The Princess of Wales has finished her chemotherapy and is now focused on staying cancer-free, she has said.

In an emotional message, accompanied by footage of the Princess and her young family, she said her illness had given her a “new perspective on everything” and a renewed focus on the “simple yet important things in life”.

Acknowledging that the “cancer journey” had been “complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone”, she said it brought patients “face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before”.

The Princess will begin her gradual return to a light programme of public engagements. But she emphasised: “Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus.”

The video, shot in Norfolk in August, shows the Wales family as they have never been seen by the public before.

The Prince and Princess are filmed kissing, her head resting on his shoulder, and enveloping Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis in hugs.

Catherine is seen walking through cornfields, driving, playing cards with her parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, and helping the children climb trees and scramble up haybales.

In one intimate shot, the family are seen lying on a Norfolk beach, embracing.

It is intended to illustrate the Princess’s message that she has renewed gratitude for the “simple yet important things in life”, “of simply loving and being loved”.

The Princess is expected to attend a handful of public engagements before the end of the year, subject to changes in her health.

They are likely to include appearing at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and hosting her annual Westminster Abbey carol concert for children. She will also hold a “small number” of meetings, some of which will appear in the Court Circular.

In March, the Princess released a video message telling the world that, following major abdominal surgery in January, “tests after the operation found cancer had been present” and that her “medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy”.

The footage in Monday’s second video message was filmed by Will Warr, who has previously produced videos of the Princess and her children visiting a baby bank, and of the family preparing for the Coronation.

It includes what appears to be self-shot footage, with Prince George saying: “Is this on?” as he fiddles with a camera, and his siblings shouting: “Hello!”

The Princess, who finishes the video by watching a butterfly land on her hands and fly away again, says: “As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment.

“The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family. Life as you know it can change in an instant, and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown.

“The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.

“This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved.

“Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long, and I must continue to take each day as it comes.

“I am, however, looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can. Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.”

In a direct message to the public, she added: “William and I are so grateful for the support we have received, and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time. Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling.

“To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey – I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand. Out of darkness can come light, so let that light shine bright.”

The video was released by Kensington Palace as the Wales family returned to work and school following their summer holidays. They have spent the summer out of the spotlight, enjoying time at their home in Norfolk as well as their annual trip to join the Royal family at Balmoral.

The Princess was photographed on Aug 25 on her way to church at Balmoral, being driven by Prince William and looking well. She was also spotted with her husband and three children at a family festival in Norfolk this summer, where they are said to have abseiled and played Nerf gun wars.

Kensington Palace last updated the public on the Princess’s condition in June, when it issued a written statement saying she was making “good progress” in her chemotherapy but was “not out of the woods yet”.

The Princess said she was having “good days and bad days”, and learning to be “patient” in allowing herself to heal.

The following day, on June 15, she joined Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis for Trooping the Colour, the King’s birthday parade, riding in a carriage before appearing with the full working family on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

In July, the Princess attended the men’s final at Wimbledon, where she received a standing ovation to welcome her and her daughter to their seats.

The Princess had major abdominal surgery in January, spending nearly two weeks in hospital for an undisclosed condition. In March, she released a personal video telling the world she was having treatment following the discovery of cancer.

At the time of the update, on March 22, the Palace said the Princess would return to official duties only when she was “cleared to do so by her medical team”.

Dismissals for gross misconduct at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are at a five-year-high, data reveals.

So far this year, 179 tax office workers have been sacked for serious breaches of workplace conduct, an increase of 43pc since 2020.

This is the highest number in at least five years, according to figures obtained by The Telegraph in a freedom of information request.

Gross misconduct is behaviour so serious that it can warrant instant dismissal.

Examples include bullying, theft, intoxication, damage to company property, gross negligence or other behaviours that could harm the organisation.

At HMRC, it could include the unlawful disclosure of sensitive taxpayer information or fraud undertaken using company systems.

Earlier this year, a tax office worker was jailed for two years and four months after abusing her role to defraud the taxpayer out of £300,000 in child benefit.

Tracy Ashbridge falsely claimed three of her children were disabled and also submitted false tax credit claims for another 15 children. She used details from her work computer system of members of the public to facilitate some of the frauds.

The 179 workers fired for gross misconduct in 2024 made up over half of all 321 dismissals at HMRC, which employs over 65,000 staff. But in 2020, only 28pc (125) of all dismissals (441) were for gross misconduct.

Steve Sweetlove, of accountancy firm RSM, said: “On the face of it, an uptick in dismissals for gross misconduct could be seen as a troubling trend but it may highlight that a firmer stance is being taken by HMRC in staff disciplinary matters.

“Given the vital role HMRC staff play in dealing with taxpayer data and collecting revenues for the government, cases of gross negligence can represent a really serious issue so it’s important that appropriate action is taken where necessary.

“HMRC is set to receive more funding to recruit additional staff so it will be crucial that support is in place to help staff with training new recruits so they appreciate the standards of conduct expected of them.”

It comes as customer service at the tax office is at an “all-time low” as it struggles to cope with the rising taxpayer population.

The taxman answered only 66pc of customers’ calls last year against a target of 85pc and down from 71pc in 2022-23.

Demand for its services has surged as taxpayers have been dragged into higher rates of tax due to frozen thresholds.

At the start of this year the Public Accounts Committee, an influential group of MPs, concluded HMRC’s service levels were at an all-time low after it received an “unprecedented” number of written submissions about the tax office’s poor performance.

An HMRC spokesman said: “All large organisations will face occasional issues with staff behaviour, and we take all allegations seriously to ensure we work in an inclusive environment that is friendly, tolerant and respectful.

“All our employees must ensure they follow our code of conduct alongside the civil service code, with breaches looked into and if necessary investigated, potentially resulting in dismissal.”

Russian drones breached the airspace of two Nato members in less than 24 hours, sparking calls for a joint response from the Western military alliance.

One of the drones reportedly flew into Romania on Sunday during a night-time attack on neighbouring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the day before.

Bucharest dispatched F-16 fighter jets to monitor the skies and issued text warning alerts to the residents of two eastern regions.

Latvia’s defence minister said a Russian drone had fallen near the town of Rezekne on Saturday and was likely to have strayed into the country from neighbouring Belarus, an ally of Russia.

Both countries issued initial incident reports to their Nato allies as fuller investigations were launched.

“This situation is a confirmation that we need to continue the work we have started to strengthen Latvia’s eastern border, including the development of air defence capabilities and electronic warfare capabilities to limit the activities of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] of different applications,” said Andrea Spruds, the Latvian defence minister.

Edgar Rinkevics, the Latvian president, wrote on social media: “We are in close contact with our allies. The number of such incidents is increasing along the eastern flank of Nato, and we must address them collectively.”

A statement issued by the country’s defence ministry said: “Latvian airspace is part of Nato airspace.”

Bucharest condemned what it described as a “renewed violation” triggered by Moscow’s “illegal attacks” on Ukraine.

Fragments of the drone were discovered in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, situated across the Danube river from the Ukrainian port town of Ismail, a frequent target for Russian attacks.

Alliance members on Nato’s eastern flank have had to deal with threats posed by Russian missiles and drones on numerous occasions since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In November 2022, a Russian missile hit Poland, killing two people. Warsaw is also searching its territory for a Russian drone that crashed on its side of the border earlier this summer.

Russian drones have also strayed into Romanian airspace on multiple occasions during Moscow’s bombardment of Ukraine’s Danube ports.

None of the incidents have been deemed significant enough to trigger any of Nato’s collective responses, including its Article Five mutual defence clause, which signifies that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Mircea Geoana, Nato’s outgoing deputy secretary-general, who is Romanian, said on Sunday: “Nato condemns the overnight Russian airspace violation into Romanian airspace. 

“While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous.”

A senior Scotland Yard officer has admitted the force made mistakes in its handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner of the Met Police responsible for public order policing, said the force “didn’t get everything right, particularly in the early stages in October”.

In an interview with the Policy Exchange think tank for a report on the protests, published on Monday, Mr Twist cited the decision not to immediately arrest demonstrators shouting “jihad”.

“On occasion we did not move quickly to make arrests, for example, the man chanting for ‘jihad’, which was a decision made following fast-time advice from lawyers and the Crown Prosecution Service,” he said.

However, Mr Twist said police had developed their tactics since then to be faster and more decisive, adding: “We are now much more focused on identifying reasonable grounds for arrest, acting where needed and then investigating, so in these circumstances it’s very likely arrests would be made more quickly now.”

He also rejected accusations of “two-tier or differential policing” in how the Met handled the pro-Palestinian protests, claiming instead that the force had had an “infinite number of tiers of policing”.

“In public order policing, we are neutral as to the cause that is being protested. We base policing tactics on the threat, harm and risk based on the information and intelligence available to us,” he said. “In that sense, there is no such thing as two-tier or differential policing – there are, in fact, an infinite number of tiers of policing, depending on the threat, harm and risk.”

The Policy Exchange report, published ahead of a Government review of policing protests, also revealed that town and city centres where there were protests had effectively become “no-go” zones for many members of the public.

More than two-thirds of 1,500 adults polled for the think tank said they would drop plans to travel into towns or city centres with small children, or elderly or disabled relatives if there were a major protest taking place.

The report said that too often, the police, prosecutors, the Government and the courts had wrongly failed to prioritise the rights of members of the public over those of disruptive protesters.

More than 80 per cent of the people polled said police should intervene when protesters damaged private property, approached passers-by to shout at or threaten them, or held banners with racist or derogatory slogans.

More than three-quarters said police should also intervene when protesters obstructed roads, preventing traffic passing, blocked access to public transport or people’s workplaces or climbed on buildings or public monuments.

The report revealed that the cost of policing the protests in London between October 2023 and June this year was £42.9 million.

The operations saw 51,799 police officer shifts deployed and diverted from covering ordinary crime issues in London, such as knife crime, violence against women and girls, and antisocial behaviour. A further 9,639 police officer shifts were diverted into London from elsewhere in the country. 

Over the first six months of protests, each of the major marches – which have been held regularly in the capital since October – have taken over an average of 3.6 kilometres of major London streets for an average of five hours at a time.

The report made more than 20 recommendations, such as giving police greater powers to prohibit protests if there is a risk of serious public disorder, including allowing them to take account of the cumulative disruption from successive demonstrations. 

It said protesters should also be required to give 28 days’ notice to allow more time for police and other agencies to prepare.

A sadistic killer who was jailed for life after carving swastikas on his victim’s body has been cleared to be freed into the community by the Parole Board.

Stephen Ling, a farm worker who raped and stabbed Joanne Tulip 60 times at his home in Stamfordham, Northumberland, on Christmas Day 1997 has been recommended for release by the board despite a campaign by her family to keep him behind bars.

Ms Tulip’s mother, Doreen Soulsby, has been fighting against the release of Ling, who was convicted of the rape and murder of her 29-year-old daughter, for 26 years.

She successfully persuaded Dominic Raab, then the justice secretary, to block Ling’s attempt to move to an open prison in 2022 – the first time such powers had been used.

However, at a Parole Board hearing in July, two psychologists said they were recommending that Ling should be released, although they added that he should be placed on a risk-management plan.

Psychologist A said she believed the risk Ling posed was “not imminent” and was “manageable in the community”, adding: “I believe that now means his risk is at a level where he does not need to be kept in prison any more.”

After luring her to his home, Ling raped Ms Tulip, a hairdresser, before stabbing her 60 times. He carved images on her body including swastikas and crosses.

Although he was jailed for life, the minimum term he had to serve was set at 18 years, meaning he could apply for parole every two years from that point.

Justice Secretary urged to intervene

Mrs Soulsby urged Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, to intervene and use her legal powers to force the Parole Board to reconsider its decision. Ms Mahmood cannot overrule the decision, but can request a rethink.

“I’m absolutely appalled and disgusted the Parole Board have made the recommended decision to release my daughter’s murderer into the community,” said Mrs Soulsby.

“That man committed horrific offences against my daughter and yet is deemed to not be a high risk and is safe to be released from prison. It’s outrageous.

“How can the Parole Board believe this man doesn’t pose a danger to society when he took my daughter away from her family by committing the most brutal and sadistic crimes? Ling needs to stay locked up behind bars – he is a danger to all women and girls.

“The Government are supposedly committed to halving violence against women and girls. If they are true to their word, then they will block this recommendation and will keep Ling in a closed prison.

“If Ling is released and the Justice Secretary does not take action, there will be public outcry, and confidence in the justice system will be severely damaged and will never be restored.”

Required to wear GPS electronic tag

In its published ruling, the board said it had concluded that Ling posed a medium risk of causing serious harm but was unlikely to do so unless there was a “significant change” in his circumstances.

“The panel considered the type of significant change of circumstance which could lead to an increase in his risk would be something that happened over a long period of time, and that warning signs would be apparent to those supervising him before his risk increased to a level that may result in harm to others,” it said.

Ling will be required to wear a GPS electronic tag for a year and live in designated accommodation. He will be subject to strict limits on his contacts, activities and movements including an exclusion zone to prevent him from contacting the victim’s family.

Police and probation officers are also allowed to check his internet use.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Joanne Tulip at this difficult time.

“The Lord Chancellor’s first priority is keeping the public safe. She has asked officials to scrutinise whether the decision should be returned to the Parole Board to reconsider.”

David Knowles, the Telegraph journalist behind the award-winning Ukraine: The Latest podcast, has died.

Mr Knowles, 32, who worked as a senior audio journalist and presenter, died while in Gibraltar on Sunday following what was believed to be a cardiac arrest.

He joined The Telegraph in 2020 as deputy head of social media and was later promoted to head of social media.

Upon the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022, Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest, a weekday podcast that is still running two years later.

This year, Ukraine: The Latest won the Best News Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards.

Mr Knowles’s father, Peter, described his eldest son as someone who “loved life and he lived it just as well as he could”.

He said: “David’s commitment to journalism was intense. He was never more proud than when he finally shrugged off a management job title and regained a title with the word ‘journalist’ in it, and he was utterly engaged with the story of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the impact on its people, making four trips to the country and always planning the next.”

Chris Evans, the editor of The Telegraph, said: “David was a talented and popular journalist who was perhaps best known for helping to make our Ukraine podcast such a success. Before that, he was an impressive leader of our social media team. We would like to offer our sympathy to his family and friends.”

Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest as a Twitter Space before it became a fully fledged podcast. Starting on the day of the Russian invasion in February 2022, it is now approaching 100 million downloads.

He anchored the podcast and became known as its “voice”, travelling across Ukraine with his audio equipment to capture stories to pull into special episodes that told how the lives of ordinary Ukrainian people were being destroyed by Putin’s war.

He and the podcast team also toured the show in America last year, where a large part of its audience is based.

More recently, Mr Knowles and the team were invited to speak at the US embassy in London, at the Chalke History Festival, and at Armed Forces Day in Scarborough about the Ukraine war.

Harrods has begun selling luxury peaches grown in Japan’s Fukushima region, which 13 years ago, suffered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The first of the unusually sweet white peaches, which cost £80 for a box of three, went on sale on Saturday at the Knightsbridge department store.

It is the first time peaches from Fukushima, in northeast Japan, will be sold in a British shop and comes amid fears over the risk of radioactive contamination of food products from the area.

The sales campaign is being run by The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operators of the Fukushima plant, who are now in charge of its decommissioning. It is part of an effort to dispel negative associations and improve export sales to help the region recover.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed in March 2011, after a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake generated powerful tsunami waves causing meltdowns in three reactors.

It forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 residents across the region, thousands of whom have never returned, despite dissipating levels of radiation.

Britain lifted the last of the import restrictions on food products from Fukushima, largely consisting of fish and seafood, in 2022. Such products are only imported to the UK in small quantities and sold to Japanese restaurants and specialist stores.

Tokyo, at the time, thanked the UK for making decisions “based on scientific evidence” that will help the “reconstruction” of the region.

Fukushima’s peaches were sold at the annual Japan Festival in London last October and reportedly sold out, sparking the deal with Harrods, which will also start selling Shine Muscat grapes from the region in October.

The peaches are prized for their exceptional taste, perfect form and reputation as the world’s sweetest – and most expensive – peaches, with sugar content more than double usual supermarket varieties.

“We would like to continue to convey the appeal and tastiness of Fukushima Prefecture’s produce to the world,” an official from Tepco told Japan News.

Harrods has been approached for comment.

Other promotional food events will also take place across the US, where rice and scallops from Fukushima will be promoted.

The mountainous region of Fukushima is the second biggest producer of peaches in Japan, accounting for more than a quarter of the industry, with its tasty fruits attributed to a combination of fertile soil and an amenable climate.

Known for its rich agricultural heritage in Japan, it is renowned for its cherries, pears and grapes as well as peaches, painstakingly cultivated by local farmers. Its local seafood, quality white rice and nihonshu sake is also famed across Japan.

Since the 2011 nuclear disaster, however, farmers and fishermen have been hit hard due to safety concerns over radiation, despite regular testing and reassurances from the government that the food is safe.

The international peach promotion comes as a trial to remove the highly radioactive debris from the destroyed Fukushima plant is set to begin on Tuesday.

An earlier attempt to retrieve around 880 tons of extremely hazardous material stuck inside its reactors – the most daunting part of the decade-long project to decommission the plant – had failed.

Russia said on Sunday its forces had taken full control of a town in eastern Ukraine as they advance on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk and seek to pierce the Ukrainian defensive front lines.

Russian forces, which control about a fifth of Ukraine since invading in February 2022, are advancing in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take the whole of the Donbas region, which is about half the size of the US state of Ohio.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken the town of Novohrodivka, which lies 12 km (7 miles) from Pokrovsk, an important rail and road hub for Ukrainian forces in the area. The town had a population of 14,000 before the war.

Yuri Podolyaka, an influential Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, published maps showing Russian forces attacking beyond Novohrodivka in at least two places less than 7 km (4 miles) from Pokrovsk.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian military, in a report issued on Sunday evening, gave details of fighting throughout the Pokrovsk sector, including Novohrodivka. It said 29 attempted Russian advances had been repelled, with seven skirmishes continuing. “Our troops are taking measures to maintain designated positions,” it said.

But in an interview with a Ukrainian officer broadcast last week by US-funded Radio Liberty, he said Ukrainian forces had abandoned Novohrodivka on grounds that the positions there were not favourable for defending it.

Popular Ukrainian war blog DeepState said Russian forces had captured the village of Nevelske, to the southeast.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side due to restrictions on reporting in the war.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said last week that a Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk had failed to slow Russia’s own advance in eastern Ukraine and had weakened Kyiv’s defences along the front line in a boost to Moscow.

Ukraine’s top military commander said on Thursday that Kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region was working. Russian forces, he said, had made no progress in their advance on Pokrovsk for the previous six days.

He said that one of the objectives of the Kursk incursion was to divert Russian forces from other areas, primarily Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. Russia had diverted large numbers to Kursk, but was also strengthening the Pokrovsk front, he added.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Kursk operation was also to prevent Russian forces from crossing the border in the opposite direction.

Russia currently controls about 80 per cent of Donbas. Given the speed of recent Russian advances in the east, some Russian war bloggers have raised concern about the army overreaching itself.

Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine more than two and a half years ago in what he calls a special military operation. Ukraine and its Western backers have vowed to defeat Russian forces and expel all Russian troops.

At least 52 people have been killed after a fuel tanker collided head on with a lorry carrying passengers and cattle in central Nigeria.

The crash caused an explosion that destroyed both vehicles, which had been travelling in Niger State on Saturday night.

Abdullahi Baba-Arab, the director general of the Niger State Emergency Agency, said rescuers were still working to recover bodies from inside the truck. 

Video footage showed the wreckage of the two burnt-out vehicles alongside dead cattle.

‘Worst accident in many years’

Hussain Ibrahim, a spokesman for the agency, told the BBC that funerals for the victims had taken place on Sunday.

“We had a mass burial for 52 people yesterday, and we have eight people receiving treatment at the hospital,” he said. “This, without doubt, is the worst accident we have recorded in many years.”

He added that the Niger state government was paying the hospital bills of those injured.

Mohammed Bago, the governor of Niger State, asked nearby residents to remain calm and called on road users to “always be cautious and abide by road traffic regulations to safeguard lives and property”.

Fatal truck accidents are common on major roads in Nigeria in the absence of an efficient railway system to transport goods.

Donald Trump will face off against Kamala Harris in a presidential debate that marks one of the centrepieces of a fraught and close election.

The debate, in Philadelphia on Tuesday night at 9am local time (2am BST), is being hosted by ABC.

Here are some of the key points that could make or break the night for both candidates.

Trump’s temperament – will he keep his cool?

Donald Trump’s temperament will, as ever, be under scrutiny. It’s not clear that Trump, who has been at the centre of US politics for eight years, is willing or even able to change his approach, which has traditionally been heavy on attack and generating political entertainment.

His advisers have been urging him to tone down the more personal tirades, especially any with hints of sexism, against Ms Harris, fearing that they do not land in the same way under a national TV spotlight as they did against Joe Biden.

Trump was widely criticised for his overbearing manner with Hillary Clinton in 2016, though he went on to win that election.

In that debate, he said he believed “my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.”

At the same time, Trump showed some restraint in his debate with Mr Biden in July, perhaps sensing that it would not serve him well to go hard on the ailing Democrat.

Still, the Harris campaign may be hoping Trump will overstep, giving Ms Harris an opening to unleash her skills as a calm former prosecutor.

Harris’s record

Trump’s main objective will be to tie Ms Harris to the Biden administration’s record on immigration and border control.

It is estimated that at least 9 million migrants have crossed the US-Mexico border since 2020.

But he’ll also go after Ms Harris’s record as prosecutor in San Francisco and changing her positions on fracking and electric vehicle mandates among others. Ms Harris says her “values have not changed”. .

Trump will also look to make hay of the migrant crisis on the border, pinning as much of it on Ms Harris as possible. Since she became the Democratic presidential nominee, the Harris campaign has attempted to refute that she was ever appointed “border czar” but was instead assigned the job of getting to the root causes of mass migration from central America.

Trump will also attempt to tie Ms Harris to “Bidenomics” and the inflation that saw the cost of living rise by 20 per cent over four years. 

But Ms Harris has been attempting to distance herself from Mr Biden’s economic record, including by floating price controls, tax credits for first time home buyers, and more tax support for families.

Trump and his allies will dismiss some of these as socialist from a candidate they called “Comrade Kamala”.

Ms Harris was also famous during her time in the White house for incoherent interviews and bumbling public appearances, where she was accused of mixing “word salads”. Her team will have been working hard to iron out those problems for the big debate.

Abortion

If Ms Harris has the border Trump has reproductive rights as the issue he cannot easily get around; after all, it was his Supreme Court appointees who propelled the court to over turn 50 years of federal abortion guarantees, producing a real and existential crisis for millions of women.

Polls show reproductive rights are a key issue for many floating voters.

In recent weeks, Trump has been trying to shift his position, saying he supported government funding for IVF therapies and supporting and but later opposing an effort to extend abortion guarantees beyond six weeks in Florida.

Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to prioritise winning elections, even if it means softening their position on abortion. But that put his support with social conservatives in jeopardy without necessarily winning the support of women.

Trump claims his second administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights” but a significant polling edge for Ms Harris among women voters suggests they don’t believe him.

The timing of the Government’s VAT raid on private school fees is “cruel and punitive”, the head of an association representing hundreds of prep schools has said.

Dominic Norrish, the chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said in a letter to Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, that implementing the change in January was “arbitrary”.

His letter came after it emerged that the policy faces a High Court legal challenge over claims that it breaches human rights law. 

Lawyers have written to HM Treasury arguing that the policy discriminates against special educational needs pupils and has threatened court action if it is not dropped.

Mr Norrish, whose association represents 600 schools, said in the letter – reported in The Times – that there was no “compelling logic” for introducing the change in January.

“Regardless of how long ago Labour’s intentions were announced, implementing VAT on fees a school term after forming a Government does not give parents enough time to act in their child’s best interests and appears cruel and punitive,” he said.

“Many prep schools have small numbers of pupils, which will likely make them more vulnerable when the VAT exemption on public school fees is axed.

“A mid-year start creates numerous problems for schools, parents and the tax authorities that do not need to exist,” said Mr Norrish. “January feels like an arbitrary date, attractive merely due to its proximity to the present. Large numbers [of families] will be forced, now at very short notice, to move their children elsewhere.”

Mr Norrish said the policy would have a “seismic” effect on pupils whose parents were forced to change the school they attend.

“Unless you have experienced having to unexpectedly change school as a child, leaving behind all of your established relationships and slowly gained [a] sense of psychological safety, it can be hard to grasp how seismic the effect can be,” he said.  “It is an experience that no parent would choose for their child.

“You have argued that parents have had plenty of notice of your intentions and, presumably, could have moved their child to another school for this September, or found the extra funds for VAT. Regrettably, this comes across as unempathetic cant, which cannot have been your intention.”

The Government has previously insisted that the number of children who will be forced to leave public schools because of the VAT raid would be “minimal”.

In a statement last week, the Department for Education (DfE) said: “We expect that private schools will try to minimise any fee increases. We expect the number of pupils who might decide to change schools to a state school from private schools to be minimal.

“There is also lots of evidence to suggest that there are more than enough state school places for pupils who may move from a private school.”

The crime agency charged with tackling people-smuggling gangs is “on its knees”, a report has warned.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is losing more officers than it recruits as it suffers a brain drain with a quarter of senior managers leaving annually, according to the report.

Nine per cent of NCA roles are unfilled, more than double the average of 3.9 per cent for the public sector, while spending on temporary staff and consultants has nearly quadrupled since 2015-16, the report, called Is Britain’s FBI on its knees?, found.

The agency’s delivery in “mission-critical areas”, from tackling traffickers and hostile states to thwarting child abusers, is being “hobbled” by a high level of critical vacancies and a lack of investment.

The report by Spotlight on Corruption, a UK-based anti-corruption charity – based on official reports and submissions by the NCA – said the root cause was pay stagnation, with officers’ salaries cut by 16.3 per cent in real terms since 2013-14. Failure to address this would be “potentially catastrophic”, it warned.

“A critical moment has now arrived. If the NCA is to deliver on its mission to protect the UK from hostile threats, fraud and corruption, and serious organised crime more generally, major reform, particularly to pay and conditions, is needed,” said the report.

“While the NCA’s pay issues are not unique within the public sector, for an agency tasked with protecting the public from these threats the implications of not addressing the NCA’s pay issues are potentially catastrophic.”

The NCA, which has more than 5,600 staff, is central to Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to tackle the small boats crisis. A new Border Security Command is being set up to bring together the NCA, spy agencies and Border Force to crack down on the people smuggling gangs with new anti-terror style powers.

The NCA has more than 70 live investigations into the most harmful and prolific people smuggling gangs targeting the UK. However, Spotlight on Corruption’s report, released on Monday, warned that its ability to tackle gangs and other serious organised criminals was seriously hampered.

As the lead agency responding to cyber crime, the NCA needs advanced technology but instead its IT systems are “creaking” and it has insufficient capabilities to tackle issues such as ransomware attacks.

In two of the past three financial years, the agency lost more staff than it recruited. The workforce shrank in 2022-23, even though it recruited more than 500 new officers.

Lynne Owens, the former head of the NCA and now deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, warned four years ago that the Government needed to double the amount spent on fighting organised crime, including raising NCA’s budget from £424 million to nearly £1.1 billion.

However, the report said: “Despite its best efforts, the agency risks operating continually at suboptimal levels due to staffing shortages, chronic retention and recruitment problems, and low staff morale.

“The NCA’s problems have been persistently exacerbated by the unwillingness of successive governments to invest in the agency sufficiently to ensure it can function as the elite law enforcement agency with a lead role for reducing crime and protecting the UK against serious and organised crime.”

Dame Diana Johnson, the crime and policing minister, said the NCA was getting an extra 100 investigators to tackle the people-smugglers and that money was being switched from the scrapped Rwanda policy to provide additional resources.

“We are in the middle of a spending review. We want to make sure that our agencies have the resources they need,” she said.

A spokesman for the NCA said it was “world-leading in many areas, and has achieved significant and continued success over its decade in operation”, adding: “Last year alone, our officers made more than 4,700 disruptions – our most ever, and more than a dozen every single day.

“We are committed to working with the Government to ensure that the agency has the right structure and operating model, and, crucially, is able to attract, retain and support a talented workforce.

“We know that it is imperative that we deliver value for money while achieving our mission of protecting the public from serious and organised crime, now and as the threat evolves.”

NHS progress is going backwards for the first time in 50 years, a major report commissioned by the Government has found.

The report by Lord Ara Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, will this week highlight failures in the most basic care offered by the health service.

It will criticise the amount of time children are left waiting in A&E and how the NHS’s routine services ground to a halt during the pandemic.

Lord Darzi will say that the progress made since the 1970s on deaths from heart disease and waiting times for treatment is now in reverse for the first time.

Within hours of Labour winning the election, Health Secretary Wes Streeting had declared the NHS “broken” and pledged to “turn our health service around”. He commissioned the report a week later.

It is expected to be instrumental in shaping the Government’s 10-year plan “to radically reform the NHS”.

Lord Darzi is particularly concerned about heart care, with heart disease one of Britain’s biggest killers.

Mortality rates from heart problems are now rising, having fallen steadily from the 1970s until 2010.

Waiting times for life-saving surgery for those suffering a heart attack have risen by a quarter and waits for treatment have gone backwards across all areas of the health service.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir Starmer said Lord Darzi was “really clear that the NHS is broken but not beaten”.

“His diagnosis, and my conclusion, is that the only way out of this now is reform,” Sir Keir said.

“I think only a Labour government can reform the NHS and therefore we will use his diagnosis as the platform for the reform that we now need to carry out in relation to the NHS.”

He added: “Everybody watching this who has used the NHS, or whose relatives have, knows that it’s broken.”

Lord Darzi’s report will be published on Thursday. It found that improvements in the cardiovascular disease mortality rate for people aged under 75 stalled in 2010 and started rising again during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In its submission to the investigation, the British Heart Foundation said: “We are extremely concerned that the significant progress made on heart disease and circulatory diseases (CVD) in the last 50 years is beginning to reverse.

“The number of people dying before the age of 75 in England from CVD has risen to the highest level in 14 years.”

Deaths from heart disease have gradually fallen over the last 50 years to a low of 71 per 100,000 people in 2019, according to the British Heart Foundation. The premature mortality rate has risen since then to 79 per 100,000.

Lord Darzi’s investigation also found that there are wide variations in the standard of care patients receive from the NHS depending on where they live.

It will say: “The time for the highest risk heart attack patients to have a rapid intervention to unblock an artery has risen by 28 per cent from an average of 114 minutes in 2013-14 to 146 minutes in 2022-23.

“Patients in Surrey are likely to receive the procedure in less than 90 minutes, while those in Bedford, Luton, and Milton Keynes must wait around four hours” despite them being just 50 miles apart.”

It will also warn of widespread variations in stroke care.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It’s alarming that the progress made on heart disease and stroke is now in decline. It points to a failure to help people stay healthy, and a failure of the NHS to be there for us when we need it.

“This government is acting to cut waiting times and reform the NHS, so it catches illness earlier, which is better for patients and less expensive for our health service.”

The report will also point to evidence that where bold action has been taken, health has improved. It will say this is notably the case for smoking.

Labour brought in a ban on smoking in public places in 2007 and the Government is currently proposing to phase out legal sales of cigarettes by age.

Lord Darzi’s review was commissioned by Mr Streeting to uncover the full extent of the challenges facing the NHS to provide a full and frank assessment of the issues it has inherited.

The Government said the findings will help provide the basis for a 10-year plan for the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future.

However, there were warnings on Sunday that Labour’s pledge to deliver 40,000 extra weekly NHS appointments to reduce waiting times will not be enough to meet targets.

In its general election manifesto, the party set a target of having 92 per cent of patients begin routine hospital treatment within 18 weeks of referral by the end of this parliament.

This would be achieved by having neighbouring hospitals share waiting lists, supplying additional capacity from the independent sector, and incentivising NHS staff to work extra evenings and weekends.

But a new report by the NHS Confederation and healthcare consultancy Carnall Farrar has found the number of appointments promised – equivalent to two million a year – would only meet 15 per cent of the target if care continues to be delivered in the same way.

The NHS would, in fact, need to provide 33.6 million outpatient appointments by 2028/29 to bring waiting lists back to meeting the 18-week level, according to the report.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary said she was concerned that the Government would use the findings of the report to justify tax rises.

She said: “This report should be about what the state of the NHS is and providing solutions and what worries me is that Labour is using this report as cover for the tax rises they plan to raise on us all at the Budget in October.”

Lord Darzi is a pioneering surgeon who won the nickname “Robo Doc” for spearheading the use of keyhole surgery and robotics in operating theatres. Under the last Labour government, he recommended the rollout of polyclinics – major sites bringing together GPs with a wider range of services from 8am until 8pm.

The peer has also said that hospitals should provide far more care seven days a week, noting: “British Airways does not leave its planes on the tarmac over the weekend.”

Currently, half of NHS hospitals close their operating theatres at weekends, with the number of elective operations, such as hip replacements, falling by 80 per cent on Saturdays and Sundays.

Taylor Swift has delivered a public show of support for Brittany Mahomes, an American football star’s wife who has been under fire for backing Donald Trump.

The 34-year-old pop singer, who endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, embraced Mrs Mahomes in the VIP seats as the pair watched the US Open men’s tennis final in New York on Sunday.

Swift – who has stayed silent about who she will be backing in November – was with her boyfriend Travis Kelce, whose Kansas City Chiefs team-mate, quarterback Patrick Mahomes, accompanied his wife at Flushing Meadows.

One of America’s most high profile NFL spouses, Ms Mahomes has been criticised on social media in recent weeks over her perceived support for Trump, the former president.

The swimsuit model, 29, first indicated her views when she liked a Trump Instagram post outlining the 2024 Republican platform on Aug 13.

Responding to criticism, she said: “I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult you have to have some deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”

On Aug 26, she wrote: “Contrary to the tone of the world today… you can disagree with someone, and still love them. You can have differing views, and still be kind.”

Trump subsequently wrote on Truth Social: “I want to thank beautiful Brittany Mahomes for so strongly defending me. It is nice to see someone who loves our country, and wants to save it from doom. What a great couple – see you both at the Super Bowl!”

Mrs Mahomes and Swift have regularly been pictured together at Chiefs games since the musician started dating Kelce last September.

On social media, some users criticised her embrace of Mrs Mahomes given the outcry over her political views.

One wrote: “I don’t expect a billionaire to lead the revolution or anything, I’m just confused as to why one would make a movie about standing up for what’s right at any cost only to literally never stand for anything again.”

Another wrote: “Taylor girl that’s not very Miss Americana of you, like how can you stand to be around someone like that.”

Idris Elba is to work with the Government to stop knives ending up in the hands of young people.

Commander Stephen Clayman, the national policing lead for knife crime, will carry out an urgent review of “gaps in legislation” as part of a new initiative being launched on Monday.

Elba, the Hollywood actor and campaigner, will join Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street to promote a coalition of organisations coming together to stop young people being dragged into violent gangs.

Technology companies, sporting organisations, the health service and the police are also involved in what is expected to be the first annual knife crime summit.

So-called zombie knives have already been outlawed but there is concern that gaps exist in other areas of knife legislation.

Current legislation bans the sale of knives to under 18s but many fear that the law is not being sufficiently enforced, particularly among online retailers.

Campaigners have called for stricter age checks for internet sales.

Mr Clayman, the head of specialist crime at the Metropolitan Police, will lead a rapid review to understand why under 18s are still able to circumvent the law and buy and receive deadly weapons online.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has asked him to report back to her by the end of the year.

Mr Clayman said: “Knives are far too easily accessible, with online sellers being a key focus of our work over the last year.

“I look forward to leading the review into online supply and continuing to work in close partnership with Government, retailers and the third sector to find ways we can bring meaningful, long-term change that will make our streets safer for everyone.”

Sir Keir said: “As director of public prosecutions, I saw first hand the devastating impact that knife crime has on young people and their families. This is a national crisis that we will tackle head-on.

“We will take this moment to come together as a country – politicians, families of victims, young people themselves, community leaders and tech companies – to halve knife crime and take back our streets.”

Ms Cooper added: “Getting weapons off our streets and making sure there are tough and clear consequences for violence are vital.

“And we also need to prevent young people heading down this path – that means offering young people more hope, more opportunities.”

Strictly Come Dancing’s Kristina Rihanoff and her fiancé, Ben Cohen, are in so much debt that they are “fighting not to lose everything” including their relationship, a court heard.

Mr Cohen, a former England rugby player, made the admission while appearing in court alongside the Russian dancer after she drove her £30,000 Audi Q3 without insurance in Horsemarket, Northampton, in April.

Rihanoff, who appeared in court under the name Kristina Pchenitchnykh, was convicted of the driving offence and unsuccessfully appealed on Friday, with Mr Cohen appearing as her witness.

Mr Cohen told Northampton Crown Court that the pair set up several businesses including a yoga studio which had suffered as a result of the Covid pandemic.

“I get up every day and I fight not to lose everything – to lose my cars and my house and my relationship. I’m so overdrawn,” he said.

When questioned about the strains on his and Rihanoff’s relationship, he said: “We’re still living together. We’re in it financially. We’re in business together so the problem is that we opened the business before Covid and we got the worst severities of it and in all honestly this is just another problem for me to deal with.

“I’ve got credit cards that are overdrawn. I’m overdrawn in both accounts. We have got a business debt because of Covid. It’s just another problem.”

One of the original “Strictly Curse” couples, the pair were partners on the 11th series of the BBC dancing show in 2013. Mr Cohen separated from Abbie Blayney Cohen, his then wife, a year later and the couple were divorced in 2016.

Revealing their engagement to Hello! magazine in 2022, Rihanoff said: “It was the biggest surprise of my life. Although we’d talked before about getting married one day, I hadn’t the slightest idea that Ben was planning this. I was overcome with emotion and said: ‘Yes, yes and yes’ straight away.”

The show has a long and troubled history of leading to relationship trouble among its contestants.

The first series of Strictly in 2004 was dogged by claims of an affair between newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky and Brendan Cole, her dance partner.

Kaplinksy has always insisted there was nothing between her and Cole but the gossip culminated in the collapse of both her 12-year relationship and Cole’s relationship with fellow dancer and fiancée Camilla Dallerup.

Rachel Riley split from her husband shortly after taking part in the 2013 series, during which she was partnered with dancer Pasha Kovalev. Although she claimed at the time that they were not involved, Riley and Kovalev later revealed, in 2014, that they were in a relationship.

Rihanoff sobbed throughout the hearing and had to leave the courtroom. Upon her return, she was wrapped in a white blanket holding a tissue to her eyes.

She was spared a driving ban, despite totting up 12 penalty points, due to “exceptional hardship”, the court heard.

Northampton Crown Court was told that the ex-Strictly professional needed a car to judge ballroom competitions around the country, and to take her two daughters to school. The court also heard she regularly took her stepdaughter to hospital to be treated for a heart condition.

Mr Cohen confirmed that he had been solely responsible for sourcing insurance for the couple’s cars.

The court was told that Mr Cohen had been searching for cheaper insurance online at the end of February after being quoted £7,500 by Aviva. He said he had taken out a policy with Dial Direct on Feb 22, paying monthly by direct debit.

In March he was abroad when he received a text message telling him Dial Direct was going to cancel his insurance unless he sent his no claims details.

He said he did not have a no claims bonus so he did not send any details to the company, so the policy was cancelled on March 7.

On April 14, Rihanoff was stopped driving uninsured in Northampton town centre. The court heard that when police officers phoned Mr Cohen, he immediately tried to take out another policy with the same company.

When asked if he knew, on April 14, that the policy had been cancelled, he replied: “I 100 per cent did not know that policy would be cancelled because the no claims information they’d been asking for wasn’t relevant to me.”

He added: “I didn’t know until I got that call from Kristina then I was (saying) ‘what are you on about?’”

Mr Cohen also said he had not told Rihanoff about the cancellation of the insurance. He also admitted he had not asked Rihanoff about the dates of her previous speeding offences before taking out the policy.

Recorder Louise Cox rejected her appeal, but told Rihanoff she had “every sympathy” with her.

She said: “We find you had an honest belief you were insured but don’t accept that belief was reasonable grounds to account for your lack of insurance.”

The judge said that Rihanoff should have made sure she was insured before driving.

Rihanoff, of Sywell, Northamptonshire, was ordered to pay £357 in appeal costs.

The new series of Strictly begins this Saturday amid a string of scandals over alleged bullying and abuse.

Hobby horse enthusiasts have shown off their passion for the pastime at the first-ever national championships.

Participants in the UK Hobby Horse Championship had to race around an indoor equestrian facility in Buckinghamshire with a toy horse between their legs on Sunday.

Those involved trotted, galloped and cantered on tminiature mounts and leaped over jumps during the contest at Bury Farm Equestrian Centre in Slapton, Buckinghamshire.

Some even dressed as smartly as horse riders would for equestrian competitions.

The UK Hobby Horse Association, which organised the competition, said competitors and guests were able to “witness the magic of hobby horsing, connect with fellow enthusiasts and get inspired by the dazzling displays of creativity and agility”.

Prison officers must be allowed to strike, unions have said, as they piled pressure on the Government to scrap “pernicious” legislation banning walkouts.

Under Section 127 of the Criminal Justice Public Order Act 1994, it is illegal to “induce” a prison officer “to take (or continue to take) any industrial action”.

The Trades Union Congress backed a motion calling for the law to be repealed at its annual conference in Brighton on Monday.

Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers Association, claimed Labour were in favour of scrapping the legislation in opposition, but “conveniently forgot” to include the pledge in their package of workers’ rights reforms.

He also accused the previous Labour government, led by Gordon Brown, of breaking a promise to the union to deliver the change.

He told the conference: “Thirty years, 30 long years, we have been subject to Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, and the last Labour government in opposition assured us that if they got into power, they would repeal it. They failed us.

“And this Government was in favour of it in opposition, they agreed we should have our trade union rights back. So it’s time for them to deliver. And they’ve said in the first 100 days of power, they will repeal anti-trade union legislation, but conveniently forgot about Section 127 of the 1994 Act.

“Well, their decision on this will tell us all we need to know about this Labour Government, because they’re either for the working class or they’re against us.”

He added: “Let’s ditch this piece of legislation in the Brighton sea at the front of this hall, and if the Labour Government refused to repeal it, they can damn well join it in the drink.

“So Congress, I ask you, let’s get rid of this pernicious piece of legislation once and for all. Give us our trade union rights back, our human rights back, our workplace rights back, but more importantly, give me the right to strike back.”

The motion, which said the “pernicious piece of legislation should and must be repealed”, was passed at the conference on Monday.

My evening routine is always the same; I get in at around 8pm, skin slick with sweat from the gym. I swiftly ditch my bag by the front door, trainers tossed on to the mounting pile in the corner, and barge straight into the kitchen to start making dinner. It’s late, my stomach growling like a feral animal, so I peel back the plastic of a ready meal and stick the small container in the microwave. 

While it cooks, I shower at lightspeed, tearing a razor up my legs and scratching shampoo into my scalp, digging my nails in until it smarts. Only when I hear the ding interrupting the low hum of the microwave do I stop, slopping my meal into one of those dishes that is neither a plate nor a bowl but some sort of superior hybrid. But before I finally satiate my hunger – my stomach’s cries now having evolved to a whale’s mating call – it’s vital I have a guest. Be it David Mitchell and Robert Webb being unhinged on Peep Show on my living room TV, or some YouTuber talking me through her 15-step beauty regime, I never have dinner alone.

Television is my constant companion as I laze on the sofa with my dinner warming my lap, bowl in between my crossed legs, my reflection staring back at me behind the moving images. I pay what I’m about to watch a weird amount of respect – no matter how hungry I am, I will sit through the adverts and start eating only when my show or YouTube video commences.

According to a new poll from YouGov, I am not alone when it comes to eschewing the table for a TV dinner. Compared with other Western countries, Britons are by far the most likely to eat dinner on a sofa or in an armchair, with 42 per cent doing so, making the practice about as widespread in the UK as eating at the dining table. Having the TV on in the background is also something relatively commonplace here – 67 per cent of us will watch some sort of video content while eating.

A quick straw poll of my nearest and dearest only reinforces these findings. My (Australian) boyfriend is the same. Despite him actually having a dining area in the six-bedroom house he lives in, we tend to eat our numerous hungover Deliveroo takeaways in the confines of his bedroom, to avoid stilted interactions with his eccentric collection of housemates.

We’ve eaten so much takeaway while wrapped up in his duvet, nonsense blaring in the background, he sincerely turned to me and asked whether he should invest in a bed tray to prop our food on when we eat, almost as if we were inpatients in the world’s worst hospital (his sister looked at us with disdain and called us “swampy” when we relayed this story to her later).

When I see another friend, she confirms that she also eats splayed on the sofa or in bed.

“Kim, you’ve been to my flat,” she tells me. “I don’t even have a dining table.”

Truth is, I can’t really remember a time that I ever had dinner at home without some sort of background noise. My mother – an extremely busy single parent juggling two often argumentative kids – would see dinnertime as her time. Food was our pacifier – she’d dump a bowlful of spaghetti at our laps and shush us if either of us dared speak over Emmerdale (something, I may add, she still does to this day).

It’s left an indelible stain on my brain; I think I’m just so used to having something to do while eating that the actual act of eating itself is redundant. It was such a problem when I was younger that when we did venture outside the house for a dinner, my mum would let me take a book, or heaven forfend, my Game Boy, to keep me occupied. I’m thankfully less uncouth in adulthood, but I still find my hands become itchy when having dinner with friends, wanting to check my phone or distract myself with something, no matter how scintillating the conversation is.

When I speak to psychotherapist Sally Baker about my TV dinner habits, she points towards my hectic schedule that I often try to hustle through at breakneck speed.

“You’re not prioritising food and nourishment,” she tells me. “It’s become a secondary activity. If you’re having these very long days at work, you’re feeling exhausted. It’s just easy to ping on the microwave, or get a takeaway and slump on the sofa. If you’re feeling wound up and under pressure, you’re having high levels of cortisol and adrenaline pulsing through your body. You’re effectively using food as a pacifier to calm down your nervous system.”

Baker also points towards the nostalgia of eating spaghetti in a bowl in front of the TV as a child, pasta sauce dribbling down my chin, as why I’m still stuck in this habit: “This is your place of comfort, and that’s the script you’re running when you replicate that behaviour as an adult.”

But is this act of chowing down in an armchair with Netflix for comfort actually doing me (and the rest of us in Britain) any harm? Well, yes, explains licensed therapist Sophie Cress.

“When people eat while watching TV, they are more likely to consume mindlessly,” she says. “We pay less attention to portion sizes, hunger cues, and the nutritional content of our food. Mindless eating can lead to overeating, poor digestion and an increased consumption of harmful foods, all of which can have a severe impact on both physical and mental health.”

I think back to my boyfriend’s bedroom, and the bottle of Gaviscon he keeps by his bed that he sometimes necks straight from the bottle for his acid reflux. Fair enough.

“Consuming meals in front of screens can undermine the social aspect of eating,” Cress continues. “Mealtimes are an opportunity to connect with others. When everyone is focused on a screen, this connection weakens.

“Children who regularly eat while watching TV or YouTube are often more prone to developing unhealthy eating patterns. Additionally, the lack of meaningful conversations during their meals can impair their social development, potentially leading to difficulty forming and maintaining relationships later in life.”

I read through Cress’s advice while chewing on my fingernails, thinking of all the times I’ve been bad company at dinners because I’ve been busy attuned to another screen. I text my boyfriend that next time we hang out, we should brave the kitchen, actually cook a meal together, and eat it at the table like actual human beings. Ever the man, he sends a thumbs up emoji in response.

Baker adds that it’s not too late to shake the habit. “People operate very individualistically nowadays. Food is a means of connection, an act of community. Maybe it’s about the act of agreeing with your housemates when you’ll all eat together during the week and build a true sense of connection.

“And if you do insist on watching TV while you’re eating alone, make sure you’re watching something happy and uplifting. The news generates more cortisol and adrenaline. It affects your digestive system and your ability to digest your food, because it’s really anxiety provoking.”

I make a mental note to try to eat more mindfully. After all, I’m an adult woman – I should be able to manage a jacket potato without additional entertainment from a screen. But when I look at my increasingly busy schedule, I know breaking bread with housemates or my boyfriend just won’t be an option when I’m back at work pushing 9pm. Maybe we all need to make changes in the way we consume our food – but perhaps accept dinner as an act of community just isn’t always possible when we’re busy young professionals in poky flats living highly individualised lives. On the days when I’m busy, I’ve accepted that I’ll happily enjoy my microwave meal just us two – me and some TV.

Nature lovers have set up nightly patrols to protect a group of ducks after they started to cross a busy road every evening.

Residents in Thirsk, North Yorkshire – where James Herriot, the All Creatures Great and Small author, lived – are now acting as “wardens” for the flock as they waddle from a nearby river to spend the night in a car park in the town.

The collective of 30 ducks takes about two minutes to make the journey at around 8pm every evening – protected from oncoming traffic by the group of volunteers, some of whom have taken to wearing hi-vis jackets.

The birds typically stay at the car park until around 6.30am the next morning, at which point they return to the river.

Jodie Wood, 40, founded a Facebook page appealing for volunteers to come and help protect the ducks after several were killed by cars during the crossing.

It is believed the birds have been leaving the river at night to avoid a predator such as a mink or a fox.

Ms Wood said: “I made a Facebook group asking if anyone wanted to help me with the ducks and it’s just gone viral – it’s got over 2,000 people in it.

“I have around 15 helpers and we create a rota to see who can help. They come up at about 8pm, it’s a two-minute walk so we walk with them and wait to see where they want to go and put the cones around them. It’s so they don’t get run over or anything like that.

“Sometimes we get drunk revellers trying to touch them, mess with them and walk through them.

“But 99 per cent of the time it’s fine and people just come to chat and take pictures”.

Duck signs demand

The ducks first began making their perilous journey around two months ago.

“I made the group because we lost a mum and two ducklings, as they got ran over,” Ms Wood said. “There was also a white duck and they got ran over while crossing the road.

“Now the ducks are all brown and are the same colour as the cobbles, so you can’t really see them as much.

“But we’ve not had any fatalities since we started the group and had the volunteers.”

She added: “We think there is a mink down there. I had a walk last night and put my phone down there, but couldn’t see anything. But we think it could either be a mink or there could be an otter down there.”

The group are now hoping signs can be erected to warn drivers and other visitors to the area about the birds.

“We want simple duck signs – a lot of other towns have them but we don’t have any,” Ms Wood said.

“If and when the ducks stay at the river, then they would be taken down. It would be a bit of a help really.”

A gay couple attempted to ban a surrogate mother from seeing her biological son, the family court has heard.

The two men cut all contact with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, despite previously agreeing she could see the child every six weeks.

They pursued action in the courts to remove her legal right to see the boy, and on one occasion threatened to call the police when she turned up at their house for a pre-arranged visit.

The mother’s right to see the child, who was conceived using her egg, was upheld in a landmark case heard at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Mrs Justice Theis ruled that it was necessary to ensure the child’s relationship with his mother was “secured”, to meet his “long-term needs”.

Born in 2020

The child, referred to as “Z” in court proceedings, was born in September 2020 after being conceived using one of the men’s gametes and the surrogate’s egg.

The woman, named “G” in court, handed over her son to the married couple, referred to as “X” and “Y”, seven hours after his birth – and jointly signed his birth certificate with them.

In August 2021, she signed a parental order that handed responsibility for the child to the men, aged 43 and 36, as well as a second order confirming that she could have regular contact every six weeks with her son, who lived permanently with the couple.

However, the relationship between the mother and the couple deteriorated.

They described the mother as seeking a “destabilising relationship” with the child and accused her of making him “more clingy, unsettled and crying” and also anonymously posting “homophobic” messages online.

Legal change attempted

In February 2022, three days before a pre-arranged visit, the couple informed the mother that they had applied to change the legal agreement that had given her the right to see her son every six weeks

Her rights remaining legally unchanged, the mother turned up at the couple’s home for the visit but was told to leave, at which point one of the men “became increasingly abusive with threats to call the police”.

“G” covertly recorded the altercation, audio of which the judge in the case said was “rightly described as ‘horrendous’” and “wholly disproportionate”.

Supported by their local council, the couple then proceeded with legal cases to cut the mother from the baby’s life.

They secured the revocation of the parental order and attempted to also formally adopt him as step-parents – which would have extinguished her legal connection to the child.

‘Erasure’

One child psychologist who gave evidence in the case said the men were attempting an “erasure of mother”.

In evidence submitted to the Family Court as part of their step-parent adoption bid, the couple said there was “no vacancy” for a mother in their family.

They claimed that her seeing the child would “send [a] confusing and potentially harmful message to him that his fathers are not enough and his family with them is incomplete or inadequate”.

But the mother insisted that it was her son’s “reality that I am his birth mother, who carried him and wants to play a role in his life”.

“I would never have agreed to be a traditional surrogate in circumstances where I was not going to have any meaningful involvement in the child’s life,” she told the court in a statement.

Judgment

Mrs Justice Theis said in her judgment – handed down in January this year – that the child had seen his “mother recently and has expressed the wish to see her again”.

The judge ruled that the child should continue living with the couple and that the mother should also continue seeing her son.

“Whilst many surrogacy arrangements work very successfully, this case provides a graphic illustration of the difficulties that can be encountered if the arrangement breaks down,” the judge said.

Mrs Justice Theis added that the child was “clearly thriving” in the couple’s care but that further legal battles between them and “G” were “likely to be inimical to Z’s welfare”.

She went on to advise the parties to “seek appropriate therapy and support with the aim of seeking to repair their relationships”.

“This is now the opportunity for each of them to demonstrate to Z that they can work together and each play their part to ensure that is achieved,” the judge said.

A judge who jailed some of those involved in violent disorder which followed the Southport stabbings said he and his family were threatened after the sentencing was broadcast.

Attending a National 999 Day service in Liverpool, which was dedicated to those who responded to riots in Merseyside, honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC told emergency workers a decision had been made to accelerate sentencing hearings for those involved not because of “political pressure”, but because a quick response was needed for a “deterrent effect”.

He said: “The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. There have been some twits online who have posted all sorts of daft things about me and some pretty unpleasant threats have been made towards me and the family.

“The odd dodgy package has arrived at the court containing threats towards me. But that, I’m afraid, goes with the territory of the job.

“There have also been some quite funny posts online as well. Like Jake, from Basingstoke, who wrote on Twitter after the broadcast ‘Judge Menary should consider a side hustle in audiobook narration’.

“I don’t know whether to say this or not but it looks like for at least a weekend I became a gay icon. Gavin from Somerset wrote: ‘Who is Judge Menary? What’s his net worth and who is he dating?’”

Judge Menary said his favourite post came from a social media user in Texas who wrote: “The UK has fallen to savages. The dude with the dead squirrel on his head has just confirmed it.”

The judge said that in Liverpool there had so far been sentences for more than 50 people who were involved in violent disorder, which broke out in Southport and later spread to Liverpool and across the country after the knife attack in which three girls were killed on July 29.

Thanking those working in the emergency services, Judge Menary said: “It’s been a busy few weeks but nothing compared to the pressure that so many of you and your colleagues have experienced and regularly experience day in and day out.”

‘The good needs to be defended’

The annual National 999 Day service, at Liverpool Parish Church, was attended by leaders from the city’s faith communities as well as members of the emergency services.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the Children’s Laureate, spoke along with Deborah Moore, the manager of Spellow Hub library which was set on fire during disorder on County Road in Liverpool, and Alex McCormick, who raised more than £250,000 to repair the library.

The children’s author said the good in the city outweighed the bad, but added: “We’ve learned this summer, surely, that the good needs to be defended and it needs to be vigilant.

“Its defenders are here in this church today, its defenders are you. I wanted to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to you for defending and looking out for the good.”

Richard Kemp, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, told emergency workers: “You are the people who, when there is a problem, run into it while the rest of us run from it.

“The supreme irony in Southport was that more than 50 police officers, many of whom earlier in the day had run into save lives, had their bodies damaged by perpetrators including opportunists and chancers.”

David Knowles, the Telegraph journalist behind the award-winning Ukraine: The Latest podcast, has died.

Mr Knowles, 32, who worked as a senior audio journalist and presenter, died while in Gibraltar on Sunday following what was believed to be a cardiac arrest.

He joined The Telegraph in 2020 as deputy head of social media and was later promoted to head of social media.

Upon the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022, Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest, a weekday podcast that is still running two years later.

This year, Ukraine: The Latest won the Best News Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards.

Mr Knowles’s father, Peter, described his eldest son as someone who “loved life and he lived it just as well as he could”.

He said: “David’s commitment to journalism was intense. He was never more proud than when he finally shrugged off a management job title and regained a title with the word ‘journalist’ in it, and he was utterly engaged with the story of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the impact on its people, making four trips to the country and always planning the next.”

Chris Evans, the editor of The Telegraph, said: “David was a talented and popular journalist who was perhaps best known for helping to make our Ukraine podcast such a success. Before that, he was an impressive leader of our social media team. We would like to offer our sympathy to his family and friends.”

Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest as a Twitter Space before it became a fully fledged podcast. Starting on the day of the Russian invasion in February 2022, it is now approaching 100 million downloads.

He anchored the podcast and became known as its “voice”, travelling across Ukraine with his audio equipment to capture stories to pull into special episodes that told how the lives of ordinary Ukrainian people were being destroyed by Putin’s war.

He and the podcast team also toured the show in America last year, where a large part of its audience is based.

More recently, Mr Knowles and the team were invited to speak at the US embassy in London, at the Chalke History Festival, and at Armed Forces Day in Scarborough about the Ukraine war.

From Mod haircuts to bomber jackets, the 1990s are deeply fashionable right now, but one year in particular is gonna live forever-ah… 1994; the year Oasis released their debut single “Supersonic”, Jeff Bezos invented Amazon, Pulp Fiction premiered, Tony Blair was elected leader of the Labour party and St John turned bone marrow into haute cuisine.

Founded by chef Fergus Henderson and restaurateur Trevor Gulliver, St John will mark their 30th anniversary this Autumn. To celebrate, today the restaurant serves the first of its “back to 1994” menus, with 30 year old prices. Diners at the London restaurant will feast on roast bone marrow and parsley salad for £4.20, rather than the 2024 price of £16. While apricots on toast, another classic, will cost £3.70 (as opposed to £10.20).

There will be St John merch on sale just like a rock gig. Though, sadly, all the tables were snapped up “in a nanosecond” when they went live, Gulliver admits. The joke among his young chefs is that even Oasis can’t get in. So, most of St John’s fans will have to dine out on memories.

But what memories? When St John opened in 1994, on the site of an old smokehouse in Smithfield Market, it changed London dining forever, and ignited a new spirit of optimism.

Its logo was a humble pig – in Fergus’s words, the “quintessential nose-to-tail animal” – with a chunky Times New Roman typeface. The menu was concisely written on a single sheet of paper and staff wore white smocks (in homage to the market porters at Smithfield). Henderson’s stripped-back cooking style was a game-changer, leading to a new wave of restaurants embracing modern British cooking. 

I was 32 in 1994 and working as a sub-editor on Homes & Gardens magazine. As a comprehensive school girl, I didn’t fit in with the chintzy set but nor could I keep up with the cool kids who saw Primal Scream and Pulp at Reading ’94. It was still very much the era of ecstasy and “superstar DJs”.

I was terminally uncool. But restaurants, oh I could do restaurants. And when a friend took me to St John, it was love. Growing up in the West Midlands, going to a Berni Inn was a thrill. Then, arriving in London, Pizza Express – with its cheery Pop Art decor – became my fix. But St John was a church of minimalism, with its open kitchen, white walls, concrete floor and stainless steel bar. 

“The 80s were all about elaborate surface decoration. And along came St John, very pared-down, like a French bistro with its dark furniture and cream walls, as a way of purging that excess,” recalls arts writer Dominic Lutyens. All the YBAs (Young British Artists) came to St John, from Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas to Damien Hirst. So did the city boys who worked nearby.

And the food was off the scale; roast bone marrow and parsley salad, crispy fried pig tail and eel, bacon and mash. Until then, offal wasn’t exactly fashionable. As a non-meat eater, I survived on celeriac. But I got high on the atmosphere – and the all-French wine list. Best of all were the democratic no-spill glass tumblers. 

Judicious all-day drinking was indulged (Fergus famously enjoyed an elevenses of Fernet-Branca with seed cake) and Hirst often slept off a hangover at the chef’s house.

“St John was part of an extraordinary renaissance, a welling-up of enthusiasm and talent and can-do-ness,” says Jennifer Sharp, former restaurant editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Though dining on rook, shot specially for her, was a little too extraordinary: “I needed a Dunkin’ Donut to take the taste away.”

Back then, the location wasn’t desirable. “Smithfield market was on its uppers, there were no 1990s superclubs like Fabric,” recalls Gulliver. “Just a curry house, now the site of the Elizabeth Line station, and two brothels.”

Britain, led by John Major’s government, was recovering from economic downturn, but the London map was changing fast. “I was working on the Architects’ Journal in 1994, and our office was in Clerkenwell,” says arts journalist Marcus Field, “St John became a second office. The recession meant very few large buildings were being built. But this left space to write about younger architects. St John immediately became a gathering place for these people as Fergus had trained as an architect and they were his friends. The new crew of YBAs were also regulars because Clerkenwell was a place full of cheap studio space.”

It wasn’t the only big London restaurant launch that year. 1994 was also when Oliver Peyton opened The Atlantic at Piccadilly, says design editor Caroline Roux. “The red plush bar, Dick’s Bar, stayed open until 3am. It was all artists, designers and fashion people – very sociable and extremely messy.”

But St John represented an axis shift from West to East London, says Lutyens. “In the 1970s and 80s, bohemian creatives like David Hockney and Cecilia Birtwell were based in West London. By 1994, my friends and I were hanging out at Maureen Paley’s East End gallery. Lucas and Emin set up their shop in Bethnal Green selling affordable artworks,” he recalls. “People were very entrepreneurial.”

Fearless innovation was applauded. “In 1994, the National Lottery was about to start funding projects like Tate Modern. It was a showcase for Zaha Hadid, another Clerkenwell architect, who won a competition to design the Cardiff Bay Opera House. It felt like such an exciting time,” says Field.

The industrial aesthetic was everywhere, says Lutyens. “A bare light bulb, or objects you could buy off the peg in hardware stores, were suddenly the inspiration for designers. And that went along with a new youth movement. Obviously, the later Blair government was gay-friendly, and people coming over from Eastern Europe meant Britain became more multicultural.”

There was a new glamour to architecture, previously seen as a bit tweedy, says property editor Janice Morley. “There were a lot of sleek modern buildings going up. But architects were also getting real about function and designing flats to cope with young people’s busy lifestyles.” Roux points to new breakthroughs in furniture design: “Ron Arad, who ran the product design course at the RCA, was getting attention for his curvy D-sofa, made in stainless steel, and his Bookworm bookcase, produced by Kartell.” Both designs launched that year. 

So, was 1994 the apotheosis of the meaty, brave, anything-can-happen energy in pop culture that we’re missing now? 

In fact, we’d just survived a crisis. Britain was forced to leave the ERM in 1992, two years after joining. Black Wednesday cost the UK Treasury £3.3 billion. That had followed a housing market crash (caused by a rapid increase in interest rates, a recession, and overvalued property prices). But it actually meant young people could buy flats.

My 1994 salary at publishers IPC was £18,000, but five years later I bought a tiny maisonette in Peckham for £103,000. We never felt rich. But we never felt as poor as we do now. There was more social mobility and meritocracy, says John McTernan, who became a political adviser to Blair in 1994, and is also a St John fan (he logged on to book the 1994 menu but failed to get a table).

“It was the year the largest single class in Britain became the white-collar, monthly paid worker,” he says. “And obviously social change leads to political and cultural change.”

Even the success of a film like Four Weddings and a Funeral saw us laughing with, and at, the hapless punk-posh set (which is why that 1994 film has aged better than the later Love, Actually). 

Significantly, Absolutely Fabulous, the great fashion satire, moved from an (edgy) BBC 2 slot to (mainstream) BBC 1 in 1994, with Elton John and Lulu fighting for cameos. The TV audience now understood the jokes about buying ridiculous chairs and wearing Lacroix. We were all design literate now.

Platonic friendship was another big 1994 theme, from the first series of Friends to the touching bromance in The Shawshank Redemption – and Uma and John Travolta sparring in Pulp Fiction. While “Protection”, a collaboration between English trip hop collective Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn, gave birth to, arguably, one of the great pop lyrics: “I stand in front of you/ I’ll take the force of the blow, protection/ You’re a boy and I’m a girl/ But you know you can lean on me.”

“It was a contradictory time,” says design podcaster Grant Gibson. “I graduated in 1994. On one hand, there was a recession – my friends and I left university with little expectation of finding a job. However, there was a sense of optimism. I remember being distraught when Labour leader John Smith died in May 1994, but Blair brought a generational shift in British politics that chimed with the flourishing of the YBAs and Britpop. Briefly, it felt like my generation was going to change the world through guitar-based rock. The city was transforming in front of our eyes, but it was possible to have a good night out on a budget. How things have changed.”

“I knew John Smith because I joined the Labour Party in the same Edinburgh branch as him as a teenager,” says McTernan. “A whole future was lost when he died. There would have been a very different approach to a Labour government. I can’t see John Smith inviting Oasis into Number 10. It was a huge decision to skip a political generation and jump to Tony as leader, and his ability to speak to middle Britain.”

“I can relate to 1994,” says social commentator Peter York. “It was absolutely tremendous in every way.” Then, York was living and working near St John, with its clientele of “new sector people”, creatives and management consultants. The fresh 90s design aesthetic – “we were getting into full mid-century modern admiration in interiors; people were building shops and restaurants which were ‘modernistical’” – told him John Major’s government would soon be over. 

“A whole area which had been meat and metal, old London, was changing. We were tired of Tories. That period was very exciting, because if you were culturally sensitive, you could see the signs of change. We’re talking about Major, of course. Now I’ve come to love him, but then he was the Spitting Image joke and we all laughed at him, in that snobby way.” 

York had no time for “ostentatiously Mancunian” Oasis, but when he was introduced to Blur he found them to be decent southern art school boys, “which I liked”. Then, Peter Mandelson introduced him to Tony Blair at a big party at the Grosvenor Hotel, telling him beforehand this would be the next Labour PM. “Tony was a very polite, credible and smiley young man.” He knew Mandelson would be running the world behind the scenes “so he must be right”.

Certainly Blair, then 41, in his Paul Smith shirts (“a disruptor brand”) was part of a new generation. “We all thought Tony Blair should have been in the Conservative Party,” says Morley dryly, “but he saw a way of being more positive and outgoing. And that did reflect on what we were doing at the time. I know I had more money in my pocket.”

In fact, it was Margaret Thatcher who had changed the direction of growth in the capital from West to East – with the growth of the Docklands – as McTernan, now a political commentator, reminds me. “There was an act of will to change the face of London to move it eastwards. So, in its way, St John restaurant opening in Clerkenwell is like the first farmers homesteading on the Great Plains of America. Today, all workers in their 20s live East.”

Barriers around class and sexuality were also breaking, adds Marcus Field. “As a gay man of 27, I still found it difficult to be confident about my sexuality at work. So the motion brought that year in parliament by Edwina Currie to lower the age of consent from 21 to 16 felt like a big moment for me. I remember listening to the Commons debate on the radio in February 1994 and hearing Tony Blair’s passionate support for the motion [he was shadow Home Secretary then] and thinking ‘He’s good, I like him’. The motion was defeated, but positive change was coming.”

The nuclear family was changing, too. Sarah Ferguson had bolted from Prince Andrew. Princess Di appeared in her Revenge Dress at a 1994 dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens after the televised admission of adultery by her husband Charles. 

“In standup [comedy], intelligent women were talking about their sex lives, or divorce or being a single parent,” says Helen Lederer (who played Catriona in AbFab). “It was a sea change from the gilded cage of the sitcom written by men, where you were the girlfriend or mistress.”

Not everything was quite so edgy. After the crash, there was also an appetite for chocolate box musicals. “1994 really was an abundant, golden time in the West End, it was like stepping back into the MGM era. In those shows no one dies, it was good old-fashioned entertainment,” says actress Ruthie Henshall who had back-to-back leads in Crazy for You and She Loves Me (she and her co-star John Gordon Sinclair received matching Oliviers in 1994). “I’m so glad I came into the business when I did. It was about this amazing pool of talented musical theatre people. We didn’t have to find a TV name to sell tickets.”

Fashion also got a shot in the arm. Punk queen Vivienne Westwood raided historical fashions, parodying English looks with her innovative take on traditional tailoring, tartan and Harris Tweed. While Alexander McQueen, the East End son of a cab driver, brought in a dark gothic aesthetic with his corsets and “bumster” trousers. 1994 was a key year for McQueen. In October, he staged one of his most influential shows, The Birds, at Bagley’s disused warehouse in King’s Cross. “My shows are about sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” he said. “It’s for the excitement and the goose bumps… I want heart attacks. I want ambulances.”

But there was darkness too. McQueen, who came out as gay in 1994, had grown up in the shadow of Aids (Leigh Bowery and Derek Jarman both died of Aids in 1994). “In musical theatre, we were losing all these beautiful boys,” says Henshall. “We started West End Cares, putting on shows in our spare time to raise money.”

Is it even worth singling out one year of that decade? Sharp thinks the big events of 1994 didn’t get started until the autumn. “It’s like the 1960s, which actually started in 1967.” McTernan thinks the seeds were already planted in 1994 for everything that came afterwards. “To quote science fiction writer William Gibson: ‘The future’s here already. It’s just unevenly distributed’.”

Whether 1994 was radical in the same way that 1967 was is debatable. On July 5, 1994, Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington as a challenge to bookshops. Now it’s an online marketplace for “stuff”. “If Amazon sees your ‘thing’ selling, they offer an Amazon copy of it,” sighs McTernan. Meanwhile, east London’s skyline is now crowded with skyscrapers such as the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater. Be careful what you wish for.

So while we dine like it’s 1994, that’s worth remembering. But back then, reviewers made restaurants not influencers. “There was no cult of fame,” Sharp reminds me. “It was about imagination and verve and talent.” She’s just sorry it remained mostly London-centric and didn’t roll out to the rest of the country.

Part of the fascination of that year is you had to be there. No selfies remain (and precious few photos). The internet only got going in 1994 – before that it was the preserve of hackers and geeks – so the best images are burned on your retina. 

By contrast, we can expect an outpouring of selfies at St John from this week, as diners boast of having landed a seat. For Gulliver, the three week 1994 menu is a way of thanking staff – “the force that is St John” – and the customers who have been coming for 30 years. “Anyone can have a party.”

His financial director was initially horrified at the suggestion. “He lay down on the floor and stayed there.” Drinks will remain at 2024 pricing, or they’d go bankrupt. But it’s a point of pride that St John is independent (it hasn’t been bought by venture capitalists). They’ve retained their Michelin star and Fergus was awarded an OBE in 2022. 

The menu still changes twice a day in a world of burgers and shots. When seasonal produce finishes, they “find the joy” in something else. Though they’re now having the tumblers specially made (the French manufacturer ran out).

There will be an “alumni party” this month with Fergus present (his Parkinson’s is too advanced for him to do interviews now) and well-known chefs who trained at St John. But there won’t be too much pomp, as Gulliver stresses: “No one is famous at St John. Even the very famous – a footballer, politician, actor – all have the right to quiet enjoyment.”