Sir Keir Starmer will spend his 100th day in power at his desk, preparing for a major business summit he hopes will kick-start a reversal in his fortunes.

It is a milestone the Prime Minister will greet with no sense of triumphalism as he tries to get his premiership back on track by shifting focus to the economy.

He has endured a tumultuous first three months dominated by a sleaze scandal, race riots and international turmoil which have blown his plans off course.

Downing Street sources downplayed the significance of his rocky start, insisting that there was no “overnight fix” to the country’s problems. 

As the sun sets on what was meant to be Sir Keir’s honeymoon period, The Telegraph puts his record in office so far under the microscope.

Freebies row

Of all the controversies crowded into the Prime Minister’s first 100 days, the row over freebies has dominated his start in office.

No 10 has been buried by an avalanche of bad press about the gifts that he and his Cabinet have raked in from donors and businesses.

As he marks his first major milestone the scandal is still burning brightly and threatening to overshadow the build-up to the budget.

Disclosures, including that Sir Keir accepted £32,000 worth of designer glasses and suits, have dogged Downing Street nearly daily.

They prompted one of his MPs, Rosie Duffield, to quit the party with a broadside at the “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice”.

The Prime Minister is known to be deeply frustrated by the row, feeling that he and his ministers have been unfairly accused of wrongdoing.

Professor Sir John Curtice, the leading pollster, said Labour had “set themselves up” for the row by aggressively attacking the Tories on ethics.

“What Starmer hasn’t spotted is sure, there’s nothing illegal about persuading someone with a lot of money to buy you some clothes but it’s how it looks,” he said.

The scandal is also a result of Sir Keir’s determination to reduce Labour’s historic financial dependence on the unions.

Since he took over from Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 their share of donations has plummeted from 59 per cent then to 22 per cent.

That has resulted in rich donors taking their place including Lord Alli, who has given more than £576,000 to the party and its MPs since 2020. 

No 10 turf war

At the same time as taking fire from the outside, Sir Keir has faced a brutal turf war within No 10 that left the engine room of his government in disarray.

From day one briefings began to emerge of a vicious power struggle between Sue Gray, his chief of staff, and Morgan McSweeney, his top political aide.

At first they were puerile, with claims that Ms Gray had twice ordered Mr McSweeney’s desk be moved further away from the Prime Minister’s office.

But as the two camps became more entrenched, the leaks became increasingly damaging for Sir Keir and the scrutiny, on Ms Gray in particular, intensified.

She was accused of being a “control freak”, with one source saying that her insistence on signing off on virtually all decisions was making No 10 “chaotic”.

Things then came to a head last month when her salary was leaked to the BBC, revealing that she was being paid more than the Prime Minister.

Sir Keir was eventually forced to lance the boil, removing Ms Gray from the role after just 93 days in the job and replacing her with Mr McSweeney. 

She was the second shortest serving permanent chief of staff since the role was created, behind only Mark Fullbrook, who served under Liz Truss.

Plummeting popularity

Such chaos was impossible to predict when Sir Keir strolled into No 10 three months ago with a huge majority and +4 per cent net approval rating.

Since then he has suffered the most dramatic slump in popularity experienced by any recent prime minister with the exception of Liz Truss.

At the 100 day mark his favourability is languishing on -36 per cent, a staggering 40 point drop which means he now places lower than Nigel Farage.

Sir John said that the speed and scale of the fall could be largely explained by Sir Keir’s lack of underlying popularity with the public.

“It has long been obvious Keir Starmer is personally not particularly popular and that he lacks very clear political antennae,” he told The Telegraph.

“It’s just that his numbers are now even worse than they were before the election. No previous government has been elected with so low a share of the vote – this is not a popular government.”

In spite of his woes the Prime Minister still has significant political capital left, largely thanks to the dramatic collapse of the Tory party’s appeal.

Provided his fortunes do not worsen further he is still on track to lead Labour to a second term in office, albeit with a halved majority of just 80.

The economy

No 10’s argument has been that Labour’s prospects at the next election will ultimately hinge on delivering its promise to fix the economy.

Yet so far Sir Keir has overseen the biggest drop in economic confidence since David Cameron embarked on the post financial crisis austerity drive.

Much of the negativity has been fuelled by the Prime Minister’s warnings that taxes will have to go up to fill a £22 billion black hole he claims was left by the Tories.

Since taking power he has signed off on £10 billion of above-inflation pay rises for public sector workers whilst cutting the winter fuel payment for pensioners.

Meanwhile his decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap, at a cost of £3 billion, sparked a rebellion that saw him strip the whip from seven left-wing MPs.

Sir Keir was also forced to spend the eve of his 100th day in office disowning comments by Louise Haigh, his Transport Secretary, after her call to boycott P&O led its parent company to pause a £1 billion investment in the UK.

But for all the market jitters Sir Keir has inherited a benign economy which grew by 0.2 per cent last month, whilst interest rates are finally on the fall.

Julian Jessop, an independent economist, said the economy was showing “a fair amount of positive momentum in spite of all the worries about the budget”.

But he warned that Labour’s chaotic start in government and policy decisions had “dampened” investment at the time when it is needed most. 

Immigration and justice 

Sir Keir also knows that if he is to win a second term in office he will have to make swift progress on reducing both legal and illegal migration.

He has got off to a rocky start, seeing more small boat crossings in his first 83 days than any other prime minister over the same time period.

It came after two of his first acts in No 10 were to cancel the Rwanda plan and ditch the use of the Bibby Stockholm migrant barge.

But there has been better news on legal migration, with the number of visas issued to students and workers tumbling by 35 per cent in the year to August.

Just three weeks into his premiership Sir Keir had to confront riots which broke out in the aftermath of the Southport stabbings.

He was initially criticised for his slow response to the unrest but was later praised as the swift dispensing of justice saw the disorder fizzle out.

The riots came just after Downing Street had announced that thousands of prisoners would be released early to ease pressure on overcrowded jails. By early September, 88,521 were in prison, the highest number on record.

Despite the controversial scheme Sir Keir will mark his 100 days with the freed-up capacity quickly declining, with more tough decisions likely to be needed in the future. 

Policy blitz

For all his struggles to set the news agenda, Sir Keir has embarked on the most ambitious legislative start to a new government in nearly two decades.

His first King’s Speech, less than a fortnight after he took office, contained 40 new Bills, the highest number to be announced since 2005.

They included sweeping reforms to the planning system, the renationalisation of rail and the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation.

Ministers have also started work on significant policies including a ban on smoking in many outdoor spaces. They are thought to support parliamentary time being given to a vote on legalising assisted dying being brought as a Private Members Bill.

The proposals have been a mixed bag, with Mr Jessop warning the workers’ rights package has “dampened investment” and put firms off recruiting. 

But he said the planning reforms have boosted confidence in the building industry, which is now “pretty much the strongest sector” of the economy.

Sir Keir’s struggle to garner attention for his policy offering is demonstrated by how much time has been dedicated to debating in Parliament.

Immigration and the economy have been mentioned less in his first 100 days than they were under the three previous Tory prime ministers, whilst just Truss spoke about the NHS less.

In contrast the winter fuel allowance and Israel have been mentioned vastly more than under previous administrations, showing a clear distraction from No 10’s agenda.

Foreign affairs

Sir Keir entered office at a time of great global instability, with much of his first 100 days dedicated to handling the crisis in the Middle East.

The conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon are tricky political territory for the Prime Minister, who has faced pressure from his MPs to condemn Israel’s actions.

At the same time he has embarked on a diplomatic campaign to try and persuade other countries, particularly the US, to lift arms restrictions on Ukraine. 

He wants to let Kyiv use Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets within Russia, but has so far failed to secure sign-off from the White House.

Other international issues have been of Sir Keir’s own making, including his shock decision this month to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. 

The announcement, made during recess, prompted anger and means the Indian Ocean archipelago will be given up after 200 years of British rule.

Whilst he wrapped up the Chagos negotiation swiftly, Sir Keir has made less progress in talks with the EU about improving the Brexit trade deal.

He is already at loggerheads with Brussels, which is demanding that he sign up to a youth mobility deal in return for a “reset” of relations. 

A comedian who was a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef has been accused of mocking the Oct 7 massacres.

Eshaan Akbar posted a message on social media saying that the deadliest day for Jewish civilians since the Holocaust was something “involving hummus and sausages at a music festival”.

The stand-up comedian and former BBC Asian network presenter wrote that the Hamas massacre led to “self-defence against children and their families resulting in over 45,000 deaths”.

Mr Akbar, who has written stand-up shows about anti-Asian racism, has been accused of belittling the massacres that took place in 2023.

His full post on Instagram read: “A year ago today, something mad happened involving hummus and sausages at a music festival that resulted in the self-defence against children and their families resulting in over 45,000 deaths that we in the UK massively helped with! Aren’t we good guys? Big up US!”

The comedian posted the message on the anniversary of the Hamas massacre ahead of his planned gig at the Top Secret comedy club in London on Oct 9, which served as a preview to his upcoming tour.

Alongside his stand up, Akbar co-hosted a weekend show on the BBC Asian Network, has appeared in the BBC factual series Pilgrimage, and has also appeared in the Netflix hit Sex Education. 

He was also a contestant on the BBC’s Celebrity MasterChef 2024.

Jewish campaigners have accused him of mocking and belittling the Hamas massacres of Oct 7.

A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Eshaan Akbar chose to mock the victims. To Mr Akbar, October 7 might be a laughing matter but to Jews and their allies, it is an ongoing trauma that will take a generation to recover from.

“He joins a growing list of comedians who prefer to use their platform to malign the world’s only Jewish state than actually do their job and tell jokes.

“There’s only one joke here, and it’s Mr Akbar. We will be writing to his representation.”

British comedy has been plagued by controversy since the Hamas terrorists attacked Israel in 2023, prompting an Israeli response which has been condemned by some performers.

In February 2024, the Soho Theatre banned comedian Paul Currie after he “subjected Jewish audience members to verbal abuse”, the venue said.

The theatre consulted with police following the show in which he allegedly pulled out a Palestinian flag and shouted at an Israeli audience member to “get the f— out of here” before leading chants of “Palestine will be free”.

In August, two Israeli audience members were booed out of Reginald D Hunter’s comedy gig at the Edinburgh Fringe after they objected to a joke comparing the Jewish state to an abusive spouse.

The American stand-up, 55, subsequently apologised but had several shows cancelled by other venues.

Representatives for Akbar were approached for comment.

A nurse who nearly died from Covid-19 is suing the NHS for negligence and failing to provide her with proper personal protective equipment (PPE).

Rebecca Firth spent 21 days in intensive care and almost a month on a ventilator, after suffering three cardiac arrests, sepsis and multiple organ failure as a result of coronavirus.

The 42-year-old was left so weakened she needed a wheelchair to leave when she was eventually discharged from hospital.

Ms Firth is now seeking damages from Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust, saying she caught the virus from patients at Dewsbury and District Hospital in March 2020, near the start of the pandemic.

The mother of one accuses the trust of negligence, alleging that it failed to provide her with a safe place and safe system of work, and failed to provide adequate PPE, giving her just a paper mask instead.

In documents lodged with the High Court her legal team also accuses the trust of failing to tell Ms Firth that she should have been shielding at home until it was too late.

‘Her case was an awful one’

Her legal team at Taylor & Emmet Solicitors in Sheffield stated: “She contracted Covid-19 at a time when … she ought to have been ‘shielding’, as she had, prior to April 2020, repeatedly requested the defendant to consider allowing her to do. 

“[Rebecca’s] case of Covid-19 was a particularly awful one. She was admitted to hospital by ambulance on April 7 2020, where two hours later she was transferred to ICU, spending 21 days in critical care, 29 days on a ventilator, and experiencing three cardiac arrests, blood transfusions, sepsis and multiple organ failure.”

Ms Firth, of Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, also accuses the trust of having “failed to heed that, by reason of her particular vulnerabilities, [she] was at risk of serious and potentially life-threatening complications in the event she contracted Covid-19”.

The nurse launched her claim in her local county court, where she was claiming £50,000 in damages, but her lawsuit has now been transferred to the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where the most potentially expensive and complex cases are heard.

Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust is disputing her claim, saying she had returned to work after spending two weeks isolating at home with her daughter, who had caught Covid at school.

It also denied failing to provide her with adequate PPE.

Ms Firth, who uses the surname Usher at work, claims she should have been shielding, as she was clinically vulnerable with a thyroid condition, gastric band bypass surgery and a heart condition, and had recently suffered from norovirus and flu.

But she alleges that her requests to be able to shield were ignored and that on April 1 and 2 she worked two shifts on Ward 11 at the hospital, where two patients had been transferred from Pinderfields Hospital, where many Covid patients were treated.

Although the two patients had not been tested for Covid, it was presumed they were negative and she was closely involved in their care, her legal team states.

Ms Firth began to suffer Covid symptoms on April 5 and both patients subsequently tested positive for Covid.

She suffered devastating effects from the disease, and associated complications, and is claiming damages for pain, suffering, and loss of amenity.

A video of her finally leaving Pinderfields Hospital in May 2020 shows her in a wheelchair, with the corridors lined by colleagues applauding and cheering her on.

Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust stated on social media at the time she was discharged: “Yesterday was a wonderful day at Pinderfields Hospital on Gate 31, and across the trust!

“We clapped our hands, shed many tears and waved goodbye to one of our own, Nurse Becky Usher, who spent almost three weeks on ICU and a total of 50 days in hospital, fighting Covid-19.

“We’ve waited for so many weeks for this moment. We’re so happy to send you home Becky.”

The trust has denied her allegations and maintains that the standards by which her claim should be judged must refer to the state of medical knowledge about the virus at the time.

‘There are inherent risks’

It states that its policy of following guidance and measures issued by Public Health England and NHS England were “entirely reasonable and best practice”.

In its defence, Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust states: “There are inherent risks in her employment as a nurse that cannot be avoided even where reasonable care is taken and/or reasonable steps and preventative measures are applied. The contraction of Covid-19 is but one of those risks.”

The trust says it did not know the nurse’s health conditions as she had not provided a detailed medical history, and her own GP should have notified her if she was considered vulnerable.

The trust says she should also have used a self-referral assessment tool.

It accuses her of failing to identify the patients she refers to and denies she was not provided with the correct PPE.

Ms Firth’s claim comes as the High Court prepares to hear the case of nearly 70 healthcare workers with long Covid who are seeking damages from the NHS and other employers.

They claim they first caught Covid at work during the pandemic and were not properly protected from the virus.

Sir Keir Starmer has distanced himself from his Transport Secretary’s criticism of the owner of P&O Ferries after the company responded by shelving a £1 billion port expansion.

Louise Haigh described P&O as a “rogue operator” and urged consumers to take part in a boycott, prompting the company’s Dubai-based owner to abandon its plans to invest in the London Gateway port project.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of DP World, will also no longer attend Monday’s investment summit, at which Labour had hoped to show Britain is open for business.

Last night, the Prime Minister sought to isolate and play down his Transport Secretary’s comments, before championing his party’s “focus on inward investment” as he marks 100 days since taking office.

Asked about Ms Haigh’s comments, Sir Keir told BBC Newscast: “Well, look, that’s not the view of the government.

“And that was an issue that well, you know, the issue that cropped up a number of years ago now that I think across Parliament was a cause for real concern.

“And I think one of the things we’ve done is to change that. So they can’t forget that that matters.

“But what matters to me is keeping our focus on that inward investment because it’s the, you know, it’s the jobs of the future that matter and jobs that are well-paid, that are secure, that are skilled and in different parts of the country.”

DP World’s decision came just hours after Qatar announced it was selling a £306 million stake in Sainsbury’s, citing the uncertainty around the upcoming Budget for falling sales.

Earlier in the day, a Downing Street source had referred to Ms Haigh’s comments as “her own personal view” which didn’t “represent the view of the Government”.

On Tuesday, in a press release issued by Ms Haigh and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, P&O was referred to as “unscrupulous” and “exploitative”.

Announcing an employment rights’ bill for workers that would “prevent another P&O Ferries scandal”, Ms Rayner described the ferry operator’s decision to fire 800 staff and replace them with lower paid agency workers in 2022 as “outrageous” and “exactly why we’re taking bold action”.

The proposed legislation will toughen laws around collective dismissal and cement seafarer wage protections in UK law.

Sir Keir also admitted that he could have handled the Sue Gray and freebies scandal better.

“There are some bits which are easily explicable,” he told Newscast, adding: “You have a big change of government. That doesn’t happen that often.”

Sir Keir said the transition from opposition to government took “a bit of getting used to” and later conceded: “There are other things that, you know, could we have done differently? Well, probably yes.

“But I think the important thing is not to get knocked off course and to sort of take it in your stride.”

He added: “I think the most important thing and the way I’ve always dealt with it is focus on what it is I’m really trying to achieve here and keep my sort of, I don’t know, sight on that.”

Sir Keir has paid back more than £6,000 of the gifts he received during his time as Prime Minister, though his Cabinet are yet to follow suit.

He previously admitted that Lord Alli gave him £32,000 to pay for clothing, £2,400 for glasses and the use of an £18 million penthouse during the election campaign.

A 13-year-old girl travelling by herself on the London Underground was raped by three strangers who lured her back to their home.

The child, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had travelled into London in September last year where she encountered the men at a Tube station in Hammersmith.

Kayon Bhola, 29, Paul Maxwell, 24, and Jeremiah Jackson, 24, lured her back to Maxwell’s flat where she was raped by all three, the Metropolitan Police said.

CCTV evidence showed the group travelling from the station towards the flat where the girl was plied with alcohol until she passed out and awoke to find herself being gang-raped.

Bodycam footage from police shows the defendants being arrested at their homes in October 2023.

Forensic examinations of the defendants’ phones uncovered a short video clip of the three men carrying out their attack.

At Southwark Crown Court on Friday, Maxwell was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison while Bhola and Jackson were both jailed for 11 years. All three men were given Sexual Harm Prevention Orders lasting 15 years.

The 13-year-old, in a victim impact statement, said: “I have gone over the date a million times thinking of what I could have done differently to change the outcome of what happened to me.

“No matter what I change, it would’ve ended the same way.

“This is because these three men, fully grown men, knew exactly what they were going to do as soon as they saw me at Hammersmith.

“I was caught alone, and vulnerable. But that shouldn’t have mattered.”

Detective Constable Will Murphy, who led the investigation, said: “Firstly, I would like to thank the victim for her ongoing support in this case and for her extreme bravery in coming forward and reporting this to police.

“This has been a challenging investigation, however, due to the dedicated efforts of my team we were able to secure convictions.

“I hope the victim feels that justice has been served.

“Today’s sentencing highlights how despicable this crime was and Maxwell, Bhola and Jackson will now face the consequences of their horrendous actions.

“The Met is here to support victims of sexual assault, and to provide the best care we can. Please do not hesitate to come to us.”

The owner of P&O Ferries will now attend Sir Keir Starmer’s investment summit after he disowned his Transport Secretary’s calls to boycott the company.

DP World has confirmed it will turn up to the gathering of 300 business leaders on Monday following a flurry of late night phone calls from No 10 to patch up relations.

A £1 billion investment in the UK, which the firm had threatened to cancel after Louise Haigh referred to it as a “cowboy operator”, is also thought to be back on track.

The announcement will come as a relief to Sir Keir, with the row over the Transport Secretary’s remarks having overshadowed the build-up to the summit.

It comes after Downing Street went to great lengths to persuade the firm and its furious chairman, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, not to cancel their attendance.

Sir Keir personally disowned Ms Haigh’s attack on DP World, which owns P&O, telling the BBC that her comments were “not the view of the Government”.

The Telegraph understands that senior officials in No 10 also called the company late on Friday night to further distance the Prime Minister from the remarks.

A Downing Street source said: “The reason they’re coming is because overnight we’ve operated as we do with seriousness, warm engagement, and partnership.

“We’ve shown that we are sensible, serious partners. That’s what is bringing these investors in on Monday and that’s how we’ve resolved this.”

It is understood that Sultan Sulayem will now attend the conference on Monday, at which Sir Keir is hoping to raise billions in new investment in the UK.

But the row has raised question marks over Ms Haigh’s future amid suggestions Sir Keir will hold a Cabinet reshuffle early next year.

The Telegraph understands that her position is not under immediate threat and that the Prime Minister still retains full confidence in her.

Doubts had already been cast about her longer term future in his top team after she angered No 10 by blindsiding it over the train drivers’ pay deal.

Replacing her could also prove politically sensitive for Sir Keir, given that she is one of the few Left-wing figures to sit around the Cabinet table.

It is utter urban devastation: whole blocks reduced to rubble, smoke rising from fresh ruins, everything covered in the fine, grey dust of explosive demolition. Not a living thing in sight.

The destruction in Yaroun, a small town in southern Lebanon which has been a ground combat zone for less than two weeks, is terrifying testament to the scale and ferocity of Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah.

But the drone footage, verified by The Telegraph earlier this week, leaves many questions unanswered.

How much of the damage was done in recent ground fighting, and how much by Israeli air and artillery strikes in the preceding year? Were there civilians present, and if so how many died? And where is the fighting now?

It is difficult to tell because access is heavily restricted.

On the southern side of the border, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) has imposed military closed zones. It is customarily restrictive of reporting.

On the northern side, Hezbollah is equally nervous about allowing journalists anywhere near its operations.

And coverage is further complicated by an old truism of war reporting – on the retreating side is more dangerous and more difficult to get information.

So that leaves us increasingly reliant on second-hand sources: open-source videos and images like the footage of Yaroun, and a mixture of reports from the Israelis, Hezbollah-affiliated media, and the United Nations, whose peacekeepers are still caught in the middle of the fighting.

This is our best assessment of the state of the Lebanon war, 12 days since the ground offensive began.

Israel

Israel’s offensive began on Oct 1 with what officials called “limited, localised and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah infrastructure near the border.

The first reported clash was near the southeastern village of Odeisseh, where Hezbollah claimed to have successfully repelled an attempted “infiltration” by Israeli special forces.

But since then, the scale of the war has ballooned.

At the end of week two of the offensive, Israel is known to have deployed four divisions – the 98th, 36th, 91st and 146th – amounting to around 15,000 men.

That is approaching the minimum of 20,000 men that a former IDF strategist told the Telegraph ahead of the invasion would be required to clear southern Lebanon.

They appear to be engaged in four main theatres of ground operations: around the towns of Meiss al-Jabal, Maroun-al Ras and Yaroun al-Ras in South East Lebanon, where the Institute of the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank, assesses Israel has developed three separate salients; and around the coastal town of Ras al Naqoura in the southwest, where Hezbollah-affiliated sources have also reported engagements between Hezbollah fighters and advancing IDF infantry and tanks.

The United Nations separately said an IDF Merkava tank fired on the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeeping mission in Naqoura on Thursday, causing a watchtower to collapse and lightly injuring two Indonesian soldiers. Two more soldiers were injured in another IDF attack on Friday, the UN said.

None of the Israeli salients are particularly deep: Reports from the Israelis, the UN, and Hezbollah sources all refer to towns and villages within two or three kilometres of the border.

But the air war covers the entire country. Israel has issued more than 100 evacuation orders to other areas, including some villages 60 kilometres north of the border.

On Thursday morning the IDF said its air force has bombed 110 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon in the previous 24 hours alone, including a bridge on the far northern border with Syria.

On Thursday night they hit a building in Beirut’s Bachoura neighbourhood, killing 22 and injuring 117 people according to the Lebanese health ministry.

As the Israeli war effort has expanded, its government has dropped talk of “limited” operations.

On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called on Lebanese civilians to either rise up against Hezbollah or face “a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

Hezbollah

Hezbollah, too, appears to be preparing for a long war. Reports from the front suggest its fighters have generally opted to retreat after making contact with the IDF, rather than staying to fight.

We do not know how many Hezbollah fighters are available to the group or are operating in the area. But the group is certainly not at full strength.

It has lost its long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah, several of his deputies, and most of its senior military commanders in targeted Israeli airstrikes.

Israel’s massive pager-booby-trapping operation wounded dozens and is believed to have wounded thousands more mid-level officers.

Israel claimed airstrikes in the days leading up to the ground operation destroyed dozens, perhaps hundreds of rocket launchers. Footage from some airstrikes has shown secondary explosions that suggest the Israelis managed to hit large arms stockpiles.

But it is still in the fight.

The group launched at least 12 missile attacks into Israel between Wednesday and Thursday evening, according to the ISW. One strike landed near Haifa. Another landed near Jenin in the West Bank.

On Thursday the IDF and Hezbollah both reported clashes and Hezbollah rocket attacks near Meiss El-Jabal and Yaroun. Near Naqoura Hezbollah said it fired anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli tank and then fired rockets at Israeli rescue forces as they attempted to recover the casualties.

Reuters on Friday cited a Hezbollah field commander and an official close to the group saying it had set up a new operations centre 72 hours after Nasrallah, along with other Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian commander, were killed on Sept 27.

Fighters have the flexibility to carry out orders “according to the capabilities of the front,” the Hezbollah field commander said, describing the new command as “a narrow circle” in direct contact with the field.

It is not clear how many of the estimated 150,000 missiles and rockets Hezbollah held before the war it still retains. Sources close to the group have claimed it still has considerable reserves including long-range precision weapons.

Casualties

The IDF says it has lost 12 soldiers in Lebanon or northern Israel since the operation began.

Hezbollah has not released figures for its casualties, although the Israelis claim to have killed hundreds of the group’s fighters.

But it is always the civilians who suffer most in war, and although there are no firm figures, their deaths are already thought to run into the hundreds.

Lebanese authorities said on Wednesday 2,141 people had been killed by Israeli action, but did not distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.

Tunnels

The biggest challenge, both Israeli and Hezbollah sources have claimed, is the group’s extensive and deep tunnel network.

Unlike Hamas’ underground network in Gaza, which is dug into relatively soft sand and earth, Hezbollah’s bunkers are tunnelled through the solid rock of the Lebanese mountains.

Israeli veterans of the 2006 war have said the tunnels caused major headaches during that invasion when Hezbollah used them to launch ambushes with Kornet rockets and landmines.

The slow pace of the Israeli advance likely reflects a determination by the IDF to destroy infrastructure as they go rather than advance headlong into hostile territory.

Hezbollah is known to have scored just one 2006-style success so far, with an ambush near Odaisseh on Oct 2, which killed five commandos and injured five more.

War aims

The war may be extended by either side’s opaque war aims.

Israel says it wants to push Hezbollah over the Litani River to make northern Israel safe enough for civilians to return.

But the Israeli government has sent ambiguous signals about how it hopes to achieve that. The initial emphasis on a “limited” war suggested there was a hope Hezbollah would withdraw voluntarily under military pressure.

But Mr Netanyahu’s most recent comments raise the possibility of an open-ended conflict, possibly ending in an Israeli military occupation of the South.

Serving and retired Israeli officers told the Telegraph before the operation that they did not see how security could be achieved without an IDF presence north of the border.

Hezbollah’s immediate war aim must be simply to survive: it has already failed in the objective of deterring an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Naim Qassem, the deputy leader who succeeded Nasrallah, on Tuesday not only backed the Lebanese government’s attempts to negotiate a ceasefire but appeared to drop the group’s previous demand that a ceasefire be concluded in Gaza first.

That prompted Mathew Miller, the US State Department’s spokesman, to say the group was on the back foot and “getting battered.”

But so far, it is still fighting. The field commander who spoke to Reuters said the group was preparing for a war of attrition.

With the IDF moving methodically deeper, and Mr Netanyahu referencing the Gaza war, that might be just what they get.

Anthony Julien looked up at a motionless chair lift above a grassy slope at Grand Puy, a ski resort in the French Alps of Haute Provence, and sighed.

“I put body and soul into running this lift over the past six winters at the expense of family. Now I’m going to have to tear it down. I feel like I’m in mourning,” he said under dark, brooding skies.

The 40-year-old municipal worker’s post as Grand Puy’s lift operator in charge of its 13 runs ceased to exist last Sunday when the neighbouring village of Seyne-les-Alpes voted in a referendum to close the winter resort due to fewer skiers, melting snow and mounting debts.

It is believed to be the first such referendum over the fate of a French ski resort struggling in the face of climate change and competition from bigger, higher ones as customers move up the slopes in search of snow. It is the fourth resort to shut in France this autumn.

Built in 1959, Grand Puy is the oldest of three mid-altitude Southern Alps “stations de ski” in the Vallée de la Blanche, around 30 minutes from Digne-les-Bains.

For 65 years, skiers from Provence as far as Marseille – two hours by car – have enjoyed family skiing down its slopes that rise to 1,800m (5,906ft) for a fraction of the price of Alpine mastodons like Courchevel or Alpe d’Huez. In a recent survey, it was found to be Europe’s third-cheapest ski resort, with a day pass costing just €20.

But the regular absence of snow had led to a drop in visitor numbers, and the resort was racking up losses of €350,000 (£293,000) per year, according to Laurent Pascal, Seyne’s mayor, who said the number of skiers had plummeted almost threefold in a decade.

Some 71 per cent of locals who turned out to vote in a referendum last Sunday were in favour of “the closure of the winter resort” and the development of “activities independent of the ski lifts”. Turnout was 58 per cent.

That didn’t stop those directly affected from fulminating against local officials amid furious allegations of generational score-settling.

“The town hall didn’t want the resort to survive. They can’t say it like that, but that’s how I see it,” said Sandie Bony, 38, whose grandparents bought the Le Chalet bar-restaurant that she and her husband now run next to the ski lift. She said the town hall had councillors with interests in the valley’s other two resorts and theirs was being sacrificed.

“There has indeed been a drop in visitor numbers and a lack of snow. We can’t go against that. But what have they done since the mayor took over four years ago to save it?”

Her mother Karine, 65, said she felt authorities were dumping smaller ski resorts to preserve the bigger ones.

“They’re making the same mistake as when they closed small grocery stores and focused only on supermarkets. I think it’s a fundamental error because we are the affordable first step into family skiing and the mountains. We’re the fuse. More will follow.”

But many locals saw the winter resort’s demise as inevitable.

“Seyne’s old-timers regret the closure. But a ski resort that costs the municipality hundreds of thousands of euros a year doesn’t make sense,” said pensioner Claude Rolland, 83, outside the La Serena cafe in the village. “It would have cost 34 per cent more in taxes per year to keep the resort afloat. For residents, that would have been hard to bear.”

Patricia Rougon, 62, a former ski instructor and farmer whose 100 Angus cattle graze on Grand Puy’s heights, said: “Even back in the eighties, there was little snow. We’d look for patches to teach the kids. Since then, it’s got worse: it snows, but then maybe three or four days later it rains.”

She blasted Francis Hermitte, the former mayor, for pumping €2 million (£1.6 million) into a new chair lift in 2016 that went from two to four seats when there was no evident clientele, among other grand plans. “The sun king got what he wanted and now they’re having to deal with the fallout.”

Mr Hermitte claimed the referendum was held on false pretences, based on “totally biassed and falsified” information.

His successor, Mr Pascal, 38, denied foul play and told The Telegraph he was considering suing for slander.

“I’m happy, if not proud, to have held a referendum” given the delicate nature of the decision, he said. “I hope other resorts follow suit.”

He called the referendum in the wake of an independent study that came up with six scenarios, including keeping the resort as it is. His team added a seventh. In the end, the council opted to shut the lift and fund alternative activities such as e-mountain biking, lake fishing and a trail piste. Locals would also have their say.

“We could have spent more time preparing a diversification plan, but were constrained by mounting costs,” Mr Pascal argued.

“Let’s stop criticising a choice that’s been legitimately made by the people, now we have to diversify.”

The town hall hopes to recoup €600,000 (£503,000) from the sale of the lifts, snow guns and groomers, which will still leave a debt of up to €1.5 million (£1.2 million).

“The equipment is still new and can be recycled as few resorts are on the resale market yet. So all the planets were aligned to make this decision now,” said Mr Pascal.

The resort’s economic problems were “naturally linked to global warming and the quality of snow” but also “changing consumer habits” where people ski for shorter durations and seek alternatives, he added.

That was cold comfort for Michel Rougon, 65, who runs Loup Sport, the only remaining ski hire shop in Grand Puy with his wife Annie Joubert Rougon, 63. The other ski shop folded last year.

“Now that the lift is closing, so are we. I’ve got 600 pairs of skis to sell,” he lamented, conceding that business had been waning for years and that he had dissuaded his daughter from taking it over.

Tears then welled up in his wife’s eyes. “When my parents bought this place in the 1960s, it was just a tiny wooden shack. They built a ski hire shop, then a restaurant and a flat above where we would live in winter.

“After all our family has put in, it’s hard not to take this as a financial and sentimental failure.”

A Bolivian court has issued an arrest warrant for Evo Morales, the country’s former president, after he failed to attend a pretrial hearing for allegedly having sex with a minor.

He has been charged with “aggravated rape with human trafficking” for allegedly having a baby girl with an unnamed 15-year-old while in office in 2016, when he was 57.

The girl’s parents are said to have agreed to the relationship in return for “political favours”.

The former president, who is refusing to leave The Chapare, one of Bolivia’s two coca-producing regions, where he remains wildly popular as a one-time rabble rousing coca-growers’ union leader, has responded to the charges by calling on the government not to interfere with his “family”.

“This is more proof that this is a right-wing government that does everything to comply with the orders of the White House,” Mr Morales added about the accusations, which first came to light under the 2019-2020 conservative government of the interim president Jeanine Añez.

As the most senior senator, she had replaced Morales as president after he was forced to resign amid a vote-rigging controversy. Amid deep political polarisation, the charges were eventually shelved for lack of evidence, before being reopened this year.

Bolivia’s courts are notoriously politicised, according to independent experts, including Human Rights Watch, and it has become routine for presidents of all political stripes to weaponise prosecutions against opponents.

Ms Añez, who notoriously presided over the massacres of anti-government protesters, is serving a 10-year sentence for supposedly overthrowing Mr Morales. Her conviction has been questioned by the United Nations’ special rapporteur on judicial independence.

The reopening of the case against Mr Morales, who was president from 2006 to 2019, comes amid a bitter dispute between him and president Luis Arce, who previously served as Mr Morales’ finance minister.

Both are vying to represent the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in next year’s presidential elections, even though the constitution bans Mr Morales from running again.

MAS remains the most popular political party in the impoverished Andean nation. But although many voters have tired of the drama and scandal that has often enveloped Mr Morales, an economic crisis has seen Mr Arce’s personal approval also plummet.

A conference in Turkmenistan celebrating a local poet’s 300th birthday is not an obvious spot for the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president.

But these are urgent times for the West’s most dangerous enemies.

Analysts said that the meeting in Ashgabat on Friday, which will focus on “a sharply aggravated situation in the Middle East”, appears to have been arranged at the last minute.

“It is a very strange forum to hold their first meeting,” said Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Until Monday, when Russian media announced the Putin-Pezeshkian meeting, not even Turkmen media had been reporting on the forum dedicated to Magtymguly Pyragy, a Turkmen philosopher born in 1724.

A handful of central Asian leaders have since confirmed their attendance at the forum, possibly to add credibility.

Now, though, Pyragy will be linked not just with 18th-century Turkmen nationalism and traditional poetry tinged with Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, but also with Iran-Russia diplomacy as the Middle East edges towards all-out conflict, and the war in Ukraine rages on.

Since the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Iran and Russia have become close allies, building on a partnership forged in the civil war in Syria almost 10 years ago.

Tehran has sent thousands of drones and short-range missiles to Moscow. In return, Russia has been sending oil to Iran and giving it much-needed technical know-how.

On the face of it, Russia appears to be moving towards backing Iran further as there are unconfirmed reports that it has sent fighter jets and missile defence systems to Iran. But there is a feeling in Tehran that the Kremlin still owes Iran.

“Our relationship with Putin resembles that of being friends with someone who never pays their share when you go out,” a professor at a university near Tehran said on condition of anonymity.

But the professor said that Western sanctions had so badly crippled Iran’s economy that it was only able to act as a weak partner to Russia.

“Pezeshkian just needs to keep Putin satisfied, perhaps by promising to send more drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war,” he said.

Although the Kremlin has hosted Hamas, Iran’s Gaza-based proxies, in the past 12 months and has both blamed the West for escalating conflict in the Middle East and applauded Iran for its restraint, this frustration towards Russia is reflected in Iranian state media.

Tehran’s Ettelaat newspaper has blamed Putin for “abandoning” Iran in Gaza, and for “maintaining his distance from the crisis”. The Hamshahri newspaper said that it was about time that the Kremlin delivered on its promise to send sophisticated S-400 missile defence systems to Iran.

“Access to the S-400 system can position Iran better in diplomatic and military negotiations with other countries,” the newspaper said.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War also said that it expected Putin and Pezeshkian to discuss how to respond to a “potential Israeli retaliation” for Tehran’s missile attack last week, but other analysts said the Kremlin would prefer to take an indirect role in the conflict.

“I think that would be too much in terms of antagonising America and Israel. Russia is also still desperately trying to keep Israel away from funding Ukraine,” said Stephen Hall, an assistant professor of Russian politics at the University of Bath.

Yuri Ushakov, a top Kremlin aide, said that at the meeting, Putin and Pezeshkian would also sign off on a bilateral agreement, expected to intensify cooperation, that has been the focus of intense diplomacy.

Last month, Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s security council, and Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian prime minister, both separately visited Tehran for talks on the deal with Pezeshkian. Pezeshkian only became Iran’s president at the end of July.

For Turkmenistan, wedged on former Soviet Central Asia’s southern border with Iran, the high-stakes Putin-Pezeshkian meeting is a rare opportunity to grab international attention.

Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive countries in the world, where Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the dour president, inherited power in 2022 from his cheerful father, a fast car enthusiast and an amateur DJ.

It is a reclusive place, hosting an obscure forum, disguising a high-stakes Russia-Iran summit.

A German neo-Nazi has tripped and fallen to his death during a hiking accident on Adolf Hitler’s favourite mountain in Bavaria.

Andreas Münzhuber, 37, from Freising, died during a tour of the Untersberg mountain as part of a 30-person group on September 29.

The view of Untersberg, a 1,972 metre-tall mountain, was so beloved by Hitler that he decided to have his infamous Eagle’s Nest retreat constructed in the same area.

According to T-Online, a German news outlet, Münzhuber was a “senior board member” of the neo-Nazi group Der III Weg [The Third Way], which has a regional faction in Bavaria.

Third Way was founded in 2013 by former members of the neo-Nazi NPD movement and is believed to have around 600 members in Germany.

Münzhuber was also identified as the “treasurer” of the Bavaria faction of Third Way in a 2023 German government report on the organisation.

German police said Münzhuber tripped on an exposed root during the hike and suffered a fall of 60 metres, which apparently killed him instantly. Two helicopters were involved in efforts to recover his body.

German news reports named him only as “Andreas M” under media privacy laws, but he was fully identified in an online appeal for funeral donations as Andreas Münzhuber.

The donations page and memorial stated: “Münzi, as everyone called him, was only 37 years old and still had many plans in life. His death hits us all hard.”

It continued: “But the biggest gap has emerged at the dinner table at home. His wife now has to raise their daughter alone. She is not yet four months old and was the sunshine of Münzi’s life. She is the spitting image of Münzi. He will live on in her and in our hearts.”

As of Friday afternoon, some €12,000 (£10,000) have been pledged by various online donors to help cover the costs of the funeral.

The BBC handed a record number of “golden goodbyes” worth more than £100,000 in severance to redundant staff last year.

The corporation’s annual accounts show 219 employees received six-figure sums when they left in 2023-24 – at a cost of more than £28 million.

That represents the highest total number and value of £100,000-plus severance payouts since they were first made public in 2013.

The amounts paid to and identity of each person dismissed by the BBC are not disclosed.

Analysis of the corporation’s accounts shows that the total value of payouts worth more than £100,000 has almost trebled in the last decade, up from £10.7 million in 2012-13 to £28.3 million in 2023-24.

The number of payouts valued at more than £100,000 has also increased over the same period, rising from 74 in 2012-13 to 219 in 2023-24.

Joanna Marchong, the investigations campaign manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, told The Telegraph that the BBC should reduce the amount it handed out.

“BBC licence fee payers will be far from impressed with these redundancy payments,” she said.

“A series of overly generous golden goodbyes are costing a fortune and becoming the norm.

“The scale of these exit payments needs to be reviewed with the goal of capping them lower than the current rate.”

Tim Scott, the executive of the Freedom Association campaign group, said: “Hard-pressed BBC licence payers will again be wondering what their fee is being spent on.

“Hugely generous redundancy payments add to the impression that the BBC, far from being hard-up as it sometimes claims, is playing fast and loose with public money.”

In the past decade, the BBC has spent a total of more than £365 million on staff severance pay.

Of those, £163 million was spent on 1,270 settlements worth six figures or more. In 2023-24, farewell payments of any value totalled £55.2 million, the highest figure of any year except 2020-21 when they stood at £74.5 million.

The BBC has publicly declared redundancy payments since 2013 when it was publicly rebuked by the National Audit Office (NAO) for making “payments that exceeded contractual entitlements, provided poor value for money and put public trust at risk”.

It had awarded George Entwistle, the former director-general, £450,000 after he resigned after only 54 days in the job.

Mr Entwistle’s successor, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, then introduced a £150,000 cap on redundancy pay.

The BBC gives departing staff the equivalent of one month’s pay for every year they have worked, up to a maximum of 12 months’ pay for newer staff and two years’ for those who joined the corporation before January 2013.

A spokesman for the BBC said: “Redundancies deliver savings and an opportunity to create a smaller BBC, which means we can prioritise our budget on the programmes and services audiences love.

“Like other organisations, we have contractual obligations to fulfil when staff are made redundant, however our redundancy spend is now 30 per cent less than a decade ago after we introduced a cap on payments in 2013.”

Sir Keir Starmer has taken down a portrait of William Ewart Gladstone that was hanging in No 10, The Telegraph understands.

A 19th-century painting of the four-time Liberal prime minister had been displayed in Downing Street under the previous government.

Following Sir Keir’s arrival however, the painting is now in storage.

No reason has been given for the removal of the Gladstone portrait from Downing Street, but Gladstone has come under repeated fire for his family’s involvement in the slave trade.

It follows reports in August that Sir Keir asked for a portrait of Margaret Thatcher hanging in No 10 to be taken down.

While regarded as a giant of British statesmanship, Gladstone became a contested figure in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests over his family links to slavery, and Labour councils have raised concerns about commemorations of the statesman.

Prime ministers are entitled to change the state-owned artworks which hang in No 10, and incoming leaders typically refresh their offices with pieces held by the Government Art Collection (GAC).

Baron Lexden, Parliamentary and Conservative Party historian and Tory peer,  has raised concerns about the change, saying:  “A prime minister who removes a portrait of Gladstone, one of the greatest men to serve our country, makes a grave error.”

He added:  “I hope that he is not bowing the knee to those who attack Gladstone as a supporter of slavery.”

The painting that has been removed from No 10 is a copy of a 1885 portrait by John Everett Millais, the famed Victorian portraitist, and according to the GAC shows Gladstone “dressed in red academic robes” and fixing a “a stern stare on the viewer”.

The GAC listed the work as in Downing Street before September 2024, but the painting is now in a storage facility.

Images of Gladstone have proven contentious since the Black Lives Matter protest of 2020, and after the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, memorials to Gladstone were reviewed by several Labour authorities.

The Welsh Labour Government included Gladstone in its audit of places linked to empire and the slave trade, and the Labour-led Blackburn with Darwen borough council considered removing a statue honouring the former prime minister.

The Telegraph revealed in 2022 that the Labour-run Brent borough council tabled plans to rename the local Gladstone Park, with “Diane Abbott Park” suggested as a possible new name.

Gladstone became the focus of activist action because his father and fellow politician, Sir John Gladstone, owned thousands of slaves.

Early in his career, Gladstone supported compensation for slave owners as a condition of abolition, but never owned slaves or plantations himself, and condemned slavery as “by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind”.

Gladstone, who led Britain over four non-consecutive terms and served as an MP for 63 years, was a Liberal reformer and is often ranked among the greatest prime ministers.

Lord Lexden said of his achievement and views on slavery:  “Known as ‘The People’s William’, he served four terms as prime minister, and unlike any of his successors today drew vast crowds to his meetings whenever he spoke. His great mission was to pacify Ireland by giving it home rule.

“Though success eluded him, he is an enduring source of inspiration to those who want close relations between the UK and Ireland, of whom Keir Starmer professes to be one.

“As a very young man acting on the orders of a dominating father, Gladstone briefly backed calls for compensation for the owners of plantations in the West Indians when slavery was abolished. It was short lived.

“In 1839 he became one of the founders of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa. He denounced slavery in the American Confederate states as “detestable”.

No 10 and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which oversee the GAC, were contacted for comment.

A drink-driver has been banned from the roads after his drunken excursion sent a parked car hurtling through a family’s living room window.

Callum Travell, 22, was almost two times over the drink-drive limit when he drove into the back of a parked car, propelling it through a bay window of the home in Southampton.

Four children were inside the home at the time of the incident at around 12.40am on Sept 10, but no injuries were reported.

Travell, from nearby Locks Heath, admitted driving without due care and attention and drink driving at Southampton magistrates’ court on Tuesday. At the time of his arrest, he was found to have 66 micrograms of alcohol when he was breathalysed, almost double the legal limit of 35.

He received a driving ban of 22 months and was ordered to pay a total of £1,571 in fines and court costs. His ban could be reduced to just 22 weeks if Travell completes a drink-driving course by Jan 6 2026.

Mike Ellis, the owner of the property, attended the court hearing and said: “We believe [Travell] has learned a life lesson that will impact his future. We hope this lesson will always be remembered by him, so he doesn’t drink-drive again.

“He is very lucky that no-one, including himself was hurt or worse killed, otherwise the sentence outcome would not have been so light.”

‘Impact on us has been disregarded’

But Allan Vincent, whose Volkswagen CC was wedged into Mr Ellis’s living room complained the “punishment does not fit the crime” as it did not take into account the emotional impact of the accident.

The 53-year-old said:  “My children can no longer sleep. My youngest regularly wakes up with nightmares and both struggle to get to sleep in the evening.

“Both children have had support from counsellors at school, and who knows how long this event will continue to affect them?

“It feels like the punishment does not fit the crime. It feels as though the impact on us and our neighbours has been disregarded.”

Mr Vincent had been at home at the time of the incident when a “massive thud shook the house”.

He said: “I came outside and saw a mess; my car was in my neighbour’s house and I tried to calm down my neighbour’s wife, who had four kids in the house at the time.”

His car, which he had owned since 2016, suffered significant damage and had to be written off.

‘It is difficult to find closure’

Mr Vincent added: “This was not a case of a driver being caught over the limit and speeding, this is a case of 10 people’s lives being significantly impacted by one person’s actions, and them receiving what feels like a disproportionately lenient punishment.

“In two years his punishment will be complete, and he will move on with his life.

“Where is the deterrent to make the same poor decisions again? He should be made aware of the impact his actions have had.

“I’m disappointed in the judicial system and disappointed that we haven’t even had an apology.

“Yes, insurance will cover the material damage, but, moving forward, our premiums will be affected, the value of our house will be affected, our mental health and the enjoyment of our much-loved home will be affected.

“It is difficult to find closure and move forward.”

Mr Ellis said his family have also been left struggling after the incident: “Lucy [his wife] and our eight-year-old son have been affected the most by the trauma, which will take time to get over.”

A Labour council is planning to install a cycle lane on one of the most congested main roads in the country, it can be revealed.

The London Borough of Haringey wants to halve a stretch of the road’s existing capacity by installing a two-way cycle lane on an A-road that passes by Hornsey railway station.

Yet official Department for Transport (DfT) statistics published this month and analysed by The Sunday Telegraph show that the road in question, the A103 in Haringey, is the fourth slowest council-managed highway in the whole of the UK.

Average speeds along the part of the A103 that runs through Haringey last year were just 5.9mph, making it the fastest-growing road for congestion in the country – and now council planners want to halve the road’s traffic capacity along a 500yd stretch serving a key public transport link.

“The Councils [sic] approved Walking and Cycling Action Plan indicates an ambition to provide a number of key strategic cycle routes through the borough providing safe cycling in both the East-West and North-South directions,” said Haringey’s public consultation document issued in August.

“This will help connect to local amenities and link routes to adjacent boroughs allowing cyclists to travel longer distances beyond the borough boundary.”

Graphics published by Haringey show that planners intend to turn one of the A103’s two lanes into a dedicated cycle track.

Officials also want to install a controversial “floating bus stop”, meaning passengers will be dropped off in the middle of the road between traffic and cyclists. Such bus stops have been heavily criticised elsewhere in London by blind and disabled campaigners.

Locals are unhappy about the council’s plans, One, Tasmine Akunjee, a solicitor, claimed the cycle lane would worsen pollution by concentrating harmful traffic emissions into the one lane.

“It’s just a open air gas chamber, isn’t it, really, for anyone who’s on that road?” he said.

“Because you have buildings on either side, you get an inversion effect where the atmosphere at road level is pretty much kept in place because there isn’t a lot of air movement there, comparative to the amount of fumes being generated,” he claimed.

Another pointed out that the Hornsey School for Girls was likely to be affected by worsened traffic congestion caused by the new cycle lane. With 775 pupils aged 11-16, the school is just off the A103 and lies a few hundred yards south of the proposed cycle lane’s southern end.

The London Cycling Campaign, however, claimed the cycle path would make little difference to local congestion.

Simon Munk, its head of campaigns and community development, said: “The A103 even just in Haringey is a road with several markedly different sections. Given where the short section of cycle track is proposed, it seems unlikely it would have further impact on congestion on the A103 overall.

“But that’s for TfL and Haringey Council to consider – and they’ve almost certainly either already looked at it or will look at if/when this scheme goes into construction.”

He added: “It’s often claimed cycle tracks are a significant cause of congestion in London – but this rarely turns out to be the case, and far more often such tracks add capacity to the road in terms of overall journeys made.”

DfT road statisticians said: “At its simplest, congestion can be explained in physical terms as the way in which vehicles interact to impede each other’s progress. These interactions and their influence on individual journeys usually increase as demand for the available road space approaches capacity or when capacity itself is reduced through roadworks or closures for example.”

Keith Prince, the City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said: “This proposed cycle lane, on a notoriously slow part of road, will have significant knock-on effects for residents and commuters with far-reaching repercussions.

“Something has clearly gone very wrong on the A103 and finding a solution should mean listening to residents, not ignoring them.

He added: “Ultimately, it is for the residents of Haringey to have their say, and if the consultation shows that residents don’t support this then I hope that local authorities take note. Infrastructure is vital, but so is local support.”

The Sunday Telegraph asked Haringey council if local residents supported the introduction of a new cycle lane on the A103, and if it wished to make a statement about its plans.

The council failed to respond.

The husband of a Labour MP has been accused of exaggerating his military service in the Royal Marines.

Greg Brackenridge, a local councillor and former mayor of Wolverhampton, has told voters he served as a commando but in fact never finished training, according to reports.

Cllr Brackenridge, 53 who is also the Chair of the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority, was previously pictured wearing a badge for veterans of the Iraq War from 1990 to 1991 and a Royal Marines Corps tie.

But he allegedly failed to complete the 32-week training in 1988 and left at the rank of recruit without earning his green beret, the Sun newspaper reported.

“Until you pass out, you’re still a recruit, you’re not really a Royal Marine,” a source told the newspaper.

His wife, Sureena Brackenridge, won the seat Wolverhampton North East for Labour in July, and her son Ciaran also sits as a councillor.

When unveiling the statue of a Sikh soldier in Wolverhampton in September 2021, he told a journalist: “I served as a Royal Marine myself when I left school and I worked with members of the Sikh community in the Armed Forces and people from all around the world, the Nepalese, the Gurkhas.”

The Gurkhas are soldiers from Nepal who are recruited into the British Army.

In an interview with news website BirminghamLive this week he admitted to never serving “in battle or the front line” and that his career was prematurely cut short for “personal family reasons”.

He has also claimed his own personal military record held by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had been illegally accessed.

“I am formally requesting the MoD investigate these matters, and I’m in discussions with lawyers about the next steps,” he said.

A biography on the Wolverhampton Labour Group, which has since been deleted, reportedly repeated his claim of serving with the Royal Marines.

“It has been my honour to serve the people of Wednesfield over many years as your councillor and in my previous professional careers firstly with the Royal Marines and as a local firefighter with the West Midlands Service,” it is alleged to have read.

Cllr Brackenridge and Mrs Brackenridge have both been approached for comment.

An e-bike rider who left a two-year-old boy hospitalised after a collision has been let off by the police.

Dylan Latham needed more than a dozen stitches to his forehead after being struck by a 65-year-old female cyclist on a public footpath at a playing field in Prestatyn, Wales.

Despite the cyclist fleeing the scene and North Wales Police issuing an appeal to trace her, officers have decided not to pursue a criminal case after she came forward.

The infant’s mother is now calling for tougher laws for battery-powered bicycles.

Darcy Gore, 27, said she was “livid” that a prosecution was not being pursued, adding that she cried when she learned officers had in fact handed the woman her bike back.

“If this collision involved a car where the driver left, not giving their details despite someone bleeding badly, I believe police would have treated it as a scene of crime,” Ms Gore said. “The injuries my son received were equivalent to those that could have been caused by a car.

“Let’s hope the next person she collides with on her bike on a footpath meant for pedestrians is lucky enough to survive.”

Last month, Ms Gore, her partner, Jordan Latham, 28, and their three sons went to the Morfas football pitches where Mr Latham coaches a boys’ team.

As the training commenced, the mother spotted her youngest son, Dylan, momentarily stray onto a nearby pedestrian footpath, which serves as a cut through to the town centre.

“The cyclist should have been more mindful of her surroundings. She came flying down the path and her e-bike went straight into Dylan, cutting his head open,” she said.

Ms Gore ran to him and “scooped him up” before rushing him to her car and Mr Latham drove him to hospital as Ms Gore tried to stem the bleeding.

“I turned Dylan over and his face was covered in blood which was pouring out of the deep cut. I was in shock.

“I thought there was a possibility he was brain damaged because he was severely concussed and drifting in and out of consciousness. He was bleeding out heavily.

“He had a glazed look over his eyes. It was terrifying. In the resuscitation ward doctors gave him drips and plugged him into the monitors, but he showed no reaction whatsoever when cannula were fitted.”

At hospital – where Dylan spent one night, Ms Gore rang friends at the sports field to see what had happened to the cyclist.

“I was told that after about five minutes she got up off the ground and got on her bike and left, without even leaving her name or contact details,” she continued.

Police issued an appeal to trace the woman, who eventually came forward two days after the collision.

Ms Gord claimed officers were initially appalled that a cyclist could cause such injuries, but when they discovered it was not a young male careering along the footpath “their perspective shifted”.

“At first the police seemed really angry. As soon as they found it was a 65-year-old woman their judgement of character completely changed. I genuinely believe if this was a teenage boy on that bike there would not have been a decision to take no further action.”

Ms Gore said she was told by officers that the woman had no previous convictions and may have not come forward because she was in shock and slightly injured.

The e-bike, she was told, had not been modified to exceed the 15.5mph that such bikes can reach without pedal power.

Ms Gore added that she accepts the cyclist “did not intend” that day to “run over” a two-year-old boy, but feels she should still be held responsible because she was on a footpath meant for pedestrians. 

She added that the “trauma” caused by the collision means Dylan is now afraid of certain noises when out and about in case there is a bike or scooter nearby.

“I am so lucky he survived and was only kept in hospital overnight. I want people to realise the dangers that these heavier and potentially faster e-bikes can pose,” she continued.

Ms Gore has lodged an appeal against the police’s decision to take no further action. North Wales Police has been contacted for a comment.

Denbighshire County Council failed to respond to a request to establish whether the path where the collision happened was purely a footpath or was categorised either as a “shared use” path to allow cyclists and pedestrians passage or included stretches of cycle lane.

Spain has been emboldened to ramp up its claims over Gibraltar by the Government’s surrender of the Chagos Islands, a former defence secretary has warned.

Sir Michael Fallon said that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, had declared “open season” for Madrid to press ahead with its claim to the Rock on the international stage.

He made the remarks after the Spanish police sparked huge queues on Friday by imposing surprise identity checks on the frontier with Gibraltar.

Madrid has warned London that it intends to impose a permanent hard border that would severely hamper the movement of people and goods.

Sir Michael said that the decision to give away the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which was announced last week, had cast Gibraltar’s future in doubt.

He warned that the move “played directly into Spain’s hands” and would encourage Madrid to pursue further international support for its claim to the Rock.

“Surrendering the Chagos for fear of a potential international judgement will only encourage Spain to build up international support for its claim,” he told The Telegraph. “That just means open season for any of these potential claims to be advanced.

“The people of Gibraltar will worry now that they too could get dumped by a government that just doesn’t value its own territories.”

Downing Street is said to have agreed to the surrender of Chagos over fears that a future International Court of Justice ruling would go against Britain and hand control of the islands to Mauritius.

The archipelago in the Indian Ocean is hugely strategically significant and is home to the Diego Garcia airbase that is used by the US military.

Joe Biden pressured Sir Keir into signing away the archipelago because he was concerned such a verdict would threaten the future of Diego Garcia, The Telegraph revealed.

Under the agreement announced by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, Britain will hand over the island but retain a 99-year lease on the base.

The deal, which will end 200 years of British rule in Chagos, is also expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in rent for the airbase.

Sir Michael said that ministers must make sure the deal does not allow China to use its close ties to Mauritius to threaten UK security.

There have been fears that Beijing could build on a neighbouring island to Diego Garcia and interfere with or spy on the airbase. Mauritius and China struck a free trade agreement in 2021, which was the first of its kind between Beijing and an African country.

It comes as London remains locked in talks with Madrid over a permanent pact to fix post-Brexit uncertainty surrounding Gibraltar.

Negotiations aim to ensure frictionless travel by moving the border to the Rock’s airport and make the British Overseas Territory part of the EU’s Schengen Zone.

But they have stalled on sovereignty grounds and Madrid’s demands that Spanish border guards have boots on Gibraltan ground to police the new frontier.

Downing Street has pushed back against suggestions that the Chagos decision affects other overseas territories, insisting it was a unique situation.

Sir Keir also told the Commons this week that the sovereignty of Gibraltar was “not to be negotiated”, adding that it was “British and will remain British”.

Melania Trump has said the public cannot always trust the government, calling on voters to be “vigilant”.

The former first lady told the Some Future Day podcast she was sceptical about “so many rules” and that the government “should not control us”.

Mrs Trump, who has just released a memoir, has previously suggested that the government may have had some involvement in the assassination attempt against her husband at a rally in Pennsylvania in July.

On the podcast, released on Friday, she was asked to define “trust” and responded that it was most important to “trust yourself”.

“Trust, it’s [an] interesting word,” she said. “Because first you need to trust yourself…and then you see if you could trust other people. Trust is also shown, it’s like sometimes actions or words.”

‘A little bit tricky’

She added that trusting the government was “a little bit tricky”.

“It’s very tricky, because it’s so many people involved, that’s why,” she said. “And so many rules…the government should not control us, right?

“So, can you trust the government? Not in everything. You need to be vigilant.”

In her memoir, Mrs Trump revealed she is supportive of abortion rights, and that she lobbied her husband against the policy of separating migrants from their children during his presidency.

She also said that resurfaced naked photographs from a photoshoot were “not a source of shame” for her when they were republished during his first presidential campaign.

“My upbringing in Europe had fostered a different perspective on nudity, a more open and accepting attitude”, she wrote.

“We were accustomed to beaches where nudity was commonplace, a natural and uncontroversial aspect of life. Attitudes toward the female body in the United States were starkly different.”

Last month, she questioned the official narrative of the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

“Now, the silence around it feels heavy,” she said. “I can’t help but wonder: Why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?

“There is definitely more to this story. And we need to uncover the truth.”

Buckingham Palace let down the Duke of York in its handling of the royal’s sex abuse case, one of his close friends claims.

Paul Tweed has criticised what he considers to be a litany of failings in the PR and legal strategies adopted on the Duke’s behalf by the palace and his own legal team.

In a new book, he argues that the price paid by Prince Andrew “could hardly have been higher”.

He also suggests that it was a mistake not to publicly address the facts in the immediate aftermath of the Duke’s disastrous Newsnight interview, not to engage with his accuser Virginia Giuffre’s lawyers from the outset and to try to avoid the inevitable service of legal papers.

The way in which the out-of-court settlement was handled only served to fuel the impression that the Duke was forced to “buy off” Ms Giuffre, Mr Tweed claims.

The book, called From Holywood to Hollywood, My Life as an International Libel Lawyer to the Rich and Famous, describes how Mr Tweed came into the royal orbit in 2016 when he was asked to advise Sarah, Duchess of York, six years after she fell victim to the News of the World’s ‘fake sheikh’ sting, going on to secure “a number of settlements and apologies for her”.

He has since become a friend of the York family, joining them in the royal box at Ascot in 2016, attending Princess Eugenie’s wedding in 2018 and occasionally advising the Duke in an unofficial capacity in the intervening years.

Mr Tweed has devoted one chapter of his book to the way in which he believes Prince Andrew was tried in the court of public opinion following his November 2019 Newsnight interview, which marked the beginning of the end of his royal career.

The Duke was convinced that it would allow him to demonstrate his innocence and to persuade viewers that he had never abused the teenage Ms Giuffre, as she had claimed.

The decision backfired, with the Duke’s bizarre alibis concerning Pizza Express in Woking and an inability to sweat, landing badly. He also failed to express any regret over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, or empathy for his victims.

Mr Tweed acknowledges that only the Duke, Ms Giuffre, Epstein and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell knew what took place on the night in question.

But he writes that the price paid by the Duke in the wake of the allegations “could hardly have been higher”.

Mr Tweed told The Telegraph that he did not intend to criticise the decisions made on behalf of the Duke, acknowledging that he did not represent him and was not party to the discussions at the time.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” he told The Telegraph. “For all I know, Andrew may have been given the best advice and chosen to ignore it.

“My point is that the court of public opinion has far more of an impact than the court of law.”

In the book, Mr Tweed admits that he was astonished that the Newsnight interview was allowed to go ahead, not least given that “everyone close to him”, including his ex-wife, urged him not to do it.

“For Prince Andrew to expose himself to unrestricted cross-examination by a very experienced interviewer, who would have undertaken extensive research and prepared questions well in advance, could not possibly offer any upside in any circumstance to anyone,” he writes.

He admits that the Duke’s “focus, demeanour and presentation” were all wrong – something he puts down to his cocooned and protected upbringing – and claims that as a result, he gave entirely the wrong impression.

His evidence, rather than being heard by a jury, was communicated via television in an interview for which he was “unprepared” and unfamiliar with how best to present his case.

It took Buckingham Palace four days to issue a statement, in which the Duke accepted that his association with Epstein “had become a major disruption to my family’s work” and that he was giving up his public duties.

In January 2022, shortly before the Duke settled his civil case with Ms Giuffre following months of lurid headlines, the palace announced that his military titles and royal patronages had been returned to Elizabeth II.

Mr Tweed suggests that such reactive public statements gave the impression that they had been “dragged out” of a reluctant Duke who was already on the back foot, only serving to compound negative public opinion.

The statements “came across as defensive rather than proactive” and were extremely limited in scope, much to the frustration of at least one of the Duke’s PR advisers at the time, he claims.

A structured and proactive media strategy that addressed all of the facts from the outset, rather than repeated denials, might have clearly explained the Duke’s stance, he claims.

The decision to concentrate on the risk of legal proceedings in the UK, is also questioned, as Mr Tweed argues that it was clear any potential legal battle would take place in the US.

By the time US counsel were eventually hired, Ms Giuffre’s lawyers had been able to “establish themselves in the driving seat of the litigation and the media optics”, leaving the Duke’s new legal team struggling to regain lost ground, he writes.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

King Charles III’s former butler has said that burgers should always be eaten with a knife and fork to maintain “proper etiquette”.

Grant Harrold, who worked for various senior royals at Buckingham Palace and Highgrove House, said that a “genuine sense of refinement” could be achieved by eating a burger with cutlery.

YouGov US statistics rank hamburgers and cheeseburgers as America’s favourite food with 84 and 83 per cent of citizens putting them in the top spot respectively.

However, Mr Harrold said members of the Royal family always use cutlery, and he called for the public to do the same.

“While it’s true that most people use their hands to eat a burger, doing it the right way by using a knife and fork brings a genuine sense of refinement to the culinary experience,” he said.

“Treating a burger with proper etiquette like any other plated dish elevates it from a casual, messy meal to something that can be savoured with a bit more elegance.

“Using a knife and fork was certainly the technique employed by members of the monarchy during my tenure at both Buckingham Palace and Highgrove House, and by the numerous high-end clientele I have worked with worldwide over the years.”

He added that “proper etiquette” dictated that cutlery be used and it “undoubtedly makes for a more practical eating experience”.

One poll, by British pub chain Greene King, found that 50 per cent of the public think it can be acceptable to use cutlery to eat burgers, while 44 per cent think burgers are “meant to be eaten” with your hands.

Almost two thirds of people always eat burgers with their hands and never use a knife and fork.

Mr Harrold worked for the King before his coronation, serving as a butler to the Prince of Wales from 2004 to 2011.

He previously caused controversy by suggesting that diners should not eat rice with their hands, a practice common in many Asian countries.

The teacher retention crisis is now costing taxpayers more than £1 billion a year, it can be revealed.

New figures show reliance on supply teachers has surged since the pandemic as schools increasingly rely on cover teachers to plug growing holes in the workforce.

In total, schools in England have spent a staggering £3.5 billion on agency teachers to fill vacancies and cover long-term sick leave in the past four years.

In 2019/20, local authority-maintained schools and academies in England spent £738 million hiring agency supply teachers, figures compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) show.

But by 2022/23 costs almost doubled with schools spending £1.2 billion of taxpayers’ cash to cover teachers leaving the profession burnt out and stressed.

It means billions of pounds of public money is being “needlessly wasted inflating the profits of teacher supply agencies”, unions say.

Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), urged Sir Keir Starmer to end the reliance on supply staff and find a long-term solution to dwindling teaching numbers.

“The previous Government imposed years of below-inflation pay awards, inadequately funded the education system, and ratcheted up the expectations and accountability pressures on schools and colleges,” the union leader said.

“The result is a full-blown recruitment and retention crisis which is making it increasingly difficult to put teachers in front of classes, as well as costing billions of pounds of public money to plug gaps with agency staff.

“The new Government must build on this year’s improvement to pay and tackle high levels of systemic workload to ensure that teaching is the attractive career that it should be and that schools and colleges no longer have to make do and mend.”

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), pointed the finger at poor teacher pay compared “with other graduate professions”, which he said meant schools are failing to recruit “sufficient numbers into almost all subject areas”.

“Combined with the underfunding of schools, it means heads are unable to fill posts. It is now commonplace to find teachers delivering subjects for which they have no specialism, just to plug the gap,” he said.

“It also means that millions of pounds of public money is needlessly wasted inflating the profits of teacher supply agencies.”

Labour has come under fire for bowing to pressure from unions on above-inflation public sector pay deals and demands to immediately scrap one word Ofsted ratings.

The NEU last month voted to accept the Government’s pay offer of a 5.5 per cent uplift for most teachers this year, but warned that it will push for a bigger hike next year.

It suggests the UK’s largest teaching union will continue to wield the threat of further strike action as it seeks long-term funding to address the retention crisis.

Almost 44,000 teachers left the state-funded sector in 2022/23 – or about one in 10 of all qualified teachers.

The rate of teachers leaving the profession owing to retirement also continues to decline, with just 8 per cent retiring last year – down from more than a third in 2010/11.

The NEU said that alongside poor pay, teachers are struggling with a “culture of high workload and burn-out, [which] inevitably leads to stress, sickness and an exodus of talent from the profession”.

In the 2022/23 academic year, 66 per cent of teachers took sickness absence – up from 45 per cent in 2020/21. Each teacher took an average of eight days off because of illness last year.

The upwards trend since the pandemic has made schools more reliant on agency staff to fill short-term and long-term teacher shortages.

A Government report published last month suggested agencies are cashing in on the teaching crisis by charging an almost 100 per cent markup on supply staff.

It found that the average daily cost of a secondary school supply teacher was £291 last year, but that the take-home day rate for each staff member was around £150.

The report also said supply teachers were “largely dissatisfied with their pay, terms and conditions,” with cover staff being asked to oversee an increasing range of responsibilities.

Most supply teachers typically follow a lesson plan, help with marking and supervise pupils while they study, but some are also being made to act as teaching assistants and other specialist roles.

Last month, The Telegraph revealed teachers will be allowed to work from home under Labour plans to tackle the recruitment crisis in schools.

Headteachers will also be told they can let their staff do marking and planning away from the classroom, it is understood.

Teachers already have free periods to mark homework and to plan lessons, and Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, wants to make it easier for them to work from home in these periods.

It is hoped it will help stem the tide of women leaving the profession when they have children. The plan would allow such teachers to take their free periods in blocks at the end or the beginning of the day, enabling them to work from home while looking after children, or to complete the school run.

However, critics fear that the boost to flexible working will lead to a reduction in productivity and could be the start of a slippery slope with pupils getting less face-to-face time with teachers.

The TPA uncovered the figures using information from data source reports published under schools’ financial benchmarking on the government website.

Darwin Friend, the head of research at TPA, said: “Taxpayers will be astonished that schools are spending billions on agency staff. Schools across England are facing significant financial pressures which are straining resources. Paying for expensive supply teachers is a cost that taxpayers cannot afford. Schools must reduce their reliance on costly external teaching staff.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Teacher recruitment and retention is in a parlous state. That is why the Education Secretary has already begun a reset of the government’s relationship with the sector, to re-establish teaching as an attractive, expert and go-to profession for graduates.

“As well as fully funding a 5.5 per cent pay award, we are offering tax-free incentives to encourage the brightest and best into teaching in shortage subjects. We are also taking steps to support teachers’ wellbeing and ease workload pressures including allowing teachers to carry out lesson planning at home, improving flexible working for staff.

“This government sees teachers as partners in the push for better as we seek to give every child the best start in life. We will continue to work with the sector to ensure that teachers not only stay in the profession but thrive.”

Northern Ireland-style policing of protests could be considered as an alternative to Parliament’s “permissive” approach, the head of Scotland Yard has said.

The Metropolitan Police has come under intense criticism in the past year over its policing of large-scale pro-Palestinian protests that were said to have turned central London into a “no-go zone for Jews”.

Last weekend, protesters marched through central London brandishing banners in support of the terror group Hezbollah including “Hezbollah are not terrorists” and “I love Hezbollah”.

Several arrests were made at the march, which attracted some 70,000 demonstrators and came just before the first anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas on southern Israel.

There have been concerns about the repeated nature of the mass pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the impact this has had on the Jewish community, as well as the huge cost to police in terms of time and resources.

The latest figures from Scotland Yard show that more than £45 million has been spent over the past year on Operation Brocks, the Met’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which mainly consists of policing protests.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, said that his force must broadly operate under the “presumption” that a protest will take place.

But he said that when it comes to deciding whether demonstrations can go ahead, there are “alternative models” that could be looked at in different jurisdictions, and even within the UK, such as in Northern Ireland.

Anyone wishing to organise a protest in Northern Ireland must notify the Parades Commission a minimum of 28 days in advance of the date they wish to hold the event.

The Commission is an arms-length government body which can place restrictions on any parades in Northern Ireland it deems contentious or offensive.

This could include a prohibition on music being played, changing the route of parades to avoid certain areas, or banning individuals from taking part based on previous breaches.

Sir Mark told The Telegraph: “Parliament has generally taken quite a permissive approach to protest. The presumption is that protests will take place, other than in very specific circumstances where the risk of serious violence is beyond what the police can control.

“Our role is limited to putting in place plans to make sure they take place lawfully, without serious disruption or serious disorder.”

He went on to suggest that there are “alternative models in operation in other jurisdictions and indeed within the UK”.

‘Our role is to police the law’

Sir Mark said: “In Northern Ireland, for example, because of the specific history of parades and marches taking place in divided communities, there is a whole separate legal framework with a Parades Commission that takes account of the effect of those events on communities, and tries to strike a different balance.

“There are clearly different ways to approach the law on protest, but they are a matter for Parliament to consider, not the police. Our role is to police to the letter of the law without fear or favour, which we will continue to do.”

Earlier this year, Sir Mark faced calls to quit after an officer threatened to arrest an “openly Jewish” man during a pro-Palestine rally.

But he survived calls for his resignation and went on to praise the “professional” conduct of the sergeant involved, warning that officers at other protests had been “set up” by activists.

Earlier this month, a senior Scotland Yard officer admitted the force made mistakes in its handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner of the Met responsible for public order policing, said the force “didn’t get everything right, particularly in the early stages” in October last year, citing the decision not to immediately arrest demonstrators shouting “jihad”.

But he went on to say that police had developed their tactics since then to be faster and more decisive, adding: “We are now much more focused on identifying reasonable grounds for arrest, acting where needed and then investigating, so in these circumstances it’s very likely arrests would be made more quickly now.”

Northern Ireland-style policing of protests could be considered as an alternative to Parliament’s “permissive” approach, the head of Scotland Yard has said.

The Metropolitan Police has come under intense criticism in the past year over its policing of large-scale pro-Palestinian protests that were said to have turned central London into a “no-go zone for Jews”.

Last weekend, protesters marched through central London brandishing banners in support of the terror group Hezbollah including “Hezbollah are not terrorists” and “I love Hezbollah”.

Several arrests were made at the march, which attracted some 70,000 demonstrators and came just before the first anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas on southern Israel.

There have been concerns about the repeated nature of the mass pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the impact this has had on the Jewish community, as well as the huge cost to police in terms of time and resources.

The latest figures from Scotland Yard show that more than £45 million has been spent over the past year on Operation Brocks, the Met’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which mainly consists of policing protests.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, said that his force must broadly operate under the “presumption” that a protest will take place.

But he said that when it comes to deciding whether demonstrations can go ahead, there are “alternative models” that could be looked at in different jurisdictions, and even within the UK, such as in Northern Ireland.

Anyone wishing to organise a protest in Northern Ireland must notify the Parades Commission a minimum of 28 days in advance of the date they wish to hold the event.

The Commission is an arms-length government body which can place restrictions on any parades in Northern Ireland it deems contentious or offensive.

This could include a prohibition on music being played, changing the route of parades to avoid certain areas, or banning individuals from taking part based on previous breaches.

Sir Mark told The Telegraph: “Parliament has generally taken quite a permissive approach to protest. The presumption is that protests will take place, other than in very specific circumstances where the risk of serious violence is beyond what the police can control.

“Our role is limited to putting in place plans to make sure they take place lawfully, without serious disruption or serious disorder.”

He went on to suggest that there are “alternative models in operation in other jurisdictions and indeed within the UK”.

‘Our role is to police the law’

Sir Mark said: “In Northern Ireland, for example, because of the specific history of parades and marches taking place in divided communities, there is a whole separate legal framework with a Parades Commission that takes account of the effect of those events on communities, and tries to strike a different balance.

“There are clearly different ways to approach the law on protest, but they are a matter for Parliament to consider, not the police. Our role is to police to the letter of the law without fear or favour, which we will continue to do.”

Earlier this year, Sir Mark faced calls to quit after an officer threatened to arrest an “openly Jewish” man during a pro-Palestine rally.

But he survived calls for his resignation and went on to praise the “professional” conduct of the sergeant involved, warning that officers at other protests had been “set up” by activists.

Earlier this month, a senior Scotland Yard officer admitted the force made mistakes in its handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner of the Met responsible for public order policing, said the force “didn’t get everything right, particularly in the early stages” in October last year, citing the decision not to immediately arrest demonstrators shouting “jihad”.

But he went on to say that police had developed their tactics since then to be faster and more decisive, adding: “We are now much more focused on identifying reasonable grounds for arrest, acting where needed and then investigating, so in these circumstances it’s very likely arrests would be made more quickly now.”