More than 60,000 migrants will be granted asylum in the UK in the next year after Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, according to an analysis.

The Refugee Council has forecast that 62,800 people, including Channel migrants, will be granted refugee status out of nearly 119,000 individual asylum seekers whose claims Labour inherited from the Tories.

The migrants were blocked from asylum in the UK by laws introduced by Rishi Sunak that stipulated that anyone who arrived illegally should be detained and deported to a safe country such as Rwanda.

But Labour has used powers within the Tories’ Illegal Migration Act to lift the ban on migrants claiming asylum and to scrap the duty on Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, to remove them to a third country.

The Refugee Council estimated that nearly 53 per cent of the 118,882 migrants awaiting a decision on their asylum claim will be successful, based on previous rates for the nationalities of those seeking refuge in the UK.

A third of them come from Afghanistan, where 96 per cent of claimants are successful, Iran (82 per cent), Syria (99 per cent), Eritrea (99 per cent) and Sudan (99 per cent).

The 118,882 claims relate to asylum seekers awaiting a decision at the end of June, so exclude the 13,500 migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats since Labour won the election on July 4.  This includes 973 on Oct 5, the highest daily total for nearly two years.

The forecast was revealed as it emerged that the Home Office is reviewing whether to reopen some asylum hotels previously closed by the Conservatives because of a spike in illegal Channel crossings. There are currently nearly 30,000 migrants being accommodated in hotels at a cost of £3 million per day.

Tom Pursglove, the former Tory migration minister, said Labour should revive the partnership agreement with Rwanda for it to take deported migrants as it was still the best option to tackle the migration crisis.

“They should get on the phone, talk to the Rwandans, apologise profusely for the way that they were treated following the general election and try to deliver this partnership because it is a way of shifting the dial, making it much more difficult for these criminal gangs,” he said.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, announced this week that the EU was to consider setting up Rwanda-style deportation camps outside the bloc, to which failed asylum seekers could be sent.

She said it would be modelled on Italy’s deal with Albania, under which up to 36,000 migrants a year will be sent to have their asylum claims processed in camps in the Balkan state.

A Home Office source said Labour had inherited a record asylum backlog with a “chaotic landscape” of expensive hotel contracts and had taken “quick action” to clear it by restarting asylum processing.

“We have started processing asylum claims, which had ground to a halt under the Tories, leading to a record asylum backlog and a £5 billion black hole in the Home Office budget,” said the source. “The Home Office regularly reviews our asylum accommodation footprint to reduce costs, build flexibility and deliver value for money for taxpayers.”

The Refugee Council analysis estimated that the asylum backlog would have spiralled to a record high of more than 177,000 migrants by January 2025 if Labour had not scrapped the Rwanda scheme and started processing claims.

It estimated that there would be 59,000 fewer people waiting for a decision by the end of January as a result, saving between £151 million and £240.7 million.

The Refugee Council also said there was evidence of migrants switching to lorries to reach the UK amid a crackdown on people-smuggling gangs behind the Channel small boat crossings. Asylum claims have remained steady despite crossings falling.

Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The Government inherited an asylum system that was utterly broken.

“Decisive early action has been taken to stop the system from falling over but, instead of mending and making do, there needs to be comprehensive reform to create a fair, orderly and humane asylum system.”

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: “It comes as no surprise that Keir Starmer and the Labour Party have thrown the doors open instead of doing what is necessary to stop the dangerous crossings.

“The last Conservative government had flights ready to go to Rwanda. But Labour scrapped our deterrent on day one and are now reopening asylum hotels costing upwards of £4 million every day – and breaking yet another promise they made to the British people. Meanwhile, they are cutting winter fuel payments to pay for their incompetence.

“Labour have shown time and time again that they have no plan. They need to get a grip, and fast, otherwise the numbers will continue to climb.” 

Britain’s security has been put “at risk” because of a helicopter pilot training crisis within the Armed Forces, a former head of the Army has said.

The Telegraph understands that a tranche of new trainee pilots across the three forces are unable to learn how to fly helicopters because the aircraft remain unavailable.

RAF Shawbury – which provides the flying training school for all helicopter crew from the Air Force, Navy and Army – has stopped a significant number of flying lessons because of a lack of engineers to maintain the aircraft.

Ministry of Defence sources acknowledged that there had been a “reduction” in flying training at the base. 

A source aware of the problem at RAF Shawbury told The Telegraph: “What it’s done is upset the training pipeline for a whole group of people. 

“It means they are now not learning to fly and, while it doesn’t have an instant impact, it will do in due course when the military doesn’t have new pilots to bring through to the squadron. If you don’t complete at Shawbury, then you will always have a lack of pilots going through the system.”

Lord Dannatt, a former head of the Army, said: “Underfunding training like this is just increasing the risk to our Armed Forces and the security of Europe.

“With all that’s going on in the world and Ukraine, it is really important that our front-line capabilities are maintained to the highest possible level so that we are able to deter future aggression. If Russia is unwise enough to attack another Nato country, we need to be best placed to respond.

“This will obviously have an adverse effect over time on capability and individuals who will be very frustrated that the training they were expected to be given has been paused. It is important to keep a smooth throughput of pilot training to ensure the front line of the Army, Navy and Air Force is all maintained.”

Lord Dannatt’s concerns were echoed by Lord West, the former First Sea Lord, who pointed to hold-ups at RAF Valley where fast jet recruits suffered years-long delays in learning how to fly the Hawk T2.

Lord West said: “The UK’s military flying training System has been found to fail on a number of occasions in the past. You have to keep a flow through of trainees or it becomes a vicious circle because people will leave. It’s symptomatic of totally hollowed out Armed Forces.”

He urged the issue of underfunding be resolved in the Budget, and to be further discussed in the MoD’s Strategic Defence Review, launched earlier this year.

“Defence needs more money – no one is in doubt of this,” said Lord West. “If stopping a world war is the top priority of a government, then you can always find money.”

The Government is yet to confirm whether it will raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent from its current level of 2.3 per cent.

A senior RAF source insisted that there was “no risk to national security” as a result of the delay in training helicopter pilots.

However, Sir Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, called on Labour to increase defence spending in the Oct 30 Budget in order to better protect the nation’s security.

He said: “People should be under no illusion that unless Rachel Reeves commits to a date of spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence, and increases this spending this year and next year to ensure defence spending matches the rising threat, then defence will be hollowed out and this will put the men and women of our Armed Forces at risk.

“Today it is helicopters. We have already seen the hollowing out of our navy crews. Tomorrow it will be something else.”

Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that the Navy has so few sailors it has had to decommission two warships to staff its new class of frigates.

An MoD spokesman said: “Helicopter aircrew training is continuing, and there is no impact to the number of aircrew available for the front line and we have sufficient numbers to meet our operational requirements.

“It’s not unusual for trainees to have a period where they are fulfilling other tasks before undertaking further training.”

Russia is suspected of placing an incendiary device on a plane to Britain in a sabotage attack that could have caused the aircraft to crash out of the sky.

British counter-terrorism police are investigating after the parcel containing the device caught fire in a DHL warehouse in Birmingham on July 22.

The Telegraph understands that there are suspicions that Moscow was behind the attack.

The suspect parcel arrived in Birmingham by air, The Guardian reported. If it had ignited while the plane was in flight, the result could have been catastrophic, experts said on Wednesday night.

Russia has stepped up sabotage attacks on European soil in recent months, with Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, warning last week that Vladimir Putin was intent on causing “mayhem” on British and European streets.

He revealed that GRU, Russia’s foreign military intelligence unit, had carried out “arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” in Britain since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, Germany reported a near-identical incident in which an incendiary device caught fire in a DHL facility before it was due to be carried on a plane out of Leipzig.

A Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism spokesman said: “On Monday 22 July, a package at the [Birmingham] location caught alight. It was dealt with by staff and the local fire brigade at the time and there were no reports of any injuries or significant damage caused.”

“Officers are liaising with other European law enforcement partners to identify whether this may or may not be connected to any other similar-type incidents across Europe.”

Incendiary devices are designed to catch fire rather than explode and as such are easier to conceal than simple bombs.

New front in Russia’s hybrid war

The parcel fire in Leipzig also occurred in July, prompting German authorities to write to logistics and transport firms the following month warning that packages containing incendiary devices had caught fire en route across Europe, and that more such parcels could be circulating.

In September, The LoadStar, a logistics industry news site, reported that a package originating from the Baltics had caught fire in Leipzig, one of “several” that caught ablaze in European countries. The packages were said to contain liquids and electronic consumer devices.

The European Commission is investigating the proliferation of attempts to send incendiary devices around Europe.

A Western official told The Telegraph it was seen as a new front in Russia’s hybrid war on Nato countries and had caused a number of mysterious warehouse fires around Europe.

In one of the most common routes, devices originating in Lithuania were sent to Germany, Poland or elsewhere.

One source said these incendiary devices don’t get caught by the security controls carried out by air freight firms before loading up their plans with cargo. 

Analysts said that the apparent sabotage attacks marked a worrying escalation if confirmed to have originated from Russia.

John Foreman, a former British defence attaché in Moscow, said that Putin was showing a new “recklessness” in his attempt to “dishearten, deter and weaken the West”.

‘Biggest incident in aviation security in many years’

Philip Baum, associate professor of aviation security at Coventry University, said: “This is a game changer in world politics.”

He termed the attack the “the biggest incident in aviation security in many years”, adding: “Russia is a member of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which is a United Nations body. Any recognised state doing this – what’s the implications of that for aviation security?”

The plane carrying the parcel was “certainly still carrying crew and could blow up over a population centre”.

DHL did not immediately respond when approached for comment by The Telegraph. In an earlier statement, it told The Guardian that it was working ”to secure its network, staff and assets as well as customer shipments” amid “ongoing investigations by authorities from several countries”.

Earlier this week, British counter-terror police disclosed that they were facing a four-fold increase in attempts by hostile states, such as Russia, to murder or spy on people in the country.

 Matt Jukes, the head of UK counter-terrorism police and a Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said: “I’m talking really here about spies, saboteurs, assassins and war criminals. That sounds quite Le Carre and potentially remote to a lot of people’s lives in the country.”

In April, Britain charged several men with an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned logistics firm in London. They were alleged to be aiding the mercenary Wagner group.

Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, said this summer it was “quite likely” that Russia was behind a blaze which destroyed a Warsaw shopping centre in May.

Moscow is also suspected of launching a failed plot to assassinate Armin Papperger, the chief executive of the German arms firm Rheinmetall, which plays a key role in supplying artillery ammunition to Kyiv’s forces.

Australia’s prime minister has been accused of “diabolical optics” for buying a £2.2 million cliff-top villa while the country is in the grip of a housing crisis.

Anthony Albanese’s purchase of the beach house in the town of Copacabana on the coast of New South Wales could hurt his chances in the forthcoming general election, according to his party’s own MPs.

The purchase of the property was revealed on Tuesday, just as the leader of the centre-Left Labor Party was announcing measures, including building more homes, to deal with the housing crisis.

Millions of Australians have been struggling to afford to rent or buy property.

Mr Albanese, 61, was criticised by political opponents and mocked by media commentators for the timing of the purchase.

His decision to buy a property “with ocean views so expansive that they would challenge the visual field of an owl, right in the middle of a national housing crisis, right before an election campaign” was a “baffling strategic initiative”, commentator Annabel Crabb wrote for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

An estate agent listing says the A$4.3 million four-bedroom, three-bathroom house occupies “a premier location to enjoy sun, whale watching or spectacular sunsets year-round”.

It has “uninterrupted ocean views from all levels” and boasts “timber-lined cathedral ceilings” and “mesmerising ocean views”.

There is no suggestion that the prime minister has done anything wrong in buying the property.

But the purchase is not a good look at a time when so many Australians are struggling to pay their mortgages or to get onto the property ladder in the first place, critics said.

The next federal election, due to be held by May, will be fought in part on the issue of housing affordability.

Several MPs from Mr Albanese’s party said the timing of the purchase was disastrous from a political point of view.

‘Act of self-sabotage’

“I can’t think of a greater act of self-sabotage in my life. I am gobsmacked,” one unnamed MP told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Some people [within Labor] were aware and tried to stop it. My instinct is this is f—ing terrible.”

The prime minister said he decided to buy a property on the Central Coast of NSW because that is where his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, is from.

He said she was a “proud coastie” (coastal dweller) and that three generations of her family had lived in the region.

But at least two Labor MPs said he should have delayed the purchase until after the election. “It’s not a good look,” said one.

“The optics are diabolical,” said Tony Barry, a political strategist. “One of the golden rules of leadership is that you just can’t do all the things you’d like to do. Like overseas holidays, like selling investment properties, like buying spectacular waterfront real estate.”

When quizzed about the property acquisition at a press conference in Queensland, Mr Albanese insisted he knew what it was like to struggle financially.

“My mum lived in the one public housing [home] that she was born in for all of her 65 years. I know what it is like, which is why I want to help all Australians into a home.”

“Of course, I am much better off as prime minister, I earn a good income, I understand that.”

Critics said it could turn out to be his “Hawaii moment” – a reference to the decision taken by the former prime minister, Scott Morrison, to take a family holiday in Hawaii in December 2019 during the Black Summer bushfires that engulfed large parts of the country.

The decision caused outrage, with many Australians accusing him of abandoning the country at a time of national emergency.

Mr Morrison, known by the nickname “ScoMo”, was forced to cut short his holiday and apologise for the “great anxiety” it had caused.

A battalion of 3,000 North Korean soldiers will shortly join Russian troops in fighting Ukraine, marking Pyongyang’s full entry into the war.

Intelligence sources said the unit has been secretly training in Russia’s Far East ahead of deployment as part of a Russian airborne regiment.

“They are called the Buryat Battalion,” a senior Ukrainian military source told Politico. Buryatia is a remote region of Russia bordering Mongolia that the Kremlin has targeted heavily for military recruitment.

The Kyiv Independent quoted another Western intelligence source claiming that North Korea had sent 10,000 soldiers to join the Russian army.

Presenting his “victory plan” to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky said Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un were now a “coalition of criminals”.

“This is the participation of the second state in the war against Ukraine on the side of Russia,” he said.

It comes after Russian forces last week launched a counterattack against a Ukrainian invasion into their southern Kursk region.

Ukrainian officials had talked up the Kursk invasion in August as a “strategic masterstroke” but the Institute for the Study of War said that it may have inadvertently dragged North Korea into the war.

The US-based think tank said that the Kremlin would “justify” sending North Korean soldiers into battle when the Russian parliament ratified a deal with its ally to provide mutual military support if either was attacked. This is expected within days.

The two-and-a-half-year-long war has become a battle of attrition with supply lines and military recruitment likely to prove key to victory.

North Korea has been sending artillery shells and missiles to Russia but this would be the first time that its soldiers will have gone into battle.

The announcement comes after six North Korean officers were killed by a Ukrainian artillery attack on a Russian position in occupied Donetsk this month, according to South Korea.

Analysts said that although the quality of North Korean troops would be poor, the numbers would represent a boost for Russia.

“It’s tragic to see Ukraine’s partners offering support as if they are playing some academic simulation based on theory, while Russian allies just throw in military force to help Russia win,” said Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University.

The North Korean army is estimated to have over one million soldiers, giving Putin a potentially large pool of reserves to replenish his forces. Russia is estimated to be losing more than 1,000 men per day using mass infantry tactics.

Ukraine, by contrast, has been finding it tough to replenish its front lines. Recruitment has dropped – despite increased press-gang powers – because men see a front-line posting as a one-way ticket to death or serious injury.

And this, said John Foreman, Britain’s former defence attaché in Moscow, made the North Korean troop deployment an important part of the Kremlin’s calculation for winning the war.

“It means tapping a new source of cannon fodder,” he said. “It also means using non-Russians. No one will care if the North Korean troops are killed.”

North Korean soldiers have not been seen in battle since the Cold War when they were deployed in various fringe wars as Soviet allies and proxies.

According to reports by Russian military bloggers, at least 18 North Korean soldiers have already deserted their training camps in Russia.

The US has said that it is “concerned” about the reports that North Korea may soon be joining Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Iranian border guards have reportedly killed dozens of Afghans in a massacre as they attempted to enter the country.

The Islamic Republic’s border forces ambushed and opened fire on a group of about 300 migrants trying to reach Iran on Sunday night, multiple sources have reported.

“Dozens of Afghan nationals at the Saravan border were targeted,” said the Haalvsh human rights news agency, which monitors rights violations in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan region.

Border guards directly fired bullets and rockets at migrants, according to Haalvsh.

The alleged massacre follows a crackdown by the Iranian regime on migrants fleeing the Taliban.

The Islamic Republic has said it hopes to achieve two million deportations by March next year.

Survivors of the shooting reported out of the 300 Afghan migrants present, only about 60 to 70 were unhurt.

The rest were either killed or seriously injured.

The Telegraph cannot independently confirm the exact number of casualties. The shooting happened in a remote region with no internet access.

“We were at the Kalagan border when they ambushed us,” one survivor said. “We were around 300 people, maybe 50 or 60 people survived unscathed, everyone else was either martyred or injured. Twelve of my friends were also killed.”

Videos purportedly showing the aftermath of the massacre show a harrowing scene at the border.

The Telegraph has chosen not to publish the videos, which show the bodies of a number of migrants lying motionless in the desert and their clothes stained with blood.

One video, shot at night, shows a man desperately attempting to stem blood flowing from a severely wounded companion.

With only a scarf at his disposal, he wraps it around the victim’s legs but the fabric quickly becomes saturated with the amount of blood pouring from the wounds.

“He is my cousin and he was shot four times,” a man’s voice could be heard saying. “It happened when we were crossing into Iran.”

In another clip, a bloodied and injured man with signs of gunshots on his body reaches for water. He appears to be parched from the desert heat and trauma.

His companions, however, urgently caution him against drinking. “Don’t drink water,” they warn. “It will deteriorate your condition.”

Several wounded migrants were transferred to a clinic in a nearby Pakistani town. However, before the local police could arrive to document the necessary legal paperwork, the injured migrants left the centre.

A smuggler in Afghanistan’s Nimroz province, where the migrants began their journey, confirmed the shooting to The Telegraph.

The man said he had lost contact with several of the migrants he sent to the border.

“I don’t know whether they’re dead or alive,” he said. “They’re all desperate, poor people just trying to reach Iran, find work and send money back to their starving families.

“It doesn’t get worse than killing someone who is just trying to enter your country to work and help their family survive. Who knows what will happen to their families now.”

‘Crime against humanity’

However, the Islamic Republic’s special representative for Afghanistan denied the shooting.

“As of now, it has been confirmed that reports of dozens of illegal migrants dying at the Saravan border are false,” Hassan Kazemi Ghomi claimed.

“A legal response to the illegal entry of unauthorised migrants is a legitimate right of countries, and border forces are obligated to prevent the entry of illegal nationals,” he added.

He said the Islamic Republic “is determined to return unauthorised refugees and to take legal action against their illegal entry at all border points”.

Reports of the shooting have sparked outrage inside and outside Afghanistan with a former attorney general describing it as a “crime against humanity”.

“The brutal Iranian regime took out its frustrations with Israel on innocent Afghans,” one Taliban official said. “Our neighbours are far more savage and cruel than Israel.”

According to the UN, about 4.5 million Afghans live in Iran, with many having fled the country since the government takeover of the Taliban in 2021.

To prevent more migrants entering the country, Tehran is also building a 13ft-tall wall along a stretch of the 900km-long border with Afghanistan.

Afghans in Iran face severe restrictions after the Islamic Republic launched a crackdown aimed at deporting two million by March next year.

They are banned from buying groceries, renting homes and visiting certain areas.

The former prime minister of New Zealand has been made a dame by the Prince of Wales, despite being a republican.

Jacinda Ardern, 44, said she was conflicted about accepting the accolade when she was awarded her country’s second-highest honour last year for leading New Zealand through the Covid pandemic.

As prime minister, she was outspoken about her views that the country would become a republic within her lifetime, but did not make it a priority of her six years in government.

On Wednesday, Prince William made her a Dame Grand Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit at Windsor Castle.

Dame Jacinda donned a traditional Maori cloak (Korowai), which is often worn during special ceremonies, after she was made a Dame.

Speaking after the ceremony, the former leader said receiving the damehood had been “particularly special” as the pair had got to know each other over recent years, particularly through their work on the Prince’s environmental Earthshot Prize.

Of the royal honour, Dame Jacinda said she was “incredibly honoured and very humbled” and that she felt it acknowledged her family, her former colleagues and New Zealanders who gave her the “extraordinary privilege of serving them for five years”.

Previously, when her damehood was announced, the former prime minister said she was “incredibly humbled” but “in two minds” about accepting the accolade.

She explained: “So many of the things we went through as a nation over the last five years were about all of us rather than one individual.

“But I have heard that said by so many Kiwis who I have encouraged to accept an honour over the years. And so for me this is a way to say thank you – to my family, to my colleagues, and to the people who supported me to take on the most challenging and rewarding role of my life.”

She served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and was recognised for her leadership during the pandemic and the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks.

Speaking during her premiership, she said she thought that New Zealand ditching the monarchy was an inevitability.

Dame Jacinda made clear she was personally in favour of the country becoming a republic, but while prime minister she insisted that she had other more pressing issues to deal with.

In her first comments on the issue of republicanism after Elizabeth II’s death, Dame Jacinda said: “I’ve made my view plain many times. I do believe that is where New Zealand will head, in time. I believe it is likely to occur in my lifetime.”

The New Zealand government announced in June 2023 that it would bestow the country’s second-highest honour on Ms Ardern to mark the King’s official birthday.

It marked the second time last year that Dame Jacinda had been recognised by the Royal family, with the King personally approving damehoods.

Ms Ardern, who claimed she did not have “enough in the tank” to stand for re-election when she resigned in 2023, was also appointed a trustee of the Prince of Wales’s Earthshot Prize last April.

Wednesday’s investiture comes ahead of the King’s tour of Australia and Samoa, where he will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting with the Queen.

The tour – which marks his first to a realm as monarch – had been planned to include New Zealand, but the palace confirmed over the summer that the country would not be included in their itinerary while he undertook a “limited” programme as he continues his treatment for cancer.

The King was said to be “disappointed” not to be visiting New Zealand but both sides are said to be aware of the need to pace himself during his ongoing treatment.

A father hired a sex worker for his 13-year-old son then said “don’t be a p—y” when he said he did not want to have sex, a court has heard.

The man – who cannot be named to protect the boy’s identity – booked two rooms at a hotel in Bromley, south-east London, and arranged for a pair of sex workers to attend, Croydon Crown Court heard. The boy told his father he did not want to have sex with a 26-year-old.

The father also offered a line of cocaine to his son – who replied: “I’m f—ing 13, that’s ridiculous.”

The man pleaded guilty to arranging for a child to engage in sexual activity, as well as offering to supply cocaine.

Martin Ingle, prosecuting, said the man took his son to dinner then told him he had “bought a brass [prostitute]”.

When his son told him he didn’t want that, the father blamed it on the boy’s mother being “overprotective” and told him “don’t be a p—y”. 

The father added that the sex workers were already in a taxi so it was too late to cancel, the court heard.

When the two women arrived the boy was taken to a separate room where a 26-year-old sex worker performed a sex act on him, the court heard.

In a police statement the boy said he did not want to do it and he was left feeling disgusted.

The father then paid the women £150 each and they left.

When the boy’s mother found out what had happened she drove her son to the police station and the father was later arrested, Mr Ingle said.

The defendant appeared in court but chose not to be represented by a barrister. He said: “I can’t have this hanging over my head, I just need it over with.”

Tony Hyams-Parish, the judge, warned him the offence has a starting point of five years and that he faces “significant” prison time.

The case was adjourned for sentencing at a later date.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have bought a property in Portugal, it has been claimed.

It comes almost two years after the couple were asked by the King to give up their Windsor home, Frogmore Cottage.

The new home will give the Sussexes a base in Europe, enabling them to stay over whenever they make the transatlantic flight to visit friends or family.

It may also allow them to acquire a so-called Golden Visa, which allows visa-free access to the European Union’s Schengen area, the Daily Mail reported.

The couple spent several days in Portugal last September, when they are understood to have stayed with the Duke’s cousin, Princess Eugenie, 34, and her husband Jack Brooksbank, 38.

‘Mega-secret’ trips to Europe

The romantic three-night break came after they attended the Invictus Games in Germany and before heading back home to their children, Archie, now five, and Lilibet, three.

The couple were said to have flown from Dusseldorf to Lisbon before travelling an hour south to the coastal town of Melides, in the Alentejo region, in a “mega-secret” operation.

A source close to the Sussexes confirmed they had been to Portugal.

Princess Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank split their time between London and the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club in Melides where Mr Brooksbank works in marketing and sales at the resort in the Alentejo region

The Duke and Duchess have remained close to the couple, who have visited them at their home in Montecito, California. Like them, they have two young children, August, three, and Ernest, one.

Harry and Meghan were with Jack and Eugenie in Toronto when the news of their relationship became public knowledge in October 2016.

The foursome had dressed up for Halloween to enjoy “one final fun night out” before their relationship was revealed to the world.

In February 2022, Prince Harry was joined by Princess Eugenie at the Super Bowl in California. She was also the only member of the royal family to appear in new footage during their Netflix documentary series Harry and Meghan, released in December 2022.

The Duke and Duchess purchased their first home together, a sprawling, nine-bedroomed property in Montecito, California, in June 2020 for $14.6 million (£11.2 million).

Their office has been contacted for comment.

Landlords look set to be exempt from Rachel Reeves’s capital gains tax (CGT) raid after Telegraph Money campaigned for Labour to end its war on property investors. 

In a victory for this newspaper, second homeowners and buy-to-let investors will be spared any rises to the levy which instead will target shares and other assets. 

It comes after months of uncertainty over how the Chancellor would raise billions in taxes at the Budget, leading to fears landlords would be hit with higher CGT bills.

Reports previously suggested the tax could be increased in line with income levies which could have forced higher-earning property investors to hand over as much as 45pc of their profits on homes to the taxman. 

However, sources told The Times on Wednesday night that a rise in CGT would apply only to the sales of shares and other assets while second homes will be exempt.

It means the CGT rate paid by these homeowners will remain untouched at 24pc for higher-rate taxpayers.

Reeves is instead poised to raise the current 20pc rate levied on the sale of shares and could target other assets, while some reliefs in the current system are also expected to be axed. 

The move is expected to raise an amount in the “low billions”, a government source told the newspaper. 

When the last government cut the rate on second homes from 28pc to 24pc in its final budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that doing so would in fact raise almost £700m because the number of property transactions would increase. 

Revenues from capital gains tax can fluctuate widely because changes in the behaviour of a very small number of people can have a large impact. 

Just 12,000 people pay two thirds of the £15bn a year raised from capital gains tax.

HMRC has estimated that increasing capital gains tax by 10 points would reduce Treasury revenues. 

“Very large tax rate rises can reduce exchequer yield due to taxpayer behavioural impacts,” it said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that any increases in capital gains tax should be accompanied by reforms to the system, such as by charging the levy on assets after people die.

Just 12,000 people pay two-thirds of the £15bn a year raised from capital gains tax.

The Telegraph has heard from dozens of buy-to-let investors planning to quit the property market altogether amid the threat of a tax raid and reams of new regulations under the Labour government.

There are signs an exodus of landlords has already begun, increasing demand for housing and driving up rents for tenants. Rightmove figures show that 18pc of homes currently on the market are former rental properties, compared with just 8pc in 2010.

A Conservative spokesman told The Telegraph: “The truth is that during the election we repeatedly warned that Labour’s sums didn’t add up and that they were planning to raise taxes.

“The real scandal is that despite planning these tax rises all along, they didn’t have the courage to front up to it to the public during the election campaign.”

More than half of all capital gains relates to the sale of shares, while just 12pc is from the sale of property.

Last month Lord Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, sold £29m of his shares in the homewares giant, leading City analysts to speculate that the sell-offs were an attempt to sell them before any raid. 

Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has signalled that the Government will increase capital gains tax but rejected reports it could rise to as much as 39pc.

He said that the suggestions of such a big rise were “wide of the mark”.

It comes as Ms Reeves prepares to launch the biggest Budget tax raid in history in her maiden Budget later this month. 

It will involve as much as £35bn of tax rises – the most on record in cash terms – as she protects her commitment to ending “austerity” and attempts to ensure departments avoid real-terms cuts in spending.

There is also speculation that the budget will include the first increase in fuel duty for 13 years. 

Ministers have also refused to rule out raising employers national insurance in a move that is set to raise significant sums. 

Critics claim raising employer NICs would breach the spirit of Labour’s manifesto- which pledged not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. 

This article contains images showing injured animals. 

A scandal-hit zoo where a keeper was mauled to death by a tiger is embroiled in further controversy after images revealed the scale of alleged animal abuse. 

South Lakes Safari Zoo in Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, is accused of failing to prevent avoidable animal deaths, neglecting animal welfare and breeding a hostile working environment.

The zoo’s past has been marked by a litany of safety issues, including the death of Sarah McClay, 24, who was attacked by a tiger; the escape of a white rhino that was later shot; and the deaths of 30 lemurs in a fire.

Former staff handed the BBC graphic photographs taken between 2017 and 2019 showing dead and injured animals.

One picture shows a zebra with its hoof stuck in the bars of a pen, with former employees claiming management ignored concerns that the animal was stressed from being kept indoors. The zebra was later put down. 

Other images display a capybara covered in cuts from fighting and a giraffe with a bloodied head after it threw itself against the bar of its enclosure. 

The zoo’s management denied “each and every allegation” and cited a history of positive independent inspections.

However, one former employee said that “fighting” and “inbreeding” had become commonplace because “animals were housed in inappropriate social groups”. She added that she had witnessed severe injuries and deaths that “could have been avoided”.

Another employee claimed: “A peacock flew into the giant otter enclosure and the two giant otters ripped its head off in front of a school group.”

The Captive Animals’ Protection Society called on the local council to revoke the South Lakes’ licence in 2017 after reports of nearly 500 animal deaths between 2013 and 2016.

The RSPCA also launched an investigation before David Gill, the zoo’s owner, was refused a licence, prompting the Cumbria Zoo Company Limited to take charge and promise widespread improvements.

“Nothing changed under this new management and animals suffered greatly,” a former employee said, adding: “I saw staff in tears, I saw staff leaving regularly.”

Another former staff member said: “Staff were broken at times, completely broken.

“There was shouting at people and belittling people. The morning meeting turned into isolating and humiliating people.”

Cumbria Zoo Company told the BBC that it “wholly denied and disputed” claims that it had ever “engaged in any practices which has led to the death, injury or poor treatment of animals”.

The company said: “We do not accept that there is a ‘bullying culture’ or that staff are overworked.

“We take any allegations of bullying extremely seriously, and when they are made they need to be fully investigated and dealt with.”

Karen Brewer, the company’s new chief executive, told the BBC: “The zoo is subject to regular inspections by local authority inspectors and if there were issues of the sorts described, they would have been addressed by the inspectors.

“We keep comprehensive records of all animal injuries. As a licensed zoo, animal welfare is our prime concern and we dispute these allegations.

“We find these claims to be outrageous and have no substance in fact. Our veterinary team are internationally recognised and unrivalled in their field.”

Westmorland and Furness Council conducted an unannounced inspection of the zoo in March and raised welfare concerns after finding a work experience student left unsupervised with dangerous animals.

Inspectors also found rhinos being kept indoors for more than 17 hours straight as “senior staff may be spread too thin”. They also said underinvestment could result in failure to manage animals properly, posing a “potential danger to animals, staff and the public”.

The council conducted a follow-up visit in June and reported that 26 of 28 improvement directions were being complied with.

In May 2013, zookeeper McClay was killed after a tiger escaped through an open door into the corridor where she was working, dragging her by the neck back into its enclosure. 

South Lakes has been approached for comment.

A British social media influencer who fell to his death as he climbed a Spanish bridge for an Instagram stunt has been pictured for the first time.

Lewis Stevenson, 26, fell from the 630ft (192m) Castilla-La Mancha bridge in Talavera de la Reina, 75 miles south-west of Madrid, on Sunday.

The freeclimber was attempting to scale the cable-stayed bridge without safety equipment when he died.

Speaking from his home in Derby, Clifford Stevenson, 70, confirmed that his grandson had died in the incident.

“We all tried to talk him out of it. We were always trying to talk him out of doing things but that was the way he was,” he told MailOnline.

“He loved doing it, always went out there believing he’d be all right. He did what he did for his own pleasure. He did not get any money for it, he was an adventurer.”

Savannah Parker, Mr Stevenson’s girlfriend, said that he slipped from the bridge after fainting.

“He didn’t just fall,” she said. “He lost consciousness because he wasn’t feeling well. His friend who he was with sent me over his police statement.

“He told his friend he wasn’t feeling well and he said: ‘Shall we go back down?’ Lewis said, ‘Give me a minute,’ and that’s when he lost consciousness and slipped.

“I suspect that he hadn’t eaten because he wouldn’t care if he was hungry or thirsty, he’d do something.”

Ms Parker, 25, said Mr Stevenson was due to return to Britain on Monday and that the last thing he told her was, “Good night, I love you,” on Saturday night.

She added: “Every time he went away I would tell him to be careful.

“As much as it worries me, I don’t look into things because I worry enough as it is and I just let him do his thing and generally he just comes back. This weekend he didn’t.”

Mr Stevenson’s social media profiles show him on top of skyscrapers in cities around the world, including London and New York.

Macarena Muñoz, the local councillor for citizen security, said Stevenson and another 24-year-old British man had “come to Talavera to climb the bridge and create content for social networks, which has resulted in this unfortunate and sad outcome”.

Climbing the bridge is “totally prohibited”, she added.

A spokesman for the national police in Toledo said: “He was about 40 to 50 metres up, about a quarter of the total height of the bridge, when he fell.”

The other climber, whose identity is not known, survived.

Drivers of electric cars should have a pay-per-mile tax imposed on them to help replace fuel duty, Rachel Reeves has been urged.

The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) called on the Chancellor to introduce a 2p-per-kilometre tax on using electric vehicles.

The RAC urged Ms Reeves in September to consider imposing pay-per-mile taxes on drivers of petrol and diesel cars.

Pay-per-mile taxes are unpopular because they fall most heavily on those who must drive the furthest. Outside London and south-east England public transport options are few and far between, leaving most of the country no viable alternative but to drive.

The Chancellor is facing intense pressure from lobby groups in the run-up to the Budget on Oct 30, including from those calling for heavier taxes on motorists.

Tax most polluting

Silviya Barrett, a CBT spokesman, said: “The Chancellor can address the £22 billion black hole and still build the infrastructure needed to deliver long-term growth by prioritising investment in high-return public transport projects, rather than low-return, carbon-intensive roads and by taxing the most polluting forms of transport the most.”

Among a list of six items the CBT wants to see taxed more heavily, including a 5p increase in fuel duty, were electric vehicles (EVs).

The CBT added: “We calculate a 2p-per-kilometre charge would raise £815 million in the first year, but revenue will grow as ZEV [zero emission vehicle] uptake increases.

“It is also low enough to maintain the incentive to switch to EVs, and it can be coupled with exemptions for existing ZEV owners or caps for certain categories of vehicles such as for fleets or people in rural areas.

“Introducing distance-based taxation for ZEVs would ensure that the transition to cleaner vehicles does not undermine public finances.”

Last year the average female road user travelled 4,340 miles (6,984km) on average, according to the Government’s annual National Transport Survey. The CBT’s proposed tax of 2p per kilometre would cost a female EV driver nearly £140 per year.

For men, who averaged 5,042 miles in 2023, the tax would cost them more than £160 a year.

Petrol and diesel cars

Fuel duty is set at 52.95p per litre, plus 20 per cent VAT on top of the pump price. EVs do not incur fuel duty because they are powered by electricity, although pro-EV campaigners say that taxes on electricity should be relaxed.

In September the RAC, which is also a backer of the CBT, called on the Chancellor to introduce pay-per-mile taxes on petrol and diesel cars.

Simon Williams, the RAC’s head of policy, said: “A pay-per-mile system could be set up according to vehicles’ emissions, with EV drivers paying the least to further encourage take-up, and ‘gas guzzlers’ paying the most.”

The CBT was established a decade after the Beeching report of 1963, which led to the closure of thousands of miles of unprofitable state-owned railways.

The charity was launched in 1973 by Sidney Weighell, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, in response to speculation that Ted Heath’s Conservative government was planning further cuts to railway lines.

Known for the first three decades of its existence as Transport 2000, it merged with the anti-highways pressure group Road Block in 2007 and changed its name to the Campaign for Better Transport that year.

Lucy Letby worked so much overtime that her manager was not suspicious when babies died on her watch, the Thirlwall Inquiry has heard.

Eirian Powell, who was neonatal ward manager at the Countess of Chester Hospital when Letby was working on the baby unit, said that there had been no evidence to suggest that the nurse was behind the deaths and collapses.

The inquiry heard that Powell had drawn up a chart showing which members of staff were on duty during unexplained incidents at the unit following the death of Baby I in October 2015.

Although Letby was shown to be often on duty for the unexpected deaths and collapses, Ms Powell said she did not think it was suspicious.

Speaking to the inquiry, she said: “When we got busy she did the overtime, so she was there more often.

“There was a lot of staff that did part-time so they were [there] less so. But she was there more often by working full time and overtime.”

She added: “The question that was given to me each and every time, was what is the evidence?

“I haven’t got the evidence. Nobody has seen anything. She works overtime, she’s the common element on a rising mortality.

“Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything. At the time there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. I hadn’t seen anything. Nobody else had reported seeing anything.”

Ms Powell also said that she had experienced spikes in deaths in the unit in the 1990s when the hospital had started taking much younger babies.

Letby was convicted of the murders of seven infants and the attempted murders of seven others while working at the Countess of Chester in 2015 and 2016.

Rachel Langdale KC, counsel for the inquiry, pointed out that catching a nurse “in the moment” is “quite difficult” because it was natural for them to be leaning over an incubator.

Ms Powell added: “No but in the neonatal unit it’s more intensive. With the allocated nursing it’s harder to be interfering with a baby that is not your patient.”

The manager said that she felt a few consultants on the unit were “difficult to work with” and would blame nurses when things went wrong.

She pointed to an incident where ventilation settings had been changed for a baby without being entered on to the chart.

Ms Powell said: “Immediately it was the nurse in charge, the nurse looking after the baby who was accused of changing the settings on the ventilator.

“Fortunately, this nurse was particularly experienced and therefore she challenged it, and, as it happens, it was the registrar that had changed the vent settings just hadn’t documented it.”

She said she could not see how she could have acted any differently at the time “based on the evidence that we were given at the time”.

The manager was also asked about an incident where Letby gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn in 2013.

Asked how serious the incident was, she said: “It could have been catastrophic. It would cause a death.”

However, she said that Letby was working alongside a much more senior nurse who had also not picked up on the error.

“There was two of them,” she said, “There was a very senior band six with her, and she should have seen that the infusion pump was actually incorrect.”

The inquiry heard how the more senior nurse was so distressed by the incident that she had threatened to resign.

The Thirlwall inquiry is examining how deaths might have been prevented at the Countess of Chester if staff had reacted to warning signs earlier.

Conservative MPs have whittled down the six leadership candidates to the final two – and now the vote goes out to the party membership.

Over the next two weeks, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick will fight it out up and down the country.

After a contest which has already delivered its fair share of surprises, the race is still very difficult to call.

Polls show Ms Badenoch may be slightly ahead – although surveys of party members are notoriously difficult to carry out. She is also ahead in the betting markets, and she won in the final ballot of MPs by one vote.

But Mr Jenrick has some very prominent backers, and will be hoping the opposing side will make enough gaffes that they can go into the lead.

Here Daniel Martin, The Telegraph’s Deputy Political Editor, looks at what the supporters of each side are saying about the strengths of their candidate – and what they are saying about their rivals’ weaknesses.

Kemi Badenoch

What her supporters say

The former business secretary’s backers are confident she will win because she knows what she thinks and she speaks her mind.

They point to her successes in government, including her long campaign on the trans rights agenda which has culminated in Labour accepting the findings of the Cass review into gender medicine and puberty blockers.

And they say she is the one candidate talking about the “big ideas” such as to remodel the “broken” British state and deal with the inheritance of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – specifically equalities legislation and human rights law.

“She is very clear on the fact that it is this inheritance which has stopped the Conservative Party doing conservative things when in government,” said a member of her campaign team. 

“What you need to understand about Kemi is that she is an engineer; she did not go to Oxbridge to study PPE. She looks at things as a system and if the system is broken, she will change it.

“She wants to take the party and the country to sound economic principles: freedom of speech, the free market, equality under the law.

“But this is not a time for easy answers and simple solutions. Instead she wants to go back to these principles and review the party.”

A source in her campaign team said she was a “different brand of politician”.

“She has always said truth is the most important thing: she hates politician speak and spin”.

“She wants to tell voters the absolute truth and not start using flowery language. She is very direct and this is why her words are sometimes taken out of context.

“But this cuts through with voters: they listen to what she has to say.”

‘Track record of success’

The campaign also point to her “track record of success” both as business secretary and as equalities minister in government.

“You’ve got Wes Streeting accepting the Cass review,” they said. “Five years ago that would have been unimaginable but her campaigning has shifted Labour’s position on this.

“She’s scrapped loads of EU laws, and signed the biggest ever trade deal in the CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership]. When she’s in government, she’s delivered.”

Andrew Griffith MP said: “Kemi has been able to attract support from across the Conservative Party, from Steve Baker on one side to Damian Green on the other. That is a rare achievement.

“I believe that while she won’t rush to answers, she will help us to have an honest debate about what went wrong, what went right and how we get back to having a clear conservative philosophy.

“Third, I believe she has the ability to cut through, which few politicians have. If you’re watching TV with the sound off, which politician would make you turn the sound up? Kemi.”

An MP who did not support her praised her for standing up for what she believes. “Look at what she did on European law; she could have just gone along with what the Brexiteers wanted and scrapped them all,” they said.

“But she took a decision to keep many laws that were needed for trading standards. She was taken to task by the Brexiteers, but was phenomenally brave in facing them down, even though you might have thought she was in sympathy with them.

“She can be very brave to stand up for what she thinks is right, even if it flies in the face of what would be good for her own promotion.”

What her rivals say

Those supporting other candidates accept that Ms Badenoch has strong values which align closely with those of the Conservative Party, particularly on the Right.

But they whisper that there is another side to her: she is stroppy, is not a team player and is only interested in a small group of subjects.

She is also gaffe-prone, they say – pointing to the Tory conference earlier this month where she appeared to question the level of maternity pay and the minimum wage. One MP said it was “madness” to speak in this way when the Conservatives needed to reconnect with working mothers.

Others question how successful she really was in office, saying that although she has always been a Brexiteer, she was persuaded by the very Whitehall machine she claims to be against, to keep the vast majority of EU laws.

Some say she is too close to Michael Gove, the former Cabinet minister loathed by admirers of Boris Johnson. Others have even compared her to Liz Truss, whose doctrinaire attitude and lack of people skills means she was forced out within weeks.

One MP who supported a rival candidate said: “She is prickly and very fragile and barely talks to her close lieutenants. They find her hard to get hold of.

“Her people skills, or rather the lack of them, could cause problems. I don’t think she has demonstrated that she is a team builder. As opposition leader you need the ability to take people with you, to persuade them.

“She will have to go on a major charm offensive with all wings of the party if she is not to go the way of Liz Truss.”

‘One trick pony’

One MP on the Left of the party warned she could be a bit of a “one trick pony” concerning the trans rights agenda.

“I’m not really convinced there are a huge number of people in this country who give a flying f— about these things as long as people aren’t being intolerant and impolite,” he said. “She talks very passionately and knowledgeably about it: it’s an area she is very interested in.”

“But the flipside of that is that her policy offer seems very bare on issues in which she cares much less. How will she reform the NHS, for example? What will she do to improve schools?”

“Where she has neither experience or interest, her boredom threshold is very low,” the MP said. “She is a fantastic delegator – which can almost be a way of handwashing or avoiding issues which do not interest you. An opposition leader needs to be more than a one-club golfer.”

Another on the Right of the party warned: “She doesn’t have the work rate or the people skills to be the best leader: she antagonises colleagues. I believe she has the right position on many things – such as fixing the broken system – but she won’t succeed because she does not have the necessary people skills, resilience, or the willingness to work in a team.

“There is a big question over how much she missed the opportunity of Brexit by getting the retained EU law position right, and she managed to antagonise the Brexiteers. It’s a very good example of how she can be better at antagonising rather than delivering.”

Robert Jenrick

What his supporters say

The former immigration minister’s biggest policy is that he will leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a means of dealing with the small boats issue.

None of his leadership rivals – including Ms Badenoch – agreed.

His supporters said he resigned from Rishi Sunak’s government on principle last December, saying the prime minister’s emergency Rwanda legislation was not enough to tackle immigration.

“Rob brings conviction, competence and courage,” said a member of his campaign team.

“On the big issues which Conservative voters care about, he has set out clear and consistent policies which will deliver the trust of a deeply-sceptical public in our party.

“He offers serious change and serious policies, and an end to needless drama. The Conservative Party cannot keep going down rabbit holes; it can’t keep getting caught up in petty squabbling.”

As Tory MP Danny Kruger puts it, he is the most “substantial” of the candidates.

“Rob represents the position that is most likely to win back lost voters,” he said. “He is the candidate with the most appeal to Reform and Liberal Democrat defectors.

“He combines the best-thought out and robust policies on issues including migration, with a professionalism and reasonableness that will convince centrist voters that he is someone to trust as prime minister.

“He has a well-worked out vision for reform and boosting productivity. He’s not just the ‘migration candidate’, he has thought about policies on the economy and public services.”

‘Extremely hard-working’

Mr Kruger also highlighted his candidate’s character, which he said made him right for leadership of the opposition, as well as his capability behind the scenes.

“He’s extremely hard-working, clever and quick to grasp policy detail,” he said. “He can cope with the demands of the job: when it looked like he had gone backwards in the third ballot, he did not despair or get angry: he recognised it was a tough battle and just kept on with it. In other words he has good emotional balance.”

The MP also praised his abilities in the House of Commons. “He has an easy, fluent way. He speaks without notes and is very quick on his speech. He’s calm and clear.

“That’s the sort of person you need to contrast with this government which does not have a plan.”

Another MP said: “Rob has run the best campaign and he’s got a really clear analysis of why the party lost and what it needs to do to get back into power.

“He’s a good performer: in contrast with his rival he is not abrasive. People do not need to worry about him blowing up.

“He is right about immigration and right about net zero as well, but it is important that whoever wins needs to bring forward a broader vision on public services and the economy.”

What his rivals say

Others in the Conservative Party take a very different view over Jenrick’s qualities, particularly when it comes to his ECHR policy.

Some accuse him of having been radicalised in the Home Office to such an extent that he talks about his plans to leave the Convention to the detriment of policies more resonant with the general public.

Others say his policy on the ECHR just does not ring true: when he became an MP he was an ardent supporter of David Cameron’s centrist policies, and loudly campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum.

Some fear that Mr Jenrick will go back to his old centrist position once he has won the leadership election.

A centrist MP said: “Robert is actually socially very liberal but has somehow managed to attract this sort of Danny Kruger, John Hayes support – these people are on the old moral Right.

“I think he was radicalised by Braverman at the Home Office. Before that he was communities secretary and in all that time I never heard him wang on about immigration.”

A Badenoch supporter puts it more directly: “Rob is a fundamentally decent enough guy but he isn’t what he currently claims he is.

“He’s always been at the moderate centre of the Conservative Party. He voted Remain. He was a big Rishi supporter from the outset. What he wants is to occupy the centre ground of Tory politics.

“The fear has to be that he is basically being controlled by the same Right-wing of the Conservative Party that has led us into the mess we find ourselves in: where everyone treats Tory politics like it’s the mafia, people assassinating each other.

“All this stuff just isn’t Rob. You can tell he’s feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the things he’s having to say.”

Another questioned his resignation last December, which they say was a move to position himself for the next leadership battle against the Right-wing Tory party in the country.

‘Disrupt the party’

“It is possible to resign on a point of principle and still not disrupt the party,” he said. “What Rob did was to resign with maximum disruption. He turned what would have been a squall into a maelstrom.

“If he becomes leader and tries to put his arm round the shoulder of someone who is threatening to resign, urging them to go quietly – they will just turn round and say, like you did? What goes around comes around.”

The MP also said he was unsure that Mr Jenrick will be able to unite the party. “He seems to be suddenly declaring that people will have to sign up to this, that or the other to be able to serve as a shadow minister,” he said.

“That doesn’t seem to be team building. Badenoch and Cleverly don’t share his view on the ECHR: will they be able to join?

“It means that the only people he will be able to appoint are those who share his position implicitly and people willing to shed their principles for a shadow cabinet seat. You can’t say we are a broad church and then say if you don’t agree with me, you’re out.

“In any case: I’m not sure that if you go to the Dog and Duck you’ll find that the ECHR is the hot topic of the day. I worry that it’ll be the leader of the opposition after the next one who will be exhorting us all to stop banging on about the ECHR and to talk about what people are interested in.”

Another MP had a more piquant piece of criticism about Mr Jenrick’s pitch. “He has a very nice house in London, a manor house in Shropshire and his only grown-up job was working for Christie’s. If that’s your background, banging on about middle-class elites is a little rich.”

A bailiff took her miniature Yorkshire terrier with her to work as an “emotional support dog” because she found it so stressful, a tribunal has heard.

Deborah Cullingford took her pet Bella with her when she enforced court orders, so that she could “talk it through” with the dog when she felt anxious.

But when fellow bailiffs spotted the terrier in her car in February 2022, Ms Cullingford was told to stop taking her to work because she was not a guide dog.

Ms Cullingford, who had recovered from three bouts of cancer and suffered from anxiety, eventually quit and accused her employers of disability discrimination in failing to make “reasonable adjustments”.

But an employment tribunal has rejected those claims, ruling that bosses had “legitimate concerns” about allowing a dog in the workplace.

Tribunal in Manchester

The hearing in Manchester was told Ms Cullingford started work as a county court bailiff in Leeds in December 2010 and bought her new dog in September 2020.

It was said Ms Cullingford lived alone and the dog provided “companionship and support” as her “emotional support animal”.

In February 2021, Ms Cullingford was diagnosed with cancer for a third time and was off work between May and July. By January 2022 she was back to her full bailiff duties, which the tribunal heard involved “stressful and tense jobs”.

In February that year, the dog was seen in her car and she was told by bosses that she was not allowed to bring it to work.

Ms Cullingford told a mental health consultation she had taken the dog to work because it was “reassuring and calming”, that she “talked it through” with the dog when she was anxious, and that she could take it for a walk if her anxiety was “particularly bad”.

In a letter asking to register Bella as an emotional support dog, Ms Cullingford said: “My dog enables me to work more effectively and focus more easily. She helps me with my anxiety and is able to help me feel more calm and relaxed.

“I would like to be able to take my dog in the car with me when going between calls, my job is quite lonely and having my dog as support keeps my mind focused and enables me to manage my stress much better.”

Not ‘protected in law’

But Ms Cullingford was told emotional support dogs and therapy dogs were not “protected in law” – unlike guide dogs – and therefore she was not allowed to keep taking the dog to work.

Ms Cullingford appealed the decision and maintained that the dog was “the reason she did not end her life when she felt depressed and could barely face the day”.

In April 2023, she resigned and brought claims of disability discrimination and harassment, claiming that colleagues who talked about bringing dogs to work were “mocking” her.

But these were rejected by Employment Judge Rebecca Eeley, who ruled that Ms Cullingford’s bosses had “legitimate concerns to look at in terms of confidentiality, security of the vehicle, health and safety, risk of escape or interaction with the public”.

Ms Eeley also ruled it was “difficult to say” whether bringing the dog would have alleviated anxiety, given that Ms Cullingford was not in the habit of taking the animal with her on the most stressful of her working days.

Kemi Badenoch, the former business secretary and equalities minister under Rishi Sunak, is going head-to-head against Robert Jenrick to be the next leader of the Conservatives.

The MP for North West Essex is known for being particularly outspoken on the issues of Brexit and gender ideology and is on the Right of the Tory Party.

This is the second time that Mrs Badenoch has made a run at the party leadership, having stood to replace Boris Johnson in the summer 2020 election.

What does she stand for?

Mrs Badenoch threw her hat into the ring in July with a declaration that capitalism is not a “dirty word”, putting her free market values at the heart of her pitch.

The shadow housing secretary is an advocate of a smaller state and has said that “sovereignty” and upholding Brexit are key issues.

She has also been particularly vocal on transgender issues, and as equalities minister she was behind the transgender guidance for schools and a proposed law to ensure same-sex toilets in all public buildings.

Earlier this year she had a public spat with actor David Tennant, who is a vocal advocate for trans rights, after he said he wished she “did not exist any more”.

Mrs Badenoch has more broadly regularly spoken out against what she calls “identity politics” concerning race and gender.

Her leadership campaign, Renewal 2030, is focused on her pitch for reinventing the Conservative Party by taking it back to what she calls its “first principles” in time for the first year they can next be in power.

What is her political background?

The shadow housing secretary joined the Conservative Party aged 25 and one year later volunteered for the Global Poverty Commission policy group.

She has said that her political views were strongly influenced by her time at the University of Sussex and her experience witnessing student activism.

She told The Times: “One of the things that drove me insane was how they talked about Africa. So high-minded. ‘We need to help Africans. Let’s boycott Nestlé because they make African mothers give their babies powdered milk.’

“Having parents who were doctors, I knew when women are malnourished, formula milk might be a better alternative, and mothers with Aids can’t breastfeed at all.

She added: “These stupid Leftie white kids didn’t know what they were talking about. And that instinctively made me think, ‘These are not my people.’”

She first stood as an MP in 2010 in the seat of Dulwich and West Norwood but came third. She became a London Assembly member in 2015 before being successfully elected as the MP for Saffron Walden in 2017.

Her first ministerial brief was in the Department for Education in 2019 and has had stints in the Treasury and Levelling Up departments.

What is her family background?

Mrs Badenoch, 44, is British-Nigerian and spent much of her childhood in Lagos before moving back to England for her studies.

Her husband, Hamish, is a banker with Deutsche Bank and a former Tory councillor in Merton, and they have three children together.

How does she feel about Brexit?

Mrs Badenoch has been an unwavering supporter of Brexit since the referendum, having voted to exit the European Union.

She described the Brexit vote as “the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom” in her maiden speech in the Commons.

Her brief in the Department of Business and Trade under Mr Sunak was one of the most central to post-Brexit strategy, as she worked on trade deals with other countries.

Ahead of this year’s general election, she said that Brexit was a “10 or 20-year project” and that “making sure everyone is focused on getting those benefits is absolutely critical”.

Warning Brexit was under threat with a Labour administration, she told The Telegraph: “I think that’s one area where I’ve tried to do as much as possible, but we need more of that strategy.”

What scandals has she been involved in?

Mrs Badenoch has had a number of public spats over recent years, including notably with the former chairman of the Post Office during the Horizon scandal.

Henry Staunton was sacked by the businesses secretary in January and claimed in The Sunday Times that Mrs Badenoch told him that “someone’s got to take the rap” for the hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015.

Mr Staunton, who had been in post since December 2022, also said he had never met Mrs Badenoch before being sacked, which he claimed he discovered via a call from Sky News.

The explosive interview also saw Mr Staunton claim that a civil servant instructed him to stall compensation to victims of the Horizon scandal.

Mrs Badenoch took aim at both Mr Staunton and The Sunday Times over the interview, accusing the journalist of having chosen “to ignore the facts and run with Staunton’s words”.

The shadow housing secretary has also been accused of “bullying” behaviour causing senior officials to quit the business department when she was business secretary.

The allegations that she traumatised members of her staff, reported by the Guardian, were branded a “hit job” by Mrs Badenoch.

Another scandal in Mrs Badenoch’s personal life involved Michael Gove, a formerly close political ally, when the pair reportedly fell out after he had an affair with one of her acquaintances.

Mrs Badenoch has also had a more public falling out with Suella Braverman, whom she reportedly accused of having a “very public” nervous breakdown.

Last month, Mrs Badenoch distanced herself from comments she made in 2018 in which she welcomed relaxed immigration rules.

The Conservative leadership front-runner had praised reforms by Sajid Javid, then the home secretary, which included lifting a cap on highly skilled migrants.

Mrs Badenoch also praised Mr Javid’s decision to allow students from the European Union to stay in Britain for six months after graduating.

But after the 2018 remarks resurfaced in The Sun newspaper, the shadow communities secretary said she had changed her mind and called for a “truthful” debate on migration policy.

The life of a former Russian spy poisoned by Novichok was “accidentally saved” when a paramedic treated him with the wrong drug by mistake, a public inquiry has heard.

The paramedic who first attended the scene had intended to give Sergei Skripal a drug to counter overdoses, which he thought Mr Skripal was suffering from.

However, he accidentally picked up a bottle containing atropine instead.

A poisoning expert later said the fortuitous administration of atropine – which can be used to counter nerve agent poisoning – may well have saved Mr Skripal’s life after he was targeted by a Kremlin hit squad.

Atropine can be administered to treat certain types of nerve agents, pesticides or mushroom poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate.

Andrew O’Connor KC, counsel to the inquiry, told the hearing on Thursday: “Atropine was in fact administered to Sergei Skripal by one of the ambulance staff present by accident.

“He intended to give the administration of naloxone but picked up the wrong bottle and in fact gave him atropine.

“We will hear from Mr Faulkner, the expert, that that would have clearly helped Mr Skripal and may have even saved his life.”

The chance administration of the drug emerged as the inquiry heard that the vast majority of ambulance crews in Britain would never have dealt with the type of nerve agent attack that was used in the Salisbury poisonings.

Organophosphate contaminations, similar to the Novichok poisoning which killed mother of three Dawn Sturgess, are also extremely rare, even in rural areas.

Paramedics who first attended to Ms Sturgess after she collapsed were left to draw on their theoretical training of such poisonings rather than their direct experience, the inquiry into her death heard.

The ambulance crews who responded to the collapse of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, after they were contaminated with Novichok at their home in Salisbury, initially thought they had suffered a drug overdose.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Wayne Darch, the Deputy Director of South West Ambulance Service (SWAS), said: “A number of clinicians will go a whole career without witnessing organophosphate or nerve agent poisoning. There has not been a nerve agent poisoning since the Second World War and organophosphate poisoning, which happens from fertiliser, is extremely rare.”

Mr Darch did however emphasise that all ambulance staff underwent regular training to deal with “high consequence” terror attacks and rare infectious diseases.

Mr Skripal and his daughter were found collapsed on a bench in the city’s Maltings riverside shopping precinct on March 4 2018.

Both survived the ordeal after being admitted to hospital. Four months later, however, Ms Sturgess inadvertently sprayed herself with Novichok in a bottle of Nina Ricci perfume given to her by her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley.

The mother of three fell into a coma within 15 minutes of being contaminated and died eight days later.

Mr Darch said that following the attack on the Skripals crews were issued with advice on how to spot symptoms of nerve agent poisoning.

But he told Michael Mansfield KC, counsel for the family of Ms Sturgess, that the service was not provided with advice about the potential for more Novichok to be found and the risk that some could have been left in the Salisbury area.

The inquiry also heard that there was a disagreement between paramedics and police officers who responded when Mr Rowley collapsed later on the same day as Ms Sturgess.

Ambulance staff who attended the scene believed he was suffering from the same type of nerve agent attack that had struck down the Skripals, but they were overridden by police officers who insisted it was a drug overdose, based on his previous history.

Mr Darch said there had been a “breakdown” of the joint emergency service principles and that there had since been discussion at management level to make sure it did not happen again.

The ambulance chief admitted that SWAS “could have done better” in warning paramedics and ambulance staff about the dangers of misdiagnosing nerve agent poisoning as a drug overdose, following the attack on the Skripals and before the collapse of Ms Sturgess.

He said advice was issued about nerve agents once it had been established that the Skripals were victims of Novichok, but admitted the advice did not refer to the initial misdiagnosis by emergency crews who attended them.

“We shared as much information as we could. There were a number of documents disseminated following the Salisbury incident but of course, we could always do more,” Mr Darch said.

He added: “At the time we did the best we could with what was available to us. We could have done better.”

The inquiry heard that following the attack on the Skripals, Wiltshire police did not issue its officers with advice on future incidents linked to symptoms of Novichok.

Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills said in his witness statement that this was “due to the unique circumstances related to the attack on the Skripals and the absence of intelligence related to the likelihood of a further attack”.

Lord Hughes of Ombersley, the inquiry chairman, noted that the “if you haven’t dropped it, don’t pick it up” advice was not issued to the public until after Ms Sturgess and Mr Rowley had suffered Salisbury’s second Novichok poisoning incident.

The American gossip website TMZ has been criticised for publishing images of the dead body of Liam Payne.

The singer died at the age of 31 after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday.

Pictures of Payne, who rose to fame as a member of the pop group One Direction, were uploaded to the outlet’s website before being removed following a backlash. They showed his arm, waist and tattoos as well as the police tent set up over his body. 

The article read: “TMZ obtained a photo showing Liam’s body on a wooden deck at the hotel with tables and chairs nearby. We’re not showing the whole body, but you can clearly see his tattoo – a clock on his left forearm and a scorpion on his abdomen.”

The site quickly removed the photos after widespread criticism from people who called the decision to publish them “a disgrace”. The article was amended to say: “TMZ has seen a photo showing Liam’s body on the deck at the hotel with tables and chairs nearby. 

“You can clearly see his tattoos – a clock on his left forearm and a scorpion on his abdomen – which helped us confirm early reports from witnesses.”

Rylan Clark, the former X factor contestant, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “And TMZ f—ing shame on you. Disgrace.” 

Police were already at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel at the time of Payne’s death, having received reports of an aggressive man who was thought to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol. 

An audio recording of the 911 call to emergency services revealed the hotel desk manager pleading for urgent help.

In the recording, he says: “I’m calling from CasaSur Palermo, we have a guest who is high on drugs and alcohol. When he’s conscious, he’s smashing up his entire room. So you need to send someone, please. 

“You need to send someone with urgency because I don’t know if the guest’s life is in danger. He’s in a room with a balcony and we were afraid he could do something that threatens his life.”

Officers were called to the hotel at 5.04pm local time (9.04pm UK) before Payne was pronounced dead at 5.11pm. It is unclear whether he fell or jumped to his death.

One Direction fans gathered outside the building to remember the singer, with many leaving flowers and lighting candles.

Olly Murs, who starred on the X Factor a year before One Direction, was among the celebrities paying tribute to Payne, saying he was “lost for words”. 

Payne is thought to have been on holiday in Argentina with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy, an online influencer he had been dating since October 2022.

In the days before his death, he attended a concert by Niall Horan, one of his former One Direction bandmates, at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires on Oct 2.

The five-strong band found success after competing on X Factor in 2010 and had several worldwide hits before splitting in 2016. 

Payne had previously spoken of an addiction to “booze and pills” and a struggle with his mental health since finding fame.