The former chairman of the 1922 Committee has revealed the backroom tensions and deals behind the most turbulent decade in Conservative Party history for the first time.

Graham Brady has detailed his private conversations with prime ministers as they were forced out of power and lifted the lid on his role as Brexit, the pandemic and leadership turmoil culminated in electoral disaster for the Tories.

In his autobiography, Kingmaker, serialised in The Telegraph, Lord Brady reveals that Rishi Sunak was not forced to call an early election, because only 10 letters of no confidence in him had been submitted.

In further revelations, he says Penny Mordaunt suggested earlier in the year that she could replace Mr Sunak and that, on the day the former prime minister announced that the country would go to the polls, Andrea Leadsom tried to stop him.

According to Lord Brady, Boris Johnson became so fed up with backbenchers criticising his adviser Dominic Cummings during the pandemic that he called them “spineless chicken s—”.

Although Lord Brady insists the Tory party is not “ungovernable”, his book exposes several attempts to oust sitting prime ministers – including Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid and Michael Gove moving against the “wooden” Theresa May at the height of the Brexit saga.

Mr Hunt is also alleged to have told Lord Brady that Liz Truss had to quit as prime minister immediately, shortly after being appointed as her Chancellor.

Lord Brady also claims that David Cameron and George Osborne had contempt for people who did not share their backgrounds.

The 57-year-old oversaw the departures of five Conservative prime ministers during his tumultuous 14-year tenure as chairman of the 1922 Committee from 2010. As chairman, it was his job to tell prime ministers when they had lost the confidence of their MPs.

The powerful group of backbenchers runs the selection process for new Tory leaders. The chairman collects, entirely in private, letters of no confidence if MPs want to oust a leader.

It is the first time a former chairman has revealed the secrets of their time in charge.

It had been suggested that Mr Sunak was left with no choice but to call an election because he was about to face a vote of no confidence. Reports claimed Lord Brady had received “around 50” letters – almost at the threshold of 53 required.

However, Lord Brady writes: “A rumour spread that Rishi had called the election because I had told him that he was about to face a confidence vote. I had given no such indication. As we headed off towards the smoke of battle, there were 10 letters sitting in my safe.”

The knives were out for Mr Sunak before the local elections in May, when Lord Brady claims Ms Mordaunt launched an early bid to replace him.

Revealing that a rumour had started that “Rishi would just walk away” if the results were poor, he writes: “During a meeting with me soon after, the Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt said: ‘I wouldn’t ask you… but if anything did happen.. if Rishi walked away after the local elections, I hope there is a plan for a calm transition?’”

Mr Sunak called Lord Brady personally on May 22 to tell him he would be announcing the July 4 election that afternoon – to the shock and horror of Conservative colleagues, who convened an emergency meeting of the 1922 Committee.

Dame Andrea Leadsom, then a health minister, apparently asked Lord Brady: “If enough of us submit letters to you calling for a vote of no confidence, can we stop the prime minister from leading the Conservative Party to its destruction?”

Like many Tories, Lord Brady – who was a vocal member of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group of Conservative MPs –repeatedly clashed with Boris Johnson over his “draconian” approach to the pandemic.

Mr Johnson apparently became so irritated by Tories criticising Mr Cummings over his lockdown-breaking Bernard Castle trip in 2020 that he angrily dubbed them “spineless chicken s—”, despite saying that Mr Cummings was “not sane”.

Echoing Mr Cummings’ description of his former boss as a “shopping trolley” during the pandemic, Lord Brady claims Mr Johnson railed against the “stupid f—ing two-metre rule” and “f—ing scientists” while also telling those who questioned his Covid measures: “How many people would you let die?”

He also refused to step down right up to the night before his resignation in 2022, telling Lord Brady: “They would be mad to get rid of a leader who won the biggest Conservative majority since 1987.”

Such was the skulduggery that after Ms Truss blamed Kwasi Kwarteng for the disastrous mini-Budget in 2022 and replaced him with Mr Hunt, the new chancellor then told Lord Brady that she “must go”.

Ms Truss resigned six days later after a brief conversation with Lord Brady, who was then forced to “hide” inside No 10 until she made her statement to avoid the press pack gathered outside.

Lord Brady, the former MP for Altrincham and Sale who resigned from Lord Cameron’s shadow Cabinet in 2007 over his opposition to grammar schools, accuses the former prime minister of an “act of petulance” in resigning the day after the EU referendum in 2016.

He argues that the behaviour of Lord Cameron and Mr Osborne, his chancellor, was “unprincipled, both in the run-up to the campaign, and during it…”.

During a series of scandals in 2014, he reveals that the Old Etonian once told him: “The fact is, a lot of politics is just s—: it’s choosing the least bad option… Life would be easier if colleagues paid their expenses on time [sic] and didn’t snort coke and sodomise each other.”

Dame Prue Leith has been “sexed up” to walk the runway in a latex dress for avant-garde eco-designers Vin + Omi.

The Bake Off judge, 84, appeared in the duo’s 20th anniversary show, Moxie, in Kensington as part of London Fashion Week wearing a black latex dress with red stitching and matching evening gloves.

Speaking before the show, Omi told The Telegraph: “You’re going to see Prue Leith like you’ve never seen her before, not in your wildest dreams.

“Even her husband doesn’t know what she’s wearing, he’s going to be shocked but he’s going to love it. We’re gonna sex her up.”

He added that Dame Prue, a close friend of the pair, is “game for anything”.

“Every piece that walks down the catwalk is like a manifesto… and Prue will be wearing one of our manifestos. We designed it specially for her… she’s such a rockstar.”

The designers, famed for their sustainable and inventive garments, have worked with King Charles on a number of occasions to use waste materials from his various estates and fashion them into clothing.

They currently have an exhibition running at Sandringham titled “From Royal Gardens to Fashion’s Future”.

“Our pinch-me moment will always be our work with the King,” Omi said. He added: “I think it’s something that you just never imagine happening.

“It’s like a wild dream… like when people say you never get to climb Mount Everest… but I think to have the support and working with the King, I think that’s more adventurous than climbing Mount Everest.”

The designers held a private audience with the monarch in April, ahead of the opening of their exhibition, where they reminisced about forging garments out of his property’s nettles and an invasive weed called butterbur.

Omi said: “Then we took some selfies and… it was nice, it was the three of us and it felt special. It didn’t feel like we were with the King, we felt like we were with a collaborator with the same vision.”

Anti-war theme

Friday’s fashion show showcased the last 20 years of the designers’ collections and included an anti-war political theme throughout.

Models carried signs that read: “stop the war”, “no war”, “resist”, “love always wins” and even “anti-war milfs”.

The duo do not make clothes to sell, but rather to reflect their eco-innovation, as well as their social and educational work.

“We tend to call ourselves ideologists rather than fashion designers, and we like our work to be argued and debated,” Omi said.

“The first thing we panned out in our manifesto 25 years ago was we will always run the business on empathy, not just for people, but for the environment.”

The show included an appearance by Josie Stevens, former Playboy model, who flew to attend from the US.

Omi said: “We’ve got a Playboy covergirl to Prue Leith from Bake Off!”

Italian special forces divers have recovered potentially crucial video equipment from the wreck of Mike Lynch’s superyacht, which could explain how it sank.

Seven people, including the British tech tycoon and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, died when the Bayesian sank in severe weather off the coast of Sicily last month.

The divers, from an Italian navy unit equivalent to Britain’s Special Boat Service, recovered video surveillance systems, computers and hard drives that will be sent to specialised labs, a source close to the investigation told Reuters.

It is hoped that, if the equipment was recovered intact, it may help investigators find out what happened on the night of the sinking. 

It is believed the yacht was hit by a meteorological phenomenon known as a downburst, which can pack as much punch as a mini-tornado.

The six elite divers, deployed at the request of prosecutors who are investigating the sinking, are from a special forces unit called Comsubin. They used a hyperbaric chamber that allowed them to make repeated dives of up to 40 minutes.

The other victims of the Aug 19 tragedy were Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s Antiguan-Canadian chef, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda.

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, survived the disaster and were rescued by a nearby yacht.

The bodies of the seven victims have now been flown back to their home countries by private jet, according to Italian media reports. Post-mortem examinations were conducted last week. The jet took off from Palermo airport, to the west of where the yacht went down, according to Il Giornale di Sicilia newspaper.

James Cutfield, 51, the New Zealand skipper of the Bayesian, is under investigation for multiple manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, along with two British crew members: Tim Parker Eaton, 56, and Matthew Griffiths, 22.

Under the Italian legal system, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean that charges will be brought.

The Bayesian will be raised and brought to shore as part of the investigation into how it sank within 16 minutes of being hit by the storm. It is lying at a depth of 165ft, around half a mile off the fishing town of Porticello.

“See how she’s trying to get me,” Jeff Leibowitz says as he holds a thin grey snake between his thumb and forefinger.

The snake influencer, an advocate of a controversial practice known as free-handling, is demonstrating to his 15,000 Instagram followers how he uses his bare hands to control his pet inland taipan, one of the world’s most venomous snakes.

By applying pressure to the reptile’s body as it tries to twist around and bite him, he can prevent any accidents, he assures viewers.

“There’s no need to be so scared of them if you know their limitations,” Mr Leibowitz says, as the Australian desert snake lashes around in a thin layer of water.

Hours later, he was critically ill in hospital. The inland taipan, which he cooed over as “my sweet girl” in an earlier video, had managed to escape his grasp and plant its fangs into his hand.

The near-fatal accident in Florence, South Carolina, caused disquiet among snake owners and prompted complaints that the online trend for free-handling, in which daredevils compete to show how they can tame their lethal pets, is painting them all in a bad light.

“You cannot tame a snake, they act on instinct,” Mark O’Shea MBE, professor of herpetology at the University of Wolverhampton, told The Telegraph.

He called Mr Leibowitz’s attempts to control snakes using some kind of pseudoscience “mind-boggling”, saying: “It is incredibly foolish to free-handle something as lethal as an inland taipan.”

Research on the animal’s venom suggests it is potent enough to kill 100 adult men in a single bite.

Prof O’Shea, who has worked with reptiles for over four decades, said he hoped what happened could serve as a warning to Mr Leibiwitz’s followers. “There is no need to do such a thing unless you are showing off, it comes down to pure ego.”

But Mr Leibowitz had always waved off his critics who saw him as an unnecessary risk-taker. His take on it was clear – all or nothing, as he recently declared: “Antivenom is for pussies.”

Last week, he posted a clip of him holding his eastern diamondback rattlesnake “Shaky” near to his face. He described the largest venomous snake in North America as “cuddly”.

“Look at this medicine I take, it’s called ‘f—- it all’… coming soon to a pharmacy near you,” he told his critics as Shaky tried to lurch at his face.

A day before, he filmed himself stroking the head of “Asparagus”, a green mamba whose bite could kill him in less than 30 minutes.

But on the evening of Sept 5, a post suddenly appeared on Venomous Snakes Classified, Mr Leibowitz’s 49,000-strong Facebook group dedicated to those who share a love of dangerous snakes.

“Who has a meeting access to anti-venom for an inland taipan,” he wrote somewhat incoherently at 11pm.

At 2am, he wrote another post, urging “anyone who has antivenom for an inland taipan or knows someone please call McLeod hospital” where he had been taken after being bitten.

The antivenom was in short supply in South Carolina due to a prior inland taipan snake bite in recent months, the police report said. The treatment had to be reportedly flown in from Florida.

Mr Leibowitz’s family later shared an update to his friends and fans, saying he had been given antivenom and was in intensive care on a ventilator.

Experts say he could be facing long-lasting or permanent organ damage and that the delay in receiving antivenom likely led to prolonged bleeding.

On Venomous Snakes Classified, amid the well-wishers and those desperate for updates, were snake enthusiasts who called what happened a disaster that had been waiting to happen.

One wrote that Mr Leibowitz’s “own negligence and his lack [of] safety precautions” led him to get bitten, another called it “natural selection”.

“Jeff was being reckless and got bit now he’s put others’ lives at risk and the hobby at risk,” a third responded.

On Thursday, Mr Leibowitz recorded himself mumbling something in a woozy voice from a hospital bed before showing pictures of his purple arm and the mark of a snake bite on his hand.

He is still said to be in serious condition and receiving dialysis, a likely sign he suffered organ damage from the toxic venom.

Police said that two cats and 14 snakes – including rattlesnakes, vipers, cobras, a green mamba, a death adder and an inland taipan – were seized from Mr Leibowitz’s home.

The animals were removed over concerns of disease after police found what they called “substandard living conditions”, describing a house full of urine, faeces and raw and rotting meat.

All 14 snakes were euthanised on Monday night, authorities confirmed, after no zoos or reptile farms in the state would accept them due to the safety risks.

Jay Blades, the BBC presenter, has been charged with engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour towards his wife.

Blades, 54, appeared at Kidderminster magistrates’ court on Friday after being charged by West Mercia Police with one count of engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship.

According to court documents, the charge relates to his wife Lisa Zbozen, a fitness instructor, who announced on her Instagram page in May that their relationship was over.

The couple married in the grounds of a beachfront villa in Barbados in November 2022.

Blades, who fronts primetime show The Repair Shop, will appear at Worcester crown court for a plea and trial preparation hearing on Oct 11.

West Mercia Police said: “Fifty-four-year-old Jason Blades, of Claverley in Wolverhampton, has been charged with controlling and coercive behaviour.

“He appeared at Kidderminster magistrates’ court this morning and has been bailed to appear at Worcester crown court on Friday Oct 11.”

Furniture restorer Blades, who was made an MBE for services to craft in 2022, found fame on The Repair Shop, the restoration programme he has presented since 2017. It sees members of the public take worn-out family heirlooms to be restored by a team of experts.

A spin-off of the show appeared to have been pulled from the air on Friday evening.

A repeat of David & Jay’s Touring Toolshed, in which Blades appears alongside actor David Jason touring the UK to meet “crafters and hobbyists” was scheduled for 8pm on BBC One.

According to MailOnline, the slot had been filled with an episode of Garden Rescue.

On Friday his wife Lisa shared a news article revealing Blades had been charged with controlling and coercive behaviour.

The charge emerged a day after a live tour version was announced via social media.

A post from the official Repair Shop account read: “The repair shop is stepping out of the barn and onto the stage from an exciting new tour.”

Last May, he won a daytime Bafta TV award along with other members of The Repair Shop for a special featuring the King. In it, Blades and the restorers visited Charles at Dumfries House in Scotland for The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit.

The programme also won the daytime prize at the National Television Awards.

Blades also presented the BBC’s Money For Nothing until 2020, appeared on Celebrity Masterchef, Celebrity Bake Off and Comic Relief, and delved into the history of the West Midlands and the East End for two Channel 5 documentaries.

Last March, he became Buckinghamshire New University’s first chancellor, having studied for a degree in criminology and philosophy from 2001.

He has now left the role, and a spokesman said: “Jay Blades MBE has resigned from his role as chancellor at Buckinghamshire New University with immediate effect. We thank Jay for his loyal service to the university, and will be making no further comment.”

Mr Blades, who grew up in Hackney, east London, left school aged 15 without any qualifications and spent his 20s working in factories and as a labourer.

After graduating from BuckinghamshireNew University, he co-founded the Out of the Dark charitable social enterprise which trained young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to revamp furniture.

A BBC spokesman said: “It would not be appropriate to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

A pianist poured bleach over her partner and almost severed his penis when he refused to have sex with her, a court heard.

Marlena Meczynska-Shiibashi, 38, waited until her boyfriend, 50, had fallen asleep and then poured bleach on his face.

As he was confused and fumbling for his clothes in the dark, she stabbed him in the groin, narrowly missing his penis.

The music teacher later said in court: “I wanted to harm his penis but because he moved I got his thigh instead.”

On Friday, she was sentenced to seven years in prison at Lewes Crown Court after she pleaded guilty to wounding her boyfriend with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The court heard that the couple had been in an on-again off-again relationship since 2011.

On the day of the attack in April last year, Maczynska-Shiibashi had tried to initiate sex with her partner at her home in Hastings, East Sussex, but he refused, saying: “Please don’t.”

‘I realised it was bleach’

He then went to sleep but was woken when he felt liquid being poured onto his left cheek.

He told the court: “My next recollection was some liquid being poured over the left side of my face. When I inhaled I realised it was bleach. It went into my nose and ear.

“I sat up straight away and that’s when she threw the remainder of the contents of the glass into my face.”

The victim said he tried to use his phone torch to find his clothing and managed to get his socks on when he was stabbed in the groin.

Blinded by the bleach, he described feeling warm liquid running down his leg.

He said: “My initial thoughts were I had wet myself out of fear of what was happening. It was only when I looked down that I could work out it was blood from a wound.

“I then looked at her and could see she had a face absolutely full of rage and she was holding a knife. She was coming towards me with the knife.”

The man was able to escape the flat and was discovered by police lying naked and covered in blood in the hallway of the building.

‘I poured it on his closed eyes’

As Meczynska-Shiibashi was being arrested by police, she asked officers: “Do you know if it’s in the genitals or not?”

She later told the court: “I got massively drunk and stoned with marijuana. I grabbed a kitchen knife and bleach and poured the bleach in a glass. I poured it on his closed eyes.”

She told the court she had been the victim of serious sexual abuse and had acted in self-defence.

But the court found no evidence of abuse and found her to be coercive and controlling of her boyfriend.

Judge Christine Laing KC told the pianist: “I find you to be a liar and a very manipulative person who hides behind the story of serious abuse as an excuse to lash out at people both mentally and physically.”

She sentenced Meczynska-Shiibashi to seven years in prison and four years on extended licence to protect the public.

She also imposed an indefinite restraining order forbidding her from contacting her ex-boyfriend.

Seven men were jailed for sexually abusing two girls in Rotherham in the latest convictions under the UK’s biggest-ever law enforcement operation against child sex abuse.

The defendants regularly picked up the victims in their cars and gave them cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis and money, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

The girls would then be assaulted, forced to perform sexual acts or raped.

One of the girls was taken to a hotel where she was raped by two men, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

On another occasion the same girl was locked inside one of her abuser’s homes, raped on at least two occasions and only managed to escape by climbing out of a window.

The seven men are the latest to be convicted following an investigation by the NCA’s Operation Stovewood, which is looking at abuse which took place in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The NCA said this case covers “some of the worst offending we have investigated under Operation Stovewood”.

Most harrowing abuse possible

The agency said Mohammed Amar, Mohammed Siyab, Yasser Ajaibe, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq, Abid Saddiq, Tahir Yassin and Ramin Bari were jailed on Thursday and Friday for the offences which were committed between April 2003 and April 2008.

A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesman said Amar, Ajaibe, Sadiq and Sayib abused one victim, and Yassin and Bari abused the other.

Saddiq, who was already serving a 20-year prison sentence for sexual offences in Rotherham handed down in 2019, abused both girls.

The two victims were aged 11 and 15 when the offending began, the CPS said, and both spent time in the care system.

NCA senior investigating officer Stuart Cobb said: “These men were cruel and manipulative, grooming their victims and then exploiting them by subjecting them to the most harrowing abuse possible.

“They were responsible for some of the worst offending we have investigated under Operation Stovewood.

“I can only once again pay tribute to the victims who were brave enough to come forward, tell their stories and confront their abusers.”

Zoe Becker, for the CPS, said: “These seven men deliberately preyed on two young girls they knew were vulnerable and, using drugs and alcohol, exploited them for their own sexual gratification.

Courage and fortitude

“The cruelty and abuse the victims suffered at the hands of these defendants was horrific and has continued to have a lasting impact on their lives today.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the victims for coming forward and giving evidence. This has been a complex and challenging case, and it is because of their courage and fortitude that we have been able to bring these offenders to justice.”

Operation Stovewood was set up in the wake of the landmark Jay Report which found in 2014 that at least 1,400 girls were abused by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Thirty-six people have so far been convicted as a result of the operation, which the NCA says is the single largest law enforcement operation of its kind ever undertaken in the UK.

Last year, the NCA announced that new allegations would be handled by South Yorkshire Police rather than Operation Stovewood, saying it had identified more than 1,100 children involved in the exploitation between 1997 and 2013 – almost all girls.

The agency said it remains committed to seeing its current investigations through to the end of the criminal justice process, which is anticipated to continue into 2027.

Previous estimates have put the cost of Operation Stovewood at about £90 million.

A primary school teacher has been barred from the classroom after it was revealed she helped smuggle a 14-year-old African girl into Britain to act as her “slave”.

Ernestina Quainoo, 53, was sentenced for her crime in 2008 but failed to disclose her previous conviction to Cherry Lane Primary School in West Drayton, London, before taking up a teaching role in 2019.

She taught children aged between five and seven until December 2022, when a colleague received an old newspaper clipping divulging her criminal past.

Following a Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) investigation, Ms Quainoo has been banned from teaching for her actions, which went against “the very core of her practice”.

Ms Quainoo moved to the UK from Ghana with her husband, Samuel Quainoo, in 2004.

The pair managed to smuggle a 14-year-old African girl into the country, promising her that she would receive an education and a job, a court heard in 2008.

The girl was instead subjected to 18 months of unpaid labour that left her contemplating suicide.

‘My other name is bitch’

She was forced to cook, clean the house and babysit the couple’s two young sons, while the couple bought her T-shirt to wear with “my other name is bitch” printed on them.

The pair kept the girl isolated, preventing her from going to school and forming friendships.

Falling ill, the girl fled to find medical aid and subsequently escaped, later telling police and social workers that she had contemplated suicide.

Mr Quainoo is said to have told the police that the girl had cast a “voodoo” spell on them.

Mr Quainoo, who had a previous conviction for false accounting, was jailed for 18 months and his wife was given a two-year suspended sentence for assisting unlawful immigration into the UK.

Mrs Quainoo resigned from her role in February but her former employers referred the matter to the TRA.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act affords those with spent convictions and cautions the right not to have to disclose when applying for most jobs.

‘Cultural differences’

However, the teaching panel heard that Mrs Quainoo’s conviction was not protected under the act.

Teaching watchdogs were informed that Mrs Quainoo had initially denied having any convictions and later declared to the school that she had committed an immigration offence.

In her disclosure statement, Mrs Quainoo explained: “Due to my inability to demonstrate that she [the individual] was a member [of] the family, I was charged with assisting her unlawful entry into the UK on 11th July, for which I pleaded guilty as I completely misunderstood the cultural differences that exist between the two.”

Sue Davies, who chaired the TRA hearing, said: “The panel concluded that the information Mrs Quainoo provided on the application form when she answered ‘no’ to that question was not correct.”

However, the panel ruled there was not enough evidence that she had deliberately lied and therefore found a dishonesty allegation not proved.

Mrs Davies added: “At the time, the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance did not require that an internet search of candidates was undertaken.

“The panel accepted that the school chose to still employ Mrs Quainoo on the basis of the disclosure statement and the DBS check giving them no reason to believe the offence might have been in relation to a child.”

The panel described a lack of further investigation from the school as “regrettable”.

Banning the former teacher from the profession for two years, Sarah Buxcey, head of the TRA’s teacher investigation unit, said that Ms Quainoo’s past actions went against the “very core of her practice as a teacher with a duty of care towards children”.

She added: “A prohibition order would therefore prevent such a risk from being present in the future.”

An Austrian woman was found guilty of fatally infecting her neighbour with Covid after she ignored quarantine rules and failed to wear a mask.

The 54-year-old from Carinthia was given a suspended sentence of four months and fined €800 (£675) for grossly negligent homicide.

“I really didn’t take the verdict lightly,” Judge Sabine Götz said.

“I feel sorry for you personally – I think that something like this has probably happened hundreds of times.”

“But you are unlucky that an expert has determined with almost absolute certainty that it was an infection that came from you,” she added.

The male victim, a cancer patient, died of pneumonia caused by coronavirus after getting infected in 2021, the court heard before handing down its sentence on Thursday.

Earlier, an expert said the virus DNA matched the defendant and the victim, providing she had “almost 100 per cent” transmitted it.

Such a close match was convincing evidence because coronaviruses change rapidly, the expert said.

The judge said the virological report gave the necessary certainty to reach the guilty verdict.

The names of the victim and defendant in the case at Klagenfurt district court were not released in line with Austrian privacy rules.

Earlier this week, the judge had heard statements from the victim’s family. His son, wife and daughter in law said the neighbours had had contact in a stairwell on Dec 21, 2021.

At that time, the defendant would already have known she had Covid-19.

The family said she was standing in her doorway in the hallway of the apartment building, with the deceased standing opposite her.

“She looked really sick. I asked her if she had corona, but she said no and that she only had the flu,” the son said. He was worried because he knew how dangerous Covid was for cancer patients.

The defendant denied meeting the neighbour at all and claimed she was too sick to get out of bed that day.

‘I couldn’t get out of bed or talk’

She told the court she believed she had bronchitis, which she typically gets every year.

“That day I couldn’t get out of bed or talk because I was so sick. So it couldn’t have happened like that,” she said.

“It was clear to me that this was bronchitis, like the one I get every year in winter,” she said during the trial.

But he woman’s doctor told police that the defendant had tested positive with a rapid test before telling him that she “certainly won’t let herself be locked up” after the result.

Instead she left her apartment and talked to people without a mask, ignoring her mandatory quarantine and positive test.

The Austrian news agency reported the verdict was not final.

It is the woman’s second pandemic-related conviction in a year.

She was given a three-month suspended sentence for intentionally endangering people through communicable diseases last summer.

A verdict of grossly negligent homicide was overturned at that time because of insufficient evidence over how the infection was spread, which led to the recent court hearing.

Far-Right party opposed compulsory jabs

Austria will vote in a general election at the end of this month, and the poll-topping far-Right Freedom Party is predicted to win, completing a remarkable comeback since it was ousted from coalition government in 2019 in a corruption scandal.

It rebuilt its support by exploiting Austrian resistance to compulsory coronavirus vaccinations during the pandemic.

Its manifesto has promised a pardon for anyone convicted of breaching coronavirus rules and to repay any fines imposed during the pandemic.

The manifesto says coronavirus regulations were encroachments on fundamental rights “accompanied by unprecedented indoctrination and brainwashing.”

Even if it wins the elections as expected, the party may struggle to find partners for a coalition government. If it does, the pardon may not survive coalition talks to become national policy.

The Duke of Sussex has said his mission is to do good in the world, as he prepares to turn 40 this week.

He added that although he was anxious about turning 30, he is looking forward to his 40th birthday.

The Duke told The BBC: “I was anxious about 30, I’m excited about 40.”

In a statement to the broadcaster, the prince added: “Whatever the age, my mission is to continue showing up and doing good in the world.”

He will celebrate this birthday on Sunday with his family in California.

It is understood he will then go on a holiday with a group of close friends.

Fatherhood is ‘one of life’s great joys’

The Duke also spoke about the importance of his children, Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, ahead of the milestone.

He said: “Becoming a father of two incredibly kind and funny kids has given me a fresh perspective on life, as well as sharpening my focus in all my work,” he said in the statement.

“Being a dad is one of life’s greatest joys and has only made me more driven and more committed to making this world a better place.”

The past decade has been turbulent for the Duke with his familial relationships fraying as he stepped back from royal duties and moved to the US.

The Duke has made no secret of his wish to reunite with the King, despite conflicting narratives emerging from the two camps about efforts to make contact and who is rebuffing who.

In 2014, when he turned 30 and returned from his second tour with the British Army in Afghanistan, he founded the Invictus Games, a sporting competition for wounded Armed Forces veterans.

The Duke is now said to be heavily focused on the next iteration of the Games, which takes place in Vancouver and Whistler in February next year, as well as various US-based projects that have not yet been announced.

Justin Timberlake urged drivers not to get behind the wheel after taking even one drink after pleading guilty to driving while impaired under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors in New York. 

He was fined $500 (£381) with a $260 surcharge and ordered to do 25 to 40 hours of community service at a non-profit of his choosing. 

He stood throughout the proceedings in Sag Harbor, New York and expressed his remorse for what he had done. 

Emerging from the court, a contrite Timberlake said: “I try to hold myself to a very high standard for myself and this was not that. 

“I found myself in a position where I could have made a different decision,” he added. 

“Even if you have one drink don’t get behind the wheel of a car. There’s so many alternatives. Call a friend, take an Uber, there’s so many travel apps out there. Take a taxi. 

“This is a mistake that I made, but I’m hoping whoever’s watching and listening right now can learn from this mistake.” 

The 43-year-old star was arrested was arrested in Sag Harbor, shortly after midnight on June 18, after a police officer spotted a grey 2025 BMW weaving out of its lane and going through a stop sign. 

Originally he had been charged with driving while intoxicated, but the charge was reduced after negotiations with prosecutors. His driving licence was suspended last month. 

Fans and the media descended on the town packing the street outside the court where Timberlake was due to appear in person. 

He arrived wearing is seen wearing a black cardigan, black t-shirt, khaki trousers, red-tinted sunglasses and a double-stranded pearl necklace. 

According to the arrest report, Timberlake was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were “bloodshot and glassy” and there was a “strong odour” of alcohol on his breath when the car was pulled over. 

He performed badly when ordered to take a “field sobriety test” which entailed standing on one leg and walking in a straight line. 

Timberlake, who told the officer he had only one martini, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated. 

He also refused to take an alcohol test, despite being warned that this could be held against him in court. 

The singer was also held overnight, before being brought before the court the following morning and being released on bail. 

Timberlake had been at the American Hotel on Main Street in Sag Harbor an upmarket town in the Hamptons on Long Island.  

After the hearing, Edmund Burke Jr, his lawyer, told reporters that Timberlake had one drink during the two hours he spent in the hotel. 

Sag Harbor is a one-time whaling village mentioned in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick that is nestled amid the Hamptons, an area of seaside communities around 100 miles east of New York City.

Timberlake’s license suspension in New York will probably affect his ability to drive in other states, a legal expert said this week.

Refusing a breathalyser test, as Timberlake did during his arrest, triggers an automatic suspension of one’s licence under New York state law, which should then be enforced in other states, according to Kenneth Gober, a managing partner at the law firm Lee, Gober & Reyna in Austin, Texas.

A British plumber and three Americans are among 37 people sentenced to death on charges of taking part in a murky coup plot to overthrow the Congolese president.

Youssouf Ezangi is to be executed alongside five other foreigners following a military tribunal in the country’s capital, Kinshasa.

Six people were killed during the short-lived uprising in May, led by a little-known opposition figure called Christian Malanga.

It targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Malanga was shot dead while resisting arrest, soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

Military authorities accused Mr Ezangi of being a ringleader in the plot.

However, his lawyers told The Telegraph that he had been tortured into confessing and then subjected to a rushed and flawed show trial.

As a civilian, he should not have been tried by a military tribunal, they said, while several defendants also insisted that they had been coerced into joining Malanga’s attack.

Saul Lehrfreund, the co-executive director of the UK-based Death Penalty Project, said that the trial had been “highly unsatisfactory”.

He said: “Imposing 37 death sentences in these circumstances is unthinkable. We will be raising concerns with international bodies, seeking an urgent investigation.”

Little is known about Mr Ezangi. Authorities in the DRC have described him as a naturalised British subject, and he lived in the UK, working as a plumber, until 2019, when he left to join a political party with Mr Malanga.

The Foreign Office confirmed that he is a British national.

A spokesman said: “We are providing consular assistance to a British man detained in DRC and are in contact with the local authorities.”

Others sentenced to death included Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel, and his high-school friend Tyler Thompson. The pair played American football together at school in Utah.

The third American, Benjamin Zalman-Polun, was a business associate of Christian Malanga.

All three were found guilty of criminal conspiracy, terrorism and other charges, and sentenced to death in a ruling read out on live TV.

Marcel Malanga had previously told the court that his father had threatened to kill him unless he participated.

He also told the court that it was his first time visiting the DRC, at the invitation of his father, whom he had not seen in years.

The National Trust has come under fire for hosting an art installation that has been compared to a “big pile of poo”.

The artwork on display at Grade I-listed Tyntesfield House in Somerset features coils of dead organic matter “winding their way around the house”.

Called ‘‘The Uninvited Guest from the Unremembered Past’’, the pieces are made of furniture legs, wool and horsehair, with artist Nicola Turner saying she was inspired by the house’s huge collection of more than 70,000 objects.

“I have been fascinated by seeing the broken items previously owned by the Gibbs Family and in-store at Tyntesfield,” she told the BBC.

“The glimpses beneath the tears in the fabric. The stuffing breaking free. The bowels of the furniture, the layers of materials.”

The National Trust said the artwork is a chance for visitors to “experience something different”.

However, the exhibition has been met with ridicule online, with several people comparing a piece located in a fireplace to a mound of excrement.

One social media commenter said: ‘‘What’s that in the fireplace? It looks like a big pile of poo.’‘

Another said: ‘‘Can’t quite believe it, it’s appalling, whose idea was this?!

‘‘It just looks like poo with legs. I’m not normally critical of art but this is really daft.’‘

Someone else compared the sculpture to a heap of fertiliser, saying: ‘‘Goodness! Anyone would think that Tyntesfield was built on exploiting guano.”

The Victorian-era country house was previously owned by English businessman William Gibbs, whose fortune came from guano.

Another commenter questioned what the artwork has to do with the National Trust and raised concerns that it may put off tourists.

They said: ‘‘I think this exhibition is absolutely disgusting.

‘‘I cannot see what this has to do with the National Trust, Tyntesfield, the Gibbs family or, indeed, anything.

‘‘Why spoil a heritage site with this? I have American visitors coming shortly and this venue is now crossed off the list.

‘‘If it has to be installed, why not put it in a separate building somewhere for people who enjoy this kind of ‘art’.

‘‘Parents are being given warnings that their children might be upset by it…. is this what we want?’‘

Other commentators were more positive about the exhibition, describing it as thought-provoking and “visually stunning”.

One person said: ‘‘It adds something to a staid Victorian environment that provokes thought and is visually stunning.

‘‘I can understand that it is not to everybody’s taste, but people are apparently unwilling to share the Tyntesfield environment with more open-minded visitors.

‘‘It is not permanently damaging anything, but temporarily opening a window on some different perspectives.”

The National Trust said: ‘‘Throughout the house, Turner has created a series of evocative installations made from organic materials, such as wool and horsehair.

‘‘‘These materials hold traces of memory, exploring ways of listening to past, present and future, inviting us to reflect on Tyntesfield’s history.

‘‘As well as some of our grand public rooms, like the Library and Main Hall, you’ll see spaces not normally open to the public, including bedrooms and storerooms.

‘‘The wool and horsehair installations draw influence from the house, weaving around and cascading from objects in Tyntesfield’s historic collection, like furniture, books and ceramics.”

The exhibition is open to visitors until Nov 3, with entry included in the standard admission fee.

Laura Loomer got her start as a “truth-telling” Right-wing activist by slipping into the background.

She used hidden cameras and microphones to try and record embarrassing conversations with “woke” university officials or else members of the Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Once describing herself as a “proud Islamophobe”, she was banned from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

These days, the 31-year-old is very much front-of-stage as an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, travelling on his private plane and showing up at events such as the 9/11 memorial ceremony.

In turn, Mr Trump has defended her presence, despite her history of making wild allegations – including the claim 9/11 was an “inside job” – and racist remarks about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

The 78-year-old Mr Trump, who has frequently been photographed with his arm around Ms Loomer, has been warned of the potential danger of associating too closely with her by allies such as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Lindsay Graham.

“This is such an important election. I don’t think that she has the experience or the right mentality to advise,” Ms Greene said.

“I do know this, that her rhetoric and her tone does not match the base, it does not match MAGA.”

The pair were attacked on social media in no uncertain terms by Ms Loomer for doing so.

Trump defends his ally Laura Loomer

On Friday, Mr Trump defended his association with her when she held a press conference in California.

“Laura’s been a supporter of mine. She speaks positively of the campaign,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t control Laura. She’s a free spirit.”

But Mr Trump later wrote on social media that he disagreed with the statement Ms Loomer had made about Ms Harris, appearing to distance himself from his cheerleader.

He added: “But, like the many millions of people who support me, she is tired of watching the Radical Left Marxists and Fascists violently attack and smear me, even to the point of doing anything to stop their Political Opponent, ME!”

Ms Loomer, writing on X, formerly Twitter, thanked someone who had applauded her activism.

“Thank you. I am a very tough person,” she wrote. “You can’t be involved in investigating political corruption unless you have tough skin.”

‘The White House will smell like curry’

Last weekend, Ms Loomer said if Ms Harris – who is of Indian and Jamaican heritage – won the election the “the White House will smell like curry”.

Mr Graham, the senator from South Carolina, denounced the remarks as “abhorrent”.

“But it’s deeper than that,” he said. “Some of the things she’s said about Republicans and others is disturbing.”

Asked about such comments, Mr Trump said: “She’s a strong person. She’s got strong opinions, and I don’t know what she said, but that’s not up to me. She’s a supporter.”

He added: “I do know that she may have said something based on what you’re telling me, but I don’t know what she said, but I’ll go take a look and I’ll put out a statement later on.”

Earlier this year the New York Times reported Ms Loomer was being hired by the Trump campaign, though it was strongly denied.

What appears certain is that Ms Loomer has become increasingly close to Mr Trump’s campaign, and was seen departing his plane when he landed in Philadelphia for Tuesday’s debate.

She was seen with other members of the campaign team and was in the media “spin room” afterwards.

Her presence comes just weeks after several former campaign staff from 2016 and 2020, have returned to his campaign team. Among them is former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, best known for telling colleagues: “Let Trump be Trump.”

Loomer insists 9/11 was an inside job

The day after the debate Ms Loomer, joined Mr Trump in New York and Pennsylvania as he and others commemorated the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks even though last year she had posted on social media that 9/11 was an “inside job”.

“HAPPENING NOW: President Trump just visited the Shanksville Fire Department after visiting the memorial site of United Flight 93 and meeting with family members of 9/11 terrorist attack victims in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,” she posted on X on Wednesday afternoon. “NEVER FORGET!”

Some of the 9/11 survivors and people who lost loved ones that day questioned her presence.

“It’s baffling to me that anyone within Trump’s orbit would believe the “inside job” theory when Trump himself declared that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the attacks of 9/11,” Sharon Premoli, who was on the 80th floor of the North Tower when it was struck but somehow survived, told The Telegraph.

“If Laura Loomer has unambiguous and indisputable proof of this old conspiracy theory that has never been proven thus far, the public would like to see it.”

Ms Loomer has also posted false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio eating family pets.

Mr Trump repeated the allegation himself during the debate, something that triggered alarm from his allies and led the moderators to say there was no evidence to support the claims.

President Biden told a British reporter “you be quiet” after the journalist asked a question before a key meeting with Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Biden and the British Prime Minister both made statements to reporters at the start of the meeting.

One Sky News reporter, James Matthews, tried to ask a question about what the President thought of Putin’s threat of war.

Mr Biden snapped back: “You be quiet, I’m going to speak, OK?

“You gotta be quiet, I’m going to make a statement.”

Mr Biden and Sir Keir then made statements about the issues that would be discussed at the meeting: Ukraine and Gaza.

The Sky News reporter then asked his question again.

This time, the President replied: “I don’t think much of Vladimir Putin.”

Mr Putin said on Thursday that it would be an act of war if the West allowed Ukraine to use long-range missiles in Russia.

Sir Keir and Mr Biden had a short one to one meeting in the Oval Office before a longer meeting with aides in the Blue Room, where the confrontation with the reporter took place.

Alongside the Prime Minister was David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary.

Sir Keir’s chief of staff, Sue Gray was also there, along with Dame Karen Pierce, UK ambassador to the US.

Sir Keir Starmer has said he had to scrap the winter fuel allowance for 10 million pensioners to find the money to get the NHS back on its feet.

The Prime Minister said he had “every sympathy” with poorer pensioners who would struggle with their bills, adding: “I didn’t want to do it.”

Speaking during a visit to the US for talks, he said the move was vital to “stabilise the economy” and protect pensions from inflation, as well as “ensure the NHS is up and running properly”.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announced in July that most pensioners would lose the annual winter fuel payment of up to £300. Only those on pension credit, or other means-tested benefits, will retain it.

Sir Keir added: “I’ve got every sympathy with anyone who is struggling with any of their bills. But the question we’ve got to answer is, how are you going to make up for a £22 billion shortfall this year, which we hadn’t expected to find?

“I didn’t want to do what the last government did, which is pretend it’s not there, kick it down the road, put it in the long grass or just leave it off the balance books. If we don’t stabilise the economy, we run the risk of inflation, we run the risk of not being able to end the cost of living crisis, and that will hit pensions really, really hard.

“Equally, the work we’re doing to ensure the NHS is up and running properly, that transport is running properly, is vitally important to pensions. Many, many people say to me their first worry is the state of the NHS.”

On Thursday, the Prime Minister said that the health service must reform “or die”.  Speaking at an event in London after a damning report by Lord Darzi found the NHS was “in serious trouble”, Sir Keir said: “The NHS is at a fork in the road and we have a choice about how it should meet those demands.

“Don’t act and leave it to die, raise taxes on working people, or reform to secure its future. Working people can’t afford to pay more – so it is reform or die.”

The Prime Minister said the controversial cut to the fuel allowance, which sparked a Labour rebellion in the Commons earlier this week, would save up to £1.5 billion towards filling the £22 billion black hole.

He also dismissed an impact assessment carried out by the Labour party in 2017 predicting that removing the allowance would lead to almost 4,000 deaths.

The Government has been accused of not releasing a recent impact assessment on the benefit cut but Sir Keir again said no new assessment had been carried out. 

“The last assessment was many years ago,” he said. “It’s a different assessment, different context.”

Sir Keir said he was unfazed by polls showing that the decision had dented his popularity, and denied that tax raids on pensioners were revenge on older people for voting for Brexit.

He stressed that he was willing to “take decisions that aren’t going to be popular” and compared means-testing winter fuel payments to the “series of really difficult decisions” he took to overhaul Labour to make it electable again.

“I’ll be judged when the time comes for the next election as to whether I’ve delivered my promises or not,” he said.

Speaking later in the day, the Prime Minister once more refused to rule out plans to end the single person’s discount on council tax, dubbed the “widow’s tax”, which will affect many older people.

The question on everybody’s lips – who is going to with the election on Nov 5. 

Earlier this week, Donald Trump took most of the headlines after a bruising encounter with Kamala Harris in their first debate as presidential candidates.

The confrontation was billed as one of the most consequential moments of the race so far.

And Ms Harris is still riding the wave of relative success with some favourable polling in the swing states. 

• Latest presidential election polls: Harris v Trump

Our writers have been predicting the overall winner of the election since early this year, periodically plotting their choices on a sliding scale of likelihood. 

After the debate they have now updated their predictions below.

Kamala Harris and her campaign routinely say she is the underdog in the race. That isn’t merely an exercise in tempering expectations. They would be foolish to think otherwise given her late entry. But Ms Harris’s debate performance has certainly given them reasons for optimism. 

She surpassed expectations and even succeeded in getting under Trump’s skin, provoking him into rants that will have done him no favours with undecided voters. 

Several Republican allies of Trump privately conceded he had a disappointing night. The debate is unlikely to have dramatically altered the course of the election. But with the race in a virtual tie, every opportunity matters, and the underdog’s team will be facing the next 54 days feeling more hopeful than they were on Tuesday.

Tuesday night’s debate was a clear victory for Kamala Harris. A snap poll from CNN showed 67 per cent of viewers say she won. 

Her performance could matter: one in three voters said they “needed to learn more” about her ahead of the election. A strong showing could help voters build that image. 

As ever, the impact of debates shouldn’t be overstated. Even the knock-out debate in June, which just 31 per cent thought Biden won, failed to shift voting intention significantly, according to analysis by Ipsos. 

But in a race this tight, where the results could come down to just thousands of votes in key states, a small movement in voting intention will make all the difference.

The debate might not move the polls, but it does reaffirm Kamala Harris’s message that hers is the “non-weird” ticket and will boost enthusiasm among her supporters. Hitherto, Donald Trump was the change candidate. Suddenly he is the old face and she is the new. 

The Democrat strategy of avoiding sit-downs and betting all on a solid debate performance, possibly the only one we’ll see, might pay off. That said, her victory was really one of style. On issues such as immigration and the economy, only skirted over in Philly, Trump remains favoured.

But we are where we were in 2016: polls close with a likely Democrats advantage in popular vote; a Republican advantage in the electoral college. So long as the Democrats drill down into the blue-collar vote in the midwest, as they did in 2020, I guess they slip home. It’s Groundhog Day (again).

Donald Trump was put firmly on the defensive on Tuesday night, with Kamala Harris backing him into a corner on key issues like abortion and January 6. His campaigners will surely be close to giving up their pleas for the former president to “stay on message”.

His comments about migrants eating cats would appear to be a major blunder. But the comments about Springfield, Ohio, should not be dismissed out of hand. Immigration is a massive problem for the Democratic campaign, with parts of small-town America resenting rapid demographic change they rightly or wrongly associate with the Biden administration. 

Democrats might be pleased with Ms Harris’s showing, especially after the Biden disaster, but her persistent problem of dodging her changing positions was once again on show.

Will this debate change the mind of Pennsylvania swing voters? It’s unlikely. Independent voters are still very much in play – for both candidates.

Kamala Harris’s victory in the ABC News debate was a significant moment in the narrative of this campaign, but it is important to remember that most voters have already made up their minds at this stage in the race. 

The electoral college means that fewer than a million voters in a country of 350 million will actually decide this election, and it seems unlikely their minds will be significantly changed by what they saw on the debate stage on Tuesday. 

My prediction is unchanged – Ms Harris is marginally more likely to win, but Donald Trump is very much still in the race.

Methodology

Our experts are asked to plot their decision on a scale of 100, where 0 is a Harris landslide, 50 is a tie and 100 is a Trump landslide.

Donald Trump has vowed to swiftly deport migrants from Springfield, Ohio, the city at the centre of the controversy over claims Haitians are eating pets.

The Republican candidate said Springfield and Aurora in Colorado, which he claimed had been overrun by criminal gangs, would be top of the list for deportations.

The plans would form part of the largest mass deportation in the country’s history, he told reporters at his golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

The former president showed no sign of backing down from his claims that migrants had been eating pets in Springfield, despite accusations that his allegations had triggered violence in the city.

He repeated his claims that the migrants were wreaking havoc.

“In Springfield, Ohio 20,000 illegal migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people,” he said.

“They’ve destroyed the place, and people don’t like to talk about it, because even the town doesn’t like to talk about it because it sounds so bad for the town,” he added.

“We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio, large deportations. We’re gonna get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela.”

It is unclear why Trump mentioned Venezuela when the migrants in Springfield are from Haiti.

Trump added that he hoped to visit both towns during the campaign.

In the aftermath of his bruising debate encounter with Kamala Harris, Trump focused on her record as California’s attorney general, accusing her of being lenient on illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes.

“As attorney general, she defined child sex trafficking, assault with a deadly weapon and rape of an unconscious person as non-violent crime.

“She put them in a new category as non-violent. Now, as vice-president, she’s facilitated the largest wave of sex trafficking and human trafficking in history, the history of our country by far,” he added.

“While comrade Kamala Harris was attorney general at this state, murders rose significantly. Car thefts went through the roof. Gun assaults rose at levels never seen before, and forcible rape went up by much more than 73 per cent,” he added.

“In 2020 Kamala Harris proudly endorsed defunding the police,” he said.

“Anybody that was even in favour of defunding the police for one month, let alone her entire career, should never be president of the United States.”

Trump also focused heavily on immigration – an issue where he still is outpolling his opponent, linking it to a wave of serious crimes in the US.

“Not only is Comrade Kamala allowing illegal aliens to stampede across our border. But then it was announced about a year ago that they’re actually flying them in. Nobody knew that they were secretly flying hundreds of thousands of people, some of the worst murderers and terrorists you’ve ever seen,” he claimed.

“A president has a duty to keep you safe. Kamala will turn America into a poor, violent third-world refugee camp. It already sort of is we have elections that are a mess, and we have a border that’s the worst of any border ever in the world.”

Russian accusations that six British diplomats engaged in “spying and sabotage” in Moscow are “completely baseless”, the Foreign Office has said.

The Russian FSB security service said on Friday it had expelled the group after it obtained documents showing that a Foreign Office department was overseeing the “escalation of the political and military situation”, including plans for the strategic defeat of Moscow’s forces in Ukraine.

Responding to the Kremlin move, the Foreign Office said: “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless.

“The Russian authorities revoked the diplomatic accreditation of six UK diplomats in Russia last month, following action taken by the UK government in response to Russian state-directed activity across Europe and in the UK.”

It added: “We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”

The diplomats were expelled after Russian counter-intelligence officers became “tired” of chasing them around Moscow as they engaged in “classic British espionage”, an FSB employee told state-controlled news channel Rossiya-24.

Tactics reportedly included making rapid changes of public transport and “sitting for several hours on benches in the freezing cold” as they waited to meet members from banned groups.

Their spouses were allegedly deployed as spies, while young children were used to “cover up” their spying activity, the officer added. “Basically, one cannot speak of any diplomatic etiquette,” the FSB officer told the news channel.

‘Signs of spying and sabotage’

The move comes after Vladimir Putin warned Britain and the United States they would be “at war” with Russia if they gave Ukraine permission to use Western long-range missiles to strike targets across the border.

“Thus, the facts revealed give grounds to consider the activities of British diplomats sent to Moscow by the directorate as threatening the security of the Russian Federation,” the FSB said in a statement.

“In this connection, on the basis of documents provided by the Federal Security Service of Russia and as a response to the numerous unfriendly steps taken by London, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, in cooperation with the agencies concerned, has terminated the accreditation of six members of the political department of the British Embassy in Moscow in whose actions signs of spying and sabotage were found,” it said.

Pro-Kremlin propagandists published details on Friday of what they claimed was a UK Foreign Office department used to “wage a hybrid war with Russia”.

Its channel on the Telegram messaging app said they were involved in the dissemination of pro-Western information throughout Russia, where the media is mostly controlled by Putin’s Kremlin.

‘The English did not take our hints… so we decided to expel them’

“The English did not take our hints about the need to stop this practice (of carrying out intelligence activities inside Russia), so we decided to expel these six to begin with,” an FSB employee told the Rossiya-24 state TV channel.

The FSB threatened to expel other British diplomats if they were found to be involved in the alleged activities.

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman, told the Tass news agency that the British embassy in Moscow had gone beyond diplomatic convention.

Britain has previously expelled Russian diplomats it has accused of being involved in spying and espionage.

Maxim Elovik, its former defence attache in the country, was thrown out as part of sanctions introduced by James Cleverly, the former Home Secretary, to crack down on “malign” Russian activity in Britain and Europe.

Seven out of 10 disabled pensioners will lose their winter fuel payments because of Rachel Reeves’ cuts, documents have revealed after Labour was forced to publish an equality assessment.

A Freedom of Information response published by the Government on Friday night revealed the groups of elderly people most likely to be affected by the Chancellor’s decision.

A total of 1.6 million disabled people who currently receive the benefit – about 71 per cent – will lose out, alongside 2.7 million people aged 80 and above and 7.3 million aged between 66 and 79.

Meanwhile, of the total number of people who previously received winter fuel payments, around 4.6 million who will lose out live alone.

The assessment concludes that couples are most likely to lose out, and that men were marginally more likely to be affected than women because they are less likely to be on the lowest incomes.

On Friday evening, Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister and partner at pension consultants LCP, criticised the Government for having to have the information dragged from it via Freedom of Information laws.

He said: “It is shocking that this impact assessment has appeared late on a Friday evening, three days after MPs voted on the issue. The Government’s own figures show that seven in 10 disabled people over pension age will lose their winter fuel payment, and more than eight in 10 of those aged 80 or over.

“The Treasury confirms our analysis that those who miss out on pension credit or are just a few pounds above the cut-off are likely to be significantly negatively affected. This information should have been in front of MPs when they decided whether to support the policy.”

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer was accused of covering up official estimates of how many elderly people could die this winter after being denied the allowance.

Downing Street confirmed that no impact assessment for the decision was ever carried out.  Instead, a spokesman has said the only piece of work done was an equality assessment required by law, and that is the one published by the Department for Work and Pensions on Friday.

Of the Chancellor’s decision, the assessment says: “This policy will reduce the numbers entitled from around 12 million to 1.7 million in the first year… No transitional protection is assumed. The rationale would be to focus support on those pensioners with the lowest incomes.

“It would be important to continue to promote take-up of pension credit in this context, since the main criticism of Government in this respect is that one third of eligible households do not claim it.”

Impact assessments of policies are routinely published by the Government, and ministers had previously suggested one for winter fuel payments would be made public “in due course”.

Ms Reeves announced the cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners in July as she warned about a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances. 

It will mean people in England and Wales not in receipt of pension credit or other means-tested benefits will lose out under the changes, saving more than £1 billion this year.

Although a Tory attempt to annul the regulations provoked a Labour backbench rebellion, the measures are expected to come into force next week.

A government spokesman said: “While it is not routine to publish advice as part of the development of policy, we have published the equality analysis on winter fuel payment eligibility.

“Our focus is on ensuring that those who should be claiming this support are receiving it alongside the wider support for vulnerable households, including the warm homes discount worth £150 and household support fund to help people with the cost of living and energy bills.

“Over a million pensioners will continue to receive the winter fuel payment and through our commitment to protect the triple lock, those on the full new state pension will receive an extra £400 – twice the average winter fuel payment.”