Why supermarkets are still selling cruelly bred chickens

Right now, millions of birds are hurting, flapping around, confused, unable to get away from the suffering which is hardcoded into their DNA,” wrote Chris Packham, in a blistering open letter to Co-op CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq earlier this month. It was not, to put it mildly, your typical AGM correspondence. At issue is the retailer’s continued sale of so-called “frankenchickens” – fast-growing chicken breeds that reach slaughter weight in just 35 days. These birds have been selectively bred to prioritise speed over strength, often outgrowing the limits of their own skeletal and organ systems. As Packham puts it, these animals are “bred to grow so unnaturally fast that they suffer from painful lameness, organ failure and bone deformities”.

In May, Co-op members will vote on an advisory motion to end the sale of frankenchickens and adopt the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), a higher welfare standard that mandates slower-growing breeds, more space and natural light. The vote follows years of campaigning by The Humane League UK, and a previous 2023 member resolution where 96 per cent of voters backed the transition.

Co-op responded by giving its birds 20 per cent more space, but declined to change the breed – the key factor in frankenchickens’ suffering. This formed part of its “Space to Thrive” programme, which Co-op later extended to breaded and ready-to-cook chicken products – a move it says puts it ahead of most retailers.

“Co-op without its values is nothing,” Packham warned. “Its standards should reflect its principles, and it shouldn’t be sucked into a race to the bottom, vying with supermarkets less interested in ethics.”

According to The Humane League’s 2024 State of the Chicken Industry report, Co-op is far from alone in failing to meet BCC standards. Of the UK’s 10 major supermarkets, only Marks & Spencer and Waitrose have fully complied. Tesco, Morrisons, Lidl and Co-op have reduced stocking densities, but continue to use fast-growing breeds. Asda, Aldi, Iceland and Sainsbury’s have made no meaningful welfare commitments at all.

Meanwhile, more than 1.5 million chickens die prematurely on UK farms each week. The vast majority – more than 90 per cent of broilers – are still fast-growing breeds. The Humane League characterises this as “an unfolding animal welfare crisis” hiding in plain sight on supermarket shelves.

A spokesperson for the Co-op told The Independent: “Animal welfare is extremely important to us, and we work hard to ensure all the animals in our supply chain are looked after. All Co-op fresh chicken is 100 per cent British and exceeds Red Tractor standards, which places us at the forefront of chicken welfare, which is where our member-owners, colleagues and customers expect us to be.”

Katie Ferneyhough, head of programmes at The Humane League UK, said the Co-op could “no longer ignore the cruelty and hypocrisy of keeping frankenchickens”, adding that while the retailer once led on animal welfare, its current stance in relation to chicken leaves it trailing competitors and urged the board to commit to a clear roadmap for ending the use of fast-growing breeds.

Which raises a pressing question: if consumers care so much about animal welfare – and polling says they do – why are these birds still being sold?

Part of the answer lies in labelling. Most consumers would struggle to define what “frankenchicken” means, let alone how to spot one in the chiller aisle. Schemes like Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured sound reassuring, but often permit the same fast-growing breeds and barren environments that the BCC seeks to eliminate.

The result is what campaigners call “welfare washing”: marketing that conjures images of clucking, free-roaming hens, while the reality is far closer to an industrialised treadmill of suffering. A chicken might be labelled “British” or even “high welfare” while still spending its short life inside a dimly lit shed, its body growing faster than its organs can cope.

For Co-op shoppers, this contradiction is particularly stark. The retailer proudly touts its ethical credentials, having led on welfare for pigs, egg-laying hens and even shrimp. Yet according to the Humane League’s report, 98 per cent of its chickens are still frankenchickens.

Claire Williams, campaigns manager at The Humane League UK, puts it bluntly: “It is time for the Co-op to take a stance against the very forms of factory farming and give their chickens better lives, in the name of democracy and decency.”

Some supermarkets are proving it can be done. Waitrose recently became the first in the UK to go beyond the BCC for all its own-brand chicken.

“We know our customers want the highest welfare standards for farm animals,” the retailer said in a statement. “This is why, unlike many other retailers, we only offer chicken which has been bred to higher welfare standards across all our own-brand fresh chicken. We know it is the right thing to do for our farmers, our customers and for the animals.”

That message is already resonating. According to the Humane League, M&S saw a 33 per cent increase in chicken sales after fulfilling its BCC pledge. It turns out ethics and economics aren’t always at odds.

This momentum coincides with a significant legal development. In December 2024, the UK Court of Appeal dismissed The Humane League’s legal bid to ban frankenchickens outright, but delivered a potentially seismic clarification: farming animals bred to suffer is likely already unlawful under the Animal Welfare Act.

“If the evidence were to establish that the breed of broiler chicken used by a producer suffers or is likely to suffer as a result of its genetic makeup, then keeping such animals would be a criminal offence,” wrote Lord Justice Males.

In other words, there may be legal consequences for continuing to raise these birds, even without new legislation. Campaigners believe this opens the door to private prosecutions and further scrutiny of supply chains.

If this seems like a particularly British scandal, it’s worth remembering the looming spectre of chlorinated chicken. The term became shorthand for lowered food standards during Brexit trade negotiations with the US. Chlorine-washed chicken isn’t inherently dangerous – it’s widely consumed in America – but critics argue it masks hygiene failings and abysmal welfare conditions.

In that sense, the frankenchicken debate is chlorinated chicken’s domestic cousin: a question of whether the UK is willing to accept cheaper meat at the cost of transparency, decency and consumer trust.

The UK government has repeatedly pledged not to weaken food standards in post-Brexit trade deals, but campaigners remain wary. If the US pushes to include poultry in future trade agreements, will British farmers – and their birds – be protected?

All of this puts shoppers in an impossible position. Most care about animal welfare, according to polling. But many don’t have the time or expertise to decipher vague labelling, and in a cost of living crisis, price often wins.

Supermarkets have leaned heavily on messaging like “affordable for all”, but as Packham says: “Principles aren’t principles if they don’t cost you anything.”

A family browsing the chiller aisle might assume “high welfare” means something concrete. But unless they’re reading the fine print on breed, space and light, they may still be taking home the very products they’re trying to avoid.

So where does that leave the concerned consumer? Perhaps more confused than ever. If the Co-op, of all retailers, is dragging its feet, what hope is there for meaningful reform?

Come May, Co-op members will have their say. But the vote is only one piece of the puzzle. As the Court of Appeal ruling, supermarket scorecards and Packham’s words all remind us, the fight for better chicken is really a fight for better standards, full stop.

And if we can’t even do right by a roast dinner, what does that say about the values we’re really putting in our shopping baskets?

Chelsea face Everton in the Premier League – follow live

Chelsea host Everton in the weekend’s early kick-off in the Premier League today, with Enzo Maresca’s side in desperate need of three points as they hunt Champions League qualification.

The Blues sit in sixth coming into the weekend, two points behind Newcastle, who are currently occupying the last Champions League spot with five matches to go.

And Chelsea have perhaps the most difficult remaining fixtures out of the five sides aiming for the last three places in the top five, so it could be vital to pick up three points here ahead of matches against Liverpool, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest.

Everton have little to play for after David Moyes steered them clear of relegation since taking over in January, though they’ll aim to spoil the party at Stamford Bridge as they look to end the season on a high.

Follow all the latest team news, build-up and updates from Stamford Bridge below:

The 18 most devastating character deaths in TV history

It’s just a show,” is the common response from someone seeing a person crying at the death of a fictional person on screen. But TV acolytes will know that it can be hard to rein in the emotions when your favourite character for the past seven years has just been killed off.

In the battle of TV versus cinema, the former has always packed more of a punch when it comes to impactful deaths – probably because we’ve come to know the character better over a longer period of time.

And when someone who you’ve grown used to seeing day-in and day-out suddenly vanishes from your life forever, there are going to be some emotional ramifications.

Sometimes, in the saddest of circumstances, the demise of a character even marks the demise of the show itself, with creators and writers failing to keep us interested beyond their death blow.

There are many ingredients that go into making a TV death as traumatic as intended: the character’s likeability, the circumstances of death, the impact their absence will have on the remaining characters, and, of course, shock value.

Here’s a selection of the 18 character deaths we’re still not over… (It goes without saying, but there are spoilers ahead – you have been warned!)

Joel Miller, The Last of Us

Anyone who played the video game obviously already knew that Pedro Pascal’s grizzled survivalist was doomed, but for the rest of us it landed like a brisk whack to the head. Season one of the hit HBO series took time and care to painstakingly build a genuinely touching father-daughter relationship between Joel and Ellie – and for what? All that for him to just die at the beginning of season two? In the season’s sensational second episode, Joel is tracked down by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), who tortures and kills him to avenge her father. Going into season two, it would have been hard to imagine how The Last of Us could possibly progress without Joel, so integral was he to the driving action and emotional heart of the first. But the addition of promising new characters like Dina (and, in a conflicted way, Abby) softened the blow. A little.

Logan Roy, Succession

Every Succession fan knew that Brian Cox’s sweary, Lear-like media mogul was beelining for a funeral in season four. Few, however, predicted that his death would arrive so soon, with Logan Roy croaking in the bathroom aboard his private jet as early as episode three – not at its end, mind you, but at its beginning. Logan met his maker off screen, however, and the audience only got a brief glimpse of the man himself as the flight crew carried out their obligatory 30 minutes of CPR. It’s a stunning episode – one of Succession’s best – that sees Kendall, Shiv, and Roman grappling with the news at Connor’s wedding. All the money in the world can’t buy a grief counsellor equipped to deal with the maelstrom of emotion that Logan’s death is about to bring up.

Marissa Cooper, The OC

Fans of the series still tear up thinking about Ryan cradling Marissa’s lifeless body on the side of the road. Jeff Buckley’s haunting cover of “Hallelujah” playing overhead certainly didn’t help. The death of Mischa Barton’s character at the end of season three also marked the end of The OC – as we knew it anyway. The teen show ploughed on with one more season but without Marissa, it was a shadow of its former self.

Ned Stark, Game of Thrones

People across the world let out a collective gasp when Eddard Stark was beheaded at the behest of King Joffrey. The HBO drama shocked audiences when Sean Bean’s main character got the chop in the penultimate episode of the first season. Unaccustomed to seeing such ruthless writing, even after the axe had swung, audiences reeled trying to figure out whether this was all a dream or if some supernatural force would bring sweet Ned back to us. The TV event cemented Game of Thrones as a show that takes no prisoners – even the ones we really, really like. Similar feelings were experienced when Catelyn Stark went out with a guttural scream in the notorious “Red Wedding” episode two seasons later.

Derek Shepherd, Grey’s Anatomy

By Derek’s death in season 11, fans of the medical drama had grown used to seeing their favourite characters brutally killed off. Lexie Gray, Mark Sloan, George O’Malley and Denny Duquette had all met a harsh end at the hands of writer Shonda Rhimes – but we thought surely McDreamy was safe. When Meredith Grey hears the police sirens and a knock at the door though, we all knew where it was heading. Fans got one final look at him when the late doctor appeared to Meredith in a dream sequence in season 17. It’s not the same though, is it?

Jen Lindley, Dawson’s Creek

Played by a superb Michelle Williams, Jen’s character never got the attention – or the send-off – that she deserved. The series finale of the hit teen soap flashed forward five years to reveal that party girl Jen had become a successful gallery manager and a mother, but also would soon die because of an undiagnosed heart condition. Pre-empting her own death, she records a heartbreaking video message for her daughter. Cue the tears – we’re done.

Poussey Washington, Orange is the New Black

Both the show’s fans and fellow cast members were outraged to see Poussey die in season four. From the outset, Samira Wiley’s character had established herself as one of the most entertaining and beloved inmates at Litchfield prison. Her death – at the hands of a guard who wrongfully pinned her to the ground and left her unable to breathe – recalled the real-life 2014 killing of Eric Garner. After the episode aired, Orange is the New Black set up The Poussey Washington Fund to raise money for non-profit advocacy groups with a focus on criminal justice reform.

Adriana La Cerva, The Sopranos

Over the course of HBO’s mob drama, audiences had grown to love Adriana La Cerva, her great outfits and frank attitude. While her death was brutal to watch (who can forget her silently sobbing in the car with Silvio knowing what’s to come?), the lead-up was equally excruciating. Seeing Adriana unravel as she unwillingly becomes an FBI informant and then makes the mistake of admitting her disloyalty to Christopher – who chooses his friends over her – is almost as bad as watching her get shot.

Tara Maclay, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Tara’s death came as a massive blow to the Buffy fanbase. Played by Amber Benson, the character was introduced midway through the fourth season and quickly became a fan-favourite character before being written out at the end of season six by way of a stray bullet, kickstarting the Dark Willow storyline. Her relationship with Willow is often cited as the first recurring depiction of a lesbian couple on a primetime network, which made Tara’s sudden departure from our screens all the more heartbreaking.

Ruth Evershed, Spooks

Nicola Walker has had a rough time with seminal TV deaths, but the collective outpouring of grief when one of her characters dies is a testament to the actor’s strengths. At the top of that list was her death as Ruth. Jaws dropped when her character became the last ever character to be killed in Spooks. After being stabbed by a shard of glass, Ruth is held in Harry’s arms as they share one last emotional moment together. Viewers got one last glimpse of hope when Dimitri tried to revive her with an adrenaline shot, but it was too late.

Matthew Crawley, Downton Abbey

Matthew’s death was not the festive gift viewers expected when tuning into the Christmas Day special of Downton Abbey. Fans were devastated when the much-loved Matthew Crawley died after meeting his newborn son at the hospital. The cause of death – a car crash – felt like even more of a kick to the stomach considering Matthew had already survived the First World War and the Spanish flu epidemic. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

Jane Margolis, Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad had its fair share of emotional deaths (special shout out to Hank) but Jane’s hit especially hard. Krysten Ritter’s character – a recovering heroin user and Jesse’s girlfriend – eventually gives into her drug addiction and goes back to smoking crystal meth before she and Jesse begin to use heroin. In season two, Jane, lying in bed next to Jesse, chokes on her own vomit after overdosing on heroin. The real tearjerker, though, is that Walt stands by and lets her die. Bryan Cranston said the scene was the hardest for him to film. The actor recalled being a “weeping mess” after shooting it. Him and us both.

Tiffany Mitchell, EastEnders

Before Martine McCutcheon stole hearts as Nadine in Love Actually, she had already won over the UK in her role as Tiffany Mitchell on EastEnders. The long-running soap shocked viewers on New Year 1998 when her character was mown down by Frank Butcher as she attempted to make a getaway from Walford with her daughter Courtney.

Rita Morgan, Dexter

Fans will remember the scene perfectly: Dexter comes home to find his wife Rita dead in the bathtub, murdered by Arthur (aka The Trinity Killer, played brilliantly by John Lithgow). While there were a few clues interspersed in the minutes leading up to the tragic reveal – the baby crying, lingering shots – Rita’s death was one of the biggest shocks to rock Noughties TV. The show – which is airing its reboot later year – was never the same again.

Ben Sullivan, Scrubs

Scrubs was known for its expert blend of laughs and emotional heft, an accomplishment that’s nowhere more evident than in episode 14 of season three. “My Screw Up” featured Brendan Fraser’s final appearance as Jordan’s brother Ben Sullivan. The episode threw viewers for a loop when it turned out that the birthday party Dr Cox was planning for his son was, in fact, Ben’s funeral. Joshua Radin’s “Winter”, which plays while everyone gathers at the cemetery, will forever be associated with that shockingly sad moment.

Sarah Lynn, BoJack Horseman

It’s not all the time that a cartoon can make you cry but BoJack Horseman is on par with the best dramas. Kristen Schaal played the former child actor and troubled pop star Sarah Lynn, whose death in season three from a heroin overdose had viewers sobbing. On the cusp of celebrating her ninth month of sobriety, she receives a call from BoJack asking her to party with him. She immediately says yes and their subsequent bender results in her death. The cover-up by BoJack only made it worse.

Everyone, Blackadder

Although the comedy returned for a Millennium special, most fans consider the show to have ended with the aptly titled “Goodbyeee”. The sixth and final episode focuses on its main characters in the final hours before leaving their trenches and going over the top in slow motion. The instalment is darker than fans had come to expect of the historical comedy, with the main cast assumed to die in machine-gun fire.

Juliet Burke, Lost

Any other list ranking heartbreaking deaths would undoubtedly include Charlie’s watery end in the season three finale. But Juliet’s final moment deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. It’s a tragic ending for a noble character who spends her time on the show putting other people’s safety before her own. Arriving in the penultimate season finale, there’s an air of inevitability to the moment, which is made all the more gut-wrenching due to the effect it has on reformed bad boy Sawyer. For the death of a character introduced three seasons in to hit so hard is a testament to Elizabeth Mitchell’s razor-sharp performance.

Forget filler, we’re in the era of facelifts 

Your favourite celebrity has just arrived on the red carpet, and there’s something ever so slightly different about their face. Their cheekbones are lifted and their jawline is sleeker than ever. They look youthful, but not uncannily so. It’s not so much a dramatic “before and after” transformation; instead, they still appear like themselves, but a minimally tweaked, glown-up version. Still, their makeover is almost certainly more than just some different blush placement and a fresh hairstyle.

It’s a scene that seems to have played out time and time again over the past year or so. And although the stars in question tend to keep schtum about any rumoured procedures (as is their prerogative), that only spurs on the social media sleuths to speculate over what exactly it is they might have “had done”. In many cases, those sleuths reach the same conclusion: it’s a facelift, right?

That conclusion might seem like a surprising one, because the term facelift once summoned up images of tighter-than-tight skin and permanently alarmed features. The treatment felt old school, beloved by black-and-white film idols. It certainly didn’t seem like something that present-day Hollywood stars, in their forties or even late thirties, would be queuing up for, with other, seemingly more subtle treatments at their disposal.

But techniques – and the results they can achieve – have improved dramatically over the past few decades. Now a patient should end up looking radiant and rejuvenated, rather than overly stretched and perma-shocked. Often the only tell-tale sign is a tiny incision mark around the ear; not for nothing are some treatments being described as quiet or invisible.

Indeed, undetectability is something of a status symbol (it also surely makes the online surgery sleuth’s guessing games both more tenuous and more irresistible). “I think that there’s an increasing trend where people want to just feel and look refreshed, like they’ve had a good night’s sleep,” says London-based consultant plastic surgeon Dr Kshem Yapa. “But they don’t want to necessarily look like they’ve had surgery, certainly, and don’t want everyone to know that they’ve had something done.”

It’s not just celebrities that are seemingly going under the knife. This month, the annual audit from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) revealed that the number of face and neck lifts performed by their members increased by 8 per cent in 2024. Brow lifts, which focus on the eyebrows and forehead, also rose by 20 per cent. If those seem like relatively modest increases, bear in mind that in 2022, BAAPS reported a staggering 97 per cent increase in face and neck lifts.

Anecdotally though, what’s particularly striking is the demand from a younger generation of prospective patients. “Facelift requests from anyone under 40 were unheard of up until the last five years,” says consultant plastic surgeon Gerard Lambe, who’s based at the Reflect Clinic in Manchester. Before then, Lambe says, he and his colleagues “would only get consultation requests from patients aged at least 55, and typically for a facelift, the average age group was 60 to 70”. But in the past 12 months, there’s been a 20 per cent uptake in enquiries from potential clients under 40 at his clinic.

When I speak to other surgeons, they tend to echo his comments: they’re now fielding requests from a more youthful demographic. So why are people who’ve barely reached middle age considering such an in-depth, expensive treatment?

To grapple with that, first we need to consider the ageing process (buzzkill, I know) and how it might impact our faces. As we get older, our skin inevitably starts to lose volume and becomes more lax, so “the whole face tends to get a bit saggy and slide down”, as Yapa puts it. Some people start to notice the first signs in their mid to late thirties, but “most would not immediately turn to a surgical option to try and rectify that, because obviously, surgery’s potentially scary, with lots of downtime, at least in people’s minds”.

And so, if someone is really bothered about these changes, they might turn to non-surgical procedures instead: think of energy-based treatments using radio frequency, laser or ultrasound technology, or injectables such as hyaluronic fillers. But “the problem is, this only works to an extent”, Yapa says. And, he adds, “if you’re trying to mask changes in [facial] laxity by adding volume” – with fillers, for example – “and you carry on going with that, then you can sometimes start to look overfilled and unnatural”.

Over the past decade or so, injectables have become increasingly popular among people in their twenties. It follows, then, that those same patients are likely to reach that “overfilled” point at a relatively young age; plus, filler might even begin to migrate to a different part of the face. “If people start on that journey quite early, ultimately they’ll realise that it’s not quite working, and then what comes next?” Yapa says. “If you get to [the point] where you have sufficient laxity, and that laxity leads to folds around the mouth and jowls, then the way to get the most natural results is to have a surgical lift to try and put those [facial] tissues back to where they were.”

If you rewind back to the Sixties and Seventies, facelifts tended to be “skin only” procedures. Surgeons would remove excess skin and then tighten up what remained; hence that uncanny, stretched-out appearance. The phrase “windblown” was a common way of politely referring to that look, says Dr Anil Joshi, a consultant plastic surgeon who specialises in facial reconstruction. “Those were the days when [surgeons] were just tightening the skin, pulling it backwards, and it appeared so unnatural,” he explains. But now, he says, the treatment has evolved with a better “understanding of the deeper structure of the face, rather than just the skin”.

The deep plane facelift technique is increasingly popular – it’s pricey, but the end result tends to be more subtle, and to stay truer to, say, what you might have looked like five or 10 years before. Fashion designer Marc Jacobs is one of the handful of celebrities who have gone on the record about their deep plane treatment (in 2021, he documented his recovery on Instagram).

Underneath the skin is a layer of tissue called the superficial musculoaponeurotic system, more snappily referred to as SMAS. This becomes weaker and looser as we age, and in order to really make a difference, surgeons need to delve below this. A deep plane facelift involves repositioning the facial ligaments and tissues; this gives “much more natural-looking results” but doesn’t require as much trauma to the skin, Yapa says. The fact that “the techniques are improving and the outcomes are getting better” has helped change the perception of this procedure, he adds.

But for all the online chatter about “invisible” or “quiet” procedures, we can’t escape the fact that this is a major operation. It still takes a few weeks for the swelling and bruising to subside, and you might need to wait a few months to “start seeing the real value of that surgical work”, says Dr Joshi. It’s no coincidence that many of Hollywood’s major players seem to emerge from 2023’s Sag-Aftra strike with newly radiant visages; the walkout freed up their schedules and gave them the off-camera downtime required to fully recover. “Hollywood elite rushes to get plastic surgery before the strike ends,” one Vanity Fair headline from that summer claimed. Images of their glow-ups have flooded social media since, accompanied by whispers about facelifts; that’s certainly helped normalise the procedure.

There are other potential reasons for the surge in popularity too. Right now, it feels impossible to have a conversation about beauty without referencing the looming spectre of weight-loss drugs. Those who take semaglutide (often known by brand names such as Ozempic or Wegovy) tend to drop pounds rapidly – all over their body. This can leave them dealing with prematurely haggard, saggier skin, making a facelift seem more appealing. “Yes, the Ozempic phenomenon has played a part,” Lambe says. Out of the “small number of younger patients” he has operated on, most of them had “significant loose skin”, some have had loose skin from significant weight loss (in other cases, this was the result of “illness, skin disorders or unlucky genetics”).

The way that we think about getting and looking older has also shifted significantly too (blame social media, blame reality TV, blame any number of factors). Once, even the most beauty-conscious among us would let the signs of ageing actually appear before attempting to “fix” them. Now, prevention is the industry’s watchword. There’s an increasing emphasis on preemptive treatments to ward off wrinkles before they’ve even formed. Just think of the twentysomethings opting for preventative “baby” Botox in the hope that they’ll stop any lines from developing. Or the youngsters adopting intricate, multi-step skincare regimes and asking for anti-ageing retinol creams for their birthdays, when their ages are barely into double figures.

A good surgeon certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone who is stressing out about early signs of ageing to immediately undergo surgery. “If you don’t have facial laxity, then you shouldn’t be having this operation, period,” says Yapa. “I think it’s the responsibility of all surgeons to tell people ‘no, this is not the right time,’” he adds (he notes too, that “the right time for some people will be never – you’re ageing appropriately and normally, you’re embracing the changes and that’s completely fine”).

Unfortunately not everyone is so scrupulous. “I’ve had patients who come to me at 30, 32, saying they need a facelift, and I’ve said, ‘absolutely not,’” Yapa says, only for them to opt for surgery abroad, for example.

Dr Joshi had a similar experience only a few days before we speak, with a client in her early thirties. “There were some unnatural scars on her face, and I asked what they were,” he says. It turned out that “at 28, she’d undergone some kind of facelift in another country”, and she’d been left with visible marks in front of her ears. “If she had come to me, I definitely would have said no to her at the time.” His patient, he adds, had been influenced by images of perfection that she’d seen on social media.

It’s also worth diving into the marketing speak that accompanies major procedures like these. You can describe a facelift as “quiet” all you like, but that doesn’t necessarily make the process any less invasive. “When procedures are oversold as simpler, they’re very easy to market,” says Yapa. He cites the example of the so-called “mini lift”, which involves “a very modest dissection” in order to lift up the SMAS layer, and “one or two sutures”. There’s “a lot of marketing out there that says, ‘well, if you’re coming to it really early, then a mini lift or a SMAS lift is the right operation for you’”, he notes.

But “the problem with that sort of approach”, he says, “is you’re entering the realm of the surgical facelift, but you’re not having an operation that will give you long-lasting results.” You might end up with the same scarring as you would have done with a more involved procedure, too. Ultimately, Yapa adds, “if you’re going to consider a facelift, then think about it as a life event. Give it the respect that’s due and do your due diligence.”

Lambe agrees. “It is vital to understand that the younger [someone] has a facelift, the more likely they may need a top-up, repeat surgery later in life, as even a facelift does not last forever,” he says. “The skin grows and people lose and gain weight – it is not a permanent solution.” A facelift, he says, “should be a last resort for anyone regardless of age” – as “all surgery is a serious business, and being in the best possible hands of an experienced, insured and responsible surgeon is essential”.

Gregg Wallace says he contemplated suicide over Masterchef allegations

Gregg Wallace has said he contemplated suicide after being hit by allegations of multiple instances of inappropriate behaviour while presenting shows including the BBC’s Masterchef.

Last year, Wallace was accused of making “highly inappropriate” comments to 13 people across five shows over a 17-year period between 2005 to 2022, by figures including former Newsnight host Kirsty Wark and actor Katy Brand.

He was also accused of “bullying” or inappropriate behaviour by celebrities including Rod Stewart’s wife, former model Penny Lancaster, and TV presenter Vanessa Feltz.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, the TV host said he had endured a “tidal wave of abuse” on social media after he posted a video on Instagram hitting out at the allegations, which he claimed came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

“I hadn’t slept for four days,” Wallace said, explaining why he posted the clip, which he later apologised for.

“The feeling of being under attack, of isolation, of abandonment was overwhelming. Nobody from the BBC contacted me once these stories started breaking – absolutely nobody at all.”

He continued: “News channels were updating hourly with new allegations. There was a tidal wave of abuse on social media, a dozen reporters outside the gate. You’re watching yourself get personally ripped apart, criticised, accused of all sorts of stuff over and over again. You’re thinking, ‘This isn’t true. It isn’t true. What’s coming next?”

He later said: “I thought about suicide all the time, ‘Is my insurance up to date? Will [my wife] Anna get some money? She doesn’t deserve this. It would be better if I wasn’t here.’”

He told the newspaper that Masterchef’s production company, Banijay, arranged for a crisis mentor to support him after he posted his video.

Most of the allegations, which were made in a BBC News investigation, came from production workers, many of whom were young female freelancers.

After the allegations were published, others came forward to accuse Wallace, 60, of incidents involving “groping” and “touching”, all of which he has vehemently denied.

Wallace said he had been taken aback to hear complaints from women he thought he had “got on” with, including Wark, 70, who accused him of telling “sexualised jokes” during the filming of Celebrity Masterchef in 2011, and other high-profile media personalities such as Vanessa Feltz and Kirstie Allsopp.

He said Feltz’s complaint had “knocked him for six” and also rejected Allsopp’s comments about his alleged reference to a sex act: “I wouldn’t have said that.”

Wallace addressed claims by rock singer Rod Stewart’s wife, former model Penny Lancaster, who alleged that he bullied and harassed her when she appeared on Celebrity Masterchef in 2021.

According to Wallace, the “falling out”, which he said there was raw footage of, involved a disagreement over whether an orchid should stay on a bowl of soup.

“I want to take the orchid off because it’s not edible,” he said. “She wants it to stay on.”

The Independent has contacted Lancaster’s representative for comment.

Wallace admitted that some accusations of him making inappropriate jokes were “probably true” but denied groping anyone, calling those claims “absolutely not true”.

After stepping down from Masterchef, he was replaced by Grace Dent who joined his former co-host, John Torode.

He also revealed that he was recently diagnosed with autism: “I want to make it absolutely clear I’m not blaming my behaviour on my diagnosis, but it does explain a hell of a lot to me.”

Among the allegations were claims that Wallace would talk openly about his sex life and once told a junior female colleague he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.

A former Masterchef worker told BBC News that he showed her topless photos of himself and asked for massages, while a former worker on Channel 5’s Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends claimed he was fascinated by the fact that she dated women and asked her about the “logistics” of it.

Model Ulrika Jonsson told The Telegraph after the first allegations were published that Wallace allegedly had to apologise after making a “rape joke” that caused serious distress to another female contestant while she was competing on Celebrity Masterchef in 2017.

Geordie Shore star Charlotte Crosby, who appeared on Celebrity Masterchef in 2024, commented on Rod Stewart’s post about his wife to allege Wallace was “extremely unpleasant” to her during filming.

Wallace’s lawyers said it was “entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.

Findings from an investigation by Banijay into Wallace’s alleged behaviour are expected to be made public next month.

If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.

If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.

How online schools can help children form friendships as they learn

When thinking about the best education for your child, it’s naturally not just academic success that comes to mind. A good quality school experience is made up of many parts and one key element is the socialising opportunities that school can provide. Socialisation is crucial for building social skills, growing emotional intelligence and helping children form their own individual identity, as well as giving them an additional incentive to attend a place where they have fun and feel part of a community.

While it might be assumed that the social options are reduced when children attend online school, this is not the case. In fact, there are a number of advantages in terms of the structures, support and diverse social opportunities offered to children who join online schools.

Online schools give students the opportunity to form connections with a much more diverse community of students. The online model allows schools to welcome young people from around the world and this gives pupils a chance to make friends with students from differing backgrounds and cultures. Furthermore, this means they can meet more like-minded individuals and form stronger bonds and more meaningful friendships. This access to such a big and vibrant community also ensures that students can really find ‘their people’ and avoids situations where students are stuck in small circles or forced to engage with classmates that don’t share the same interests or passions.

This is something that Grace, who is now in year 13, has experienced since moving to online school. At her previous school, she was struggling with socialisation and felt that she didn’t really have a self-identity. At an online school, she has found she can be more herself. “A lot of people think that online school is about being alone, but I’ve found that without the physical element, I can express myself better,” Grace explains.  Subsequently, the majority of her closest friends are from her online school and many she has met offline too. “I feel like I’ve met my people,” she says.

Isabella, who is in year 10, has also found that her experience of socialising at an online school has suited her much more than previous bricks and mortar schools. With her father’s job meaning the family moves country every three years, she has always previously struggled forming new friendships at the schools she joins. “I’m always the ‘new’ student, and it’s tough,” she says. After experiences with bullying, she found that online school is an environment she can thrive in. “You don’t have to turn on your camera or use your microphones if you’re not feeling comfortable. I’m not really a ‘social’ person, but I have made some friends here because we have these breakout rooms where we can talk to each other,” she adds.

While young people might not be meeting their fellow students physically every day, online schools put in place extensive measures to ensure that socialising is available for those who want to. This can be seen clearly at King’s InterHigh, the UK’s leading global online school which welcomes children aged 7 to 19 from across the world. Here, students join a warm and welcoming community with a huge range of opportunities for socialising. There’s dozens of clubs and societies for students across all year groups, representing a vast range of interests from chess to technology, sculpture to debate. Throughout the yearly student calendar, there are a number of events, showcases, and competitions of all kinds that provide a chance to socialise in different settings. Some happen internally, like the King’s InterHigh Arts Festival, while others allow students to interact with peers from outside their school when attending events like the International Robotics Competition.

Assemblies bring students together on a weekly basis and give them the chance to celebrate each other’s achievements, hear from their Student Council representatives, and find out what’s coming up at school. Each student is also assigned to one of the school’s eight houses and these smaller, tight-knit communities bring students a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Additionally, inter-house competitions are a fun and friendly way for students to engage and bond.

Although much socialising can come as a result of activities organised by the school, students at King’s InterHigh who are aged over 13 can continue building these relationships in a more informal setting thanks to the in-house, monitored, social media platform. Restricted solely to school students, the platform is safe, secure, and monitored to ensure a positive socialising environment for all those who choose to use it.

Online schools don’t just offer opportunities to socialise online but also offer ample opportunities to cement these connections in offline settings. At King’s InterHigh, there are global meet-ups throughout the year which bring together families allowing both children and parents and guardians to connect in real life. Regular educational school trips, from Geography excursions to science practical exams at other Inspired schools (the group of premium schools of which King’s InterHigh is part of) also allow children to socialise and have fun together in different settings.

Meanwhile, the annual summer camps, themed around a variety of interests and passions, including adventure sports, fashion, football, and tennis, are open to students across all Inspired schools and are held at spectacular Inspired campuses worldwide. Furthermore, the Inspired Global Exchange Programme offers a range of school exchange opportunities, lasting from one week to a full academic year.

Choosing where to educate your children is a big decision for any parent or guardian that involves many factors. However, when it comes to the social benefits, for the right child, online schools offer something truly transformative. To find out more about King’s InterHigh and whether it might be the right learning choice for your family, visit King’s InterHigh

The ‘F-word’ that’s tearing Westminster apart

“I suspect there’s going to be a big, seismic shock in British politics,” Nigel Farage said at a party at London’s Ritz hotel to mark his 25 years in politics. That was in 2016 – five months after the initial shock of the Brexit referendum.

Farage has waited a long time for his seismic moment in party politics. It might have come at last year’s general election, when his Reform UK won 14 per cent of the vote. But it landed only five seats, and its breakthrough was eclipsed by Keir Starmer’s landslide.

Farage hopes the political tectonic plates will shift next Thursday, when Reform hopes to seize the safe Labour seat of Runcorn and Helsby in a parliamentary by-election, and make gains in council and metro mayoral elections in England. Farage’s party is ahead in the opinion polls, but now needs to translate that to the ballot box to maintain the momentum it needs like oxygen.

My other memory of the 2016 party is the display of giant photographs of Farage and Donald Trump in the golden lift in Trump Tower in New York. Farage had just visited Trump, one of the first politicians to do so since his first presidential election victory that month.

Today, Farage is less keen to play up his Trump links amid the fallout from his damaging tariffs and his stance on the Ukraine-Russia war. Indeed, rival parties tell me that Farage’s Trump links are playing badly on the doorsteps. “It is hurting him,” one senior Labour figure claimed. Pollsters have picked up the same in focus groups.

Significantly, Farage has distanced himself from the US president, saying the tariffs were “too much, too soon”, that Trump risked turning Vladimir Putin into a winner and the US peace plan for Ukraine is unacceptable.

Yet the Trump connection – and a typically explosive internal row with his exiled MP Rupert Lowe – are unlikely to stop the beaming Farage having the last laugh next Thursday. Both the Conservatives and Labour approach these elections nervously – not because they fear each other, but Farage.

He has become the F-word of British politics, as figures in both parts of the now broken duopoly fret that they “don’t know what the f*** to do” about him.

Tory losses are inevitable because the 1,600 council seats up for grabs were last contested in 2021, when Boris Johnson was enjoying his “vaccine bounce”. The Tories could easily lose half of the almost 1,000 seats they are defending. Although many might fall to the Liberal Democrats, headlines about Tory losses and Reform gains would deepen Kemi Badenoch’s woes.

The job of leader of the opposition is hard enough after a crushing election defeat. Badenoch is in an even more unenviable position: she is not even seen as the real leader of the opposition because Farage is. There is no escaping his shadow.

That was illustrated when Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, fuelled the intense Tory debate about whether the party should do a deal with the devil Farage to “unite the right”. In a leaked recording, which emerged this week, Jenrick told a student dinner last month he would “bring this coalition together” to head off the “nightmare scenario” of Keir Starmer winning a second term because of a split on the right. Although Jenrick’s allies insist he was not talking about a coalition of the two parties but their voters, the damage was done.

The timing of the leak to Sky News was convenient for Labour, coming ahead of prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, when Starmer was bound to be on the defensive over the Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of “woman” relies on biological sex.

This is Badenoch’s signature issue and Tory MPs hailed her performance as her best at PMQs, but Starmer was able to limit the damage by quoting Jenrick’s remarks. (My theory about leaks is that the enemy is usually involved in disseminating them).

Badenoch opposes a deal with Farage. While her team played down Jenrick’s words, they made the Tories look needy and weak, and were a reminder of Badenoch’s insecure position only five months after beating Jenrick to the leadership. The ambitious, energetic Jenrick seems to be still running for it. Colleagues grumble privately that the Tory grassroots favourite is not a team player.

Bad results next Thursday will fuel the Tories’ already intense debate about whether Badenoch should lead the party into the next general election. But it’s hard to see how she can make progress while Farage sets the political agenda.

I think the Tories’ best shot would be to battle it out with Reform for leadership of the right rather than obsess about a deal, which makes it look like they have already lost.

In any case, there’s a limit to what a Con-Reform deal could achieve. Voters are not a bloc which can be directed into another party’s column; they will make up their own minds. Tory and Reform voters are different, according to pollsters More in Common. They might agree on immigration, criminal justice and gender identity, but differ on redistribution and Trump. Reform supporters are right-wing on social issues but lean left on economics.

That is why Farage declares his tanks are on Labour’s lawn, called for the nationalisation of British Steel before the government and discovered a long-standing admiration for his new brothers in arms in the trade unions (which is not reciprocated). His “economically left, socially right” pitch is similar to Johnson’s at the 2019 election, which won over the red wall in the north and Midlands now targeted by Reform.

It is one reason Farage is not interested in a Tory pact – for now, at least. He wants to replace Badenoch’s party. “The red wall feels badly let down by Boris, so why on earth would we do a deal with the Tories?” one Reform insider told me.

Labour hopes Tory losses next Thursday will overshadow its own unpopularity. But Starmer’s party can’t escape Farage’s shadow either. Labour’s weakness will be exposed if Reform’s army captures Runcorn and makes inroads in the north and Midlands. That would be ominous for Starmer, whose strategists believe the red wall will decide the next general election.

Is the EU youth mobility scheme finally going to happen?

Well-sourced reports suggest that the government is willing to introduce a “one in, one out” youth mobility scheme in partnership with the European Union. The idea would be that people aged 18 to 30 could travel to the UK on a work or educational visa, on a time-limited basis, and with reciprocity for their British counterparts.

It’s an idea that’s been discussed and periodically dismissed for some time, but with an EU-UK “Brexit reset” summit approaching next month, it could be that its time has come…

As recently as February, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, insisted in the House of Commons that such a scheme “is not our plan, and we are clear that net migration needs to come down”. What’s different now, perhaps, is that the EU has agreed to impose a quota on the scheme – a rumoured figure of 70,000 people – and a time limit of one year for the visas; and that, therefore, Cooper was prepared to consider the idea more seriously.

It also seems No 10 is exerting pressure to agree the youth mobility scheme in an effort to secure much more important concessions from the EU Commission on trade barriers, and from other European national leaders on defence, security and the “Coalition of the Willing” in Ukraine.

Because it means that the flow (in both directions) wouldn’t inflate or otherwise distort the highly sensitive net migration figures. A relatively short visit also means that the scheme is less likely to be abused – or to be perceived, by its opponents, as being abused.

Well, there is always scope for “gaming” any system, and the Conservatives, Reform UK and their allies in the press can be expected to highlight the risks – such as the visas being used to enter the UK and then “disappear”, or as a way to make an asylum claim (albeit perfectly legitimately in international law). There is also the cost of any use the visitors might make of the NHS or other public services; and the idea that they will provide unwelcome competition for young British people trying to find work. The allegation is that the EU wishes to “export” its youth unemployment.

Sooner or later, someone on the youth scheme visa will commit a serious offence; the headlines and the attacks on Labour will write themselves.

The EU, principally, which places a disproportionate value on something that feels pretty tokenistic. But also many in the Labour Party: 70 Labour MPs and peers have written this week to Nick Thomas-Symonds, minister for Europe, urging the introduction of such a time-limited, capped youth visa scheme.

Only on the crudest of interpretations, and if you subscribe to the belief that the treaties signed by Boris Johnson in 2019 and 2020 were perfect.

The youth mobility scheme wasn’t even hinted at in the Labour election manifesto, but the relevant passage on Europe was just about flexible enough to accommodate such a limited initiative: “With Labour, Britain will stay outside of the EU. But to seize the opportunities ahead, we must make Brexit work. We will reset the relationship and seek to deepen ties with our European friends, neighbours and allies. That does not mean reopening the divisions of the past. There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement.”

“Free movement” is not the same as “capped movement”, so it works. But just wait till the negotiations on fish get going again.

To encounter the cream of Britain’s Byronic youth, embarking on the modern equivalent of the “Grand Tour” of continental antiquities enjoyed by so many aristocrats in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The government, probably. A poll commissioned by Best for Britain a couple of months ago suggested that a majority (54 per cent) were in favour even if it was a four-year scheme, with two-thirds backing a two-year duration. So it would be popular, overall, even if it convinced more hardline Leavers that the Starmer administration was plotting to reverse Brexit (which would also in fact be fairly popular, especially if Donald Trump continues to spurn Britain’s “special relationship” with tariffs and threats to withdraw from Nato).

The more unpopular Brexit grows, the worse it is for the Conservatives and Reform UK.