Starmer says Britain ‘will never surrender’ flag after London protest

Sir Keir Starmer says the country should never surrender its flag to become a symbol of “violence, fear and division” following a huge protest organised by Tommy Robinson, as the backlash grows over Elon Musk’s remarks at the rally.

In his first comments since more than 110,000 people joined the march in central London on Saturday, the prime minister also stated the government “will not stand” for assaults on police officers, after 26 were injured, four seriously.

The demonstration, organised under the banner “Unite the Kingdom”, saw Whitehall filled with union flags and St George’s flags as the tens of thousands of protesters listened to speakers, including Mr Musk, who appeared on screens through a video link.

But there was condemnation after clashes broke out between some protesters and police, as well as outcry over the Tesla and X owner, who called for the dissolution of parliament, while encouraging Britons to “fight back or die” over the “destruction of Britain” caused by “massive uncontrolled migration”.

In a statement shared on social media on Sunday, Sir Keir wrote: “People have a right to peaceful protest. It is core to our country’s values.

“But we will not stand for assaults on police officers doing their job or for people feeling intimidated on our streets because of their background or the colour of their skin.

“Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.”

Assistant Met commissioner Matt Twist said on Saturday that police faced a “wholly unacceptable” level of violence, while home secretary Shabana Mahmood vowed that anyone “taking part in criminal activity will face the full force of the law”.

Twenty-four people have so far been arrested for a range of offences, including affray, violent disorder, assault and criminal damage.

Asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme whether Mr Musk was trying to incite violence, business secretary Peter Kyle said: “I thought that they were slightly incomprehensible comments that were totally inappropriate.

“But what we saw yesterday was over 100,000 people who were expressing freedom of association, freedom of speech, and proving that both of those things are alive and well in this country.

“A small minority of people who are protesting committed acts of violence against our police for which they should and they will be held accountable.”

A Labour source told The Independent: “Threats of violence have no place in our politics, and every politician who believes in democracy should distance themselves from these disgusting comments.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Mr Musk “doesn’t care about the British people or our rights. He only cares about himself and his ego”.

Mr Kyle went on to call the protest a “klaxon call” for MPs to address immigration and other public concerns.

He stressed the government is determined to “start to bring communities back together again” in light of the fractious scenes, but he conceded so far it is “something that we have not solved”.

He said: “There are communities that are being driven further apart, and there are figures such as Tommy Robinson that is able to touch into a sense of disquiet and grievance in the community in our society.

“A lot of it goes back to its roots in the financial crisis and the impact that had on communities around the country, and we haven’t been able to bring our communities back together again since.

“I think these are moments that are klaxon calls to us in public life to redouble our efforts to address the big concerns that people right across our country have, and immigration is a big concern.”

Three of the 24 people arrested were women with the rest being men, while the youngest and oldest people detained at the protest were aged 19 and 58 respectively, the Met said on Sunday. A number of people were arrested for more than one offence. The force added officers were working to identify other people involved in the disorder with a view to making further arrests “in the coming days and weeks”.

Police said the Robinson crowd was too big to fit into Whitehall and confrontation happened when officers tried to stop them from encircling counterprotesters and accessing the area from different routes.

Projectiles were thrown by Robinson protesters towards the counterdemonstrators as thousands from both sides stared each other down on Whitehall.

A line of police horses faced the sea of union flags, and at one point a glass bottle appeared to smash against a horse, causing the horse and rider to stagger backwards.

Scuffles broke out as police used batons to try and push back thousands of Robinson supporters gathered on the top of Whitehall and Trafalgar Square in order to allow counterprotesters to leave safely.

Later, more than 100 helmeted officers, along with dozens of mounted police, pushed Robinson supporters, by this point largely dispersed, back further from Trafalgar Square and towards Embankment station.

As well as Mr Musk, the “Unite” protest featured a series of speeches from far-right personalities and politicians, including former actor Laurence Fox, former Apprentice candidate Katie Hopkins, along with musical performers.

New video shows Charlie Kirk murder suspect ‘stalking campus’ hours before shooting

Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, is facing his first court appearance Tuesday, but a motive for the shooting is still unclear.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said Sunday that Robinson had been radicalized in the “dark” corners of the internet, was left-leaning, and “not cooperating” with law enforcement, though friends and family are helping the investigation.

The governor confirmed reports that Robinson has a transgender partner who is being “very cooperative” with police and “had no idea this was happening.” Authorities have not said whether that was relevant as they investigate the motive.

Trump administration officials and friends of Kirk mourned the activist at a Sunday vigil at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard compared Kirk’s killing to the 9/11 terror attacks, while Kari Lake blamed what she called “brainwashing” during his brief stint in college.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has voiced his support for under-fire FBI Director Kash Patel, who has faced criticism over his handling of the manhunt.

He will answer questions from members of Congress about the investigation this week.

Why Keir Starmer cannot survive as prime minister without this man

The name Morgan McSweeney may not be on the lips of people down in the pub or at the school gate, but it is one that those in the Westminster bubble are obsessed with.

Labour MPs are particularly aware of the Downing Street chief of staff’s power and importance, as something they consider to be either a toxic poison at the heart of government or a means to future preferment and promotion.

So reports that Keir Starmer was “screaming” at his chief of staff, telling him “You were supposed to protect me” over the Peter Mandelson debacle, is a sign that this government is in incredibly serious trouble.

There is even a widespread belief in Westminster’s corridors that this is not Starmer’s government at all, but rather McSweeney’s. The prime minister is in many ways the front man for a project that is actually being directed by an unelected official in Downing Street.

So when people question Starmer’s judgement on appointments, particularly the head scratching catastrophe of sending Mandelson to Washington DC as the UK’s ambassador, they are in reality questioning the PM’s judgement in doing what McSweeney advises.

Recent tales from the big ministerial reshuffle seem to underline this point.

The three people removed from the cabinet were all people McSweeney wanted out, according to sources.

Angela Rayner may have self-destructed over her tax affairs, but there had been a long concerted campaign by the Blairite wing of the party, of which McSweeney is the prime member, to remove her. Who was it who authorised the revealing and damaging readout about Rayner’s comments on immigration in a cabinet meeting just before the summer? That would only have happened with McSweeney’s blessing.

Lucy Powell – now apparently on a vengeance mission running for deputy leader against the Starmer/McSweeney candidate Bridget Phillipson – was removed as Commons leader because “she kept standing up to McSweeney and telling him he was wrong”, according to an ally of hers.

Ian Murray was replaced by Douglas Alexander as Scottish secretary “because of McSweeney’s obsession with Blair-era figures”. Alexander, a very capable individual, was a minister and campaign chief in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments.

“McSweeney was desperate to get him in the cabinet, and Ian was expendable,” a source told The Independent.

One of the footnotes of the reshuffle also saw McSweeney’s wife, Imogen Walker, inserted into the whips’ office. She was elected as MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley in 2024 after he oversaw selections and parachuted hundreds of preferred candidates into winnable seats.

The 48-year-old’s apparent enthusiasm for figures from the Blair years is what drove him to not only push for Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US but also try to prevent his sacking.

To understand the current project, you need to go back to the Corbyn years, when McSweeney was at the forefront in trying to save the party from disappearing forever down a far-left black hole.

As director of Labour Together, he effectively organised the fightback and handpicked Starmer as the man to take over after Corbyn and turn the ship around.

The success in the election last year, which McSweeney ran, was the vindication of that project, but unfortunately, they came into office without much of a policy plan.

And it all started with McSweeney removing an obstacle to his authority – Sue Gray, who had been brought in as the original chief of staff before he replaced her almost a year ago.

As the welfare crisis mounted before the summer, with scores of Labour MPs threatening to vote the government’s policy down, the calls to remove McSweeney grew very loud indeed. And they have not really quietened down. In fact, last week’s chaos with Mandelson made matters worse.

But here lies the problem. If this government is more a McSweeney government than a Starmer one, the prime minister may have the authority to sack his chief of staff, but where does it leave him?

Without McSweeney, Starmer is hugely weakened and the suggestions of a leadership coup by May next year become very realistic.

McSweeney’s problem is that he cannot orchestrate Starmer to be replaced either. A new leader will almost certainly be more left-leaning and will want to take the party in a new direction. That means he will be out too.

That gives the rather disturbing image of two men locked in a room together shouting at one another over the rapid demise of a government that has barely been in power for a year, but trapped with one another with no way out.

Madeleine McCann suspect refuses Met police interview

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has refused to be interviewed by the Metropolitan Police ahead of his upcoming release from prison, the force has said.

German national Christian Brueckner is due to be released from prison on Wednesday after serving a seven-year term for raping an elderly woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005.

Brueckner has not been charged and denies any involvement in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine from the same holiday resort in 2007.

However, Brueckner remains a suspect in the Met’s investigation – with Portuguese and German authorities also probing the disappearance.

But after the force sent an international letter of request to Brueckner for him to speak with investigators, he rejected it, it emerged on Monday.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell, a senior investigating officer for the Met’s investigation, said the force will “continue to pursue any viable lines of inquiry” in the absence of an interview with Brueckner.

He said: “For a number of years, we have worked closely with our policing colleagues in Germany and Portugal to investigate the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and support Madeleine’s family to understand what happened on the evening of 3 May 2007 in Praia da Luz.

“We are aware of the pending release from prison of a 49-year-old German man who has been the primary suspect in the German federal investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.

“We can confirm that this individual remains a suspect in the Metropolitan Police’s own investigation.

“We have requested an interview with this German suspect, but, for legal reasons, this can only be done via an international letter of request, which has been submitted.

“It was subsequently refused by the suspect. In the absence of an interview, we will nevertheless continue to pursue any viable lines of inquiry.

“We can provide no further information while the investigation is ongoing.”

A number of searches have been carried out by German, Portuguese and British authorities since Madeleine’s disappearance – with the latest taking place near the Portuguese municipality of Lagos in June.

In 2023, investigators carried out searches near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz.

Brueckner spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017 and had photographs and videos of himself near the reservoir.

In October last year, the suspect was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences, alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

The total funding given to the Met’s investigation, titled Operation Grange, has been more than £13.2m since 2011, after a further £108,000 was secured from the government in April.

‘Unacceptable’ waiting list of up to eight years for NHS gender care

Patients needing NHS gender care face a 42,000-long waiting list, with some waits as long as eight years, health secretary Wes Streeting has revealed.

Mr Streeting has vowed to address the “unacceptable” waits for tens of thousands of people needing access to NHS adult gender dysphoria services, The Independent can reveal.

At a speech for the NHS England LGBT+ Health Annual Conference in London on Monday, the health secretary will say: “Evidence shows trans people have higher rates of mental health conditions, including depression, when compared to the general population. Longer wait times only steepen this pain.

“Over 42,000 people are still waiting, often for years, for their first appointment at adult gender dysphoria clinics. That’s 42,000 people who are hurting, anxious, and exhausted.

“This breaks my heart…42,000 or more individuals should not be feeling invisible, misunderstood or unsupported.”

A new pilot scheme in the southwest will be given £125,000 to help patients on the waiting list by providing more information to patients before appointments and mental health support.

In this area of England, there are around 5,000 patients waiting up to eight years, according to the Department for Health and Social Care.

In London, patients referred to services run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust face a waiting list of more than 16,000, and first appointments are only just being offered to those referred in March 2020, according to the trust website. The organisation states it receives around 300 referrals a month.

Patients in the north of England are waiting almost seven years, according to the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

If the southwest pilot is a success, the DHSC said it will roll out it nationally, the DHSC said.

Speaking at the conference, Mr Streeting will also say: “When I was growing up, I knew how it felt to keep part of myself hidden, scared of the judgment of others. To be bullied just for being me.

“I was lucky. I had a network of friends, family and organisations who loved and supported me for who I was.

“Having the confidence to be ourselves is as important as the confidence to express concerns about our own physical and mental health.

“And when who we are is so intimately linked to how we feel, safe spaces and understanding ears are what we need most.

“So, it is personally upsetting to me, and I am sure to anyone reading this, that LGBT+ people still face worse health outcomes than other population groups.”

He said people on waiting lists for gender services will also be able to access online cognitive behavioural therapy through the NHS’s Silvercloud service.

A national review of adult gender dysphoria clinics, led by Dr David Levy, is being carried out following concerns raised by Dr Hilary Cass. The former led the Cass Review, which concluded that “children have been let down by a lack of research and evidence on medical interventions in gender care”.

The new review is looking into how the services operate, areas of concern, and action being taken to improve services.

In a statement ahead of the pilot announcement, Mr Streeting said: “It is fundamentally wrong that so many LGBT+ people still face challenges when accessing healthcare – including barriers such as discrimination, misunderstanding, and miseducation.

“This pilot marks a major step – acknowledging the unacceptable waits endured by thousands of transgender patients and starting to tackle it head on.”

Following a Supreme Court ruling which said the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”, controversy over the mixing of genders on NHS wards broke out.

Responding at the time, Mr Streeting said the NHS should provide single sex wards to patients, based on biology, and also suggested the health services could treat trans patients in private rooms.

Professor James Palmer, NHS England national medical director for specialised services, said in relation to the pilots: “We know there are unacceptably long waits for many of these services.

“This is why we have commissioned an independently led review into the operation and delivery of the adult gender dysphoria clinics, alongside work we have already undertaken to introduce new care models that are making significant progress in helping to bring down these very long waits.”

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.

True cost of housing crisis revealed and why Gen-Z may never own homes

Gen-Z are being “locked out” of home ownership, campaigners have warned, as first-time buyers now face paying up to six times more for a home than their parents.

An analysis of rental, property and salary data by The Independent reveals that the average homebuyer in 1995 had to save just a third of their salary – £5,000 – to put down a deposit, while today’s first-time buyers are forking out average deposits nearly twice as high as the average salary.

Land registry data in England shows that the average house price now costs £286,594 – nearly six times higher (£50,679) than three decades ago.

But the average salary has barely more than doubled in that time, from £15,034 to £37,430, while the upfront cash needed for a deposit is more than 10 times greater on average.

Rents are also soaring, with average monthly rates going from £1,025 to £1,343 in the past five years alone – a 31 per cent jump, according to the UK-wide private renters index.

“If the government does not slam the brakes on soaring rents, many may never be able to buy their own home,” Ben Twomey, chief executive of the campaign group Generation Rent warned.

“Generation Z is Generation Rent. They are locked out of home ownership because they face higher rent costs than any other generation before them. Trying to save for a deposit to buy a home while rents soar is like pushing a boulder up a hill that keeps getting steeper and steeper.”

Young people who have managed to save for deposits say they feel they have had to “sacrifice” a lot to do it.

“It’s giving up your entire social life,” said Paris, a 26-year-old living in London, who started saving to buy her own place after a break-in and safety concerns while renting.

“My mum asks me, ‘What do you do, you just stay in all the time?’ And I say, ‘Well yeah, because we can’t afford it.’”

Even mortgage advisers admit that the challenges facing younger buyers are worse than in previous decades.

Ben Thompson, deputy CEO of the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB), bought his first home at age 22 with a near-100 per cent loan. But he knows that his situation would be more difficult now.

He told The Independent: “I hate the arguments where people just say, ‘Oh, in our day, we had to save, and they’ve got it much easier these days.’ I don’t buy into that. I think it’s tougher to buy today than it was before.”

And being frugal alone will not be enough. Real estate and housing economist Chris Foye, who lectures at University College London (UCL), said that advice for Gen-Z to simply save or invest more wisely misses the full picture.

“I mean, there’s only so much you can do with a little, right? There’s only so much we can tell young people about investing wisely when they don’t have very much to invest in the first place,” he said.

“People are paying so much for rent, and their incomes aren’t as high as previous generations enjoyed. I don’t think [saving more] is going to shift the dial.”

The average annual income in 2025 is £37,430, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows. After tax and national insurance, the average earner is left with £30,469 a year.

Over half of this (£16,116) can easily be spent on rent, with average monthly rates at £1,343, according to the price index of private rents (PIPR).

But the average house deposit is now £61,000, according to Halifax, with starter homes being sold for around £311,000.

This means that homes are now being sold for around eight times the average salary, with deposits nearly double a year’s wage – and 12 times higher than they were in 1995.

A person on an average salary, paying average rent, is left with around £1,150 a month for all other costs, including bills, lifestyle, food, travel and savings.

If saving £500 of that a month, it would take over a decade to build up the average deposit, before even beginning to pay a hefty mortgage.

All this means there is now a growing divide between people with access to generational wealth – otherwise known as the “bank of mum and dad” – and those without.

Data from estate agents Savills shows that over half of first-time buyers had some form of support from their family last year, to the tune of £9.6bn in gifts and loans.

But the economic disparity among homeowners and renters risks creating greater financial divides.

Over a 30-year period, The Independent’s calculations, from ONS data, show that renters could spend £483,000 on average, if private rental prices remain the same, without the financial security of owning their own home to show for it.

“It’s not just younger generations, it’s middle-aged, older generations as well, who also haven’t accumulated housing wealth or other forms of wealth,” Mr Foye told The Independent.

“They have to, therefore, make sacrifices, right? They have to live in smaller spaces, change their life decisions. They might have to live further away from work. And these are all very unfair and uncomfortable ways in which people deal with these affordability constraints.”

Many young Britons are therefore likely to be “trapped renting” for decades, Mr Twomey warned.

“Gen-Z have spent their entire adult lives facing housing costs that are rising much quicker than their earnings,” he said.

And home ownership rates remain low among young people (aged 34 and under), at just 39 per cent, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This is substantially lower than the peak of 59 per cent in 2000, but has been steadily increasing in the past decade.

Nonetheless, some in Gen Z are determined to get on the housing ladder regardless, and are willing to make those sacrifices for the long-term gain.

Earlier this year, Paris put down a £14,000 deposit on a small flat in southeast London.

She had saved for several years, after a series of negative experiences while renting, which pushed her towards home ownership.

Before buying her home, Paris was paying £950 a month on renting a room – and when trying to find a new rental, she was shocked at the soaring prices.

“At that moment, I tapped out. If a room share is £1,400, I’d rather put that money in my own home,” she said.

Others are turning to high-risk investments to raise the cash. Luke, 24, has put the majority of his savings into cryptocurrency.

“Truthfully, I think the only solution to [large deposits] is some high-risk, high-return way like crypto. The British population almost don’t have a choice.

“Of course, it’s affected my social life a lot. It’s been frustrating. But I try not to focus on the short term. The UK is a very land-ownership-based economy. And as soon as you own property, life just gets dramatically easier,” he told The Independent.

With a growing population and stagnant real estate market, the Labour government is focusing on boosting housebuilding and protecting renters by banning “no-fault” evictions and making all tenancies periodic.

Mortgage adviser Thompson believes that boosting home ownership would also be beneficial for chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic growth ambitions.

“More home ownership and home buying tends to drive a lot more economic activity and growth, which is definitely where the government’s coming from, quite rightly at the moment,” he explained.

“You’ve got a supportive regulatory environment as well. So if you combine all those factors, there is a cause for optimism.”

The government has also allocated £39bn for affordable housing over a decade – something Paris believes is key to tackling the problem.

“The only solution to getting out of the housing crisis is to build more council housing,” she said.

“Home ownership in this country is a commodity; it’s an investment and a vehicle to your pension, and it should not be like that.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “The acute and entrenched housing crisis this government inherited has seen a generation locked out of homeownership and paying a record rent bill.”

“That is why our Plan for Change set out steps to get Britain building and deliver 1.5 million homes, while tackling excessive rent demands.”

“We have already announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, and our Renters’ Rights Bill will transform the private rental sector for tenants.”

Met Office issue weather warning as strong winds of up to 70mph hit

Most of England and Wales is facing a wet and windy start to the week with gusts of up to 70mph possible under a weather warning.

Strong winds developed in coastal parts of South West England and Wales on Sunday and will spread widely inland by Monday morning.

A yellow weather warning came into force at 8pm on Sunday and will run until 6pm on Monday, covering most of England and Wales except the north of the Lake District and the far North East.

The Met Office said it is currently “not expecting to name the storm”. The forecaster usually decides to name the storm if it is set to have a medium or high impact, but Monday’s weather warning is set to have a low impact. The first named storm of the season is expected to be Storm Amy.

Those under the warning zone are likely to feel 45 to 55mph west or south-westerly gusts, and exposed locations could see these reach 70mph, the Met Office said.

Some communities near coastal routes and sea fronts may be affected by large waves.

Forecasters said those affected should prepare to protect their property and people from injury. They recommend checking for loose items outside the home and planning how to secure items such as bins, garden furniture, trampolines, tents, sheds and fences.

They also advise checking road conditions and bus and train timetables, and amending travel plans if necessary to have the best chance of avoiding delays.

Despite the unpredictable conditions, forecasters said they are not expecting a named storm to hit the country.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said there could be “low impacts in general” but added: “Nonetheless, there could be some brief kind of power interruptions and some travel disruption for the return to work on Monday morning.

“So it will be quite a windy start to the week. Gales certainly possible for many parts of England and Wales, perhaps even severe gales on Irish Sea coasts.

“The strongest winds are expected to be for west Wales and North West England on Monday morning.”

He added that Monday will be “a windy and pretty unsettled start to the week with a mixture of sunny spells and heavy blustery showers”, mainly in England and Wales, but there will be “some fairly brisk winds at times further north as well”.

The coming week will bring “changeable” conditions with periods of wind and rain throughout.

Mr Morgan said: “The ground has started to become fairly wet over recent weeks and it will not take a huge amount more for there to be some surface water, potentially some flooding issues as we go towards the middle part of the week.”

In preparation for the rough weather, people have been encouraged to secure loose items outside their properties and gardens from the forceful blasts.

They should also check for delays and road closures and be careful along coastal regions, the Met Office said.