A Labour MP has quit the party over the freebies scandal, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of presiding over “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” that is “off the scale”.

Resigning her position, Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, told Sir Keir that she was “ashamed” of what he and his “inner circle” had done to “tarnish and humiliate our once proud party”.

She declared that he was unfit for office after “inexplicably” choosing to accept designer suits while at the same time pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.

The dramatic resignation sent Downing Street into turmoil on Saturday night and came as Sir Keir faced mounting pressure from within his own party to get a grip on the donations crisis.

In her resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Ms Duffield said: “Someone with far above average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of these people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.

“Forcing a vote [on the winter fuel payment] to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for – why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?”

Ms Duffield, 53, has been a consistent critic of the party over its approach to transgender issues and has not attended previous party conferences over the issue.

She has become the fastest MP to jump ship after a general election in modern political history.

It came after Sir Keir admitted on Friday that Lord Alli gave him £32,000 to pay for clothing, double what he previously declared.

Sir Keir also received £2,400 from Lord Alli for glasses, and the use of an £18 million penthouse during the election campaign and on other occasions. Members of his frontbench team have also declared large donations from the peer.

On Saturday night, a frontbench source warned that Downing Street needed to change course, saying “it is getting to the point where it might be terminal”.

“If you are constantly explaining, you are losing. It looks like you are doing something dodgy,” they told The Telegraph. “Keir needs to be absolutely straight and he needs to draw a line under it.”

A growing number of Labour MPs as well as members of Sir Keir’s own Cabinet are understood to be frustrated by the row, with one complaining that ministers need to be more “political”.

Cabinet ministers who have not already been swept up in the ongoing freebies saga are seeking to distance themselves from it by emphasising privately how modestly they dress and how little they care about designer clothes.

Some members of the Rose Network, Labour’s club for donors, are said to be uneasy about the direction of travel No10 is taking, with one long-standing donor calling the decision by Sir Keir to accept so many designer clothes as donations “completely obscene”.

Members of Labour’s powerful ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), are also angry about the party’s handling of the row.

Mish Rahman, an NEC member, said that Labour’s first conference since winning the election “should have been jubilation and celebration, instead it was mired by talk of spending cuts and questionable donations”. He added: “The honeymoon is over in record time and unease is spreading.”

A second NEC member told The Telegraph that the apparent “scramble for freebies” was “pretty embarrassing”.

“We have been waiting to get into power for so long but it feels like the minute we do there is a scramble for freebies,” they said. “The strategy around it has been so poor – they haven’t been able to get a handle on it.”

Other ministers are worried about the negative rhetoric coming from Downing Street and the Treasury, particularly in the run up to the Budget on Oct 30. “The Budget will be painful,” one minister said. “But we can’t have this doom and gloom forever.”

Meanwhile, tensions with Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, remain, and Government aides are locked in negotiations with Downing Street over their salaries, with many being offered a pay cut compared to what they were earning in opposition.

Several special advisers are now threatening to quit, with one source pointing out that the job of being in government is far harder than they imagined, and saying they can earn much more money in the private sector.

Another confirmed that some senior aides have raised the prospect of walking out, but said this was more of a negotiating tactic to try to force a higher salary.

Sir Keir said last week he would no longer accept money for clothes while in office, as did Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Labour has claimed that all opposition parties invest in the presentation of candidates, including speech and media training, as well as photography and clothing.

But on Saturday, John Glen, the Shadow Paymaster General, reported Sir Keir to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and the registrar of members’ financial interests, demanding a fresh investigation.

In a letter to the standards watchdog, Mr Glen alleged that Sir Keir failed to declare who was behind the salaries of 14 of his aides in the run-up to the election and also raised questions over possible failures to declare hospitality and gifts from lobbyists.

Under Commons rules, all MPs must ensure that anyone who holds a parliamentary pass as part of their office declares who pays for their salary and any other income they receive over £450 from the same source.

But Mr Glen points out that Sir Keir’s register of interests published on May 30 does not list any source of income for 14 of his aides.

In his letter to the commissioner, Mr Glen said: “There is a clear public interest in the most senior Parliamentarians following the rules, and for proper transparency on the corporate funding of Keir Starmer’s Parliamentary Office, and in relation to any associated gifts or hospitality. This is also not the first breach of the rules by him.”

‘Lack of basic politics and political instincts’

In her resignation letter, first reported by The Sunday Times, Ms Duffield lambasted the Prime Minister’s “managerial style and technocratic approach”, saying his “lack of basic politics and political instincts have come crashing down on us as a party”.

She said the revelations of “hypocrisy” had been “staggering and increasingly outrageous”, adding: “I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”

A Labour Party source said: “This changed Labour Party won’t be taking any lectures from a Conservative Party that has – for year after year – specialised in scandal, sleaze and corruption.

“With Keir Starmer’s leadership, this Government is more transparent than ever, and is getting on with the job of delivering the change the country voted for on July 4.”

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, said: “No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society. 

“She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.” 

Ms Duffield’s decision to leave the Labour Party demonstrates the Government is “about self-service”, Tom Tugendhat said.

As he arrived at Conservative Party Conference, the Tory leadership hopeful told the BBC: “I think she has made her point very clearly hasn’t she?

“Which is that the Labour Party and Keir Starmer’s Government is not about service, it is not about delivering for the British people, it is about self-service.

“We need to return our government to service, we need to demonstrate the leadership that this country needs, and that is exactly what I am here to do.”

Asked if he would invite Ms Duffield to join the Conservatives, Mr Tugendhat said: “That is really a decision for her, but I think she is an extraordinary voice, she has stood up for women’s rights, she stood up for the dignity of individuals across our country, and I think she is a fantastic advocate.”

Pressed again on the matter, he said Ms Duffield has been a “socialist for many years”, adding: “I strongly suspect she won’t be asking.”

Labour has signalled a U-turn on backing a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ amid concerns over free speech.

In opposition, the Labour Party formally adopted a definition of Islamophobia and incorporated it into its code of conduct which all party members are expected to follow.

The definition states: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

But campaigners fear that the definition, drawn up by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, is too broad and could amount to a “blasphemy law”.

Critics argue that its adoption risks leading to free speech being “curtailed”, with legitimate debates about issues such as polygamy being shut down.

Now, in the strongest signal yet that the Government is now backing away from adopting this definition, Lord Khan, the faith minister, has admitted that it is “not in line” with equality laws.

In a letter to the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO), seen by The Telegraph, Lord Khan said the Government was “committed to tackling religious hatred”, adding that the definition of Islamophobia “plays an important role”.

But he went on to say that the APPG’s definition of Islamophobia “is not in line with the Equality Act 2010, which defines race in terms of colour, nationality and national or ethnic origins”.

He said that defining Islamophobia was a “complex issue” and ministers were approaching the issue in a “more holistic” way.

“We want to ensure that any definition comprehensively reflects multiple perspectives and implications for different communities,” he said.

“This Government is actively considering our approach to tackling Islamophobia through a more holistic lens, and will provide further information on this in due course.”

Lord Khan added: “More appropriately, the Equality Act 2010 provides protection from discrimination, harassment or victimisation to anyone with a religious belief as well as to those who lack a religion or belief, subject to certain exceptions.

“A person who experiences Islamophobia from their employer or when accessing goods and services may be able to bring a case of religious discrimination or harassment to an employment tribunal or other civil court.”

Lord Khan was writing in response to a letter from the NSO in which they raised “grave concerns” about the Islamophobia definition.

They noted that the definition “has already been adopted by the Labour party and incorporated into its governing body’s code of conduct” and went on to warn that: “Adoption of this contested definition into law would have serious implications on free speech, not least the ability to discuss historical truths.”

The National Secular Society, which also wrote to ministers, argues that adopting an “Islamophobia” definition would “inflame, rather than dispel, community tensions and division”.

Lord Khan told the NSO that freedom of speech and the freedom to discuss religion are “incredibly important”, and promised that the Government’s approach to tackling religious hatred would “never inhibit the lawful right to freedom of expression”.

Labour adopted the APPG’s definition of Islamophobia in 2019, and it continues to feature in the latest edition of the party’s rule book.

‘Risks shutting down debate’

Neil Basu, a former UK counter-terror chief, warned at the time that it “risks shutting down debate” about Islam and could allow terror suspects to “legally challenge investigation” and undermine counter-terror laws “on the basis that they are ‘Islamophobic’”.

Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, which monitors anti-Muslim hate, has said that the definition would “curtail free speech” and would risk “giving oxygen to groups like the far Right”.

Mr Mughal, who was once tipped to become the Government’s first Islamophobia adviser, said such a definition could prevent legitimate criticism of Muslims, including from members of the same religion.

Since entering Government, Sir Keir Starmer has come under pressure from some quarters to back the definition, with several Muslim organisations calling for the Gvernment to act particularly in the wake of the summer riots.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, said: “We welcome the Government’s acknowledgement of the definition’s incompatibility with equality law and urge them to uphold their promise to address anti-Muslim hate in ways that won’t erode freedom of expression around religion.”

A Government spokesman said: “We are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including addressing the unacceptable rise in anti-Muslim hatred.

“Any new definition of Islamophobia must be given careful consideration, so it comprehensively covers multiple perspectives and considers potential implications for different communities. We will provide further updates in due course.”

Boris Johnson has said he is “no longer sure” lockdowns played a decisive role in defeating Covid.

Describing the pandemic restrictions as “literally medieval in their savagery and consequences”, he likened himself to King Canute and questioned whether it was possible for government action to “repel the waves of a highly contagious disease”.

He has also said that he now believes Covid-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory leak, rather than from transmission in a wildlife market.

The admission, revealed in extracts from his new memoir, Unleashed, indicates a significant change in thinking from the architect of arguably the most controversial peacetime policy in modern British history.

At the Covid inquiry last December, Mr Johnson acknowledged “appalling harms on either side of the decision” and issued a general apology for mistakes made.

But he has never before admitted to serious doubts about the effectiveness of lockdown.

Mr Johnson writes in the memoir, serialised in the Mail on Sunday, that he initially believed lockdowns were having a suppressing effect on the virus.

“It was only later that I started to look at the curves of the pandemic around the world – the double hump that seemed to rise and fall irrespective of the approaches taken by governments,” he said.

“There were always two waves, whether you were in China, where lockdowns were ruthlessly enforced, or in Sweden, where they took a more voluntary approach.”

He then added: “I am not saying that lockdowns achieved nothing; I am sure they had some effect. But were they decisive in beating back the ­disease, turning that wave down? All I can say is that I am no longer sure.”

He made a parallel with the story of King Canute, questioning whether he had been right to demonstrate to his courtiers that he had no power to control the elements by vainly ordering the Thames to recede.

Mr Johnson added that by locking down society, the country showed it had “barely progressed” from early modern England, citing restrictions during Shakespeare’s time, such as the closure of theatres and limits to the number who could attend funerals.

The first national lockdown was imposed towards the end of March 2020 and began to be lifted in June.

Local lockdowns followed, with authorities given extra powers to enforce social distancing.

In September 2020, an indoor “rule of six” was imposed in England, with a tiered traffic light system the following month.

This did not prevent the need for a second national lockdown in November, which lasted nearly a month. The third began in early January 2021 and was still partly in place in May.

Experts have said the intervention harmed disadvantaged children the most.

Mr Johnson’s attachment to the policies appeared in contrast to his history of championing individual liberties.

Michael Gove, a key enthusiast for tight controls during Covid, told an inquiry last November that lockdowns went against the former prime minister’s “world view”.

On Saturday night, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and outspoken lockdown critic, said Mr Johnson had been “basically bullied” by the scientists.

“Boris realises in hindsight that we had been led down the garden path by the scientists,” he said.

“I wrote that this was a mistake – we should have only looked after the most vulnerable.

“His advisors poo-pooed that. The reality is he should have looked at other sources.

In the book, Mr Johnson reportedly describes as “bonkers” the tier system in late 2020.

“It’s like those weird bans in Leviticus on the types of four-legged animal you can eat or the ban on trimming your sideburns,” he wrote.

Speaking about the origin of coronavirus, Mr Johnson added: “The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made, in all its aspects.

“It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of some botched experiment in a Chinese lab.”

The virus leaking from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a view long promulgated by Donald Trump.

Latterly, the FBI has said it believes it is “most likely” that the virus originated in a Chinese government-controlled lab.

The theory was aggressively resisted by much of the mainstream academic community during the pandemic, who advocated a zoonotic, or animal-to-human, theory.

Just under 227,000 people died in the UK with Covid-19 listed as one of the causes on their death certificate.

The most deadly day, according to reported figures, was Jan 19 2021, during the second lockdown, when 1,490 Covid-related deaths were registered.

Mr Johnson said following the birthday gathering for which he and Rishi Sunak were fined, he assumed the fixed penalty notice was “a practical joke”.

He added his biggest mistake was to issue “a series of rather pathetic apologies, even when I knew zero about the events for which I was apologising. My grovelling just made people angrier.” 

Hundreds of Albanians who crossed the Channel on small boats have helped their drug gangs secure a stranglehold on Britain’s cannabis market.

They have been recruited as workers in illegal cannabis “farms” set up in rented houses or disused industrial buildings to produce crops worth up to £2 million a time and which can be grown and harvested in as little as 12 weeks.

The industrial scale of the cannabis production has been revealed by an undercover investigation into a secret channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram. It is used by more than 700 Albanians to share intelligence on their cannabis operations.

Conversations between members of the group centre on the best chemicals for plant growth, the most effective way to harvest cannabis plants, the economics of securing properties for drug production and why crossbows are better than guns to defend their crops from rival gangs.

Members of the group recount robberies where cannabis “farm” workers have had their fingers cut off and landlords have demanded five-figure shares of the profits.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that the ruthless professionalism that the Albanians have brought to cannabis farming has enabled them to displace the Vietnamese as the main domestic providers of the drug in Britain.

Albanian gangs who previously specialised in cocaine moved into cannabis because it was “very, very low-risk”.

It turns a good profit because of high demand – Britons consume 240 tonnes of the drug, worth £2.4 billion, a year – and does not require risky cross-border transportation because it is homegrown, according to the NCA.

The surge in Albanians crossing the Channel in 2022, when 12,685 reached the UK in small boats, has provided the ready supply of illegal workers, skilled in the hydroponic technology required to grow the plants in the darkened rooms of houses where all the windows have been sealed.

It has led to increasing focus by police on the domestic production of cannabis. Some 29 Albanians were sentenced in July alone for illegally producing the drug. That was followed by a further 24 Albanians appearing before the courts in August. That represents nearly one a day.

Some 101 illegal Albanian migrants were sentenced to more than 300 years in jail in three months at the end of last year. Three-quarters of them were convicted of offences linked to cannabis production across England and Wales in indoor farms.

Many of the illegal migrants were recruited by the gangs after a government crackdown on black economy work made it difficult for them to find jobs.

Fines for bosses who employ illegal migrants have tripled to up to £60,000 per worker to make the practice so economically damaging that it could “put them out of business”.

Police are concerned that Telegram has become a go-to platform for criminals. It has 900 million users but only about 100 employees. Pavel Durov, Telegram’s Russian-born founder, was detained in France this summer over its alleged failure to fight the use of the service for crime, including the spread of child sex abuse material.

The Albanians’ channel goes under the name Kusho, which means “cousin” and is the nickname Albanians use to address each other.

It currently has 703 members who share information about how to produce the maximum amount of cannabis from seed to full-grown plant.

Posts on the channel were collected by an Albanian reporter who infiltrated the group. “Everyone, you need to know how to grow ‘roses’,” said one of the organisers of the channel.

Another member listed the six key chemicals that had proved the most effective for fast, healthy growth.

One video demonstrated the best way to trim the dead leaves from a cannabis plant, while one member, using the pseudonym Bushi06, offered cannabis seedlings for £5 and boasted that he had sold 700 so far.

In discussions on how to protect the “farms”, one Albanian explained that it was better to spend £337 on a high-powered crossbow than a gun, because being caught in possession would carry a lesser sentence.

Some appeared less worried about police discovering their illegal operations than being attacked and robbed by rival gangs.

“Most robberies in the cannabis houses are happening in Leicester. They cut off the fingers of an Albanian worker,” said one member of the group.

“Police are not the big problem,” said a London-based Albanian using the pseudonym Deni. “The main problem is robbers who are now using drones to identify the houses. They detect the heat from the plants through the roofs of the houses.”

Others complained that landlords were overcharging them for the use of their properties or demanding a cut of the profits.

“London landlords are charging £4,000 a month for a house. Not worth it at all,”  said one.

Another said: “So far I have invested £31,000 in a house including 12K for sealing it up, and 12K for the lights. Do not know if I will get my money back. The agency who rented me the house are asking for £9,000 when the product is ready for harvesting.”

Last summer, police launched Operation Mille to target cannabis farms in the UK. Among those jailed was Nard Nidri, 34, who entered the UK illegally in 2022 and lived in Birmingham, then moved to Swansea, where he worked at a car wash, before being recruited for a cannabis farm.

He was one of four “gardeners” jailed for a combined total of six years in August after police arrested them at a property in Neath, south Wales. Two rooms and the attic had been adapted and insulated to grow plants with a street value of £85,000.

Sentencing them, Judge Geraint Walters said cannabis farms being run by Albanian criminal gangs had reached “epidemic levels” and had, in his judgment, “become something of an industry”.

He suggested that authorities should look at the rental housing sector, noting that while so-called cannabis “farmers” often appeared in court, landlords and others receiving money from the rent of properties being used for the growing operations rarely did so.

Ethnic minority children risk being forced out of private schools under the Government’s VAT plans, a best-selling black author has claimed.

Candice Brathwaite warned Sir Keir Starmer that he risks “widening the gap” through the tax raid, which is set to come into force on January 1 next year.

The author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother, who sends her daughter to private school, said many ethnic minority parents have “three jobs apiece to make that education happen – just to make their generational landscape a bit more socially mobile”.

Speaking on the BBC’s Headliners podcast, she said the 20 per cent tax would likely mean switching her daughter to a state school – warning that many others could follow suit.

“[The VAT] is now the thing that could possibly make us decide that we can’t do this anymore,” she said.

“I would say to [Sir Keir]: ‘Really have a think about actually how you could be widening the gap.’ I appreciate you’re extremely privileged to go to private school at all but kids of colour? Give me a break. They hardly touch the start line, you know.

“And for someone like me who is not pulling from that magical rainbow pot of gold it is the thin line… Why take that from people who are already trying really hard?”

Four in 10 private school pupils are from a minority ethnic background, according to the latest annual survey by the Independent Schools Council (ISC).

The figure has risen over the past 15 years, up from 23 per cent in 2009 –  reflecting the increasing diversity of the overall UK school population.

There are also wide regional disparities, with children from minority ethnic backgrounds making up more than 60 per cent of pupils at ISC schools in London last year.

Religious groups have warned the Government’s VAT plans could unfairly impact pupils at private faith schools, whose needs cannot be as readily met in the state sector.

Raisel Freedman, assistant director at the Partnership for Jewish Schools (Pajes), said the policy could “decimate” many Jewish schools and “force [Jewish] parents with more than a couple of children onto the poverty line”.

Of the 140 Jewish schools across the UK, 60 per cent hold independent status, equating to around 22,000 students.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, defended the VAT policy earlier this week. Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, she said it was “the fair choice, the responsible choice, the Labour choice to support the 94 per cent of our children in our state schools”.

A Government spokesman said: “We want to ensure all children have the best chance in life to succeed. Ending tax breaks on private schools will help to raise the revenue needed to fund our education priorities for next year, such as recruiting 6,500 new teachers.”

A Metropolitan Police officer has been sacked and banned from policing after allegedly spanking a 12-year-old girl’s bare bottom.

Pc Ross Benson, of the North West Basic command Unit, was accused of smacking the girl multiple times between April and August 2018 when she was aged 12 to 13, and there was an alleged sexual element to his behaviour.

The alleged incidents happened when he was off-duty. 

Bedfordshire Police arrested Pc Benson on suspicion of sexual assault on Nov 6 2020 but in September 2021 he was informed no further action would be taken.

A Met Police hearing concluded on Friday that he had breached the standard of professional behaviour at the level of gross misconduct, the force said.

He was dismissed without notice and placed on the barred list held by the College of Policing.

Det Supt Will Lexton-Jones said: “My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim who displayed courage in reporting this.

“Pc Benson’s abhorrent behaviour has led to his immediate dismissal, which is a decision I fully support.

“I hope this outcome demonstrates how we are rooting out those who do not demonstrate the high standards we demand from our officers.”

The incident follows a string of sexual misconduct cases involving Met Police officers in recent years.

Earlier this month, Mark Tyrell, 55, a former Met Police officer, was charged with 15 counts of sexual assault and two of rape.

In June, Jake Cummings, a Met Police officer accused of multiple sexual offences, was charged with rape and coercive control.

In February, a former Met Police officer who had been allowed to join the force after previously being accused of child rape, was convicted of carrying out multiple sex attacks.

Cliff Mitchell, 24, was convicted of 10 counts of rape, three counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of kidnap and breach of a non-molestation order following a trial at Croydon Crown Court.

Mitchell was first accused of child rape in 2017, but the investigation resulted in no further action and he was later able to join the Met Police, beginning his training in August 2021.

Last year it emerged that more than 120 serving Met Police officers were still performing their normal duties despite being accused of sexual or domestic abuse.

In 2022, sexual offence allegations against Met Police officers soared to a decade high after doubling in the year following the murder of Sarah Everard.

Figures showed 251 allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment and other sexual offences were made against officers or staff in 2021.

They included 190 allegations made internally by police colleagues – a rise of 104 per cent from 2020, and a 206 per cent increase compared with 2010.

The plan had been years in the making, the target one of the most famous figures in the Arab world, and one of the most hated in Israel.

In the 11 days before it was implemented, Israel had conducted a military campaign of metronomic efficiency in Lebanon, each phase meticulously and ruthlessly executed, each blow delivered as Hezbollah was still staggering from the one that preceded it.

But then, at dusk on Friday, came the heaviest blow of them all — one that may forever cripple Hezbollah, weaken Iranian influence and potentially even reshape the Middle East itself.

Their detonations echoing across the Beirut skyline, more than 80 bunker-busting bombs pulverised not just four high-rise buildings above the ground but also the subterranean complex that housed Hezbollah’s secret headquarters.

The synchronised sabotage of Hezbollah’s communication devices and other assassinations in previous days had shown Israel was not short of accurate intelligence about a movement that it had clearly infiltrated at all levels.

But this was on a different scale. If previous attacks had systematically severed many of the spokes of the Iran-backed movement, this one was striking at its very hub.

Not only did Israel know the location of the secret bunker of a man who had not been seen in public for two decades, they knew where Hassan Nasrallah would be and that he would be meeting some of the few senior commanders who had survived the assassination strikes of the preceding weeks.

In fact, Israel had known for months, tracking Nasrallah’s every movement until deciding to strike this week after learning that the Hezbollah leader planned to move to an unknown location, according to Israeli officials quoted by the New York Times.

As the plans were finalised, it was decided the operation should be mounted as Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly – something Israel’s military chiefs believed might persuade Nasrallah to lower his guard.

The ruse succeeded. As Mr Netanyahu addressed the press in New York following his speech, an aide whispered in his ear and the Israeli prime minister withdrew to give the command to attack.

For hours afterwards neither side knew Nasrallah’s fate but gradually, amid the chaos in southern Beirut, there was enough intelligence to confirm that he was indeed dead – something Hezbollah itself grudgingly conceded a few hours later.

Sweetening the triumph for Israel, the bomb did not just kill Nasrallah.

A general from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was among the dead, as was Ali Karaki, a senior Hezbollah commander who survived a previous assassination attempt just days earlier.

Mr Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel had “settled the score” with the killing of  Nasrallah.

“We settled the score with the one responsible for the murder of countless Israelis and many citizens of other countries, including hundreds of Americans and dozens of French,” he said, adding that Israel had reached “what appears to be a historic turning point” in the fight against its “enemies”.

The Israeli prime minister also claimed the death of Nasrallah would help facilitate the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

“The more (Hamas leader Yahya) Sinwar sees that Hezbollah will no longer come to his aid, the greater the chances of returning our captives,” he said, adding that Israel was “determined to continue striking our enemies”.

Israel’s military leadership also made it clear on Saturday that this was not the end of the assassinations, with remaining Hezbollah commanders still in their sights.

“This is not the end of our toolbox,” Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, Israel’s top army general, told reporters. “We have more capacity going forward. Anyone who threatens the state of Israel, we will know how to reach them.”

If this was a moment of unalloyed triumph for Israel’s military establishment and, so he hopes, a passage to possible political redemption for Mr Netanyahu, there is no question Hezbollah has suffered the most grievous in a litany of disasters.

Nasrallah might not have been involved in Hezbollah’s day-to-day military operations but he was the centrifuge around which the movement spun. For many in the Middle East, perhaps more than any other of Israel’s foes, he was the embodiment of resistance to the Jewish state.

The son of a greengrocer, he climbed through Hezbollah’s ranks until he reached the top after Israel killed his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi, one of the movement’s co-founders, in a missile strike on his motorcade in 1992.

Nasrallah proved a much more adept leader than Musawi, using his organisational skills and close ties to Iran to turn the movement into a formidable political and military force.

Having waged a guerrilla war that persuaded Israel to end its occupation in southern Lebanon in 2000, he was increasingly viewed as a hero by many in the Middle East.

He burnished that reputation when his fighters battled invading Israeli troops to a bloody standstill in the hills of southern Lebanon in 2006, a stalemate he successfully, if dubiously,  portrayed as a great military victory to his fellow Shia Muslims in Lebanon and beyond.

Spinning Nasrallah’s death and the turmoil of recent days will be far harder.

Even before the killing of Nasrallah, a growing number of analysts believed that Hezbollah’s reputation as the world’s most powerful non-state armed group was withering.

Now, with its leader out of the equation, it may quite possibly be facing a slow but terminal decline. As its once formidable reputation shrinks so too might that of Iran, which created, nurtured, funded, armed and trained Hezbollah.

Iran’s ability to project influence through the region by means of proxy militias is now in question.

Despite warning Israel that it had “opened the gates of hell against itself”, Tehran appears to have abandoned Hezbollah to fend for itself, rebuffing calls from the movement to come to its rescue by attacking Israel directly.

“Nasrallah’s killing is going to cause irreversible damage for Hezbollah and I don’t think it will be able to recover from it,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank.

 “I think we are seeing both a historic shift in Hezbollah’s power and a historic shift in the trajectory of Iran’s influence in the Middle East.”

Benjamin Netanyahu has long spoken of achieving a “decisive victory” against Israel’s enemies.

It is a phrase that has been dismissed in Washington and by Yoav Gallant, the prime minister’s own defence minister.

But following the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the hawks within Israel are celebrating – and even Mr Netanyahu’s critics are wondering if a decisive blow has been struck against the terrorist group.

Could the violent series of strikes by Israel reshape the country’s position in the Middle East, pushing Iran’s proxy forces back from the border and seeing Tehran shy away from conflict?

Israel’s hawks have long argued that only such bombastic military action can protect Israel.

They see a world where Hezbollah and Hamas are degraded to the point they pose no threat to Israel. And one in which Iran is sufficiently cowed that it stops funding its so-called axis of resistance for fear of inviting Israeli strikes on its ports and fragile water infrastructure.

That world remains a long way away, even though Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, has reacted to the carnage wrought upon Hezbollah by Israel in recent days without the blood-curdling threats of old.

In his speech on Saturday, he merely called on Muslims to stand up to “the Zionists” and insisted, despite growing evidence to the contrary, that Hezbollah is far too strong for the Israeli army to damage in any meaningful way.

His call for the 57 countries of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to come together and hold an “emergency meeting” on the Zionist threat is also unlikely to immediately concern Israel’s generals.

What seems clear is that Iran has miscalculated badly. Its strategy of surrounding Israel with a so-called “ring of fire” – proxy groups in Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – has been directly challenged, and, so far, Tehran has not hit back.

There are limits, it seems, to relying on militias in bankrupt states, with only varying levels of capability. 

According to reports, Hezbollah last week asked Iran to respond to Israel on its behalf, but was refused. Relations between the region’s principal sponsor of terror and its terrorist proxies may be about to unravel, or so the hawks hope.

“We have reestablished our deterrent after Oct. 7 when it seemed to our enemies it was lost,” said Sima Shine, the director of the Iran and the Shi’ite Axis research programme at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.

“Iran now has a huge problem. Everyone in the regime is in shock. They have no option but to recalibrate.

“Iran and its proxies understand now Israel is not in the mood for an attack from anyone any more and that if it comes, there will be consequences.”

Israel’s strike on Hezbollah’s nerve centre may have “fundamentally altered Iran’s strategic ambitions” in the region, added Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official.

He said: “This incident offers the Lebanese – previously held hostage by Hezbollah – the chance to liberate themselves from Iranian influence, while also likely compelling Iran to reevaluate its plans for regional control.”

No wonder then that Mr Netanyhu’s popularity ratings are once again approaching a historic high, the turning point being his first assassination of an Iranian general in Damascus in April. 

Taking the fight to the enemy works for him because it distracts from the disaster that was Oct 7, notes Dahlia Scheindlin, the respected Israeli pollster .

All this will be hard to take for the doves – most notably Joe Biden and Antony Blinken, his secretary of state. But it would be dishonest not to give some credit to the hawks’ strategy.

Of course, the war is not over yet, and much could change in the coming days and months. Iran might, for example, choose to invest in its nuclear ambitions more heavily, now that its deterrent by proxy strategy appears to be hanging by a thread.

Israel’s defence establishment typically avoids Mr Netanyahu’s talk of “decisive victory”, operating more in shades of grey.

For example, the Israeli navy is over the moon about Friday night’s much less publicised destruction of Hezbollah’s land-to-sea missile capability, something it has feared for years, not just as a threat to its ships, but to Israel’s offshore gas production.

“The defence establishment of course welcomes the destruction of Hezbollah’s military capability. But this is not the same as its terror capacity. This is where the politicians and the generals differ,” said one Israeli analyst.

“The threats facing Israel have not disappeared but have been transformed” added Orna Mizrahi, a retired lieutenant colonel now a Lebanon and Hezbollah specialist at INSS.

“It is essential for Israel to understand these evolving threats in order to prepare effectively and to identify opportunities that offer strategic advantage.”

There are few modern wars that have been settled decisively with brute force, with perhaps Sri Lanka’s terrible but decisive victory over the Tamil Tigers in 2009 being the most recent example.

Of course, the West’s misadventures in Iraq – where George W Bush got carried away with his own shock and awe and celebrated his own “victory” far too early – show the other side of the coin.

Following what were supposed to be overwhelming and, yes, “decisive”, interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq against the “axis of evil”, the US and its allies spent two decades fighting Islamic State and other terrorist insurgents.

It’s something that British and American troops are still very much involved in to this day.

But Israel’s future need not follow the same path. 

In his last broadcast speech, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, vowed a “reckoning will come” with Israel over its attacks on his fighters.

“It’s nature, its size, how and where? That is certainly what we will keep to ourselves,” he said.

In the end, the reckoning came for him in the form of a huge Israeli bombardment targeting Hezbollah’s headquarters on Friday night.

The arch-foe of Israel was eliminated after more than 30 years of leading Hezbollah in its wars against the Jewish state.

Among supporters, Nasrallah was lauded for standing up to Israel and defying the United States. To enemies, he was head of a terrorist organisation and a proxy for Iran’s Shi’ite Islamist theocracy in its tussle for influence in the Middle East.

His regional influence was on display over nearly a year of conflict ignited by the Gaza war, as Hezbollah entered the fray by firing on Israel from southern Lebanon in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, and Yemeni and Iraqi groups followed suit, operating under the umbrella of “The Axis of Resistance”.

Wearing the black turban of a Sayyed, or a descendent of the Prophet Mohammad, Nasrallah used his addresses to rally Hezbollah’s base but also to deliver carefully calibrated threats, often wagging his finger as he did so.

He became secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992 aged just 35, the public face of a once shadowy group founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces.

Israel killed his predecessor, Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, in a helicopter attack. Nasrallah led Hezbollah when its guerrillas finally drove Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.

A fiery orator viewed as an extremist in the United States and much of the West, he is also considered a pragmatist compared to the militants who dominated Hezbollah after its founding in 1982, during Lebanon’s civil war.

Despite the power he wields, Nasrallah has lived largely in hiding for fear of an Israeli assassination.

Conflict with Israel largely defined his leadership. He declared “Divine Victory” in 2006 after Hezbollah waged 34 days of war with Israel, winning the respect of many ordinary Arabs who had grown up watching Israel defeat their armies.

But he became an increasingly divisive figure in Lebanon and the wider Arab world as Hezbollah’s area of operations widened to Syria and beyond, reflecting an intensifying conflict between Shi’ite Iran and U.S.-allied Sunni Arab monarchies in the Gulf.

While Nasrallah painted Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria – where it fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war – as a campaign against jihadists, critics accused the group of becoming part of a regional sectarian conflict.

At home, Nasrallah’s critics said Hezbollah’s regional adventurism imposed an unbearable price on Lebanon, leading once-friendly Gulf Arabs to shun the country. This contributed to its 2019 financial collapse.

In the years following the 2006 war, Nasrallah walked a tightrope over a new conflict with Israel, hoarding Iranian rockets in a carefully measured contest of threat and counter-threat.

The Gaza war, ignited by the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel, prompted Hezbollah’s worst conflict with Israel since 2006, costing the group hundreds of its fighters including top commanders.

Nasrallah grew up in Beirut’s impoverished Karantina district. His family hails from Bazouriyeh, a village in Lebanon’s predominantly Shi’ite south which today forms Hezbollah’s political heartland.

He was part of a generation of young Lebanese Shi’ites whose political outlook was shaped by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Before leading the group, he used to spend nights with frontline guerrillas fighting Israel’s occupying army. His teenage son, Hadi, died in battle in 1997, a loss that gave him legitimacy among his core Shi’ite constituency in Lebanon.

He had a track record of threatening powerful enemies.

As regional tensions escalated after the eruption of the Gaza war, Nasrallah issued a thinly veiled warning to U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, telling them: “We have prepared for the fleets with which you threaten us.”

In 2020, Nasrallah vowed that U.S. soldiers would leave the region in coffins after Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq.

As regional tensions rose in 2019 following an attack on Saudi oil facilities, he said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should halt the Yemen war to protect themselves.

“Don’t bet on a war against Iran because they will destroy you,” he said in a message directed at Riyadh.

On Nasrallah’s watch, Hezbollah has also clashed with adversaries at home in Lebanon.

In 2008, he accused the Lebanese government – backed at the time by the West and Saudi Arabia – of declaring war by moving to ban his group’s internal communication network. Nasrallah vowed to “cut off the hand” that tried to dismantle it.

It prompted four days of civil war pitting Hezbollah against Sunni and Druze fighters, and the Shi’ite group to take over half the capital Beirut.

Benjamin Netanyahu left Israel for New York to “trick” Hezbollah’s leader into thinking he was safe, a senior Israeli official told The Telegraph.

Mr Netanyahu’s address to the UN was part of a “diversionary plan” intended to make Hassan Nasrallah believe Israel would not take drastic action with the prime minister out of the country.

Israel struck Beirut with a massive air strike on Friday that shook the Lebanese capital.

Mr Nasrallah was believed to be watching Mr Netanyahu’s speech “and was then attacked by Israeli Air Force planes”, the official said.

“Netanyahu approved the strike before delivering his speech at the UN,” the official added.

He went on to say that the Israeli assessment was that Mr Nasrallah was in the building at the time of the strike.

There are conflicting reports about his fate, however. Iran has said that the Hezbollah chief is in “good health”.

The attack came minutes after Mr Netanyahu vowed to continue operations against Hezbollah while addressing the UN chamber.

He struck a defiant tone, telling delegates that Israel would “continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met”.

Israel’s prime minister made little mention of the US-led peace plan that aims to establish a 21-day ceasefire between the IDF and Hezbollah.

He told the UN: “We will not accept a terror army parked on our northern border…able to perpetrate another October 7th-style massacre.”

On Friday night, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief lamented that no world power, including the US, can “stop” Mr Netanyahu.

Josef Borrell told reporters that Israel’s prime minister seems determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon with or without Western approval.

“What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank,” Mr Borrell said.

On Friday night Israel launched a new wave of air strikes on Beirut, targeting six suburbs in the south of the Lebanese capital that it said were being used by Hezbollah to store weapons.

A German Green party leader said young migrant men had sexually harassed his daughter as he condemned the country’s migration policies for causing “massive social upheaval”.

Cem Özdemir, Germany’s agriculture minister and a key member of the Green party, said the country must act now to protect its democracy by making it clear to illegal immigrants that there is “no place” for them in Germany.

In an op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, the Left-wing politician said it was his duty to speak out after hearing what had happened to his daughter.

His teenage daughter had been repeatedly “sexualised and unpleasantly ogled” on the streets by young migrant men, said Mr Özdemir, himself the son of Turkish immigrants.

Recent migration policies, which have seen millions of people come to Germany via irregular means, have made women less safe, he said. And he claimed the country was scared of debating the link between fundamentalist Islam and abuse of women because of fears it would empower the hard-Right.

‘Real problems’ 

“I’m convinced that the AfD benefits the most when we choose not to talk about real problems out of a misplaced sense of respect,” he stated.

Current policies amounted to a system of survival of the fittest and were leading to “massive social upheaval”, he added.

Imploring all mainstream parties to get behind plans to end illegal migration, Mr Özdemir warned that time was running out to save liberal democracy from attacks from the hard-Right.

If we don’t act now “we will all bear responsibility for not having acted in the knowledge of the dangers to our country,” he stated.

Mr Özdemir’s dramatic warning is the just latest example of a tectonic shift taking place in the German political landscape, where his Green party are renouncing their previous stance in favour of open borders.

After facing electoral disaster in three state elections this month, the Greens are in turmoil, with the party riven over migration and economic policies and deeply unpopular among voters.

Last week, the entire party leadership resigned after they failed to win a single seat at the state election in Brandenburg.

This followed a similar wipeout at the election in Thuringia a few weeks earlier.

Meanwhile, the party’s youth organisation declared that it was leaving to set up a new political movement, claiming that the national leadership had moved too far to the Right.

Mr Özdemir is a key figure on the moderate wing of the party, which is now rallying around Robert Habeck, the Vice-Chancellor, as it hopes to restore its fortunes before next year’s federal election.

Run the state

Also last week, three state governments which include Green ministers demanded Chancellor Olaf Scholz take a tougher stance on illegal migration.

State executives in North Rhine Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein, where the Greens either run the state or are a junior coalition partner, called for a change in policy in light of a terror attack by a Syrian man in August that killed three people.

They called for asylum claims to be dealt with outside Germany, deportations of criminals to Syria, and the removal of protection for people who had gone back to their homeland on holiday.

For years, the Greens dominated the youth vote, with the Fridays for Future climate movement helping them to become the most popular party in Germany for a period before the last election.

Since then though, young voters have swung to the Right, as their main concern has moved from climate change to mass migration, leading to the AfD scoring stunning successes at state elections.

The man who could become Austria’s first hard-Right leader in its postwar history cuts an unassuming figure as he takes to a stage beneath St Stephen’s cathedral.

Wearing thick-rimmed spectacles and a navy gilet, Herbert Kickl speaks softly as he greets an audience of several hundred Austrians, hemmed into Vienna’s Stephansplatz square by police to keep them separate from a Left-wing counter protest.

“On Sunday, together we will achieve something in this country that’s never been seen before,” the 55-year-old tells the crowd, which has spent the past two hours cheering and dancing as a silver-haired band warmed them up with rock anthems. “Freedom in first place and a Freedom chancellor.”

The latest polls suggest Mr Kickl’s Freedom Party of Austria [FPO] will win Sunday’s election, potentially putting a hard-Right, anti-migrant movement in charge of the EU member state for the first time.

One of Europe’s oldest hard-Right parties, the FPO was founded in 1956 and initially led by Anton Reinthaller, a former Nazi minister and SS cavalry inspector.

Much like the Alternative für Deutschland [AfD] party in Germany, the FPO has sought to clean up its image in recent years but still faces accusations of flirting with extremist or neo-Nazi concepts. While there were no fascist or skinhead types in clear sight at the rally in Stephansplatz, a TV crew was physically harassed by two FPO supporters in the middle of a live broadcast.

Many of the FPO’s policies will pose a major headache for the EU as populism sweeps across the east, above all its calls for “remigration” of asylum seekers and its rejection of support for Ukraine. Though Austria is one of the EU’s smaller states, with a population of nine million and an economy similar in size to Ireland, it wields a veto over key EU legislation.

The concept of “remigration” is openly discussed by the FPO even though it has become controversial in neighbouring Germany, where it is closely associated with neo-Nazi extremism.

Last year the most prominent advocate of remigration, Austrian far-Right activist Martin Sellner, discussed the concept as a model for Germany at a secretive meeting near Berlin that was also attended by members of the AfD, prompting massive nationwide protests.

“I don’t know what’s so bad about that word,” Mr Kickl says of his own remigration plan, which envisages the deportation of asylum seekers, in particular criminals, as well as blocking family reunification for migrants already in Austria. “Those who clapped their welcome in 2015 [the height of the Syrian refugee crisis] have gotten us into a mess that will take decades to clean up,” he says.

Mr Kickl then turns his ire to Karl Nehammer, Austria’s outgoing centre-Right chancellor, and the other main party leaders. He brands their climate change policies, support for Covid-era restrictions and sanctions on Russia as “crazy…those responsible want to sneak away, but I will not let them get away with it”.

“The topic of integration and migration has really taken centre stage as the main political topic, and it has helped the FPO become stronger,” says Judith Kohlenberger, a senior analyst at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

“What specifically can be attributed to Herbert Kickl is a very radical kind of rhetoric. When he was just a party functionary, and not leader, he already wrote all the speeches for [long-time FPO leader] Jorg Haider,” she says.

“He designed all the posters, all these strong, very xenophobic mottos that you read, this is all his doing,” she adds, alluding to past poster scandals such as the slogan “Heimat-Liebe statt Marokkaner-Diebe [Patriots, not thieving Morrocans].”

In addition to a surge in migration, Austria was wracked by severe flooding earlier this month, which killed five people, and its cost of living crisis grinds on despite the government announcing a €6bn (£5bn) funding package in 2022.

One Austrian innkeeper famously resorted to raising the cost of wiener schnitzel, Vienna’s famous dish of pan-fried veal cutlets, from €24 to €149, claiming it would help him cover his electricity bills. The increased price would only be charged to employees of energy companies, he said at the time.

Even if the FPO emerges as the winner on Sunday night, Mr Kickl faces an uphill struggle to secure the role of chancellor, as he would still need to form a coalition.

Mr Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party [OVP], polling in second place, has ruled out serving in a coalition under Mr Kickl as Chancellor, claiming he is too radical.

Much of the controversy surrounding Mr Kickl relates to his 2018 comment that Austrian authorities should “concentrate asylum seekers in one place”, which was interpreted as an allusion to Nazi concentration camps, though he denies this.

But relations between the two parties were already sour, with the FPO previously serving as the junior partner in two brief coalitions with the OVP. The first collapsed in 2002 amid FPO in-fighting and the second was torpedoed by the Ibiza affair, a complex corruption scandal involving then FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache.

Mr Strache had been caught in a sting operation where he was filmed in Ibiza in 2017 meeting a woman, who posed as the niece of a top Russian businessman and potential buyer of an Austrian tabloid, to discuss swapping government contracts for positive coverage of the FPO.

Mr Strache was at that time vice-chancellor of Austria, but the scandal triggered his own resignation, a no-confidence vote in Sebastian Kurz, OVP chancellor, and the demise of their ill-tempered coalition.

It is not the only Russia-linked row to hit the FPO, which has also drawn fire for a poster depicting Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, kissing Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission chief, with the caption “stop the EU madness”.

And in 2018, Karin Kneissl, who was nominated by the FPO as foreign minister, was filmed dancing a waltz with Vladimir Putin at her own wedding. She has since moved to St Petersburg to set up a think tank.

Back at the rally in Stephansplatz, beneath Vienna’s 12th-century Romanesque cathedral, some voters said the FPO was the only party with a concrete solution to mass migration.

“It’s a patriotic party that loves democracy, and he’s a patriotic man who is doing the best for Austria,” Leopold Eisenheld, 45, said of the FPO leader. “The borders need to be closed and we need to see no more migration.”

Humza Yousaf’s relatives were put on a “priority list” for Gaza evacuations after his office lobbied the Foreign Office to secure their release, official documents reveal.

Last October, the former first minister’s parents-in-law were among hundreds of Britons trapped in Gaza when controls were imposed on the Rafah crossing in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

At the time, Mr Yousaf was vocal about the plight of his mother and father-in-law who were trying to obtain safe passage out of the war zone via Egypt.

Now he has been accused of breaking the ministerial code by attempting to use his office to get his family moved “nearer the front of the queue for evacuation”.

A tranche of documents, published under freedom of information laws, reveal the extent to which his private office lobbied senior Foreign Office officials, as well as ministers, over his relatives’ release.

The former first minister secured a personal phone call with the then foreign secretary on Nov 1 in which he was told that his parents-in-law had been added to the “priority list” of British nationals trying to flee Gaza, according to the documents.

Just two days after the call, Mr Yousaf’s mother-in-law and father-in-law were given safe passage out of Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

The cache of correspondence, seen by The Telegraph, reveals the extent to which members of Mr Yousaf’s private office assisted him in lobbying for his relatives’ release.

Their efforts resulted in Mr Yousaf securing an “urgent” call with Lord Ahmed, the then Middle East minister, on Oct 10 “to discuss the ongoing situation in Israel/Gaza, specifically with regards to his parents-in-law”, the documents show.

Four days later, on Oct 10, Mr Yousaf spoke to the consular director, one of the most senior Foreign Office officials in charge of co-ordinating the evacuation of British nationals from Gaza.

As well as emails, the correspondence includes WhatsApp messages sent between Mr Yousaf and his officials.

In one of these messages, an official advises Mr Yousaf that “the most senior consular officer on duty” has offered to “support” him in his efforts to secure the release of his relatives.

Stephen Kerr, a Conservative MSP and former member of Scotland’s standards, procedures and public appointments Committee, said: “Which of us, in Humza Yousaf’s desperate position, would not have mentioned family members trapped in Gaza at such a dangerous time to the Foreign Secretary, if we had the chance?

“We shouldn’t question his motives but as a public servant, we have every right to question his methods. The rules are very clear.”

Government urged to launch review

Mr Kerr went on to say that the Nolan Principles, which those in public office are expected to abide by, state that nobody in public office should ever use their office to advantage their family or friends.

He said the Scottish Government should launch a review into an examination of “any ministerial code violations that may have taken place as a result of these communications”.

Mr Kerr said: “And we must also put ourselves in the position of other families in Scotland worried about relatives trapped in Gaza, who were not able to have a word in the Foreign Secretary’s ear and get their family moved nearer the front of the queue for evacuation.”

Earlier this year, it emerged that Mr Yousaf faces a review into a series of donations the Scottish Government made to a Gaza aid agency while members of his family were trapped in the war zone.

It came after The Telegraph revealed that he overrode officials to give £250,000 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

A Scottish Government spokesman said that the suggestion Mr Yousaf secured preferential treatment for his relatives is “completely untrue”.

They said: “The former first minister consistently sought assurances that the UK Government was doing everything it could to ensure the safety of all British citizens in Gaza.

“The former first minister made the Permanent Secretary aware of the situation with his family immediately that it arose. It was also widely and publicly known.”

An FCDO spokesman said: “No preferential treatment was given to the former first minister or his family. FCDO Ministers spoke with him at the time to update him on the conflict in the Middle East. As part of these wider conversations, they discussed his family’s personal circumstances”.

They added that consular support was provided to all British nationals seeking to leave Gaza at the time, and that priority was given to the vulnerable, including the elderly.

A justice minister has opened the door to thieves, shoplifters and other common criminals being spared short jail sentences.

Sir Nic Dakin said short prison terms were more likely to result in making offenders “better criminals” rather than rehabilitating them and turning them into “better citizens”.

It is the strongest indication yet that Labour’s forthcoming sentencing review – due to be announced next month – could pave the way for scrapping many short jail terms. These would be replaced with community punishments geared towards rehabilitation, meaning some low-level criminals would avoid jail.

The review is expected to be headed by former Tory justice secretary David Gauke who argued that introducing a legal presumption against sentences of under a year and scrapping those under six months could reduce reoffending. His plans were shelved after he quit the Government when Boris Johnson became Tory leader.

Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, wants the review to provide “creative” solutions to tackle reoffending as well as the overcrowding crisis which has forced her to introduce an early release scheme freeing thousands of prisoners 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than halfway.

Asked about scrapping short sentences, Sir Nic said: “All the evidence seems to suggest that short sentences tend to make better criminals rather than better citizens. Where we will come from is that it is better to have a system that makes people better citizens than better criminals.”

However, speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, he said community alternatives must be robust enough to satisfy the public’s demands for justice. “Anything that the sentencing review comes out with has to have the confidence of the general public,” he said.

‘Real and positive change’

Sir Nic also said that Lord James Timpson, the prisons minister in the Lords and a longstanding prison reform campaigner, was “probably right” when he said that “only a third of [prisoners] should definitely be there.”

“If that is what James said, that’s probably right. James is obviously leading on all of this stuff. James has a lot of personal experience and a wealth of knowledge in this area. He is speaking from understanding. If that is accurate, there’s a massive challenge and a massive opportunity in that challenge.”

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is expected to fast-track the review to complete it within six months because internal forecasts indicate that prisons in England and Wales will run out of space again within nine months largely because of a glut of more rioters from the summer disorder being jailed in the coming months.

In his landmark speech setting out his prison reform plans in July 2019, Mr Gauke said his research showed moving away from sentences of under six months “would deliver real and positive change, for the offenders to turn their lives around and for the safety of the public.”

The MoJ research estimated there would be about 32,000, or 13 per cent, fewer proven reoffences a year if criminals jailed for six months were instead given a community order. Sentences of under one year account for around two-thirds of people jailed in any one year – and disproportionately involve women.

Time off for good behaviour

Mr Gauke proposed three options of a ban on sentences under six months; a presumption against jail terms of under six months; or a combination of a bar on sentences under six months and a presumption against those under one year. Sexual, violent and terrorist offences would be excluded.

Alex Chalk, justice secretary under Rishi Sunak, revived the proposals for a presumption against sentences under one year, replacing them with suspended prison terms in order to place a “sword of Damocles” over offenders. If they breached their licences, they would be recalled to jail to serve their full sentence.

However, despite the plan being initially backed by the then-prime minister, Number 10 moved away from the plans following a revolt by backbench MPs. It delayed the Bill so long that it was lost in the parliamentary wash-up when Mr Sunak called the election.

Ms Mahmood is understood to believe a presumption against short sentences or a move to suspended sentences is a probable outcome of a review but also wants it to consider wider options such as Texas-style schemes enabling prisoners to earn time off their sentences for good behaviour and attending workshops.

An MoJ spokesman said: “The new Government inherited a justice system in crisis and has begun work to rescue and rebuild it so that prison creates better citizens, not better criminals. The Lord Chancellor has already confirmed plans to launch a review into sentencing and further details will be set out in due course.”

The Labour peer at the centre of Sir Keir Starmer’s donations row previously criticised “entitled” MPs who took freebies following the Westminster expenses scandal.

Lord Alli gave Sir Keir £32,000 to pay for clothing, as well as thousands of pounds for designer clothing for his wife Victoria, and work clothing to Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister. He also lent the Prime Minister his £18 million Covent Garden penthouse.

But speaking to the Financial Times in 2011, Lord Alli criticised MPs who took handouts and suggested people who were involved in the riots that swept across the UK that year felt able to steal from shops because they believed politicians were “on the take”.

His comments came two years after The Telegraph exposed widespread abuse in how MPs claimed their expenses, which led to a major overhaul of the Commons expenses system.

When asked about the unrest, Lord Alli said: “When you’re at the bottom of the heap and you see people can bankrupt your economy and still take huge bonuses, when MPs can help themselves to expenses which they think they’re entitled to but are probably not right…

“When [journalists] who are the checks and balances on that political power are breaking the law with such abandon when you look up and see everybody on the take – everybody – and you can get a free pair of trainers…

“Tell me what the difference is between a free pair of trainers and a banker’s bonus, or a TV set in a second home that isn’t in your constituency or [hacking] Milly Dowler’s phone to get £1,000 from the editor of some tabloid?”

Lord Alli added: “The difference is it’s four years in jail for the person with the trainers and nobody else.”

Sir Keir was the director of public prosecutions at the time of both the expenses scandal and the 2011 riots, which came after 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot dead by police.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Lord Alli but the row over his gifts has damaged the Government’s popularity and overshadowed Labour’s annual party conference last week.

Sir Keir also initially failed to declare around £5,000 in designer clothing given to Lady Starmer by the peer, although he will not face a parliamentary standards investigation.

Lord Alli declined to comment on the growing row when he attended the Labour conference. 

When he was approached by Serena Barker-Singh, a journalist for Sky News, he said: “Please don’t. This isn’t very nice.”

Lord Alli’s office and Downing Street were contacted for comment.

Cancer patients are being told that surgery to remove body parts containing tumours can be “gender-affirming”.

Leaflets given to NHS patients at cancer centres and made by charity Macmillan, tell patients that surgery could be an opportunity “to remove a body part that you prefer not to have anyway”.

A leaflet available for patients at Weston Park Cancer Centre in Sheffield has been described as “staggeringly inappropriate and insensitive”.

A charity said it was “disgusting” that a health centre was promoting “some kind of two-for-one deal” on life-changing cancer surgery.

The materials are not made by Weston Park or the NHS but were on display to cancer patients at the centre. They say they were made in partnership with LGBT cancer charity Outpatients, and replicate statements found on the Macmillan website.

“Sometimes surgery to treat cancer is also gender-affirming. Surgery to remove the cancer may remove a body part that you prefer not to have anyway,” it said. “Again, it is helpful if your team understands how you feel about this, so they can support you and plan your treatment well.”

There are multiple cancers that could involve surgery to remove a body part associated with one sex.

Breast cancer patients can sometimes require a mastectomy to remove one or both breasts, to treat the tumour and also reduce the chance of it returning.

Women with ovarian or womb cancer can also sometimes require a hysterectomy to remove the uterus, which also means they can no longer get pregnant.

For men, the testes or prostate can be surgically removed as a way of treating those cancers too.

The materials offer other advice to LGBT patients on taking cross-sex hormones while having treatment and the risks of radiotherapy if a patient wants to or has had genital surgery.

It also explains that “some side effects can be upsetting because they cause changes that do not reflect how you identify”.

“For example, hair loss or a change in your weight or body shape may be upsetting if your appearance is an important part of your gender identity,” it reads. “Some treatments might change part of your body that you have worked hard to align with your gender.”

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at human-rights charity Sex Matters, said: “Trying to put a positive ‘gender-affirming’ spin on mastectomies is staggeringly insensitive and inappropriate from Weston Park Cancer Centre.

“Female survivors of cancer have been saying for years that trans activists’ promotion of elective mastectomies as a treatment for gender distress is deeply upsetting.

“For a health centre to suggest that life-saving surgery for cancer patients might offer some kind of two-for-one deal, with gender affirmation thrown in, is frankly disgusting.”

‘Particularly disturbing’

Kate Barker, the chief executive of LGB Alliance, said: “Mastectomies are life-changing and it’s shocking to see them treated with such flippancy.

“It’s particularly disturbing to see this message targeted at lesbian and bisexual women, implying that this group might be ‘affirmed’ by losing their breasts.”

Prof Chris Morley, the chief nurse at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Weston Park Cancer Centre, said: “A large number of organisations, including Macmillan, provide information that is valuable to our patients.

“We recognise that there has been feedback on the content of this booklet, and we do not want anyone to be distressed by anything we have available, so we have raised this with the authors to make them aware of the concerns.”

A Macmillan spokesman said: “Macmillan wants to make sure that everyone, whoever they are and whatever their circumstances, gets the care they need when they are diagnosed with cancer, without judgment or prejudice.

“We are proud to have many partnerships with patient groups who help shape our cancer resources and ensure we meet the specific needs of different communities with tailored information and support that is right for them.

“In this case, the booklet and supporting content on our website was produced in partnership with Outpatients, a charity that works with and for people who are LGBTQ+ and have cancer, to support them through their diagnosis and treatment.”

Police forces should not be allowed to use dogs to fight crime, animal rights campaigners have said.

Animal rights activists say the time has come to phase out the use of dogs in law enforcement following a spate of injuries to animals on the frontline during the summer riots.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has been encouraged to “phase out the use of dogs” amid rising risks to their welfare and improvements in technology that can replace their role.

“With more technology at our disposal than ever before, there’s no need to continue to use dogs – or any animal – to maintain law and order,” Elisa Allen, vice-president of programmes at Peta, wrote in a letter to Sir Mark Rowley seen by The Telegraph.

“Now is the time to make a change. Please, begin phasing out animals from police service.”

It is the first time the organisation has called on the police forces of the UK to reconsider the century-old practice of training and using canines.

The first formal police dogs began work in Britain in 1908 in Hull. Alsatians, also known as German shepherds, became the default police dog following the First World War after British officials saw the power, trainability and effectiveness of the breed when it was used by Germany during the war.

There are now more than 2,500 dogs used by police in the UK, according to estimates, with the Met alone having about 400.

Dogs are used by a range of forces for a host of purposes, including tracking suspects, riot control, bomb and drug detection, and search and rescue.

The Alsatian is still the most common general purpose police dog and some are also trained as specialist urban search and rescue dogs.

Spaniels and labradors, known for their temperament and sensitive noses, are the main choice for detection dogs.

“Dogs in Britain’s police forces never signed up to risk their lives but are being battered on the front lines of riots and left to bake to death in hot cars,” Ms Allen said.

“Peta is urging the Metropolitan Police to end the use of dogs and adopt modern methods of maintaining law and order that don’t subject animals to a lifetime of violence.”

In the letter, she told Sir Mark that police forces “have in recent months admirably protected the public from hateful, violent extremists” but warned this unrest highlighted the risks to the police dogs.

“Ike and Zoe, dogs used by Merseyside Police, were hit by bricks thrown by the unruly crowd,” she said in the letter.

“A third dog, Quga – who was bitten and strangled by an offender while on duty in July – sustained further injuries when her back leg was burned during the riots.”

The Met Police was approached for comment.

The King hailed the “uniquely special place” Scotland holds in his family’s hearts as he celebrated the “enduring relationship” between its parliament, its people and the crown.

The monarch was at Holyrood to mark the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament.

As they arrived at Holyrood on Saturday morning, the King and Queen were met by Alison Johnstone, Holyrood’s Presiding Officer, and Liam McArthur and Annabelle Ewing, the Deputy Presiding Officers.

The royal couple then greeted Holyrood’s party leaders – John Swinney, First Minister and head of the SNP; Russell Findlay, Scottish Conservative leader; Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader; Lorna Slater, Scottish Green co-leader,  and Alex Cole-Hamilton, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader .

Mr Swinney said the ceremony marked “25 years in which the Scottish Parliament has changed lives for the better”.

The First Minister, who was wearing a kilt in Ancient Hunter tartan in honour of his late mother – whose maiden name was Hunter, told how since its formation “this Parliament has been the voice of Scotland”.

Mr Swinney, who has served continuously as an MSP since the first Holyrood elections in 1999, spoke of the “unending possibilities of Scottish self government”.

He said: “For 25 years Scotland has grown in confidence as she raised up this new institution at her very heart.”

The First Minister continued: “This Parliament has been steadfast in its compassion for the most vulnerable in society, and full of aspiration for the advancement of all.

“In the next quarter century it is my hope that Scotland’s democratic institutions continue to evolve and break new ground.

“I hope Scotland will continue to shine as a beacon of enlightenment across stormy seas, a refuge for reason in the world, a wellspring of modern thought and creativity.”

Earlier, Ms Johnstone recalled the “excitement and aspirations of the people of Scotland” when the Parliament opened 25 years ago.

She told the King: “Your presence here today, as we mark this significant milestone, demonstrates your continuing commitment.

“We are grateful for the encouragement and counsel that we have received over these last 25 years from the late Queen and from you.”

With the Scottish Parliament building –  which is now 20 years old –  being sited across from the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal’s family’s residence in Edinburgh, the Presiding Officer added that she hoped they found their “relatively newish neighbours agreeable”.

At the end of the ceremony, the King and Queen spent time talking to some of the ordinary Scots who had been invited to the ceremony as “local heroes” by MSPs.

The couple then signed a visitor book in front of a picture of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who the KIng was with at the opening ceremony for the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

In an address to the chamber, watched by the Queen, he recalled witnessing his late mother, Elizabeth II, formally open the parliament in 1999, a moment he described as a “new dawn” and a “turning point”.

But as he looked ahead to the next quarter of a century and beyond, he warned “there remains much more to be done for Scotland, for the United Kingdom” and in addressing the dangers of climate change.

The King spoke fondly of his affection for the country, with its vast and varied landscape.

“We are all, at the end of each day, united by our love of Scotland,” he said.

“Because of its natural beauty, of course, but also because of its strength of character, based as it is on the extraordinary diversity of its peoples, whose range of ideas, skills, energy, passions, and frequently deeply held beliefs, never cease to inspire me.”

“From the central belt, to the north Highlands, across the islands, in Ayrshire, in the Borders, the cities, towns, and villages, or the coastal communities, who, I wonder, could not fail to be moved by this complex Caledonian kaleidoscope?”

He added: “Speaking from a personal perspective, Scotland has always had a uniquely special place in the hearts of my family and myself. My beloved grandmother was proudly Scottish.

“My late mother especially treasured the time spent at Balmoral, and it was there, in the most beloved of places, where she chose to spend her final days.”

His words echoed those of the late Queen as she addressed the chamber on July 1, 1999 and lauded the “grit, determination and humour” of Scottish people, qualities that she said occupied “a personal place in my own and my family’s affections”.

The King said that moment was “a landmark in a long, rich and complex story which we have shared over many centuries.”

The opening of the parliament was a great yet daunting prospect, he added, with the hopes of a nation resting on the shoulders of each newly elected MP, 13 of whom remain today.

In the intervening years, he acknowledged, much has changed but Scottish values remain steadfast.

“From that day until this, through its work over a quarter of a century, this place has not just thrived but, in doing so, has borne witness to the enduring relationship between the Parliament, the Crown and the people of Scotland,” he said.

“Let this moment therefore be the beginning of the next chapter.

“The achievement of the past and the commitment shown in the present give us the soundest basis for confidence in the future.”

Loose Women has marked its 25th anniversary with a new silver jubilee-inspired portrait featuring 18 of the show’s panellists for the first time.

The image sees the all-female line-up posing together while donning an array of silver sequin and satin gowns.

Four original panellists from the first week of shows in 1999 – Jane Moore, Kaye Adams, Nadia Sawalha and Ruth Langsford – appear in the group photo.

Janet Street-Porter and Coleen Nolan, who have individually appeared in more than 1,000 episodes each, also feature alongside Linda Robson, Denise Welch and Brenda Edwards.

Newer additions to the panel also feature including Christine Lampard, Judi Love, Katie Piper, Kelle Bryan, Frankie Bridge, Dame Kelly Holmes, Charlene White, Sunetra Sarker and Olivia Attwood-Dack.

Reflecting on the show’s long-running success, Langsford said: “I was on Loose Women from the very start and I have noticed a huge difference in how much more open people are about talking about difficult subjects.

“I believe that we have helped bring that about because we bring honesty to the show, we bring our own lives to the show.

“We talk about very difficult, painful things in our lives, but we know that that reflects what people are going through themselves at home – and now we talk about Alzheimer’s, suicide, divorce, all sorts of things that were a little bit taboo and I think it’s great that we do that.”

‘I’m immensely proud’

Loose Women editor Sally Shelford said: “Over the last 25 years, Loose Women has tackled taboos and talked about issues not openly discussed on television, including domestic abuse, menopause, miscarriage and grief.

“Our incredible audience – in the studio and at home – have always been the fifth Loose Woman, and we promise to keep talking, sharing and shining a light on important subjects like these for our amazing viewers.”

Managing director of Daytime Studios at ITV Studio Emma Gormley added: “Loose Women is Britain’s longest running panel show and 25 years on, continues to lead the conversation on so many topics that reflect the lives of our viewers, from agenda-setting campaigns to lunchtime laughs with the women.

“I’m immensely proud to work with a brilliantly talented team on and off screen and be able to celebrate the milestone anniversary with this wonderful silver jubilee themed shoot.”

The show first aired on September 6 1999 with Adams, Sawalha, Moore and Apprentice star Baroness Karren Brady on the panel.

Since the first one, there have been approximately 4,550 Loose Women episodes and specials, according to ITV.

The show has also hosted nine all-male Loose Men panels which have drawn attention to men’s mental and physical health, with the first launching on International Men’s Day on November 19 2020.

Loose Women airs weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV1, ITVX and this September celebrates the show’s 25th anniversary.

Joe Biden still believes his plans to end the violence in the Middle East are on track despite Israel defying his attempts to broker a peace deal.

The Telegraph understands that the US president insists Israeli assassination of Hezbollah’s leader has weakened the terror organisation enough that a ceasefire deal is still possible.

On Saturday, Mr Biden celebrated the death of Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an air strike on Hezbollah’s underground headquarters just outside Beirut.

“His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians,” the president said in a statement.

It came despite reports suggesting Mr Biden had been “humiliated” and “embarrassed” by Benjamin Netanyahu during discussions over Washington’s Middle Eastern peace plans. 

The US president told allies that he believed the Israeli leader had engaged in a back-and-forth over a ceasefire despite having no intention to stop the strikes against Hezbollah, Politico reported.

A White House spokesman dismissed the accounts of a potential row between the US and Israel.

Mr Netanyahu had privately told US officials that he supported a pause in the fighting with the Lebanon-based terror group.

But he has publicly rejected a US proposal for a 21-day ceasefire with Hezbollah, and has vowed to continue the fighting.

In a speech at the United Nations on Friday, the Israeli prime minister said his armed forces would not stop hitting targets in Lebanon “until we achieve all of our objectives”. 

“I wonder about the timing of Israel’s recent onslaught against Hezbollah and how much is linked to Netanyahu seeing Biden as a quasi-lame duck. This was a small window for Israel to act without any substantive or meaningful pushback from the White House. Perfect storm of factors,” Colin P Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, said.

On Saturday, Mr Biden said he wanted to end fighting in both Lebanon and Gaza through “diplomatic means”.

“It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability,” he added.

It came as Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, in an air strike on the organisation’s underground headquarters near Beirut.

His death marks a significant escalation in Israeli’s operations to dismantle the terror group, but could also undermine Mr Biden’s attempts to prevent a wider conflict across the Middle East.

A senior general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was also killed in the strike, state media reported on Saturday.

Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s vice-president, said Nasrallah’s death would lead to the destruction of Israel, in a sign that the air strikes could drag Tehran further into the conflict.

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Iraq’s prime minister, also condemned the assassination as a “crime”, another suggestion that Israel’s operations are destabilising the region.

The US has said it is determined to prevent an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, said a ground incursion by Israeli forces into Lebanon could trigger a wider regional conflict.

He also warned that casualties would “equal or exceed” the number in Gaza.

“An all-out war between Lebanese, Hezbollah and Israel would be devastating for both Lebanon and Israel. And again, we anticipate that we’d see a number of people displaced, casualties that, you know, equal or exceed what we’ve seen in Gaza,” Mr Austin told CNN.

A US government scientist may have published faked images in papers on Alzheimer’s, a report has claimed.

Eliezer Masliah, who led the neuroscience division at the National Institute on Aging, a government health body, has been a key figure in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease research for decades.

But an investigation by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made “findings of research misconduct” against Dr Masliah for “falsification and/or fabrication” of figure panels which were used to show experimental results.

According to the academic journal Science, which conducted its own investigation into Dr Masliah, he may have also doctored pictures used in several research papers.

“All four [papers] used apparently doctored images, according to the dossier, as did other Masliah papers cited in clinical trial reports as important to [Parkinson’s disease treatment] prasinezumab’s development,” Science reported.

The falsification is claimed to include the “duplication of the same image with different captions about different research in different journals”.

According to the NIH, misconduct may have occurred in two studies co-authored by Dr Masliah.

‘Falsification and fabrication’

In a statement, the NIH said: “Following an investigation, the National Institutes of Health has made findings of research misconduct against Eliezer Masliah, M.D., due to falsification and/or fabrication involving re-use and relabel of figure panels representing different experimental results in two publications.

“NIH will notify the two journals of its findings so that appropriate action can be taken.

“NIH initiated its research misconduct review process in May 2023 after it received allegations from the HHS Office of Research Integrity (ORI) that same month. NIH began its investigation phase in December 2023, concluded its investigation of these allegations on Sept 15, 2024, and notified HHS ORI of its findings.”

Science’s investigation, which was published days after the NIH’s findings, alleged that “scores” of Dr Masliah’s lab studies were “riddled with” apparently manipulated images.

The journal reportedly brought its findings to a neuroscientist and forensic analysts who later asserted that more than 100 of Dr Masliah’s published studies, spanning more than two decades, contained a “steady stream of suspect images”.

Dr Masliah, a former professor at the University of California San Diego, was appointed to head the National Institute on Aging in 2016, when Congress significantly increased funding for Alzheimer’s research.

Dr Masliah’s department had a budget of $2.6 billion, making him one of the most influential figures in neuroscience, with the power to set research priorities within the field.

His own research, amounting to around 800 papers, particularly on proteins such as alpha-synuclein linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, has been widely cited and drawn upon in clinical and drug development efforts.

‘Anomalous data’

However, experts quoted by Science allege that much of the research they analysed contained a “pattern of anomalous data” which they say warrants further investigation.

A forensic review led by neuroscientist Matthew Schrag, image analyst Kevin Patrick, and others identified issues in 132 papers published between 1997 and 2023. The team found allegedly manipulated western blots – images used to detect proteins – and allegedly altered micrographs of brain tissue.

In some instances, images were apparently duplicated across different studies that had been published years apart, with conflicting experimental conditions.

The apparently manipulated images raise questions about the calibre and integrity of Dr Masliah’s research, Mu Yang, a Columbia University neurobiologist who analysed parts of Dr Masliah’s published work, told Science.

Dr Masliah’s work has played an important role in advancing drug trials, including for prasinezumab.

His research also helped to secure approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct clinical trials for the drug.

Side effects

However, results from a 2022 trial of prasinezumab revealed no significant benefit in treating Parkinson’s.

The 300-page dossier on apparently manipulated images in parts of Dr Masliah’s research “stunned 11 neuroscientists who agreed to review it”, according to Science.

Christian Haass, of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said: “People will, of course, be shocked, as I was… I was falling from a chair, basically.”

While the researchers “didn’t personally verify every example of possible misconduct,” Science reported that they “agreed that most of the suspect work cannot reasonably be explained as careless errors or publishing anomalies”.

Samuel Gandy, a neurologist at the Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, was “visibly shaken during a video interview” with Science when discussing the dossier, according to the journal.

“I’m floored,” Dr Gandy said. “Hundreds of images. There had to have been ongoing manipulation for years.”

Dr Masliah and the institutions affiliated with his work, such as the NIH and the University of California San Diego, have not yet publicly challenged the findings in the dossier, according to Science.

Dr Masliah and the NIH were contacted for comment.

Joe Biden has hailed Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah as “justice” for his many victims, as Iran confirmed one of its top generals died alongside the Hezbollah leader.

The US president said Washington “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself”, and the air strike that killed Nasrallah was revenge for the deaths of “thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese civilians”.

Mr Biden, 81, has ordered the deployment of more US forces to the Middle East in an effort to prevent any retaliation from Iran.

The assassination of one of Israel’s leading foes has sent shockwaves through the region and raised fears of a spill-over into all-out war.

But on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, Hezbollah’s key sponsor, suggested he would not escalate the conflict.

Khamenei, who went into hiding after Nasrallah’s death on Friday afternoon, called on Muslims to “stand by the people of Lebanon” but made no specific threat to mobilise Iran’s own forces.

Also on Saturday, Iran’s state-news service confirmed that Abbas Nilforushan, a top general in its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who led operations in Lebanon, was also killed in the bombing.

Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, Israel’s top army general, said Israel would continue its efforts to destroy Hezbollah and its other enemies altogether.

“This is not the end of our toolbox,” he said. “We have more capacity going forward. Anyone who threatens the state of Israel, we will know how to reach them.”

On Friday, Israel hacked the air traffic control tower of Beirut’s international airport to warn a plane arriving from Iran to turn back.

The IDF warned it was prepared to shoot down any aircraft bringing in cargo or weaponry for Hezbollah.

Israeli jets carried out another air strike on Saturday targeting a warehouse near the airport.

In a statement confirming the death of Nasrallah, Hezbollah said it would “continue its jihad in confronting the enemy, in support of Gaza and Palestine”.

Hezbollah fired several small volleys of rockets at Israel on Friday but caused no damage. Yemen’s Houthis, another Iranian proxy group, also fired missiles at Israel that were intercepted by air defence systems.

The welter of blows Israel has delivered to Hezbollah in recent weeks have the potential to reshape the Middle East, analysts said.

“The recent strikes have broken the back of the Islamic Republic’s most powerful proxy force, just as Israel has done with Hamas,” Mohsen Sazegara, one of the founders of the IRGC, told The Telegraph.

“Nasrallah’s killing is going to cause irreversible damage for Hezbollah and I don’t think it will be able to recover from it,” added Lina Khatib, associate fellow at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank.

“I think we are seeing both a historic shift in Hezbollah’s power and a historic shift in the trajectory of Iran’s influence in the Middle East.”

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli Defense Forces’ chief spokesman, said the world was a “safer place” after Nasrallah’s death.

In 1994, two years after Nasrallah took control of Hezbollah, he ordered a suicide attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding more than 300.

In Beirut, supporters of Hezbollah broke down in tears when news of his death was confirmed. “Oh God!” one woman said in Martyrs’ Square in the centre of the Lebanese capital as she fell to her knees.

Opponents of the Lebanese terror group’s hold on the nation disagreed. “It is a step in the right direction,” said Nasri, a shopkeeper in predominantly Christian eastern Beirut.

Mr Biden’s statement of support for the strike, which killed at least 11 people according to Lebanon’s health ministry, and flattened several high-rise buildings, followed pressure from Israel.

On Friday, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, requested that the US issue public statements and deploy troops to warn Tehran against retaliation, the Israeli website Walla News reported.

On Saturday, the Pentagon issued a statement saying: “Defense Secretary [Lloyd] Austin emphasised that the United States is determined to prevent Iran and its partners from taking advantage of the situation or expanding the conflict in the region.”

In his statement, Mr Biden also repeated his calls for Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas to come to a peace agreement. “It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain stability,” he said.

Hezbollah possesses a large arsenal of long-range missiles, but Israel’s strikes have destroyed a significant proportion and Iran is reported to want to keep the weapons in reserve for any conflict involving threats to its own safety.

Phillip Schofield has blamed homophobia for the scandal that ended his career, saying he would have received a pat on the back for having an affair with a woman.

Schofield was forced to quit his job on ITV’s This Morning when it emerged he had lied about a relationship with a runner who was more than 30 years his junior.

In a new TV programme which he hopes will be the beginning of his comeback, he says: “Strangely, I think another TV presenter or two might have done exactly the same thing. Difference is: heterosexual.

“It’s not an unusual thing in the gay world for there to be a difference in age groups. That’s not that unusual in the straight world, but if that had been the case with me and it had been a woman – pat on the back. ‘Well done, mate.’”

He described the affair as “unwise” and “not sensible” but said: “Is it enough to absolutely destroy someone? Literally, destroy them?”

Schofield makes his claim in Cast Away, a three-part Channel 5 programme in which he is marooned on a desert island for 10 days without a film crew.

He records himself speaking to the camera, and uses the opportunity to condemn the ITV colleagues who turned their backs on him when the scandal broke – branding them “cowards” and “s—s”.

Schofield came out as gay in 2020 and was initially supported by Holly Willoughby, his This Morning co-presenter.

However, she cut ties with him in May last year when stories emerged of his affair with the junior staff member, which he had previously denied.

Accusing unnamed colleagues of betrayal, Schofield said: “People who I thought were my friends, they just went. That’s like, ‘what the hell?’

“I have been chucked under a bus. And I could drive the same bus over so many people. But I’m not that sort of person, I never have been.”

He said of his time in the studio: “I loved being there. Suddenly the place became hostile to me, and it was heartbreaking.

“When you throw someone under a bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition, is not good enough. It’s not a good enough reason to throw someone under a bus.

“It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that the people you thought you knew were not the people you knew. They had completely different agendas.

“Man alive, people can be fake. They can be so fake with you when it’s all going so well. And suddenly utter utter betrayal.”

Schofield and Willoughby were on-screen partners for 14 years on This Morning and described each other as “best friends”, regularly holidaying together with their families.

In Cast Away, Schofield also lays into other figures at ITV. He said: “Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of amazing people in morning television. I think there are only three s—s.

“One of them is a coward who never stepped up in Queue-gate [when Schofield and Willoughby were accused of queue-jumping at Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state]. One of them is a coward because they never stepped up when I was being battered by one journalist who thought I’d got them fired, but in fact, it was the other person, this person in telly that got them fired but never said.

“And the other one is just brand-orientated. Not what you expect, not what you think you’re going to get.”

He also criticised his management company for dumping him.

The Cast Away programme also features contributions from Steph, Schofield’s wife, and Molly and Ruby, their two daughters.

Molly, who works as her father’s publicist, said: “I would love people to understand what’s actually happened and forgive him for a mistake.”

Schofield claimed he “won’t sit on a sofa again” or work for ITV, but hinted he wants to return to television, saying: “I’ve got telly in my bones.”

He said his comments about former colleagues would be interpreted as a “mad rant” but said he didn’t care.

Giving his reasons for doing the Channel 5 show, he said: “The good thing is, when you do a programme like this and you do it just for yourself, you have nothing to lose. They’ve taken pretty much everything – reputation, dignity, legacy, everything – anyway.

“I’m not bleating. I’m just getting it off my chest… I’ve said my piece. And anyone who’s bitter about that, honestly, you can f— off.”

A Labour MP has quit the party over the freebies scandal, accusing Sir Keir Starmer of presiding over “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” that is “off the scale”.

Resigning her position, Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, told Sir Keir that she was “ashamed” of what he and his “inner circle” had done to “tarnish and humiliate our once proud party”.

She declared that he was unfit for office after “inexplicably” choosing to accept designer suits while at the same time pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.

The dramatic resignation sent Downing Street into turmoil on Saturday night and came as Sir Keir faced mounting pressure from within his own party to get a grip on the donations crisis.

In her resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Ms Duffield said: “Someone with far above average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of these people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.

“Forcing a vote [on the winter fuel payment] to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for – why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?”

Ms Duffield, 53, has been a consistent critic of the party over its approach to transgender issues and has not attended previous party conferences over the issue.

She has become the fastest MP to jump ship after a general election in modern political history.

It came after Sir Keir admitted on Friday that Lord Alli gave him £32,000 to pay for clothing, double what he previously declared.

Sir Keir also received £2,400 from Lord Alli for glasses, and the use of an £18 million penthouse during the election campaign and on other occasions. Members of his frontbench team have also declared large donations from the peer.

On Saturday night, a frontbench source warned that Downing Street needed to change course, saying “it is getting to the point where it might be terminal”.

“If you are constantly explaining, you are losing. It looks like you are doing something dodgy,” they told The Telegraph. “Keir needs to be absolutely straight and he needs to draw a line under it.”

A growing number of Labour MPs as well as members of Sir Keir’s own Cabinet are understood to be frustrated by the row, with one complaining that ministers need to be more “political”.

Cabinet ministers who have not already been swept up in the ongoing freebies saga are seeking to distance themselves from it by emphasising privately how modestly they dress and how little they care about designer clothes.

Some members of the Rose Network, Labour’s club for donors, are said to be uneasy about the direction of travel No10 is taking, with one long-standing donor calling the decision by Sir Keir to accept so many designer clothes as donations “completely obscene”.

Members of Labour’s powerful ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), are also angry about the party’s handling of the row.

Mish Rahman, an NEC member, said that Labour’s first conference since winning the election “should have been jubilation and celebration, instead it was mired by talk of spending cuts and questionable donations”. He added: “The honeymoon is over in record time and unease is spreading.”

A second NEC member told The Telegraph that the apparent “scramble for freebies” was “pretty embarrassing”.

“We have been waiting to get into power for so long but it feels like the minute we do there is a scramble for freebies,” they said. “The strategy around it has been so poor – they haven’t been able to get a handle on it.”

Other ministers are worried about the negative rhetoric coming from Downing Street and the Treasury, particularly in the run up to the Budget on Oct 30. “The Budget will be painful,” one minister said. “But we can’t have this doom and gloom forever.”

Meanwhile, tensions with Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, remain, and Government aides are locked in negotiations with Downing Street over their salaries, with many being offered a pay cut compared to what they were earning in opposition.

Several special advisers are now threatening to quit, with one source pointing out that the job of being in government is far harder than they imagined, and saying they can earn much more money in the private sector.

Another confirmed that some senior aides have raised the prospect of walking out, but said this was more of a negotiating tactic to try to force a higher salary.

Sir Keir said last week he would no longer accept money for clothes while in office, as did Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Labour has claimed that all opposition parties invest in the presentation of candidates, including speech and media training, as well as photography and clothing.

But on Saturday, John Glen, the Shadow Paymaster General, reported Sir Keir to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and the registrar of members’ financial interests, demanding a fresh investigation.

In a letter to the standards watchdog, Mr Glen alleged that Sir Keir failed to declare who was behind the salaries of 14 of his aides in the run-up to the election and also raised questions over possible failures to declare hospitality and gifts from lobbyists.

Under Commons rules, all MPs must ensure that anyone who holds a parliamentary pass as part of their office declares who pays for their salary and any other income they receive over £450 from the same source.

But Mr Glen points out that Sir Keir’s register of interests published on May 30 does not list any source of income for 14 of his aides.

In his letter to the commissioner, Mr Glen said: “There is a clear public interest in the most senior Parliamentarians following the rules, and for proper transparency on the corporate funding of Keir Starmer’s Parliamentary Office, and in relation to any associated gifts or hospitality. This is also not the first breach of the rules by him.”

‘Lack of basic politics and political instincts’

In her resignation letter, first reported by The Sunday Times, Ms Duffield lambasted the Prime Minister’s “managerial style and technocratic approach”, saying his “lack of basic politics and political instincts have come crashing down on us as a party”.

She said the revelations of “hypocrisy” had been “staggering and increasingly outrageous”, adding: “I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”

A Labour Party source said: “This changed Labour Party won’t be taking any lectures from a Conservative Party that has – for year after year – specialised in scandal, sleaze and corruption.

“With Keir Starmer’s leadership, this Government is more transparent than ever, and is getting on with the job of delivering the change the country voted for on July 4.”

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, said: “No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society. 

“She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.” 

Ms Duffield’s decision to leave the Labour Party demonstrates the Government is “about self-service”, Tom Tugendhat said.

As he arrived at Conservative Party Conference, the Tory leadership hopeful told the BBC: “I think she has made her point very clearly hasn’t she?

“Which is that the Labour Party and Keir Starmer’s Government is not about service, it is not about delivering for the British people, it is about self-service.

“We need to return our government to service, we need to demonstrate the leadership that this country needs, and that is exactly what I am here to do.”

Asked if he would invite Ms Duffield to join the Conservatives, Mr Tugendhat said: “That is really a decision for her, but I think she is an extraordinary voice, she has stood up for women’s rights, she stood up for the dignity of individuals across our country, and I think she is a fantastic advocate.”

Pressed again on the matter, he said Ms Duffield has been a “socialist for many years”, adding: “I strongly suspect she won’t be asking.”