Prince Harry told Stephen Lawrence’s mother she was being hacked

Stephen Lawrence’s mother has shared her “disbelief” after she was contacted by Prince Harry, who uncovered evidence she had been allegedly spied on by the Daily Mail.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence, a campaigner for reforms in the police service, has told the BBC that she was “floored” by what the Duke of Sussex discovered, as she is joining him and other public figures in suing the Daily Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, at the High Court in London.

Associated Newspapers has denied claims that it hacked phones and called them “preposterous smears”.

Baroness Lawrence is one of six people, including Liz Hurley, Sir Elton John and politician Sir Simon Hughes, who brought legal action against Associated Newspapers in 2022.

She alleged the Daily Mail had illegally spied on her to gather information about the investigation into the 1993 murder of her son.

Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death aged 18 in a racist attack in Eltham, southeast London. The paper is accused of commissioning investigators to tap her home phone, hack her voicemails and monitor her bank accounts and phone bills.

Baroness Lawrence told the BBC that Prince Harry “was busy looking at his own case and then my name kept cropping up” and “felt that I should know about it”. She subsequently met lawyers Anjlee Sangani and David Sherborne, who told her she had been spied on.

She expressed her disbelief: “Why would anybody want to be listening to my calls, hacking into my phone?

“It just floors you, because you don’t expect that, but not somebody like me anyway,” she added. “You know, all I’m trying to do over the years is just to try and get justice for my son.”

The Independent contacted Associated Newspapers for comment.

The campaigner has said the paper had “added to the trauma” her family has gone through and called on the paper to issue a public apology over the allegations. Associated Newspapers is defending the legal action.

The High Court previously heard the campaigner had been “alerted” to a potential legal claim against the Daily Mail’s publisher by a text from the duke.

In July, a High Court judge asked Prince Harry must hand over documents that relate to alleged payments made for evidence in his legal claim.

A trial of the claims is expected to start in January and last for nine weeks.

Thousands to descend on London for Tommy Robinson rally and counter-protest

Thousands of people are set to descend on the capital for a rally organised by activist Tommy Robinson, after the Metropolitan Police urged Muslim Londoners not to change their plans.

A counter-protest, dubbed March Against Fascism, organised by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), is also due to take place in the city on Saturday.

Around 1,000 officers will be deployed in London in a bid to prevent clashes between protesters with opposing views.

The Unite the Kingdom march and rally organised by Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, will see demonstrators arrive in Stamford Street near Waterloo Bridge at 11am to march towards the southern end of Whitehall.

He described the event – set to hear from speakers including Canadian psychologist and political commentator Jordan Peterson and Katie Hopkins – as the UK’s biggest free speech festival and said thousands are due to attend.

Commander Clair Haynes, who is in charge of the public order policing operation in London this weekend, said: “We recognise that there are particular concerns for many in London’s Muslim communities ahead of the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest given the record of anti-Muslim rhetoric and incidents of offensive chanting by a minority at previous marches.

“There have been some suggestions that Muslim Londoners should change their behaviour this Saturday, including not coming into town.

“That is not our advice.

“Everyone should be able to feel safe travelling into and around London. Our officers are there to ensure that is the case and we’d urge anyone who is out on Saturday and feels concerned to speak to us.”

Robinson has called on attendees of his rally to not wear masks, drink alcohol or be violent.

In a video on X he said: “It’s not a time for riots. It’s not a time for violence. It’s a time where you come and you stand proudly for your country.”

He added: “This is an imperative message and an important message: we have to control ourselves.”

Meanwhile, the SUTR protest will form up in Russell Square from midday before marching via Kingsway, Aldwych and the Strand to the northern end of Whitehall for a rally.

The march will be led by hundreds of women, SUTR said, including independent MP Diane Abbott.

Samira Ali, national organiser for SUTR, said: “Our demonstration will be sending a message loud and clear: we are united against the far right threat. Women don’t need the far right to keep us safe.”

Scotland Yard said barriers will be in place to keep a large “sterile area” between the two groups, with officers deployed there and on surrounding roads to “minimise the risk of disorder” if the groups were to come together.

Strict conditions will be imposed under the Public Order Act on where and when campaigners can protest, the force added.

Five Premier League football matches are also set to take place on Saturday, including derbies between West Ham and Tottenham, and Brentford and Chelsea.

More than 1,600 officers will be deployed in total across the city, with 500 brought in from other forces, the Metropolitan Police said.

Ms Haynes said: “This will be a very busy day with protests, sporting fixtures, concerts and other events.

“The Met is used to delivering the sort of complex and large-scale policing operation that is required to keep the public safe, and we have a detailed plan to do so on Saturday.

“I am grateful to the many hundreds of Met officers who are being deployed away from their day-to-day roles and to the 500 or so officers from around the country who have responded to our request for support.

“The main focus of the operation is on the two protests in central London. We will approach them as we do any other protests, policing without fear or favour, ensuring people can exercise their lawful rights, but being robust in dealing with incidents or offences should they occur.

“In the run-up to the protests we have been in close contact with the organisers, with local business and community representatives, and with representatives of communities across London more broadly.

“We would ask all those taking part in the protests to be considerate of the communities they are passing through to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum. Officers will take a firm line on behaviour that is discriminatory or that crosses the line from protest into hate crime.”

Metropolitan Police Federation chairwoman Paula Dodds said officers policing large protests regularly are “emotionally and physically exhausted”.

“We’ve seen multiple Metropolitan Police officers be refused leave and have much-needed rest days cancelled,” she said.

“Our colleagues have and continue to lose time with their families, friends and loved ones because they have been pulled into London to police protests. We must remember there are no ‘extra’ police officers. Just the same hard-working ones having their days off cancelled, having to work longer shifts and being moved from other areas.

“They (officers) have come under attack and been violently assaulted for doing the job society expects of them. The demand is relentless. And it’s not sustainable.”

If Britain’s dragged into war, this is who could be called up first

When news broke this week of Russian drones encroaching on Polish airspace, it was not only Warsaw and Brussels that jolted to attention. Across Europe, and here in the UK, the grim question has once again surfaced: how prepared would we be, really, if the unthinkable happened and a major war broke out on our continent? Nato chiefs have been blunt, warning that civilians must be ready to play their part. And that raises a sobering thought: if war came, would we actually have the manpower for battle? Who would fight, and how quickly could civilians become soldiers?

This question may sound abstract in Britain in 2025. We have become used to thinking of our armed forces as a lean, professional volunteer body – a far cry from the days of mass mobilisation. Yet events in Poland, and Nato’s warnings about civilian preparedness, remind us that conflicts in Europe can escalate with terrifying speed. If deterrence failed, Britain would be faced with the reality of having to field far more troops than our current army of just over 70,000 regular full-time personnel could muster.

I have seen with my own eyes how civilians can, with the right training, be turned into credible fighting men. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been leading Operation Interflex, a multinational training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, since 2022. Initially a basic combat course for civilians, it has evolved into a seven-week programme with advanced leadership and instructor training, tailored to the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Last year, on a bleak training ground in southern England, I watched a squad of six young Ukrainians approach a dummy house. They moved silently, almost like dancers, flowing into positions they had drilled over and over. Within a minute, the “house” was cleared. This was no Hollywood shoot-’em-up. It was urban warfare training – cold, efficient, and absolutely real in its purpose.

These men were not career soldiers. Only weeks earlier, they had been IT technicians, digger drivers, postmen or students, about to enter into a programme that would transform them from civilians into fighters. On arrival, they were issued with 65 items of kit, shown their bunks, and plunged into 35 days of relentless instruction: weapons handling, trench warfare, battlefield first aid, mine clearance, urban combat. What takes between 12 and 18 weeks for a British recruit is condensed into little more than a month.

The effect is profound. As Lieutenant Colonel Wilson, who commands the Interflex Training Delivery Unit, told me: “They come out walking taller and prouder. We do the basics really well, and we’ve been doing this for a really long time.” A senior Ukrainian officer put it even more bluntly: “Our best recruits come from Interflex.”

I met Vlad, a 23-year-old IT technician who would soon be on the front line. He was tall, slim, handsome, and already carrying that thousand-yard stare soldiers often acquire after combat. He told me quietly that he had lost friends, but still volunteered because he had to defend his homeland. Then there was Vitalii, 25, a burly digger driver. He admitted the course was tough, but knew he would be better prepared because of it. Both young men were conscious that in just a few weeks they might be fighting – and dying – in Ukraine’s trenches. I have no idea today whether they are still alive.

That civilian-to-soldier pipeline is exactly what several European countries have institutionalised. Finland obliges nearly all young men to serve in the armed forces, with alternatives for conscientious objectors. Sweden, rattled by Russia’s aggression, reintroduced conscription in 2017. Poland, now directly threatened, has invested heavily in territorial defence forces and civilian training, and has sent 40,000 troops to be deployed on its eastern border as it prepares for Russia and Belarus’s huge spectacle of joint military drills, called Zapad 2025.

These European military schemes are not a nostalgic throwback but a pragmatic insurance policy: a way to ensure that if the balloon goes up, thousands already know how to fight.

Britain, by contrast, abandoned compulsory service in 1960. Back then, young men were called up for two years, with exemptions for certain professions and deferments for students. The system was often unfair – those with connections dodged more easily – but it created a vast pool of men with basic military training. Were we to contemplate something similar today, the debate would be about not just logistics, but fairness and consent.

In the Second World War, unmarried men aged 18 to 41 were the first to be drafted, with “reserved occupations” such as miners, doctors and clergy exempted. Women were conscripted, too, though typically for war work rather than combat.

In today’s Britain, any call-up would look very different. Gender neutrality would be essential, as Norway already demonstrates. Doctors, paramedics, cyber specialists, and energy workers might be kept out of combat but still obliged to serve. The key would be fairness: nothing corrodes morale faster than a sense that the privileged can buy their way out.

Sceptics argue that drones, AI and long-range missiles have rendered mass armies obsolete. Ukraine shows otherwise. Drones can spot the enemy, AI can crunch targeting data – but only human beings can clear a trench, hold a street, or sweep a house. That is why Ukraine keeps training civilians by the thousand. It is why Finland and Sweden maintain their drafts, and why Poland has shifted to a war-footing posture. Numbers matter. Without sufficient manpower, even the most sophisticated weapons are hollow assets.

If, heaven forbid, Britain were drawn into a major European war, how would we prepare? A plausible option is a selective form of national service: short, intense training cycles – perhaps six to nine months, or even a five-week Interflex-style model – creating a pool of reservists who could be recalled. A dual track would widen the net, with civilians trained for hospitals, logistics, cyber defence and emergency response as well as combat.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, the former Chief of the General Staff, has been clear. He warned that Britain must prepare for a “whole-of-nation undertaking” and that “Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them”. His argument was not for blanket conscription, but for the foundations of a voluntary call-up if needed. That idea may be unpalatable, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss.

We should not be naive. Training civilians into soldiers is possible – I have seen it happen in five weeks – but it comes with costs. Lives are disrupted, studies postponed, careers derailed. Some are simply not suited for combat, and pushing them into it risks psychological damage. Politically, too, governments must be honest. This is not a rite of passage. It is preparation for horror. It is justified only by the gravest of threats, and only if administered fairly.

When I watched those young Ukrainians moving silently through a mock house in southern England, I realised how fine the line is between peace and mobilisation. One month, you are an IT technician or working on a building site; the next, you are clearing buildings and preparing for the possibility of death.

The events in Poland this week have reminded us that Europe is not immune to war. For Britain, the question is not only whether our jets can fly or our submarines sail, but whether we have the people ready – and if not, how quickly we would be able to train them. Interflex shows it can be done. The Ukrainians have proved it. The uncomfortable question is whether, if war did come, we would be willing to do the same.

‘Unprecedented’ terror charges since Labour’s Palestine Action ban

The number of people charged with supporting Palestine Action has reached unprecedented levels in just two months, quadrupling levels seen in the two decades since 9/11.

At least 138 people have been charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act – which bans displaying or publishing a sign, flag or clothing in support of a terrorist organisation – since Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist group in July, according to provisional figures from the Crown Prosecution Service.

By comparison, just 34 people have been charged under the same offence between 2001 and the end of June 2025 – days before Palestine Action was added to the government’s list of designated terrorist organisations.

Shami Chakrabarti called the scale of the Palestine Action charges “unprecedented”, while other members of the House of Lords questioned whether this use of police resources, which has seen scores of officers deployed to patrol rallies in support of the group, was “counterproductive”.

The number of people charged over recent protests is likely to grow – with hundreds of people arrested for supporting Palestine Action so far, including 857 at one protest on Saturday alone.

“This absurd misuse of terrorism legislation is deeply damaging to our freedom of speech,” warned Lord Paul Strasburger, a Liberal Democrat life peer, in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Already, the number of terrorism charges since the group was banned after protesters broke into an RAF base and damaged two military aircraft earlier this year has exceeded any given year, when comparing to the latest Home Office figures. This remains the case even when including more serious offences such as directing or fundraising for a terrorist group, or weapons training.

Charges under Section 13 (of the Terrorism Act 2000) specifically relate to “displaying or publishing articles or images in support of a proscribed organisation”.

That could include wearing items of clothing, such as a keffiyeh, which has become synonymous with Palestine solidarity, or carrying items which “arouse reasonable suspicion” of support for Palestine Action, such as a sign or flag.

There have never been more than 10 charges for this offence in a single year before this year.

The consequences of being charged include spending up to six months in prison, a potential bar to countries such as the US and Australia, and a permanent criminal record, which will likely affect opportunities for employment or university.

Ministers have warned that the lines are blurred for those attending demonstrations, who may have numerous motivations, such as protesting the actions of Israeli forces or the terrorism proscription itself.

“The lines are too blurred between protesting for Palestinian lives, support for de-proscription and support for Palestine Action [itself],” Ms Chakrabarti told The Independent.

Home Office minister David Hanson, meanwhile, has argued that “it is for the police at a local level to interpret the legislation”, saying that the arrests were at their discretion.

“If people wish to protest in support of Palestine, they can do so. They can march, protest, criticise Israel and make their views known on Palestine, but Palestine Action has crossed that threshold,” he added.

But former police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe warned that the burden of this distinction should be put on the government, not the police – who are dealing with the “consequences” of the proscription.

“Surely we should all be supporting the police because, after all, this is a logical consequence of prohibiting the group and having a law to make sure that support for terrorism is illegal,” Lord Hogan-Howe told the House of Lords in a debate on Tuesday.

He added: “The government must have considered that this group had some mass support for its general intent, if not its methods. This is one of the consequences that the police will have to try to resolve, and we all need to support them until this matter is resolved politically.”

Ms Chakrabarti notes that the thousands of people attending protests in recent weeks will also struggle to express where they fall on the spectrum of support for Palestine Action when facing arrest, adding: “It’s unreasonable to expect the police or public to conduct legal seminars on the ground.”

She also warned that the lack of clarity around Palestine Action’s proscription is damaging trust in government, and urged greater transparency.

“If the government has evidence of Palestine Action plotting to take lives rather than damage property, they should publish it as soon as possible to avoid even greater damage to public trust,” said Ms Chakrabarti.

Home Office secretary Lord Hanson confirmed that there are currently “no plans” to review the legislation, although the government has de-proscribed terror groups in the past.

“Proscription decisions should be constantly reviewed, not least in relation to changing circumstances – including unprecedented numbers of arrests for vague support rather than membership,” Ms Chakrabarti told The Independent.

“Will the government please stop shooting the messengers in Parliament Square and start listening to their message, which is that Britain is doing nowhere near enough to stop the daily atrocities in Gaza?” urged Lord Strasburger this week.

Trump says patience with Putin is ‘running out fast’

Donald Trump has said that his patience with Vladimir Putin is “running out fast”, days after Russian drones breached Polish airspace in an act of provocation.

Speaking to Fox News, the US president said: “It’s sort of running out and running out fast.“

Trump has given Putin several deadlines to take steps to end the three-year conflict, but so far has not imposed sanctions or other penalties on Moscow. The President met with his Russian counterpart for peace talks in Alaska last month which failed to produce an agreement.

His comments come after Poland‘s prime minister Donald Tusk on Friday rejected Trump’s claim that Russian drones breaching Polish airspace might have been “a mistake”.

Polish air defences and Nato aircraft sprung into action on Wednesday after 19 objects intruded Polish airspace including drones entering from Belarus. There have been no injury reports and Moscow has so far denied responsibility for the incident.

I wish my mum had contacted Macmillan Cancer Support

I wasn’t at my mum’s side when she learned she had breast cancer, but that made me determined to be there the day she was getting the all-clear 18-months later. However, things didn’t go to plan that day.

Mum’s cancer journey started over a decade ago, a few months after a routine mammogram – when she developed “a pain”. She told herself it was probably nothing, because the scan she’d just had was fine. When she mentioned it to her GP – a small lump that didn’t feel quite right – she convinced herself that she was just being silly. The biopsy begged to differ.

In the list you keep in your head of the cancers you worry your mum might get, breast wasn’t that high on mine. Yes, it’s long been the number one cancer affecting women, with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that about 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year  – the risk factor only increasing with age. But my mum had other health concerns to contend with.

As a schoolgirl in swinging London, she’d been a back-of-the-bikeshed smoker, which had graduated into a lifelong habit. Lung cancer seemed like a possibility.

Mum’s also the biggest sun worshipper I know. Long before any of us had heard of SPF, she would think nothing of spending an afternoon in the garden, stretched out on a blanket, slathered in baby oil. So, given what we know now about UV radiation, I wondered about skin cancer too.

Mum went on to have a series of lumpectomies to get rid of three spots of malignant tissue. She would also have lymph nodes removed as a precaution, as well as undergo extensive chemotherapy.

For me, her diagnosis was as though a stopwatch had been started. How long might she have left? She did her best to be stoic. Which was just as well, given what government austerity measures at the time were doing to the NHS: budget cuts, hapless reorganisations, and an end to the “gold-standard” two-week referral from detection to the start of treatment.

All mum could do was wait for the brown envelopes to drop on the doormat detailing appointments at unfamiliar hospitals many miles away, sometimes after the appointment had been and gone.

If she felt let down by the bureaucracy of our health service, the same could not be said for the army of individuals involved in her care. On a human level, she found her nurses and doctors to be uniquely composed and compassionate throughout her treatment.

When the day finally came for her oncologist to tell her that all the signs of her cancer had gone, I was invited along to hold her hand. “The scans are back,” he began. “And I need to discuss your options for the next course of action.” It seemed the cancer hadn’t quite gone after all. She had fought so hard to get to this point, she was expecting good news, and was unprepared for the knockback.

But she did go on to beat cancer – and has been in remission for more than five years, which we couldn’t be more grateful for. However, should it ever come back, there’s one thing we’d do differently from the off: make a call to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Only with hindsight, did we realise how much help Macmillan would have been. Someone to provide her with a calming companion for the journey, someone to help with the cancer admin – the appointments, the prescriptions, the test results – and someone to explain what all the scans and tests were for, what the results might mean, and what to expect next.

I couldn’t always be around while mum was living with cancer, and that’s where Macmillan steps in. Now, enjoying a slice of cake at a Coffee Morning, which is raising money to fund the work they do, seems like the least I can do.

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.

Zero change. Zero growth. Zero hope of Rachel Reeves being rescued

Nothing has changed – and that is exactly Rachel Reeves’ problem.

This morning’s GDP figure suggested that the economy shrank imperceptibly in the month to July, by 0.044 per cent – which, to the nearest tenth of one per cent, is zero. And that was the official number published by the Office for National Statistics. This accident of rounding gives us a true picture, which is that of zero growth.

We cannot tell much from one month’s statistics, which bobble up and down before being revised, but the longer view tells us that the economy is bumping along, growing slowly, better than Germany and France and enough to keep us out of recession. But still slower than the average of the G7 countries, let alone Labour’s absurd target of the fastest growth in the G7.

The chancellor is running out of time before the autumn Budget. She set the date for as late as she could, on 26 November, in the hope that something would turn up. Instead, all she did was to allow a few more weeks of news stories speculating about tax rises, and “your money” features in the newspapers advising readers on how to take cash out of pension funds and avoid inheritance tax.

The timer starts running on Wednesday, 10 weeks before the Budget, when the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Treasury start exchanging forecasts and proposed tax and spending changes in order to arrive at an agreed position by the day itself.

Meanwhile, the traditional metaphor of Reeves as the superhero trapped in a spiked chamber with the walls closing in has never been more apt – although I have never understood why a baddie would choose that method to kill an opponent. At this point, we need a close-up of Reeves’ face, with the thought bubble, “How did I get here?” This allows a recap of the story so far.

She put taxes up in her first Budget, to plug just enough into the public services to avert collapse, and said she wouldn’t have to come back for more. This was quickly clarified to mean “more on the scale of the last Budget”. Then it became clear by stages that that was precisely what she was going to have to come back for. The public finances continued to deteriorate, requiring emergency savings from disability benefits, but these were thrown out by Labour MPs.

Meanwhile, the prime minister had taken fright at the cut in pensioners’ winter fuel payments and had U-turned on that. Then the bond markets had a minor panic and pushed up long-term interest rates. They calmed down again, but borrowing costs are still higher than the OBR expected them to be last year.

And now the run-in to the Budget is about to start and nothing has turned up to rescue the trapped superhero. Zero. Zero growth. Zero hope of rescue.

Reeves still faces the impossible dilemma that she has faced for months: to break her election promises not to raise the main taxes (income tax, national insurance, VAT and corporation tax), or to break her fiscal rules.

At this point, we need to pause the narrative again, leaving the walls getting ever closer, to explain to Labour Party members preparing to vote in the deputy leadership election that Reeves’ fiscal rules are not some arbitrary self-imposed constraint that can easily be cast aside. Anyone can quibble with the details, but the essence of the rules is the minimum needed to keep the public finances on an even keel. The financial markets need to know that the British government can sustain its debts, or they will not lend any more. The Liz Truss experience and the jitters in the bond markets a few weeks ago were two unmistakable warnings.

So that means Reeves is going to have to raise taxes substantially, and probably cut planned spending too. She may be able to avoid breaking manifesto pledges through a combination of lots of small measures and some sophistry – similar to the claim that employers’ national insurance contributions are not a tax on “working people”.

That is what I think she will do. A lot of commentators are advising her to go for a clean break and say that, unfortunately, the world economic outlook is so bad (because of Donald Trump’s tariffs) that the manifesto no longer applies and she will have to put up income tax or VAT. It is claimed that she would gain some respect from the voters for her honesty.

No chance. I know Labour is unpopular and her public opinion ratings have fallen into a deep hole, but that would guarantee that things stay that way. Muddling through with stealth taxes, new taxes and possibly defining anyone earning more than a certain amount “not a working person” will be almost as unpopular.

But it may be just enough to stop the walls from crushing Reeves the Indestructible, and allow her to live another day – maybe even until the Budget in 2026.

Nepal appoints its first ever female prime minister after protests

Nepal has appointed its first female prime minister, following a week of fiery protests that collapsed the previous government.

Former Supreme Court chief justice Sushila Karki took the oath of office to lead an interim government late on Friday.

The 73-year-old was known for her stand against corruption in the government while in office serving as the court’s only female chief justice in 2016 and 2017.

Some lawmakers tried to impeach her in April 2017, accusing her of bias, but the move was unsuccessful and was criticised at the time as an attack on the judiciary.

It comes after more than 50 people were killed in clashes with riot police this week, as Nepal was engulfed by unrest after the government abruptly banned 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (Twitter), in an attempt to silence criticism.

The ban only deepened frustration among young Nepalis already disillusioned by corruption, unemployment and a political elite seen as unaccountable.

The social media ban was lifted on Monday, but protesters then set fire to parliament and government buildings in the capital Kathmandu on Tuesday – forcing prime minister KP Sharma Oli to resign.

Many of the people that died in the riots were protesters killed by police fire and some were inmates trying to break out of a jail in the capital, Kathmandu. Three police officers also were among the dead, police said.

The military has enforced a curfew since late Tuesday, with residents given a few hours per day to leave their homes to buy food and supplies while soldiers guard the streets of Kathmandu.

This is not the first time the Himalayan nation banned social media, in 2023 it banned TikTok, accusing it of spreading indecent material and threatening “social harmony”. But the decision was reversed last year when the social media giant pledged compliance with local rules.

In recent weeks, TikTok videos showcasing the lavish lifestyles of political families’ children had fuelled resentment in the country. The government’s failure to pursue corruption cases and an unemployment rate of 20 per cent among youth deepened the anger.

The protests are some of the deadliest Nepal has seen in decades, with more fatalities than the 2006 uprising that forced the monarchy to cede power and led to the eventual abolition of the crown two years later.

Earlier this year, royalist rallies in Kathmandu left two people dead after clashes with police.

Following Mr Oli’s resignation, protesters have continued to call for the government itself to be dissolved, raising fears of further instability in a country that has seen 13 administrations since 2008.

However, Karki is being supported by young people to lead the interim government.

On Tuesday she visited the protest site in Kathmandu, where 19 people had died the day before. Karki also met with some of the injured who were being treated in hospital.

She was born into a family with close contacts with the Koirala political dynasty from the country’s largest democratic party Nepali Congress. She married Durga Subedi – a former youth leader of the Nepali Congress.