‘You’re not welcome’: The far-right agitators travelling to Calais to abuse migrants

Dressed in a black t-shirt, a black cap and a pair of black leather gloves, Ukip leader Nick Tenconi addresses the camera from a road in northern France. In a direct appeal to “men in Britain”, he’s here to advertise a disturbing new trend, which he tells the camera could be “the next big thing” – organised trips to northern France to harass small boat migrants.

“Why aren’t we coming out here and making them feel incredibly unwelcome and creating a hostile environment?” he asks.

This year, far-right agitators have been making trips to Calais and Dunkirk to harass migrants waiting to attempt the perilous Channel crossing from France to the UK, and the charity workers who support them. Seemingly unsatisfied with targeting asylum seekers in the UK, these men have travelled to northern France to film migrants sleeping rough, wake them up in the middle of the night with flashing lights, and tell them they are unwanted in Britain.

In June, Mr Tenconi said that British men who want to curb migration to the UK have a “duty” to turn up in France and harass the destitute migrants. Since then, he has made several visits, and reports of groups of men harassing asylum seekers have become a regular occurrence for the NGOs that work in Calais.

Though Ukip, which is a registered political party, claims to be “spearheading” the trips, other people have also been making the journey – including a group called Raise the Colours, who were involved in putting up English flags this Summer.

The Ukip visits are part of a new project called the Border Protection Mission, an initiative which has raised more than £21,000 so far, according to its online fundraising account.

Charity workers, who are supporting destitute migrants in Calais with their most basic needs, are also under threat, with a recent Ukip YouTube video focusing on the work of French NGO Utopia 56.

On one recent visit, around 10 September, charity workers received messages from refugees who said they had been attacked by a group of English men, who had taken their blankets, personal items and lifejackets.

On 30 September, Ukip posted a video showing men approaching groups of homeless migrants who were sleeping rough at night and aggressively shining a flashing light on them until they woke up and fled from the crew.

The video, uploaded to the party’s X channel, showed men carrying the St George’s Cross, the Union flag and a banner saying “Islamist invaders” were not welcome in Britain. The men appear to be shouting “You shall not pass” at the sleeping refugees.

Since becoming Ukip leader in February, Mr Tenconi has seemingly been to northern France four times; the first was to apparently scope out the area in June, and he then returned in July, September and November, where he directly confronted NGO workers and asylum seekers.

Ryan Bridge has also been in Northern France with a group of men under the banner of Raise the Colours in recent weeks. In a video, posted to YouTube in mid-November, he filmed himself wading through water off the coast of northern France towards a small boat while shouting: “You’re not welcome in our country.”

Standing on a beach, dressed in black and wearing GoPros strapped around their chests, six other men stood looking at the camera. Described by one of the participants as “eight lads from Birmingham”, they claim they have managed to stop people from boarding boats to England. “We’re not going to stop doing this, we’re going to keep it up,” he said.

Since this, Mr Bridge has recruited Tommy Robinson’s associate, Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, who runs a YouTube account with 120,000 subscribers. The pair have been back to France recently, and claim to have destroyed a dinghy they found on the beach.

Supporters are encouraged to fund Mr Thomas’s work by joining a membership channel on YouTube that costs between £4.99 and £17.99 a month. Mr Thomas also said that the adverts on his videos will “help fund the next mission”. The pair had launched a website for their campaign called “Operation Overlord” but this appears to now be down.

One charity worker, who works for the charity Care4Calais, but who we are not naming for safety reasons, said that they had added a section in the briefing for charity volunteers about the far right’s visits to Dunkirk and Calais.

“We saw Ukip coming out in the summer, and since then we’ve had Raise the Colours come out a couple of times,” they explained.

“They have been quite prevalent in the last couple of weeks. We’ve seen videos of them digging up boats and slashing them.

“There have also been visits by other people, but it’s hard to know which organisations they are attached to.

“After the Ukip visits, for example, we had reports of a group of people going round the Dunkirk area in the early hours, harassing people and stealing their lifejackets. People would tell us about what had happened when we got on site. We get regular reports about English people being there and that they are being abusive.”

The resurgence in visits and reports of harassment has made those working at refugee charity Care4Calais even more vigilant and careful in their work. Risk assessments have been updated, and evacuation procedures have been reviewed.

The uptick in hostility towards migrants in France has also been mirrored across the Channel in England, the Care4Calais worker explained, with asylum seekers or people of colour living near large sites being followed and filmed.

A researcher from Hope not Hate, who does not want to be named for fear of reprisals, explained that Ukip has evolved from a more traditional political party to one focused on a street style of politics. Under Mr Tenconi, the party has three main themes: Christian nationalism, fighting communism, and remigration.

“This is the intimidatory aspect which he [Nick Tenconi] does lean into. He is encouraging British people to actively create a hostile environment. But he is very good at walking the side of legality. Ukip now has a very specific style. Tenconi is confrontational, aggressive; he is out to demonise, particularly with NGO workers, it becomes a school bully style.

“He will approach people, calling them nasty little communists and domestic terrorists. In one incident, when one person shouts back, he tells them to calm down, mocking the pitch of her voice.

“What makes these trips to Calais dangerous is that it normalises harassing asylum seekers and it positions this harassment as a sort of public duty.

“We’ve seen an uptick in racist attacks, racist graffiti, people being verbally harassed. And when you’ve got someone like Tenconi … who culturally within the far right does have a decent amount of traction, telling people that they need to create a hostile environment that poses a danger.

“It poses a danger to any non-white and non-Christian individual, because if someone is going to racially harass people, they will not stop to ask them how long they’ve been here.”

Responding to queries from The Independent, a Ukip spokesperson said that activists had made several trips to Calais to “report on the invasion of Britain by illegal migrants”.

They said that their team had been “threatened with weapons, assaulted, and had our vehicles attacked by illegal migrants”.

They also claimed that Mr Tenconi had been “spat at by NGO workers, had cannabis smoke blown in his face, and been subjected to severe verbal abuse by these so-called charity workers”. They insisted that “Ukip activists have broken no laws and have consistently engaged in a calm and peaceful manner” and said that “NGOs have lied to cover up the appalling behaviour of the migrants and also their volunteers”.

Ryan Bridge and Daniel Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.

In a video posted in mid-November, filming after a night scouring a French beach, Mr Thomas speaks to the camera with Mr Bridge in the background. “This way, if it is done correctly, you don’t break any laws… We’re going to get the plan together”.

“Get ready, because the call is coming,” he tells the now 219,000 viewers of his video.

Bestselling author Sophie Kinsella dies, aged 55

The author Sophie Kinsella has died aged 55, her family have said.

Kinsella, best known for her bestselling Shopaholic novels, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2022. She revealed the news to the public last year.

A statement posted to her Instagram account said: “We are heartbroken to announce the passing this morning of our beloved Sophie (aka Maddy, aka Mummy). She died peacefully, with her final days filled with her true loves: family and music and warmth and Christmas and joy.

“We can’t imagine what life will be like without her radiance and love of life.

“Despite her illness, which she bore with unimaginable courage, Sophie counted herself truly blessed – to have such wonderful family and friends, and to have had the extraordinary success of her writing career. She took nothing for granted and was forever grateful for the love she received.

“She will be missed so much our hearts are breaking.”

Her books have sold around 45 million copies in more than 60 countries around the world, and have been translated into more than 40 languages and adapted for film and theatre.

Born Madeleine Sophie Townley in 1969, Kinsella grew up in London and studied politics, philosophy and economics at New College, Oxford, before working as a financial journalist. Inspired by authors like Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope, she wrote her first novel, The Tennis Party, over the course of a few months when she was 24 years old (in order to get to grips with how a story should be structured, she “took a Jilly Cooper novel and broke it down chapter by chapter, noting what happened in each, to see how she did it”, she later told Woman & Home).

She later admitted that she had felt determined to be taken seriously as a “real author”, so she’d focused on darker subject matter and characters with very different experiences from her own.

It was published two years later in 1995 using her married name, Madeleine Wickham (she’d tied the knot with Harry Wickham, a teacher, in 1991; they had met on her first night as a student at Oxford).

She would go on to write six more books under her real name, releasing one every year until 2001. But towards the end of her twenties, she decided to start working on a novel that would take her career in a very different direction.

“I thought, OK, now without being defensive, I will write a silly book about things I know, and just make it funny and ridiculous,” she told The Guardian. “And if it fails, that’s OK.”

That book was The Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, which told the story of Becky Bloomwood, a twentysomething financial journalist who happens to be dreadful with money, preferring the dopamine rush of putting a new pair of shoes on her credit card rather than saving up sensibly. This change of genre required a new authorial alter ego: she came up with Sophie Kinsella by combining her middle name with her mother’s maiden name.

After initially submitting it to her publishers under this new identity, the first Shopaholic book debuted in 2000. It was an immediate hit, and two sequels followed over the next two years. Kinsella would eventually write 10 Shopaholic novels in total, following Becky through marriage, motherhood and her various misadventures in spending. Confessions of a Shopaholic, a film adaptation of the first two books starring Isla Fisher as Becky and Hugh Dancy as her love interest Luke, was released in 2009.

Kinsella also wrote a dozen standalone titles, from Can You Keep a Secret? (2003) to The Burnout (2023), and branched out into young adult fiction in 2015 with the release of Finding Audrey. Her work was often branded as “chick lit”, although she preferred it to be classified as contemporary fiction or “wit lit”.

“When I hear the term ‘chick lit’, I feel a pinprick of, not annoyance but of slight resignation,” she told the Daily Mail in 2018. “‘Oh, this again…’ I’ve never had anyone say to my face, ‘Your books are inferior,’ but if people say, ‘Your books are beach reads,’ I say, ‘Yep, that’s fine by me. Read them on the beach!’”

In April last year, Kinsella revealed that she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma towards the end of 2022. “I’ve wanted for a long time to share with you a health update and I’ve been waiting for the strength to do so,” she wrote in a statement posted on her social media accounts, explaining that she had paused over making the news public “because I wanted to make sure that my children were able to hear and process the news in privacy and adapt for our ‘new normal’”.

She told her fans that she had been undergoing treatment at a London hospital, and thanked her family, friends and “the wonderful doctors and nurses who have treated me” for their support.

She is survived by her husband, Henry, and their five children.

British soldier killed in Ukraine military training exercise named

A British soldier killed on duty in Ukraine has been named by the Ministry of Defence.

Lance Corporal George Hooley, 28, of the Parachute Regiment, died in a “tragic accident” while observing Ukrainian forces testing a new defensive capability on Tuesday morning.

Paying tribute at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said: “Lance Corporal Hooley was injured in a tragic accident away from the front lines while observing Ukrainian forces testing a new defensive capability.

“His life was full of courage and determination. He served our country with honour and distinction around the world in the cause of freedom and democracy, including as part of the small number of British personnel in Ukraine.”

The UK has previously acknowledged that a “small number” of military personnel are in the country, mainly providing security for the British diplomatic presence and supporting the Ukrainian armed forces.

A Ministry of Defence statement said: “It is with sadness that we must confirm that the member of the UK Armed Forces who died in Ukraine on Tuesday 9th December is Lance Corporal George Hooley of the Parachute Regiment. He was 28 years old.

“Our thoughts are with Lance Corporal Hooley’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.”

The Parachute Regiment is an airborne infantry regiment of the British Army, primarily based at Merville Barracks in Colchester.

It has not been disclosed which battalion of the Parachute Regiment L/Cpl Hooley served in.

The 1st Battalion is under the direction of special forces while other battalions are part of the British Army’s rapid response formation.

It is time to wake up to a chilling truth – America has switched sides

What does Donald Trump want from Europeans? It’s a question we didn’t use to have to ask ourselves about American presidents. That was because Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and even George W Bush, whom we used to think a little extreme, were very clear.

They wanted a unified Europe to be a free and strong ally of the United States in Nato, and to stand for “Western values”; to defuse or to win the Cold War, and, in the long term, to liberate Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation, albeit while trying to coexist with the Russians.

We did not insult one another, and no US leader ever bothered themselves about who was running London, still less called a mild-mannered mayor “vicious and disgusting”. The very name “Khan” is something that Trump can barely tolerate in his mouth. Imagine, if you possibly can, Ronald Reagan spewing bile about Ken Livingstone back in the day. Try to visualise Jimmy Carter saying that Germany faced “civilisational erasure”, or “Dubya” whingeing about free speech in Sweden.

That world has gone. We need to face up to the full extent of what is happening to us – and what Trump’s America wants and expects in return for even the semblance of military alliance and protection.

Most immediately, Trump wants us to abandon Ukraine and make friends with Vladimir Putin, as if the invasion and the war crimes had never happened – or, as the new US National Security Strategy puts it, “re-establishing conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia”. We are a continent of “decaying countries” suffering “weak leaders” who “talk too much”. Maybe, but it’s up to us Europeans to vote them in or out. We neither want nor need interference from Washington or Moscow.

He wants us to be more like Trump’s America, or Viktor Orban’s Hungary – Orban being his favourite European. Trump wants us to be more Maga in our attitudes to “DEI”, to immigration, and to “civilizational self-confidence and Western identity”; to restrict migration, renounce climate science, and agree to abide by and adopt American rules and laws. “We want to ensure that US technology and US standards – particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing – drive the world forward.” No wonder they want Brussels neutered.

He would like us, it appears, to legalise incitement to racial and religious hatred in the name of “free speech”. He thinks we should adopt the US first amendment. Maybe we should all have guns, too.

It seems to be of no great interest to Trump what the voters in these little countries want; on the contrary, America will instead support whichever far-right leaders they think will do what Trump wants them to do. This is something the US National Security document describes perfectly explicitly as “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”.

If we won’t concede, then we are not worth defending. If we want social media companies to stop spreading race hate and medical disinformation, then we will have to do without American troops and missiles stationed in Europe. We already face tariffs and sanctions if we don’t obey Trump’s wishes; now he is threatening us with Putin.

There is no other way to read it. The collective strength of the European Union is an obvious obstacle to this American power-grab, and so, in a complete reversal of postwar US policy, Trump wants to dismantle it: “We stand for the sovereign rights of nations, against the sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organisations, and for reforming those institutions so that they assist rather than hinder individual sovereignty and further American interests.”

We have been warned before. Less than a year ago, the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, came over to the Munich Security Conference – a traditionally cosy get-together for what we used to think of as the “Western allies” – and delivered a blow to the solar plexus of the old order. Slack-jawed, the assembled members of the Western security establishment listened as Vance upended everything that had been done to build solidarity since Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter in 1941.

Our values are no longer common. Trump’s likely successor stated: “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values – values shared with the United States of America.”

Well, JD, to us it rather feels like it’s our values that are constant, and things in America that have gone awry. So now the threat to the independence of European nations, and the rights of our own peoples, comes also from America, an increasingly hostile state intent on forcing us to adopt Trumpism – with the threat that if we don’t, then they’ll leave us to the mercies of Putin.

We in Europe have been deluding ourselves for too long. The Trump administration has been blunt, and told us that the past is bunk: “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.”

America is no longer an ally. America has switched sides. She’s gone. America will not look after us. It won’t help Ukraine, and it could turn its back on anyone. We still imagine that Trump would actually go to war with Russia to save Estonia. It’s absurd. When the president comes over for his banquet at Windsor Castle, or a big parade down the Champs-Elysees, and when the warm words echo around the ancient masonry and the medieval tapestries, we Europeans like to think we are part of something shared.

We fancy that Trump, of Scots and Bavarian heritage, might deep down be amenable, reasonable, and not as bad as folk make out. But then he goes back to Washington and concocts something as vile and treacherous as his National “Security Strategy”, belittles our multicultural societies, and orders us to let American companies break our laws, or else.

In fact, Trump’s values are closer to those of Putin, Xi and the House of Saud than to those of the progressive liberal democracies of Europe. We in Europe are mostly not his natural allies – so why defend us? His Maga movement is being infiltrated by “groypers”, people who think Hitler was “cool” and are as antisemitic as they are proudly Islamophobic. Well, no thank you to that.

America, of its own volition, is rapidly becoming a strategic challenge to Europe, even if we’d prefer to pretend otherwise. We have to wake up. What does Trump have to do to make us realise things have changed?

Simon Cowell is a man out of time in his sad, bleak Netflix show

Simon Cowell arrives on a jet ski, his face gone berserk. His cheeks are plumped, his teeth blinding. His new Netflix show, he tells us, is his last chance. “If I can’t get it right,” he says, “I’ll have to accept that I’ve lost whatever I had before.” It was oh-so-simple in his heyday. You could just grab a handful of boys off a street corner, wax them down and Topman their wardrobes, ship them to a recording studio in Sweden, and get a top-five hit. Yes, often they ended up cursed to the Butlin’s circuit once the attention died down, or got jobs as forklift drivers or OnlyFans models or Celebrity Big Brother contestants. But god, it was easy. When did it all go sideways?

Simon Cowell: The Next Act, which launches on Netflix today, follows the pop mogul as he attempts to put together a new boyband. But don’t let the fly-on-the-wall, talking-head docuseries sheen fool you – this is your standard X Factor riff. It’s awash with producer-orchestrated drama and the storytelling tropes that made that show appointment viewing on Saturday nights 10 or 15 years ago, but which now seem hoary and geriatric, like something vaguely offensive once said by Louis Walsh. He even surrounds himself with low-wattage versions of Nicole Scherzinger or Cheryl: there’s the Little Mix songwriter Kamille, and another songwriter who looks a bit like Jason Schwartzman with a ponytail. He’s even dragged Pete Waterman out of the cupboard he’s been locked in for the last few decades.

Different, though, is the sense of race-against-the-clock fatalism that Cowell now exhibits. I do believe him when he says he thinks it might all be over. The X Factor stopped making real superstars years before its “resting” in 2019. Britain’s Got Talent and its American equivalent do still exist, but in that liminal, vaguely nefarious way that somehow kept the lights on at WH Smith for years. And gone is the lucrative pop entrepreneurialism that made Cowell’s name (before shaping the careers of talent show acts including One Direction and Leona Lewis, he foisted the likes of Robson & Jerome and Westlife on an unsuspecting public). He is a man out of time, Botoxed to oblivion, and suddenly aware that everything everywhere must come to an end.

But Simon Cowell: The Next Act only has the pretence of straight-talking. It reminded me often of Netflix’s recent Victoria Beckham docuseries, which skirted around anything remotely interesting or dicey in favour of brand polishing and faux honesty. The opening scenes of the series find Cowell and his team sent into crisis mode after only 160 people apply to audition for his new boyband – a sharp downturn from the time thousands of randoms would descend on Britain’s convention centres for the chance of being judged by Sharon Osbourne.

Cowell embarks on a sad Gen Z press blitz as a result. He joins TikTok, takes part in promotional interviews with a raft of influencers, and sits down with Diary of a CEO’s Steven Bartlett. It’d make more sense for him to utilise some of his connections – maybe get Zayn Malik or Jade Thirlwall on the blower. Then again, all those bridges seemed to have been burnt years ago.

Initially, the show leans into its slightly humiliating energy, a man of the Noughties reduced to debasing himself for the attention of teenage pipsqueaks. But it quickly skirts off this: the boys do eventually materialise, with fluffy haircuts and moldable warbles, and Cowell returns to his position as benevolent kingmaker. The “is he past-it?” stuff was a mere plot point, a quick injection of suspense just like in the old days. Even One Direction’s Liam Payne meeting a horrible end at the age of 31 – which occurs in the middle of filming – isn’t dramatic enough to stop the Cowell train from thundering on.

Payne’s death does, however, change the temperature of the show. It happens in episode three, the screen fading to black dramatically, in that reality TV shorthand that suggests “something bad is about to happen”. Cowell pauses production. He takes six days off. Upon his return, he questions whether he should carry on with the project. His decision to keep going comes off like a punchline to a very dark joke. “I can’t take this opportunity away from them,” he says. Cowell pledged to try to make these boys stars – he can’t possibly pull it back now, can he? What a horrible thing to do to them, he reckons.

To try and mitigate further disaster, he hosts a moodily lit get-together with the 30 or so boys in for a chance of getting into Cowell’s eventual band, as well as their parents. He insists they ask him any question and share any lingering worries they might have, and he’ll answer honestly. The questions we see aren’t particularly probing. One aspiring musician asks Cowell if the boy band really stands a chance of success. “It’s 50/50,” Cowell says.

One parent asks Cowell what he’d say to his own son if he were in a similar position to theirs. Cowell’s answer is illuminating. He starts to say that, first of all, he’d consider if he thought his son could hack it. “Honestly, do I really, really believe my son can deal with what comes when you become well-known?” he asks. “Your life changes. There is no privacy.” A shift then occurs. Cowell, practically mid-sentence, begins to talk about their sons instead of his own. “They’re gonna be looked after. I’ve always prided myself that I do care about the people I work with – genuinely care – and if we’re gonna go forward with the boys, it will be with my absolute belief and support. If you have concerns about anything, call me.”

The difference here, that Cowell very skilfully deflects, is that Cowell’s son wouldn’t be in a position like their sons. Historically, the grisly paradox of the bands that Cowell shepherded to success – as well as those brought to fame by his contemporaries like Louis Walsh or Simon Fuller – was that many of them were working-class strivers with few other chances for a professional leg-up. Many came from the north of England, had distinct accents, or were born into broken homes. Few had pre-existing industry connections or practical guidance that matched their ambition.

There’s no real understanding in these moments of what Cowell is asking of these starry-eyed teenagers and their parents. What he’s asking them to, if they really felt it best, pass up. “He must have just felt so much pressure,” an 18-year-old boyband hopeful named Hendrick tells his dad, in the wake of Payne’s death. His father offers a gentle response: “Once you’re in the limelight, and you’ve got all those people watching you all the time, it might get you down from time to time. You just don’t know, do you?” It’s a simplified interpretation of what happened to Payne – as well as a very paternal bit of fence-sitting that pays lip service to horror, but not so much that he looks as if he’s meddling in his son’s decision-making.

Because, ultimately, Simon Cowell: The Next Act is a platform, an opportunity, a chance at something extraordinary. And that, perhaps, is the most illuminating thing about all of this. It’s irrelevant whether Cowell is a has-been or not, because there will always be a pipeline of dreamers without money or resources, who will weigh up the risks of talent-show fame and decide to bite. Liam Payne be damned. Because, ultimately, what other option is there?

‘Simon Cowell: The Next Act’ is streaming on Netflix

From bean tech to bespoke brews, discover the ultimate coffee machine

There aren’t many Christmas gifts that are guaranteed to be used every day, unless you opt for a toothbrush. Which to be honest, isn’t the most exciting present to rip open on Christmas morning. Unlike a brand new, stylish and sleek coffee machine.

De’Longhi’s stellar Rivelia system will steal the show in any kitchen it calls home. Its bean-to-cup system gives you at-home coffee that’s as delicious as the one made by your favourite barista, and also offers a more sustainable option, that feels as good as it tastes. So whether you’re looking for your first machine, or want to upgrade your existing coffee set-up, here’s why this market-leading crema-de-la-crop needs to be top of your 2025 Christmas list…

Bean-to-cup machines are the most sustainable way to enjoy coffee, with no single-use coffee pods, minimal packaging and biodegradable grounds that you can throw straight into your compost bin. Bean-to-cup also serves up the fullest flavour, whatever coffee you’re in the mood for. And if that preference tends to change, the Rivelia’s interchangeable bean hoppers mean you can flip between your I-need-to-wake-up-in-the-next-two-minutes espresso and leisurely afternoon decaf with ease.

The Rivelia comes equipped with Bean Adapt technology as well as a how-to guide, to make it super simple to get the best out of your beans. The guide helps you find the right grind, extraction temperature and aroma intensity for the specific blend and roast, all of which means that you get to enjoy the most perfect, personally crafted coffee. You can even name each bag of beans entered for future caffeine (or non-caffeine) hits.

With four user profiles, the Rivelia can get to know everyone in your household and their coffee preferences, even better than Dan from the local coffee shop. And he knows them well. Nothing is set in stone though: you can always tweak your order when needed. Is it the kind of day that demands an extra shot? Throw one in. Going large and savouring a long coffee in the garden this morning? Not a problem, the Rivelia lets you customise away.

Did you get the nativity tickets? Where are the Christmas lights? Have you pre-ordered the turkey? If your pre-Christmas to-do list is already sixteen pages long and you can’t cope with another question, the De’Longhi Rivelia can take one decision off your plate. Pre-programmed choices include a classic flat white, on-trend cortado, and trusty Americano among many others (16 in total). Hot water and milk-only options are available and when the sun finally comes out again, the Rivelia can do its magic on iced coffee choices too. Simply hit the button, and breathe.

The Rivelia’s LatteCrema carafe creates hot milk and milk foam to give the sort of silky-smooth finish you normally associate with a ten minute queue and a six quid bill. Now, you can get the same barista-style experience at home, whilst lolling in your kitchen in your slippers. Want an alternative milk option? Not a problem; the Rivelia is compatible with oat, soy and coconut milk too.

How clever is this? If you tend to start your day with a flat white but crave the pep of an espresso by mid-morning, your Rivelia will learn that. Soon it will know your personal preferences and update its screen to show the drink that you’re likely to fancy, at the time that you fancy it. It’s almost as if you have your own barista hanging out in your kitchen (without the awkwardness when you turn up bleary-eyed in your dressing gown).

It’s not just flavour and sustainability it excels at: the Rivelia’s sleek look means that it’s a design win for any stylish home too. And it’s easy to keep it looking and working at its best. The De’Longhi Rivelia rinses automatically and is easy to wash by hand (bonus: some parts will go in the dishwasher), with the brewing unit simple to remove and rinse too. All you need to do is descale it regularly (frequency depends on water hardness in your area), plus you can register your machine for a two-year guarantee, for even more peace of mind.

To find out more about the Rivelia and buy your machine, visit Delonghi

US ramps up tourist checks with plans for mandatory social media inspections

Football fans heading for the 2026 World Cup, as well as other British travellers planning visits to the US, will soon have to provide details of their social media activity going back five years.

The demand is included in a new document from the Department of Homeland Security setting out how it plans to comply with Donald Trump’s demand that foreign visitors should be “vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible”.

At present, the application form for the electronic system for travel authorisation (Esta) invites prospective visitors to reveal their social media accounts, but this is not mandatory. The permit costs $40 (£30) and allows stays of up to 90 days within two years.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have the option to inspect phones belonging to arriving travellers. According to reports, some tourists have been turned away for making unfavourable comments about Donald Trump and vice president JD Vance.

Soon an applicant’s social media activity could be screened in advance, with officials deciding whether or not to issue an Esta to the traveller.

In the document, to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday 10 December, US Customs and Border Protection says: “CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for an Esta application.

“The data element will require Esta applicants to provide their social media from the last five years.”

Officials are seeking comments from organisations and individuals on the plan.

A leading travel industry figure has deplored the demand. Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said: “These barriers will hit UK travel to the USA hard. History shows us that when a destination becomes harder to reach, British holidaymakers simply go elsewhere.

“Right now, US bookings are up 20 per cent across our membership, driven by events like the football World Cup, but new obstacles could quickly reverse that trend.”

Other proposals in the document include a plan to end applications via the Esta website – requiring all applicants to use the app instead.

The document says: “CBP believes that moving to a mobile-only approach for Esta submissions will both enhance security and improve efficiency.

“Poor-quality image uploads to the Esta website have resulted in applicants bypassing the facial comparison screening.

“CBP believes that travellers are aware of this vulnerability and have begun to exploit it by purposely uploading poor-quality images to avoid detection.

“Additionally, CBP continues to struggle with fraudulent third-party websites. Third-party fraudulent websites charge travellers exorbitant fees to process an application, where many of these applications may never be processed by CBP, resulting in a traveller being unable to board a US-bound plane.”

In addition, the authorities propose a new system to confirm that short-term visitors have left the country – should their departure not be reported through the normal channels such as airline data.

The plan is: “CBP will use geolocation services to confirm that the traveller reporting their departure is outside the United States, as well as run ‘liveness detection’ software to determine that the selfie photo is a live photo.”

Read more: Will Great British Railways actually make any difference to my journey?

Trump suffers another election defeat after Miami elects first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years

President Donald Trump fumed at the New York Times after the newspaper published an opinion article scrutinizing his health, calling the report “seditious, perhaps even treasonous.”

In the op-ed, Frank Bruni wrote: “His approval ratings have declined in recent months, and so, by the looks of things, has his vigor.”

The president slammed the claims in a defensive Truth Social post Tuesday night. “There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best,” Trump claimed, before bragging about receiving “PERFECT Marks” on medical exams.

The president received an MRI at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in October. Trump had “standard” cardiovascular and abdominal imaging done, the White House said this month.

Trump even called for the paper to “cease publication.”

The rage-filled post came on the heels of Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, the first stop of his “Affordability Tour” aimed to reassure Americans about the state of the economy.

In his campaign-style remarks, the president claimed “prices are way down,” touted his administration’s $12 billion bailout for farmers, and labeled Americans’ cost-of-living concerns a “hoax” perpetuated by Democrats.

“They always have a hoax — the new word is affordability,” he said.