Angela Rayner hits out at Westminster ‘arrogant tittle tattle’

Angela Rayner has hit out at Westminster’s in-fighting, labelling it “arrogant tittle tattle”, as she urged leaders to focus on the issues that matter in her first interview since stepping down as deputy prime minister.

Ms Rayer vowed to “keep fighting” for ordinary people and denied having taken a step back from frontline politics, in an interview with The Mirror from her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.

“I’ve not gone away,” she said when asked if she would consider making a return, adding she was “humbled” to have more time to spend in her Greater Manchester constituency.

Ms Rayner said that despite previously holding several front bench positions in Labour, she has always “brought it back” to the people she was there to represent.

The interview comes after a week of intense political in-fighting in Westminster, with rumours health secretary Wes Streeting was angling a leadership challenge to Sir Keir Starmer.

But Ms Rayner blasted the behaviour as “arrogant” and said working in the constituency is where MPs should be focused.

“I think Wes has clearly set out his stall after what was clearly a very turbulent couple of days and I think being around here for the last hour just shows you actually that that tittle tattle in Westminster it almost looks arrogant when you’ve got real challenges that real people are facing and that’s what we really need to be focusing on,” she explained.

Ms Rayner gave the interview during a visit to the Hurst Hall Care Centre, where she discussed her passion for workers rights. A former carer herself, she said listening to the experiences of others had encouraged her to press ahead with the party’s landmark Employment Rights Bill.

“I feel a bit angry because care workers, they’re almost forgotten, and everyone values them,” she said.

She added:“The message from me being here is that this is what it’s about. It’s not about the argy-bargy of whether you want to score or land a blow on the Government, this is about real people’s lives, it’s about providing services, and that’s why I came here today to tell them that this is what I fought for in Government, and this is what I’m fighting for now as a backbencher.”

Ms Rayner stepped down as deputy prime minister in September after admitting to underpaying stamp duty on a property in Hove.

‘Most severe flu outbreak in decades’ as infections surge

Top doctors are urging people to take up their flu vaccinations ahead of what could be the “most severe flu outbreak in decades” this winter.

Hospital admissions are already on the rise for the H3N2 strain, with infections hitting numbers not usually seen until December. Health bosses are concerned that many of the most vulnerable may not have received their vaccine yet as the NHS braces itself for a difficult winter.

Doctor Hilary Jones has explained more about the health service’s “SOS campaign”, which is encouraging people to get vaccinated this coming week.

“Australia had the worst flu for seven years,” he said. “What tends to happen there in their winter tends to follow here. We’re already seeing a spike in hospitalisations here, so the season has started early.”

He added the flu virus mutates, meaning it can evade immunity built up over years of exposure and vaccinations. The current dominant strain in H3N2 developed seven mutations over the summer, meaning those who received vaccines last year may not be protected.

“We’re getting the warning now that this could be a very bad season for flu,” Dr Hilary said when he appeared on ITV’s Lorraine show. “The NHS have launched this SOS campaign saying there are 2.4 million appointments available next week for people to go and get their jabs. Many people are eligible for a free vaccination.”

He warned that flu is “much, much worse” than a bad cold, and can leave sufferers bed-bound for at least a week.

“We shouldn’t think of flu as being a bad cold, it’s much much worse,” Dr Hilary said. “Raging sore throat, high fever, aching muscles, you’re bed-bound for a week or so.”

The doctor explained flu should be taken seriously and can be deadly when picked up by the most vulnerable groups.

“Last year there were 70,000 excess deaths in Europe, 7,500 here,” he said. “Some of them were children – 53 children died of flu last winter. So it’s not just the elderly.”

He urged people to get vaccinated, saying immunisation is the “best way” to prevent getting seriously ill with the flu.

Flu vaccines are available for everyone aged 65 and over, under-65s in clinical risk groups, pregnant women, care-home residents and carers, close contacts of those who are immunosuppressed, frontline social care workers, and health and social care staff, as well as for children.

But he added anyone who does not qualify for the free vaccine can easily protect themselves by paying for the jab at a pharmacy.

“If you wanted to get one privately just walk into the pharmacy, you don’t have to make an appointment, you can just get it there and then,” he said.

Earlier this week, NHS England said it is making 2.4 million vaccination slots available next week, which it said was enough to vaccinate the whole of Greater Manchester or Botswana.

Public health minister Ashley Dalton said: “Vaccination is the best form of defence against flu – particularly for the most vulnerable. With flu cases already triple what they were this time last year, I urge everyone eligible to take up one of the 2.4 million appointments available next week.”

Reeves’s shock U-turn on income tax stuns ministers, MPs and markets

Downing Street was blamed on Friday for forcing Rachel Reeves to reverse Budget plans to raise income tax in what was described as “a panic move” to save Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.

Labour MPs, ministers and the markets were left stunned by a Financial Times report that the chancellor has now abandoned the measure despite two weeks of clear hints in public speeches that she was poised to break the party’s manifesto pledge.

With markets spooked by the sudden U-turn, the cost of borrowing for the government spiked, with 10-year gilts up 12 basis points at 4.56 per cent.

Treasury sources insisted the decision had been taken because of better-than-expected economic data, but others blamed interference from Downing Street in a bid to protect the prime minister from a potential leadership challenge.

One minister told The Independent that No 10 is “gripped by a state of panic”.

The drama unfolded after the chancellor laid the groundwork for tax hikes, including several hints that she would need to break Labour’s election pledge not to raise income taxes.

But the reversal came after the prime minister was under siege following a briefing to journalists – reportedly by Downing Street officials – that health secretary Wes Streeting was planning a leadership bid.

The chancellor is now expected to increase a handful of smaller taxes in an attempt to balance the books, despite warnings from economists that such a move could make the system “more complicated and inefficient”.

Possible measures include a gambling tax, a bank levy tax, various wealth taxes, or a mansion tax on properties valued at £2m and over.

Jim O’Neill, the former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs boss who was brought in by the chancellor to be her economic adviser in opposition, described the developments as “bothersome”.

He said: “I’m surprised. If it means their defaulting to accumulated fringe, possibly growth-damaging taxes again, it will be bothersome.”

Stephen Millard, deputy director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), warned: “There are two dangers here. First, by resorting to smaller changes to lots of marginal taxes, the chancellor risks making the overall tax system ever more complicated and inefficient (in the sense of creating more distortions in the economy).

“Second, this would make it harder for the chancellor to build a large buffer against her fiscal rules. As we’ve seen over the past year, having a small buffer creates uncertainty and endless speculation about further tax rises, given it would only take a small downgrade in the UK’s growth prospects to wipe the buffer out.”

Tax expert Dan Neidle told The Independent that seeking to raise money from a “grab bag” of lots of different tax measures instead would be “very damaging”.

Isaac Delestre, senior tax analyst at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said: “We obviously don’t know how much she’s looking to raise, but the risks of doing something unnecessarily economically damaging increase if she is going to look to raise large amounts from smaller taxes.”

He suggested: “One other obvious option that could raise a lot of money is looking at income tax thresholds (the Labour manifesto pledge on IT, NICs and VAT only talks about rates of income tax). Although worth noting that in real terms, thresholds have already come down a lot since 2021 because they’ve been frozen in real terms.”

Bloomberg reported that Ms Reeves received an improved fiscal forecast from her Budget watchdog, putting the black hole in the public finances at £20bn – much lower than the £30 to £40bn previously estimated.

Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said the extent of pre-Budget media briefings and speeches was unusual.

“It is normal for economic forecasts and policies to change in the run-up to the Budget. It is not normal for so much of that to be laid bare in public,” she said. “The market moves this morning and in recent weeks suggest a serious look should be taken at the approach to market-sensitive forecast information.”

One Labour MP told The Independent: “I don’t think they have a clue. They’re making even good news look bad.”

The decision on income tax was communicated to the Office for Budget Responsibility on Wednesday, when the chancellor submitted a list of “major measures” to be included in her 26 November Budget, according to the FT.

A Treasury spokesperson said on Friday: “We do not comment on speculation around changes to tax outside of fiscal events. The chancellor will deliver a Budget that takes the fair choices to build strong foundations to secure Britain’s future.”

Strictly’s emotional show proved Blackpool means more than the final

The Strictly Come Dancing ballroom has seen plenty of tears over the years, but very few episodes have proven to be as emotional as Saturday night’s.

The biggest sobs came not from one of the celebrities taking part but a professional dancer. The adorable, and phenomenal, Carlos Gu – who always wears his heart on his sleeve – was the first of the Strictly gang to break down during Saturday night’s hour-and-a-half long show.

The dancer and his partner Karen Carney had performed a thrilling and dramatic take on the American Smooth – and the cracks started to show as they received praise from the judges. “I love watching you dance,” Craig Revel Horwood told the former England player. “The performance was out of this world,” added Motsi Mabuse, before Shirley Ballas commended Carney for how her posture is “coming along beautifully”.

The comments about posture, in particular, resonated with the pair as Carney has Scheuermann’s disease, a spinal condition that causes a curved spine – meaning she has to work even harder than the other celebrities to achieve the stance needed for ballroom.

Through tears, Gu told Claudia Winkleman: “[Karen] worked so hard this week. I know the ballroom is not her strength, but she came into the training room and she said, ‘Carlos, I really want to try hard. I know my back has problems, but I really want to try and I really want to show that I’m improving just a little bit’. And just hearing them saying that… you have no idea how hard she’s been working.” The sobs didn’t stop there.

Having been denied a poignant Couple’s Choice earlier in the series, George Clarke finally got to bring the emotion with a rumba set to “Somewhere Only We Know”, which his sister sang at their grandad’s funeral. Adding to the emotion, he revealed in his VT that the performance was dedicated to his mum. “Unfortunately, recently she got diagnosed with cancer,” he said. “Nobody deserves what she has gone through, but least of all her. It feels like it’s taking up so much of her life now.”

Finally, La Voix closed the show in her typical, glamorous style with a Couple’s Choice to Barbra Streisand’s “Don’t Rain On My Parade”. The drag queen – who trains out of character, as Christopher Dennis – explained his drag journey in his VT. Having heaped praise on his father, who was cheering him on in the audience, he said his mother died just months ago. “My mum was the same as my dad, equally supportive, she was there at every single show,” Dennis said. “I did a massive West End show in London and she wasn’t well and I remember I’d gone from 1,500 people clapping and cheering to the next day, just your world’s gone.”

Was it Strictly’s most emotional episode of all-time? Aside from the finals, I can’t think of a single episode that has seen quite so many tears. And while emotions were running high thanks to the poignancy of the routines, the stakes were upped thanks to something on the horizon: Blackpool.

Blackpool Week was born out of necessity back in 2009, when Children In Need used to take over the BBC Television Centre studio used by Strictly for a week in November. The show stopped needing to move when Television Centre closed in 2013 but by that point, making it to the Tower had already become a goal for many Strictly stars and the BBC decided to keep it as a fixture in each series.

It’s not an overstatement to say the annual trip up north is the holy grail of Strictly. Even more so than the final. This is perhaps, in part, thanks to the fact it gives even the technically-challenged celebrities something to aim for. Viewer votes alone can’t carry you to the final – but they can get you to the iconic Tower ballroom. Just look at Ed Balls and Pete Wicks.

Saturday night’s tears proved just how much making it to Blackpool means to both the celebrities and their professional partners. At this point in the competition – when the themes have dried up and the dance-offs are starting to get tougher – Blackpool brings a much-needed (and incredibly camp) dose of joy to both the show and the winter months. Who can blame the cast for being desperate to make it that far?

Search underway after UK Navy crew member goes missing off Irish coast

A significant multi-agency search operation is currently underway off the northwest coast of Ireland for a missing UK Navy crew member.

The person was last seen late on Friday, around 10.30pm.

A distress call was made to the Irish Coast Guard early on Saturday morning. Ireland’s Department of Transport confirmed the extensive search effort.

“The Irish Coast Guard’s Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Malin Head received a distress alert from a UK Naval support vessel just before 9am this morning,” a statement issued on Saturday read.

“The alert was for a missing crew member on board, last seen at approximately 10.30pm last night.”

The vessel was situated north of Tory Island when the alarm was raised.

Malin Head Coast Guard is coordinating the search for the missing crew member in the waters between Tory Island, Co Donegal, and Eagle Island, Co Mayo.

The Irish Coast Guard, the Irish Air Corps, the RNLI, the naval vessel and others are involved in the search.

Airborne assets include the Coast Guard’s fixed-wing plane Rescue 120F from Shannon airport, Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 118 from Sligo, and the Irish Air Corps plane, CASA 284.

At sea, the UK Naval support vessel is participating alongside three RNLI all-weather lifeboats from Ballyglass, Arranmore Island, and Lough Swilly, with other vessels also assisting.

“Other vessels of opportunity are also involved in the search,” the statement said.

Food photography tips: how to make food look as good as it tastes

Ever since the rise of social media, sharing food online has become a global obsession. From Instagram reels to TikTok trends, food content dominates our feeds and for good reason. Food is a universal love language. There’s something irresistible about the smell of freshly baked bread or the comfort of a steaming bowl of delicious pasta.

But as any food lover knows, capturing a photo that truly does your meal justice is easier said than done. Yet, it’s a powerful skill to have, as the perfect food shot can turn a humble dinner into viral content and, in some cases, transform small cafés, bartenders, and home bakers into internet stars.

At the heart of this movement sits the smartphone camera. And as someone who’s been immersed in food photography for over a decade and adores a smartphone for its ease of use and authentic way of capturing food moments, I was eager to see what Samsung’s new lightweight Galaxy S25 FE device could bring to the dinner table as it were.

When it comes to shooting food, I look for four essential things in a phone camera:

The Galaxy S25 FE ticks all four boxes and then some, and truly feels as though it was designed with the modern day foodie/food creator in mind. It even introduces ground-breaking AI features that promise to make editing and shooting more intuitive than ever, for a true end-to-end all encompassing device that elevates your food images effortlessly.

When it comes to food photography, the right lens can transform an ordinary plate into a visual feast – and the Galaxy S25 FE delivers a versatile mix that makes shooting creative, effortless, and fun.

The phone features four lenses in total, each one offering something unique for the way you tell your food story. Up front is a 12 MP selfie lens – solid, though not one you’ll often reach for when photographing your meals (unless you’re keen to share a reaction pic after). The real excitement is at the back, where three impressive lenses open up endless visual possibilities.

The 12 MP ultra-wide lens truly shines in tight spaces – whether you’re in a bustling café or a cosy, low-lit bar – capturing the full atmosphere with ease. It’s also perfect for those beautiful ‘table spread’ shots that continue to be popular on social media: think a tapas feast, a Christmas dinner, or a brunch spread where you want every dish in frame, without needing to balance on a chair!

For most food photography though, the star of the show is the 50 MP wide lens. It’s the one that produces those crisp, vibrant images with lifelike colours that leap off the screen. I always suggest shooting dishes that are abundant in natural hues such as bright salads, deeply coloured curries, or gorgeous fruit platters – and wherever possible, using natural light – because on social media colourful food always wins! I’ll often book a restaurant table near a window or shoot at my home studio beside one: it’s the easiest way to make textures sing and let the Galaxy S25 FE’s sensor show what it can really do.

Then there’s the 8 MP telephoto zoom lens, your best friend for capturing all the delicious food trends making the rounds right now such as the creamy frosting on a cinnamon roll or the sparkle of sea salt on a perfectly fried egg with feta and chilli sauce. It’s also great for those close-up shots that add a touch of drama and intimacy to your food feed – the ones that make people stop scrolling and think, ‘Dang, I need that right now.’

Together, these lenses help you capture not just what your food looks like, but how it feels to eat it.

As mentioned above, natural light is always a food photographer’s best friend, but when you’re enjoying a cosy evening meal, it’s not always an option. Most phone cameras struggle in those dimly lit restaurants or candlelit bars, often leaving food looking flat and colours washed out. That’s why I was especially curious to see how the Galaxy S25 FE would perform once the sun went down considering it has Enhanced Nightography and an AI-powered ProVisual Engine – an image processing engine that analyses each shot to automatically improve its visual. So, I put it to the test and am pleased to report, it delivered.

Even under low, warm lighting, the Galaxy S25 FE captures crisp textures and allows your food to look as good as it tastes, whilst infusing it with that evening ambience. For best results, I would recommend using the ultra wide lens in evening settings to capture the restaurant’s atmosphere and the wide lens for your food shots as it will result in the sharpest low light shots.

The Galaxy S25 FE also introduces some clever AI-powered tools that make creating food content even easier. One standout is Audio Eraser*, perfect for those who prefer filming in lively, bustling restaurants. It intelligently removes unwanted background noise, allowing the subtle sounds of your dish like the gentle bubble of hot soup or the satisfying crunch of a bite to take centre stage instead.

There’s also Photo Assist**, which includes Generative Edit and Sketch to Image***. The former lets you effortlessly move or remove distractions from your frame, while the latter allows you to write or draw directly onto your image – not something I’d necessarily do because food is just so naturally beautiful in its own right, but which could be ideal if you’re keen to add a more personal or artistic touch to your social media food posts to ensure you stand out from the crowd.

The Galaxy SE25 FE isn’t just another smartphone, instead it’s a powerful tool for food lovers and food content creators alike. Whether you’re an aspiring influencer keen to share your latest cookie haul, a café owner hoping to make your matcha lattes go viral or simply a home cook who loves sharing their latest creations, this phone can absolutely help you along your delicious journey. Cheers to that!

Kimberly Espinel is an award-winning food photographer, blogger, stylist, podcaster, teacher and author – find out more at her website or on Instagram.

To find out more about the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE visit Samsung

*Samsung account login required. Six types of sound can be detected; voices, music, wind, nature, crowd and noise. Results may vary depending on audio source & condition of the video.

**Samsung account login is required. Requires network connection.

***Samsung account login and network connection may be required for certain AI features.

Labour grandee tells Starmer to sack No 10 chief Morgan McSweeney

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to fire his Downing Street chief of staff by former Labour home secretary David Blunkett.

Lord Blunkett said the prime minister should dismiss his top adviser Morgan McSweeney and replace him with someone who can “manage people well”.

The intervention by Lord Blunkett comes days after anonymous briefings by unnamed Downing Street sources claimed that health secretary Wes Streeting was plotting to replace the prime minister.

Mr Streeting denied the allegation and said it was proof of a “toxic culture” in No 10.

Sir Keir apologised to Mr Streeting. He later said he had been assured the briefings “didn’t come from Downing Street”, adding: “I will absolutely deal with anybody responsible for briefing against ministers, cabinet ministers or any other ministers.”

Lord Blunkett said: “If I was Keir Starmer I would say to Morgan McSweeney, ‘You have got great skills, you helped enormously with me in building a winning team before the election. Now is the time for me to find you another role that you are good at and I will bring in someone with the overall experience that we need to be the chief of staff’.”

He went on: “It is a particular role – it is about knowing about government and having been in a senior position where you have had to not only run the show but manage people well. It is not rocket science but it is a particular skill.”

Mr McSweeney has been blamed by some within Labour for the fallout from the attacks on Mr Streeting, which were an apparent ploy to warn off potential leadership contenders.

The prime minister has also faced calls to sack Mr McSweeney over the row.

But sources who have spoken to Mr McSweeney told the BBC on Thursday he would remain in his post.

They said: “He’s done absolutely nothing wrong. He’s not going anywhere.” They added: “I can categorically say he was not involved indirectly or directly.”

Speaking to the Newsagents podcast, Lord Blunkett said if the government did not improve its performance it would pave the way for Nigel Farage to take power.

He said: “We will be in serious trouble if we don’t get our act together, because the opinion polls are awful and the feeling of bewilderment in the electorate is palpable.”

The unrest at the top of the party comes as Labour’s poll ratings have plummeted since Sir Keir delivered a landslide general election victory in July 2024.

It precedes Rachel Reeves’s 26 November Budget, in which the party could rip up its manifesto promise not to increase income tax, and what MPs fear could be a bloodbath in elections next May in English councils and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

How to fight in ‘hell’: Ukraine veterans say Nato not ready for war

Ukrainian intelligence is warning that a Russian Lancet drone is prowling the sky, loitering above Kramatorsk, like a heron poised over a fish pond, ready to strike.

A laptop shows multiscreen images of medics racing through shredded forest, Russian soldiers in Ukrainian sights, bunkers being blown up – everyday terror.

This is the future of war – and the West isn’t ready for what may be coming in an open conflict with Russia: mass casualties and a transformation of the battle beyond anything that Nato’s armies are training for.

The laptop feed is for Rebekah Maciorowski, an American volunteer paramedic who runs the medical operations, evacuation and training for an entire battalion of men and women on Ukraine’s eastern front, under its 3rd Brigade. In a conventional war, she would be a major. In this conflict? She has no idea what her rank is and cares even less.

But the revelations from this frontline soldier, one who has the rare claim to have shot down an incoming Russian drone attacking her patients, are chilling.

“You have had encounters with Nato training teams. You’ve talked to Nato when you’ve been back in Europe. Do you think that they’re ready for the next war with Russia?” The Independent asks her.

“No. No, I’m honestly a little bit terrified,” she replies – after more than 40 months at war here.

She goes on to explain: “If you were to talk to Nato military officials, they would reassure you that everything is under control, they’re well equipped, they’re well prepared. But I don’t think anyone can be prepared for a conflict like this. I don’t think anyone can.

“And what’s concerning to me is, while they’re offering training [in Europe for Ukrainians], I think it would do them well to also take some information and training from the Ukrainians.”

Maciorowski has undergone training with Nato forces in the last year and says what they taught was relevant to Afghanistan and Iraq – not Ukraine.

“When I went to train with Nato, the factor of drones was not really filtered in. It was very much the tactics that were learnt in the previous war. And these tactics now do not apply because you’re not making a linear assault.

“Everything has changed with drones. And I don’t think it was factored in, at least not in this training,” she says in her secret medical evacuation headquarters.

Her teams evacuate wounded soldiers using quad bikes because armoured ambulances are now death traps, while quads can race between forests and dugouts trying to avoid drones.

But her team takes heavy losses. Over the last week, a top medic, callsign Viking, was killed on a rescue mission east of Slaviansk. A few weeks before that, another driver was blown up by a drone.

“I don’t see other Europeans coping with this,” she says.

Nato’s leaders and intelligence agencies agree that Europe, especially, is already involved in a hybrid war with Russia. This includes propaganda to undermine democracy, cyber attacks, sabotage and assassinations.

Lately, it has included probing attacks inside Poland and Estonia by Russian aircraft and continuous challenges at sea.

An outright war may never happen. It may also be inevitable.

Vladimir Putin has made it clear he wants to force the Baltic states back under Russian rule and has designs on all of eastern Europe in countries once dominated by Moscow.

Ukrainians and Georgians know that when he says such things, he invades.

If it came to a war, Russia has experience in modern combat that only Ukraine shares.

An officer operating in Pokrovsk, where Ukraine says Russia is concentrating 150,000 men on trying to break through Ukrainian lines, describes the fighting there as “hell”. It is in the heat of this inferno that a new approach is being forged.

“We are changing the structure of the war on the go,” says Oleksandr Yabchanka, commander of a drone unit in the Da Vinci Wolves, part of the 59th Brigade.

“There is bad news for Ukraine and Europe. Russia is adapting just like us. It is a colossal threat and very underestimated in Europe.”

A spokesperson for the British-led programme Operation Interflex said that 61,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been trained for “putting them in the strongest possible position as they resist ongoing Russian attacks”.

He said that Ukrainian military experts and drone operators had served as consultants to train soldiers going to war and that 91 per cent of Ukrainian soldiers who completed Nato’s basic training “feel more confident of their survivability at the end of the training”.

However, a recent study by Jack Watling at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) warns that Nato needs to catch up with understanding that war has changed.

The advent of small, deadly drones, often flown with first-person vision (FPV), frequently guided by fibre-optic cables, and capable of pinpoint accuracy far beyond what were considered front lines, has transformed conflict.

Nato doctrine focuses on what it calls “combined arms manoeuvre”. This means an emphasis on the concentration of aircraft, armour, infantry and artillery with the aim to surprise and overwhelm an enemy.

That doesn’t work any more.

Dr Watling explains that “pervasive networks and sensors have made the ability to achieve surprise difficult”. Known as battlefield transparency, the modern surveillance of battlefields means that an unexpected attack is almost impossible.

On top of that, “the ubiquity of precision weapons” makes concentrated forces vulnerable to “rapid attrition”.

Armoured vehicles, engineering equipment, electronics warfare kit – it can all be spotted and picked off with ease, and over long distances.

This means that the front lines are wide, deep, shattered and almost empty of infantry.

Nato’s method is to take on mass attacks by the “near peer” forces of Russia. But Russia’s tactics no longer concentrate on mass – the weight of numbers in men and arms used against Ukraine three years ago.

Now, Ukrainian forces are being attacked with long-range glide bombs. Russian drones hunt out Kyiv’s UAV teams in their bunkers and force them away from their forward lines. And above all, the lines of logistics are pounded with terrifying accuracy.

As a result, small groups of two or four Russians covertly sneak into locations on the front lines to try to hold bunkers and dugouts while Ukrainian drones patrol overhead.

The soldiers use blankets designed to muffle their thermal images, sometimes held above them on poles, to get into locations where they may be embedded for weeks or months.

Ukrainian troops do the same. And now that their lines of communication have been cut, they rely entirely on supplies of food and ammunition, as well as medical supplies from drones in the air or on the ground.

In Afghanistan, 99.2 per cent of British army casualties who were evacuated to the main Helmand hospital at Camp Bastion survived – mostly because they were taken there from the front lines within the first “golden hour” after injury.

In any war with Russia, it could be days or weeks before a severely wounded Nato soldier could be evacuated. And the numbers injured in a single incident or a drone blast are likely to be high.

“The wounds, the injuries, are catastrophic,” explains Maciorowski. “And they’re multiplying because the radius of impact for a drone that drops a grenade or explosive device is massive.

“So you can have an entire group that’s taken out, all of them injured in one drop. We’re not seeing that hand-to-hand combat so much now.

“Now we’re looking at prolonged field care; guys who are unable to evacuate and giving medical advice over a radio, making sure that when guys come to the unit, every soldier is trained like a medic because we don’t have enough medics, and there’s no guarantee that they can get to the wounded soldier in time.

“So every soldier needs to be a highly trained medic… to treat himself and others around him.”

Nato’s regular armed forces are rarely, if ever, trained how to treat themselves for long periods with antibiotics and intravenous drips.

And, above all, they are unprepared for the potential mass casualties that Nato forces would face in a conflict with Russia.

“We almost can’t comprehend the scale of those losses,” says Ed Arnold, a former British Army officer who is now with Rusi.

Gangrene among Ukrainian soldiers is commonplace because they are stuck on the front lines for so long. Britain’s biggest mobile field hospital has a capacity of only 80 general beds and 10 for intensive care.

In a Ukraine-type war where the UK, and Nato, can expect hundreds of casualties every day, the capacity to cope is just not there.

“We should have Ukrainians training [British officers] at Sandhurst (Royal Military Academy) at the moment,” adds Arnold.

“There should be a resident Ukrainian platoon, which regularly rotates, giving us the actual download on what’s going on.”