John Torode sacked from MasterChef over ‘extremely offensive racism’

John Torode has been sacked from MasterChef after the BBC upheld a complaint against the presenter involving “an extremely offensive racist term”.

It comes just over 24 hours after a report upheld 45 allegations of misconduct by Torode’s former co-presenter Gregg Wallace, including one of unwelcome physical contact, which saw him fired from the long-running cookery show.

Now the BBC has confirmed that Torode, who has hosted MasterChef since 2005, has also been dropped after an allegation of racist language used by the star was substantiated during an investigation into Wallace’s behaviour.

However, the celebrity chef said he had not been informed about his sacking from the BBC or the cookery show’s production company Banijay UK, and instead learnt the news while reading media reports. The Independent has contacted the BBC and Banijay for comment.

On Monday (14 July), Torode, 59, confirmed that he was being investigated over his language, but said he had “no recollection of the incident” and was “shocked and saddened” by the allegation.

“I’d hoped that I’d have some say in my exit from a show I’ve worked on since its relaunch in 2005, but events in the last few days seem to have prevented that,” Torode said in a statement.

“Over the past few months, I have been considering my life and the shape of it now and in the future,” he continued. revealing it was “time to pass the cutlery to someone else”.

In a statement, the BBC said that the allegation against Torode involved “an extremely offensive racist term being used in the workplace” and was investigated and substantiated by the independent investigation led by the law firm, Lewis Silkin”.

Australian-British star Torode, who shot to fame as a chef on ITV daytime show This Morning, denies the allegation and said he knows any racial language “is wholly unacceptable in any environment”.

The corporation’s statement continued: “The BBC takes this upheld finding extremely seriously. We will not tolerate racist language of any kind and, as we have already said, we told Banijay UK, the makers of MasterChef, that action must be taken. John Torode’s contract on MasterChef will not be renewed.”

Reports in The Sun said Torode had been asked to leave the show and claim he had mental health issues following the allegation. The presenter has already shot an unaired series alongside Wallace – and the BBC has said it is still unsure what to do with the episodes.

Torode added in his own statement: “I will watch fondly from afar as I now focus on the many other exciting projects that I have been working towards. My tummy will be grateful for a rest after 20 years of eating, but what a joy it has been.

“ Life is everchanging and ever moving & sometimes personal happiness and fulfilment lay elsewhere. Thank you for the many years of MasterChef.”

The decision to drop Torode arrives after it was revealed his MasterChef co-host Wallace had also been fired from the series after a seven-month investigation into his behaviour upheld more than half of the 83 allegations against him, including inappropriate sexual language and being in a state of undress.

Wallace said he is “deeply sorry for any distress” caused after the findings and that he “never set out to harm or humiliate” anyone with his behaviour.

The presenter faced multiple accusations, including claims that he made inappropriate sexual jokes, asked for the phone numbers of female production staff, and behaved unprofessionally around female colleagues on set.

The report noted that during the course of the investigation, which was over a seven-month period, Wallace was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and said that the findings should be viewed in the context of his neurodiversity.

In his statement, Wallace, 60, added: “I’m relieved that the Banijay report fully recognises that my behaviour changed profoundly in 2018. Some of my humour and language missed the mark. I never set out to harm or humiliate. I always tried to bring warmth and support to MasterChef, on screen and off.

“After nearly 20 years on the show, I now see that certain patterns, shaped by traits I’ve only recently begun to understand, may have been misread. I also accept that more could have been done, by others and by myself, to address concerns earlier.

“A late autism diagnosis has helped me understand how I communicate and how I’m perceived. I’m still learning.”

He praised the show’s production company, Banijay, saying they had “given me great support, and I thank them”. However, he criticised the BBC for “exposing” him to “trial by media fuelled by rumour and clickbait”.

A statement from Wallace’s lawyers last November when reports first surfaced, said that it “is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.

The relationship between Torode and Wallace, who have both presented the cooking programme since 2005, has always been mired in complication.

Despite being Wallace’s best man in 2016, Torode later claimed he had never been friends with his co-host, telling The Mirror in 2017: “We’ve not been to each other’s houses. If we go away to somewhere like South Africa, we do things separately. If we do go out for a drink, I’ll invariably be at one end of a big old table and he’ll be at the other.”

However, Wallace had a different view, telling ITV series Lorraine that same year: “I film with John six or seven months of the year, so we are very close to each other physically, and emotionally we are very close to each other. What’s great about having a partnership is that if one of you is a bit off, a bit down, the other one naturally steps up, so I rely on John a lot.”

In 2022, Torode was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to food and charity.

HMRC has no idea how much tax billionaires are paying, report finds

The taxman has no idea how much is being collected from billionaires amid mounting calls for a wealth tax, a powerful Commons committee has found.

With Rachel Reeves seeking billions of pounds to plug a gaping hole in the public finances, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) cannot identify how much tax is paid by Britain’s billionaires.

Despite there being relatively few billionaires, and the group contributing a significant amount to the government’s coffers, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said HMRC “does not know how many billionaires pay tax in the UK or how much they contribute overall”.

The authority “can and must” do more to understand how much tax the very wealthiest are paying, it added.

The stark warning comes as Labour MPs are piling pressure on the chancellor to introduce a wealth tax in her Budget this autumn, with Ms Reeves needing billions of pounds of tax hikes or spending cuts to meet her fiscal rules.

After the government’s chaotic U-turn on planned benefit cuts, squandering £5bn of annual savings, MPs have argued ministers should target the rich to make up the shortfall.

They were backed by former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, who has called for a 2 per cent tax on assets over £10 million, arguing it could raise up to £11bn a year and help shore up the UK’s finances.

Sir Keir has kept the option on the table, heightening fears of an exodus of the super-rich from Britain. Analysis by the consultancy New World Wealth showed a quarter of the UK’s billionaires, 18 in total, left the country in the last two years, more than any other country.

The PAC’s warning about HMRC sparked a backlash among MPs campaigning for a wealth tax, with Labour left-winger Kim Johnson condemning the ability of the super-rich to “operate in secrecy”.

She told The Independent: “This says everything about the priorities of this government – more focused on shielding extreme wealth than scrutinising it. Under Rachel Reeves’ arbitrary, self-imposed fiscal rules, we’re told there’s “no money” for public services, yet there’s no effort to even find out whether the wealthiest are paying what they owe.

“We need the political will to ensure that those with the broadest shoulders do carry more of the burden. But instead, we’re left with a system that lets billionaires hide in the shadows. This isn’t a technical failure – it’s a deliberate political choice.”

Ms Johnson added: “In what world is it acceptable for the super-rich to operate in secrecy, while the working-class are squeezed at every turn?”

Labour MP Nadia Whittome told The Independent Britain “needs a tax system that closes loopholes and guarantees that wealthy individuals pay their fair share”.

She added: “That must start with the government doing more to understand how much tax billionaires are currently paying and the opportunities for taxing the super-rich more.”

Campaign group Tax Justice UK said the PAC’s findings undermine public faith in the tax system. “At the heart of this story is the urgent need for HMRC to have the resources and political backing for it to be an effective and efficient tax authority that can administer a tax system that is fair and fit for the 21st century,” interim director Fariya Mohiuddin said.

The PAC highlighted The Sunday Times Rich List and artificial intelligence (AI) as ways that the revenue body could dig deeper into wealth and assets.

It is calling for HMRC to publish its plan for increasing tax yield from wealthy taxpayers both domestically and offshore.

It said HMRC does not collect information on taxpayers’ wealth and says that it only collects the data needed to administer the tax system as required by UK tax legislation.

The report said: “There is much public interest in the amount of tax the wealthy pay.

“People need to know everyone pays their fair share.”

HMRC’s plan for improving its understanding of the wealth and assets held by billionaires could include how it might immediately start work on comparing available data on known billionaires, such as The Sunday Times Rich List, with its own records, the report suggested.

In the United States, the Inland Revenue Service has worked with researchers to link its data to The Forbes 400, the report said.

There is “much more” that HMRC can do to improve its work to risk assess and target wealthy people, in particular through the use of data and technology and recruiting wealth management experts, it added.

PAC member Lloyd Hatton said: “This report is not concerned with political debate around the redistribution of wealth.

“Our committee’s role is to help HMRC do its job properly ensuring wealthy people pay the correct tax.

“While HMRC does deserve some great credit for securing billions more in the tax take from the wealthiest in recent years, there is still a very long way to go before we can reach a true accounting of what is owed.

“We already know a great deal about billionaires living in the UK, with much information about their tax affairs and wealth in the public domain.

“So we were disappointed to find that HMRC, of all organisations, was unable to provide any insight into their tax affairs from its own data – particularly given that any single one of these individuals’ contributions could make a significant difference to the overall picture.

“We found a similar apparent lack of curiosity in how wide the tax gap is both for the very wealthy and for wealth stashed away offshore.”

UK could see fourth heatwave before downpours and thunderstorms

Parts of the UK could see yet another heatwave by the end of this week, according to forecasters.

Britons are also being warned of thunderstorms in places throughout the week, with the potential for “torrential downfalls” over the weekend and possible weather warnings to be issued.

Rain might be welcome for some, coming amid warnings from the Environment Agency that up to five more regions could be in a drought by September, with more hosepipe bans on the way.

Much of the UK experienced a brief reprieve from the hot weather on Tuesday as the third heatwave of the summer started to come to an end. Temperatures exceeded 30C in several parts of the country and broke multiple records over the weekend.

But just as Britons are recovering from the weekend’s intense heat, the Met Office has revealed they should start bracing themselves for yet another potential heatwave.

Meteorologist Tom Morgan told The Independent that Tuesday has been a “much cooler and showery day”, with much of the country seeing showers and rainy spells.

He predicted a “changeable” week ahead as well, but said that temperatures will “rebound” from Tuesday to above average once again.

On the question of a fourth heatwave, he said: “From a technical point of view, there is the potential for some places to reach heatwave status.

“But it’s not going to be anything like the most recent heatwave, which saw temperatures reach the high 20s or low 30s.

“Currently, we’re expecting temperatures of 29C in south east England on Thursday and Friday, then it might well be 28C or similar on Saturday.

“Most likely, it’s a few individual weather stations that reach the criteria for a heatwave… but that won’t be for everyone, it will be a small minority of places where there is a technical heatwave.”

The Met Office defines a heatwave as “an extended period of hot weather relative to the expected conditions of the area at that time of year, which may be accompanied by high humidity”. In the UK, hot weather can only be classified as a heatwave if it meets a daily maximum temperature consistently for three days in a row, with the threshold varying across different parts of the UK between 25C and 28C.

The peak of the last heatwave hit on Saturday, when Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all recorded their warmest day of the year so far – with Scotland and Northern Ireland reaching temperatures they have not hit in years. Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire hit 30.8C while Achnagart in the Scottish Highlands reached 30.4C, Cardiff’s Bute Park 30.2C and Castlederg in Co Tyrone 27.1C.

A host of warnings were issued over dangers arising out of the hot temperatures. These included amber and yellow heat health alerts in place across England – warning of the potential for a rise in deaths – while fire chiefs urged people to stay safe over the increased risk of wildfires, with blazes breaking out in London, Surrey, and Perth in Scotland.

But Mr Morgan offered reassurance that there is “nothing like that on the way”. He said that “there will be essentially fairly typical warm summer weather this week, as opposed to the recent weather where we’ve seen it hot and impactful”, citing the uncomfortable sleeping conditions many have been complaining of.

The summer’s third heatwave saw a hosepipe ban come into force in Yorkshire, with similar restrictions issued for Kent and Sussex from 18 July following one of the UK’s driest springs on record. Currently, three areas of the UK – Cumbria and Lancashire, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire – are in drought. And millions more people could face these conditions across the Midlands and central southern regions this year, under the Environment Agency’s reasonable worst cast scenario.

However, Mr Morgan said the UK is set for a wetter week this week. Many Britons should brace for thunderstorms, he warned, with weather warnings potentially being issued in the coming days.

The meteorologist explained that much of the UK should see “dry, warmer weather” on Wednesday, before the end of the week becomes more showery.

There is currently a fairly “isolated” thunderstorm warning in place for Northern Ireland, a region that will again see a risk of thunderstorms on Thursday, he said.

Then, central and southern England as well as Wales are all set for thunderstorms and “really torrential downfalls” into the weekend.

He said: “There will be further thunderstorms in the week ahead and indeed the weekend. It is a warm, humid picture into the weekend…

“Anyone with outdoor plans should keep an eye on the forecast for the week ahead.

“There is the potential for weather warnings in the lead up to the weekend.

“It’s looking much wetter, and potentially very wet in places, compared to the weekend just gone.”

Man who killed British backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia dies

The killer of British backpacker Peter Falconio has died. Bradley John Murdoch, who was convicted in 2005 of murdering Falconio, 28, and assaulting his girlfriend Joanne Lees at gunpoint, died after being moved to palliative care last month.

Falconio and Ms Lees, both from Yorkshire, were travelling across the country in a camper van when they were ambushed by Murdoch on the Stuart Highway, an isolated road that runs through the centre of Australia, on 14 July 2001.

Murdoch was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for at least 28 years.

Murdoch, 67, was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 2019 and was moved to palliative care from Alice Springs Correctional Centre last month, according to local media reports.

The Northern Territory Government Department of Corrections said on Tuesday that there had been a death in custody and the coroner would be informed.

Falconio and Ms Lees had been driving near the tiny settlement of Barrow Creek, around 300km (188 miles) north of Alice Springs, when Murdoch pulled up beside them claiming to have seen sparks coming from their van.

He shot Falconio in the head as he inspected the vehicle, before forcing Ms Lees into his vehicle and binding her wrists with cable ties.

She managed to escape, hiding in the Outback for hours before flagging down a passing truck.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Murdoch was likely to have disposed of the backpacker’s body somewhere in the vast, remote expanse of desert between Alice Springs and Broome. Despite repeated searches, Falconio’s body has never been found.

Ms Lees, who returned to the UK, told Australian current affairs programme 60 Minutes in 2017 that she still wanted to “bring him home”.

“Pete lost his life on that night, but I lost mine too,” she said. “I’ll never be fully at peace if Pete’s not found, but I accept that that is a possibility.”

Murdoch lodged several unsuccessful appeals over the years, with Australia’s highest court refusing to hear his case in 2007.

Last month police announced a new A$500,000 (about £240,000) reward for information leading to the discovery of Falconio’s remains.

When my friends were facing cancer, a community of people stepped up

When I was younger, I used to worry incessantly about my parents getting cancer. I’d lay awake at night, ruminating on what would happen to my brother and I if they did. Who would support us? Thankfully, both are still cancer-free, well into their seventies.

However, now that I’m a parent myself, I worry about my children. Many people believe that cancer only really happens to people in old age, but that’s just not true. One beloved friend’s daughter died of leukaemia in 2020, aged just five; an unthinkable horror that changed the lives of everyone who knew her and her family.

And with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, I also worry about my friends – parents themselves, their lives touched by cancer. One friend sat me down in our favourite local café, our toddlers playing at our feet, to break the news that she was about to undergo a double mastectomy. We cried together.

Another friend, Sarah, a single parent to two teenage girls, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before we heard that King Charles had cancer, and a month before the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced her own diagnosis in March last year. It seemed like cancer was everywhere.

As a result, Sarah put 2024 on hold – she missed her daughter’s last sports day and last concert at primary school and had to find a whole new way of co-ordinating family life.

“I’m lucky in some ways that my children are teenagers, so they are able to look after themselves to some degree – but I’m also a single parent, so there are some things that they can’t do, or struggle with, due to their age,” she tells me.

“I have even set up multiple alarms on our Alexa reminding them to put their packed lunches in their bags or leave for school, just in case I can’t get up.”

Sarah says she thought she knew quite a lot about cancer prior to her diagnosis, but now admits she “really didn’t”. She explains: “There are so many terms and procedures to understand – stages and grades, not to mention over 100 different chemotherapy drugs.”

Sarah tells me about the exhausting cumulative effect of chemotherapy, which she endured every three weeks during her cancer treatment: “After the very first lot, I slept for a few hours and felt much better pretty quickly. For my last rounds, I slept for 48 hours solid and even days later, I needed to have a nap in the middle of the day and was in bed by 8pm.”

Sarah’s now finished chemotherapy and, a year on from her diagnosis, is turning 50. She’s throwing a huge party to celebrate not only the birthday milestone, but getting over this “annus horriblis” – a year she couldn’t have gotten through without the people around her.

“People can do so much for us when we are unwell – and I am forever grateful,” she says. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the support that my friends have given me; from ferrying around my children to and from after-school events and sleepovers when things get bad, to my 75-year-old neighbour mowing the lawn. One friend popped round with a huge pot of pasta sauce and I even had a gift box from a recruiter at work.”

What talking to my strong, resilient friends about their cancer journeys has made me realise most, is the power of community: for when we receive the worst news imaginable, what we need is people around us to see us through. A community of other women: friends, school mums, neighbours.

They had people willing to make them food, pick up their children, go shopping for them or to just sit with them and listen. They had support when they decided to raise money for cancer support charities, when they did fundraisers such as hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning.

It takes a village to raise a child – and that village will be with you every step of the way when you need them most.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

Number of benefits claimants who don’t need to work up by 1m in a year

The number of people claiming benefits with no requirements to be in work has risen to an all-time high, new data from the Department for Work and Pensions shows – climbing by 1 million in the past year alone.

Some 3.6 million people claiming universal credit (UC) are not required to be working or seeking work, according to the latest figures from June, largely because of because of illness or disability, student status, or caring responsibilities. This figure has doubled in less than three years and makes up nearly half (46 per cent) of all 7.9 million claimants.

Its rise is in stark comparison with other conditions of universal credit claimants, which have remained stable since mid-2022.

The jump in benefit claimants who do not have to work or seek work – rising nearly fourfold in just five years – has been a priority for the current Labour government, which has tried to reform work capability assessments.

“The current system focuses on assessing capacity to work instead of on helping people to adjust and adapt to their health condition,” work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said in November, as the DWP’s ‘Get Britain Working Again’ white paper set out to move away from “binary categories” of either fit – or not fit – for work.

Labour has decided to scrap the existing work capability assessments for UC in 2028; and align them with health assessments for Personal Independence Payments (PIP), which is considered a higher bar to entry.

Sir Keir Starmer “absolutely” wants to reuduce the number of immigrants claiming UC, Downing Street said when asked about the figures.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “As we’ve been clear, both in relation to the welfare system. but also in relation to immigration. We both want to see a reduction in migration, through a system that is controlled, selective and fair.

“And we also want to reform the welfare system such that it genuinely supports those who can work into employment.” The PM’s spokesman stressed that illegal migrants cannot claim UC and attacked the “open borders” policy of the last Conservative government.

For the first time, the latest figures from DWP also show the immigration status and ethnicity of people claiming universal credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it had published the statistics “following a public commitment to investigate and develop breakdowns of the UC caseload by the immigration status of foreign nationals in receipt of UC”.

Independent MP Rupert Lowe, an ex-member of Reform UK, welcomed the pledge to publish the data, describing it as a “huge win” for those who had “relentlessly pushed for this”.

The vast majority (83.6 per cent) of those on the benefit as of last month were British and Irish nationals and those who live or work in the UK without any immigration restrictions.

This amounted to 6.6 million of the total 7.9 million people on universal credit (UC) in June.

People can only access benefits like UC if they have an immigration status that provides recourse to public funds. For example, asylum seekers cannot claim welfare benefits until they have been successfully granted refugee status.

Aside from British nationals, 770,000 people on the EU Settlement Scheme claim UC benefits, accounting for 9.7 per cent of all claimants.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp MP said that the taxpayer should not subsidise benefits for immigrants; though this system was in place under the Tory government.

“Under Kemi Badenoch, we’ve set out a clear, common-sense position,” he said. “Universal Credit should be reserved for UK citizens only. This is about fairness, responsibility and protecting support for those who’ve contributed to this country.”

Refugees accounted for just 1.5 per cent (118,749) of people on UC, while 0.7 per cent (54,156) were people who had come by safe and legal humanitarian routes including under the Ukraine and Afghan resettlement schemes.

Those seeking asylum are unable to work until they have been successfully granted refugee status.

A further 2.7 per cent (211,090) of UC claimants have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, while 1 per cent had temporary immigration status (limited leave to remain in the UK).

Is it time to give up on the NHS, our national religion?

Sajid Javid makes an unlikely Martin Luther, nailing his theses to the door of a London think tank, calling for a Reformation in the national religion. He was health secretary for only 12 months in the vaccination phase of the coronavirus crisis, but it was long enough for him to think deeply about whether the NHS model was the right one.

As a heretic, he knows that there will be some resistance from the faithful to the message that we can learn something from the way they do things on the continent – which is why he starts his foreword to the Policy Exchange report calling for the abolition of the NHS by claiming that this is the way to restore the health service to its founding principles.

Just as Luther argued that Christianity was basically the right idea, Javid says that “while the strength of our belief in these ideals has not wavered, our ability to deliver them is increasingly being called into question”.

And, just like Luther, Javid says that he and Policy Exchange are simply proposing questions to be debated. But when Javid says the choice is between “putting more and more money into healthcare, funded by yearly tax rises and by diverting essential investment into everything from education to defence towards the NHS” and “reforming how we do healthcare”, it is clear what his preference is.

The timing of Javid’s defiance is interesting. With hospital doctors losing the support of the public, Wes Streeting, Javid’s successor, warned yesterday that strikes would be “a gift to Nigel Farage”.

Streeting argued that the strikes will undermine respect for doctors and weaken support for the idea of the NHS – and “if Labour fail”, he said, Farage will point to that as “proof that the NHS has failed and must now be replaced by an insurance-style system”.

This is where the argument becomes complicated. Drawing dividing lines between Labour and Reform is the Keir Starmer plan to win a second term. The prime minister wants to force Lib Dems, Greens, soft Tories and people who like the NHS to choose between him and Farage at the next election. It is not a terrible strategy: there are lots of voters who are deeply disappointed with the Labour government, but who regard Farage as the electoral equivalent of Satan.

The complication is that Farage has tried to renounce his support for a French-style social insurance model of healthcare. He is aware that the NHS is popular, and that anyone proposing to abolish it will be excommunicated. So his manifesto last year promised a reformed NHS, “still free at the point of delivery”. But Farage went on TV during the campaign to say that he wanted a healthcare system like that in France, “as if it was a private company”.

This year, he said he was “fully, fully aware” that the French system is not completely free at the point of use: “I’m not saying we should absolutely mimic the French system … Let’s have a think about how we do things.”

The best that can be said about Reform’s policy is that it is not entirely clear.

That is probably why it has to be left to former politicians such as Javid to make the argument for change. The Policy Exchange report makes a powerful case, pointing out that the Dutch moved to a social insurance system recently: “In 2006, the Netherlands radically reshaped its healthcare system to involve more competition and greater consumer choice. The reform has been extremely successful and Dutch healthcare costs are proportionately lower than the UK, waiting lists lower and health outcomes generally better.”

What is critically important, as Javid argues, is that the money has to come from somewhere, and a social insurance system shares the cost between the patient and the taxpayer – stating that patients should pay £20 for a GP appointment, for example. This would allow more to be spent overall, more efficiently, and it would protect the budget to some extent from short-term political pressures.

We are probably a long way from such a model being acceptable to the British people, but Streeting is right to argue that doctors’ strikes will take them a step closer to the unthinkable.

It was Nigel Lawson, the Conservative chancellor, who said in his 1992 autobiography, subtitled Memoirs of a Tory Radical, that “the National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a religion” – but the rest of that sentence was also significant: “… with those who practise in it regarding themselves as a priesthood”.

Streeting may be right that, if the priests of the NHS, the doctors, forfeit the faith of their congregations, a new religion may arise.

But that may not be a bad thing – even if Farage once supported it.