham touches turns to dust. Most of his well-financed judicial reviews and legal actions end in failure.

But I wonder how he squares this with his own heroic self-image. He is the Mandela figure whose latest grifting wheeze is to halt plans to stop Jewish children being abused in our schools. Do you think he realises just how low he has gone?

PlusWord No 1627

Puzzles, Mind Games & Telegraph Toughie

KAKURO

To solve kakuro you must enter a number between 1 and 9 in the empty squares without repeating a digit. The clues are the numbers on the black squares and are the sum of the solution numbers. The clue pointers indicate the direction of the answers. A block of two squares with a clue of 3 will solve as 2,1 and a 5 will produce 4,1 or 2,3. A 4 can only be 1,3, never 2,2. Solution tomorrow.

KILLER SUDOKU

Your clues are the caged numbers that represent the sum of the numbers within the cage. As in standard sudoku, each 3 x 3 box, each row and each column must contain all the numbers 1 to 9. Solution tomorrow.

TOUGH

[ANAGRAMS] —TELEGRAPH —TOUGHIE—

Each of the anagrams below spells out the name of a sporting great. Solution tomorrow.

[ANAGRAMS] —TELEGRAPH —TOUGHIE—

Each of the anagrams below spells out the name of a sporting great. Solution tomorrow.

CODEWORDS

The image contains only dashed red lines on a light background. According to Rule 2, such lines must be ignored by the OCR result. Therefore, the corrected OCR text is:

[Empty String]

LAW RELICS

SLIM EBONIES

AN AFAR LADLE

Numbers are substituted for letters in this crossword grid. In the smaller key grid some letters are solved. Use these as clues to complete your first word. This will solve more letters that you can then enter in the grids. Solutions tomorrow.

NO 3787

POTOROO

For today's right-hand codewords solutions call 0905 757 0131. For up to five extra letter clues call 0905 757 0130 or text DTCODE (leaving no spaces) to 64343. Calls cost £1 per minute, plus network access charge; texts cost £1, plus network access charge. You must be 18 or over and have the bill payer's permission. Services open Mon - Fri. SP: Spoke Ltd - Helpline 0333 202 3390.

REGULAR NO 7495

SUDOKU

To solve this puzzle each $3 \times 3$ box, each row and also each column must contain all the numbers from 1 to 9. There are numerous strategies to help you solve sudoku. Solutions tomorrow. | 2 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 6 | Sudoku Solution For today's tough sudoku solution call 0905 757 0136. Calls cost £1 per minute, plus network access charge. You must be 18 or over and have the bill payer's permission. Services open Mon – Fri. SP: Spoke – 0333 202 3390.

Down

2 Quavering sound of excitement husband released (5)

3 Without anything new, again presenting garnish he prepared (9)

4 Imaginative portrait framing old alien (6)

5 Assemble habitants here around me at once (2,3,4,6)

6 Prayer welcoming God in excess (8)

7 Plane lost somewhere mountainous (5)

8 Mike, free at last, quietly boarding famous boat for Disneyland? (5,4)

14 Independent vote in Ohio moved the people (3,6)

16 Place to experiment with electronic metal broadcast for fellow musician (9)

17 Gruesome opening across radius bone (8)

20 Stomach muscle twisted during play (6)

22 Passing head of police concealing a substance (5)

24 Smooth bar containing uranium (5)

Toughie No 3786

Help with clues

Single clues 0905 757 0126.

All Across/Down clues 0905 757 0127.

Calls cost £1/minute, plus network access charge. You must be 18 or over and have the bill payer's permission. Service open Mon-Fri. SP: Spoke Ltd – Helpline 0333 2023390.

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TRAIN TRACKS

Lay down tracks to allow a train to travel from A to B. Only use straight and curved rails and the track cannot cross itself. The numbers indicate how many sections of rail go in each column and row. Solution tomorrow.

MINI SUDOKU

Fill in the grid in such a way that every row and column and every 2 x 3 box contains the numbers 1-6. Solution tomorrow.

MODERATE NO 4736

[PLUSWORD] NO 1628

Solve the crossword, then use letters in the shaded squares to complete the additional PlusWord. A letter in a green square appears in the same column in the PlusWord as it does in the crossword; a letter in a yellow square appears in the PlusWord, but in a different column than it does in the crossword. There is only one possible answer for the PlusWord; it may be that the PlusWord contains letters that aren't found in the crossword, but it can always be worked out logically without guessing. Solution tomorrow.

Across

1 Method of dyeing fabric using wax

6 Severe pain

7 Jargon

8 Poet who called April “the cruellest month”

9 Right-hand page of a book

[PLUSWORD] NO 1628

Solve the crossword, then use letters in the shaded squares to complete the additional PlusWord. A letter in a green square appears in the same column in the PlusWord as it does in the crossword; a letter in a yellow square appears in the PlusWord, but in a different column than it does in the crossword. There is only one possible answer for the PlusWord; it may be that the PlusWord contains letters that aren't found in the crossword, but it can always be worked out logically without guessing. Solution tomorrow.

Across

1 Method of dyeing fabric using wax

6 Severe pain

7 Jargon

8 Poet who called April “the cruellest month”

9 Right-hand page of a book

[PLUSWORD] NO 1628

Solve the crossword, then use letters in the shaded squares to complete the additional PlusWord. A letter in a green square appears in the same column in the PlusWord as it does in the crossword; a letter in a yellow square appears in the PlusWord, but in a different column than it does in the crossword. There is only one possible answer for the PlusWord; it may be that the PlusWord contains letters that aren't found in the crossword, but it can always be worked out logically without guessing. Solution tomorrow.

Across

1 Method of dyeing fabric using wax

6 Severe pain

7 Jargon

8 Poet who called April “the cruellest month”

9 Right-hand page of a book

[PLUSWORD] NO 1628

Solve the crossword, then use letters in the shaded squares to complete the additional PlusWord. A letter in a green square appears in the same column in the PlusWord as it does in the crossword; a letter in a yellow square appears in the PlusWord, but in a different column than it does in the crossword. There is only one possible answer for the PlusWord; it may be that the PlusWord contains letters that aren't found in the crossword, but it can always be worked out logically without guessing. Solution tomorrow.

Across

1 Method of dyeing fabric using wax

6 Severe pain

7 Jargon

8 Poet who called April “the cruellest month”

9 Right-hand page of a book

Down

1 Machine for bundling hay

2 Nimble

3 Mixer for gin

4 Metal block

5 Asian city; OK toy (anag.)

WORD LADDER

Change just one letter to go from the top word to the bottom word. Each step must be a valid word and you cannot change the order of the letters. There are clues below for each rung, but they are not necessarily in order. Solution tomorrow. THINKER, ICE HOCKEY'S "BALL", DIANTHUS, RECOVER, MUSTELINE, SELECT

THE SOLUTIONS

The Telegraph PUZZLES

Try all of our Puzzles free.

Visit telegraph.co.uk/

play-puzzles

Yesterday's solutions | | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 2 | Word Ladder: Hull, mull, mule, male, mace, mach, each, etch.

Anagrams: 1. Delusion 2. Displacement 3. Conditioning.

Panagram: Endorphin, nephron, phonier, dehorn, heroin, hinder, honied, horned, phoned, dhoni, ephod, ephor, heron, hider, hired, honed, hoped, hoper, horde, phone, rhino, heir, herd, hero, herp, hide, hied, hind, hire, hoed, hoer, hone, hope, hopi, horn, phon.

Today's Mind Gym

Beginner: 16 Intermediate: 96 Advanced: 19 | D | A | R | C | Y | I | D | A | H | O | N | O | W | I | N | G | R | E | E | K | S | E | R | F | S | Train Tracks

Mini Sudoku No 4735

Codewords 1 and 2

1 P G 3 K E A 4 E A 5 6 W N Z H B R T Q

14 O L 16 J 17 I Y 18 19 X F D U C V S M

2 R N B 3 Y I P 6 W G 9 J U C Z E

14 K A O Q F H V D S L X M T

Page 24

The Daily Telegraph Thursday 5 November 2026

The Telegraph PUZZLES

Try all of our Puzzles free.

Visit telegraph.co.uk/

play-puzzles

Yesterday's solutions | | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 2 | Word Ladder: Hull, mull, mule, male, mace, mach, each, etch.

Anagrams: 1. Delusion 2. Displacement 3. Conditioning.

Panagram: Endorphin, nephron, phonier, dehorn, heroin, hinder, honied, horned, phoned, dhoni, ephod, ephor, heron, hider, hired, honed, hoped, hoper, horde, phone, rhino, heir, herd, hero, herp, hide, hied, hind, hire, hoed, hoer, hone, hope, hopi, horn, phon.

Today's Mind Gym

Beginner: 16 Intermediate: 96 Advanced: 19 | D | A | R | C | Y | I | D | A | H | O | N | O | W | I | N | G | R | E | E | K | S | E | R | F | S | Train Tracks

Mini Sudoku No 4735

Codewords 1 and 2

1 P G 3 K E A 4 E A 5 6 W N Z H B R T Q

14 O L 16 J 17 I Y 18 19 X F D U C V S M

2 R N B 3 Y I P 6 W G 9 J U C Z E

14 K A O Q F H V D S L X M T

Page 24

The Daily Telegraph Thursday 5 November 2026

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Page 24

Trump bumped?

US president rages at

Fox as Republican voters

turn away from

US cable news network

Page 20

Power hacks

It's not just fridges:

Britain's electricity

grid is dangerously

exposed as well

Helen MacNamara

M&S chief attacks Labour for tax ‘onslaught’

Stuart Machin says retailer is facing £140m in extra costs as a direct result of the past three Budgets

By Jonathan Prynn

THE boss of Marks & Spencer has accused Labour of unleashing “one of the biggest tax grabs in history” in an outspoken attack on the Government.

Stuart Machin, the chief executive of M&S, said the retailer was having to navigate an “onslaught” of higher costs and stricter regulations as a direct result of the three Budgets delivered by Rachel Reeves and John Healey.

Mr Machin said the retailer faced an extra £150m in costs this year, mostly from Labour's 2024 Budget.

This includes an extra £50m in employers' National Insurance contributions, £50m from above-inflation increases in the National Minimum Wage and up to £40m of new packaging taxes. M&S also faces additional costs related to the conflict in the Middle East.

Mr Machin said: "In terms of the Budget overall, I think we all know, it was a whole lot of nothing.

"When you look at the last three Budgets, you just can't ignore the fact that this is probably one of the biggest tax grabs in history that I've seen.

“And of course, that does mean from our perspective that more tax and more regulatory burden just adds so much extra cost and complexity to business.”

John Healey's maiden Budget raised taxes by £6.97bn, while his predecessor Rachel Reeves oversaw £67.82bn of tax rises across her two Budgets, altogether totalling £74.79bn.

Mr Machin said the £40m impact of new packaging regulations and taxes that came into force in April wiped out all food profits that month.

He added that he was “disappointed” with Mr Healey’s Budget last week because “it didn’t really address the issues that we needed to focus on growth”.

Even the Chancellor's freeze on business rates would add another £10m to the retailer's existing business rates bill of £170m, he said.

Mr Machin warned: "When you think of [policies] coming down the road, I can't see things getting any better."

He singled out the “ridiculous” deposit return scheme for plastic and aluminium drinks containers coming into force next October.

One of Britain's most respected bosses, Mr Machin has been a frank critic of Labour's business policies, once describing the previous two Budgets as “a disaster”.

He spoke as M&S released first-half results showing a strong recovery from last year's cyber attack.

The high street giant revealed pre-tax profits of £403.2m for the six months to Sept 26, in line with City analysts' forecasts.

This was more than double the £184.1m recorded last year, when a cyber attack ravaged the company's performance and forced it to stop all online sales for six weeks.

However, it was still well below the £671.4m reported in the previous year.

Mr Machin said there had been no further incidents, but added it would be “naive” to assume hackers would not try again, particularly in light of the recent cyber attacks on supermarket fridges across Europe.

He said: “We can’t ignore it, and we’ve got to manage the risk and also be prepared for any of those things happening and how we recover.”

He added that the turnaround of the non-food division remained “in the foothills” amid challenging market conditions, particularly for fashion, where results fell short of expectations.

Non-food operating profits of £150.5m were a strong recovery from last year's £46.1m, but still trailed the £243.4m in 2024.

The company blamed “availability disruption reflecting the long-tail impact of the incident and lower store sales during the prolonged summer heat”.

However, food sales grew by 13.9pc, delivering an operating profit of £288.6m, compared with £89.1m last year and well above the £216.4m achieved in 2024.

Grocery sales through M&S's joint venture with online supermarket Ocado were up 22.8pc.

Mr Machin said the company had invested £50m in 300 “key family staples” in the first half of the year, with price reductions including a 500g pack of diced beef down to £6 and a pack of free-range eggs at £1.40.

Your veterans need you John Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sells poppies at Liverpool Street Station in central London to raise funds for the Royal British Legion.

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ITV takeover triggers fears of White House meddling

By James Warrington

LISA NANDY has ordered regulators to carry out a review of Sky's £1.6bn takeover of ITV, citing concerns that the broadcaster could fall victim to interference by Donald Trump.

The Culture Secretary has told Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to draw up reports on the merger, which would result in US-owned Sky taking control of ITV's channels and streaming service.

Ofcom will consider the effect of the deal on freedom of expression and plurality of views in news media, while the CMA will review the effect on Britain's broadcasting market.

The swoop has triggered concerns about the British broadcaster falling into foreign ownership, as well as the effect on news provision in the UK.

In a letter to Sky, Ms Nandy said both US cable giant Comcast – which owns Sky – and its subsidiary NBCUniversal were facing “ongoing political and regulatory scrutiny” in the US.

This includes an investigation launched by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a regulator led by Brendan Carr, an ally of Mr Trump, over its agreements with local stations in the US. The FCC launched a separate investigation last year into Comcast's diversity policies.

Ms Nandy wrote: “There is a question over whether, in the absence of undertakings, consequences of such scrutiny in the US could affect Sky or ITV’s ability to report freely.”

Mr Trump's assault on the media has been a hallmark of his second term, with the US president filing a \$10bn (£7.4bn) defamation lawsuit against the BBC over a misleading edit of a Panorama documentary.

A judge has ruled that Mr Trump must face questions from lawyers before the end of the year.

But the US president has reserved particular animosity for Comcast, branding Brian Roberts, the chief executive, a “disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting”.

Despite this, the US company donated \$7.5m to help fund Mr Trump's new White House ballroom.

Mr Trump's administration has also clashed with Ofcom, claiming that Britain's new online safety laws were harming free speech.

Alongside the public interest intervention notice, Ms Nandy will also expand existing laws to cover on-demand programming.

The regulators have been given until Jan 27 to report back, after which Ms Nandy will decide whether to refer the deal to a more detailed investigation.

A Sky spokesman said: “We believe the transaction is in the public interest, with clear commitments already made to protect ITV’s identity, public service broadcasting obligations and the distinct editorial voices of Sky News and ITV News.”

Burnham approves permanent ban on new drilling in the North Sea

By Jonathan Leake

ANDY BURNHAM is poised to ban drilling for new oil and gas in the UK to end exploration in the North Sea.

The Prime Minister has backed an energy bill that would put into law a permanent prohibition on new drilling, a move to make it harder for ministers to reverse the ban in future.

Energy exploration in the UK is subject to the temporary moratorium originally imposed by Ed Miliband, the former energy secretary, but this could be lifted by a future energy secretary. Mr

Burnham is now supporting new laws being introduced by Mr Miliband's successor, Miatta Fahnbulleh, that would make it harder to reopen the North Sea.

Repealing the proposed new law would need a parliamentary majority.

The Government said the energy independence bill would deliver on its “pragmatic approach to the North Sea, by ending new licences to explore new oil and gas fields while supporting continued production from existing licensed areas”.

If approved by Parliament, the new laws would allow oil companies to keep operating existing licensed oil and gas fields until they are depleted. But they would be able to drill new wells only if they could be connected to existing infrastructure by subsea pipelines known as tiebacks.

The move follows the approval last month of the Jackdaw gas field, which operates under an existing licence and uses a tieback to pump gas into established pipelines.

Labour is yet to make a decision on the giant Rosebank oil field, west of Shetland, which also has an existing licence. Both the Conservatives and ‘This will leave households and businesses exposed in an increasingly volatile world’

Reform UK have pledged to restart North Sea exploration and drilling were they to win power.

Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy secretary, criticised Mr Burnham's plans warning: "Labour's so-called energy independence bill will only make Britain more dependent on oil and gas imports. Labour might as well hang a ‘closed for business’ sign over our North Sea.”

The legislation honours Labour's 2024 manifesto pledge, which stated: "We will not issue new licences to explore new fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis."

Some energy insiders and investors disagree, including Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos group. David Bucknall, the head of subsidiary Ineos Energy, which has a raft of North Sea assets, said: "The Government's legislation to ban new drilling in the North Sea would actively decrease energy security in the UK. Leaving existing resources in the ground at home while we import the same resources from abroad makes our energy autonomy a victim of global instability."

David Whitehouse, the chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, a trade body for Britain's oil and gas producers, said the planned bill would simply make the UK more dependent on imported oil and gas. "This will leave households and businesses exposed in an increasingly volatile world," he said.

Musk empire suffers \$159bn midterms hit

By Chris Price

ELON MUSK'S Tesla and SpaceX lost nearly \$159bn (£118bn) in market value when New York opened yesterday amid fears the Democrats' success in the US midterm elections will derail the AI boom.

The carmaker and rocket company both fell 5.8pc as Wall Street opened after the Democrats swept to victory in Congress, although they pared losses later.

Mr Musk, the billionaire boss of both companies, was the leading donor to the Republicans during the election campaign as he hoped for light-touch regulation of his AI ambitions.

However, analysts said the Democrat victory would slow down the pace of the rapid build-out of data centres.

Democrat Gina Hinojosa won the race for Texas Governor and is expected to oppose the rapid build-out of AI.

A sharp decline in the value of data-centre developers Tesla and SpaceX, both based in Texas, would wipe billions off Mr Musk's nearly \$900bn fortune. He spent \$446m on backing failed Republican candidates.

As the Democrat victory emerged, Mr Musk wrote on X: “Data centres in space looking pretty appealing right now.”

He later wrote: “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.”

Accenture research ‘full of AI hallucinations’

By Louis Goss

ACCENTURE has been accused of publishing research that contained a litany of AI hallucinations, amid concerns about the technology's shortcomings.

The consultancy giant is under scrutiny for releasing a report that allegedly contains 15 fake citations and entirely fictitious case studies, according to analysis by GPT Zero.

The paper, titled “Leapfrogging Development” and published in collaboration with researchers from IE University in Madrid, sought to explore how AI could improve the productivity of Africa's agricultural industries.

Accenture has denied that the errors were because of AI. However, it will serve as an embarrassing setback for Accenture after management previously threatened to dismiss staff who did not embrace AI. Julie Sweet, Accenture's chief executive, warned last year that as part of its AI transformation efforts, the firm would be "exiting" consultants who failed to use the technology.

The report from GPT Zero highlights concerns about the increasing use of AI in the consulting industry, including the risk that AI hallucinations could “poison the informational well” by surfacing fake information in chatbot responses and summaries.

An Accenture spokesman sought to contest the research by GPT Zero, claiming: "Our review indicates that the errors identified were the result of human error. There is no evidence to support the conclusion that they were generated through AI hallucination. The report is being corrected ahead of a re-release."

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