Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who led the 2014 independence referendum, has died at the age of 69.

The ex-Scottish National Party leader collapsed and died on Saturday shortly after delivering a speech in North Macedonia.

On Saturday night, Sir Keir Starmer led the tributes, calling him a “monumental figure of Scottish and UK politics” who “leaves behind a lasting legacy”.

Mr Salmond was the first minister of Scotland between 2007 and 2014 and is best known for calling the 2014 referendum on leaving the UK.

He led the SNP twice, the second time from 2004 until his resignation in 2014, transforming its fortunes and turning it from a fringe movement into the dominant force in Scottish politics.

He later split with the party over its handling of sexual impropriety allegations against him and formed Alba, a new pro-independence movement.

The Prime Minister said: “For more than 30 years, Alex Salmond was a monumental figure of Scottish and UK politics. He leaves behind a lasting legacy.

“As first minister of Scotland, he cared deeply about Scotland’s heritage, history, and culture, as well as the communities he represented as MP and MSP over many years of service.”

The King has said he and the Queen are “greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond”. 

He added: “His devotion to Scotland drove his decades of public service. We extend our deep condolences to his family and loved ones at this time.”

John Swinney, the current First Minister of Scotland, added: “Alex worked tirelessly and fought fearlessly for the country that he loved and for her independence.

“He took the Scottish National Party from the fringes of Scottish politics into government and led Scotland so close to becoming an independent country.”

Mr Salmond was born in West Lothian on New Year’s Eve 1954 and first became active in the SNP while he was a student at St Andrews University.

His political career took off when he was elected to Parliament as the MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987, an area he would also represent in Holyrood.

He first served as leader from 1990 to 2000 and then returned in 2004 following the party’s poor showing in that year’s European parliament elections.

It emerged as the largest party at the 2007 Scottish elections, with Mr Salmond as first minister at the head of a minority government.

Four years later he led the SNP to an overall majority and immediately pressed ahead with his long-held plans to hold an independence referendum.

The vote was held on Sept 18 2014, but resulted in defeat for the pro-independence movement by 55 per cent to 45 per cent, forcing Mr Salmond to resign as first minister.

He was replaced by his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon,  with whom he had forged a formidable partnership over their seven years together in power.

But the pair’s relationship broke down irrevocably when in 2018 he faced multiple allegations of sexual impropriety dating back to his time in office.

Mr Salmond and his allies were enraged by her handling of the Scottish Government’s official investigation into the claims.

He later took successful legal action, with the SNP administration admitting it should not have appointed an investigating officer who had “prior involvement” in his case.

Mr Salmond was charged with 14 offences against 10 women including rape, sexual assault, indecent assault and breach of the peace.

He was acquitted of all the charges in March 2020 following a trial at Edinburgh’s high court.

Ms Sturgeon, who succeeded him as first minister in 2014, paid tribute to her “mentor” and said she was “shocked and sorry” to hear of his death.

“Obviously, I cannot pretend that the events of the past few years which led to the breakdown of our relationship did not happen, and it would not be right for me to try,” she said.

“However, it remains the fact that for many years, Alex was an incredibly significant figure in my life.

“He was my mentor, and for more than a decade we formed one of the most successful partnerships in UK politics.”

Last month, Mr Salmond, who was taking fresh legal action against the Scottish Government, said he “seriously doubted” the pair would ever speak again.

The schism with Ms Sturgeon prompted him to set up Alba in 2021. The party has since stood against the SNP in both Scottish and UK elections.

Chris McEleny, the party’s general secretary, thanked Mr Salmond for “all your lessons, advice, guidance, mentorship, love and friendship”.

He added: “For many years you were the father of the nation and for several years you’ve been a father-like figure to me. Our dream will live forever.”

Tributes poured from across the political spectrum following the announcement of his death, which came just hours after he had posted on social media.

Rishi Sunak said: “While I disagreed with him on the constitutional question, there was no denying his skill in debate or his passion for politics.”

Gordon Brown, another former prime minister, added that he was saddened by the news.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said it was a “shock” and that “his contribution to the Scottish political landscape cannot be overstated”.

Boris Johnson said: “Alex Salmond was one of the great political disruptors of the age, the father of modern Scottish nationalism.

“He was charismatic, clever, caustic and fearsome in debate. I am glad that he never succeeded in breaking up the Union but very sad that he is gone.”

Lord Cameron on X, formerly Twitter, said: “We disagreed about many things, but there is no doubt that Alex Salmond was a giant of Scottish and British politics.

“Hugely passionate about the causes he championed, he was one of those rare politicians with both enormous charisma and genuine conviction who always held the room.

“No matter your own point of view, you couldn’t help but stop and listen to his every word.

“He might have had his faults, but he was as sharp as a button with a strategic mind – I once said you had to count your fingers on the way out of a meeting with Alex!

“He has been taken far too young; my thoughts and prayers are with Alex’s family.”

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.

A woman has died after going overboard from a cruise ship off the Channel Islands triggering a massive search in the middle of the night.

The French coast guard received a “man overboard” distress signal from MSC Virtuosa, an 18-deck ship, during the early hours of Saturday morning. A French navy H160 helicopter based in Maupertus, Normandy, was scrambled for the rescue mission.

It was supported by an offshore rescue vessel from nearby Goury along with an RNLI lifeboat from Alderney and a Channel Islands Air Search plane.

A French coast guard spokesman said a helicopter crew spotted the woman and hoisted her out of the sea. It then landed in Tourlaville rescue centre in Normandy, where a medical team declared her dead. Her nationality is not known.

Police investigations have begun following the incident in the early hours of Saturday,’ said a French coast guard source.

“An emergency alert was received at around 3am (2am BST), saying that a person was missing.

“A rescue helicopter was scrambled, but the person was declared dead soon after being winched onto a navy helicopter.”

A French emergency services source said: “Infra-red cameras were used to locate the person, who would have struggled to survive in the cold water.”

It is understood passengers aboard MSC Virtuosa heard a series of loud blasts as the captain announced “man overboard”. Spotlights were used to scour the seas to try to spot the missing person.

Cecilia Speck, who was on board with her partner, said: “I was on deck when the captain announced from the bridge that there was ‘man overboard’.

“It was really traumatic as some people were frantically going around to check on loved ones who hadn’t yet returned to their cabins.

“The staff onboard were so good in keeping people as calm as they could.”

The 45-year-old said: “It’s unfortunate that the girl is sadly deceased but at least her body was recovered quickly so that her family can lay her to rest.

“I need time to recover and my heart goes out to the family and all those that were affected by this.”

A spokeswoman for the Channel Islands Air Search said the woman went overboard north of Les Casquets, a group of rocks eight miles north-west of Alderney.

The search plane Lions’ Pride, fitted with infrared cameras, departed from Guernsey at 2am to join the navy rescue helicopter. At 2.30am, the Jobourg search and rescue team reported that the casualty had been located and was being winched into the helicopter.

MSC Virtuosa, a Maltese-flagged vessel which features 10 dining rooms, 21 bars and five swimming pools and is capable of carrying more than 6,000 passengers and 1,700 crew, continued its journey to Southampton where it berthed.

The ship is used for a series of cruises to countries including Belgium, Ireland, France, Portugal and the British Virgin Islands.

A spokesman for MSC Cruises, the Swiss-Italian firm based in Geneva, said: “A guest on board MSC Virtuosa went overboard on Oct 12, while the ship was sailing to Southampton. The body was later recovered with the involvement of the authorities.

“We are deeply saddened by this tragic event, and our thoughts are with the family during this difficult time. Out of respect for their privacy, we will not be providing further details.”

A Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police spokeswoman said its officers had “been deployed to assist with enquiries”, but that the investigation was not being managed by the UK authorities.

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.”

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused by allies of the Transport Secretary of using her as a “scapegoat” to rescue a £1 billion deal with the owners of P&O.

DP World has announced that it will press ahead with the investment after the Prime Minister publicly disowned comments about it made by Louise Haigh.

The company, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, had threatened to pull out of a major business summit after she called it a “rogue operator”.

But it was persuaded to return to the table after senior officials in No 10 put in a late night phone call to the company to distance itself from her remarks.

DP World confirmed on Saturday night that the announcement of a £1bn investment in a new Thames freeport would now go ahead on Monday as planned.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the DP World chairman, is set to confirm the funding at the UK Global Investment Summit which is being held in central London.

A spokesman for the company said: “Following constructive and positive discussions with the Government, we have been given the clarity we need.

“We look forward to participating in Monday’s international investment summit.”

A Downing Street source added: “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.”

The about-turn came after No 10 blamed Ms Haigh for the row, saying comments she made in a broadcast interview on Wednesday had angered the company.

The Transport Secretary had told ITV News that the owner of P&O ferries was a “rogue operator” and encouraged British consumers to boycott it.

Her remarks were a reference to the firm’s decision in 2022 to sack 800 staff, primarily in Dover, and plan to replace them with cheaper overseas workers.

Ms Haigh’s description of P&O as a “rogue operator” exactly mirrored language that was used in a Government press release issued earlier in the day.

The release was issued jointly with Angela Rayner and had been signed off by No 10.

Downing Street, however, appeared to heap all the blame on Ms Haigh, saying that her call for a boycott had been the real source of DP World’s anger.

Sir Keir directly disowned her comments, saying they were “not the view of the Government”.

The approach has angered some Labour MPs who said that Ms Haigh had been punished for stating what was until recently the party’s line on P&O.

Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, said: “Lou Haigh is right to refer to P&O Ferries as a rogue operator.

“They sacked their entire workforce without notice, via video call replacing them with agency workers.

“These are the practices of a rogue operator which should never be forgotten or forgiven by our movement.”

One Labour MP said they agreed with claims that Ms Haigh had been made a “scapegoat” and questioned why Ms Rayner had not shared any of the blame.

They added that No 10’s decision to prioritise relations with DP World over defending her was “incomprehensible behaviour”.

Another Labour MP said Ms Haigh had been “right to point to P&O’s abysmal past behaviour” and Sir Keir should not have backed down in the face of threats.

They said: “If the company wants to show they’ve changed, and that they’re looking to invest in Britain, this is of course welcome.

“But if they’re threatening to pull investment over fair comment by a minister, then perhaps they haven’t changed much after all.”

‘Completely unacceptable’

Matt Wrack, the head of the Labour-affiliated Fire Brigades Union, also criticised the “briefing” against Ms Haigh as “completely unacceptable”.

“Louise Haigh has the full support and solidarity of the Fire Brigades Union in setting out clear opposition to P&O and other rogue employers,” he said.

Some critics pointed out that Sir Keir whilst leader of the opposition had said the Tories must sever ties with P&O until it reinstated the sacked workers.

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

But 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.

A frontrunner in the race to be Britain’s next ambassador to Washington has close links to Labour donor Lord Alli, The Telegraph can reveal.

Baroness Valerie Amos, a former UN under-secretary general and cabinet minister under Tony Blair, is widely spoken of in diplomatic circles as a top candidate for the role.

But the peer has enjoyed a decades-long personal and professional relationship with Lord Alli, the Labour donor, further underlining the extent of his influence in Labour circles.

Lord Alli is a longstanding patron of the Amos Bursary, a charity co-founded by Baroness Amos.

The organisation, founded in 2009, aims to “shape the futures of Britain’s talented young people of African and Caribbean heritage” by providing mentoring, career opportunities and other support.

For several years, Lord Alli has allowed the charity to use his offices to conduct interviews with bursary candidates.

He has been a frequent guest at the charity’s annual fundraising gala dinners, where a table for ten was most recently priced at £5,000.

Baroness Amos and Lord Alli have also enjoyed a longstanding personal friendship, thanks partly to their shared Guyanese heritage.

The baroness sits as a Labour peer in the House of Lords and currently serves as warden of University College, Oxford.

Her previous appointments include stints as UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Gordon Brown’s high commissioner to Australia and Mr Blair’s secretary of state for international development.

A source intimately familiar with the appointment process said: “Valerie Amos’s name comes up a lot and in lots of lots of contexts.

“She is very, very smart and would be a perfectly good appointment.”

A diplomatic source told The Telegraph: “I think she is an increasingly popular choice among diplomats and in diplomatic circles in Washington.”

A final decision from Downing Street on the American embassy appointment is not expected until after the US presidential election in early November.

Other highly-tipped candidates for the role include David Miliband, the former foreign secretary and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organisation.

Lord Alli’s influence over the Government has been under scrutiny following news of his lavish donations to senior ministers up to and including the prime minister. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing and all of his donations have been declared properly. 

After the general election, it emerged that Lord Alli, who has donated over £700,000 to the Labour Party in total, had been granted unrestricted access to 10 Downing Street. Such access is usually reserved for people formally employed by the government.

The Prime Minister personally received donations of clothing from Lord Alli worth over £32,000. The peer also made clothing donations to Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.

Ms Rayner also enjoyed the use of his $2.5 million Manhattan apartment during a seasonal holiday in New York.

Freebies scandal

In the run-up to the general election, Lord Alli laid on hospitality for the party 23 times, worth £55,000 in total.

Before the election, senior Labour figures including Morgan McSweeney, the former party campaign director, used Alli’s central London office to hold planning meetings.

Sir Keir Starmer and his family watched the election night exit poll at Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse in London’s Covent Garden.

Lord Alli is currently under a code of conduct investigation by the House of Lords’ standards commissioner over an allegation of “non-registration of interests”, which he has described as an “unintentional error”. This is understood to be unrelated to recent reporting on Lord Alli’s relationship with the Labour Party.

The Amos Bursary said: “We do not comment on our patrons.”

Baroness Amos and Lord Alli were approached for comment.

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.”

Poland will temporarily ban migrants from claiming asylum on its territory, Donald Tusk, the prime minister, said on Saturday.

Announcing the move, Mr Tusk said that Warsaw “must regain 100 per cent control over who comes to Poland”.

The Civic Platform party leader said the suspension of the right to claim asylum was needed with Russia-allied Belarus funneling migrants to the Polish border as part of a hybrid war to destabilise the EU.

But Mr Tusk, who was European Council president during the Brexit negotiations, also framed the move as part of wider efforts to toughen Poland’s migration policies.

“If someone wants to come to Poland, they must respect Polish standards, Polish customs, they must want to integrate,” Mr Tusk said.

He said neighbouring Germany, a popular destination for migrants, had “negative experiences” with immigration after ignoring integration. “If there are too many people of other cultures, then the native culture feels threatened,” the Polish prime minister added.

Countries are obliged under international law to offer asylum. To prevent legal challenges, Mr Tusk said he would  “demand” the EU recognise the decision, setting up a potential clash with Brussels.

“I will demand this, I will demand recognition in Europe for this decision,” he said. “This is because we know very well how it is used by [Belarusian president Alexander] Lukashenko, [Russian president Vladimir] Putin… by people smugglers, people traffickers, how this right to asylum is used exactly against the essence of the right to asylum.”

Mr Tusk ousted the hard-Right Law and Justice party in an election last year promising to unlock billions in EU funding by reconciling with the bloc’s leaders.

Framing the suspension of asylum rights as needed to counter Lukashenko and Putin may make it more palatable to Brussels.

EU leaders will meet this week in the Belgian capital for a summit set to be dominated by migration and calls to make deportations of illegal migrants faster and easier.

Earlier this year, the bloc adopted a sweeping reform of its asylum policies, hardening border procedures and compelling countries to take in refugees from under-pressure states or pay €20,000 for each they reject in a package due to come into effect in June 2026.

Denmark last week became the seventh EU member state to tighten its border controls. Others include France, Italy, Austria and Sweden.

The UK’s position on asylum has changed markedly since Labour took office in July. The government vowed to scrap the Rwanda removals policy a few days after the election and has introduced a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which is making its way through Parliament.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has effectively cancelled the previous government’s Illegal Migration Act, which automatically denied asylum to anyone who arrived in the country illegally. Ms Cooper has said the Home Office will use fast-track decisions and returns agreements to clear the asylum backlog.

Both candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party are more hawkish on asylum policies than the Government.

Robert Jenrick has described the UK’s asylum grant rate as “offensively high” and claimed immigration judges are insufficiently scrupulous when assessing claims. The Conservative leadership candidate and former immigration minister has pledged to cut off foreign aid to countries that do not accept the return of failed asylum claimants from their country.

‘There is no more humane policy’

Mr Tusk said he would present Poland’s new migration strategy at a government meeting on Oct 15, the first anniversary of the election which brought the coalition he leads to power.

“There is no more humane policy – in terms of preventing misfortune or death on the border with Belarus – than effective protection of this border”, he told a congress held by his liberal Civic Coalition grouping, the largest member of Poland’s coalition government.

Large numbers of people, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, began trying to make illegal crossings into Poland from Belarus in 2021.

The EU and Poland said that the crisis was orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow in what Mr Tusk has branded a “hybrid war”.

As many as 26,000 migrants have tried to cross the border into Poland, a strong supporter of Ukraine, so far this year and Belarusian border guards have been seen helping the groups.

Belarus is accused of offering visas to would-be migrants and encouraging them to fly to the country as a stop before travelling on to the EU. Some of those caught crossing have Russian visas.

Warsaw has set up a special border zone granting tougher powers to local authorities and investing in stronger border infrastructure.

But Mr Tusk attacked EU migration policy, in particular refugee relocation from under-pressure states to other countries, to head off the challenge of the hard-Right Law and Justice party he beat in last year’s election.

In power, he has continued many of the defeated party’s migration policies, including building a barrier on the Belarus border and pushing migrants back after they have crossed.

He is not the only Brexit chief to launch a crackdown on immigration. Former EU negotiator Michel Barnier is now prime minister of France and has vowed to drive down migrant numbers.

Before Thursday’s summit, more than half of member states are calling for even tougher rules on migration, including the possibility of Rwanda-style offshore migrant processing hubs in countries outside the bloc.

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.

A former Conservative cabinet minister who was embroiled in a lobbying row has asked Sir Keir Starmer to let him have his day in court.

Owen Paterson has broken his silence three years after quitting politics when the parliamentary standards committee recommended he should face a 30-day suspension.

The panel of MPs concluded in November 2021 that Mr Paterson had repeatedly lobbied on behalf of clinical diagnostics company Randox and food manufacturer Lynn’s Country Foods.

The-then prime minister Boris Johnson attempted to delay Mr Paterson’s suspension by introducing a new committee with its own appeal process but a revolt by Tory backbenchers forced him into a climbdown.

Mr Paterson has now written to the Prime Minister asking to be allowed to challenge the findings of the committee, which are protected by parliamentary privilege, in court.

In his letter to Sir Keir, he claimed there was not a “scrap of evidence” against him and that 17 supportive witnesses would be able to prove his innocence “beyond doubt”.

Mr Paterson wrote: “There was, and remains, no appeal possible against the committee’s findings. These are protected by parliamentary privilege.

“My life has been turned upside-down by a process from which natural justice has been completely excluded. I have been deprived of any right either to produce or challenge evidence and my representatives have been prevented from speaking on my behalf.

“I am writing to request that you use your offices to waive parliamentary privilege in this matter and thus allow me to bring my case before the courts and expose the allegations against me to a judicial process which we both respect.”

Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary standards commissioner at the time of Mr Paterson’s case, found the former environment secretary “repeatedly used his position as an MP to promote companies who have paid him”.

Supporters of Ms Stone argued strongly at the time against any suggestion of any wrongdoing on her part in the case.

The final report by the standards committee said: “Mr Paterson’s breaches of the lobbying were so serious and so numerous that they risked damaging public trust in the House and its members.”

Mr Paterson’s plea to Sir Keir came ahead of the release of a new documentary this week called Justice? The Owen Paterson Story.

In the half-hour film, Mr Paterson claimed the standards committee had been “out to get me” and suggested the panel had targeted him because he was a “big dog Brexiteer”.

“I just want to have my day in court, that’s all I’m asking for,” he said.

“If I then go down, I will at least be satisfied that justice has been seen to be done. But I do not want any other human being to go through what I and my family have been put through.”

Mr Paterson has previously argued the investigation into his conduct “undoubtedly played a major role” in the suicide of his wife, Rose, in 2020.

He also rejected allegations he had helped Randox to secure a Covid contract worth £133 million.

Philip Barden, Mr Paterson’s lawyer, said Mr Paterson was right to alert the Food Safety Agency to the contamination of milk and ham by prohibited substances that can cause cancer.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who was cleared by the committee more than two decades ago, told the documentary: “Of course I may be criticised for saying this, but I don’t think it’s quite as open or rigorous as it was then.”

Rory Stewart – who Mr Paterson met in his then ministerial role to explain how medical equipment used to save lives in the third world was not working properly – will also be seen defending him.

“I don’t believe that what he did would be constituted as lobbying. He declared that he was a consultant, he clearly worked for a company that did blood testing,” Mr Stewart said.

“I didn’t feel he’d done anything any different from what I saw MPs doing all the time and I thought the whole meeting was conducted under the proper rules with civil servants present.

“We followed proper process and I felt very sorry that his name was being blackened in that way.”

Parliamentary sources said there was no power to waive Article 9 of the Bill of Rights and noted the standards committee had a Tory majority at the time of the investigation into Mr Paterson.

They added that the European Court of Human Rights had thrown out Mr Paterson’s case.

The Committee on Standards and the Office of the Standards Commissioner were contacted for comment.

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.”

Labour endured another smattering of defeats at the ballot box this week after a wave of 20 council by-elections were held on Thursday.

The governing party endured a net loss of four seats in a series of local contests held across the UK.

Conservatives gained two seats from Labour while the Liberal Democrats and Greens took a seat each from them. The by-elections took place across the south, north and midlands, as well as Scotland and Wales.

The Telegraph reported last week that Labour had haemorrhaged 11 council seats in by-elections since September.

Although council by-elections tend to have lower turnouts than parliamentary elections, and can be more easily swayed by local issues, senior Labour figures are gearing up for England-wide local elections in May 2025.

These elections, for 30 English councils and two new combined authority mayoralties, will be Labour’s first big electoral test since coming to power.

But the current trend against the Government in local election results suggests there is little enthusiasm for Labour after barely 100 days in office, and shows little sign of a “honeymoon period” with voters.

The results come in the wake of a series of controversies which have plagued Sir Keir Starmer’s new administration – from the freebies row and questions over the influence of millionaire donor Lord Alli, to the turf war among the Prime Minister’s top aides and fears over the upcoming Budget.

It also comes as new polling by Savanta, exclusively conducted for the Sunday Telegraph, shows a lack of enthusiasm for the Government.

The polling finds that Sir Keir’s net favourability rating has dropped from a high of +15 at the end of July to -13 in October, a 28 point collapse into negative ratings. The favourability ratings for Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, have similarly gone down since the election, with Rayner on -9 and Reeves on -16.

Further, 39 per cent of those polled said that general competence and trust in Government has fallen under Labour, while a quarter said it had improved.

According to Savanta, only a quarter of the public think that the country has improved since election day, and half of those aged over 55 believe it is worse since Labour took office in July.

Most worrying perhaps for the Government, given its electoral strategy of retaining and building on its 2024 voter coalition, is that fewer than half of Labour voters polled say they think the country has improved in that time.

‘Change has been uninspiring’

“Labour campaigned under the slogan of ‘change’, but for many voters’ that change has been either uninspiring or simply negative,” said Chris Hopkins, a political research director at Savanta.

“Public opinion can be fickle,” he added, “and public approval is far easier to lose than win. It is clear that Labour’s first three months in office have severely disappointed, and that can be hard to reverse especially if, as expected, there is more doom and gloom to come from Labour in this month’s budget.”

The polling shows that the Conservative party is also struggling to win over the public. A majority of those polled said the opposition party is divided, unelectable and does not understand the issues facing the country.

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.

CBS staff are scared to speak up for a Jewish colleague caught up in an impartiality row for fear of being “ostracised” by their bosses, insiders have claimed.

The network has been thrown into turmoil over an interview by Tony Dokoupil, one of its morning news anchors, after he was criticised by executives for showing bias towards Israel.

In the interview, with the pro-Palestinian author Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mr Dokoupil said his comments about Gaza “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist” and asked: “What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place?”

He was later admonished on an all-staff call, where executives said the interview had not met the network’s impartiality standards. Sources on the show said Mr Dokoupil had previously been criticised internally for showing bias towards Israel.

However, CBS News bosses were then criticised for the intervention, including by the CEO of the network’s parent company, who said it was a “mistake” and that the interview had been a model of “civil discourse”.

An ally of Mr Dokoupil told The Telegraph that staff were now afraid to come to his defence because they feared being sidelined by executives.

Establishing a narrative

One source at the network said that the anchor’s critics in the newsroom had made assumptions about his views on Israel, and established a narrative about his reporting that others were afraid to challenge.

They said most staff supported the interview, but feared reprisals for speaking up for their colleague because senior bosses had closed ranks in the face of public scrutiny.

CBS News is embroiled in several impartiality controversies, with Donald Trump claiming that it favourably edited an interview with Kamala Harris on Monday to improve her answers.

A preview clip of the vice-president offering a vague “word salad” answer on the Middle East was edited out of her interview on “60 Minutes”, the network’s flagship magazine show.

Trump called for CBS News’s broadcasting licence to be suspended, calling the incident a “scandal” and “fake news”. The FCC, the US broadcast media regulator, said it would not suspend the licence.

Reporters have also been told not to refer to the city of Jerusalem as being in Israel, because of rival claims by Palestine. A source at the network said the “complicated” question of Jerusalem’s ownership must be addressed in broadcasts, and that it should not be referred to as a solely Israeli city.

Joe Biden is considering sending American troops to operate a missile defence system in Israel as the country prepares for an exchange of attacks with Iran.

The Pentagon has reportedly discussed deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile battery, which could be used to intercept Iranian missiles, and would be operated by US military personnel.

It comes as Washington prepares for Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack of Oct 1, which is expected within days and could include a missile strike on military facilities in Iran.

Israel’s retaliation is expected to provoke a counter-strike from Iran – a deadly exchange of missiles that threatens to escalate the conflict towards a wider regional war.

A THAAD battery would be operated by American forces on the ground, marking the first time that US troops have been deployed in combat in Israel during the current crisis.

American troops have already been deployed in Gaza to build a “pier” for the delivery of humanitarian aid, on US Navy ships in the Mediterranean and to man air defences from neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

But US forces have not been engaged in combat in Israel. Mr Biden has previously said he had “no plans or intentions to put US boots on the ground in combat”, while Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister has insisted his country would defend itself with its own resources.

The move would underscore the extent of US support for Israel, despite differences between their leaders on Israeli strikes in Lebanon in recent weeks.

Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu on Wednesday that the US would maintain its “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security”, according to a White House readout of a phone call.

But he also called for him to end Israel’s attacks on Beirut, which are designed to eliminate members of Hezbollah but have also killed civilians. The conversation was the first time the two men have spoken directly for six weeks.

If the THAAD deployment goes ahead, the American system will be added to a complex web of Israeli missile defences, which include the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow systems.

US policymakers were concerned by Iran’s ability on Oct 1 to break through the Iron Dome, Israel’s primary defence against missile attacks, by launching 180 ballistic missiles at the same time.

A THAAD battery is operated from the ground, and uses radar detectors to identify an incoming ballistic missile, before launching a projectile to neutralise it.

The “kill vehicle” launched from the battery is a kinetic weapon with no warhead, and can travel at more than 6,000 mph with a range of 120 miles.

The plans were first reported by Israel’s Channel 12. An American official later told Axios that a final decision had not yet been taken.

The US announced last October that it would deploy a THAAD battery to the Middle East to defend its own bases, which have come under attack by Iranian-linked Islamist groups using rockets and drones.

It is unknown whether any battery deployed to Israel would be sent from America or rerouted from another US base in the Middle East.

The Attorney General was drafted in to sign off Taylor Swift’s taxpayer-funded police escort during her London concert appearances this summer, it has been claimed.

Lord Hermer KC, the Government’s chief legal adviser, reportedly intervened in the matter when Scotland Yard was reluctant to give the singer the highest level of police protection because it violated protocol.

The Metropolitan Police’s decision to grant “VVIP” protection to the singer was only made after the intervention of the Attorney General, according to The Sunday Times.

It is not currently known who requested Lord Hermer’s unusual intervention.

The Met’s operational decision-making is supposed to free it from political interventions. Government spokesmen have this week reiterated the importance of the Met’s operational independence.

It emerged this week that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, had both urged the Met to provide royal-style protection to Swift for two of her Wembley concert dates in July.

Both Ms Cooper and Mr Khan, as well as other senior Labour figures, were given free tickets to some of Swift’s Eras Tour shows in London.

Ms Cooper’s tickets were obtained after she had pressed the Met to provide VVIP protection, but Mr Khan’s were given before he became involved.

The VVIP level of protection, including a motorcycle escort by the Met’s Special Escort Group (SEG), is usually only given to royals and top Cabinet ministers.

It was apparently requested by Andrea Swift, the singer’s mother, who also acts as her agent, following a foiled terror plot in Austria that resulted in concert cancellations.

Swift’s August concerts in London came directly after the Vienna bomb threat had been uncovered, leading to the cancellation of three shows there.

The SEG, however, concluded, following a security assessment, that there was no imminent threat to Swift during her London trip. The SEG therefore originally decided against VVIP level protection, according to The Sun.

Mr Khan attended Swift’s Aug 15 concert with a free ticket. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, and Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, were also there.

Ms Cooper attended a show on Aug 16 with Ed Balls, her husband and former shadow chancellor. It is understood that the Home Secretary contacted the Parliamentary Registrar about the free tickets on Sept 10. She was told they were not eligible for declaration because Mr Balls had received them and their £170 value was less than the £300 minimum threshold for disclosure.

Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, attended another show on Aug 20, according to official records.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said: “This was solely an operational decision for the police.”

The Telegraph understands the Attorney General did not attend any of Swift’s concerts or accept any free tickets.

Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who led the 2014 independence referendum, has died at the age of 69.

The ex-Scottish National Party leader collapsed and died on Saturday shortly after delivering a speech in North Macedonia.

On Saturday night, Sir Keir Starmer led the tributes, calling him a “monumental figure of Scottish and UK politics” who “leaves behind a lasting legacy”.

Mr Salmond was the first minister of Scotland between 2007 and 2014 and is best known for calling the 2014 referendum on leaving the UK.

He led the SNP twice, the second time from 2004 until his resignation in 2014, transforming its fortunes and turning it from a fringe movement into the dominant force in Scottish politics.

He later split with the party over its handling of sexual impropriety allegations against him and formed Alba, a new pro-independence movement.

The Prime Minister said: “For more than 30 years, Alex Salmond was a monumental figure of Scottish and UK politics. He leaves behind a lasting legacy.

“As first minister of Scotland, he cared deeply about Scotland’s heritage, history, and culture, as well as the communities he represented as MP and MSP over many years of service.”

The King has said he and the Queen are “greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond”. 

He added: “His devotion to Scotland drove his decades of public service. We extend our deep condolences to his family and loved ones at this time.”

John Swinney, the current First Minister of Scotland, added: “Alex worked tirelessly and fought fearlessly for the country that he loved and for her independence.

“He took the Scottish National Party from the fringes of Scottish politics into government and led Scotland so close to becoming an independent country.”

Mr Salmond was born in West Lothian on New Year’s Eve 1954 and first became active in the SNP while he was a student at St Andrews University.

His political career took off when he was elected to Parliament as the MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987, an area he would also represent in Holyrood.

He first served as leader from 1990 to 2000 and then returned in 2004 following the party’s poor showing in that year’s European parliament elections.

It emerged as the largest party at the 2007 Scottish elections, with Mr Salmond as first minister at the head of a minority government.

Four years later he led the SNP to an overall majority and immediately pressed ahead with his long-held plans to hold an independence referendum.

The vote was held on Sept 18 2014, but resulted in defeat for the pro-independence movement by 55 per cent to 45 per cent, forcing Mr Salmond to resign as first minister.

He was replaced by his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon,  with whom he had forged a formidable partnership over their seven years together in power.

But the pair’s relationship broke down irrevocably when in 2018 he faced multiple allegations of sexual impropriety dating back to his time in office.

Mr Salmond and his allies were enraged by her handling of the Scottish Government’s official investigation into the claims.

He later took successful legal action, with the SNP administration admitting it should not have appointed an investigating officer who had “prior involvement” in his case.

Mr Salmond was charged with 14 offences against 10 women including rape, sexual assault, indecent assault and breach of the peace.

He was acquitted of all the charges in March 2020 following a trial at Edinburgh’s high court.

Ms Sturgeon, who succeeded him as first minister in 2014, paid tribute to her “mentor” and said she was “shocked and sorry” to hear of his death.

“Obviously, I cannot pretend that the events of the past few years which led to the breakdown of our relationship did not happen, and it would not be right for me to try,” she said.

“However, it remains the fact that for many years, Alex was an incredibly significant figure in my life.

“He was my mentor, and for more than a decade we formed one of the most successful partnerships in UK politics.”

Last month, Mr Salmond, who was taking fresh legal action against the Scottish Government, said he “seriously doubted” the pair would ever speak again.

The schism with Ms Sturgeon prompted him to set up Alba in 2021. The party has since stood against the SNP in both Scottish and UK elections.

Chris McEleny, the party’s general secretary, thanked Mr Salmond for “all your lessons, advice, guidance, mentorship, love and friendship”.

He added: “For many years you were the father of the nation and for several years you’ve been a father-like figure to me. Our dream will live forever.”

Tributes poured from across the political spectrum following the announcement of his death, which came just hours after he had posted on social media.

Rishi Sunak said: “While I disagreed with him on the constitutional question, there was no denying his skill in debate or his passion for politics.”

Gordon Brown, another former prime minister, added that he was saddened by the news.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said it was a “shock” and that “his contribution to the Scottish political landscape cannot be overstated”.

Boris Johnson said: “Alex Salmond was one of the great political disruptors of the age, the father of modern Scottish nationalism.

“He was charismatic, clever, caustic and fearsome in debate. I am glad that he never succeeded in breaking up the Union but very sad that he is gone.”

Lord Cameron on X, formerly Twitter, said: “We disagreed about many things, but there is no doubt that Alex Salmond was a giant of Scottish and British politics.

“Hugely passionate about the causes he championed, he was one of those rare politicians with both enormous charisma and genuine conviction who always held the room.

“No matter your own point of view, you couldn’t help but stop and listen to his every word.

“He might have had his faults, but he was as sharp as a button with a strategic mind – I once said you had to count your fingers on the way out of a meeting with Alex!

“He has been taken far too young; my thoughts and prayers are with Alex’s family.”

The scramble for a mere 20 places at an NHS dentist in Warrington, Cheshire this week was the latest sign of the breakdown of dentistry across England and Wales. In particular, the desperate scenes highlighted the failure of the service to provide spaces for new patients to register, especially if they move to a new area.

In the same week, the British Dental Association (BDA) said NHS dentistry has “effectively ceased to exist” for new patients, commenting on a new report from the Office of National Statistics that estimates 97 per cent of new patients are unable to register, with either no places available or waiting times stretching so long – often several years – that they are effectively meaningless.

Amid this crisis, there are those who will go to extraordinary lengths to access an NHS dentist, even if that means travelling to the opposite end of the country and maintaining registrations in locations in which they no longer live.

“I had an NHS dentist in London for 10 years and that was fine,” says Siobhan*, 37. “But four years ago I moved to Gloucestershire, and there are no practices taking new patients. So I have to make a four-hour round trip to London and back to go to the dentist, as I did last week when I cracked my tooth.

“I stayed registered in London because I couldn’t find a single dentist [in Gloucestershire] that even had an open list. It wasn’t that the waiting time was long – I contacted a dozen and every dentist I could find within 45 minutes of us had closed their lists. I tried this two years ago, and I tried again recently because I have a child, and all the dentists said the same thing, even for a toddler.”

There are 11,891 dental practices in the UK in 2024 and last year a report by the Nuffield Trust think tank declared: “NHS dentistry in England is at its most perilous point in its 75-year history.”

The new figures suggest the situation is becoming even worse given that only last December a report commissioned by the Labour Party found 82 per cent of all dental practices in England are not registering new adult NHS patients, while 71 per cent are not taking on new patients under the age of 18. By region the figures appear even more stark: more than 99 per cent of practices in South West England are not accepting adults to their registers and in the North East the figure stands at almost 97 per cent.

John*, 29, says: “I’ve been going to the same dentist in Edinburgh, where I was born, all of my life. Two years ago I came to live in London but, wherever I went, I soon realised it would be almost impossible to register with an NHS dentist anywhere near where I was in Whitechapel. I tried four dental practices and two said they weren’t taking anyone and two said that the waiting lists were so long it didn’t seem worth putting myself on them – the waiting times were for several years.”

“In 2018, I joined a waiting list in Newquay, Cornwall, after being taken off the register of another practice because I hadn’t been for a check up for so long,” says Scott*, 36. “I provided a list of towns I would be willing to go to to join a dentist. In the meantime, I went private for things like hygiene treatments. I waited and waited and after four years, in 2022, I finally received notice that I had a dentist in Bodmin, about 25 miles away.”

“A few months later I moved to London, where I found it impossible to get a dentist on the NHS. I would call up practices and be told they had no capacity. I decided it wasn’t worth it and if I could fit in my routine check-ups when visiting family back in Cornwall, it could just about work. So my solution was to keep my dentist in Cornwall, and see them whenever I visit my family – 250 miles and a four-hour train ride away. A painful journey awaits if I ever need emergency treatment.”

Earlier this year, it was reported that 8,500 people were on a waiting list for an NHS practice in Bridlington in Yorkshire – the only one left after the closure of two others in the area in 2022 – and that those wishing to register faced a wait of between eight and nine years. One Bridlington resident said the closest practice taking new NHS patients is 18 miles away in Scarborough, where she was on “a waiting list for a waiting list”. 

In February, police were forced to intervene after hundreds of patients descended on a new dental practice in Bristol in the hope of securing an appointment. The St Pauls area of the city had been without a practice for more than six months following the closure of a Bupa clinic that had also served NHS patients.

“I suppose in the end I’ll have to go private for my son,” says Siobhan. “It will cost £65 for a private check-up for a young child, but I can’t see what choice I’ll have. All the people I’ve spoken to with kids the same age haven’t made up their minds what to do because they have all encountered the same problem. Nobody can register anywhere. It’s like they’ve looked into it and given up for now. The sad thing is that my dentists in London are brilliant but the practicalities of £80 for a return train ticket and four hours of travel for a trip to the dentist are nonsense.”

It’s widely acknowledged that the long-term culprit for the current crisis is the NHS contract for dentists, first introduced under Tony Blair in 2006, which designated payment by “units of dental activity” (UDAs). Although successive governments have tinkered with the formulas for paying dentists, the system means, effectively, the more NHS patients they treat – especially those who need more than a regular check-up – the less likely they are to be paid for the work they do, as payments do not always cover costs. Dentists have UDA targets but there is also a cap which deters them from taking any cases above their target. The UDA targets are based on outdated demographic information, and there is little incentive for preventative treatment or for practices in areas of high demand to expand. 

Covid was a huge blow to an already precarious situation, creating a backlog of appointments – 40 million according to the British Dental Association (BDA) – and exacerbating the shortage of qualified dentists who were leaving the profession. Meanwhile dentists’ take-home pay has fallen by 40 per cent in real terms since 2010-11, according to the BDA, and the UK now has fewer dentists than its European neighbours, with only 54 per 100,000, compared to 77 in Italy and 82 in Germany.

In Warrington this week, queues began forming at 2.30am after MyDentist in Westbrook announced it was making 20 new places available for patients each month. More than 100 people were reported to have joined the line, although the practice explicitly told hopefuls that once the 20 places were filled – on a first-come, first-served basis – the offer would be closed immediately. 

A small number of those unable to register across the country either opt for private care or even go to their GP or A&E (who are not trained or equipped to deal with the vast majority of dental issues). But the vast majority – 78.5 per cent – do nothing, according to the Office for National Statistics, which will inevitably lead to even greater dental health problems in future.

“If I had needed emergency or urgent treatment, my only option in London would have been to go private,” says John. “I know lots of other people who’ve had the same problem and in the end some of them did go private.

“I just gave up. So it’s now easier to make an appointment to coincide with a trip back to Edinburgh. In the long-term, I want to get a dentist down here but there seems little chance of that happening.”

Like John, Sarah*, 42, will be registering with an NHS dentist where she doesn’t currently live to obtain the treatment. She said that her parents, who live in Surrey, are with an NHS dentist but that she hasn’t been able to sign up to a practice where she has a home, in Wiltshire, and can see little chance of that changing. “So when my parents’ dentist opens up their list again, I will be registering at their address to get treatment on the NHS,” she says. “That means I would be travelling 100 miles to see an NHS dentist. I used to go private but I can’t afford that anymore. I know what the real problem is here; it’s the price that the NHS gives to dentists for the NHS work they do – it often leaves them out of pocket.”

*Names changed to protect anonymity

Robert Jenrick will make Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg chairman of the Conservative Party if he triumphs against Kemi Badenoch in the party leadership contest.

The appointment of the former business secretary as party chairman would be one of Mr Jenrick’s first acts as leader of the Conservative party.

As chairman, Sir Jacob, who lost his seat at the general election, would be put in charge of the party’s campaigning operations.

“Jacob has been a tireless campaigner for the grassroots. He understands better than anyone the need for party reform,” Mr Jenrick told The Telegraph.

“One of my first acts as leader would be to appoint him as chairman of the party so we can truly reform and democratise our party. Together we will empower members and restore the respect that has been so sorely lacking in recent years,” he said.

Sir Jacob endorsed Mr Jenrick for party leader earlier this week on his GB News programme.

As party chairman, he would be tasked with reforming the party’s internal structures.

Writing jointly in The Telegraph, Mr Jenrick and Sir Jacob say: “In no small part, our defeat was caused by the hollowing out of our party organisation. We were outspent and outmanoeuvred on the ground.”

In an explicit pitch for grassroots support, they also criticise the recent running of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).

“In recent years, the party has gone backwards. It was wrong for local associations to have handpicked lists of candidates forced upon them. Members were constantly badgered for money, but their thoughts and ideas on policy disregarded. That can never be allowed to happen again,” they write.

“So, if we win this contest, we will work together to reform our party.”

Also writing for The Telegraph, Kemi Badenoch, who is battling Mr Jenrick for control over the future of the party, said she would “use the time we Conservatives have in opposition to create a real plan to fix the British state and the economy”.

“Conservatives need to do the thinking Labour are unwilling to, and Reform are incapable of doing. We don’t need instant answers but a plan for renewal,” she said.

The proposed reforms that Sir Jacob would oversee include making any Conservative Party member eligible for selection as a candidate for parliament. They also promise not to “micromanage” local party associations.

Parliamentary candidates would be vetted to ensure they are “committed to fundamental principles and values that define our party”, with the pair promising to “reinstate meaning in the blue rosette”.

Before losing his seat, Sir Jacob was voted “most popular backbencher” by readers of Conservative Home, a publication aimed at the Tory grassroots. He has recently expressed a wish to return to parliament.

Though he is backing Mr Jenrick, Sir Jacob has said: “I think Kemi Badenoch has many virtues. She is highly capable, her campaign against woke has been extraordinarily impressive.”

“I think the Conservatives need to come together after the result and support whoever wins,” he added on his GB News programme.

The Conservative Party chairman is usually a member of parliament or a peer, but non-parliamentarians are also eligible to fill the role.

The position was created in 1911 as a response to the Tories’ losing two general elections in 1910.

Kamala Harris risks losing Pennsylvania because of Joe Biden’s economic policies, a new poll for The Telegraph reveals.

A survey of voters in the key swing state, taken earlier this week, shows Donald Trump ahead of Ms Harris by two points, amid widespread concerns about the economy.

While more voters said they generally agreed with “the Democratic position” on the economy, Mr Biden’s policies are the factor most blamed for the high cost of living, and Trump is trusted more than Ms Harris to slow inflation and boost economic growth.

Ms Harris’s campaign has struggled to convince voters in battleground states that after almost four years in office she has a better plan on the cost of living than Trump.

Although inflation has now fallen to 2.4 per cent, according to the government’s latest statistical release, high prices have been “baked in” since a peak of 9.1 per cent in June 2022.

The data, collected for The Telegraph by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, who polled 794 people, shows that Mr Biden’s economic record is harming Ms Harris’s campaign.

Pennsylvania is one of the most crucial swing states, and would offer both candidates a pathway to the 270 electoral college votes needed to secure the White House.

Like other battleground states, it has been hit hard by inflation. The survey data suggest concerns about the economy are driving voters’ choices more than any other issue.

Half of voters said their personal finances had worsened in the last year, and a majority said the most important question they would ask themselves on polling day was: “Am I better off today financially than I was four years ago?”

Asked which issue was the most important in determining which way to vote, the largest group of voters (45 per cent) said it was the economy. The second largest group (19 per cent) said abortion.

The survey reveals a preference for Democratic policies on the economy overall among Pennsylvania voters, with 50 per cent reporting that they preferred “the Democratic position” on economic issues. Forty-six per cent said they preferred “the Republican position”.

However, when asked about Ms Harris and Trump specifically, more voters said they preferred the Republican’s policies.

Trump led Ms Harris on the economy, tackling inflation, immigration, crime and defence policy, while she led on abortion, healthcare, the environment and the rule of law.

Voters’ distrust of Ms Harris’s economic policies appears to be caused by opposition to the Biden administration, which she has served for almost four years.

Asked about the biggest factor causing the high cost of living, the largest group of voters (37 per cent) said Joe Biden’s policies, while almost half (48 per cent) said they did not think prices would have risen as much if Donald Trump was in office. Thirty-seven per cent said they thought prices would have risen just as much under a Trump presidency.

The figures paint a concerning picture for Ms Harris ahead of election day on Nov 5, when most voters say they will cast their ballot based on economic concerns.

However, voters in Pennsylvania also said they blamed “price gouging” by corporations for high prices, which Ms Harris has vowed to ban in federal law if she wins power.

While 74 per cent of voters said Mr Biden’s policies were at least partly to blame for inflation, 90 per cent said the same for corporations. When asked about price rises, the most common complaint was about groceries, which more than half of respondents said they had been forced to cut back on in the last four years.

Why is Pennsylvania a swing state?

Pennsylvania is one of seven swing states in this year’s election, and has been considered a bellwether for decades.

The candidate who wins in Pennsylvania in November is likely to win the presidential election. Pennsylvania has voted against the overall national result just ten times in its history, picking winners in 83 per cent of elections.

Pennsylvania has the largest number of electoral college delegates of any swing state, sending 19 electors.

Its status has made it a focus for pollsters during election campaigns. A separate poll for The New York Times and Siena College on Saturday found Ms Harris five points ahead of Trump in the state.

What are Biden’s economic policies?

Mr Biden’s economic agenda has been driven by mass investment in domestic green energy and semiconductor manufacturing and infrastructure in a federal spending package known colloquially as “Bidenomics”.

He has also positioned himself as pro-union, and has backed staff in conflict with their firms in several major employment disputes.

However, he has been criticised for high rates of government spending and high inflation, which peaked after the Covid-19 pandemic at 9.1 per cent in June 2022. Tax rates have increased for higher earners, and Mr Biden has called for further levies targeted at the super-rich.

He has also resisted striking trade deals with other countries and the EU, and has imposed tariffs on some Chinese imports.

What are Trump’s economic policies?

Trump has proposed a series of tax cuts, including a reduction in corporation tax, and an end to taxes paid on tips and overtime pay.

He would impose tariffs of 20 per cent on all imports, and 60 per cent on imports from China.

He has also pledged a reduction in government spending, including on military aid to Ukraine.

Robert Jenrick will make Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg chairman of the Conservative Party if he triumphs against Kemi Badenoch in the party leadership contest.

The appointment of the former business secretary as party chairman would be one of Mr Jenrick’s first acts as leader of the Conservative party.

As chairman, Sir Jacob, who lost his seat at the general election, would be put in charge of the party’s campaigning operations.

“Jacob has been a tireless campaigner for the grassroots. He understands better than anyone the need for party reform,” Mr Jenrick told The Telegraph.

“One of my first acts as leader would be to appoint him as chairman of the party so we can truly reform and democratise our party. Together we will empower members and restore the respect that has been so sorely lacking in recent years,” he said.

Sir Jacob endorsed Mr Jenrick for party leader earlier this week on his GB News programme.

As party chairman, he would be tasked with reforming the party’s internal structures.

Writing jointly in The Telegraph, Mr Jenrick and Sir Jacob say: “In no small part, our defeat was caused by the hollowing out of our party organisation. We were outspent and outmanoeuvred on the ground.”

In an explicit pitch for grassroots support, they also criticise the recent running of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).

“In recent years, the party has gone backwards. It was wrong for local associations to have handpicked lists of candidates forced upon them. Members were constantly badgered for money, but their thoughts and ideas on policy disregarded. That can never be allowed to happen again,” they write.

“So, if we win this contest, we will work together to reform our party.”

Also writing for The Telegraph, Kemi Badenoch, who is battling Mr Jenrick for control over the future of the party, said she would “use the time we Conservatives have in opposition to create a real plan to fix the British state and the economy”.

“Conservatives need to do the thinking Labour are unwilling to, and Reform are incapable of doing. We don’t need instant answers but a plan for renewal,” she said.

The proposed reforms that Sir Jacob would oversee include making any Conservative Party member eligible for selection as a candidate for parliament. They also promise not to “micromanage” local party associations.

Parliamentary candidates would be vetted to ensure they are “committed to fundamental principles and values that define our party”, with the pair promising to “reinstate meaning in the blue rosette”.

Before losing his seat, Sir Jacob was voted “most popular backbencher” by readers of Conservative Home, a publication aimed at the Tory grassroots. He has recently expressed a wish to return to parliament.

Though he is backing Mr Jenrick, Sir Jacob has said: “I think Kemi Badenoch has many virtues. She is highly capable, her campaign against woke has been extraordinarily impressive.”

“I think the Conservatives need to come together after the result and support whoever wins,” he added on his GB News programme.

The Conservative Party chairman is usually a member of parliament or a peer, but non-parliamentarians are also eligible to fill the role.

The position was created in 1911 as a response to the Tories’ losing two general elections in 1910.