Reeves’ tenants could receive major payout after rent rule breach

Rachel Reeves’ tenants could be in line for tens of thousands of pounds rent refund after the chancellor failed to secure the correct licence to rent out her family home.

Ms Reeves apologised and applied for the correct paperwork after it emerged on Wednesday that she had broken local council housing rules when she rented out the property in Dulwich, south London, after moving into 11 Downing Street.

Under Southwark Council rules, the chancellor should have applied for a “selective” licence when she put her house up for rent. She has said her failure to do so was an “inadvertent mistake”.

According to the council, tenants of an “unlicensed property” may be able to apply for a rent repayment order and get money back from the landlord if the property has been lived in in the last 12 months.

According to information on the council website, the order allows tenants “to recover up to 12 months of your rent back from your landlord”.

The property was listed for £3,200 a month, according to the Daily Mail which first reported the story, meaning her tenants could seek around £40,000 if the requirements are met.

Southwark Council also details that people can be “prosecuted or fined if you’re a landlord or managing agent for a property that needs a licence and do not get one”.

The Independent has contacted Ms Reeves and Southwark Council for comment.

Days before the revelations over the licence, Ms Reeves publicly backed plans for a licensing scheme for rental properties in Leeds, saying it would improve conditions for renters.

Conservative chair Kevin Hollinrake reshared a tweet from the chancellor from earlier this month in which she supported the changes in the Armley part of the city.

“While many private landlords operate in the right way, we know that lots of private tenants in Armley face problems with poorly maintained housing,” she posted.

The chancellor is understood to accept she should have obtained the licence, but relied on the advice of a letting agent and was not told it was necessary.

It comes after No 10 repeatedly refused to say whether the chancellor broke the ministerial code when she failed to get the licence.

Sir Keir Starmer is seeking to draw a line under the row after consulting his ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus, who decided against launching a probe. A number of high-profile government figures, including former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, have had to step down as a result of scandals.

A Downing Street spokesperson repeatedly declined to say whether the standards rules had been breached, or if the prime minister or Sir Laurie had seen evidence of Ms Reeves’ version of events.

Faced with questions over the rule-break, the No 10 spokesperson repeatedly pointed to the ministerial code, which points out that an apology is “sufficient resolution” in some cases.

In a letter to the prime minister published on Wednesday evening, Ms Reeves said: “I sincerely apologise for this error and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.”

She told him it “was an inadvertent mistake. As soon as it was brought to my attention, we took immediate action and have applied for the licence.”

​​In his reply, Sir Keir said he had consulted his independent adviser, adding: “He has advised me that in relation to your inadvertent failure to secure the appropriate licence for your rental property – and in light of your prompt action to rectify the position, including your apology – further investigation is not necessary.”

“An apology is a sufficient resolution” in such cases, he added.

A spokesperson for Ms Reeves said: “Since becoming chancellor, Rachel Reeves has rented out her family home through a lettings agency.

“She had not been made aware of the licensing requirement, but as soon as it was brought to her attention, she took immediate action and has applied for the licence.

“This was an inadvertent mistake and in the spirit of transparency, she has made the prime minister, the independent adviser on ministerial standards and the parliamentary commissioner for standards aware.”

The revelations come just weeks before the chancellor’s long-awaited Budget, where she faces the prospect of tax rises to balance the books.

When it was put to No 10 on Thursday that the process was resolved quickly to avoid upsetting the markets, the spokesperson said: “I don’t accept the framing of that at all.”

Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, said that the chancellor needs to “be on top of her paperwork” over the matter.

The Tory leader said: “She is the chancellor. She needs to be on top of her paperwork. She was aware of this legislation. I think there should be an investigation.

“But the bottom line is that Keir Starmer said again and again, ‘the law breakers shouldn’t be lawmakers’, so if she’s broken the law, then he should apply his own rules to her.”

Man, 70, dies and multiple people injured in Doncaster helicopter crash

A 70-year-old man has died after a helicopter crashed into a field in Bentley, Doncaster, on Thursday morning.

Police attended the scene of the crash near Doncaster just after 10am. The helicopter, a Robinson R44 Raven II, is believed to have crashed shortly after taking off.

South Yorkshire Police said the man suffered serious injuries in the crash and was pronounced dead at the scene. His family is aware and is being supported by the police.

The pilot, a 41-year-old man, and a 58-year-old woman and 10-year-old boy, received minor injuries, police said.

Detective Chief Inspector Gary Magnay, silver commander, said: “Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the man who sadly died in this tragic incident.”

Emergency services were called to Ings Lane, Bentley, at 10.15am and were in attendance with police and an air accident investigation team.

The helicopter was a private flight that took off from Gamston Airport near Retford shortly before it crashed into the ground.

An eyewitness, who lives near the site of the crash, told Yorkshire Live: “It’s just missed our house! We live on the very end house of the street next to the train tracks.

“I spoke to a few of my neighbours. I don’t think anyone actually saw it come down but at first we all thought it was a train crash because we saw all of the emergency services firing past.”

Mr Magnay said: “We and our emergency services colleagues remain at the scene and we have launched a full joint investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident in parallel with the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

“As part of our investigation, we’d ask for anyone with information to get in touch. If you were in the area at the time and saw the events unfold, please contact us. We are particularly keen to hear from those with footage of the helicopter leading up to the crash.”

A cordon has been set up around the crash site, and police are urging people to stay away from the area and use other routes where possible.

An AAIB spokesperson said: “The AAIB has been made aware of an accident near Doncaster and has deployed a team to commence an investigation.”

The helicopter is seen to be on its side, with debris left scattered around the field. It is reportedly a Robinson R44 Raven II, a four-seat light aircraft. Retford Gamston Airport said the helicopter was based at the airport by an onsite tenant.

A South Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “Ings Lane is closed while we respond to this incident.

“Please avoid the area and plan an alternative route where possible. Further updates will be provided when they are available.”

The three-wheeled car plan that may be Reform’s most idiotic idea yet

Lee Anderson is a Reform UK MP and loudmouth who has made a reputation for himself by saying daft and offensive things. Only yesterday, he was trumpeting the fact that he’d spent a previous job at the Citizens Advice Bureau “gaming the benefits system” – just the sort of upright character you’d hope to represent the country.

But his latest – proposing that people with disabilities be leased special little “invalid carriages” as they once were in distant, less enlightened times – is a doozy. Did he really say that? Yes. Here’s the quote about the much-maligned Motability Scheme: “It’s an absolute scandal. I remember, back in the day, if you were on disability and you wanted a car from the state, it was a blue three-wheeler. Anybody remember those? What’s wrong with that? Let’s go back to that.”

For the record, Lee, here is why “bringing back” the NHS invalid carriage is a stupid idea. First, the original “Invacar”, short for “invalid carriage”, was primarily designed for ex-servicemen and women who’d been injured in the Second World War. They had one seat, were tiny, and were not suitable for the wider range of disabilities that we see today.

They were unsafe in a crash, and couldn’t be used for a long journey. They were limiting and stigmatising. They had three wheels, for tax reasons, and weren’t that stable in their handling. They were very small and couldn’t even be put on the road today as cars because they’d need to be larger, more substantial and more sophisticated to contain all the crumple zones, side bars and driver aids to prevent accidents (and risk of further disability).

And, presumably, as we also demand these days, four seats, a boot and motorised wheelchair access. They would thus be expensive to make in such small volumes for the UK market alone; no manufacturer would spend the money on tooling up for them, and they wouldn’t be suitable for everyone with a disability in any case.

The only vehicle that comes close to the old Invacar today is the Citroen Ami. This is a two-seater plastic tub with an electric motor, a top speed of 30mph and a range of about 40 miles on a single charge. It doesn’t cost much to run or buy, but it is so limited in its abilities that it’s not allowed to be marketed as a “car” but as a “quadricycle”, and it is, of course, impossible to adapt for people with every disability, including wheelchair users.

I can’t see it making sense for the government to buy lots of those and lease them to people for whom they are useless. Far better to have a properly assessed allowance that can be used flexibly for bus fares, taxis, to help run your own car or put towards renting one from the Motability lease scheme (which can use its financial muscle to get deals).

It should be no great surprise that Lee Anderson should come up with such a bad plan. His nickname, “30p Lee”, derives from his assertion that a healthy meal could be prepared for a tiny cost. He meant that the cost of living crisis was a myth. Which it wasn’t, and isn’t.

He was also suspended from the Conservatives by Rishi Sunak for claiming that Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, was controlled by “Islamists”, a phrase which is commonly taken to mean terrorists, an even more absurd idea. Anderson refused to apologise, and out he went, ending up in Nigel Farage’s gang. Now this paragon of compassion, the Mother Theresa of Ashfield, seems to have been made Reform UK’s spokesperson on social security (presumably Sarah Pochin got community relations).

Anyway, he’s unhappy that people with extreme disabilities can use their relatively modest mobility allowance to put towards the cost of leasing a smart modern vehicle – cars, yes, but also scooters, power chairs and wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs). Customers are not, contrary to the myths, ever “given” their vehicle; they only rent it, and the leasing deal may well mean some heavy additional payments of their own. You cannot, in any case, get a BMW or Mercedes limousine, a Bentley Continental or a Maserati GranTurismo on the Motability scheme. You can get one of the smaller BMW or Mercedes cars, but they’re not the expensive ones. They just have a “premium” badge. Peugeots, Toyotas and Vauxhalls are also popular.

Like Lee, I remember the Invacar, a common enough sight in the 1970s, well. It always seemed to me a strange three-wheeled contraption (and not to be confused with the much more capable Reliant models). It stopped production in 1976 when the then Labour government decided it was completely out of date, and a flexible allowance was a better idea. The Invacar is effectively banned now, but if you catch one at a classic car show or in a transport museum, you’ll always see it painted in the standard turquoise blue, ironically reminiscent of the official Reform UK colours.

I doubt Lee would be seen dead in one, though: up there at the helm of his BMW X5 SUV, subsidised by the taxpayer-funded parliamentary mileage allowance of 45p per mile, motoring is just fine for him. He’s looking down on the people with disabilities in every sense..

Why top tennis players are demanding more prize money from grand slams

The top-ranked American men’s tennis players, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton, have joined Jannik Sinner in calling for more prize money from the four grand slam tournaments and criticising the lack of progress in discussions on player welfare.

Leading players from the men’s and women’s top 10 sent proposals to the grand slams in August, outlining a series of reforms following meetings at Roland Garros and Wimbledon over the summer. The players were not satisfied with the response to the letter, and a request for further meetings at the US Open was refused, with the matter of an ongoing legal case, filed separately by the Professional Tennis Players Association, cited as why talks could not be held.

The players are demanding a greater share of the revenues generated by the four grand slam tournaments at the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open, arguing that the ratio of between 13 and 15 per cent is too low and should be closer to the 22 per cent received at events on the ATP and WTA Tour with equal prize money, such as Indian Wells and the Italian Open. Players are also asking the grand slams to start contributing to a player welfare fund, supporting pensions, healthcare and maternity leave, and for more consultation with tournaments around matters such as scheduling.

The proposals were initially raised in a first letter in March and Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff were among the players to meet with the grand slams at Roland Garros. However, the delay in talks since August has led to players voicing their frustration in public. Sinner told The Guardian on Tuesday that the lack of response from the grand slams was “disappointing”, with men’s No 4 Fritz and No 6 Shelton outlining to The Independent their support for the proposals and the “united” front the players have now turned to. More top stars are expected to speak out before the end of the season.

“I signed both letters because this is the first time ATP and WTA players have come together like this, and we need to stay united on issues that affect every professional player,” Shelton said. “We sent clear proposals to the grand slams in the summer, but they have not responded positively. I’m not sure why, because I think the proposals we submitted were very fair and realistic.

“When you look at prize money as a percentage of revenue, tennis players are at the bottom compared to other major sports. The NBA, NFL, and other leagues share around 50 per cent of revenue with players, while at the grand slams we’re talking about averages in the low teens. The biggest combined ATP and WTA events are over 20 per cent.

“I hope people realise that this isn’t about more money for those of us in the top 10. It’s about players having a voice, the slams contributing to pensions and healthcare, and increasing the prize money so all players get a fair share of the success of the tournaments.”

This season’s US Open offered the largest purse in grand slam history, with prize money rising by 21 per cent to £63.8m. Carlos Alcaraz and Sabalenka won around £3.8m each for lifting the men’s and women’s singles titles. Wimbledon’s total prize money increased by seven per cent, to £53.5m, with a record £3m for the singles champions, while the £66,000 for first-round losers saw a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. Wimbledon’s total prize money has doubled over the last decade, amid wider investment in improving facilities and services for players.

The players argue, however, that they should still receive a greater share. In 2024, Wimbledon’s prize fund of £50m was 12.3 per cent of the tournament’s total revenue of £406.5m, although the Championships also invests significant sums into supporting the wider grass-court season in the UK. The top stars also they want overall prize money to increase at all grand slam events in order to support lower-ranked players, who often rely on early round prize money at the biggest tournaments to cover their travel and expenses on tour throughout the season.

Additionally, there is a desire for the grand slams to start making annual contributions to player welfare funds. The ATP and WTA contribute $80m (£60m) annually to benefits covering pensions, maternity pay and health care, but the grand slams do not. Players also want more consultation on decisions affecting them, such as in-tournament scheduling and rule changes. The expansion of the Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open to 15-day events is among the issues highlighted.

It comes amid ongoing concerns with the tennis calendar, which the grand slams are attempting to address as they push for a streamlined circuit of premium events in their own conversations with the ATP and WTA. Reducing player burnout due to the growing length and number of tournaments, a major talking point in recent weeks, and introducing a longer off-season to aid recovery are seen as priorities in those discussions. The players believe both conversations, regarding a greater share of grand slam revenues and future reforms of the tennis calendar, can progress simultaneously.

“Firstly, this isn’t just about prize money,” Fritz told The Independent. “It’s about players being consulted on the decisions which affect them and also how player welfare benefits – like pensions and healthcare – are funded.

“On the issue of prize money, I get it. Those of us who signed the letters are very well paid. But it’s not about top 10 players. I know as well as anyone how difficult it can be for those players because no one turns pro and goes straight into the top 10.

“Like a lot of sports, tennis – and the slams in particular – has seen huge revenue growth since we came out of lockdown. All we are asking is that prize money as a share of revenue at the slams is in line with what it is at the biggest ATP and WTA events.

“The issues around scheduling are well documented and just as important, but separate. I just hope we can get some progress with the slams because our proposals are very fair and doable.”

All four grand slam tournaments were contacted for comment and a spokesperson for the All England Club, which operates Wimbledon, said: “Our position continues to be that we are always open to having constructive discussions to achieve the best possible outcome for the future success of our sport and for the benefit of our players and fans. We have been in regular dialogue with the players and their representatives to hear their feedback and these conversations will continue.”

The Professional Tennis Players Association, an organisation set up by Novak Djokovic in 2021, filed a lawsuit against the tours in March, citing “anti-competitive practices” and a “blatant disregard for player welfare”. Djokovic, though, was not listed as one of the current players in the lawsuit, and the 24-time grand slam champion was also missing from the co-signatures of the letter sent to the grand slams in August.

Thanks to La Voix and Alan Carr, the chaotic gay funnyman is back on the BBC

The great joy of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, which has long had a proclivity for the well behaved and proper, has been La Voix, a bedazzled drag queen always locked and loaded with a self-aggrandising quip and a withering aside. She has injected the show with a rare feeling of comic danger – telling Tess Daly her dress looks like a bathmat; remarking upon the authenticity of Craig Revel Horwood’s hair; eagerly asking the outgoing Claudia Winkleman how and where she should submit her CV to the BBC. It Takes Two, Strictly’s televisually comatose nightly spin-off show, has only ever come alive when La Voix is a guest. Note a recent moment in which a sent-in video from a well-wishing friend, a standard trope of these reality TV sister programmes, led to La Voix expressing mock admiration for their glittering ensemble: “See, when you’re not working or as busy as I am, you’ve got time to make costumes like that.”

La Voix, the alter ego of performer Christopher Dennis, is currently matched in this strain of anarchic camp by Alan Carr over on the BBC’s other runaway smash, The Celebrity Traitors. He, too, is a gay funnyman delighting in the fruits of his own mercilessness – in keeping with the show’s trademark goth-horror showboating, Carr has become more and more winkingly evil over the course of its run, relishing his role as the most profusely sweating yet bafflingly under-the-radar traitor of all.

La Voix and Carr both exemplify a kind of comedy that once ruled over the primetime schedules of BBC One and ITV – across game shows and chat shows, both earnest and satirical – but which found itself phased out in favour of the anodyne stylings of Stephen Mulhern or Marvin and Rochelle Humes. This humour is fast, catty, a little bawdy, and always falling on the right side of mean: think Julian Clary, Mrs Merton, Dame Edna Everage or Lily Savage, where the most outrageous observations were fired out with a cheesy grin or protestation of total innocence. They dance along a fine line – puncture your targets enough and your audience gasps in shared recognition (“So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”); punch too far down and you’re Anne Robinson.

Nineties figures like these, reared in working men’s clubs and grotty comedy bars, benefited from a television industry – inspired by the provocative button-pushing of the still-nascent Channel 4 – eager for irreverence and shock in their on-camera personalities. Savage, the beehive-sporting ex-sex worker glamazon portrayed by the late Paul O’Grady, was recruited to present BBC One’s Blankety Blank solely because she wasn’t the droll, deadpan Terry Wogan or Les Dawson, whose comic rhythms had defined the quiz show’s earlier incarnations. Senior BBC executives allowed O’Grady to go off-script, vamp until the cameras stopped rolling, and express all kinds of gallows humour to unsuspecting (but eager to be slandered) ordinary people.

As a nation, we loved this sort of thing. Each one of these “characters”, whether real or unreal, became a defining figure of British TV 25 years ago – Clary, even after he caught serious flak for an infamous gag involving an outré sex act and a Tory MP, seemed to be everywhere back then, a comic with a gentle countenance but the tongue of a cobra. Why and how he, and figures like him, seemed to disappear from view is up for debate. It’s true that this kind of spiky humour can sometimes become rote for those performing it. O’Grady largely retired Lily Savage at the turn of the millennium, softening himself (but only somewhat) to become the host of long-running evening chat shows; Caroline Aherne, the late genius behind Mrs Merton, would sharpen her observational, dark-hued wit in scripted television, most famously in the howlingly funny and queasily real The Royle Family.

But it’s also true that TV got a little less ribald overall, channels swinging back from shock to safe. Commissioners still loved the principles of Lily-Savagian humour – the tussles of power; the startling final blow of a punchline – but it migrated to reality TV, where it was placed into the mouths of the volatile and unfun. Gay representation on television became a little, well, “respectable”, too – call it the Queer Eye-ification of primetime, with feather boas and disdain swapped out for cravats and politeness. RuPaul’s Drag Race got a budget and its edges sawn off; Graham Norton stopped platforming obscure fetish websites on his chat show; Dame Edna kept getting cancelled. Yet even with this dilution of barbed, acidic, “dangerous” queerness in the mainstream, queer people have still somehow ended up facing the most open hostility in the public sphere since the Eighties.

One of the rare silver linings of our current sociopolitical armageddon is that such eagerness for benign respectability – spearheaded by the well-intentioned but clearly annoying middle-class liberals running our television channels – has been tossed out the window. It’s getting worse for (almost) everyone, so why not make a ruthlessly incisive observation – humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing – that leaves Tess Daly blushing? Thank God for La Voix and Alan Carr, paradigms of crafty, bitchy elegance currently dominating the evening schedules of BBC One. They are gay powerhouses having messy, unbridled fun, in a moment where it’s never felt braver – and more necessary – to be gay, messy and unbridled. Paul O’Grady would be proud.

Are you cruise curious? Today’s voyages are rewriting the rulebooks

In today’s travel market cruising reigns supreme. All across the world, savvy travellers have woken up to the fact that the old cliches no longer apply and upscale imaginative cruising is fast emerging as one of the key travel trends of the decade, rivalling land-based holidays in almost every respect.

On today’s ships, families are booking cabins  in their droves, drawn to the often incredible offerings for children from pre-schoolers through to teens; young couples are taking advantage of the increasingly sophisticated onboard cultural offerings, and there are even hipster cruises enticing the young with tattoo parlours, vinyl stores and craft beers.

For an in-depth look at this new era of cruising watch  World of Cruising TV, the third series of which airs this September and October  across Freeview, Virgin and Sky on channels including; ITV Quiz, True Crime and 5Star. As well as running competitions with cruise holidays as prizes and showcasing great itineraries and exclusive TV offers, the show sees host Dean Wilson talk to top travel experts of the sofa, including the Independent’s own Simon Calder, who offers his usual array of fascinating insights.  Mitchelin-starred chef and sommelier Marc Fosh appears in the kitchen, cooking up dishes guests can expect to discover onboard,  to show viewers how cruise dining now rivals the world’s best restaurants.

Because, make no mistake about it, there truly has been a food revolution at sea. On today’s most progressive lines, you’ll find Michelin-starred chef-curated menus and specialty restaurants offering high-end regional cuisine. Take, for example, Norwegian operator Havila Voyages, whose onboard fine-dining restaurant Hildring, sources incredible ingredients from local producers all over Norway – lamb from Dovrefjell and king crab from Varanger – to create its signature tasting menu. Other operators offer incredible variety, like Marella Cruises, which on its Marella Discovery has an astonishing range of specialist outlets from a surf & turf steakhouse to a sushi bars well as a brand-new gastropub called Picadilly’s, which offers British classics with a twist.

In terms of itineraries , there’s also been a sea change in quality. Contemporary cruise operators have seen the value in specialisation with operators like Riviera Travel offering trips like their The Blue Danube River Cruise, which features a guided tour of Dürnstein and a visit to Benedictine Melk Abbey.

Across the different operators there is a huge range of options with feelgood shows and Broadway hits on some lines, floating EDM music festivals on others. But these days, there are also subtler, more cultured options. Atlas Ocean Voyages operates three expedition-style yachts, all of which host fewer than 200 guests guaranteeing an intimate atmosphere. As you travel from one fascinating destination to another on their ships, you can attend enriching lectures on the sites you’re visiting delivered by experts in their field from museum curators to Fellows of the Geological Society of London.

The ships themselves are constantly evolving. In our side bar, we look at two of the standout launches of 2025 – Princess Cruises’ Star Princess and Virgin Voyages’ Brilliant Lady – both of which offer incredible levels of onboard luxury on proper bucket list itineraries.

Across the operators, options range from long lazy sails through the sun-kissed Caribbean and European river cruises rich in history, to thrilling adventures on the edge of the Arctic Circle. The only question now is: where will you go?

For a deeper dive into the cruise revolution and why you should make your next adventure a cruise adventure, don’t miss the new series of World of Cruising TV, featuring Marella Cruises, Virgin Voyages, Princess Cruises, Riviera Travel, Atlas Ocean Voyages and Havila Voyages. VisitWorld of Cruising TVto find where to watch series three. Offers ends 31 October2025.

The big mistake people make when walking 10,000 steps per day

Walking 10,000 steps a day is no bad thing, but it isn’t the health and fitness panacea it’s often made out to be either.

The body doesn’t have an in-built pedometer which releases untold benefits when you hit five figures for the day. Instead, this daily target is simply a way to encourage you to move more – that’s where the true magic lies.

Walking’s appeal lies largely in its accessibility; it’s low impact, most people can do it and you don’t need any specialist equipment. Researchers from University of Sydney (Australia) and Universidad Europea (Spain) analysed data from 33,560 adults aged 40–79 who generally walked less than 8,000 steps a day. They found those who walked in uninterrupted stretches of 10–15 minutes or more had significantly lower risks of cardiovascular events (heart attack or stroke) and death compared with those whose walks were mostly under 5 minutes.

The study suggests it’s not just how many steps you take, but how you take them (duration of each walk) that matters. In a world where time is a hot commodity, being able to squeeze some more movement into your day this way is an appealing prospect. But having walking as your only source of exercise can leave holes in your health and fitness.

For this reason, walking 5,000 steps while doing a few weekly strength training sessions or Pilates classes will likely deliver a more robust body than trekking 10K steps per day. Likewise, a keen cyclist might walk a relatively small amount, but still have a healthier heart and lungs than someone who is a slave to their step count.

Below is expert advice to help you design a more well-rounded, yet still time-efficient, weekly exercise plan to benefit as many areas of your health as possible.

Read more: A personal trainer set out to learn everything he could about fat loss – this was his most important finding

Walking is the most accessible movement option, and something most of us have to do in our day-to-day life anyway. As such, it should represent most of your weekly movement – the base of the pyramid, if you will.

Accumulating a decent volume of daily walking can offer impressive benefits, from improved heart health and mobility to weight management and a more robust body. Larger volumes of walking have also been linked to reduced incidences of lower back pain – leading spine expert Dr Stuart McGill previously described walking as “a non-negotiable activity for spine health”.

But how much should you be walking?

As you probably know by now, the 10,000 steps per day goal comes from a marketing pain for a pedometer in Japan called the Manpo Kei – roughly translated as the “10,000 steps metre”. This is a nice, round number, but lacks scientific rationale.

Walking 10,000 steps per day also represents a 90-minute commitment – time many people struggle to spare. The good news is that, “if we focus on the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, most of the benefits are seen at around 7,000 steps per day”, according to 2023 research from the University of Granada. Separate studies have also associated much lower walking totals with significant health benefits.

Case in point: Recent research published by the European Society of Cardiology found that, compared to a daily step count of 2,300 steps, every extra 1,000 steps was linked to “a 22 per cent reduction in heart failure, 9 per cent reduction in risk of heart attack and 24 per cent reduction in risk of stroke”.

The University of Granada study goes on to add that “the more steps you take, the better, and there is no excessive number of steps that has been proven to be harmful to health”. But many people are pressed for time, and after a point there will be diminishing returns. For these reasons, a goal of 7,000, rising to 9,000, “is a sensible health goal for most people”.

Alternatively, if you struggle to hit this figure, just check your current average daily step count on your phone and aim to increase it by 10 per cent each week until you reach 7,000. Or you could try using the methods below for a more efficient health boost through walking.

Read more: What you are getting wrong about high protein products – and the ones which are better than you think

If you don’t have time to walk several thousand steps each day, you can enjoy bonus health perks by improving the quality, not quantity, of your activity levels, according to research from the University of Sydney.

“We focussed on vigorous-intensity physical activity in our research programme because it is by far the most time-efficient form [of activity for achieving various health benefits],” says lead researcher Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis says.

“It is the ‘physiological language’ the body best understands – the extra effort acts as a signal for the body to make adaptations and improvements in, say, how the heart functions or how the body absorbs and transports oxygen to the muscles. For these beneficial health adaptations to happen, the body needs to be pushed regularly, even if it is for a short period of time under one minute.”

The study concluded that significant health benefits can be seen from five to 10 daily 60-second bouts of vigorous-intensity activity – recognisable by a faster breathing rate and an inability to say more than a few words without pausing for breath. This intensity was achieved through incidental daily activities such as climbing the stairs, carrying shopping, playing with your children and even vigorous gardening.

“This seems to be associated with between 30 and 50 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular conditions, cancer and mortality,” Professor Stamatakis adds.

There are several variables you can tweak to increase the intensity of walking; load, conditions and pace. You could add load to your walk by carrying a weighted backpack or rucking, climbing stairs or a steep hill, or increasing your pace to a fast walk or run. Vigorous-intensity activity will also look very different for different people depending on individual factors such as their fitness level, so it pays to play around and find what works for you.

Beyond this, if you can consciously up the pace during incidental daily walks, such as a pop to the shops or journey from your car to the office, you may also see increased health benefits, particularly if you currently lead a sedentary lifestyle.

“The research in this area suggests that most of the benefits [from walking] accumulate at a moderate or higher intensity,” explains Dr Elroy Aguiar, an associate professor of exercise science at The University of Alabama.

During moderate-intensity exercise, your breathing rate is raised, but you can still hold a conversation – this usually equates to a cadence of roughly 110 steps per minute.

Read more: From back pain to heart health – Experts reveal how to counter the negative effects of too much sitting down

Some people squeeze all of their daily movement into an hour of their day, then sit at a desk and lead a sedentary lifestyle for the remainder. Exercise in any form is to be encouraged – something is always better than nothing – but there are drawbacks to this approach.

“Interestingly, data supports the importance of low-intensity activity throughout the day,” says Emily Capodilupo, senior vice president of research, algorithms and data at wearable giant WHOOP. “A lot of that is believed to be mediated by the lymphatic pathway.”

The lymphatic system transports lymph fluid – a liquid that carries nutrients to, and clears harmful substances from, your cells and tissues – through the body. However, unlike blood, it doesn’t have an active pumping system like the heart, and instead relies on the contracting of nearby muscles to funnel it onward. This is triggered by our movements.

“It’s like the sewer system of your body,” Capodilupo explains. “If you don’t contract all of your muscles by moving, you don’t circulate this stuff and it stagnates. You quite literally get stagnating wastewater in the body.”

For this reason, she prescribes regular movement throughout the day – not just during dedicated exercise sessions.

This could mean using a standing desk or walking treadmill at work, performing a few bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges and press-ups every now and then to break up longer sedentary periods, doing a couple of stretches or keeping a kettlebell under your desk – ”At WHOOP HQ, swinging a kettlebell is totally normal, but in some office settings that might be considered eccentric”.

Alternatively, on the Andrew Huberman podcast, spine expert Dr Stuart McGill suggests office workers use an adjustable height desk and employ a formula of 20 minutes of sitting, 30 minutes of standing and 10 minutes of walking each hour.

The common denominator here is the importance of moving your entire body regularly, and avoiding staying in any one posture for a prolonged period of time. Aim to change posture and move at least once every hour, taking inspiration from the routines below.

Read more: Do these five things daily for 90 days to see a ‘profound difference’ in your health, fitness and energy levels

Exercising isn’t normal. Or rather, it didn’t used to be – it was unlikely your ancestors pencilled in a 10K or gym session around their physically-demanding livelihoods.

“There is no doubt that structured exercise is extremely powerful for preventing, managing and in some conditions reversing diseases, but it is an artificial behaviour,” Professor Stamatakis tells me. “It is an adaptation. Our civilisation, for the sake of convenience, speed and other associated reasons, has removed the need to be physically active in day to day life, and our bodies pay a price for that.”

Exercise is the remedy to this. Moving more, through walking, is a great place to start; walking faster on occasion is an excellent next step; but at some point our bodies need a more direct stimulus to trigger positive physiological changes.

This is because the body adheres to the SAID principle, which stands for specific adaptations to imposed demands. Simply: if fuelled and rested adequately, it adapts to become more efficient at the things we consistently ask it to do.

If you lift progressively heavier weights, you will become stronger; if you run further or faster each week, your heart and lungs will become more efficient at delivering fuel to the working muscles.

“Walking 10,000 steps a day is a good starting point, but ideally we want people to progress [from here] and start to engage in exercise beyond just walking, such as moving on to other forms of moderate-vigorous exercise that elevate your heart rate and oxygen consumption,” says Dr Aguiar.

Personal trainer and longevity specialist Ollie Thompson recommends trying to accumulate 150 minutes of cardiovascular exercise – any cyclical activity that raises the heart rate – per week, as per World Health Organisation and NHS guidance.

Of this, 80 per cent can be performed at lower intensities – think walking and similar moderate-intensity activities. The remaining 20 per cent should challenge you with higher intensities.

“This combination builds both a wide aerobic base and a high aerobic peak – known as VO2 max – which is strongly associated with better health, longevity and reduced all-cause mortality,” Thompson says.

He recommends using interval training to achieve this – there are three sample sessions below which all take 30 minutes or less. They can be performed with walking, running, skipping, full-body exercises like burpees or on an exercise machine of your choice (such as an exercise bike or rowing machine) for a lower impact alternative.

Read more: Doctor of strength training shares a 40-minute weekly dumbbell workout plan for building strength and mobility

Walking will build strength in your legs and core if you are new to exercise. However, there will soon come a time where dedicated strength training is needed to see further fitness improvements – and there are plenty of them on the table.

Not only does strength training build strength and muscle, countering age-related losses in these areas, but it also increases tissue tolerance in your tendons, ligaments and bones, leaving you with healthier joints that are less susceptible to injury. Done correctly, it can have a significant positive impact on your physical capacity, mobility, coordination, stability, body composition and metabolic health too. In short, it can help you live life better.

“Muscle tissue is metabolically important in so many ways that I think are under appreciated,” says Capodilupo. “It’s one of the greatest predictors of your ability to live independently in older age. After the age of about 30, you lose one per cent of muscle mass every year unless you intervene to prevent that.

“Your muscle tissue can also absorb sugar, so every pound of muscle mass that you gain can buffer against more sugar,” she adds.

“[…] If we don’t have a lot of muscle mass, we’re forced to only use insulin [to regulate blood sugar] – that’s when you can get an over reliance on that part of the system. That fatigues over time, leading to insulin insensitivity and eventually metabolic dysfunction and type 2 diabetes.”

Strength training does not necessarily mean lifting weights. The phrase encompasses any activity where you are repeatedly contracting your muscles to overcome resistance, whether that’s using dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands or bodyweight exercises – your body doesn’t know the difference, it just understands the need to generate force.

For beginners in particular, two full-body workouts per week will deliver the benefits listed above, so long as you use appropriate weights. A full-body workout means working the muscles in your chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs and core – something you can do in 20 minutes with just four moves if you choose your exercises smartly.

“When you’re a novice, you can go into the gym and do a pushing exercise for your upper body, a pulling exercise for your upper body, something like a squat or lunge for the front of your legs, something like a deadlift for the back of your legs, and then you can walk out after four exercises having worked every major muscle group,” says seasoned strength and conditioning coach Danny Matranga.

“[…] If time is of the utmost importance and you want the most gains from the least number of trips to the gym, total body programmes are very effective.”

The other important fixture to factor into your strength training sessions is progression. The body follows the SAID principle, so to see continued results you need to ask it to do gradually more demanding tasks, in line with your increasing strength and fitness levels.

This might mean performing one more set of an exercise than you did the week before, one more repetition per set, or very gradually increasing the weight you are lifting from session to session. As long as your form is good and the set feels challenging, it will be effective.

If you want to introduce strength training into your routine, you can use the dumbbell workout and exercise demonstrations in the video above, or make your own dumbbell workout using the formula below.

Read more: From exercising for fat loss to building muscle in a calorie deficit – doctor of sport science corrects three fitness myths

“The body is always trying to help us and be more efficient in what we ask it to do,” says Ash Grossmann, a human movement expert and founder of The Training Stimulus.

“If we are sitting behind a computer for eight, 10, 12 or 14 hours per day in a flexed hip position, it thinks that holding that hip flexed is saving us energy and therefore doing us a favour. Tight hip flexors are actually an adaptive change to the way the muscles sit.”

In other words, the body operates on a rough “use it or lose it” basis. If we do an activity regularly, the body will adapt to make it easier for us; if we rarely do a movement, we might lose access to it.

“Varied movement is important,” Grossmann continues. “We want to maintain as many movement options as possible, so that means moving as many joints as possible in as many directions as possible. Doing things like side bends and rotations; they all contribute to a body that feels limber and loose.”

New positions, or those you might not have accessed for a while such as twisting and bending, should be reintroduced gradually – you would not squat 200kg on your first day in the gym, so don’t go straight into a demanding yoga or Pilates routine. However, including varied movements in your week where possible, whether through sport, strength training, yoga, Pilates or other practices, is a good way to maintain freedom of movement.

Read more: Everyone is talking about calisthenics – here’s a 4-week strength training plan (no gym membership required)

If you can stick to the recommendations above each week, chances are you will be fitter than most people. Even if you fall short of the daily step goal and simply move as and when the opportunity arises, the other activities will stand you in good stead while taking up roughly an hour of your week. As far as bang for your buck is concerned, I’d say that’s pretty good.

Read more: How to start weight training – with this simple formula for strength and longevity

Third of boys think women’s rights are unimportant, survey reveals

A third of boys think women’s rights are unimportant, a shocking new survey has revealed.

The research, which will be presented to parliament on Thursday, also found that a third (32 per cent) of boys might consider an AI friendship, while more than half (53 per cent) find the online world more rewarding than the real world.

Many boys were found to be turning to chatbots for emotional support, friendships and romantic relationships, with one saying, “I have AI friends and girlfriends, they are always there when you feel bored,” and another adding, “I talk to an AI app, it makes me feel like I’m not on my own.”

Boys aged 11 to 15 were split between not trusting anything that is online because it is all fake, to saying that certain sexist voices are part of the “new system” because what they say comes true, according to the survey, with 82 per cent not trusting UK politicians either.

Some mentioned they felt that girls are celebrated, but boys were often seen as part of the problem and that feminism tended to lead to boys being blamed, with 54 per cent believing boys have it harder than girls today.

Lee Chambers, Founder and CEO of Male Allies UK, which produced the report, said the findings show “that a lack of guidance and trusted information means many are struggling to understand how to process the views they see every day, which is splitting opinion on some important subjects”.

Speaking of the widespread mistrust of politicians, he also warned: “We need to take this mistrust seriously, because it’s going to affect the views that they have long into adulthood.”

The survey, which involved polling 1,032 boys across 37 British schools during the last academic year, comes at a time when conversations around concepts such as toxic masculinity and the manosphere are growing, especially after the release of the hit Netflix show Adolescence, with misogynistic influencers such as Andrew Tate gaining evermore traction.

The manosphere is a network of communities that create, consume and distribute content online aimed at men and boys, which is all largely anti-feminist.

Manosphere content is promoted by various influencers on popular social media platforms, the most notable of whom is Tate, who rose to fame in 2022. He and his brother Tristan are currently under investigation in Romania for charges of rape, human trafficking and money laundering, and in the UK for rape and human trafficking.

In recent years, there have been a number of incidents of violence that have been linked to manosphere content, with these communities promoting violence or spreading harmful ideas about women and girls.

This content also harms men and young boys, preying on vulnerabilities and insecurities to promote unrealistic expectations and extreme measures, which can lead to poor self-esteem, mental health problems and, in some cases, suicide.

The new Boys In Schools report highlights this, revealing boys’ fears of the pressures of growing up in a modern world, and showing they are vulnerable to loneliness and misguidance as they struggle with the balance of real life and online influences. Two-thirds (64 per cent) said schools could do more to prepare them.

Opinions on feminism and masculinity were mixed, suggesting that the topics are not properly explained or explored at school or at home. While 32 per cent said women’s rights are not very important, the majority of boys still thought women’s rights are important (45 per cent) or very important (23 per cent) in the world today.

And one in five boys reported carrying out a male allyship action in the past month and were proud to talk about it, but they said it takes courage and can sometimes be difficult to call friends out on something.

The vast majority (79 per cent) said it is not clear to them what masculinity is, with one boy saying that people always say what it should not be rather than what it is, and another boy echoing this with: “It’s toxic, that’s all I ever hear.”

Mr Chambers said: “We hear a lot in the media about male toxicity and poor role models for boys, but it’s up to us to change that.

“There’s often a tendency to leave boys to get on with it, but this report shows many of them feel frustrated at a lack of guidance and feel misunderstood.

“We need to start paying more attention and tailoring support to boys’ needs and stop approaching it the same way we would have done 10 or 20 years ago. Listening to the boys of our future is more important now than ever before.”