Netflix has posted record UK revenues after its crackdown on password sharing boosted subscriber numbers.

The US streaming giant recorded revenues of almost £1.7bn in the UK in 2023, its biggest annual total to date and up from £1.5bn the previous year. Pre-tax profits also surged by almost 80pc to £61m, according to newly filed accounts.

Netflix pinned the record performance on growth in subscriber numbers after the streaming company began cracking down on password sharing last year.

Subscribers must now pay an extra £4.99 per month to add another user outside their household to their account.

Netflix does not publish subscriber numbers by country but said its UK membership base grew 7pc last year. The company has just under 280m subscribers worldwide.

Revenues were also driven by higher income per subscriber after Netflix increased prices in the final quarter of 2023. A basic membership, which is only available to pre-existing customers, increased by £1 to £7.99, while the premium tier rose by £2 to £17.99.

Netflix was boosted by a string of major releases last year, including the final season of The Crown and new instalments of Bridgerton and Sex Education.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in London last month, Ted Sarandos, the company’s co-chief executive, said Britain “remains one of the best places for TV and film”.

Other UK productions released this year include Baby Reindeer, The Gentlemen and Fool Me Once.

Accounts for Netflix Services UK show the vast majority of the company’s revenues come from subscribers.

It also recorded revenues of around £36m for services rendered to its UK and Amsterdam-based parent companies. In July this year it paid a £50m dividend to its UK parent.

The Silicon Valley streaming giant has previously come under scrutiny for its meagre tax contributions in the UK. Baroness Hodge, the Labour peer, accused the company of “superhighway robbery” and said the taxpayer was being “taken for a ride”.

However, Netflix’s UK tax bill stood at £14.2m in 2023 – more than double the £6.5m it paid the previous year.

Netflix has been widely hailed as the victor in the streaming wars, fending off growing competition from the likes of Disney+ and Amazon Prime.

The company helped to reverse a slowdown in subscribers by launching a cheaper ad-funded tier in 2022, while its user base has continued to grow despite the crackdown on password sharing and price rises.

Netflix is now looking to break into other areas including sports and live events. In January it struck a $5bn deal to stream WWE’s flagship wrestling show, while it has also secured the rights to a package of NFL games on Christmas Day.

A Netflix spokesman said: “Netflix is a significant contributor to the UK economy investing $6bn over the last four years and working with over 30,000 cast and crew and over 200 producers. 

“We’re committed for the long term and invest more here than any other country except the US.”

Robert Jenrick went backwards in the Tory leadership race because of a “flat” performance at last week’s party conference, critics claimed on Tuesday night.

The former immigration minister – seen by many as the original frontrunner – lost two supporters in the third ballot of MPs, ending up with just 31 backers.

It put him just one vote in front of Kemi Badenoch, leaving the pair in a fight to the finish to get to the final two to be put forward to the membership, alongside James Cleverly.

A member of a rival camp claimed that not only did his conference speech not go down well, the row over his claim that special forces were “killing rather than capturing terrorists” further added to his woes.

“Rob’s speech was flat, his ECHR video row annoyed more people than it won over, and there’s a general sense that his campaign has hit its ceiling and is now sinking,” the source said.

On Tuesday night, Nigel Farage said he believed Mr Jenrick would not make the final two.

He said: “I could give him lessons if he wants, I could coach him, but you can’t try and out-Farage Farage unless you’ve got a track record of believing in these things.”

A spokesman for Ms Badenoch’s campaign said: “There are three candidates left in this contest, two are gaining votes and one is going backwards and losing support.

“The Right of the Conservative Party now needs to coalesce around Kemi, who can reach across and unify the Party, has the star quality to cut through in Opposition, and is indisputably the members’ choice for leader.”

However, members of the former immigration minister’s team were bullish, saying they believed many of those who backed Mr Cleverly on Tuesday would return to Mr Jenrick.

“Some MPs were trying to be smart but will come back once they realise the stakes,” a source said.

They said that Ms Badenoch really needed to go ahead of him in terms of votes in the third ballot, because more Tom Tugendhat backers will switch their support to Mr Jenrick than to Ms Badenoch.

On Tuesday night, Nick Timothy became the first supporter of Mr Tugendhat to do so.

The source said they were not worried they had lost momentum, saying that if Mr Jenrick gets into the final two: “The contest will be between the man who resigned over the failed Rwanda Bill and the man who took it through the Commons.

“It will be between the man who has talked about the importance of the NHS versus someone who is purely about vibes.”

Another campaign source said: “Robert is now in prime position to make the final two. MPs want seriousness and competence.

“That’s why he’s won support from across the party so far – from Danny Kruger on the Right to Vicky Atkins on the Left.”

MPs will vote on Wednesday to whittle down the final three to a final two who will then go forward to the final vote, which is by the membership.

With such a slight margin between the pair, it could take the decision of just one MP to change the identity of the final two.

All may not be lost for Mr Jenrick however, if he gets through to the final two.

The Conservative Party membership is known to be further to the Right than the MPs, which could prove a problem for Mr Cleverly.

One recent poll found that if the former home secretary and Mr Jenrick both went to the membership, Mr Jenrick would narrowly win.

However, Mr Cleverly clearly went down much better at the Tory conference in Birmingham last week, when he warned activists against appointing an “apprentice” rather than someone who had been both foreign secretary and home secretary,

Mr Jenrick’s speech, however, failed to win over the conference hall to the same extent. He used the event to evoke Sir Tony Blair by calling for his Party to become the “New Conservatives”.

Polls also indicate that Ms Badenoch could beat Mr Cleverly if she ends up in the final two.

One of her rivals said: “MPs have a choice between a serious and competent leader or, on a weekly basis, having to defend attacks on Doctor Who, and madcap ideas like lowering maternity pay, the end of free care with the NHS and how the minimum wage is too high. 

“The Party can’t afford more years of this.”

Russian spies are targeting Britain with Cold War-style sabotage, the director general of MI5 has warned.

Writing exclusively for The Telegraph, Ken McCallum said Vladimir Putin’s intelligence agencies are targeting businesses to undermine the UK’s security and economy.

His comments came as he gave his annual threat briefing, in which he warned that Russian operatives are “on a sustained mission to generate mayhem in British streets”.

In a joint article with Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, business leaders were urged to “think hard about the sabotage risk you might be facing”.

“States are not just going after government and military secrets, British businesses have become a target too”, they wrote. “State actors have made aggressive and well-documented attempts to steal UK advantage, including through cyber attacks and penetration of supply chains.

“It might sound like a Cold War-era manoeuvre, but while the war in Ukraine grinds on, we have seen Russian state-sponsored sabotage attempts targeting European – including UK – businesses, with arson a prevalent, but not the only, tactic.”

The Cold War was characterised by repeated attempts by East and West to steal the others’ industrial and military secrets. Mr McCallum said logistics firms, and those with international footprints, are most at risk.

In recent months, the Kremlin has re-energised such covert activity through the use of criminal gangs and is thought to be behind a number of planned or actual attacks across Europe.

In May, the Polish authorities arrested an alleged Russian spy ring planning attacks on commercial premises in the country.

Donald Tusk, the prime minister, said at the time: “We currently have nine suspects detained and indicted, who have been directly implicated in the name of Russian [intelligence] services in acts of sabotage in Poland.”

Earlier this year, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of German domestic intelligence, warned that “we assess the risk of state-controlled acts of sabotage [by Russia] to be significantly increased”.

In the UK, seven people were charged over a Russia-linked arson attack on a Ukrainian business at an industrial unit in Leyton, east London, on March 20. 

Two were charged under the National Security Act 2023 – the first case to involve alleged offences under the new legislation.

Giving his annual speech from the Government’s Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre, in west London, Mr McCallum gave a stark warning to anyone considering working for states hostile to British interests.

He said: “If you take money from Iran, Russia or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.”

The MI5 chief added that as the war in Ukraine continues, the security services were seeing “Putin’s henchmen seeking to strike elsewhere in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve”.

The expulsion of more than 750 Russian diplomats from Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine has put a “big dent in the Russian intelligence services’ ability to cause damage in the West”, he added.

As a result, malign states such as Russia and Iran have increasingly turned to criminal elements to carry out their “dirty work”.

The MI5 director general said Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU – deemed responsible for the 2018 chemical attack in Salisbury against double agent Sergei Skripal, which resulted in the death of local woman Dawn Sturgess – had been active in the recruitment of criminals.

“The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets,” he said. “We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more – dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Mr McCallum said the law enforcement and security services were “powerfully alive” to the risk that events in the Middle East could trigger a terror attack in the UK.

He said al-Qaeda had sought to capitalise on the conflict in the Middle East by calling for violent action, and that his staff would give their fullest attention to the risk of an increase in Iranian state aggression in the UK.

Since the start of 2022, MI5 has helped to disrupt 20 Iran-backed plots presenting lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.

Speaking a day after the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, the spy chief said “the ripples from conflict in that region will not necessarily arrive at our shores in a straightforward fashion”, adding: “They will be filtered through the lens of online media and mixed with existing views and grievances in unpredictable ways.”

Russia and Iran continue to be the focus for external threats to the UK, with the number of state threat investigations run by MI5 up 48 per cent in the last year alone.

The head of MI5 said his agency also has “one hell of a job on its hands” given the changes in the terrorist threat in recent years. Since 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots. In some cases, terrorists were trying to get hold of firearms and explosives in the final days of planning mass murder.

Although Islamist extremism continues to make up about three-quarters of MI5’s counter-terrorist work – the remainder being extreme Right-wing terrorism – Mr McCallum said that “much has shifted”.

“Straightforward labels like ‘Islamist terrorism’ or ‘extreme Right-wing’ don’t fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see,” he said. “We’re encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow.”

Referring to advances in communications technology, Mr McCallum said security services must keep access to online communications in the face of calls for greater encryption and privacy, otherwise “terrorists will be able to operate at scale without fear of consequence”.

He said: “Privacy and exceptional lawful access can coexist if absolutist positions are avoided. World-class encryption experts are confident of this.”

Mr McCallum also revealed there has been a threefold increase in the number of under-18s investigated by his agency for involvement in terrorism over the last three years.

Extreme Right-wing terrorism “skews heavily towards young people”, he said, “driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture”. This has resulted in 13 per cent of MI5’s terrorist investigations being against children.

Rachel Reeves has been warned that increasing taxes on alcohol and pubs in the Budget would spell “the end of the affordable pint”.

Brewers and hospitality firms have told the Chancellor they have “nothing left to give” and would be driven out of business by further costs.

In a letter seen by The Telegraph, they also told Ms Reeves that Angela Rayner’s plan to boost workers’ rights is at risk of causing a staffing crisis.

Ms Reeves is considering an increase in alcohol duty in the Budget, despite warnings it would lead to a drop in revenues by depressing sales of drink.

The Treasury has also failed to guarantee that 75 per cent business rates relief for pubs will be extended beyond next April, when it is due to expire.

Under the Tories alcohol duty was frozen for almost three years – from autumn 2020 until August 2023, when it was was increased by 10 per cent, in line with inflation at the time.

Jeremy Hunt, the former chancellor, then froze the levy at his final two budgets, with the most recent freeze set to expire in April unless Ms Reeves extends it.

A sector in crisis

Leading drinks companies warned higher taxes would have a devastating effect on a sector facing a “cost-of-doing-business crisis”.

“The industry simply cannot afford other costs, let alone tax increases,” they said in a letter organised by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA).

“Put plainly, for thousands of pubs and brewers across the country there is nothing left to give. The cost of this will be borne by brewers and pubs initially but… ultimately it is the customer who will have to foot the bill.”

The letter was signed by dozens of Britain’s biggest brewers and pub firms including Greene King, Youngs, Heineken UK and Wetherspoons.

They urged Ms Reeves to stick to the five-point plan for pubs she unveiled during the election campaign, which included business rates reform.

“If that plan is not delivered, we will see pubs close and the end of the affordable pint,” they wrote.

“When a pub struggles to survive, it cannot continue to be the beating heart of a community, keep employing staff, or contribute to economic growth.”

Alcohol duty – which depends on a drink’s strength – on a pint of 4.5 per cent beer at a pub is 49p. The average price of a pint overall, covering all strengths, is £4.98

Senior figures in the drinks industry have voiced fears Ms Reeves could target their sector to raise revenue to fill the claimed £22 billion budget black hole.

But they have warned the Treasury that previous alcohol duty increases, including the last one imposed by Rishi Sunak, have led to a drop in revenues.

That is because consumers have become increasingly sensitive to even relatively small price increases in recent years, they said.

Brewers have also warned that new green rules on packaging will lead to “eye-watering extra costs” equivalent to a 7-14 per cent increase in beer duty.

Under the Tory-era plans, from next year companies will have to pay towards the collection, recovery, and disposal of packaging on their products.

Beer garden smoking

Drinks companies have raised wider concerns that the Government risks damaging their business model with its interventionist approach.

In the letter they said the planned ban on smoking in beer gardens “risks driving customers from pubs that have spent millions investing in outdoor spaces”.

They also warned that Ms Rayner’s package on workers’ rights, which includes a clamp-down on zero hours contracts, will damage the sector.

“Significantly above inflation increases to the National Living Wage and disproportionate restrictions to employment flexibility will lead to significant staffing difficulties,” they wrote.

“This won’t just affect employers; it will affect those who need flexibility to work, which is why we need a clear plan from Government about how this will be mitigated.”

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA, said the warning showed that Labour must stick to its promises to support the sector.

“They must use this Budget to cut beer duty, reform business rates, and maintain the vital 75 per cent business rates relief,” she said.

“If they want to keep the public house a public home, they must keep their word and support a sector that pours billions into the economy, supports more than a million jobs, and is a cornerstone of the community.”

The Treasury has said it does not comment on budget speculation.

Footage has shown US airmen flying into the heart of Hurricane Milton in a Cold War-era hurricane-hunting propeller plane codenamed Miss Piggy.

Documents and equipment crash onto the floor of the fuselage and the crew struggle to remain seated as the plane is thrashed by intense wind and rain.

“Good god,” one of the men says as he looks out of the window at the raging gales.

The men are officers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the smallest of the eight uniformed services of the United States.

Hurricane Milton is currently heading towards central Florida’s western coast, where its outer bands have already begun impacting the state.

Tornado warnings have been issued as the storm is expected to make full landfall later on Wednesday night.

It is forecast to double in size by the time it hits the US, meaning that its disastrous impacts will be felt across a much larger area, although it is expected to downgrade from a category 5 storm to category 4.

Florida officials continue to urge residents to evacuate.

Mandatory evacuation zones are in place in the state’s coastal zones. With more than 5.5 million people were urged to leave, it is one of the largest evacuations in Florida’s history.

“Do not hesitate,” Colin Burns, a deputy incident commander in Pasco County, said. “If you can get out, get out.”

Jane Castor, the Tampa mayor, told CNN: “I can say without any dramatisation whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re gonna die.”

Joe Biden, who has postponed a trip to Germany to monitor the storm response, said Florida’s evacuation orders were a “matter of life or death”.

“I’ve urged everyone, everyone currently located in Hurricane Milton’s path to listen to local officials and follow safety instructions,” the US president said.

He also called on airlines to provide “as much service as possible” and “not engage in price gouging”.

The US’s National Hurricane Centre said that Hurricane Milton, which currently has windspeeds of about 160mph, could be “one of the most destructive hurricanes on record”.

The Foreign Office has updated its travel advice, warning of the risk of “life-threatening storm surge and high winds” in Florida.

It told travellers to monitor the National Hurricane Centre’s website, follow instructions from local officials and check with airlines about possible travel disruptions.

The state of Georgia has also declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the effects of Hurricane Milton.

The NOAA flies a fleet of “Hurricane Hunters” into storms to take readings that help forecasters, scientists and disaster planners make accurate predictions about intense weather systems.

Miss Piggy is one of two of the NOAA’s WP-3D Orion planes, aircraft introduced in the 1970s to hunt Soviet submarines.

The planes are powered by turboprop engines, which are more efficient at the low airspeeds needed to fly through Hurricanes than modern jet engines.

A fugitive father who disappeared into the New Zealand wilderness with his three young children three years ago has been spotted trekking with them through remote farmland in a chance encounter with pig hunters.

Tom Phillips and his three children, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, were identified in grainy footage wearing camouflage gear and backpacks while tramping single file in the mountainous ranges of Te Anga on New Zealand’s North Island.

The last sighting of the family was in December 2021, before they suddenly dropped off the grid in what has been dubbed the “Marokopa mystery”.

In an emotional interview with The New Zealand Herald, the children’s mother, Cat, said she had instantly recognised them on a photo and was relieved to know they were alive and seemingly in good health.

“I’m so happy that they’re all there. I’m so relieved to see all three of my babies. They’re all alive,” she said.

‘Innocent children’

In a video message earlier this year, Cat begged for help to bring her children home.

“They are just innocent children, they do not deserve to be treated this way. They do not deserve the life that is being provided to them right now,” she said.

In June, Cat shared photos of a handwritten letter from Mr Phillips in which he begged for forgiveness and asked Cat to take him back.

It is not known when the letter was sent, but Cat said she shared the letter to show that “not all is as it seems”.

Before disappearing, Mr Phillips grew up in the Waikato district, about 112 miles south of Auckland, and spent much of his time on a family farm in Marokopa, a sprawling and hilly area of paddocks and bushland near the Waitomo caves.

When he split from his wife after eight years of marriage, he gained custody of the children and became a full-time father, educating them at home.

All four first vanished in September 2021, sparking alarm when Mr Phillips’ Toyota Hilux was found below the tide line at the nearby Kiritehere beach.

The child seats in the vehicle were empty and the keys were found under the driver’s mat.

A massive, expensive search-and-rescue mission brought together police and local volunteers to scour the desolate coastline with heat-detecting drones, a helicopter, plane and a jet ski, but it was called off after 12 days with no sign of the missing family.

Five days later, they re-emerged saying that they had been camping.

Mr Phillips was charged with wasting police resources and was summoned to appear in court in early 2022, but in early December, the family went missing again and were not sighted until last week when a teenage member of a pig-hunting team captured their image.

The teenager’s grandfather, John McOviney, said the children had asked if “anyone knew they were there” before carrying on along their route.

He told Newstalk ZB that when his grandson saw Mr Phillips was carrying a gun, he did not continue the conversation but instead called the police.

Det Insp Andrew Saunders of the New Zealand Police confirmed the sighting was being treated as “credible”.

‘Positive information’

“This is the first time all three of the children have been sighted, which is positive information, and we know it will be reassuring for the children’s wider family,” he said, adding that investigators were now determining the next steps.

However, a three-day search, including the use of a military helicopter, yielded “nothing further of significance”, police said. They have asked the local community to report any suspicious activity.

A £37,000 reward was offered for two weeks in June for information leading to the children’s safe return.

Mr Phillips is also now wanted for questioning over an alleged armed robbery of a bank in Te Kuiti near Marokopa in September 2023, prompting the police to warn the public not to approach him.

Italy’s prime minister appeared in court on Tuesday to demand punishment for two men who allegedly created deepfake pornographic videos of her and posted them online.

Giorgia Meloni, who dialled into the courtroom by videolink, has demanded 100,000 euros (£84,000) in compensation, which she said she will donate to a fund that helps female victims of domestic violence.

Roberto Scurosu, 73, and his son Alessio Scurosu, 40, from Sardinia, are accused of creating the fake videos featuring Ms Meloni and posting them to American porn websites in 2020, two years before she became prime minister.

The videos were viewed millions of times, prosecutors allege.

Both men are accused of defamation. In Italy, some defamation cases can be criminal and carry a custodial sentence.

“I insist on demanding the punishment of those who are responsible because I consider what they did to be intolerable,” the prime minister told the court, according to Ansa, Italy’s national news agency.

“This is a form of violence against women. It is intolerable in terms of how these images made me feel.

“With the advent of artificial intelligence, if we allow the face of some woman to be superimposed on the body of another woman, our daughters will find themselves in these situations, which is exactly why I consider it legitimate to wage this war. 

“I consider it to be my responsibility and maybe there should be more severe laws.”

‘Sends message to women victims not to be afraid’

Ms Meloni appeared by video link from Rome, giving evidence in the trial held in the Sardinian town of Sassari.

She expressed worry about the way AI can be used to produce images that appear to be authentic.

The prime minister responded to questions put to her by a prosecutor, Maria Paola Asara, the judge in the case, Monia Adami, and a defence lawyer, Maurizio Serra.

Her decision to pursue the case is intended to “send a message to women who are victims of this kind of abuse of power not to be afraid to press charges”, her lawyer said earlier this year.

Police were able to identify the father and son by analysing their phone and computer records, as well as nicknames that they used online.

Deepfakes are realistic-looking videos, images or audio clips that depict people in situations they have never actually been in by using technology that digitally enhances or changes content.

According to the Ban Deepfakes campaign, deepfake sexual content increased by more than 400 per cent between 2022 and 2023.

Fake pornographic images of the actresses Emma Watson and Kristen Bell and the singer Taylor Swift, among others, have gone viral, sometimes being seen millions of times before platforms remove the content.

Vladimir Putin will hold an urgent meeting with the Iranian president on Friday over the crisis in the Middle East.

Putin will fly to Turkmenistan for a previously unscheduled appearance at an obscure summit of regional leaders, the Kremlin said.

Aides said he would meet Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss the conflict that has drawn Israel and Iran to the brink of war.

“This meeting is of great importance both for discussing bilateral issues and for discussing the sharply aggravated situation in the Middle East,” said Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin aide.

Iran and Russia have become close allies since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Iran has been supplying Russia with missiles and drones since 2022 in return for technical know-how, money and other weapons.

This is the first meeting between the two leaders since Iran fired nearly 200 missiles at Israel last week in response to Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader.

Putin and Mr Pezeshkian are also due to meet on the sidelines of the annual summit for the Brics economic group in Kazan, Russia, on Oct 22-24.

Mikhail Mishustin, Russia’s prime minister, visited Iran last week for talks with Mr Pezeshkian and Mohammad Reza Aref, the first vice-president.

Analysts said that the Interconnection of Times and Civilizations: the Basis of Peace and Development Forum was an obscure meeting spot for Putin and Mr Pezeshkian.

“The meeting seems to have been organised at the last minute,” said Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Iran may want to secure Russian support as it awaits Israeli retaliation for its ballistic missile strikes on Oct 1. It is a strange place to hold a bilateral meeting, and not necessarily a normal forum for the two countries to meet.”

Leaders of Central Asian countries are meeting to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Magtymguly Pyragy, the 18th-century poet and philosopher.

Considered one of the fathers of Turkmen language literature, his writings were infused with Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, and embryonic feelings for Turkmen nationalism.

Neither are topics that Putin has previously shown an interest in.

Former Soviet Turkmenistan is officially a neutral state that lies on the edge of Central Asia, bordering Iran. Gas production, mainly sold to China, props up its economy. This year it has made moves to sell gas to Europe, via Azerbaijan.

Lisa Marie Presley’s life was a very American tragedy. The only child of rock ’n’ roll’s King, she seemed predestined to spend her days overshadowed by her origins. Born in 1968, her own journey through life included a stab at rock stardom, marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage, struggles with drug addiction and the suicide of her beloved son Ben in 2020. It all ended with her own death in January 2023, aged 54, from a heart attack, following bariatric surgery she had undergone an attempt to lose weight.

Presley had been recording tapes for a planned autobiography, which has been posthumously completed by her daughter, the actress Riley Keough. From Here to the Great Unknown is published today; as befits the daughter of Elvis, it’s quite the ride. Here are some of the highlights.

On Elvis

In August 1977, when Lisa Marie was nine years old, Elvis hired Libertyland amusement park in Memphis in its entirety, so that he could take her on the rides. “I remember sitting next to him on the roller coaster that day – the Zippin Pippin – keeping one eye ahead on the ride and the other on the gun in his holster, which was on my side,” Lisa Marie recalls in the memoir. “Unless you know or understood him, that sounds terrible, I know. You might think he was crazy, carrying a piece with his daughter sitting next to him, but he was just from the South. It was really funny. So we rode and rode.”

A week later, Lisa Marie was in the upstairs bathroom of Graceland, watching her father die from a drug-related heart attack. “They were standing over him, moving him around, trying to work on him. I was screaming bloody murder.” She is still haunted by the sound of her grandfather Vernon wailing in the living room, “He’s gone, he’s gone!” But, as she observes with tangible disgust, “that afternoon turned into a free-for-all. Everybody went to town. Everything was swiped, wiped clean – jewellery, artefacts, personal items – before he was even pronounced dead.”

Elvis, she writes, “was a God to me.” It’s a statement indicative of the lack of perspective that runs through this crazy tale. “You could always sense my dad’s intensity. If it was a good intensity, it was incredible. If it was bad, watch the f— out. Whatever it was going to be, it was going to be a thousand per cent. When he got angry, everybody would run, duck and take cover.” She depicts him in a hotel penthouse suite in Tahoe, strung out and upset at not being able to get the drugs he wanted, throwing objects off the balcony by the armful, “really angry, cursing and screaming”, while his Memphis Mafia cronies cowered behind sofas. 

On her lawless life at Graceland

Lisa Marie grew up at Elvis’s Memphis mansion, Graceland, which she describes as being “like its own city, its own jurisdiction. My dad was the chief of police, and everybody was ranked. There were a few laws and rules, but mostly not.”

Lisa Marie lived life like a feral princess, running wild with cousins and the staff children, threatening to have people fired if they did not do her bidding. Elvis let her ride her pony through the house, where it stopped and defecated right outside her snuff-pipe-smoking great-grandmother’s bedroom.

The depiction of Graceland is insane, like the Beverly Hillbillies with drugs and guns. Elderly women in the family pull knives on each other; everyone rides recklessly around in golf carts, a “full-on demolition derby all day long”. The Memphis Mafia congregate in a downstairs pool room that Lisa Marie describes as “a vortex”, full of “never ending cigarettes, dirty magazines, dirty cards, dirty books… One time my dad threw a stink bomb down the steps into that room and then locked the doors so no one could get out.” There was a shed full of weapons and fireworks. “Dad and his friends would take firecrackers and shoot them at each other” until an incident when “they all exploded at the same time. The whole shed went up in flames.” Fondly recalling the mayhem, she says: “Sometimes I can’t believe no one was killed up there.”

On her ‘chilly’ mother, Priscilla

One person who isn’t going to enjoy this book is Lisa Marie’s mother, Priscilla Presley, still alive and now 79. “She met my dad at 14, and her parents allowed it. It was a different time,” Lisa Marie notes. (Elvis was 24.) Priscilla is described as having “a chilly disposition” and lacking in “maternal instincts”. After Elvis’s death, Lisa Marie realises: “I’m stuck with this woman. It was a one-two punch: he’s dead and now I’m stuck with her.”

Life with Priscilla was much more strict but also curiously hands-off. Priscilla was frequently absent on film sets and modelling shoots, while Lisa Marie relied on support from the Church of Scientology, to which she’d been recruited by John Travolta. “Scientology kind of raised me for her.” She claims an abusive adult would come to her room at night to spank her. “There was a lot of violence in that house.” But when she showed her mother her bruises, Priscilla would respond: “Well, what did you do to cause that?” Later in life, when Priscilla had another child, there was a degree of rapprochement between daughter and mother, but the memoir doesn’t suggest genuine closeness. “She was never a friend, someone I could talk to,” she says. “I felt like I was her trophy.”

On the ‘controlling, calculating’ Michael Jackson

Lisa Marie’s own love life was always something of a mess. She lost her virginity aged 14 to a 23-year-old actor, who sold pictures of them together to the press. She claims that Priscilla wreaked revenge by setting him up for a drug bust. 

At the age of 21, Lisa Marie became pregnant by, and married musician Danny Keough, father of the memoir’s co-author Riley. He is – perhaps not coincidentally – the only man in Lisa Marie’s life who comes across in this book as honourable and caring. But she left him for pop superstar Michael Jackson in 1994, even as Jackson was facing child-molestation accusations.

Lisa Marie protests that she “never saw a goddamn thing like that. I would have killed him if I had”, yet there are sinister undercurrents between the lines of a relationship she claims was the happiest of her life. “I fell in love with him because he was normal,” she insists, even as she describes a life of wildly inflated luxury, driving the children to school with his pet chimpanzee, and keeping a private anaesthesiologist on hand for reasons he refuses to explain to her. Jackson was 34 when they got together, but told her “he was still a virgin. I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a thing with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been physical apart from a kiss. He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once too, but nothing happened.”

Despite Lisa Marie’s insistence that she did not believe the paedophile allegations, she admits she didn’t want to have children with Jackson because, she says, “I knew he ultimately wanted to be the only caretaker of the children. Michael wanted to control things. He didn’t want a mother influence, or any other influence, for that matter. I figured Michael would have me have the children and then dump me, get me out of the picture. I could read him like a clock. I knew his nature, and he was very controlling and calculating.”

Conflict over her refusal to have more children and his increasing drug dependency led to the couple splitting less than two years into their marriage, after which Jackson cut off all contact with her. “I can get really mean and really angry and I freak people out when I get like that,” admits Lisa Marie. “It comes from trying to protect myself from pain. I know people can hurt me, so I’ll shut them out. I learned from the best: Michael Jackson. He did it really well.”

On the ‘dramatic’ Nicholas Cage

Lisa Marie was married and divorced four times, the briefest being 108 days in 2022 with the actor Nicolas Cage, a known Elvis obsessive. From Here to the Great Unknown doesn’t shed much light on this relationship, but Riley Keough fills in some gaps, recalling her own memories of it as having been a “ton of fun”. 

The couple dressed up as horror-film characters, and Cage turned up every day in a different Lamborghini to shower Lisa Marie in diamonds. During one yacht trip, things became rowdy, and she threw a $65,000 engagement ring into the Pacific Ocean. “Nic bought her another one,” we’re told, “even more expensive than the first.” All Lisa Marie has to say is this: “We were so dramatic, the two of us, that we couldn’t stay contained.”

On heartbreak and death

After Elvis died in 1977, his body laid in state for visiting crowds at Graceland. Lisa Marie would sit and watch as they filed past his coffin, “fainting and screaming and grieving so hard”. She doesn’t know if anyone noticed her there, watching. Later, when the crowds were gone, she went down to his casket, “to touch his face and hold his hand, to talk to him. It’ll hit me still, on and off it comes. There have been nights as an adult when I would just get drunk and listen to his music and sit there and cry. The grief still comes. It’s still just there.”

I met Lisa Marie in 2012, in a record-company office in London. She was promoting her third and finest album, Storm & Grace, and she cut a striking figure, heavily made up, dressed (as usual) all in black. It was impossible not to note the family resemblances. She had Elvis’s eyes and heavy jaw, a slight curl to the top lip, although there was just as much of her mother in her angular beauty. Her body language was stiff and cautious; she took a long time to warm to the interview. She didn’t speak expansively or give out more information than needed. When I asked whether she was a suspicious person, she replied: “I should be more suspicious. I was born into this, I saw things way too young. You have to constantly keep your eye open. Something happens to people around fame and power and money. It’s a monster you have to tame.”

At 40, following the birth of twins by Caesarian section, she became addicted to painkillers. Soon she would be popping “80 pills a day” and it was a decade-long struggle to recover. In the memoir, most of this is told from the perspective of Riley Keough, although Lisa Marie’s comments lend sad insights, equating her belated drug dependency with a loss of focus and meaning in her life. In 2014, she left the Church of Scientology, long having harboured doubts. She seemed to be getting her life back on track.

Then in 2022, her son Ben killed himself with a shot to the head. In a morbid echo of Elvis’s lying-in-state, Lisa Marie kept his body in a bedroom at her home for two months, with the temperature maintained at 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). “I think it would scare the living piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that,” she admits. “But not me… I felt so fortunate that there was a way I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could process his death.”

The latter passages of From Here to the Great Unknown evoke a constant struggle to live with grief. Ultimately, Riley Keough believes that her mother died of a broken heart. “I saw a picture of myself with my parents yesterday,” says Lisa Marie on tapes recorded just months before she died. “I was five or six. I’m standing between the two of them, and they’ve each got my hand. After my father died, people always described me as sad. It was like a permanent imprint on my face after that, in my eyes. 

“But that sadness was not in this photograph. That forlorn little princess bulls–t hadn’t reared its ugly head yet. The sadness started at nine when he passed away, and then it never left. Now it’s even worse – my eyes are downcast permanently in this grief. The view is pretty limited. I always thought – why does everybody always say I look sad. And now I get it.”

From Here to the Great Unknown (Macmillan, £25) is out now

A man who allegedly sold his 11-month-old baby on Facebook for $955 (£729) to fund his online gambling has been arrested by Indonesian police. 

The 36 year-old, who is being identified as RA, was caught after the child’s biological mother returned home to find her baby missing.

Zain Dwi Nugroho, the police chief in Tangerang, a city that merges into the east of the capital, Jakarta, said: “She pressed RA to share the whereabouts of their child until he eventually confessed that he had sold the newborn.

“RA saw on Facebook that the buyers were looking to purchase a toddler so he sent them a message and arranged the purchase.”

He added that the man claimed to police that he needed the money because of financial hardships but then used the proceeds for online gambling.

The police found the baby in a rented home in Tangerang, alongside two adults who were also arrested for suspected involvement in a human trafficking network – a crime that carries a punishment of up to 15 years in jail and a 600 million rupiah fine in Indonesia.

Traffickers will be ‘punished severely’

Ai Maryati, the head of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission, told detiknews: “There is no excuse to be treating children this way and violation of their rights has to be punished severely.”

It comes a month after authorities dismantled a baby trafficking ring in the vast archipelago. 

These cases are not isolated. Roughly 9.3 per cent of people were living under the international poverty line in 2023, and police say that some people consider their children as a way out.

In September, police uncovered a baby trafficking ring after receiving a tip-off in Depok, a city directly south of Jakarta, where they arrested eight people involved in buying and selling young children online.

Arya Perdan, the city’s police chief, said that the children were advertised on Facebook, with prices ranging 10 million to 15 million Indonesian rupiah (£490 to £740).

The traffickers then took the infants to Bali, where they were re-sold for as much as 45 million rupiah (£2,195), CNN Indonesia reported.

According to the United Nations, about 56 per cent of all human trafficking victims worldwide are in the Asia Pacific region, with south and south-east Asia considered key hubs for supplying victims.

Drivers have rated the M42 England’s worst motorway, criticising speed limits reduced “for no apparent reason” and “roadworks, potholes and delays”.

The 40-mile road – which connects Birmingham with Nottingham, Solihull, Tamworth and Redditch – was ranked last in a survey of more than 9,166 road users conducted by the watchdog Transport Focus.

The poll was carried out in the year to the end of March, coinciding with major roadworks on the M42 around Birmingham Airport.

One respondent said the M42 was a “terrible road to drive”. 

Another said variable speed limits “do not always reflect the traffic conditions” and complained they were “directed to reduce speed for no apparent reason”.

Road users awarded the M42 an overall satisfaction score of just 56 per cent.

At the other end of the scale, England’s most popular motorway was the M40, which runs between London and Birmingham and which earned 79 per cent.

One person surveyed said it was “one of the few motorways that has few delays when I travel on it”.

The A19 – which connects Seaton Burn, near Newcastle, with Doncaster – was rated the best A road in the country (85 per cent), while the A12, which runs between London and Lowestoft, was ranked last (55 per cent).

Government-owned company National Highways is responsible for England’s motorways and major A roads.

Alex Robertson, chief executive of Transport Focus, said: “Drivers tell us that the maintenance of motorways and major roads – how most of us get around the country – is more important to them than building new roads.

“National Highways must continue to focus on delivering safe, smooth journeys.”

Department for Transport figures published last week showed delays on National Highways’ roads have reached record levels.

Average hold-ups were 11.0 seconds per vehicle per mile in the year to the end of June, the worst since March 2016, when the figure was 8.6 seconds.

Transport Focus noted that traffic levels on motorways and major A roads rose by 2.3 per cent from 2022 to 2023, but remained 1 per cent below pre-coronavirus levels.

It also said roadworks relating to the retrofitting of 150 additional emergency stopping areas on smart motorways were “a further challenge”.

National Highways was approached for comment.

Boris Johnson has said Sue Gray clung on to her job for so long because she “knows where the bodies are buried”.

But the ex-prime minister said Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff was “always a goner” after a member of her family took donations from Lord Alli.

He told LBC that he always knew Ms Gray would have to resign eventually, because her son had taken money from the peer to help run his campaign for Parliament.

Liam Conlan, Ms Gray’s son, is now Labour MP for Beckenham and Penge after receiving a £10,000 donation from Lord Alli towards his campaign.

While she was a civil servant, Ms Gray wrote the damning report into Downing Street lockdown parties, prompting the downfall of Mr Johnson.

It was announced on Sunday that Ms Gray had been removed as chief of staff and replaced with her rival, Morgan McSweeney.

‘Propriety and ethics stuff’

Mr Johnson said: “The interesting thing about Sue is that she spent a long time in the heart of Whitehall, kind of clearing up all the sort-of propriety and ethics stuff.

“So I think she knows where the bodies are buried, and so I think she’s been able to parlay that very useful knowledge into the position she had held until just now.”

He added: “I thought that it was Chronicle of a Death Foretold, really, because I think that this … she was always a goner.

“I don’t want to be seen to be dancing on anybody’s grave – but as soon as it became clear that her son had received money for his campaign – he’s a Labour MP now – from a guy called Waheed Alli, who then got a pass to enter Number 10.”

He added: “And I thought, even if she didn’t know about the suits, even if she didn’t know about the designer spectacles and whatever it was, that was going to be a tough one for her. So I thought this was always going to happen”.

Mr Johnson also claimed she “cut up rough” when she did not get a promotion in the civil service.

“She thought she was going to be, whatever it was, permanent secretary in the Northern Ireland Office, and when she was disappointed in that, she cut up rough,” he claimed.

Mr Johnson is publicising his memoirs, Unleashed.

Joe Biden pushed the UK into giving up the Chagos Islands over concerns the US would lose control of an important air base, The Telegraph understands.

Days after the general election in July, senior officials from the White House’s National Security Council and State Department told the incoming Labour government that refusing to sign away the islands would jeopardise the “special relationship” with Washington.

Sir Keir Starmer was criticised last week for his decision to give up the archipelago of more than 1,000 tiny islands, a UK overseas territory since 1965 known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory.

It was suggested the deal could give China access to the Diego Garcia air base, which is on the largest island in the chain.

Under the deal, Mauritius will take control of the islands, but Britain and the US will rent the base for 99 years.

Strategically important air base

The Telegraph understands that American officials pushed the UK toward the deal, fearing that if it was not signed, Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base.

The base is considered strategically important because it puts some bomber aircraft within range of the Middle East. Diego Garcia was previously used by the US to conduct bombing runs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US officials told the Foreign Office that a quick deal should be signed before the American and Mauritian elections next month, agreeing to give up UK territory in exchange for the base.

The officials argued that handing over the islands would safeguard Britain’s special relationship with the US, and that a binding court ruling would make it more difficult to fly aircraft to the base, conduct repairs, and cooperate with UN agencies.

‘Deal makes UK look pathetic’

Since announcing the deal on Thursday, the Government has faced criticism from MPs, who argue that Britain should not have agreed to give up territory and to rent a military base it already controls.

Boris Johnson said the “terrible” deal made the UK look “pathetic”.

Some also argued that the base would come under threat from Chinese spyware, because Mauritius and China are economically aligned.

The Telegraph understands that the full terms of the deal, which has not been made public, contain protections against Chinese influence in the islands without the agreement of Britain and the US.

On Monday, Robert Jenrick said David Lammy had signed the deal so that he could “feel good about himself at his next north London dinner party”.

In a debate discussing the decision in Parliament, the Tory leadership contender said: “We’ve just handed sovereign British territory to a small island nation which is an ally of China – and we’re paying for the privilege.

“All so that the foreign secretary can feel good about himself at his next North London dinner party.”

‘Unsustainable’ legal position

However, the Foreign Secretary told MPs on Monday that the dispute between Britain and Mauritius was “clearly not sustainable” and that Labour faced a choice between “abandoning the base altogether or breaking international law”.

Friends of the British Overseas Territories, a charity dedicated to British-owned islands abroad, called Mr Lammy’s statement “shameful”.

“Proceeding with the transfer of [the island] goes against our national interests and must be stopped at once,” it said.

The ICJ had already issued a non-binding ruling that the islands belong to Mauritius, and a further ruling that forced the handover of the base was likely, he said, because of the “regrettable” removal of indigenous islanders by the UK in the 1960s.

Downing Street insisted the deal to give up sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was due to the “unsustainable” legal position and had no impact on other disputed territories including the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman would not be drawn on the cost to the UK taxpayer of the deal which will see Mauritius being given sovereignty over the islands, with a 99-year agreement to secure the strategically important UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.

The spokesman said: “The Government inherited a situation where the long-term secure operation of the military base at Diego Garcia was under threat with contested sovereignty and legal challenges, including through various international courts and tribunals.

“You will be aware that the previous government initiated sovereignty negotiations in 2022 and conducted a number of rounds of negotiations. This Government picked up those negotiations and has reached an agreement, which means that for the first time in over 50 years, the base will be undisputed, legally secure, with full Mauritian backing.”

Asked why the Islands should not be seen as a precedent for other sovereignty disputes such as the Falklands and Gibraltar, the spokesman said: “It’s a unique situation based on its unique history and circumstances, and has no bearing on other overseas territories.”

The spokesman added: “British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar is not up for negotiation.”

Train passengers spend an average of around £7 before every journey at shops in or near stations, research has found.

Buying coffee, having a haircut or purchasing a gift were examples of spending recorded in the study, funded by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the industry body.

It comes after the rail watchdog halted an investigation into railway catering despite finding that passengers were paying a 10 per cent “price premium” at station food outlets.

Annual expenditure by train passengers in Britain is £23 billion at high street stores and £9 billion at independent businesses, the RDG study estimated.

Some 70 per cent of respondents to a survey conducted for the report said having a train station helps local businesses in their area thrive.

Jacqueline Starr, the RDG’s chief executive, said: “Rail is at the heart of local economies.

“Up and down the country, we’re seeing networks of small and medium businesses and independent companies thriving in and around train stations.

“For our customers, travelling by train is more than getting from A to B. It is a ticket to explore our towns and cities and support the businesses on their local high streets.

“If more people choose to travel by train in the future, we can only expect to see a stronger ripple effect, giving a further boost to local economies.”

‘Lack of effective competition’

The figures in the report, produced by consultancy WPI Economics, are based on a survey of more than 3,000 people whose last journey was from one of 20 towns or 20 cities.

Separate Office of Rail and Road (ORR) statistics show the Government contributed £21.1 billion to Britain’s rail industry in the year to the end of March 2023.

This largely consisted of £11.9 billion for the operational railway, £6.9 billion towards developing HS2 and £2 billion for infrastructure and enhancements.

In June, the ORR said it would not refer the train station catering market to the Competition and Markets Authority despite finding there is a “lack of effective competition” among companies operating station food outlets.

The watchdog called on Network Rail to introduce competitive bidding processes for shop leases and to take greater account of consumers’ feedback on station food quality and prices.

Less than 5 per cent of expiring station shop leases were let competitively between January 2022 and June 2023, regulators found. The rest were handed to the existing tenant without being advertised.

The largest train station catering company, SSP, received around half of all passenger food spending last year, the ORR said.

Stargazers will be able to catch a glimpse of a meteor shower this week as the Earth travels through a cloud of comet debris.

The meteor shower, also known as the Giacobinids, will last until Thursday but will peak on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

It comes after a rare scientific phenomenon known as “Steve” appeared in UK skies on Monday night. 

The relatively new scientific discovery – which stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement – was spotted in Scotland and north-east England.

Little is known about the formation, but it only appears during auroras, which were also seen across England. It appears as a ribbon and lasts for 20 minutes to an hour before disappearing.

What time will the Draconid meteor shower be visible tonight?

While most other meteor showers are best seen in the early hours, the Draconids are best caught in the evening after nightfall.

Dr Minjae Kim, a research fellow from the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick, said: “The shower’s radiant point is highest in the evening sky, making it a rare meteor shower best viewed after sunset rather than in the early morning hours.”

The Draconid meteor shower takes place every year and comes from the debris of comet 21 P/ Giacobini-Zinner, which orbits around the Sun for six and a half years.

The name Giacobinids comes from Michel Giacobini, who discovered the comet 21 P/Giacobini-Zinner from which the meteors come.

The streaks seen in the night sky during the meteor shower can be caused by particles as small as a grain of sand.

“During ideal conditions, observers may witness up to 10 meteors per hour,” said Dr Kim.

Where is best to watch the Draconid meteor shower?

Finding a location with an unobstructed horizon and very little light pollution is recommended for seeing the meteor shower.

“The waxing crescent to first quarter moon phase will provide relatively dark skies, enhancing visibility,” said Dr Kim.

“Seek out any areas with minimal light pollution, such as rural settings or parks away from city lights. Also, find a spot with an unobstructed view of the sky and a clear horizon. Allow your eyes about 20-30 minutes to adjust to the darkness for optimal night vision, which is always helpful.

“You could bring a reclining chair or blanket to comfortably observe the sky. Remember, patience is key when stargazing. Settle in, relax, and let the wonders of the night sky unfold before you.”

A convicted burglar from Albania filmed himself flaunting a Ferrari in London, despite being deported twice from the UK.

Dorian Puka, 28, who has twice been jailed and deported for burglaries, sneaked back into the UK and posted a 90-second video of himself driving the £300,000 car on his TikTok and Instagram accounts.

The Home Office admitted it was powerless to remove Puka again until his asylum claim had been fully heard, but warned that foreign criminals should be “in no doubt” of the law being enforced. 

The disclosures come after The Telegraph revealed another Albanian criminal, who entered the UK again after being deported, won the right to stay under the European Convention on Human Rights.

It prompted calls by Tory MPs for the UK to quit or campaign for reforms to the convention, with Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister and Tory leadership contender, claiming it had become a “charter for criminals”. 

Puka was originally jailed for nine months in 2016 and deported the following year for attempting to break into a property. The owner spotted him on a webcam while on holiday in France.

Within a year, he managed to evade border controls and return to the UK and carry out a string of burglaries in suburban London.

Puka was eventually caught by plain clothes officers patrolling Surbiton, in the south-west of the capital, after an increase in local burglaries. He was wearing an expensive watch he had stolen. He was jailed for three and a half years and then deported in March 2020.

During his time in a UK prison, he earned notoriety for using an illegal mobile phone smuggled into the jail to post Instagram pictures of himself. He posed alongside the leader of an organised crime group who was serving a 12-year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine and money laundering.

After returning to Albania for several months, he travelled through Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands before beating border checks to enter Britain again in December 2020, according to his Instagram account.

It is understood that he has lodged an asylum application, and has been on immigration bail and subject to an electronic tag since last year while he awaits a tribunal to decide on his claim.

As well as the clip of the Ferrari, he has posted photos and videos of his time on holiday at the Carbis Bay Hotel near St Ives, Cornwall, showing himself walking on the beach with the tag on his leg.

His social media account also includes images with other luxury cars, including a Porsche Cayenne, a Mercedes G-Wagon, a Bentley Bentayga, a BMW X5, a Mercedes AMG, and a Jaguar XF.

His sources of funding remain unknown, but Albanian reports suggest he has been staying in a £250,000 two-bed terraced flat in Hounslow, west London.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Foreign nationals who commit crimes should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced. Mr Puka has been deported by the UK before. It is UK law that we cannot deport individuals where there are claims or representations still awaiting decision.

“We have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK, with 3,000 returned since the Government came into power.”

To famous correspondences such as Henry James and Edith Wharton, JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis, and Catherine the Great and Voltaire, we can now add the rather surprising duo of King Charles and Melania Trump. 

The former first lady of the United States revealed in her new memoir that she and her husband have an ongoing correspondence with the monarch, writing: “Our friendship with the royal family continues and we exchange letters with King Charles to this day.”

One can only imagine the contents of those letters between the King and the former fashion model, although perhaps thoughts on green issues are exchanged between pleasantries. Mrs Trump first met the then Prince of Wales in New York in 2005, and it was “an absolute pleasure to reconnect with him” in 2019, she comments in her book, when she was seated next to him at a Buckingham Palace banquet during the Trumps’ state visit to the UK. 

Mrs Trump adds: “We engaged in an interesting conversation about his deep-rooted commitment to environmental conservatism.”

Of course, it is to be expected that King Charles would communicate with the leaders of other nations, and Mrs Trump’s husband could yet make a return to the White House. The King sent a private letter to the former president after the assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally in July.

He also wrote frequently to another first lady, Nancy Reagan. The pair met when he visited the White House in May 1981, just before his wedding to Princess Diana, and renewed the acquaintance during another US trip in 1985. They wrote from that point on until Reagan’s death in 2016.

In one letter written shortly after that second visit, the King shared that Diana “still hasn’t got over dancing with John Travolta, Neil Diamond and Clint Eastwood in one evening, not to mention the president of the United States as well!”

He was then remarkably candid about the breakdown of his marriage. In a letter to Reagan dated June 21 1992, he described it as “a kind of Greek tragedy”, adding: “It is so awful. Very few people would believe it.”

However, Reagan and Trump are far from the only people that this prolific letter-writer could count among his correspondences, nor does he confine himself to the usual heads of state and politicians.

In fact, one of the King’s keen pen pals is the Australian comedian and novelist Kathy Lette. “King Charles is the most witty wordsmith,” Lette tells the Telegraph. “If he were not born to wear the crown, I have no doubt he’d be literary royalty, ruling supreme as a star columnist on The Telegraph.” High praise indeed.

Lette considers herself a republican, at least as far as Australia is concerned, yet is good friends with King Charles and Queen Camilla. In 2017, she attended the latter’s 70^th birthday celebrations. 

Lette first met the King at an event at Australia House, in the mid 1990s, where she made him laugh by quipping that she too was royalty of a kind because she could trace her lineage back to the first fleet of criminals who landed in Oz. She has praised the King’s “disarming charm”, as well as for being “way ahead of his time on all those environmental issues. I can connect with him on that, big time.” 

Actress and comedian Miriam Margolyes revealed that her correspondence with the King began when he wrote to her about her 1998 audiobook recording of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, and that they have since exchanged numerous notes. Like Lette, she is a great admirer of King Charles, commenting that “he does a huge amount people don’t know about”. Margolyes always hand-writes her letters to the King and never uses a computer, she said, “because I don’t want him to feel that somebody else could see what I write and what he writes.”

It seems very likely that the King similarly prefers the pen to the keyboard. He recently described Dinah Johnson, founder of the Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society, as “inspirational”, and it’s been estimated that, while Prince of Wales, he wrote about 2,400 letters a year, or six and a half letters every day – many to members of the public, and many of them handwritten. 

That speaks to his estimable sense of duty, and also supports Queen Camilla’s view that he is something of a workaholic. Royal expert Richard Kay reports that the King is often to be found in his study late at night, long after his wife and staff have retired to bed, still working on his correspondence. He doesn’t seem to rely on a secretary, instead choosing to put pen to paper himself.

A royal source said that letters from the public often catch the King’s eye because of the issues they raise, and that the letter-writer will then receive a personal letter from him. The source added: “It is all about listening. [the King] says we only learn when we listen and when members of the public write to him, that is a form of active listening.”

The King is also renowned for his compassionate letters at difficult times. Actor Richard E Grant struck up a friendship with King Charles when he became an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust, and was subsequently invited for a weekend at Sandringham, and later to King Charles and Queen Camilla’s wedding. In his book Pocketful of Happiness, Grant writes that when his wife Joan was diagnosed with lung cancer, the King sent her “a two-page, handwritten letter, full of love, compassion, empathy and encouragement.” 

The King gained a new pen pal in 2020 when he wrote a get-well letter to Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald after she tested positive for Covid. “I thought that was tremendously kind and I responded,” said McDonald. “He had Covid as well. This virus makes unlikely allies of us all.” She later conveyed her sympathies, in letter form, following the death of Prince Philip.

Some of King Charles’s other numerous pen pals include the 104-year-old Ena Mitchell in High Wycombe, whose husband Bill was killed in Belgium in 1944. She joined the War Widows’ Association, and the King became its patron. Mitchell and King Charles exchanged letters over the years and, she said, she has sent him “a couple of architecture books I thought might interest him.”

The King’s dedication to letter writing began early. Last year a very endearing note from a six-year-old Prince Charles to The Queen Mother was discovered in a loft and put up for auction. Dated March 15 1955, and written in precise, looping letters on Buckingham Palace notepaper, it reads: “Dear Granny, I am sorry that you are ill. I hope you will be better soon. Lots of love from Charles.” The note also includes colourful drawings and kisses.

The handwriting hasn’t stayed that neat, alas. The King’s letters to various government ministers and politicians were nicknamed the “black spider” memos because of his spiralling, semi-legible scrawl in black ink. Graphologist Elaine Quigley said that his distinctive longhand suggests he is a sensitive man, single-minded, and a passionate communicator. We know King Charles prefers a fountain pen because he used his own when signing his accession documents: a Montblanc 146 Sterling Pinstripe Solitaire. 

Letters seem to be a medium in which he can unburden himself. He recently wrote candidly to friends about his cancer treatment, with one person sharing that the letters suggested his determination not to let the disease slow him down. It was also via a letter (albeit one shared on the royal family’s website and social media) on Sandringham House-headed stationery that the King thanked the public for their good wishes.

In 2020, King Charles and Queen Camilla wrote a letter addressed to “Everyone at Royal Mail” and left it on a bench outside their front door at Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate, for collection by their local postman, Neil Martin. In the heartfelt note, they said that the Royal Mail’s role had never been more important than during the pandemic, as many people took the time to “write a letter, or a card, to those from whom they are separated. Receiving such a personal message at this difficult and anxious time can mean an enormous amount.”

That appreciation for letter writing might well have been instilled by the late Queen Elizabeth II. She kept up a correspondence with her American pen pal, Adele Hankey, for 70 years. Hankey first contacted the queen on her coronation, and the pair shared a birthday, April 21.

It’s a fine tradition to uphold, particularly as technology encroaches on our means of communication. After all, what could be better than receiving a thoughtful, handwritten letter – especially one penned by a royal hand.

The world watched helplessly as a missile barrage from Iran came raining down over Israel with less than 15 minutes’ warning.

A week after one of the heaviest single attacks in history – using advanced ballistic rockets – the full impact of the assault is only just becoming apparent.

Experts are frantically working to understand how – and if – Israel can defend itself from more waves of rockets if war continues to escalate in the Middle East. 

How the Iran attack unfolded

Video filmed by a passenger on a commercial jet from Dubai captured the start of the attack, which appears to have come from near the Iranian city of Shiraz.

Shortly after, Israelis were instructed to run for shelter. Ballistic missiles are estimated to take about 12 minutes to reach their destination, first entering orbit and later re-entering the atmosphere at speed.

Videos from Jordan show the missiles streaking across the sky towards Israel, while footage from sources on the ground in Israel shows air defence systems activating, and in some cases being overwhelmed.

One video showed at least nine missiles making impact near military facilities in Israel, while detailed accounts later found many more had broken through.

Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky, Senior Researcher at INSS, a think tank in Tel Aviv, said that Iran’s intention was to “saturate the air defence system” by firing an unprecedented 180 missiles at the same time. 

How Iran broke through

Israel’s air defence system consists of several layers; the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow weapon system, the world’s first anti-tactical ballistic missiles (surface-to-air missiles used to shoot down ballistic missiles).  

Each system is designed to shoot missiles out of the sky at different altitudes, with the most recent version of Arrow designed to intercept missiles in space, known as “exo-atmospheric” interceptions. Videos from bystanders caught at least one of these rare sights last Tuesday.

“The idea is to shoot down the missile as far away from Israel as possible, preferably over the enemy’s territory,” Mr Kalisky told The Telegraph. Should that fail, the next layers are ready to shoot down the missile as the altitude lowers.

“David’s Sling and finally the Iron Dome can shoot down the missile when they are close enough to the ground,” Mr Kalisky said.

Experts said the videos suggest Israel may not have enough air defence units or intercepters to catch such a heavy barrage.

Some observers also voiced concern about the speed of the missiles.

Fabian Hoffman, a missile expert and doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said the footage clearly shows the “extraordinary speed in real time, some 600/700m per second, they are incredibly fast”.

All of the missiles Iran fired were “hypersonic in essence until they re-enter the atmosphere and are slowed down,” he added.

While Hezbollah sometimes fires hundreds of rockets at Israel in a short span of time, most of them are less advanced and are intercepted more easily.

What Iran hit

Israel initially downplayed the damage caused by the attack, but later admitted that several military bases were hit – although no aircraft or critical infrastructure were damaged.

A satellite image the company Planet Labs later revealed that the Nevatim Air Base had been impacted in 30 different places, damaging hangars and buildings.

A large crater from a missile was also found near the Israeli intelligence headquarters of Mossad in Glilot, north of Tel Aviv.

In total it is estimated that more than two dozen missiles broke through air defences. Some 20 missiles struck the Nevatim air base, while three missiles hit the Tel Nof base in central Israel. 

Dr Kalinsky said it appeared that the Arrow system hit the engines on some of the missiles but that they continued to fly and eventually fell on the ground.

Debris from missiles was indeed found both in the West Bank and inside Israel following the attack. 

The other flaws

While most of the attention has been drawn to Iran’s direct attack, Israel has been fending off smaller scale attacks since last October.

Some experts fear that the rise in drone attacks in particular have exposed a possible flaw or achilles heel in the Iron Dome.

Hundreds of drones have been launched from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria in the past year, killing several people and causing severe damage to buildings, roads, and homes.

They fly at a low altitude, often under the Iron Dome’s radar, forcing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to manually detect and shoot them down. In July, an Iranian-made drone flew 2,000 km from Yemen before striking an apartment in Tel-Aviv, killing a civilian. 

What next?

Security experts have warned for years that a major coordinated missile attack by Iran and its proxies could overwhelm the air defence system and cause huge destruction to civilian areas.

After last Tuesday’s attack, the evidence suggests a full-scale Iranian ballistic missile barrage hitting a densely populated area could kill hundreds of people.

Dr Kalinsky said “a direct hit will destroy some of the buildings” if an attack was launched at Tel-Aviv, for instance. But he said civilians would likely have time to get to bunkers owing to early warning systems. However, he warned that even an indirect hit would cause significant damage to infrastructure through powerful shockwaves.

While attacking civilian areas would be a major escalation, the prospect of an all-out war between Israel and Iran has heightened concerns.

However, experts like Dr Kalinsky caution that a larger missile barrage takes time and preparation, and would likely be detected in advance.

Israel is considered to have one of the best air defence systems in the world, and certainly one of the most densely deployed.

Travellers risk being stuck on planes after arriving at European Union (EU) airports when a new system of enhanced border checks is introduced, the boss of easyJet has warned.

Johan Lundgren said airlines being unable to disembark passengers because of congested terminal buildings is a “worst case” consequence of the Entry/Exit System (EES), which includes the use of fingerprinting.

The EU Commission announced in August that EES would be launched on Nov 10, although a further update on its rollout is expected on Thursday. The scheme was first proposed in 2016 but has been repeatedly delayed. 

Under the EES, travellers from non-EU countries such as the UK entering a member state will have their fingerprints scanned and a photograph taken. They will be registered on a database, with the data stored for three years.

There are fears this will create queues at EU airports, the Port of Dover, Eurotunnel’s terminal in Folkestone, and London’s St Pancras railway station, where French border checks are carried out before people embark on the Eurotunnel train to the Continent.

In an interview at the annual convention of travel trade organisation Abta in Greece, Mr Lundgren said it is possible EES will cause airport terminals to be congested with arriving passengers waiting to be processed, leaving no room for additional travellers.

“In the worst case you actually can’t disembark, you hold people on the plane,” the easyJet chief executive said. “We have to think about what can actually happen.”

Pre-registration app

Mr Lundgren predicted “there will be some disruption” from EES as “it is a new procedure”.

He called for the launch to be further delayed unless it is possible for travellers to pre-register before beginning their journeys. A mobile app enabling this to happen is still being developed by the EU.

Neil Swanson, who was appointed UK and Ireland managing director for tour operator Tui last month, predicted there “could be some hiccups” with EES, and urged the Government to ensure holidaymakers are prepared.

He said: “We will absolutely be looking after our customers, we will be making sure they’re aware.

“But I think the Government should be doing a bit more as well to make sure that everyone’s aware of what the situation is.”

Abta said its travel trade members were eager to find out more about EES. A recent virtual briefing it hosted on the issue attracted more than three times the usual number of industry attendees.

Asked if he believes there is significant knowledge about EES among UK holidaymakers, Mark Tanzer, Abta chief executive, replied: “No.”

He went on: “It’s frustrating that there will be delays for customers. Nobody wants that.

“Because we haven’t had a clear date for when this is going to commence, we haven’t really been able to start detailed communication yet.”

In August, the Department for Transport announced £10.5 million of funding for UK ports where juxtaposed border checks are conducted to support new facilities and technology to deal with EES.

A teenager who stabbed a schoolgirl to death as she shopped with friends in a market town was her obsessive ex-boyfriend, it can be revealed.

Logan MacPhail, 17, was unable to accept the end of his relationship with Holly Newton, 15, which began when they were in the Army Cadets together.

He contacted her relentlessly, demanding a reconciliation, and was found outside her mother’s home the night before he stabbed her to death.

That evening, police returned MacPhail to his home and made arrangements with Holly and her mother Micala Trussler to speak to them about how to deal with his behaviour.

He murdered her the next day before the meeting with Northumbria Police officers could take place.

MacPhail was convicted of murder in August after a month-long trial and is due to be sentenced at the end of this month.

However, in a ruling, trial judge Mr Justice Hilliard has agreed to lift the anonymity usually afforded to minors in court.

Giving his decision, he cited the public interest in knowing who was responsible for a knife crime which shocked the town of Hexham, Northumberland, in January last year.

CCTV footage showing the moment MacPhail approached Holly before launching his attack can now be published with his face visible for the first time.

MacPhail was also captured on camera stalking Holly through the streets of Hexham in the hour leading up to the murder.

New footage, released for the first time, also shows him dressed all in black with a black rucksack, boarding a bus on his way into town on the afternoon of the murder.

MacPhail had feigned illness to leave school early and then travelled from his home in Birtley, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, to Hexham, a journey which meant taking two buses.

For 45 minutes he followed Holly, her friend and another boy, a teenager who cannot be named, through the streets of Hexham.

He then ambushed her and pulled her into an alleyway beside a pizza shop where he launched the fatal assault.

In the attack he inflicted 36 wounds on Holly – stabbing her 12 times, slashing her 19 times, and causing five “defensive” injuries.

The teenage boy she was with was also stabbed as he tried to defend her by grabbing MacPhail in a headlock.

Hours before the ambush, Holly had sent a message to her friend about MacPhail.

She texted: “Apparently Logan is gonna meet me outside of school. So he’s basically stalking me at this point. He’s gonna follow me until I talk to him.”

David Brooke KC told jurors of MacPhail’s obsession with Holly, an account which was unable to be reported until now.
He said: “The evidence is that Logan MacPhail was deeply unhappy that Holly Newton had split up with him. We say that Logan MacPhail deliberately went to Hexham to find her.

“We say that he followed Holly and [her friend] around the town looking for an opportunity to speak to her alone because he was jealous of the new boy that Holly was with. It may well be that Holly was ‘horrible’ to Logan MacPhail outside the pizza shop but that was because she did not want to see him. He would not accept that the relationship with Holly Newton was over.”

MacPhail attended Cedar College, Gateshead, a school which was described as catering for those with autism and special educational needs.

He met Holly through the Army Cadets and the two are believed to have been in a relationship for about 18 months.
A friend of Holly’s told police that her relationship with MacPhail was “toxic”.

Mr Brooke told jurors: “She said that they would frequently argue, however Holly liked Logan MacPhail spending his money on her.

“The two had split up on the previous Saturday and Logan MacPhail had been contacting her friend ever since. It appears that he was struggling to come to terms with the break-up.”

MacPhail began trying to find out where Holly was and who she was with from her friends.

On the night before the murder he travelled 40 miles to Haltwhistle, Northumberland, where he was found lurking outside the home she shared with her mother.

Mr Brooke said: “At about 10.40pm that night PC Deacon was allocated an incident in relation to a missing male from his home address, reported by his mother.

“Logan MacPhail had apparently gone out at 6pm having said that he was going to a shop. The officer was informed that the male was a 16-year-old with autism and was described as ‘feeling down’ due to a recent break-up with his girlfriend.”

He was tracked down by police at 1am close to the family home and told them Holly’s mother would not let him in and he had gone there only to ask for his PlayStation back.

He was returned home and murdered her the next day, January 27 2023, after she had finished school in Hexham and gone to the shops.

Police had arranged to speak with Holly and her mother at 4pm that day about her stalker.

However, Holly pleaded to go out after school and the meeting was rescheduled until 8pm, a decision which her mother Ms Trussler said will haunt her for ever.

She said Holly “begged” her to go into town that day instead of meeting with the police, adding: “In the end, [it was] the biggest mistake of my life.”

In his judgment, Mr Justice Hilliard revealed why he had decided to allow MacPhail to be named.

He said: “The defendant has been convicted of grave crimes which are of local and national concern.

“The defendant went to the victim’s home address against her wishes and later followed her after she had left her school at the end of the day. However, at present the public are not aware of a key factor in the case which is the nature of the relationship between the defendant and his victim.

“They had been in a relationship but she did not wish it to continue. This has rightly not been reported lest it might identify him, but it is impossible to have a full and proper understanding of the case and of why the defendant behaved as he did without knowing this factor.

“The defendant’s identity must also be known already within the different communities where he and the victim lived and were at school.

“There is great public concern about murders by young people who have carried knives in public places and about violence to women and girls.

“Legitimate debate is assisted by knowing who has committed such offences and their circumstances and the full detail of the offences in question.”

Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly failed to rule out increases to employer National Insurance contributions as Rishi Sunak grilled the Prime Minister over his tax plans.

During the election campaign, Labour promised that taxes would not be increased for “working people”, citing VAT, National Insurance and income tax.

But speculation has grown about possible tax rises being announced in the Budget later this month after Sir Keir warned that it would be “painful”.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Sunak asked: “Can he confirm that when he promised not to raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT that commitment applies to both employer and employee National Insurance contributions?”

Sir Keir replied: “As he well knows, I am not going to get drawn on decisions that will be set out [at the Budget]. We made an absolute commitment in relation to not raising tax on working people. He, of course, was the experts’ expert on raising taxes.”

Asked the question again, Sir Keir said he would stick to the promises made in Labour’s manifesto.

The manifesto stated that “Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT”, but it did not provide any additional detail on National Insurance.

Responding to Sir Keir, Mr Sunak said: “I don’t think even Lord Alli is buying any of that nonsense. I’m not asking about the Budget – I’m asking specifically about the promise he made the British people.

“When it comes to his answer on tax, businesses across the country will have found his answer just as reassuring as Sue Gray did when he promised to protect her job.”

The Tory leader also pushed Sir Keir to clarify his stance on changing the debt rules after reports emerged that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, was considering the move.

He asked the Prime Minister: “Before the election, his Chancellor said changing the debt target in the fiscal rules would be tantamount to fiddling the figures. Does he still agree with the Chancellor?”

Sir Keir said: “This is literally the man who was in charge of the economy – 14 years, they’ve crashed the economy. What did they leave? A £22 billion black hole in the economy.

“Unlike them, we won’t walk past it. We will fix it. And it’s only because we are stabilising the economy that we are getting the investment into this country.”

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, said Labour had opened the door to decisions that would leave “future generations to pick up the bill”.

“Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should have had the courage and conviction to be honest about the tax and borrowing plans they always planned,” he added.

John O’Connell, the chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be nervous at the Prime Minister’s refusal to rule out raising employer National Insurance. 

“Hiking this tax would lead to businesses hiring less and paying less, damaging the very working people Starmer claims to be on the side of. The Prime Minister should stop searching for a cheap way out of his manifesto promise and rule out this rise for good.”

A Turkish Airlines jetliner headed from Seattle to Istanbul made an emergency landing in New York on Wednesday after the pilot died on board, an airline spokesperson said.

Pilot İlçehin Pehlivan, 59, lost consciousness at some point after Flight TK204 took off from Seattle Tuesday night, Turkish Airlines spokesperson Yahya Üstün said in a statement.

Crew members decided to make an emergency landing and worked to revive the pilot, Üstün said, but he died before the plane landed.

Data from the tracking site FlightAware shows that the Airbus A350 landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport just before 6am.

Arrangements were being made for passengers to reach their destination from New York, the airline spokesperson said.

Pehlivan had worked at Turkish Airlines since 2007, Üstün said. A routine health check in March showed no health problems that would have prevented him from working, he said.

“As Turkish Airlines, we deeply feel the loss of our captain and extend our sincerest condolences to his bereaved family, colleagues, and all his loved ones,” Üstün said.