Ministers are planning to back away from a total ban on the sale of new petrol-powered cars by allowing hybrid vehicles to remain on the market until 2035.

In its election manifesto, Labour vowed to scrap the sale of “new cars with internal combustion engines” by 2030 as part of efforts to reach net zero. 

The language suggested that new hybrids – such as Nissan’s best-selling Qashqai which uses a petrol or diesel engine in conjunction with a battery – would be covered by the ban.

But amid growing reluctance among drivers to buy electric vehicles and concerns about range, resale value and the availability of charging points, as well as lobbying from the manufacturing industry, the Government is now expected to make clear that hybrids will still be sold for an extra five years after “pure” petrol and diesel cars. 

On Friday, Helen Whately, the Tory shadow transport secretary, claimed Labour “either didn’t know what they were committing to” during the election “or have now realised it isn’t possible”.

The Government’s decision is likely to delight motorists, who have proved far more willing to embrace hybrids than electric cars. Production of electric Fiat 500s was halted in Europe last week because of a lack of orders. In recent weeks, manufacturers including Volvo and Toyota have also announced plans to extend hybrid production amid cooling EV demand.

However, the move to allow 20pc of new car sales to be hybrids until 2035 is likely to cause friction with environmental campaigners who are critical of their emissions. Greenpeace has previously described hybrids as the car industry’s “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

Conservative frontbencher Ms Whately said: “This new plan is the worst of both worlds. It doesn’t do much to drive down emissions and it’s moving too fast for businesses and motorists. 

“Labour spent years in opposition telling everyone they’d give businesses certainty, but they’re backsliding within months. 

“This dithering creates a huge headache for manufacturers and ultimately hurts economic growth.”

On Saturday a Labour source insisted it was always its policy to allow the continued sale of some hybrids.

A government spokesman said: “This government’s policy has always been to revert to the original 2030 phase out date for the sale of new vehicles with pure internal combustion engines.

“The original phase out date included the provision for some hybrid vehicle sales between 2030 and 2035. We will set out further details on this in due course.”

Labour’s policy had previously been ambiguous, leaving the possibility that hybrids may also be banned, according to car makers.

In July, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said companies were concerned the 2030 ban could mean “a complete end of everything that has a tail pipe”.

Under the consultation the Government is planning to keep in place controversial rules introduced under the Tories that force manufacturers to ramp up sales of electric cars. 

The regulations – known as the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate – require 22pc of cars sold by manufacturers to be electric from this year, rising gradually to 80pc by 2030.

The Government’s plans were revealed this week at a gathering of car industry executives in Parliament, where a senior civil servant in the Department for Transport said ministers planned to consult on the changes “as soon as possible”.

A senior government official told the gathering: “This government’s come in and said they’re going to move back to a phase-out date for petrol and diesel cars of 2030.

“Now, that doesn’t mean we’re shifting the [ZEV] mandate to be 100pc EV in 2030. To reassure you, we are staying at 80pc in 2030. 

“What it means is, there will have to be some sort of hybridization of the remaining 20pc.”

It is not yet clear which hybrids will qualify for sale in the final five years up to 2035. 

That definition will be decided as part of the consultation process, The Telegraph understands. 

Hybrids come in a range of types: from “mild”, which use small batteries to support a petrol or diesel-fueled engine, to plug-in hybrids that have large batteries capable of powering a car for short trips before needing to switch to a petrol engine.

The same official said the consultation will clear up this ambiguity. 

“What this market really needs is certainty and stability. It doesn’t need more uncertainty.”

The reassurance follows a slowdown in demand for EVs across Europe that has spooked automotive companies and prompted warnings that legally-binding sales targets in the UK are too “aggressive”.

Manufacturers face fines of £15,000 for every petrol car sold over a set quota. 

The system has led to complaints that car makers are restricting the supply of petrol and diesel cars for fear of falling foul of the rules.

On Friday, a source at a UK car manufacturer said: “At the moment, we have regulations that compel supply but the demand from consumers is simply not there.”

Petrol car ‘rationing’

The Government’s revised policy means it will be adopting the original plan proposed by former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020, who said no new pure petrol or diesel-powered cars would be sold after 2030 but allowed hybrid sales until 2035.

Rishi Sunak subsequently pushed the ban on pure petrol sales back to 2035, with the former Conservative prime minister claiming an earlier date would impose “unacceptable costs” on families. 

Mr Sunak’s plan is still party policy, meaning a key difference between the Conservatives and Labour’s new plan is that the opposition would allow pure petrol and diesel sales up until 2035. 

Car companies including Stellantis, the owner of Vauxhall which operates major factories in Luton and Ellesmere Port, have warned they are being forced to slash prices to unsustainable levels to sell enough EVs to comply.

Car manufacturers privately say they will push for further concessions on the ZEV mandate, potentially to introduce more allowances or reduce penalties.

Alternatively, there are calls for the Government to stimulate demand with tax breaks or grants for consumers who go electric. 

Mr Hawes of the SMMT, on Friday urged ministers to help revive electric car sales growth with “fiscal incentives, a turbocharged chargepoint rollout and an industrial strategy that supports investment, economic growth and broad market decarbonisation”.

He added: “Manufacturer discounting cannot continue indefinitely.”

Senior industry figures have warned that the Government’s policy as it stands is distorting the new car market. As previously revealed by The Telegraph, dealership chain Vertu Motors has said some manufacturers are rationing supplies of petrol cars so they can hit their targets for EVs. 

Robert Forrester, Vertu’s chief executive, this week wrote to Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, to request an urgent meeting to discuss the issue and claimed consumers were being “coerced” into going electric.

He said: “The targets in the United Kingdom are far more aggressive than in any other western country. Frankly, the industry can’t get there without significant collateral damage.”

Councils are launching their own alternative winter fuel schemes after Sir Keir Starmer axed annual payments for 10 million pensioners.

Local authority leaders said they were taking matters into their own hands to curb the impact of the Government’s “cruel” decision.

Labour-run Basildon Council has announced it is giving £100 grants to vulnerable pensioners stripped of their usual support.

It will initially target 1,000 struggling households which just missed out on receiving the previously universal winter fuel payments.

Elsewhere, Lib Dem-led Dorset Council said its £2m cost of living fund will be “put under increased pressure to provide additional support” to offset the impact of the policy change.

It comes after the Government’s own equality analysis found 1.6 million disabled pensioners will be affected by the allowance cut.

A freedom of information response quietly published by the Government after 7pm on Friday showed that 4.6 million people who live alone will lose their winter fuel payments this year.

Almost three million people aged 80 and above will lose it, as well as 7.3 million aged between 66 to 79.

Lib Dem MP Wendy Chamberlain said: “This lays bare what a catastrophic decision the Government has taken for millions of pensioners.

“It must reverse course immediately, ditch these cruel cuts, and get pensioners the support they need this winter.”

Rules enforced by Labour mean only people in England and Wales in receipt of pension credit or other means-tested benefits can now qualify for government support.

The changes are designed to raise around £1.5bn a year. 

Leader of Basildon Council, Gavin Callaghan, said: “While we can’t change government policy, we can take local action to protect our most vulnerable residents.”

Leader of Dorset Council Nick Ireland said: “The Government’s changes will put significant pressure on the council’s budget at a time when resources are already overstretched.”

Council papers show the authority has already overspent by £10.1m this year.

Other councils are dipping into their Household Support Funds to help pensioners stripped of the allowance, worth up to £300.

The funds – which are shared among local authorities in England – are designed to help vulnerable households, such as those unable to put food on the table.

Councils such as Blackpool and the London Borough of Bexley are among those local authorities using the money to help pensioners with axed fuel payments.

Others have launched awareness campaigns to encourage eligible retirees to sign up for pension credit and qualify for winter payments.

As many as 880,000 pensioners who could be claiming the benefit are not, Department for Work and Pensions figures suggest.

Rachel Reeves, who has claimed £4,400 of taxpayer cash towards her energy bills, has defended the winter fuel policy, which will be used to help plug a £22bn fiscal “black hole” in public finances. But the decision has caused concern among a number of backbenchers. 

More than 50 Labour MPs defied Sir Keir last week and refused to vote for the change. Sir Keir Starmer has also received dozens of letters from council leaders calling for an about-turn.

Last week, it emerged that Labour had previously warned up to 4,000 pensioners could die if the allowance was scrapped.

A government spokesman said: “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.”

Boris Johnson was on his way to a dangerous meeting. It was a Wednesday afternoon and he had just finished Prime Minister’s Questions, which is normally the worst bit of any leader’s week. But as he walked back into Downing Street, Johnson gripped a memo from his advisers preparing him for an even worse encounter. They were worried that the man who wanted to meet him was going to try to get others out of the room so it was just the two of them. Do not let him do this, the note urged.

This briefing, photographed when Johnson inadvertently left it on view as he returned to Number 10 in May 2020, was about me. Titled ‘Meeting with Sir Graham Brady’, it read: ‘Following an exchange between you and Graham, he has asked for a catch-up. 

‘This is the first since December. It is important that at least the Chief [Whip] stays in the room – he will, as he has previously, seek to ensure that it is just the two of you.’

It went on to warn that ‘he will seek more regular meetings’, but insisted ‘don’t agree to anything’. The author was Ben Gascoigne, Johnson’s political secretary. 

This was one of many memos to five different Conservative prime ministers that warned about the apparent dangers of meeting me.

For almost the entire span of the 14 years that my party was recently in government, I was chairman of the 1922 Committee, which, depending on your perspective, is either a sinister parliamentary cabal or, more prosaically, the forum for Conservative MPs to make their voices heard and ensure their leader understands them. 

I was the one who watched their faces as the bad news hit them. I was the one who tried to persuade them not to pursue courses that I knew would tear the party apart – and the one who listened to their horror when they realised what they’d done. I understood their flaws, both from my dealings with them and from the way my colleagues would come to me with their complaints. And I was the one who announced – to pin-drop silence – the name of the next person who thought they would be up to the job of leading the Conservative Party.

I can’t say that when I took over as chairman I imagined Boris Johnson would get anywhere near Downing Street, let alone be warned not to meet me alone. By the point that he received that memo in 2020 I had dealt with two prime ministers and had arranged the replacement of one, too. I had seen them up close: sometimes with shoes off and their feet on the table in the case of David Cameron, at others clammy, tense or even tearful, like Theresa May. 

Being chairman of the 1922 Committee is meant to be a role that’s mostly performed in the shadows and one thing I always managed to keep from view was the number of letters of ‘no confidence’ I had in my office safe, even though this was a regular preoccupation of the Conservative Party and the press throughout my tenure. The letters were from Conservative MPs calling for a vote of no confidence in the party leader. If a certain threshold was reached – 15 per cent of the Conservative Party in the Commons – then a vote had to be held. I was the only person who knew how many letters there were at any one time, and who they were from.

When I was first elected chairman in 2010, I decided that the only way I could do the job was to give nothing away at all about how many letters there were, regardless of how febrile the political climate was, or how many of my colleagues were attempting their own estimates. And I stuck to that. For 14 years, I kept entirely quiet about my discussions with the country’s leaders too, even the most dramatic or absurd ones. I didn’t reveal how full or empty my office safe really was at key moments. In other words, I was the model of discretion. Until now…

How Rishi Sunak’s downfall played out

Politics is a rough business, and it is harsh that Rishi Sunak faced an election campaign seeking to blame him for ‘14 years of Tory chaos’. If Sunak deserves criticism for anything it is for excessive caution. With no more than two years or so to steady the ship before an election, it seemed it was always his strategy to win back trust for his calm, competent economic management before cutting taxes.

Some of us pushed Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to move more quickly, but we will never know whether that course of action would have paid political dividends. Rishi was complimentary about my judgment, but he sought it less often than his four predecessors had. 

The political risks I encouraged him to take – such as ending the ban on new grammar schools or piloting the Sutton Trust’s ‘Open Access’ scheme (in which school fees are means-tested) – were resisted. Nonetheless, I would observe that not only is Rishi Sunak decent and competent, he also has rather less ego than is normal for a senior politician. 

Attacks on Sunak for his wealth – suggesting it made him ‘out of touch’ – couldn’t have been more wrong. Those who have dealt with Rishi find him surprisingly normal. But maybe Rishi Sunak wasn’t enough of a politician: he made the mistake of being what people say they want, not what they actually vote for.

Reflecting on the five prime ministers with whom I have worked and the two before that, they have an odd mixture of qualities. Certainly, they are all driven by ambition and are all possessed of enormous and sometimes unjustified self-confidence. David Cameron, for example, thought he’d be ‘pretty good at [the top job]’.

Having been at the centre of the carousel which saw five leaders in eight years, people sometimes ask me whether the Conservative Party has become ‘ungovernable’. That certainly isn’t my experience. MPs think many times before calling for a confidence vote to be triggered. When the dam bursts, it has been in response to intense pressure and often considerable provocation: David Cameron chose to walk away. Theresa May went after losing her majority in an unnecessary election and then finding herself at the centre of an immovable Brexit logjam. Boris Johnson lost the trust of colleagues over Partygate and then his woeful handling of a sexual misconduct scandal. Liz Truss realised that her position had become untenable before there was even time to organise a confidence vote. Rishi Sunak went having failed to persuade the electorate that he was the change that they were looking for.

One problem with the system of using ‘letters’ to trigger a confidence vote is that the numbers must necessarily be kept confidential. In April 2024, the MP Simon Clarke briefed the press that ‘around 50’ letters of no-confidence in Rishi Sunak had been submitted. In fact, I had received nine. Most colleagues understood that, however frustrated they may have been, yet another change of leader would have made us look completely deranged.

I had, however, started to wonder whether Rishi was preparing for a summer election, even though I was advising him to go in October or November. My suspicions had first been raised in March when I was asked to fill in the necessary forms to go to the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Ten days later, a smattering of parliamentary knighthoods and damehoods were announced, and my suspicions intensified.

Then, a rumour started that if local election results were poor, Rishi would just walk away. I heard this from two different members of the lobby within a couple of hours. During a meeting with me soon after, 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?’

In my experience, when a vacancy arises there is normally a surfeit of candidates and I couldn’t see how such a transition would be assured. Then, in between votes on the Rwanda Bill, the former Home Office minister John Penrose asked me for my views on the Lascelles Principles: ‘If the PM asked His Majesty to grant a dissolution, do you think it could be stopped?’

I said that, so near to the end of the parliament, His Majesty would be bound to grant a dissolution. Penrose agreed. I assumed that he had been asked to sound me out on behalf of team Mordaunt.

‘Can we stop the prime minister from leading the Conservative Party to its destruction?’

The few months leading up to Sunak calling the election were marked by repeated scandals, by-elections and defections. The government had reached the point where it felt as though fortune was always against it – anything that could go either way would always go the wrong way. 

On May 22, I was on my way to the London Wine Fair at Olympia, as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wine and Spirits (I know, tough work, but someone has to do it) when I received a call from Craig Williams, parliamentary private secretary to Sunak, asking whether I could take a call from the PM at 1pm. There was increasingly rampant speculation that an early election was about to be called. I started to wonder…

At 1pm Rishi rang. ‘Graham, I wanted you to know first, before I tell the Cabinet: I’ve seen the King and he has agreed to my request for a dissolution… I know that there is a case that we should wait until there has been more economic improvement but… I just think that the public isn’t going to engage with the arguments until they have to make a decision.’

He also told me that there would be a dissolution honours list and my peerage would be on that – so that it would be approved ‘while I am still prime minister’.

The fact that Rishi called an early election hardly suggested that he expected to turn around Labour’s lead during the campaign. There was clearly no point in repeating my argument that he should wait – the deed was done; His Majesty had already granted the requested dissolution of Parliament.

I sat with the Wine and Spirits Trade Association discussing their future programme of engagement, knowing that the events booked in Parliament for the next two months would all necessarily be cancelled. It was all coming to an end.

Returning to Parliament, I chaired the ’22 Executive, where we discussed the swirling rumours of an early election. Most colleagues thought it was madness to face the enemy machine guns from choice while their poll lead was so high. I tried my hardest to give nothing away until reports reached us that there was to be a statement by the PM outside Number 10.

Members of the Executive huddled, watching the statement from ‘Drowning Street’. On a small and distant screen, it looked at first like Rishi was wearing a very shiny suit – surely he wouldn’t be standing outside in a downpour? The words of Louis XV came to mind: ‘Après moi, le déluge.’

The action was now elsewhere. When the thinly attended meeting got back under way, I invited questions. Dame Andrea Leadsom rose to her feet with a question for me, drawing an envelope from her pocket and waving it in the air as though proclaiming peace for our time. She asked, in an astonishing intervention: ‘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?’

I replied: ‘Technically, I believe it would be possible to trigger a confidence vote, but given that His Majesty has already consented to the prime minister’s request for dissolution, the general election would still take place on July 4. This might not be seen as the most auspicious way for colleagues who are seeking re-election to commence their campaign.’

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.

Extracted from Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers, by Sir Graham Brady, is out on 26 September (£25, Ithaka Press); books.telegraph.co.uk  

Read the next extract published later today at 9.30pm: Sir Graham Brady: ‘Boris spat “Backbench MPs have been contemptible. They’ve been spineless chickens–t”’

Female barristers are rebelling against what they believe is a crackdown on lawyers with “unfashionable views” amid growing tensions over transgender issues.

The Legal Feminist, a forum to discuss feminist issues in the legal system, is preparing to fight back against proposals from the industry regulator which could see barristers punished if they fail to act in a way which “advances equality, diversity, and inclusion”.

Barrister Naomi Cunningham, who specialises in discrimination, said she fears the vagueness of a new proposal from the Bar Standards Board (BSB) paves the way for “arbitrary enforcement” meaning barristers with “unpopular or unfashionable views” get excluded.

The BSB, which regulates the profession, is consulting on the plans which if enforced could leave barristers who breach the rules facing penalties such as fines, suspensions or a ban.

“The Legal Feminists are working on a consultation response. I think it’s fair to say we’re unimpressed. This looks like an extraordinary land-grab by our regulator, and an assault both on the rule of law and, ironically, on diversity,” Ms Cunningham said.

Ms Cunningham said there were concerns the proposal was so “woolly” that it could mean anyone who disagrees with the belief that people can have different genders to their biological sex will be accused of failing to create an inclusive environment and therefore breaking the code.  

“Many people who subscribe to gender identity beliefs take the view that any dissent from that belief is inherently hateful and disrespectful to people with a trans identity,” she said.

“We don’t know what they mean by ‘act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion’ but we are suspicious that ‘diversity’ won’t turn out to include diversity of thought.”

The group of female barristers fears that the “core duty might be relied on to enforce compliance with ‘preferred pronouns’ in a variety of situations, attacking barristers’ freedom of expression,” she added.

The proposed duty would not force barristers to represent clients whose own views are thought to advance equality, diversity, and inclusion.

It would only mean that barristers manage their practice in a way that does so, a BSB spokesman confirmed, adding that enforcement would be a last resort and the profession would be given time to adapt.

However, the potential change comes amid growing concerns that workplace inclusion policies are punishing anyone with different views rather than improving diversity.

Barrister Allison Bailey lost her job when she told colleagues that charity Stonewall was involved in “harassment, intimidation and threats” against those who opposed its view on transgender issues. Her employer was later ordered to pay her £20,000 in costs for “unreasonable conduct”.

Fran Itkoff, a 90-year-old woman from California who had volunteered for a multiple sclerosis charity for more than 60 years, was also told earlier this year that her services were no longer required after she told a colleague she didn’t understand why she needed to add the pronouns “she/her” to her email signature.

The National MS Society confirmed at the time that she was “asked to step away from her role because of statements that were viewed as not aligning with our policy of inclusion”.

The subsequent backlash prompted the charity to apologise for what it called a “mistake”.

Samuel Townend, chair of the Bar Council, warned that radical change to BSB’s rules “may have unintended detrimental consequences” and could “affect the profession significantly”.

There have long been concerns about a lack of diversity at the Bar, with barrister chambers racing to eliminate bias when hiring by turning to methods such as “contextualised recruitment” so that the personal circumstances of applicants are taken into account.

There have also been rising incidents of bullying. A survey conducted by the Bar Council in 2023 found that 44pc of respondents had experienced or observed bullying, harassment and discrimination while working, up from 38pc in 2021 and 31pc in 2017.

Baroness Harman is currently leading a review into bullying and harassment in the sector.

The Prince of Wales made a private visit to a helicopter base, just days after revealing he would love to make a return to the skies.

Prince William, 42, surprised staff when he turned up at the official opening of the new Airbus Helicopters headquarters at Oxford Airport on Friday.

His low-key appearance was not announced in advance and Kensington Palace said he was there in a private capacity. It is understood that he was invited by Airbus because of his connection with London Air Ambulance, of which he is patron.

Dressed down in a blue jumper, the Prince chatted informally with staff and was seen studying the tail rotor of a new H160 helicopter.

He was also shown around a newly delivered Airbus H135, bound for London Air Ambulance, which was on display in the hangar and of particular personal interest.

The helicopter is an updated version of the model the Prince flew during his two years as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance between March 2015 until July 2017.

The visit came as it emerged that Prince George looks set to follow in his father’s footsteps, having taken his first flying lesson.

Watched by his parents earlier this month, the 11 year-old flew in a single-engine Piper PA-28 with dual controls – an aircraft specifically designed for flight training – at the White Waltham Airfield near Maidenhead, Berks.

The Prince of Wales is believed to have flown to the new £50 million Airbus HQ from Windsor by helicopter, and slipped into the facility with no fanfare.

He appeared to enjoy talking shop with Bruno Even, CEO of Airbus, as well as a handful of engineers – with the base largely operating as a servicing and maintenance facility for helicopters flown by the emergency services.

On a visit to the Wales Air Ambulance headquarters In Llanelli, South Wales, he said: “I’d love to fly again, I could volunteer for a weekend to make a comeback.”

The heir to the throne chatted with the pilots and crew of the £8.5 million Airbus H145S chopper, which he is still qualified to fly, revealing that there were plans in the pipeline for him to fly with the team from its base in Cardiff Bay.

The Prince completed an intensive four-month flying course at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire in April 2008, receiving his wings from his father.

He faced criticism that month after he was allowed to practise landing a Chinook helicopter in a field behind the Middleton family home in Bucklebury, Berks, and also fly himself and his brother, Prince Harry, to a stag do on the Isle of Wight.

The Ministry of Defence defended the move, insisting that the flights formed part of his training.

The Prince, known as Flt Lt Wales. went on to complete a one-year advanced helicopter training course at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire, before training as a search and rescue helicopter pilot at RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales.

He qualified in September 2010 and immediately began operational service as co-pilot of a Sea King Mk3 helicopter, working as part of a four-person crew.

His active service ended three years later, having conducted 156 search and rescue operations and helped rescue 149 people.

The Prince has made no secret of how much he relished his time flying helicopters, both with the air ambulance and the RAF, and has maintained a close interest in the industry.

In 2016, he said: “It’s rewarding when I come here to do this job and I really look forward to coming here every day, whether it’s at 5.30am or going to bed at two in the morning.

“The shift work is still exciting and challenging for its variety more than anything and the fact that I love working in a team.

“And that’s something that my other job doesn’t necessarily do. You’re more out there on your own a little bit.”

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.

The United Arab Emirates has used Russia’s notorious Wagner mercenary group to ship arms to rebels in Sudan’s civil war, experts and a paramilitary group say.

The Kremlin-funded military contractor used the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) to smuggle weapons to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting against the Sudanese army.

Rebels fighting the CAR government told an investigation by SourceMaterial that they had captured Wagner-escorted consignments of weapons supplied by the UAE and destined for the RSF.

Shipments continued until at least April 2024, the rebels said, with diplomatic sources believing they have now tailed off as Moscow has tilted away from the RSF and towards the Sudanese armed forces (SAF).

As many as 150,000 people have been killed in Sudan and more than 10 million people have fled their homes since the simmering rivalry between the army and RSF last year erupted into war.

Both sides are accused of atrocities. The conflict has set off one of the planet’s worst humanitarian crises and triggered the world’s first formal declaration of famine in seven years.

United Nations investigators this week accused the RSF of “horrific” ethnically-driven assaults against non-Arab Sudanese in the Darfur region.

The UAE, traditionally one of Britain’s closest allies in the Gulf, has long-standing dealings with the RSF and has repeatedly been accused of ferrying weapons to them. It strongly denies all involvement – though UN experts have called previous accusations “credible”.

The Emirati government declined to comment on the latest allegations.

Russia has also emerged as a key participant as the war has become a tangled global battlefield, waged by competing opportunistic powers. Moscow has been playing both sides of the bloodshed, analysts say, in hopes that it will be rewarded with access to gold mines and a strategic Red Sea port.

Wagner mercenaries are heavily involved in the neighbouring CAR, bolstering the government against opposition rebels – and have used the country as a conduit for weapons bound for the RSF.

A rebel leader said Wagner forces – now rebranded Africa Corps after the failed uprising by Yevgeny Prighozin – had been ferrying arms across the border crossing at Um Dafog into South Darfur.

Abdu Buda, a spokesman for the Coalition of Patriots for Change, said the paramilitary group had intercepted two shipments, the most recent in April, and also captured Russian Wagner mercenaries. He said two were dead and two still in captivity.

He said: “These shipments were transported by Wagner mercenaries who are fighting against our forces, controlling the gold and diamond mining area and backing the government in Bangui.”

“We arrested fighters from the Russian mercenaries of Wagner during the battles between us and the CAR government forces… We arrested with them weapons coming from UAE to CAR through Uganda.”

“During the investigation with the Wagner captives they told us that they have coordination with UAE and the CAR government to send the weapons to RSF.”

Wagner’s smuggling route passes through Bangui, the capital, to Birao near the Sudanese border, said Nathalia Dukhan, a Central Africa specialist at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

“Local sources mentioned planes, which they believe were Emirati, arriving in Bangui at night with military equipment,” she said.

“Wagner collected the shipments, transported them via helicopters and military aeroplanes to Birao, and then transferred them to the RSF in Sudan.”

Diplomatic sources said supplies to the RSF appeared to have slowed earlier this year, after Kremlin relations with the Sudanese army warmed.

Wagner and the UAE had already worked together closely elsewhere in Africa, notably in Libya.

‘Strategic alignment of interest’

Andreas Krieg, a King’s College London academic who studies the conflict, said: “The story of Wagner in the African continent starts in the UAE, they gave them the seed funding to found their base in Libya.

“There is a strategic alignment of interest between Russia and UAE because oppose political Islam and civil society more generally.”

The CAR shipments have been just part of an arsenal of UAE weapons being transferred to the RSF, the Sudanese military alleges.

“The rebel militia has committed violations and atrocities with unlimited support from the UAE,” according to a leaked 78-page dossier of allegations, compiled by Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed, Sudan’s permanent representative to the UN.

His letter to the Security Council, dated March 28, lists 43 flights from the UAE and to an airport in Chad on the Sudanese border between July 2023 and March 2024. Many of the flights were allegedly carrying cargoes of weapons.

The letter includes photos, allegedly taken at Amdjarass airport in Chad, one of which shows a crate of Kalashnikovs rifles offloaded from a UAE plane.

Mohamed Abushahab, the UAE’s ambassador to the UN, this week told the Security Council that Sudan’s claims it was supplying the RSF were “a cynical attempt to deflect attention from the failings of the Sudanese Armed Forces”.

Russia, like the UAE, has been heavily involved in Sudan since long before the current war.

In 2017, Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s then president, signed deals in Moscow, agreeing for Russia to set up a naval base in Port Sudan and granting concessions on gold mining to Wagner front companies.

Jonas Horner, former Horn of Africa senior analyst for Crisis Group, said: “By having Wagner/Africa Corps retain ties with the RSF and the Kremlin provide support to SAF, Russia has been able to fudge this parallel support.

“Equally, short on friends internationally, neither of the belligerents in Sudan felt able to alienate Moscow by cutting ties.”

While the RSF has made gains in much of the country, the army appears difficult to dislodge from the north east coast, leaving it still crucial to Moscow’s dreams of a naval base.

Mr Horner said: “I would surmise that for Russia, the equation has become that SAF on the Red Sea are looking fairly comfortable in their defence of that north eastern corner of the country, aided by the delivery of Iranian weaponry.

“That may become the sovereign corner of Sudan as we know it under a SAF-controlled government, regardless of their control of the rest of the country, making close relations with SAF the shortest route for Moscow to procure a Red Sea base.”

Vladimir Putin was clear when asked about the prospect of British-made Storm Shadows striking Russia. 

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” the Russian president told state television. “It would mean that Nato countries are at war with Russia.”

His remarks came as Joe Biden was reported to be on the verge of lifting restrictions on the use of US targeting systems needed to fire Storm Shadows. 

If Mr Putin’s warning needed any interpretation, the Kremlin-friendly Kommersant newspaper spelled it out in a headline: “Vladimir Putin draws his red line.”

Wording of this kind frequently appears to send chills down the spines of Western policy-makers. Putin, we are reminded, possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a growing propensity for sabotage inside Europe. 

Washington, in particular, fears escalation. Even as Mr Biden was due to allow Storm Shadow strikes inside Russia, he was reportedly resisting pressure to allow the US equivalent missile, the ATACMS, to be used for the same purpose. 

It is not the first time that Britain has led the way in terms of driving through the donation of new weapons to Kyiv. 

It took Ben Wallace, former defence secretary, to agree to sending Challenger 2 tanks before Washington agreed to sending its own Abrams war machines to Kyiv.

Sources also claimed Mr Wallace’s hopes of becoming Nato secretary general were scuppered by the White House because he moved without US permission to announce Storm Shadow and F-16 donations to Ukraine. 

The Biden administration eventually agreed on each of those capability donations, but not after expressing fears they could trigger an escalation of the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.

A Western official told The Telegraph that threats from the Kremlin about the prospect of a war between Russia and Nato are overstated.

That is because European governments mostly feel that Putin himself believes he is already engaged in a major conflict, perhaps on the same scale as those fought between 1914 and 1945.

One source said the Russian president is not interested in escalating the conflict upwards towards a nuclear war but has visions of what was described as a “horizontal escalation”.

This includes hybrid attacks, such as hiring agents to burn down commercial properties linked to Ukrainian support or attacking railway infrastructure carrying military aid east to Kyiv. 

“It’s not just nuclear escalation we have to be mindful of,” one official told The Telegraph. 

“This is Putin’s way of bringing the war to the West, much like Ukraine has done so by invading [the Russian region of] Kursk.”

Analysts have noticed that Putin’s red lines are often crossed – and without much in the way of retaliation. 

In his address to announce the start of his “special military operation”, the Russian president said there would be “consequences greater than you have faced in history” if the West joined the war.

This was seen as a clear reference to the select group of Nato allies already arming Ukraine to push back against the incoming invasion. 

Similar threats were made when Britain was considering sending Storm Shadows, a long-range air-launched cruise missile with a range of about 190 miles as a donation option.

Even smaller less tactical weapons, such as US-made Himars rocket launchers, main battle tanks and F-16 fighter jets were met with similar reactions from Moscow. 

“If Nato countries continue to provide weapons that allow strikes deep into Russian territory, they risk a major escalation that could involve Nato directly,” Putin said in February of this year.

To date, there has been no direct conflict between any of Nato’s 32 allies and Moscow. 

Justin Crump, chief executive of the strategic intelligence company Sibylline, said Putin resorts to these kinds of threats as a last resort to prevent better weapons systems being provided to Ukraine.

While Himars, tanks and long-range missiles have not proved to be game-changing assets, Moscow’s forces in Ukraine have often struggled to adapt to the new capabilities being introduced to the battlefield.

Himars were credited with Ukraine’s major counter-offensives in the previously occupied territories of Kherson and Kharkiv.

Storm Shadow, and more lately ATACMS, have significantly weakened the Kremlin’s grip on Crimea, the peninsula illegally occupied by Moscow in 2014.

“Russian discussion of red lines is nothing new,” Mr Crump said. We have been here repeatedly since the start of the conflict. The Kremlin’s rhetoric is to slow down Western support, undermine the cohesion of our collective leadership and turn the populations against backing Ukraine.”

He added: “The UK is particularly singled out in Russian threats as it has often taken a leading role in the supply of capabilities, blazing a trail for others to follow, as may well happen today.”

Mr Crump said there were clear examples where Putin, or his acolytes, had threatened reprisals, but failed to act on ultimatums.

These include a significant Storm Shadow strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The attack, which was said to have killed many senior personnel, was met by nothing that represented a genuine escalation aimed at Nato, or Britain and France, who supplied the weapons and know-how to carry out the strike. 

Even the permission to use Storm Shadows may not be seen quite so seriously inside the Kremlin as Putin makes out. The long delay between the suggestion they could be used inside Russian territory and the actual green light has allowed Russia to move many key assets – such as jets used to fire the damaging glide-bombs against Ukrainian troops – out of range. 

Many analysts believe it is not in Putin’s interest to make good on his threats against the West. His forces are already stretched in Ukraine. If he could, Putin would settle for a formal peace agreement that would let him keep the territories Russia has already seized – something that may become possible if Donald Trump, for example, enters the White House. 

Waiting to see who wins the US election in November would appear the wiser strategic choice at this point, compared to launching direct strikes, say, against a weapons depot in Poland and thus invoking Nato’s Article 5. 

This “red line”, in other words, may not be so red after all. 

Last year, more than 500 people were allowed to keep £20,000 or more in benefits that were wrongly paid to them, The Telegraph reveals.

Within this group, £17.5 million in benefits were paid out in error and written off by administrators – amounting to an average of £30,674 per person.

Although most of the overpayments were triggered by innocent paperwork errors, there were 75 cases where claimants were fraudulently allowed to keep a total of £2.3 million they were not entitled to.

The 569 write-off cases were revealed following a freedom of information request from The Telegraph to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

Overall, the department wrote off last year a total of £329 million in benefits that had been paid out by mistake and another £6 million that had been pocketed by fraudsters.

The DWP also provided details on the cases of the biggest outstanding debts that it is still chasing down, which includes one person who now owes £547,000 in overpaid benefits.

This person, who pocketed the cash through a mixture of fraud and paperwork errors, has been asked to pay back the debt at the rate of £130 per month – meaning it will take them 350 years to completely settle the debt.

Another person swindled the DWP out of £491,000 in benefits they were not entitled to, and they were now trying to track them down to start a repayment programme.

In a separate case, the DWP was involved in a probate dispute with the relatives of a person who fraudulently claimed £343,000 in benefits before they died.

The report comes after a gang of five Bulgarians living in Britain were sentenced for defrauding the British taxpayer of £50 million in Universal Credit payments earlier this year in the country’s biggest-ever benefit fraud.

‘Complete failure’

Joanna Marchong, the investigations campaign manager of TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers will view this as a complete failure from the Department of Work and Pensions.

“Writing off these overpayments, even after errors have been identified, is not just an act of laziness, but a costly one at that. DWP negligence is directly hitting the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, costing them millions.

“The government needs to be diligent in ensuring that only those who qualify and truly need benefit payments receive them and that they receive the correct amount.”

Last year in total, the DWP said £7.4 billion was lost to fraud from the benefit budget and another £2.4 billion to errors made by either the claimant or officials.

The figures mean that every day almost £27 million in benefits is being paid out in error. The state attempts to recover the money in many cases but writes off some debts in cases where it decides there is no prospect of getting anything back.

A DWP spokesman said: “This government will not tolerate fraud or waste anywhere in public services, including in the social security system.

“We are determined to reduce fraud and error and are currently exploring all options on how best to achieve our goal.”

Rachel Reeves has insisted “tough” tax rises and public service cuts are vital if Britain is to rival Germany and the US.

The Chancellor said such moves would help to bring stability back to the economy and boost productivity.

Treasury analysis has found since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took power in 2010, productivity growth in the UK has been half the rate in Germany and the US.

Britain’s productivity gap with these countries means that GDP per capita in the UK is now £8,000 lower compared with Germany and £9,000 compared with the United States in today’s prices.

The analysis also found productivity growth since 2010 was less than a third of growth in the decade prior to the financial crisis.

If productivity growth had remained at the previous rate of 2.1 per cent, then GDP per capita would be £12,600 higher in today’s prices.

Ms Reeves said that her administration’s tough decisions would help close the gap.

“Growing the economy is this Government’s number one priority for a reason: it’s about more pounds in people’s pockets, public services that are properly funded and business that can thrive,” she said.

“The previous government failed on economic growth. We had 14 years of stagnation that left working people worse off.

“I am determined that we begin turning this around. That starts by bringing stability back to our economy and getting a grip of the public finances, including taking tough action to repair the £22 billion black hole we were left by the previous government.

“Because by delivering that stability, we can give businesses the confidence to invest in the UK. Earlier this week, I welcomed the £8 billion investment from Amazon Web Services that will support more than 14,000 jobs in the UK. This is only the beginning.

“We are taking the tough decisions now to fix the foundations of our economy, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.”

The Chancellor claims that the Conservatives left a £22 billion black hole of unfunded spending commitments.

She has warned that public services and benefits will have to be cut, and has started by scrapping the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners.

Ms Reeves has also said some taxes will have to go up, with those with the broadest shoulders paying more.

However, the Conservatives say there is no £22 billion black hole and that Labour had always planned on tax increases and spending cuts.

The Treasury analysis shows that weak productivity growth over the past 14 years of Tory rule has led to depressed living standards.

GDP has grown by only 1.8 per cent since 2019, up to the most recent published quarter (the second quarter of 2024), and this has been mostly accounted for by population increases.

Over the same period, GDP per capita has fallen. In 2023, GDP per capita fell by 0.7 per cent compared with the year before, meaning, on average, people were worse off in 2023 than they were the year before.

Jeremy Bowen has dismissed a report that found the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times at the height of the Israel-Hamas war.

The BBC’s international editor labelled the Asserson report a “deeply flawed document” after it concluded the corporation’s coverage was deeply biased against Israel.

The research, which analysed four months of output, accused Bowen of excusing Hamas terror activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia.

But during a BBC Masterclass event on “reporting war impartially” on Friday, the 64-year-old took issue with its findings.

In a recording obtained by The Telegraph, Bowen said: “[It’s] a deeply flawed document, in my opinion.

“The Asserson report is a report that has been put together essentially saying we are anti-Semitic, isn’t that right?”

David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, could then be heard correcting him, saying: “It’s basically saying we’re biased against Israel.

“This is going through the BBC’s complaints process at the moment, so we’re probably best not to say anything about it.”

Bowen replied: “What I say, it’s about the truth. We’re in the truth business. If we cannot tell the truth, something has gone very badly wrong and we have failed in our objectives.

“So I will always try to tell the truth, but sometimes the truth is complicated… It’s not ‘on the one hand’, and ‘on the other hand’, and the truth lies somewhere in between.

“No, actually it’s sometimes the truth lies on that hand, and you have to say it, and I think that searching for some kind of spurious balance is entirely wrong.”

Greg Smith, the Tory MP for Buckingham, accused Mr Bowen of an “outrageous response”.

“When in a hole, stop digging,” he said. “But the BBC seem to have brought the excavator in and are making the matter a whole lot worse.”

‘An example of mistrust’

It comes as MPs are set to pressure the BBC over an internal report on its coverage of Israel that has been “suppressed” for almost two decades.

Ordered in 2004 following repeated complaints of bias by the Israeli government, it was carried out by Malcolm Balen, a senior journalist.

The culture, media and sport committee is expected to raise the issue with the broadcaster when Parliament returns next month amid mounting criticism of its Middle Eastern coverage.

The Asserson report, which was led by Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer, has prompted fresh calls for the BBC to publish a separate internal inquiry, known as the Balen Report.

Lord Polak, the honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel, branded the decision to withhold the report “an example of mistrust”.

The Conservative peer, who has previously called for the findings to be published, told The Telegraph: “Everything these days is about transparency and freedom of information. What is it that they’re hiding in it?

“Don’t be mysterious. By being mysterious, it allows people to form their own conclusions. If they want to just explain things, let us know what is it they may be hiding.”

Gary Mond, the chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, added: “It is highly unfortunate that the findings of the Balen Report, produced in 2004, have never been published in the 20 years that have elapsed since. This has begged the question that the BBC is trying to hide something.

“Whatever those findings were, I do think that the BBC, as a provider of a major public service, has a responsibility to share the report and its conclusions with everyone. The National Jewish Assembly therefore calls for this to happen.”

Lord Austin, a crossbench peer, said: “The findings of the Asserson Report are only the latest evidence of the BBC’s longstanding and deep-lying bias in its coverage of Israel.

“Jeremy Bowen seems unable to acknowledge these editorial failings. If director-general Tim Davie is serious in his pledge to consider a deep systematic review of the BBC’s Middle East coverage, Mr Bowen’s deeply concerning track record should be right at the top of the agenda.”

The BBC has said its internal inquiry was commissioned “for the purposes of journalism” and so falls outside the scope of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.

‘Balance of sympathy’

Danny Cohen, a former BBC executive, last week warned there was an “institutional crisis” at the national broadcaster and called for an independent inquiry into its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, added their voices to demands for a review.

The BBC last week strongly rejected claims in the Asserson report that its staff “celebrated acts of terror”.

It said in a statement: “We strongly reject the attack on individual members of BBC staff, all of whom are working to the same editorial guidelines.”

The corporation also raised “serious questions” about the methodology of the report, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of its coverage.

Stressing it was required to achieve “due impartiality”, the BBC said that this was already being achieved by its correspondents in lieu of the “balance of sympathy” the report wanted.

A BBC spokesman said: “We have serious questions about the methodology of this report, particularly its heavy reliance on AI to analyse impartiality, and its interpretation of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

“We don’t think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words divorced from context. We are required to achieve due impartiality, rather than the ‘balance of sympathy’ proposed in the report, and we believe our knowledgeable and dedicated correspondents are achieving this, despite the highly complex, challenging and polarising nature of the conflict.

“However, we will consider the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.

“The most recent research shows that audiences are significantly more likely to turn to the BBC for impartial coverage than to any other provider. Independent research from More in Common found that the highest proportion of people thought BBC coverage of this story was mostly neutral.”

Officials in Georgia have released the audio and records of emergency 911 calls received in the moments after a deadly high school shooting in which a police officer is heard to say: “Active shooter!”

In one clip, the dispatcher repeats the words back to the officer. Another officer this time is heard to reply: “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”

Later in the audio, an officer is heard a little out of breath, as he says a suspect is in custody and he tells the dispatcher: “Roll EMS”.

She tells the officer that emergency medical services have been dispatched to the school, located 50 miles east of Atlanta.

Two students and two teachers were killed in the incident on Sept 4, and a 14-year-old pupil, Colt Gray, has been charged with four counts of murder.

The teenager’s father, Colin Gray, was also arrested and charged with several offences, including second-degree murder, after officials learned he had given his son the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle used in the incident as a gift.

In another emergency call, a father calls the dispatcher about her daughter, the school psychologist, who is hiding in a trailer with students but cannot lock the door.

“My daughter just called, she’s in a trailer,” the father said. “She’s trying to hide behind a desk with the kid that she has in there with her… but she’s upset because she can’t get the door locked.”

In another emergency call made public on Friday, a person tells the dispatcher her daughter has just called from the school.

“My daughter calling me crying. Somebody go ‘boom, boom, boom, boom’,” the caller tells the dispatcher.

The dispatcher replies: “Ma’am we have officers out there, OK?”

The woman says: “Oh yes, please at Apalachee High School.”

Some of the calls were picked up by neighbouring Gwinnett County dispatchers given the high call volume.

“Barrow County 911, what is your emergency,” the dispatcher says.

The Gwinnett dispatcher says: “Hey, Barrow, this is Gwinnett, we have a caller on the line who said he got a call from his girlfriend advising of an active shooter at Apalachee High School.” 

The dispatcher from Barrow says: “I have units on the scene there, I cannot confirm or deny what is going on there.” 

The teenager is to be tried as an adult. However, officials have said he will not be eligible for the death penalty if found guilty.

The teenager’s mother, Marcee Gray, had called the school before the shooting began and asked administrators to check on her son after he texted her saying: “I’m sorry, mom.”

Widows face a council tax rise five times higher than they endured last year if the single-person discount is scrapped.

For the average person in England, council tax jumped by £106 last year, but for single people it could go up by £549 next, according to analysis.

This is because those living alone could lose the 25 per cent discount, which is currently deducted from their bills – a move that has been labelled the “widows’ tax”.

The discount reflects the fact that single-occupier houses use fewer council services than families and couples.

The Government has repeatedly refused to rule out an end to the single-person’s discount – even though the scrapping of other perks, such as free bus passes for the elderly, have been ruled out.

The move would be controversial because it would affect three million pensioners and would cost them more than losing the winter fuel allowance, another unpopular measure announced by the Chancellor.

Last week, Sir Keir Starmer denied that any such tax increases on pensioners would be a “punishment beating” for Brexit.

The analysis, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), found that scrapping the discount would raise £5.4 billion in the UK, £1.9 billion of which will be taken from single pensioners.

This is much higher than the £1.5 billion that the winter fuel allowance cut is expected to raise.

It also shows that tens of thousands of pensioners face a “widow’s tax” of more than £600 a year.

This is because they live in areas with the highest rates of council tax in the country.

Top of the list was Rutland, where council tax rates for band D are £2,543 – meaning the value of the discount is £636.

In all, there are 20 English councils where the bills for single people would soar by more than £600. Rutland is followed by Nottingham (£632), and Dorset and Lewes, which are both on £626.

In Birmingham, England’s largest local authority, more than 174,000 would be affected, while in Leeds there would be 137,000.

The analysis shows that in England there are just over three million pensioners who live alone and therefore benefit from the single-person’s discount.

There are just over four million single occupants of other ages who qualify for the discount.

In addition, there are 1.6 million single parents with dependent children, who also qualify for relief. Scrapping the discount on this group would raise £983 million.

A spokesman for the TPA said: “The Prime Minister has refused to rule out removing the single-person council tax discount, though other cuts were ruled out.

“While such a change would constitute a simplification of the tax system, it would further increase the tax burden, which is already set to reach an 80-year high by 2028-29.”

Sir Keir was asked on the trip to the US last week whether the single-person discount plan was a “punishment beating” for pensioners considering the fact that many of them voted Brexit and few vote Labour.

He replied: “No, absolutely not.”

The Prime Minister went on to talk about Budget plans but did not rule out removing the single-person’s discount.

“Let’s just try to quash this now,” he said. “The Budget is on Oct 30.

“I’m not going to say before the Budget what we’re going to do.

“That does not mean that I’m ruling in anything that you might be putting to me, it simply means, like every Prime Minister, we’re not going to reveal what’s in the Budget before we get to it.”

Sir Keir was then confronted over why he had ruled out other potential Budget measures, such as taking free bus passes from the elderly.

Asked why he would not rule out single-person’s discount, he said: “We’ve got to look at everything in the round.”

A church is embroiled in a free speech row after sacking a vicar who ran an anti-woke YouTube channel.

Breakaway Anglican denomination, the Free Church of England (FCE), dismissed the Rev Brett Murphy last month after ruling that the “nature and tone” of videos he posted online had brought the church “into disrepute”.

The FCE took issue with the vicar using the term “witch” to refer to female priests.

The vicar, who opposes the ordination of women, has claimed the comments were “tongue in cheek and sarcastic” and that he has a right to free speech.

“It was not my intention to say all female clergy were witches, but to criticise militant feminism within the church,” he said.

But the ruling rejected this. “Your comments on the freedom of speech are noted, but there are proportionate limits to this right particularly when it comes to protecting the church’s reputation,” the ruling read.

The disciplinary hearing also upheld allegations that he failed “to follow reasonable instructions from your bishop” and failed to file the church’s accounts in a timely manner.

The church’s ruling, seen by The Telegraph, upheld one allegation of “inappropriate online activity”, finding that his YouTube channel did “not sit with the principles and values of the church”.

The Rev Murphy uses the channel to comment on news and developments in Christianity “from a conservative Christian standpoint”.

He is now appealing against the ruling, claiming the investigation was not carried out fairly.

He also claims he is being forced out by his bishop, the Rt Rev John Fenwick, describing the disciplinary proceedings against him as a “kangaroo court”.

But the bishop rejected the criticism, saying: “The personal nature of the attacks on me is entirely misplaced.”

Rev Murphy was cleared of wrongdoing last year by a Church of England tribunal after he referred to its first transgender archdeacon as a “bloke”.

Last year, the father of two left the Church of England to join the FCE along with the Rev Calvin Robinson, a political commentator.

He was made the vicar of Emmanuel, Morecambe, in July 2023 and under him the congregation grew in size from two worshippers to 50.

But after 13 months in the position, he was “sacked by email” on Aug 9 following a disciplinary hearing brought against him by the FCE.

“It has been one of the most traumatic experiences of our lives,” he told The Telegraph. “I think I’ve got pretty thick skin because I’ve been through a lot as a minister.

“Enduring a kangaroo court and the injustice of that was pretty unpleasant. The cold and callous disregard about caring for my pregnant wife and two children has been a concern to us.”

The Rev Murphy added: “I can’t help but feel like there have been daggers in my back.

“The FCE should have really been right on board [with the channel] because I was only proclaiming doctrines that were congruent with their own beliefs.”

Rev Murphy, who has received more than £140,000 in online donations since his sacking to fund the purchase of a home, is considering setting up a separate church with his congregation in Morecambe if the appeal against his dismissal fails.

The Rev Murphy has accused Dr Bob Stephen, the FCE’s general secretary, of being the “one person issuing the allegations, investigating and holding the hearing on his own, analysing the evidence and issuing the dismissal” at the hearing.

This appears to contradict both the FCE’s own rules, which say accusations against ministers should be judged by a panel of clergy and laity, and guidelines issued by Acas, the conciliation service, that “different people should carry out the investigation and disciplinary hearing” in misconduct cases.

Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “The mark of a passionate vibrant Christian faith is the ability of a man to grow a church.

“Brett has done this, and his community love him. To remove him and his young family from the church and home is cruel.”

The Rt Rev Fenwick said: “I am unable to comment on the termination of Mr Murphy’s contract of employment, or the circumstances surrounding it, as the process has not yet been concluded and the Free Church of England, for its part, is observing the confidentiality that is expected in such matters.”

Four men have been charged after a fishing boat carrying approximately one ton of cocaine was intercepted off the Cornish coast, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said.

NCA officers seized the drugs after the boat was stopped at sea near Newquay on Friday afternoon, in what the force described as a “huge loss” for an organised crime group.

Michael Kelly, 45, of Portway, Manchester; Jon Paul Williams, 46, of St Thomas, Swansea; Patrick Godfrey, 30, of Danygraig, Swansea; and Jake Marchant, 26, of no fixed address, were all charged with importing a controlled class A drug.

They have been remanded in custody to appear at at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

Images supplied by the NCA show 17 brick-shaped packages in brown wrapping and two in dark wrapping, most with the label “pezx”.

The force also released a photograph of a blue and white boat, named Lily Lola.

Derek Evans, NCA branch commander, said: “This is a significant amount of cocaine that will represent a huge loss for the organised crime group that attempted to import it into the UK.

“With our partners at Border Force and the Joint Maritime Security Centre, we have successfully removed this harmful drug consignment from the criminal marketplace.

“Its onward supply would have fuelled exploitation through county lines activity as well as serious violence and knife crime.

“Our investigation into this importation continues.”

A river otter dragged a child from a marina dock before pulling him underwater and biting him in a rare attack.

The boy and his mother were walking along the dock at the Bremerton Marina in Washington State on Thursday when the animal attacked.

The young boy was dragged underwater, resurfacing after a few moments. As his mother lifted him out of the water, the otter continued to attack and bit her on the arm.

The otter then continued to pursue the family as they left the marina, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

The child was scratched and bitten on the top of his head, face and legs and was treated for his injuries in hospital.  

A river otter was trapped at the scene and was due to be taken to the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab for further evaluation, including testing for rabies.  

“We are grateful the victim only sustained minor injuries, due to the mother’s quick actions and child’s resiliency,” said WDFW Sergeant, Ken Balazs.

“We would also like to thank the Port of Bremerton for their quick coordination and communication to their marina tenants.”

River otters can be found in fresh, brackish or saltwater habitats and are common throughout Washington. 

The animal is classified as a furbearer in the state, meaning they are a game species which can be trapped.

The animals can be territorial and unpredictable.

The US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services works to “trap and lethally remove” river otters from the marina, the fish and wildlife agency said.

There have been six documented incidents between humans and river otters in Washington in the last decade, according to WDFW. 

Three women were attacked in 2023 by an otter while floating down a river in Montana. 

One of the women had “more serious” injuries and was airlifted to hospital. 

“While attacks from otters are rare, otters can be protective of themselves and their young, especially at close distances. They give birth to their young in April and can later be seen with their young in the water during the summer,” the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said at the time.

“They may also be protective of food resources, especially when those resources are scarce.”

Sir Keir Starmer has opened the door to sending migrants to Albania instead of Rwanda saying he was “interested” in a processing scheme developed by the Italian government.

Giorgia Meloni reached a deal last year to open two migrant processing centres in the Balkan nation where the claims of 36,000 migrants will be processed each year. The first of the migrant centres will open this autumn after several months’ delay.

Sir Keir said he was “interested” to see how the scheme would work, and said he wanted to discuss Ms Meloni’s “strong opinions” on migration and how they could help the UK deal with its small boats crisis.

Over the past year, the number of illegal migrants arriving in Italy has fallen from 118,000 to 44,500, a decrease of 62 per cent.

The Prime Minister’s positive comments on Albania come despite his party’s decision to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda scheme.

Under Italy’s scheme, migrants whose asylum claims are rejected will be returned to their home country while those accepted will be admitted into Italy. Under the Rwanda scheme, they would have been deported there. 

The Prime Minister made his comments on a trip to Washington to see Joe Biden, the US president.

On Sunday night, he will fly out to Rome to meet Ms Meloni for the second time since his election victory.

Asked about the Albanian scheme, Sir Keir said: “Let’s see. It’s in early days, I’m interested in how that works, I think everybody else is.”

He said he had already had a preliminary discussion with Ms Meloni about “how we can work together on irregular migration”.

“She has of course got some strong ideas and I hope to discuss those with her,” he said.

“She and I have already discussed how we can improve joint operations, so that is something we will discuss.”

Italy has managed to drive down migrant numbers thanks to financial deals with the Tunisian and Libyan governments.

Migrant crossings from Tunisia to Italy have fallen by 80 per cent in the last 12 months and there has been a 27 per cent fall in numbers arriving from Libya over the same period.

The trip to Rome is the latest in a series of visits to European capitals as he seeks to form closer cooperation on tackling illegal migration and his efforts for a broader reset of relations with the EU.

More than 23,000 migrants have arrived in the UK in small boats so far this year, roughly the same that had crossed by this time last year.

Sir Keir added: “Irregular migration will be a feature as it was a feature when I spoke to chancellor Scholz; as it was a feature when I spoke to Emmanuel Macron.

“Different challenges in different countries. In Germany I was particularly concerned that a very large percentage of the boats’ engines that are ending up being used for the Channel crossings are going through Germany.

“And I think that they should take further opportunities to seize them on their journey. Obviously with Macron it was very much about what to do on the northern coast of France.”

Sir Keir previously pledged £84 million in foreign aid back in the summer to help stop irregular migration at source because of conflict, climate change and extreme poverty.

Migration was the focus of the conference, which was held by Britain at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, with Sir Keir describing the issue of migrants crossing the Mediterranean and the Channel as “a crisis”.

The investment over the next three years, includes funding for projects to improve education and employment opportunities along with building resilience to shocks, including conflict, in a bid to encourage people to remain in their homes rather than travelling to Europe.

Britain and the US fear Russia may have shared nuclear secrets with Iran in exchange for missiles to use in its war against Ukraine.

At their summit in Washington DC, Sir Keir Starmer and Joe Biden discussed the threat from the strengthening military cooperation from two of the West’s biggest adversaries.

It comes days after it was revealed Iran has accumulated four “significant quantities” of enriched uranium which could each be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Last week US secretary of state Antony Blinken warned on his trip to London that the two countries were creating “even greater insecurity” across the world through their activities.

“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Mr Blinken said.

While Britain, France and Germany have warned Tehran has built up its supply of uranium, it is not clear whether it has the capabilities to build a nuclear weapon.

Since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, its collaboration with Iran deepened to a level previously unparalleled.

Their military-technical collaboration has continued to intensify, and Iran has become a key enabler of Russia’s air and ground campaign in Ukraine.

The revelations come as officials said the US can’t supply many more long-range missiles to Ukraine because it needs to keep a “healthy reserve” to face down other threats including possible war with China, US officials have said.

They said that with tension rising around the world, the US and Nato needed to conserve missiles in case there was an “outbreak of fighting in either Europe or Asia”.

One unnamed Pentagon official told the New York Times that Ukraine would be better off investing in its long-range drone programme, which has struck airfields, radar stations and oil refineries as far away as Siberia.

The warning over missile supplies comes as Joe Biden decides whether to allow Ukraine to fire Western-made missiles into Russia, including British Storm Shadow missiles.

After a meeting at the White House with Sir Keir Starmer on Friday, Mr Biden said that he hadn’t come to a final decision. “We are working on that right now,” he said earlier in the week.

At their meeting, the two leaders also discussed the threat from Iran which is now supplying short-range missiles to Russia in return for technical support. One subject of conversation was Moscow’s potential support for Tehran’s nuclear weapons programme.

No announcement will likely be made on the approval for strikes until “the first missile lands”, one Western official told PBS on condition of anonymity.

On the issue of giving Ukraine permission to fire Western missiles into Russia, Russian officials said that they thought that the decision had already been made.

Sergei Rybakov, the deputy foreign minister of Russia, said: “We know that the relevant decisions were made some time ago, and signals of this kind were transmitted to Kyiv.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, wants permission to fire missiles into Russia to press forward Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk region and destroy Russian airfields. 

Highly accurate long-range missiles have been one of Ukraine’s most effective weapons, destroying Russian command centres and supply depots behind the frontlines in occupied Ukraine. 

Grant Shapps and Sir Ben Wallace, both former defence ministers, accused Mr Biden and Sir Keir of playing into Putin’s hands by delaying a decision.

Mr Shapps said: “Starmer’s hesitation to support Ukraine while waiting for US approval risks emboldening Putin and seriously undermines Kyiv’s chances of victory.” 

The US has been hesitant about permitting Ukraine because it is worried about escalating the war and has said that Ukraine doesn’t, in any case, have enough missiles to make a strategic difference.

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, said on Thursday that the West would be at war with Russia if Ukraine fired Western missiles at Russia and warned that this was a “red line” that should not be crossed.

This was backed up by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s security council, on Saturday who said that the Kremlin would turn Kyiv into a “grey melted blot” with either a nuclear strike or a strike using new military technologies if Ukraine fired Western long-range missiles at Russia.

“What arrogant Anglo-Saxon dimwits fail to admit is that you can only test someone’s patience for so long,” he said on the Telegram social media app.

Also on Saturday, Russia and Ukraine completed one of their largest prisoner swaps of the war, the second in two days. Mr Zelensky said that this was a like-for-like swap with 103 prisoners handed over by each side.

“Our people are at home,” he said.

The United Arab Emirates is the main mediator of the prisoner swaps, which are seen as an important communication channel between Ukraine and Russia.

Photos of freed Ukrainian prisoners showed emaciated shaven-headed men draped in Ukrainian flags embracing each other, smiling. 

Driving across Ukraine on a coach, one freed Ukrainian soldier told an interviewer that he had no idea that Ukraine had launched the first invasion of Russia since World War II, capturing a swathe of the southern Kursk region.

The man gasped, laughed and clapped when the interviewer told him that the “war is now taking place in Russia”.

On the frontlines, reports said that Russian forces had launched a counterattack against Ukraine’s saliant in the Kursk region and that fighting was intensifying.

After Theresa May’s premiership I was feeling physically and mentally drained. At least it would be a dull parliament, I thought when Boris became leader, one in which the chairman of the 1922 Committee might have little influence and not much to do. Then, in January, news started to appear of a new virus that was affecting people in Wuhan, China. 

I watched much of the government’s early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic unfold with deep concern. On Thursday March 19 2020, the government pushed emergency legislation through the House of Commons without a vote. The legislation would give the government sweeping powers, especially to spend taxpayers’ money. David Davis had the presence of mind to table an amendment to require six-monthly renewal, which a number of us supported. This was the first of many moments during the pandemic when the complete absence of a functioning Opposition was felt. Surely Sir Keir Starmer should have wanted to ensure parliamentary oversight of the government during a crisis?

In the middle of May 2020, I secured an in-person meeting with Johnson, the first since December. He looked weary, certainly not back to full strength after contracting Covid himself. He seemed oblivious to the massive economic, social and non-Covid health costs that the lockdown would cause. 

He readily agreed with me that the evidence suggested that the important interventions were hand hygiene and disinfection of surfaces, but when I suggested that the two-metre ‘social distancing’ rule should be reduced, he recoiled with horror. 

‘It’s people like us who get it really bad!’ he exclaimed, looking at me. ‘Not athletic… I was a fatty…17 and a half stone when I went into hospital.’ 

That same month, after stories emerged about the PM’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, having broken lockdown rules by driving from London to his parents’ home in Durham, with a side trip to Barnard Castle, I saw Boris again. He opened the door to his office looking like s—: frizzy hair and black rings around his eyes. I was astonished to see that on this occasion, his chaperone was the chancellor, Rishi Sunak. 

I started with substantive points about the restrictions, reminding him of the impact on the aviation sector, which threw him a bit. Rishi said nothing but was obviously enjoying seeing someone else try to make the case for more nuanced restrictions that would do less collateral damage. I then launched into Cummings. ‘This is damaging the party, the government and damaging you personally. Colleagues are really angry.’ 

Boris spat back: ‘I think backbench MPs have been contemptible! They have been spineless chickens—. They need to develop some backbone. The 2019 guys need to understand that they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Dom.’ 

I said that I had no personal animus against Cummings but that the row was hugely damaging and most of us thought he should resign. 

‘But don’t you believe his account? I believe it!’ 

‘The Barnard Castle story is obvious bulls— – no sane person would drive their wife and small child 30 miles to test his eyesight!’ 

Boris looked totally perplexed at this. ‘HE’S NOT SANE!’ He replied, as though that should have been obvious.

I briefly wondered whether Boris was also losing it. 

As I left, Rishi left with me and invited me into his office to discuss the two-metre rule further. ‘You’re right, of course; it’s all going wrong because it was a mistake to put the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer in the press conference every day,’ he said. ‘We thought it would give us cover, but now we can’t do anything sensible without them denouncing it as a risk.’ 

‘How many people would you let die?’

Days later, I requested a meeting with Boris about another matter but he phoned me first. ‘First, can I apologise for being intemperate with you when we met… it’s not your fault, you’re just doing your job, and you do it brilliantly… And I do understand the frustration of colleagues. I responded like that because I was so f—— angry myself. The f—— Barnard Castle optician trip for Christ’s sake!’

On schools, Boris said he agreed. ‘It’s this stupid f—–g two-metre rule, we’re going to review it – we’ll sort it. It’s these f—–g scientists!’ It seemed he was being hoist by his own petard. 

I bumped into Sir Robert Syms in the corridor. ‘There’s no leadership, no direction!’ 

In mid-June, I finally got a slot for the whole executive committee to meet with Boris. I started by asking the PM to talk us through the balance of risks between Covid-19, non-Covid health, economic cost and civil liberties. He vomited forth a torrent of words. One of his favourite tactics is talking rapidly while not leaving space for anyone to interject. 

About 10 minutes in, I tried to push him on getting Britain back to work and ending the 14-day quarantine period. This merely triggered more waffle. ‘Moving as fast as we can! It’s the bloody scientists! It’s like that terrible Freudian dream where your feet are moving rapidly – but you don’t go anywhere.’ Looking vaguely shifty, he asked me, ‘Do you have that?’ 

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Thankfully not.’ I was tempted to add that it might be because my conscience was clear.

Long after the easing of restrictions and the introduction of the ‘rule of six’, I was invited to meet Boris for a drink in his Commons office, after having had no contact through the summer. I assumed that I would, at least, find him well briefed. 

I tried to have a rational conversation with him about how the earlier link between infection rates and hospitalisation had been broken. He looked desperate to prove me wrong. ‘Hospital numbers are rising! It’s 192 this week, last week it was 100, the future looks grim.’ He told me why Lord Sumption was wrong to make the case that people should be trusted to manage their own risk. ‘What about the people you infect?’ 

I replied that I was with Jonathan Sumption. People can also take responsibility for those around them. He gave me a frightened look. ‘How many people would you let die?’

We had already looked at the figures showing that hospital admissions and transfer to ICU were no longer tracking infection rates. I added that quality of life matters too. I asked him when the ‘rule of six’ would end and by what criteria. He gave me a bewildered look, as though it was a crazy question. 

Self-defence and self-justification

From the very start of Boris’s time as leader, there was division in the ranks. Two MPs, including the veteran Sir Roger Gale, had put no-confidence letters in very early in Boris’s time as leader.  As allegations began to emerge of parties in Number 10 during Covid lockdowns, a steady stream of letters began to emerge. Fourteen by the end of December 13: ‘I have had enough of constantly defending the indefensible’ said one.

On April 12 2022, news broke that the Met had given fixed penalty notices [for a rule-breaking gathering to celebrate Boris’s birthday in June 2020] not only to a number of Downing Street staff, but also to the PM and chancellor.

I was sitting in my office that afternoon when an unknown number flashed up on my mobile. Seconds later it rang again, with a call from Rishi Sunak’s mobile. 

‘Hi, Graham, can I ask for your advice? It doesn’t sit right with me just to carry on after being fined by the police. What do you think? Should I resign?’

I replied that a clean break might well be in his interests – showing integrity, distancing him from Boris and allowing him to come back to high office very soon. However, it might not be in the best interests of the government or the party. It would put intense pressure on Boris, and Rishi would be blamed for that by some colleagues. 

It was seven hours before Rishi made a statement and it was clear he had decided to stay. 

As we approached the [late Queen’s Platinum] Jubilee, we were perilously close to the threshold of 54 letters. It looked like we’d make it through the weekend without any upset. But then three more arrived! By Saturday June 4, the height of the celebrations, I had 60 letters, with more promised on the Monday. Again, I had to decide when to inform Boris, with the twin obligations of not disrupting the jubilee and not triggering a reaction that might be even more damaging to the party. 

At 12:01pm on Sunday June 5, I messaged Boris on WhatsApp. It was nearly 12:30 when he called. He was about to leave Number 10 with Carrie to join the Queen viewing the jubilee procession, and I told him the threshold had been passed.

‘When? What caused it? Was it a reaction to a particular event?’ I replied that there had been an element of post-dated communication, and colleagues were very keen not to harm the jubilee celebration. ‘Ah, Her Maj’s party! Got it! Quite right!’  

He then commenced a long rambling passage of self-defence and self-justification: ‘They have no plan!… What would they do about the Northern Ireland protocol? The Single Market? The Irish Border?… We need to smash on! I’ve still got a lot of things that I promised to deliver!… They would be mad to get rid of a leader who won the biggest Conservative majority since 1987!’  

We agreed that the vote should be held as soon as possible.

He won it, with a dangerously narrow margin of 58.8 per cent – worse than Theresa May’s result in 2018 and she was gone six months later. Boris would be gone in weeks. No one could have predicted that it would be his handling of a tawdry sex scandal that would end his premiership. 

‘It wasn’t a hard decision to vote for Rishi over Truss’

I had always found Liz Truss somewhat peculiar, and as with many of her predecessors, I was surprised that Tory members were enamoured with her. She had a reputation among my colleagues for being an adventurous risk-taker and she certainly exuded a strange kind of energy in person, but her idiosyncratic manner was also well known.

In fairness, a lot of the political direction Liz was staking out in the leadership election [announced after the resignation of Johnson in July 2022] appealed to me. She made a strong critique of the way government was currently stifling, rather than enabling, economic growth. She voiced the concerns of many of us about the absurdly high tax burden that the party of low taxes was heaping on voters. But it wasn’t a hard decision to vote for Rishi. I’d rather have someone who projected more of an air of sanity. 

She won with a commanding lead – but when Truss crashed from office so quickly, a number of slightly paranoid supporters took to saying that the parliamentary party was determined to bring her down from the start. This was emphatically not true. There were many colleagues, including me, who were at least mildly surprised to find that Liz Truss had become prime minister, but almost all shared the view that we had to make it work because we just could not go through such a protracted leadership contest again.

Turmoil at the top also made life difficult for the Conservative Party fundraisers. Donations became scarcer in the dying months of Boris’s time. The excellent Malik Karim, our treasurer, told me what a battle it was to keep the show on the road through the transitions from Johnson to Truss to Sunak. I think he may have been responsible for the last act of torture in the interminable leadership campaign when both Truss and Sunak were forced to attend a fundraising dinner on the eve of the announcement. 

I had my first meeting with prime minister Truss on Thursday September 22. We were joined in her Commons office by Suzanne Webb, the Stourbridge MP who was the new PPS to the PM. She seemed pleasant enough, but quite inexperienced for such a big role, especially given the choppy waters. A lack of experience turned out to be a problem throughout the Truss camp, though it was by no means the fatal flaw.

I started by making sure she had the 1922 Committee centenary celebrations in her diary. Then she asked me about the Standards Committee report into Boris Johnson and Partygate, saying: ‘I wish it wasn’t happening but I think we have to let it conclude. What do you think?’ I agreed, and commented that after the failed attempt to interfere in the handling of the Owen Paterson case [after the MP for North Shropshire broke lobbying rules], it would be dangerous for her to be seen to try to intervene. So far so good. 

Then, on September 23, Truss’s chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, delivered a ministerial statement in the Commons. I couldn’t be there because the MOT was about to expire on my 14-year-old Audi and I had to get it to the garage. I missed a sensational statement, it turned out. The chancellor announced a £60 billion support package to cap fuel bills that had shot up alarmingly due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and a £2 billion measure to scrap the 45p top rate of income tax. When the pound plummeted afterwards, it was widely believed to be solely due to the unfunded tax cuts. Scrapping the 45p tax rate ‘to help the rich’ became the big story. 

We had a busy constituency weekend. By the Monday, the episode appeared to have accelerated the rises in interest rates that had already begun around the world. I got a message from a constituent who was very big in commercial property. The ‘news from the front’ was that in one and a half days, the market had fallen by 20 per cent. 

I thought this was the kind of real-time intelligence that might be helpful for the chancellor and I forwarded the WhatsApp message to him. He responded: ‘Pro bono publico, no bloody panico.’ It’s an old Tory parliamentary joke, quoting Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles speaking at the ’22 in 1972 calling for calm at the time of British accession to the European Community. It did smack of complacency in the aftermath of the mini-budget, though.

By party conference season, the political fallout from the mini-budget was starting to look at least as bad as the economic consequences. When she went on to U-turn on much of her mini-budget programme and sack her chosen chancellor to bring in someone (Jeremy Hunt) who had supported her opponent in the leadership election, Liz was doing what was necessary to restore the government’s credibility. But she was shredding her own. 

The government was teetering badly. On Saturday October 15, we flew back into Heathrow [after a work trip in Greece]. While waiting to board the flight, my friend Steve Baker called me: ‘Graham, as a loyal minister, I want Liz to succeed, but being me, I’m also gaming all the other scenarios. We have to come together around Ben Wallace. We also need to find a way to involve the party members – maybe by offering them a bigger role in future leadership elections?’

I suggested that we should be careful not to leave those who came after us with even bigger problems than we faced.

On Monday October 17, while in the Commons chamber to hear then Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt responding to Sir Keir Starmer’s Urgent Question about the crisis, I slipped out of the chamber to meet Truss in the Commons office. Her two PPSs were sitting on the sofas. She asked them to leave us alone. 

Truss was not cowering behind her desk, as Labour MP Stella Creasy had suggested in the chamber, but she did look drained and almost broken. She told me that Kwasi had let her down and that she was now dealing with his mistakes. We discussed whether it would be possible for her to survive. 

I asked what her current thinking was and explained that the parliamentary party seemed to be in three more or less equal groups: a third wanted her to go immediately; a third wanted her to go when we knew who to replace her with, and a third will always support the leader whoever it may be. Things would become untenable once the middle third joined the first. I told her that having appointed Hunt as chancellor and seen so much of her programme junked, she had restored market credibility, but lost her political credibility. She could no longer do any of the things that the Conservative Party elected her to do.

She countered that the middle third might instead be persuaded by her resolute leadership and fall back in behind her. ‘I sacked Kwasi because he let me down, he didn’t do the job of chancellor… I have made the right decisions to recover from the mistakes of the chancellor’s mini-budget. I won’t be resigning!’ She was absolutely determined that she would not go.

By that point it seemed impossible that she could continue, but for how long could she limp on?

I said that we should keep in touch and that I would try to support her for as long as that was a tenable position.

‘She must go right away – anything that you can do to persuade her would be really important’

Soon after came the ‘Opposition Day’ debate in which the Labour Party was calling for a ban on fracking. A number of Conservative colleagues were keen to vote for the Labour motion, even though the chief whip had made it known that the vote would be treated as a ‘matter of confidence’. By the time the division bell rang for the 7pm vote, it was no longer being treated as a matter of confidence, and the chief whip, Wendy Morton, and her deputy had both resigned and there was chaos around the chamber. The prime minister was seen running through the No lobby trying to catch up with Morton, who had apparently repaired to the Smoking Room for a glass of wine, where she sat rejecting calls from Liz Truss on her mobile. Had there been such disorder in the Commons since the King’s troopers held Speaker Lenthall down in his chair?

I slept on the events of the day and woke the next morning convinced that the PM would have to go.

Sitting with a mug of black coffee at the flat, I reached for my mobile phone to call Number 10, but as I picked up my phone, it rang. ‘The PM would like to see you; what time can you be here? Come to the back entrance.’

I went to catch the bus and while I stood at the stop, I took a call from Jeremy Hunt and was on the phone as I boarded and took my seat. ‘Graham, I think you are seeing the PM this morning. She knows that she will have to go but I’m worried that she thinks she can promise to go in six months and that won’t work – she must go right away. Anything that you can do to persuade her would be really important. Thank you.’

I was shown into the prime minister’s study, which was not the same one that had habitually been used by Cameron, May and Johnson. Looking calm, she indicated that I should sit down on the sofa opposite her and we exchanged pleasantries, then she asked: ‘How bad do you think it is, Graham?’

‘I think it’s very bad.’

‘Do you think it’s retrievable?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t think it is.’

‘I’ve reached the same conclusion.’

I said how sorry I was that it was ending like this and that there was huge respect for her resilience. She smiled and actually looked relieved that it was all about to end. Finally, I offered a practical thought: ‘Now, I will need a car to take me back to the Commons so that I can avoid the media scrum – or if you prefer, I’m happy to stay here in the building until you have made your announcement.’

She thought for a brief moment before saying ‘Yes, let’s keep you here as a hostage!’

There was a playful smile on her face, even at such a painful moment.

The exchange was certainly easier than I had anticipated. The strain that had been obvious on her face at my two meetings with her earlier in the week had gone; she seemed calm, relaxed, perhaps relieved.

I was shown to an empty office and brought a phone charger, a mug of tea and a tuna sandwich from the Number 10 staff canteen. I put the TV on to watch the rolling news and followed stuff on Twitter and Facebook on my mobile phone. The whole world knew that I was in Number 10, but they had no idea that I was drinking tea alone and watching the telly.

Extracted from Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers, by Sir Graham Brady, is out on 26 September (£25, Ithaka Press); books.telegraph.co.uk  

Read the final extract on Sunday at 9.30pm: Sir Graham Brady: ‘Cameron and Osborne thought the rules didn’t apply to them. They simply had to win’

Russia has published a “drone studies” textbook for 14- and 15-year-olds, part of a Kremlin project to produce a new generation of drone specialists.

The Prosveshchenie publishing house teamed up with Russian drone manufacturer Geoscan to produce the textbook, which contains 34 hours of tuition for an exam.

Mikhail Lutsky, author of the textbook and head of educational projects at Geoscan, said: “The manual will be of interest not only to teachers of ‘Labour (technology) studies’, but also to teachers of related disciplines, such as computer science, physics, the basics of security and defence of the motherland.”

Russian schools started teaching a compulsory “Labour (technology)” course on Sept 1 designed to introduce “drone studies” into classrooms.

The full-colour illustrated textbook teaches children the classification of different drones, how they are built, the electrical components included in drones, the basics of flying a drone and how they are programmed to fly on autopilot.

Prosveshchenie, which means enlightenment, is controlled by the Kremlin and is one of Russia’s biggest and oldest publishing houses.

The Kremlin uses school textbooks to push its propaganda and manipulate children. 

Shortly after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it ordered Prosveshchenie to remove “inappropriate” references to Kyiv and Ukraine in textbooks.

Prosveshchenie said on its website that the new textbook was part of a Kremlin project to “teach skills for working with drones” in selected schools across Russia.

“This is the first educational publication on unmanned technologies, created for the implementation of the federal project: Personnel for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” it said. 

“By 2030, about one million specialists in unmanned aviation will be trained in the country.”

Drones have become an important part of the Kremlin’s arsenal for its war in Ukraine. 

It has imported thousands of Shahed drones from Iran and built a drone factory in Kazan, central Russia. 

Many of the workers building the drones at the new factory are students from a nearby technical college.

Vladimir Putin has ordered military and nationalistic lessons at schools to push his propaganda and to “normalise” his invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s war footing.

Concert-goers had EU flags confiscated at the Last Night of the Proms.

Last month, the Royal Albert Hall released guidance banning flags “including those from proscribed groups, flags related to protest, hatred” from the patriotic Proms finale.

The venue has previously stated that their policy on banned items has not changed, and that new wording has simply been introduced to make its rules clear.

But this stance does not appear consistent as there appeared to be little agreement among security staff, on the ground on Saturday, as to how the rules should be enforced, and some had flags removed from them by door staff.

Some ticket-holders had their EU flags confiscated, while others entered the auditorium carrying the yellow-starred blue flags without any difficulty.

The policy even caused concern among patriotic Union flag waving concert-goers, who feared being stripped of their flags by security staff.

The last night has previously seen anti-Brexit campaigners waving EU flags, as part of a campaign by a pro-Europe group.

It is tradition to wave a flags on the final evening, which always features a rendition of the national anthem.

Craig Amey, 35, a council worker from Leicester, arrived at the Proms wearing a full Union flag suit complete with bucket hat.

“Kick me out if you want to but you are not going to take my suit off,” he told The Telegraph, adding that, “The music should take priority”

Guidance released last month stated: “Flags are permitted at the Proms and are traditionally part of the Last Night celebrations provided they do not interfere with the smooth running of the concert.

It adds that “some flags will not be allowed in the auditorium, including those from proscribed groups, flags related to protest, hatred”.  It also sets out size limits for the size of flags.

An additional PDF document has been provided online clearly setting out “restricted items”.

This states that “flags related to protest may be confiscated”.

At the venue last night, staff had been given guidance specifying that “all national flags” would be allowed inside.

Initially a member of the security staff advised this newspaper that EU flags would be permitted in the auditorium.

But this was later contradicted by a second member of staff, who stated that neither EU nor Palestinian flags would be permitted.

This second security guard was then witnessed telling a concert goer that his modestly-sized EU flag was “not allowed” inside the auditorium.

The attendee was however permitted to keep the flag and wait in the cafe instead.

 ‘Jingoistic celebration of Brexit’

During the patriotic Last Night, which includes renditions of Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and Jerusalem, the auditorium is typically filled with audience members carrying the Union Jack.

But the venue’s clear statement that certain flags are unacceptable came after public concern over the increasing number of audience members waving the EU flag instead of the Union Jack at the Last Night.

Yesterday campaigners from the pro-EU group Thank EU for the Music campaign group were distributing EU flags outside the venue.

The group is motivated by concern that the event would be “hijacked and used as a jingoistic celebration of Brexit”.

Charlie Rome, 40, from south London, helped organise Thank EU for the Music’s demonstration at this year’s Proms.

Mr Rome, who is a part time tenor that has sung at the BBC Proms this year, said: “We are Proms lovers, we don’t want to spoil it.”

“We are not trying to make a mess of things. I sing here, I don’t want to get banned. But you have to make as loud a noise as you can.”

It is understood that the Royal Albert Hall’s official position is that only flags larger than 1m x 0.5m would be confiscated. The only exception to this would be if someone attempted to bring in a large box of flags to distribute inside the Hall – and in this scenario they would also have their flags removed.

But on Saturday it was not clear that this policy was being adhered to.

At one point two security guards were seen confiscating EU flags from  multiple ticket-holders as they passed through the back check area. A clear plastic box containing confiscated EU flags could be seen at the side of their table.

Staff suggested these flags were being taken from people carrying “two or more” EU flags – they did not appear to be only removing flags from those attempting to bring in boxes of them.

Steve Bray, 55, an anti-Brexit activist from Port Talbot told The Telegraph: “Music should not be brought into politics. I know that sounds rich coming from me.”

Sam Hollings, 36-year-old amateur dancer, said: “We need to make Europe less of a dirty word.”

Elderly people are giving up getting help from GPs after struggling to get through on the phone, ministers have been warned.

Just half of patients now find it easy to reach their family doctor’s surgery on the phone, analysis reveals.

The Government has vowed to tackle the “8am scramble”, which means growing numbers of patients are struggling to get care.

But many surgeries are pushing online booking systems, which vulnerable patients are struggling to navigate.

Analysis of the nationwide GP survey of 760,000 people shows less than half of people find it easy to contact their local practice by telephone.

One in eight unable to speak to anyone at all

Trends show that the number dipped to less than half for the first time in 2023, with 49.8 per cent of respondents finding it “easy” to contact their local practice by telephone.

The figure has fallen from 80.8 per cent since 2012.

While the methodology has since changed, this year’s data show an almost identical figure of 49.7 per cent.

One in eight patients contacting a GP practice were unable to speak to anyone at all, the latest research shows.

The 2024 data show thousands of people who got stuck in an automated system, or gave up after failing to get an answer, or being left in a queue.

On Thursday, an independent investigation into the NHS found that the service was failing the elderly at a vital moment.

Lord Darzi, a leading academic surgeon, said he was “deeply concerned” about the treatment of the elderly, saying: “After a lifetime of contributing to the NHS, they rightly expected it to be there for them in their hour of need. But the NHS is no longer able to hold up its end of the bargain.”

During the pandemic, the NHS introduced a system of “total triage” to reduce the number of patients seen in person.

Since then, family doctors have been told that they must respect patients wishes if they want to see a doctor face-to-face.

The latest contract for GPs, which came into force in April, says GP practices must allow to book an appointment over the phone or by walking in, if they wish to.

However, patients groups said this is frequently ignored, with websites heavily promoting the use of online systems, and receptionists instructing those who walk in that they must book online.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, a practising GP and former chairman of the British Medical Association, said far too many surgeries were forcing patients to use online systems.

He said: “No one should be forced to use the digital route. There are far too many GP practices that are making it compulsory for patients to use online triage, or in some cases saying that if they can’t, they have to dictate details to a receptionist to go through the system.”

“If we have a ‘digital first’ policy for the NHS, then you make it the default setting, and that excludes people; that is just not right. That goes against the values of the NHS.”

‘Older lady says she dreads online booking system’

Caroline Abrahams, director of charity Age UK, said: “We have heard of experiences of older people completely giving up with seeking treatment as they can’t get the systems to work for them.

“There is an increasing risk of digital being the default in too many spaces in society at the moment, and there needs to be careful consideration into how it’s working in practice and ensuring that it is not the only way to access vital services for older people.”

“Recently, we heard from an older lady who dreads becoming ill as her GP Surgery now has an online booking system for appointments and she doesn’t use computers. 

“She told us she feels quite abandoned. We cannot have a system where older people who are offline are locked out of the care they need.

“Shutting older people out of services if they are not online is a flagrant and grotesque breach of the right of everyone in our country to have equal access to the NHS. It has to stop.”

Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “I worry about digital exclusion. This is not just about the elderly, it is about a lot of people, those with mental health problems, those with learning disabilities, many people who are vulnerable in some way. 

“For patients in the early stages of dementia, trying to remember passwords and navigate systems can prove a major barrier.

“We are increasingly moving to a digital system which is a good thing for the population at large. 

“But this needs a very careful transition. You have to have the capacity for someone to talk to a human.”

Just 8 per cent of patients at the Your Health Partnership group of practices in the West Midlands said they found it easy to contact their GP by phone.

Yet over 90 per cent of patients in the Oxford Central GP described the experience of calling their local practice in this way.

Meanwhile, almost three quarters of patients in Holderness GP network said they were unable to get through to a person, either hanging up or requesting a callback via an automated message.

‘Risk of unequal service for patients’

Rachel Power, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “Data from a range of resources show the same thing – many patients find it difficult to get in touch with their GP practice.

“The 8am rush to get an appointment seems to have been replaced for many with having to complete an online form to get an appointment.”

She added: “Practices which have moved to exclusively using online appointment booking are not complying with their contract with the NHS and are risking creating an unequal service for their patients.”

An NHS England spokesman said: “GP teams are working incredibly hard to see increasing numbers of patients and a recent survey found nine out of 10 patients said their needs were met at their last appointment, but these findings make clear there is more to do to improve patients’ satisfaction and experience in accessing primary care services.

“Practices are contractually obliged to allow patients to walk in, phone or go online to make appointments and if this is not possible local commissioners should support practices to address this, while every GP practice must offer face-to-face as well as telephone and online appointments – with around six in 10 appointments taking place in person.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The NHS is broken and it is unacceptable that so many patients can’t easily book appointments with their GP.

“We are hiring an extra 1,000 GPs into the NHS by cutting red tape, and will modernise the way people book GP appointments so we can end the 8am scramble.

“This government is committed to fixing the front door to the NHS and we have provided a further £311 million towards GP contract funding in 2024-25. We will ensure GPs have the resources they need to offer patients the highest quality care.”