A convicted Albanian burglar who sneaked back into Britain despite being deported twice is trolling Nigel Farage.

Dorian Puka, 28, who has twice been jailed and deported for burglaries, has posted a picture of himself at a dinner table eating and drinking, with a photoshopped image of Mr Farage, the Reform UK leader, giving the thumbs up.

It comes days after the Albanian criminal posted a 90-second video of himself driving a £300,000 Ferrari on the streets of London on his TikTok and Instagram accounts.

That disclosure by The Telegraph prompted Mr Farage to describe the Albanian as “a proper wrong’un” for defying his deportation and driving the Ferrari around London.

Bemoaning the fact that the Home Office is powerless to remove him until his asylum claim has been fully heard, Mr Farage said: “We are literally being walked all over by [him].”

Puka has hit back with the picture of him alongside a photoshopped image of Mr Farage toasting the photographer taking the “picture”.  He also posted a video of himself at the wheel of the Ferrari with the Reform UK leader’s criticism playing in the background.

He 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, carrying 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 flat in Hounslow, west London.

It comes 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.

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 new Government came into power.”

Prominent BBC presenters will no longer be referred to as “talent” by the corporation, its director general has said in the aftermath of the Huw Edwards scandal.

Speaking to Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Tim Davie said: “We often refer to people like yourself as talent. I’ve kind of banned that. You know, you’re a presenter. I’m a leader of the organisation, and we’re here to serve.”

The discussion comes after the BBC board announced a review into how to prevent abuse of power after it was engulfed by controversy relating to Edwards.

The former BBC newsreader, 63, was found guilty last month of paying fellow sex offender Alex Williams up to £1,500 after receiving images of child abuse. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years.

Asking Mr Davie about the review, aimed at “ensuring everyone at the BBC conducts themselves in line with our values”, Robinson said: “There are some staff here who think this is simple, it’s just bosses standing up to to people like me, standing up to presenters, standing up to people who are very well paid and sometimes abuse their position by saying, ‘I’ll leave if I don’t get what I want’.”

The director general replied: “I think that’s part of it I don’t think anyone is indispensable. I do think that, over the last decade or so, we’ve seen fundamental changes in the culture in this industry, and it hasn’t been completely unique in that those that have had power in places can often use that in bad ways.

“I think the BBC is utterly committed to make sure that everyone is treated equally, regardless of rank. I think we’re sorting this culture and that is something we all feel very strongly [about] across the board.”

Robinson then asked whether the days when “talent” could go for lunch for private chats with their junior colleagues were over before Mr Davie interjected, saying: “I’m not accepting that word any more by the way, Nick.

“I think it’s more subtle than that in terms of how people deploy power in the workplace. But one thing I think that we should all take comfort from isI think things are improving. I think people need to be able to speak up, and everyone at every level needs to be heard and that is what we’re going to do.”

Earlier in the discussion, Robinson asked whether the director general had heard back from Edwards’ lawyers about the return of £200,000 that was paid to the presenter by the BBC between his arrest last November and his resignation in April.

Mr Davie said: “We have had some dialogue with the lawyers but we’re yet to resolve that issue. I think the ball is clearly not in my court on that one.” Asked whether it was in Edwards’ court, he said: “Indeed.”

High up on the dry brush hills that rise steadily from the Israeli border, the UN watchtower surveys southern Lebanon and the plains below as far as the eye can see.

But no more than 100 metres from the blast walls below the tower, a rusty metal trapdoor swings open to reveal a tunnel cut deep into the rock.

This, the Israeli military says, is the entrance to a Hezbollah attack position.

It is one of two within a stone’s throw of a UN base where international soldiers have for years rotated in and out to prevent another war breaking out.

The tunnels were shown to The Telegraph by Israeli troops on Sunday before the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the UN to withdraw “immediately”.

His demand came as Israeli tanks rammed through the gates of a UN base – and a few days after UN soldiers were injured by IDF tank rounds.

The “most important part is to see the proximity to the UN. It’s right here,” an Israeli soldier told this newspaper as he stood over the tunnel entrance.

“To build a tunnel like this you need a lot of equipment. You can’t hide it. It’s very odd to us that the UN didn’t see these activities,” General Yiftach, whose division now controls the area, added.

The Telegraph, the first British newspaper to enter southern Lebanon from Israel, was taken to the tunnel in an armoured vehicle.

It churned over rough terrain, kicking up clouds of dust on the hillside overlooking Israeli towns and villages which have been coming under rocket fire for months.

Israeli soldiers lined the dirt roads, tracks and pathways as the vehicle climbed high through dry brush and trees, vast swathes of which had been flattened by convoys of tanks and armed forces.

Arriving at the tunnel, the views into Israel stretched almost to Haifa, while up the hill a UN watchtower was clearly in sight.

The two tunnels revealed by the IDF are just 10 metres apart and served two different purposes for Hezbollah.

One was an observation post, full of cameras used to collect intelligence on Israeli villages across the border.

The other was used to fire anti-tank missiles at Israeli villages until Israeli soldiers invaded the south-west of Lebanon last week.

They are just two out of some 100 other Hezbollah posts found in the one sq km which IDF General Yiftach Norkin’s division has taken control of.

Mr Norkin insisted that the army is continuing to coordinate with the UN troops who are still in their compound, which overlooks two tunnels in the area.

“I want to emphasise that the UN isn’t our enemy. Sometimes we make mistakes and we investigate the incidents,” he said.

The UN later released a statement saying two Israeli tanks had broken through the gates of a UN base. It follows reports that Israeli tanks fired on UN bases last week, injuring two soldiers.

Mr Netanyahu on Sunday also demanded UN peacekeepers leave southern Lebanon or risk becoming “human shields”.

“Your refusal to evacuate Unifil soldiers has turned them into hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” he added.

The UN has demanded Israel halt operations near its bases and has defended its peacekeeping mission, formed in 1978 and renewed after the 2006 war. 

Critics say Hezbollah has grown and entrenched itself in southern Lebanon during those times.

During the Telegraph’s visit into southern, Lebanon Olivier Rafowizc, an IDF officer, said the army asked UN peacekeepers to evacuate from the area due to the danger involved in staying in an area where Israeli troops are fighting Hezbollah members.

General Norkin admitted that their Unifil troops “got hurt from our action” in recent days, “but as you see it’s very complicated to operate in those areas when Hezbollah is using the UN’s bases as human shields”.

“They are operating very close to them. When a tank or another IDF force sees Hezbollah is about to act against us we fire back,” Mr Norkin added.

Hezbollah, he said, has built an extensive infrastructure across all of southern Lebanon, serving one purpose – to one day “conquer” the Galilee.

Ariel* said Hezbollah had fired at his troops in the valley across the border before they launched their ground invasion.

He said he was astonished to see the extent of Hezbollah’s military equipment and infrastructure, but that the IDF had now driven most of their fighters away from the border at this point.

“You have enough ammunition for two battalions just in this area,” he said.

After a string of incidents in the past two days which have seen Unifil peacekeepers once again coming under fire, the IDF’s spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said more than 24 attacks had been carried out by Hezbollah firing missiles near Unifil posts, “in some cases a few dozen metres away”.

“Hezbollah has been purposefully locating their weapons in areas such as near Unifil bases,” Mr Shoshani told reporters. Today, 25 soldiers were injured in a “planned Hezbollah attack in very close proximity” to a Unifil post where Hezbollah is known to operate.

According to the IDF, the peacekeepers were already in shelters after being notified.

“Hezbollah has chosen to bring the battlefield near Unifil posts … a pattern Hezbollah operates,” Mr Shoshani added, saying Hezbollah wants to “drag Unifil into the line of fire”.

The armoured vehicle takes us through bumpy roads, occasionally swirling so much dust that we can’t see what is in front of us. Dozens of Israeli soldiers, men and women, walked wearily on the side of the sandy road.

They are among the thousands of troops who have been sent to southern Lebanon in recent weeks to push Hezbollah north of the Litani river. A strategic point for Israel which would provide a Hezbollah-free buffer zone for the residents of northern Israel.

And according to Mr Norkin, the IDF hasn’t met fierce resistance in south-west Lebanon, mainly due to heavy aerial bombardment of the area in the past 12 months which caused many Hezbollah members to flee their positions.

But their goal was clear, Mr Norkin said, to penetrate the border and take control of Israeli villages.

To back up their claim, the IDF takes us to a one-kilometre trail hidden inside bushes near the border. It’s just one of some 25 trails which had about 700 weapons depots spread across them.

Halfway through the trail, a small base meets us. Here the IDF is displaying the weapons and equipment Hezbollah left behind.

Boots, weapons, helmets, explosive devices and a small cave was Hezbollah’s “grab-backs” intended to be used for a simultaneous attack against Israel, the IDF said.

It destroyed some of the weapon depots and confiscated others. Water pipes and electricity connect the trails to nearby villages such as Labbouneh, a few kilometres from us.

Drone footage has shown mass destruction to villages in southern Lebanon after Israeli air strikes and battles with Hezbollah.

More than one million Lebanese have been internally displaced, the vast majority since Israel began its ground offensive.

Since then Israel has revealed footage of the thousands of weapons and missiles the IDF found inside civilian homes.

“When we understood that there’s a strong connection between the open areas and the villages we decided to take action there as well,” General Norkin said.

He explains that the weapons hidden in the 700 depots are highly sophisticated and originate from North Korea, Russia and Iran.

Iran has smuggled long-range missiles and weapons to Hezbollah through Syria into Lebanon since the last war with Israel in 2006.

As the general walks us through the strategy of the IDF, sounds of drones, artillery fire and what appear to be air strikes fill the air.

Cleaning all of south Lebanon from Hezbollah positions and infrastructure seems like a herculean task. But after thousands of air strikes, killing an estimated 1,000 Hezbollah members including its entire leadership, the army is only ramping up its attacks.

The IDF is trying to push Hezbollah as far north as possible so that 60,000 displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, visited the northern border on Sunday saying he instructed the IDF at all levels to “ensure the destruction of [attack infrastructure] and to ensure that terrorists may not return to these places. This is essential in order to ensure the safety of Israel’s northern communities.

“The IDF’s actions are powerful and effective – we are operating in the entire area. We have destroyed [attack] infrastructure in Beirut, in the Bekaa and across Lebanon, and now we are operating along the border. We will continue until operational requirements are achieved,” he said.

Seventy portraits of Italy’s prime minister adorn the walls and the restaurant’s menu features a variety of Giorgia Meloni’s facial expressions superimposed on pieces of fruit.

Welcome to “Trattoria Meloni”, the slightly creepy Albanian eatery opened in honour of the hard-Right leader.

As the port of Shengjin awaits with trepidation the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants under a contentious offshore processing deal with Italy, one corner of the town at least is already reaping the rewards of the accord struck between the two countries.

The trattoria, which bills itself as the world’s only restaurant dedicated to her, is doing a roaring trade.

“We are fully booked every weekend and it’s been like this ever since we opened on August 20,” said the manager, Enis.

“We have had tourists from all over the world – British and Italians but also Czechs, Germans and French. And lots of Albanians of course.”

Italy has poured hundreds of millions of euros into the area. But Ms Meloni has also become popular across Europe as a figurehead for the populist Right. She is now a key power broker in EU politics despite her rise through a party with neo-Fascist roots.

Eating at the restaurant, which can accommodate up to 150 customers, is a surreal experience. First, there is the façade, decorated with Ms Meloni’s face in a variety of expressions which have been digitally superimposed onto four honeydew melons – an unsubtle joke about her surname, which means “melons” in Italian.

Next to the faces is an image of a fish and the word “orgasm”. Its meaning is not quite clear.

At the entrance, a large doormat proclaims “Trattoria Meloni”. Once inside, customers are confronted by walls adorned with more than 70 portraits of Italy’s prime minister. Painted in bright oils, she is depicted in all sorts of moods – from smiling and laughing to scowling, hectoring and sulking.

There are portraits of Ms Meloni, in a variety of outfits, on every wall and above every table. In one, she holds two melons in front of her chest and winks suggestively – it is an exact rendition of a photograph she once put out on social media, again playing on her surname.

Another shows her in a somewhat disturbing embrace with Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister, with whom she signed the offshore processing deal a year ago. Mr Rama, a former basketball player who is 6ft 7in tall, towers over Ms Meloni, who is 5ft 3in. He holds a red rose with one hand and with the other has her in a headlock.

The portraits were painted by Helidon Haliti, a celebrated Albanian artist.

The inspiration for creating the world’s first Meloni-themed restaurant came from its owner, Gjergj Luca, 58, a former actor who runs a chain of restaurants in Albania.

He said last month that he decided to dedicate the restaurant to Ms Meloni because he regarded her as “extraordinary”. “When cuisine, art and politics come together, you can make beautiful things.”

Enis, the manager, said of his boss: “He’s ironic, he’s an artist.”

The restaurant was busy when The Telegraph visited, with customers tucking into sushi, tuna steaks and seafood linguine.

“We come here for the food but we also like the artwork,” said Romario Medja, 28, who was having supper with a friend. “I like the pictures of Meloni, I think they’re done really well. She’s beautiful – both as a woman and as a politician.”

The restaurant is just a hundred yards or so from the entrance to Shengjin’s gritty port, where Italy has built one of two migrant processing centres.

Migrants trying to cross the central Mediterranean from north Africa to Italy will be transferred to Italian navy boats and brought here, hundreds of miles away on the Adriatic coast of northern Albania.

They will be identified before being transferred to a much larger facility about 15 miles inland near the village of Gjader, on the site of an abandoned Cold War Albanian air force base. From there they will either be sent back to their home countries or, if judged to be genuine refugees, taken to Italy.

The Italian government claims the two centres will be able to handle up to 36,000 asylum seekers a year but NGOs are sceptical that the authorities will be able to process people that fast. 

The centres were officially opened on Friday and the first shipload of migrants is expected within days.

Human rights groups say the bilateral accord tramples on asylum seekers’ rights, but the Meloni government denies this, saying that it has been drawn up according to international law.

Ms Meloni has not yet visited the restaurant that is dedicated to her. But the staff live in hope.

“There are rumours that she might come in the next few days, if she visits the migrant camps,” said Gerard, 20, waiter. “That would be great.”

Christopher Columbus was Jewish, DNA experts concluded in a long-awaited investigation into the true origins of one of history’s most famous explorers.

Researcher conducted over 22 years suggests that Columbus was not a sailor from Genoa, as previously believed, but in fact from a family of Jewish silk spinners from Valencia.

Examinations of the bones of Columbus and of his son, Hernando, showed a Jewish origin, something the explorer concealed during a time in which Jews were being persecuted in Spain and other parts of Europe.

The apparent discovery has sparked a row in Genoa, Italy, northwest Italy, where the local mayor firmly rejected the notion that Columbus was not one of their own.

The discovery was the culmination of two decades of investigation led by Antonio Lorente, professor of legal and forensic medicine at the University of Granada.

It was presented in a prime-time Spanish television documentary on Saturday night to coincide with Spain’s national day.

“Both in the ‘Y’ chromosome and in the mitochondrial chromosome of Hernando, there are traits compatible with Jewish origins,” Prof Lorente declared.

He said the DNA showed a “western Mediterranean” origin, but he could not state categorically which country or region.

Francesc Albardaner, a historian who has written extensively about Columbus having origins in Catalan-speaking eastern Spain, explained that being Jewish and from Genoa was effectively impossible in the 15th century.

“Jews could only spend three days at a time in Genoa by law at that time,” said Mr Albardaner.

Mr Albardaner said his research has shown that Columbus was from a family of Jewish silk spinners from the Valencia region.

In the same year of 1492 that Columbus landed on Guanahani in the Bahamas, Spain’s Catholic monarchs Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon ordered the expulsion of all Jews who did not agree to convert to Christianity.

“Christopher Columbus had to pretend all his life that he was a Roman Catholic Christian. If he had made one mistake, this man would have ended up on the pyre,” said Mr Albardaner.

The DNA research shows that Columbus lied about his family; Diego Columbus was the explorer’s second cousin and not his brother, as he told the Spanish court.

A key part of the puzzle was to establish that the remains said to be those of Columbus kept in a tomb in Seville cathedral were really those of the explorer, in the face of a longstanding claim by the Dominican Republic to be the resting place of Columbus.

Prof Lorente’s team established without doubt that the Seville bones were those of Columbus thanks to a close match with the DNA found in the remains of his son, Hernando, kept in the same cathedral.

Speaking on the documentary ‘DNA Columbus – his true origin’, Prof Lorente agreed that Columbus was almost certainly not from mainland Italy and said that there was no solid evidence that he had come from France.

“What do we have left? The Spanish Mediterranean arc, the Balearic Islands and Sicily. But Sicily would also be strange, because if so, Christopher Columbus would have written with some Italian or Sicilian features. So it is most likely that his origin is in the Spanish Mediterranean arc or in the Balearic Islands”, the scientist said.

Analysis of the around 40 letters signed by Columbus that have been preserved show that his writing in Castilian Spanish was free of any Italian influences, with researchers pointing out that he even wrote letters to a bank in Genoa in Spanish.

Mr Albardaner said: “There were around 200,000 Jews living in Spain in Columbus’ time. In the Italian peninsula, it is estimated that there were only between 10,000 and 15,000. There was a much larger Jewish population in Sicily of around 40,000, but we should remember that Sicily, in Columbus’ time, belonged to the Crown of Aragon.”

Italians, including the mayor of Genoa and several historians, on Sunday angrily rejected the suggestion that Columbus was not one of their own.

Marco Bucci, who celebrated Columbus Day with an event and award presentation honouring the explorer in the port city considered his birthplace, roundly criticised the research.

“The state archive of Genoa has dozens of documents, mostly letters and deeds, which enable us to confirm Columbus’ Genoese origin and reconstruct his history, origins and movements,” the mayor said in the statement.

“No DNA test will ever surpass historical documentation.”

Antonio Musarra, a professor of mediaeval history at La Sapienza in Rome, told The Telegraph there was “no concrete evidence” to suggest that Columbus was born in Spain or had Jewish blood.

He also questioned the purity of the DNA sample so long after the explorer’s death.

Professor Musarra said Columbus was a prolific letter writer and often wrote about his links to Christianity and love of Genoa. In one letter to a Genoese bank in 1502, the explorer said “My heart is always with you”.

“During his life he always remembered Genoa as his homeland,” said the professor who is currently writing a book about Columbus.

Giacomo Montanari, from the University of Genoa, also questioned the validity of research which had not been published in a respected scientific journal. “The research has to be recognised,” he said.  “We will evaluate it when we see it, not from a TV documentary.”

Doctors are to be taught to avoid giving asthma patients traditional inhalers if possible because of the greenhouse gases they generate.

Medics will be encouraged to prescribe inhalers that use powder instead of gas where appropriate as part of efforts to tackle the climate crisis within patient care.

The initiative – overseen by the European Network on Climate and Health Education, which is made up of a group of 25 medical schools led by the University of Glasgow – will bring climate lessons into the curriculum of more than 10,000 students.

Dr Camille Huser, of the University of Glasgow and co-chairman of the network, told The Guardian: “The doctors of the future will see a different array of presentations and diseases that they are not seeing now. They need to be aware of that so they can recognise them.”

Students will be taught “green prescribing”, in which doctors should encourage patients to take up activities such as community gardening and tree planting. This is alongside “active travel”, which includes walking or cycling rather than driving. Both activities offer health benefits to individuals while being positive for the environment.

Climate ‘infused’ throughout curriculum

Dr Huser said urging people to look after their health had “huge benefits for them personally” and would “reduce emissions if they require less input from the health system”.

Students will be shown how changes in managing a condition can have an environmental impact, according to The Guardian. For example, by keeping asthma under control so that gas inhalers are used less, or by switching patients to dry powder where appropriate.

The network will attempt to influence bodies that set the national curriculum, such as the General Medical Council in the UK, so that climate crisis becomes a mandatory part of medical students’ education.

Dr Huser said the current teaching at medical schools often consisted of a single lecture or module on the subject, whereas the network envisages environmental considerations being “infused” throughout the timetable. 

She said: “Climate change doesn’t necessarily create a new range of diseases we haven’t seen before, but it exacerbates the ones that do exist. Diabetes, for example, is not something that people link to climate change, but the symptoms and complications become more frequent and worse for people in a world where the climate has changed.”

Environment ‘pivotal’ to doctors’ thinking

Prof Iain McInnes, also a network co-chairman from the University of Glasgow, said its aim was “building the conversation into the medical curriculum so that the doctors of the future are literate in this conversation”.

Prof McInnes said: “This is as pivotal and critical to their thinking as it is to manage obesity, smoking and other environmental challenges. It is simply part of the DNA of being a doctor.”

This summer was the hottest on record in Europe and changes in the climate are increasing pressure on health services.

Extreme weather and pollution can affect heart and lung conditions and cause disease-spreading insects – such as mosquitoes – to expand their range because of changes in temperature and rainfall patterns.

Antimicrobial resistance, in which pathogens evolve so that existing drugs no longer treat them effectively, is also being exacerbated by climate breakdown, and Dr Huser said this should be reflected in teaching.

A Strictly Come Dancing couple have brushed off an awkward on-air interaction where a dancer is seen pushing her celebrity partner’s hand away from her waist before ignoring his high-five attempt.

Wynne Evans, 52, put his arm around Katya Jones’s waist as host Claudia Winkleman announced voting lines were open during Strictly’s fourth live show.

As Mr Evans’s hand moved further around Ms Jones’s white top, she could be seen guiding it back to her side.

Later, the 35-year-old professional dancer appeared to deliberately ignore her partner’s attempts at a high-five following fellow contestants Sam Quek and Nikita Kumzin’s performance.

Mr Evans stood with both hands outstretched above his head, but Ms Jones seemed to roll her eyes and turn her back on her partner.

But in a social media video published later, the pair insisted that it was all a “silly joke”.

Addressing the camera, Ms Jones said: “Hello everybody it’s Wynne and Katya here. We just wanted to say we were just messing around in the Clauditorium on Saturday night and just want to say sorry. It was a silly joke.”

Mr Evans, a Welsh opera singer best known for his GoCompare.com adverts, added: “Yes sorry.”

The singer wrote in the caption: “Apologies for this tonight we were just messing around. We really are amazing friends. The high 5’s is a running joke. Have a great evening @‌katyajones.”

Wynne and Katya scored 34 for their Tango, which was set to Abba’s Money Money Money.

Judge Anton Du Beke, awarding the couple eight points, described the routine as “tremendous” and “one of your best performances”, while Craig Revel Horwood, who also gave a score of eight, said: “Your bum was sticking up – but I loved, loved, loved it. Winner, winner, winner.” He added: “The espressos kicked in I see.”

The pair received scores of nine from judges Shirley Ballas and Motsi Mabuse, making it their highest scoring dance so far.

Week four saw Tasha Ghouri and Aljaž Charleston expand their lead at the top of the leaderboard with the first 10s of the series.

The BBC has been approached for comment.

Louise Haigh has signed off on a deal which means train guards will receive a £300 bonus for working a six-day week.

The Transport Secretary struck an agreement in September to prevent strikes by Cross Country, which is based in the West Midlands and runs intercity services across the country.

It comes after Ms Haigh’s description of P&O Ferries as a “rogue operator” last week almost led its parent company DP World to withdraw £1 billion of investment in Britain.

Train guards will receive £300 a day as a bonus if they agree to work for a sixth day each week as part of the overtime deal, which was first reported by The Sunday Times.

Members of the RMT union had voted to strike after CrossCountry used managers to fill in for staff at weekends. To stave off the walkouts, guards working Saturday shifts between now and mid-November will receive the £300 payment on top of their normal wage.

The deal was criticised by the Conservatives on Sunday. Helen Whately, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Rail unions can’t get enough of this Government. They now know that every time they go on strike Labour will cave.”

CrossCountry was the second-worst ranked train operator for both cancellations and punctuality in the three months through to March. 

It also had a worse cancellations record than Avanti West Coast, the worst performer among Britain’s 20 train operating companies, in the full year, according to data from the Office of Rail and Road.

Ministers signed off a 15 per cent pay rise for train drivers last month, meaning they now earn just under £70,000 on average. 

Ms Haigh met Mick Whelan, the general secretary of the Aslef union, which represents train drivers, five days after Labour took office. The deal was announced four weeks later.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: “While this is a local matter for CrossCountry, it’s crucial that passengers receive a more reliable service, on every day of the week – something our overhaul of the railways will help deliver.”

Ms Haigh’s long-term future is thought to be in doubt after she angered Downing Street by blindsiding it over the deal. 

The Transport Secretary was also at the centre of a row over her P&O Ferries comments last week. She had encouraged people to boycott the company, prompting Number 10 to put in a late-night phone call to the firm to distance itself from her remarks.

She had been referring to the firm choosing to sack 800 staff in 2022, most of whom had been based in Dover. It had planned to replace them with cheaper workers from overseas.

Allies of Ms Haigh were unhappy with the way the Government responded because her description of P&O as a “rogue operator” exactly mirrored language that was used in an official press release issued earlier that day.

Alex Salmond “fell sick and died on the spot” from a suspected massive heart attack, police have said.

“Time stopped” when the former Scottish first minister fell backwards in his chair and was caught by a fellow speaker at a diplomacy conference in North Macedonia at around 3.30pm on Saturday, delegates said.

Efforts were made to resuscitate Mr Salmond, 69, with CPR, but when paramedics arrived they concluded there was nothing that could be done to save him.

Friends and family in Scotland were informed of his death by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a former SNP MP and close associate of Mr Salmond, who had accompanied him to the event in the city of Ohrid.

Sources who were close to Mr Salmond described a race to inform his 87-year-old wife, Moira, of his death before the news broke publicly.

Local police confirmed that Mr Salmond had died instantly, according to a statement issued by North Macedonia’s ministry of internal affairs.  Prosecutors have ordered an autopsy, with the cause of death not yet officially confirmed.

North Macedonian media also reported that they understood he had died from a significant heart attack, while friends of Mr Salmond said they believed he had suffered “a massive coronary”.

Chris McEleny, the general secretary of the Alba Party, which Mr Salmond led, arrived in Macedonia on Sunday to help repatriate his body, which it is hoped the RAF will fly home.

Mr Salmond had taken part in a panel discussion at the conference on Friday, where he appeared in good spirits. Mark Donfried, one of the conference organisers, said delegates had been left in a state of shock at his death.

“Really, time stopped,” he said. “All of a sudden at lunchtime he was sitting across [from me]. He collapsed, he was sitting and fell back into the arms of one of the other speakers.

“I immediately went to the front desk to ask for an ambulance, and by the time I came back he was on the floor and they were trying CPR. The good news is he didn’t suffer. I don’t think he felt any pain.”

In some of his final public remarks, the day before he died, Mr Salmond accused the EU of secretly conspiring with the UK Government against Scottish independence.

He had singled out Jose Manuel Barroso, the former European Commission president, as being “not at all helpful to Scotland” in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.

Before the vote, Mr Barroso had warned that it would be “extremely difficult, if not impossible” for an independent Scotland to join the EU in a major blow to the Yes campaign run by Mr Salmond.

Mr Salmond also suggested that an alleged covert partnership between the UK and EU against his campaign had backfired as it indirectly led to the Brexit vote less than two years later.

“It is a reasonable supposition that if Scotland had voted for independence, then England, two years later, would not have voted to leave the European Union,” he told delegates. “So the interesting thing is that although Scotland lost an opportunity, the UK has been diminished.

“The European Union of that time, President Barroso in particular, was not helpful at all to Scotland. In fact, [he] was secretly combining with the UK Government.

“What happened as a result of that is the UK, one of the major players in the European Union, ended up leaving 18 months later. So in many ways it was a bad outcome for Europe as a whole.”

Mr Salmond had earlier made a joke about Scots’ reputation for thriftiness to the international audience, warning them he would not be buying anyone lunch as “I’m Scottish after all, we don’t do these sort of things”.

John Swinney, the current First Minister, said Mr Salmond had inspired a generation to believe in independence and “left a fundamental footprint on Scottish politics”.

Following a series of sexual misconduct allegations, Mr Salmond fell out with Nicola Sturgeon, his former protege, and left the SNP in 2018.

She said that while she “cannot pretend” their fallout had not happened, Mr Salmond would be remembered for his achievements and that she was shocked and sorry to learn of his death.

However, Mr Salmond died believing some of his former allies in the SNP had conspired in an attempt to have him jailed, and his supporters vowed to continue to fight to clear his name.

He was acquitted of a series of sexual misconduct charges at a trial in 2020 and had a Civil Service investigation into the allegations ruled unlawful and “tainted by apparent bias”.

Joanna Cherry, a former SNP MP and KC, claimed that Mr Salmond was “stabbed in the back” by his former friends before his death, but that outstanding court cases would restore his reputation.

“We have innocent until proven guilty in this country for a reason, and I am very dismayed as a lawyer by the lack of respect there’s been for the jury verdict in Alex’s criminal charges,” Ms Cherry told BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show.

“I think it’s a terrible tragedy that Alex has died before he was able to be completely vindicated, but I believe that that time will vindicate his name.”

In his final public remarks, posted on X hours before his death, Mr Salmond had launched a scathing attack on Mr Swinney for participating in Sir Keir Starmer’s Council of the Nations and Regions on Friday.

He claimed the body implied a “regional status” for the “nation of Scotland” and that Mr Swinney should have boycotted it. His final comment was: “Scotland is a country, not a county.”

Sir Keir Starmer has taken down portraits of Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh that were on display in Downing Street, The Telegraph can reveal.

The paintings of the last Tudor monarch and the famous explorer of the Americas were previously on the walls of a room used for prime ministerial meetings with world leaders.

Both have now been replaced with scenes from Crivelli’s Garden, a mural by Dame Paula Rego, the late Portuguese-born artist, whose work focuses on “strong and courageous women”.

It comes after Sir Keir faced critism when it emerged he had also removed portraits of William Ewart Gladstone and Margaret Thatcher.

On Sunday night, Downing Street said the changes to the artwork had actually been drawn up under the previous government. 

A spokesman said: “The change of artwork is long planned, since before the election, and is timed to mark 125 years of the Government Art Collection.”

Both Elizabeth I and Raleigh have been criticised over their links to the slave trade. The artwork of Elizabeth I that has been taken down is known as the Ditchley Portrait, and was painted in 1592 by Flemish artist Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

It depicts her standing on a globe with her feet on Oxfordshire, and she is shown in a farthingale against a backdrop of storm clouds parting to give way to sunshine.

The portrait was produced for Sir Henry Lee two years after his retirement as the Queen’s Champion, a position he held for more than three decades.

According to the National Portrait Gallery, it is likely to mark “an elaborate symbolic entertainment” that Lee organised for the monarch after she forgave him for moving in with Anne Vavasour, his mistress.

Elizabeth I was an early supporter of English involvement in the slave trade and gave permission to the adventurer Sir John Hawkins to fly the royal flag on his ships.

Hawkins took 300 African slaves across the Atlantic to sell in Spanish colonies on his first voyage. The queen invested money and ships in Hawkins’s expeditions, and would go on to give him his own coat of arms.

The portrait of Raleigh appears to have been restored and created by an unknown artist. It depicts him wearing chainmail, with a neutral expression on his face.

Raleigh was a colonialist who attempted to establish a British settlement in North Carolina, only to ultimately fail in doing so because of sour relations with Native Americans.

The paintings have been replaced either side of a fireplace in Downing Street by two of Rego’s works – Study for Crivelli’s Garden and Study for Crivelli’s Garden (The Visitation). Crivelli’s Garden is one of Rego’s best-known works, and the National Gallery said last year that its focus was on “strong and courageous women”.

Study for Crivelli’s Garden is an acrylic painting produced between 1990 and 1991, which shows a woman praying as a second woman appears to wield a weapon behind her.

It was painted for display in the National Gallery’s restaurant and depicts a number of scenes from stories and myths in the Bible, with female characters featuring prominently throughout.

Study for Crivelli’s Garden (The Visitation) is a retelling of the Visitation in the Bible, in which the Virgin Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus , visited Elizabeth, her cousin, who was pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth can be seen grabbing Mary’s upper hand with one hand as she uses the other to cover her mouth.

Sir Keir’s decision to replace the portraits of Elizabeth I and Raleigh drew criticism from his political opponents on Sunday.

Robert Jenrick, the Conservative leadership hopeful, said: “Elizabeth I was one of our most iconic female leaders. She’s a hero I love to talk to my daughters about.

“Stripping her portrait from Downing Street – alongside Walter Raleigh’s – seems to betray a strange dislike of our history by this Labour Government.”

Last month, Sir Keir said he took down the portrait of Thatcher because he did not like pictures of people staring down at him, preferring landscapes.

The likeness of the former prime minister was removed from her former study weeks into the Labour Government and it has since been hung in a first-floor meeting room.

“I use the study for quietly reading most afternoons… This is not actually about Margaret Thatcher at all,” the Prime Minister told the BBC. “I don’t like images and pictures of people staring down on me. I’ve found it all my life.”

A pensioner broke his hip after being shoved to the ground by a man annoyed that the 85-year-old had let women and children board a bus first, police have said.

The Metropolitan Police has issued a picture of the man’s alleged attacker, who struck at a bus station in Hammersmith, west London.

The victim was attempting to board the 220 bus at about 1pm on July 2 when he stopped to allow a group of women and children to board first — holding up other passengers behind him.

Detectives said the suspect, who stood in the queue, took offence to this and began verbally abusing the elderly man before physically pushing him out of the way, causing the elderly man to fall to the ground.

He suffered a broken hip as a result of the attack and was taken to hospital for treatment, police said.

Anyone who can identify the man in the image is urged to contact the Metropolitan Police on 101.

Learner drivers are facing a wait of at least four months for their tests, double the length of delays before the Covid pandemic according to data from the Department for Transport (DfT).

Those learning in the Midlands, South West and South East are forced to wait five months on average for their tests, while in the North East, the North West, Scotland and Wales the average time is four months, the figures show.

The data were provided to Neil O’Brien, the former Tory minister, who warned that some drivers would be waiting longer than this average because appointments are only released on a rolling 24-week basis.

He said: “If there are no tests available at a centre, you just can’t book anytime in the next six months.”

The DfT said it had no records of how many learners had been unable to book, but Mr O’Brien said: “It must logically be a large number as the maximum possible average wait is 24 weeks. That means people at that centre are trying and failing to book.”

Some 76 out of 241 driving test centres are fully booked, with many others close to full. There are about twice as many centres with no space for driving test appointments compared with two years ago.

Writing on newsletter website Substack, Mr O’Brien said: “The results suggest that the DfT has not got a grip on this. Indeed, the crisis has been getting worse, not better, since the pandemic.

“In Wales, Scotland and the North, wait times got longer after the pandemic and have still not caught up. But in the Midlands, South and London, it’s even worse – they got substantially worse again since the middle of 2022. The DfT trumpeted what looked like progress in January 2024, but since then things got worse again.”

End the Backlog, a group that campaigns to reduce waiting times, estimated the backlog of tests at about one million, which, at current rate of progress, they believed would never be cleared.

It said: “The backlog is currently causing huge costs in time, money, and lost opportunities to hundreds of thousands of people. It’s preventing young people from growing up and living independent lives. It’s time for the Government to take serious action to fix it.

“Any serious solution will have to involve some kind of surge capacity, since the capacity of the existing system is not enough. We suggest temporarily enlisting approved driving instructors to carry out tests.”

One police officer told the group on its website that he had been forced to pay £320 through a reseller for a driving test, five times the normal price of £62.

He said: “If I hadn’t been able to drive, I wouldn’t have been able to get my current job as a police officer.”

An 18-year-old school leaver told how he had lost the chance of his first job because it required a driving licence. Despite having completed his lessons, there was a three-month wait in his area for tests. Another told how they travelled from their home in Wimbledon to Dundee to get a test.

Mr O’Brien said he was concerned by the black market where bots were used to block-book test slots and then sell them on at a premium. Slots were also on sale to driving instructors via WhatsApp groups.

‘Black market’

He said: “This black market seems to me like a symptom not a cause of the scarcity though – if you could just book normally, the touts would collapse.

“All in all, this looks like one of those classic festering crises in government. Not quite high-profile enough to get the attention of No 10, but making a lot of people miserable.”

Lilian Greenwood, a transport minister, said: “The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is to reduce car practical driving test waiting times, whilst upholding road safety standards.

“Measures in place to reduce waiting times for customers at driving test centres, include the recruitment of driving examiners, conducting tests outside of regular hours, including at weekends and on public holidays, and buying back annual leave from driving examiners.”

One of Vladimir Putin’s most senior propagandists has hailed Alex Salmond as an “infinitely brave, almost Russian-like fighter”.

Margarita Simonyan, head of major Kremlin media group RT, wrote a tribute to Mr Salmond shortly after Scotland’s former first minister died of a heart attack in North Macedonia on Saturday, aged 69.

“Eternal memory to the infinitely brave, almost Russian-like soulful, tireless fighter for the independence of his native Scotland, the former first minister of this country and, finally, RT host Alex Salmond,” she said on her Telegram account.

RT, previously called Russia Today, is one of the Kremlin’s largest English-language channels. It was banned in Britain after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine for spreading “Kremlin disinformation”.

Mr Salmond had a show on the channel for more than four years from 2017.

The British government has sanctioned Ms Simonyan for actions “which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine”.

She is also one of the most recognisable faces on Russian TV, regularly appearing on prime-time chat shows to defend the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Salmond was the driving force behind the pro-independence campaign for the 2014 referendum on whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom, a project that the Kremlin supported.

The Kremlin thought that Scottish independence would undermine and distract Britain just as it was completing its initial invasion of Ukraine through the eastern Donbas region and Crimea.

A report by the US think tank Atlantic Council in 2017 accused the Kremlin of launching thousands of bots on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to provoke outrage at the referendum results which the Unionists won.

Sputnik, RT’s sister English-language propaganda channel, set up an office in Edinburgh.

The Alex Salmond Show ran from its debut in November 2017 until February 24 2022 when, after months of build-up, Russian forces expanded its invasion of Ukraine.

UK government ministers accused the political talk show of being an “appalling Kremlin propaganda programme”, continuing to broadcast just days before the 2022 invasion, although Salmond always insisted that he had full autonomy over output.

Slainte Media, the company owned by Salmond that produced the show, is reported to have been paid £330,000 by RT over its four-and-a-half year run.

Arriving in court shuffling behind a wheeled-walking frame, with a full white beard and wearing a scarlet scarf, Paul Flowers at times bore more than a passing resemblance to Richard Attenborough as Kriss Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street. But the life of the former chairman of Co-op Bank has been an object lesson that appearances can be deceptive. 

Flowers – a one-time Methodist minister – was due to be sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to swindling a female friend and spending the money on wine, theatre tickets and luxury holidays. Earlier this year, Flowers admitted 18 counts of abusing his position as a power of attorney for Margaret Jarvis and after her death, when acting as an executor of her will. 

Manchester Crown Court heard that the fraud totalled more than £180,000, but Flowers submitted a plea in which he admitted to just under £100,000 of fraudulent activity. This was accepted by prosecutors and the crimes were described as a “gross breach of trust”. Prior to sentencing, the defendant’s lawyer claimed their client was in poor health. The case was delayed last year after Flowers suffered a stroke. 

The sentencing may well represent a fresh nadir for Flowers, but the downward trajectory began at least 10 years ago, and arguably well before that. There can have been few more precipitous falls from grace in British public life. 

Born and raised in Portsmouth, Flowers worked as a teller at NatWest bank for four years before training for the ministry. He studied theology at the University of Bristol in the 1970s. He subsequently claimed to have been raped by a fellow student during this time, which resulted in suppressed trauma and a life-long difficulty in maintaining romantic relationships. 

By all accounts he was a good and well-liked Methodist pastor for more than 40 years, and at one time presided over one of the fastest-growing churches in Bradford. He was known for being friendly, welcoming to asylum seekers and earned the respect of many by overcoming serious homophobia as an openly gay man.

Drawn to politics from a young age, he served as a Labour councillor in both Rochdale and Bradford. He was chosen by the Labour party as its candidate to become the member of parliament for Meriden, Warwickshire in 1985, but stood down when concerns were raised about his past. 

At the time, Flowers blamed a “whispering campaign” about his sexuality, which he had never sought to hide. He had also been convicted of gross indecency in 1981, which he described as “the sort of offence to which gay people are susceptible within a pressurised and intolerant society”.

In 1990, Flowers was convicted of drink-driving. The incident resulted in a church disciplinary hearing, but he was allowed to continue in his ministry. In 2004, he resigned from Lifeline, a Manchester-based drugs charity he had chaired for 16 years, after being accused (but subsequently cleared) of claiming false expenses.

His failure to become leader of the Labour group of Bradford council in 2005 was said to have left him embittered. He subsequently channelled his political ambitions into the Co-operative movement, which he joined in his teens. He was appointed to the board of the Co-op group in 2008 and then chairman of the Co-op Bank in 2010. 

The high street lender had just merged with Britannia Building Society and was attempting to buy hundreds of branches of Lloyds Bank. It was also struggling with its IT system. That same year, Flowers was appointed to the Labour Party’s finance and industry advisory board by then leader Ed Miliband.

Things started to come unstuck for the Co-op Bank when regulators tightened up capital adequacy rules following the financial crisis. Flowers approved a recapitalisation plan but this was scotched by Euan Sutherland, the recently arrived chief executive of the Co-op Group. 

Flowers was eventually forced to resign after a black hole was discovered in the bank’s finances, prompting an emergency £1.5 billion rescue by two US hedge funds in June 2013. It subsequently transpired that Flowers was also leaving the group board over alleged irregularities with his expenses.

The Conservative government of the day latched onto the scandal because of Flowers’s close ties to a number of Labour figures and the importance of the Co-operative movement in shaping the Labour Party’s approach to business and economics. In a disastrous Treasury Select Committee appearance following the bank’s rescue, Flowers repeatedly struggled to grasp important figures. At one point, he told MPs the bank had assets of £3 billion; the actual number was closer to £47 billion.

The episode raised serious questions over how someone with so little financial experience could have been appointed to such a senior role within a bank. The financial watchdog’s decision to rubber stamp his appointment was also taken as a prime example of the kind of light-touch, hands-off regulation that had characterised the years leading up to the financial crisis.

Just days after the grilling by MPs, Flowers was filmed counting out £300 in cash to pay for cocaine and crystal meth, leading to newspapers dubbing him the “Crystal Methodist”. The Financial Times described him as a “latter day Falstaff who reportedly prefers young men to wenches and crystal meth to wine”.

The following year, in May, 2014, Flowers was fined £525 after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine, crystal meth and ketamine at Leeds Magistrates court. Flowers cited the stress of his Co-op role and caring for his terminally ill mother in mitigation. Soon after, he was once again caught on video snorting cocaine and entertaining rent boys at this home in Salford, Greater Manchester. He was sacked as a Methodist minister later that year and admitted in a BBC Newsnight interview: “I have sinned.”

It was at this point that Bradford City Council revealed that “inappropriate but not illegal adult content was found on the council computer handed in by Councillor Flowers for servicing” in 2011. When Flowers was confronted with the contents of his hard drive, he resigned immediately.

In March 2016, the Sunday Mirror ran pictures taken by yet another male prostitute of Flowers semi-naked, asleep and with crisps balanced on his nipples. In the wake of that incident Flowers set up an interview with the Guardian to get his side of the story across. In it, he attempted to square his faith and use of escorts by pointing out that Jesus befriended Mary Magdalene and other female prostitutes.

He also claimed he often ended up “counselling” the rent boys he had hired. In the same interview, Flowers admitted to “very occasionally” taking drugs and having sex with male prostitutes in Manchester’s Renaissance hotel during his time chairing the Co-op Bank, whose headquarters were in Manchester. 

In March 2018, some five years after the bank had to be rescued, Flowers was banned from the financial services industry by the Financial Conduct Authority for having used his work email to send sexually explicit messages and to discuss illegal drugs and for using his work mobile to call premium rate chat lines.

Announcing the ban, Mark Steward, the financial watchdog’s head of enforcement and market oversight, said: “The role of Chair occupies a unique place of trust and influence. The Chair is pivotal in setting expectations of a company’s culture, values and behaviours. Mr Flowers failed in his duty to lead by example and to meet the high standards of integrity and probity demanded by the role.”

As examples of official understatement go, it will take some beating.

Rachel Reeves will be guilty of a “straightforward breach” of Labour’s election manifesto if she goes ahead with raising employers’ National Insurance (NI), a leading economic think tank has warned.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the Chancellor would “almost certainly” have to breach the manifesto if she wants to raise large amounts of money.

On Sunday, a Cabinet minister gave the strongest hint yet that an increase in employers’ NI contributions was being considered as part of the Budget, which takes place on Oct 30.

Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, said the manifesto commitment not to raise NI did not include employers’ contributions but referred only to “taxes on working people”.

On Monday morning, Mr Johnson questioned this, telling Times Radio: “Let’s see whether she does it. I mean, it seems to me that would be a straightforward breach of a manifesto commitment. I went back and read the manifesto, and it says very clearly ‘we will not raise rates of National Insurance’. It doesn’t specify employee National Insurance.

“But set that to one side, I think if she does want to raise genuinely significant amounts of money, then she almost certainly will have to breach that manifesto one way or another. And it’s probably less damaging to raise National Insurance or income tax or VAT than it would be to try and get similar amounts in other ways. 

“So, would this be dramatically damaging if it was another penny on National Insurance? I mean, frankly, probably not.

“They would raise significant amounts of money as well, employer National Insurance, one penny gets you something like £16 billion or £17 billion a year.  So it’s a big chunk of money from a relatively small, proportionate change in a very big tax.”

Labour’s manifesto said: “We will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible. 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.”

At Prime Ministers’ Questions last week, Sir Keir Starmer refused on three occasions to deny that employers’ NI could go up.

Robert Jenrick, the Tory leadership contender, has called a rise in employers’ NI contributions  “tax on jobs”, saying it would leave companies with less money to invest.

Mr Johnson also downplayed the importance of the UK’s investment summit, held at London’s Guildhall. The IFS director said: “It seems to me surprising that companies would decide to do these sorts of things on the basis that they’ve been invited to a summit.

“My guess is that most of these things were going to happen anyway and they’ve decided to announce them at this point, but there may be additional things here. But yes, of course, the actual investment is real. Whether it’s real because of this summit or whether it would have been real anyway, I don’t know.

“Of course, it’s absolutely vital to the economy that these things happen. So yes, this is all terribly important, it’s all absolutely vital for the economy. 

“But is this a sort of sudden one-off surge, which is going to make an enormous difference over the next few years relative to the last few years? I think that’s less likely. I think this is the sort of investment that you need just to keep the economy going.”

It comes after City figures including the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, Britain’s biggest lender, said NI would be one of the “worst taxes” to increase because it would be a “handbrake” on investment and make it more expensive for businesses to hire staff.

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UK Hospitality, said: “This is a tax on jobs. An increase in NICs makes it harder to employ people and to take a risk on recruitment and expansion, because the costs of it will be so much higher.”

Lord Spencer, the billionaire investor and a Tory donor, accused Labour of breaking its promise not to tax working people.

But asked whether raising NI in any way would be a breach of Labour’s manifesto, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We’ve responded to questions on this previously. Obviously, I can’t get into speculation on the Budget, and you’ve got language from the Business Secretary over the weekend.

“Ultimately, the Government uncovered a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, which will require difficult decisions to fix the foundations of the economy so that we can rebuild Britain and make every part of the country better off.

“But, of course we remain committed to the manifesto, which says we will ensure taxes on working people are kept as low as possible, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic higher or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.”