Sir Keir Starmer has a problem with women and is surrounded by “lads” in No 10, Rosie Duffield has claimed.

The MP for Canterbury quit the Labour Party on Saturday night over the freebies scandal, accusing the Prime Minister in her resignation letter of presiding over “sleaze” and “apparent avarice”.

Ms Duffield has been a vocal critic of the party in the last few years over its handling of trans issues, but insisted that it was the freebies row that caused her to quit.

But asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg whether she believed Sir Keir had a “problem with women”, the MP said: “I’m afraid I do, yes.”

“I mean I have experienced it myself, but most backbenchers I’m friends with are women and most of us refer to the men that surround him, the young men, as ‘the lads’ and it’s very clear that the lads are in charge.

‘I was really hoping for better’

“They have now got their Downing Street passes, they are the same lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs and I was really hoping for better but it wasn’t to be.”

Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, later rejected the claim, and said that there were elements within Ms Duffield’s resignation letter that he did not “accept”. Asked whether he was one of “the lads”, Mr McFadden said: “I think I’m a bit too old to be a lad.”

He added: “I see ministers turning up to work every day and what’s on their mind is how to stabilise the economy and get it growing again, how to turn around the NHS, how to get more houses built, how to improve rights at work for people, how to get more opportunity into schools.

“That’s what the ministers around that Cabinet table are focused on. They believe in public service.”

Ms Duffield, who has been the MP for Cantberbury since 2017, also cited in her letter the handling of the row over whether Diane Abbott should be re-admitted into the party.

She wrote: “The recent treatment of Diane Abbott, now Mother of the House, was deeply shameful and led to comments from voters across the political spectrum. A woman of her political stature and place in history is deserving of respect and support, regardless of political differences.”

The backbencher also said that she was “ashamed” of the revelations surrounding gifts and donations accepted by the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers.

She told Kuenssberg: “I’m ashamed that we stood up rightly and condemned the last few years of what we saw as Tory sleaze and all of the things that brought politics into disrepute, and we have always held ourselves up as a party that’s better, that would do better, that would clear out the rot and here we are.

“And it’s daily revelations of hypocrisy and grubby presents and things. I can’t believe what I’m reading every single day.”

Sir Keir’s top team includes several senior female figures, including Sue Gray, his chief of staff, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Sir Keir Starmer’s team used Lord Alli’s Soho townhouse worth £4 million for election strategy meetings, it has emerged.

The Georgian property in central London was used by senior aides and shadow ministers, including Pat McFadden, as well as by Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff.

It is the second London property lent by Lord Alli, the figure at the centre of the donations row, for the use of the Prime Minister in the run-up to the election.

The Labour leader also had used Lord Alli’s Covent Garden penthouse, worth £18 million, which he stayed in with his family for a month and a half during the campaign.

Sir Keir said he used the property to let his son study for his GCSE exams “without being disturbed”.

It later emerged that the property was used by the Prime Minister to make a broadcast during the pandemic in which he urged the public to work from home.

The Sunday Times reported that the Soho townhouse, purchased by Lord Alli in 2020, was used for regular election strategy meetings with Mr McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Lord Spencer Livermore, the financial secretary.

Sue Gray also used the property for separate meetings, the nature of which No10 declined to disclose.

The newspaper also reported that the Cabinet Office would not say whether Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, had been present for meetings at either of the luxury properties.

The Soho property is the latest in Lord Alli’s portfolio to come under the spotlight for its use by Labour figures.

Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, stayed at his $2.5 million Manhattan apartment during a holiday in New York over the New Year last year. She was joined by former MP Sam Tarry for parts of the stay, but he was not named in the register of interests entry.

Ms Rayner told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg of the decision: “I get that people are frustrated, in particular the circumstances that we’re in, but donations for gifts and hospitality and monetary donations have been a feature of our politics for a very long time.

“People can look it up and see what people have had donations for, and the transparency is really important.”

The latest revelation comes after Rosie Duffield, a backbench MP, quit the Labour Party accusing the Prime Minister of presiding over “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” that is “off the scale”.

She said that he was unfit for office after “inexplicably” choosing to accept designer suits from Lord Alli, while at the same time pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies, such as the two-child benefit cap and the scrapping of winter fuel payments.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Lord Alli.

Labour has announced it will change the rules around declarations to equalise expectations for those in government and opposition.

Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster, said the party will rewrite the ministerial code to ensure ministers are held to the same standards as their opposite numbers.

He said the current rules included a “Tory loophole” brought in to protect Conservative ministers, allowing them to attend the same events as their counterparts without declaring the hospitality in the same way.

But Penny Mordaunt, the former Commons leader, branded the claims “completely untrue”, insisting the onus on ministers had always been “more stringent”.

The decision to change the rules shows Labour is under pressure to take action as anger mounts over the “freebies” row, with senior backbencher Rosie Duffield quitting the party on Saturday.

However, it appears the reforms announced by the Government on Sunday, the first day of the Tory Party conference, would not have affected any of the donations to Labour MPs that have been reported in recent weeks. This is because they would tighten the rules for government ministers, rather than MPs in general. The “freebies” scandal has focussed on gifts accepted by Labour figures while they were in opposition.

‘Closing Tory loophole’

As it stands, hospitality received by ministers “in a ministerial capacity” is published by departments on a quarterly basis, and does not include the value of the benefit. By contrast, anything accepted “as an MP”, should be declared by individual politicians in the MPs’ register of interests within 28 days, and must include the cost.

Labour claim this is a “loophole” that created an uneven playing field between the previous government and opposition, whereby Tory ministers were able to attend the same events as their opposite numbers without having to declare it in the same manner.

For example, Dame Priti Patel’s attendance at a James Bond premiere in 2021, when she was home secretary, was declared by the department, rather than on the MPs’ register of interests.

The move was criticised at the time by Sir Chris Bryant, then the Labour chair of the standards committee, who questioned how she could have attended the event in her “ministerial capacity”.

When pressed by Sir Chris on what a Bond premiere “has got to do with her job as Home Secretary”, Michael Ellis, then the minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “Well the nature of the film is, one could argue, is connected to executive functions.” His response prompted laughter among MPs on the committee.

On Sunday, Mr McFadden said that Labour will “make clear going forward in the ministerial code that both ministers and shadow ministers should be under the same declaration rules”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, he added: “This was a Tory loophole, brought in so that you would have an event where the Tory minister, as it was under the last government, there, the Labour shadow opposite number would also be there, and the Tory minister would not have to declare.

“That was the Tory rules, we don’t think that’s fair, so we will close that loophole so ministers and shadow ministers are treated the same going forward.”

It is not clear exactly how Labour would change the rules. One option could be to force ministers to declare all hospitality in the MPs’ register of interests, regardless of whether they attended the event in their capacity as a representative of the government.

‘Transparency’

The transparency data published by departments on a quarterly basis is already broken down by minister, meaning it is possible to see who has attended each event.

Also speaking to the BBC, Ms Mordaunt disputed the idea that the rules were more lax for those in government. 

She said: “What Pat McFadden just said is completely untrue and he clearly doesn’t understand the ministerial code at all. The onus on ministers is much more stringent and has been, and I as a minister reported monthly on my hospitality reporting.”

Transparency International UK welcomed the Government’s proposal to change the rules. Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at the campaign group, said: “We welcome this move to end the two-tier system that has meant ministers, those closest to power, are able to provide less information on their hospitality and provide it less frequently than their backbench colleagues.

“Additionally to show his commitment to improving trust, the Prime Minister should issue his ministerial code with promised changes to strengthen the independent adviser’s role as well as the Nolan principles featuring front and centre in the foreword.”

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.”

Not all cultures are “equally valid” when it comes to immigration, and failing to recognise that is “naive”, Kemi Badenoch has said.

The Tory leadership candidate said that most politicians shy away from talking about immigration “in terms of culture as opposed to economics” as they fear it is “too controversial”.

Ms Badenoch explained that culture is “more than cuisine or clothes” but is also “customs which may be at odds with British values”.

In an article for The Telegraph, she said: “We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnic hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not.

“I am struck, for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel.  That sentiment has no place here.”

Emphasising her own immigrant background, Ms Badenoch said that many stay away from discussing the issues around culture for “fear of being labelled xenophobic”.

Her remarks come ahead of the Conservative party conference which will be dominated by the leadership race. Ms Badenoch along with the other contenders – Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – will set out their stall to party members before another knock-out round of MP votes the following week.

Ms Badenoch was born in south-west London to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in Nigeria’s capital city Lagos before returning to the UK with her family aged 16.

“We must recognise that the world has changed,” she said. “When I moved back to this country 30 years ago, it was  impossible to communicate quickly with my family.

“Letters would take weeks to arrive, I had to schedule calls with the few people who had working telephones let alone mobiles. Today’s immigrants, even those arriving on boats, come with WhatsApp and Instagram.

“Their feet may be in the UK, but their heads and hearts are still back in their country of origin. We need an integration strategy that takes this into account.”

She said that as well as an immigration strategy, an integration strategy is needed, adding: “We must never allow our tolerance to be taken advantage of by those who arrive, only to undermine the very values that have allowed us to succeed.”

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.”

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.

An EU deal with the UK allowing Channel migrants to be sent back to France is “not on the table” during Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to Brussels this week.

British hopes of the bloc-wide agreement were raised after France and Germany wrote to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, requesting her to kick-start negotiations.

But diplomatic sources have warned that any future deal would only be acceptable if Britain were to take in more refugees from Europe and make it easier for migrants in France to be able to join any family members they have in the UK.

Sir Keir is due to meet with Ms Von der Leyen in Brussels on Wednesday.

After Pedro Serrano, the EU ambassador to the UK, told Times Radio it “may be more profitable” for EU countries to negotiate migration agreements with Britain as a bloc rather than rely on bilateral deals, sources said an EU-UK migration deal was “not on the table”.

Mr Serrano, who stopped short of calling for a formal deal, was not signifying a shift in the Commission’s position, they said. 

The Government wants to negotiate a post-Brexit security pact, migration deal and better trade ties with the EU. It has rejected a call from Brussels for new youth mobility arrangements.

But EU officials and diplomats from other member states poured cold water on UK hopes of an early result in Sir Keir’s “reset” in relations with Europe, despite Brussels coming under pressure from its two most influential capitals.

Were Britain to agree to EU demands on youth mobility, which would make it easier for young people to study and live in the UK and EU, the move would not unlock a migration deal, which requires the unanimous support of all 27 member states.

One EU diplomat told The Telegraph: “What’s in a deal with the UK for us? If all it means is that the UK sends people back to the EU, it only exacerbates the problem on our end.”

Professor Anand Menon, the director of the UK in Changing Europe, said: “We’re not going to get to return people without taking some.”

Dr Fabian Zuleeg, the CEO of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, said there was an “expectation” that “the UK gets involved constructively in the management of migration and refugee flows”.

He said: “If there is no real commitment from the UK, this will not only limit cooperation on this issue but across the board.”

Brussels rejected British calls for a UK-EU migration deal, which would allow the return of Channel migrants to France, during the Brexit negotiations from 2017 to 2021.

It told the UK it would have to negotiate bilateral migrant return deals with individual EU countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands instead. 

The Commission has rebuffed calls for such a deal ever since but is now under pressure from the EU’s two most influential members following the recent letters from France and Germany on the issue.

France’s new Right-wing government has vowed to curb migrant numbers and “absolutely” believes the lack of a migration deal with the UK after Brexit is a pull factor for illegal immigrants travelling to French soil from countries such as Italy and Greece.

A French source said Bruno Retailleau, the new interior minister, aimed to get Rome on board with the push for a UK-EU deal at a meeting of G7 interior ministers in Italy, which Britain will also attend.

A European diplomat admitted the “sands are shifting” on migration since the terrorist attack in the Western German city of Solingen earlier this year, which led to a crackdown on illegal immigration in Germany.

“The Germans have really significantly moved on the issue, the Dutch, the Scandinavians, the Austrians, the Belgians, the French, the Italians were already on this course of we need to figure out new and innovative ways to deal with migration,” the diplomat said.

Any deal with the UK would have to be sold domestically as preventing illegal migration, which will be a major subject of discussion among EU leaders at their October European Council summit.

“I can see a scenario in which, post Starmer visit, the UK becomes somewhat part of the conversation. The question is how do you make it interesting for all 27 member states?” the diplomat said.

“The bottom line remains, what’s in it for us?”

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.

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.” 

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.

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.”

A Hamas tunnel system running for at least 1km under Gaza has been destroyed, according to the Israeli military.

Footage was released on Sunday from inside the tunnel, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said ran near residential buildings and contained several rooms and equipment used by Hamas members for prolonged stays.

The video showed the entrance and interior of a concrete-lined passage wide enough for one person. It led down a steep staircase and passed through what looked like a metal blast door.

It then showed Israeli soldiers carrying what appeared to be explosive charges and wires for demolition in a segment captioned: “Engineering operations of the 252nd Division”.

An aerial shot showed simultaneous explosions rising from the earth in a line presumably showing the route of the tunnel below ground.

The Telegraph was not immediately able to verify the footage.

Israel launched a war against Hamas in Gaza after the terror group killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 others in an attack on Israel’s southern communities on October 7 last year.

Since then, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The hard-Right, anti-migrant FPÖ party was on course to win elections in Austria on Sunday night, an exit poll suggested, putting it within reach of leading its first ever government.

An exit poll released on Sunday evening said that Herbert Kickl’s Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) came first place with 29 per cent of the vote. The centre-Right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), led by chancellor Karl Nehammer, came second with 26 per cent.

The poll predicted an unprecedented win for Mr Kickl’s FPÖ, which could install him as the first hard-Right chancellor in Austria’s post-war history if he manages to secure a coalition.

But the FPÖ is likely struggle to build a coalition as Austria’s other parties consider its leader, Mr Kickl, to be too toxic for the government. Much of the controversy surrounds his 2018 remark that the authorities should “concentrate asylum seekers in one place” in what was widely viewed as an allusion to Nazi death camps, a charge he rejects.

The hard-Right party could try and lead a coalition with Mr Nehammer’s ÖVP, which came second, but he has already ruled this out unless Mr Kickl puts forward an alternative candidate as chancellor.

During the campaign, the FPÖ pledged to turn the country into “Fortress Austria” and introduce a controversial “remigration” policy if it won the election. Remigration would involve deporting asylum seekers, particularly criminals, and blocking family reunification for migrants already based in Austria.

FPÖ party chiefs also campaigned to significantly tighten Austrian land border security, scrap Austrian involvement in the EU Sky Shield air-defence scheme and remain strictly neutral on foreign conflicts.

The party is considered sympathetic towards Russia and has described the EU’s military support for Ukraine as “madness”. In 2018, the party’s nominee for the post of foreign minister danced a waltz with Vladimir Putin at her wedding.

Mr Kickl agitated against lockdown rules during the pandemic, refusing to wear a face mask in parliament, while the party has pledged to enshrine in Austria’s constitution that there are only two genders.

Two men filmed themselves laughing as they ran over a cyclist days before they deliberately drove into an NHS worker.

The video was found by police on the phone of Patrick James, 22, after detectives arrested him and his friend, Phillip Adams, 26, for the second hit and run.

The cyclist, Julian Ford, suffered smashed ribs and internal bleeding in the attack, while NHS worker Katungua Tjitendero was left with a broken nose, fractured leg, and cuts to his hands and face.

At Bristol Crown Court on Friday, James and Adams were found guilty of conspiracy to cause intentional grievous bodily harm for the attack on Mr Tjitendero.

James was also found guilty of intentional GBH following the assault on Mr Ford, which took place 10 days earlier.

In the second attack, Mr Tjitendero was walking to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, when he was hit by a blue Honda Accord.

James and Adams fled the scene, with one shouting racial abuse at Mr Tjitendero who was pinned against a wall by the car.

Det Supt Mike Buck, of Avon and Somerset Police, branded the attacks “absolutely sickening”.

He said: “It was only later in the investigation that we identified the attack on Julian Ford, 10 days beforehand, and realised the significance.

“This wasn’t an isolated incident. These were two linked attacks.

“Patrick James was filming the attack and you hear him on the video, and the driver, laughing both before and afterwards as they drive off. Absolutely sickening.”

CCTV footage showed Mr Tjitendero heading towards a bus stop at around 4.30pm on July 22 2020, after finishing a shift at Southmead Hospital.

Det Supt Buck said the blue Honda car appeared “from nowhere” and hit Mr Tjitendero from the back.

He said: “A car attacked him from behind. He had no chance and was left with devastating injuries.”

The court heard that on July 16, James had paid £300 for the blue Honda Accord involved in the collision.

CCTV from petrol stations around the area showed James using the car over the following days.

Adams’s DNA was found inside the car, which he had told officers he had been in at times.

James, of Bristol, was convicted of intentionally causing GBH to Mr Ford.

Adams, also of Bristol, failed to appear in court and was tried and found guilty of the separate charges relating to Mr Tjitendero in his absence. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Two other men, Jordan McCarthy, 22, and Daniel Whereatt, 51, denied a charge of conspiracy to cause GBH to Mr Tjitendero and were acquitted by the jury.

Video from the aftermath of a Russian glide bomb attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia showed the moment when one young woman was reunited with her missing cat.

The footage shows a weary rescue worker with his helmet sitting askew on his head, gingerly stepping over rubble as he holds the cat.

“Where’s the owner?” a rescue worker said before a young woman called Veronika rushed forward to grab and hug the traumatised animal.

The rescue worker then stroked the cat’s head and walked off. 

Later, Veronika described how the walls of her apartment had collapsed after the attack and in the chaos she lost her dog and Megan, the three-year-old cat.

“We quickly took a bag, some things, and started looking for the animals,” she told a Ukrainian news website. “The animals hid under the beds. The worst thing is that we were blocked and couldn’t get out. There was simply no apartment.”

More photos of the attack showed the destructive power of Russian glide bombs, a standard bomb fitted with fins and a basic GPS device.

Several low-slung residential houses have been left twisted and cracked, with their roofs blown off and walls shattered. Cars have been melted into charred lumps. At least 16 people were injured in the attack.

Anastasia, another resident, said that she had had a lucky escape from flying glass.

“I heard a very terrible sound. I felt it was very close now and jumped up,” she said. “The windows and the frames flew all over the room.”

Russian forces stepped up their attacks against Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine this week, firing glide bombs for the first time at the city.

A man who survived a shark attack plans to have the teeth that were left embedded in his arm turned into jewellery to mark his escape.

Angus Kockott, 20, was snorkelling in the shallow water off the island of Mangareva, French Polynesia, earlier this year, when a suspected 2.5-metre grey reef shark attacked him.

The shark clamped its jaws on Mr Kockott’s, severing two major nerves and some tendons.

Mr Kockott pulled out a four-inch blade usually used for cutting diving lines and stabbed the shark in the gills.

He tied a pair of goggles around his arm to create a makeshift tourniquet before swimming to safety.

An emergency military aircraft flew him to the nearest hospital in Tahiti, where he had a life-saving six-hour surgery, which included skin and nerve grafts.

Surgeons retrieved several shark teeth and tooth fragments from his limb.

Despite the horrific incident, the 20-year-old described the attack as a “defining experience” and revealed that he is getting the recovered teeth turned into earrings.

He said: “When the shark bit, I didn’t have time to panic. You just have to act when you have that kind of adrenaline in those situations.

“At first I felt immense pain. I really thought I would lose my arm. After my nerve graft and skin grafts, it’s healing well but I’m taking it day by day.

“It’s been a defining experience in my life and that’s why I’m getting the teeth made into earrings.”

Mr Kockott had been out swimming with a friend around the Gambier Islands archipelago on May 23 but the pair had separated to do freediving when the shark attacked.

“My first reaction was to get my knife used for cutting lines, and I just went for the shark as hard as I could,” he said.

“It was only a little knife, but I’m very glad I had it on that day.”

He added: “If I hadn’t blocked the shark with my arm, it could have gone for my neck; my jugular vein was right there.

“I would’ve been toast. Or, if it had come to bite me again, I would have been too injured to fight back or get away. I think I would have died then in the water.”

While Mr Kockott is still receiving physio and nerve treatments for his injury, he said he can’t wait to get back in the ocean and continue training for his career in sailing.

“It hasn’t put me off being in the ocean. I can’t wait until I can go back.”

The bodies of dozens of people buried under landslides were recovered by rescuers in Nepal yesterday raising the death toll from floods to 129.

Another 86 people were injured and 62 still missing in the flooding triggered by two days of monsoon rains.

Rescuers using picks and shovels cleared away mud and pulled out 14 bodies from two buses. Another 23 bodies were pulled from a nearby spot. The buses were headed to the capital Kathmandu, where at least 34 people were also killed.

Floods inundated residential areas on Saturday and landslides blocked three highways connecting Kathmandu to the rest of the country. Some parts of the capital reported rain of almost 13 inches (up to 322.2 mm). 

Kumar Tamang, a resident of Kathmandu, said he and his family had fled their shack by a riverbank as water rushed into their home.

“This morning, we returned and everything looks different. We couldn’t even open the doors to our house, it was jammed with mud. Yesterday, we were afraid that the water would kill us, but today we have no water to clean,” the 40-year-old said.

Rishi Ram Tiwari, a home ministry spokesman, said more than 3,000 people have been rescued. 

Floods and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season – which in Nepal, usually ends by mid-September. Scientists say climate change is making floods more frequent and intense.

Arun Bhakta Shrestha, an environmental risk official at the centre said: “I’ve never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu.”

In a statement, the centre said haphazard infrastructure puts residents at risk and the impact of the heavy rainfall was more severe because of poor drainage linked to unplanned settlements and buildings on floodplains.