Mark Carney will run for election in the Ottawa riding of Nepean as the new Canadian prime minister seeks to join parliament for the first time, his Liberal party has announced.

Carney on Sunday is predicted to trigger an early general election on 28 April. The Liberals said on Saturday that Carney would run to represent the suburban riding, or district, of Nepean, noting in a social media post that Ottawa is where he raised his family and devoted his career to public service. He previously served as the head of Canada’s central bank and before that as deputy.

The election campaign for 343 seats in the House of Commons will last 37 days. The party that commands a majority in the House of Commons, either alone or with the support of another party, will form the next government and its leader will be prime minister.

Carney replaced Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January but remained in power until the governing Liberal party elected Carney on 9 March following a leadership race.

Carney, sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister on 14 March, has said the government in a time of crisis needs a strong and clear mandate. The governing Liberals had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Donald Trump declared a trade war.

The opposition Conservatives had hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged. But after decades of stability in US-Canada relations, the vote is expected instead to focus on who is best equipped to deal with Trump.

Carney, 60, was the head of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis. In 2013 he became the first non-citizen of the United Kingdom to run the Bank of England – helping to manage the impact of Brexit.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservatives, is Carney’s main challenger. The party and Poilievre had been heading for a huge victory in Canada’s federal election this year until derailed by Trump’s behaviour.

Trump has repeatedly said that Canada should become the 51st US state, put 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminium and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products – as well as all of America’s trading partners – on 2 April.

Trump’s frequent attacks on Canada’s sovereignty have infuriated Canadians. That has led to a surge in nationalism that has bolstered Liberal poll numbers.

Trump mocked Trudeau by calling him governor, but has not yet mentioned Carney by name.

With Associated Press

When demonstrators gathered ­at Istanbul’s city hall last week in outrage at the arrest of mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, 26-year-old Azra said she was initially too scared to defy a ban on gatherings. As protests grew on university campuses and in cities and towns across Turkey, she could no longer resist joining.

“I saw the spark in people’s eyes and the excitement on their faces, and I decided I had to come down here,” she said with a grin, standing among tens of thousands that defied a ban on assembly to fill the streets around city hall on Friday night. Despite the crowds, Azra feared reprisals and declined to give her full name. Many demonstrators were masked in a bid to defy facial recognition ­technology and fearing the teargas or pepper spray sometimes deployed by the police. Others smiled and took ­selfies to celebrate as fireworks illuminated the night sky.

The arrest of the mayor of Turkey’s largest city in a dawn raid last week was a watershed moment in the country’s prolonged shift away from democracy. Opponents of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fear it is a move to ­sideline the sole challenger capable of defeating him in upcoming elections, expected before 2028.

Early on Sunday, prosecutors requested the formal arrest and jailing pending trial of İmamoğlu, who was being held pending a court decision. On Saturday, protests in support of İmamoğlu erupted in Istanbul – where flares and stones where thrown at police, who responded with pepper spray – while in Ankara, the capital, police used water cannon and tear gas on demonstrators.

The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said 323 people had been detained following protests on Saturday night. Earlier, he said: “There will be no tolerance for those who seek to violate societal order, threaten the people’s peace and security, and pursue chaos and provocation.”

During the week, İmamoğlu and more than 100 other people including municipal officials and the head of the mayor’s construction firm were served ­detention orders and accused of embezzlement and corruption – charges the mayor denies. He also denies terrorism charges levelled at him over collaboration with a leftwing political coalition prior to local elections last year, which saw major losses for Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP).

Justice minister Yılmaz Tunç attempted to rebuff any suspicion the charges against İmamoğlu and ­others from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) were ­politicised. “Attempting to associate judicial investigations and cases with our president is, to say the least, an act of audacity and irresponsibility,” he said.

Within days, what began as protests in response to İmamoğlu’s detention has grown into something more. “This is bigger than İmamoğlu. It’s about a fight for democracy, law and equal rights,” said Azra as demonstrators massed around her.

The Turkish president has long sought to retake Istanbul from opposition control, fuelling protesters’ joy at defying a ban on gatherings in the city where Erdoğan began his ­political career as mayor. Standing outside a metro station as hundreds of cheering people poured into the street, breaking into anti-government chants and banging on the escalators, another protester, named Diler, called the demonstrations “a response to the pressure that has built up over years”.

“There are problems with the ­economy, with education, with the health ­system,” she said in a nod to the ­economic ­crisis that has seen the cost of ­living soar. “We are fed up with this government.”

Supporters of the mayor said 300,000 people joined the demonstration in Istanbul on Friday night, while video showed protesters taking to the streets and clashing with the police in major towns and cities across the country. Turkish interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said 343 ­people were detained across nine cities after taking part in demonstrations.

Turkish authorities ratcheted up their attempts to quell the growing protests, including blocking traffic across two bridges leading to city hall in Istanbul and locking down several thoroughfares nearby with lines of riot police.

Erdoğan voiced his increasing ­displeasure at calls to demonstrate by the head of the opposition, saying: “Turkey is not a country that will be on the street – it will not surrender to street terrorism.”

Despite the domestic outrage at İmamoğlu’s detention, the international response remained muted. The clearest reaction was ­financial, with estimates that the Turkish central bank spent a record $11.5bn propping up the lira the day after İmamoğlu’s arrest as investors fled and the ­currency plunged in value.

Reactions elsewhere were far less impactful. A spokesperson for the UN secretary general said they hoped “the normal rules for due process will be followed”, while US state ­department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Washington “will not comment on the internal decision-making ­processes of another country”.

US president Donald Trump and Erdoğan spoke by phone just days before İmamoğlu’s arrest amid reports the Turkish leader is seeking a meeting at the White House in the coming months.

US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told rightwing pundit Tucker Carlson in an interview that Trump and Erdoğan’s conversation was “transformational”, adding: “I think there’s just a lot of good, positive news ­coming out of Turkey right now.”

“The international climate has Erdoğan feeling very confident,” said Gönül Tol, an analyst with the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

“The president of the United States is undermining democracy there, meaning the US is looking inward. He just doesn’t care what other foreign autocrats are doing to their people. Those things are really impacting a global climate where autocrats think they can do whatever they want.”

European leaders previously quick to criticise Erdoğan, such as French president Emmanuel Macron, have yet to voice objections to events in Turkey amid expectations they could increasingly look to Ankara to supply peacekeepers in Ukraine.

“With Trump’s return to the White House and his shift towards Russia on Ukraine, the Europeans are panicking and trying to boost defence,” said Tol. “In this climate where Europe feels it has to defend itself against Russia alone, there’s more talk about engaging Erdoğan.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen became the highest-ranking official to offer any criticism, stating Turkey “must protect democratic values, especially the rights of elected officials”.

Soner Cagaptay, a biographer of Erdoğan and an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said such statements were not likely to prompt any change in policy.

“There are unlikely to be any meaningful actions to follow; there will be no sanctions or disinviting Erdoğan to summits, declining to include Turkey in future planning. There will be no concrete repercussions, because of the way Turkey has positioned itself in this new global arena as an important power,” he said.

The CHP is expected to push ahead with declaring İmamoğlu its ­candidate for president this ­weekend, after a symbolic primary vote. Those ­outside city hall were insistent the Istanbul mayor should remain the opposition’s candidate, even if this means his running from prison.

Cagaptay said despite the lack of international criticism, the push to ­nullify İmamoğlu could still ­backfire. Erdoğan was briefly jailed in the 1990s while mayor of Istanbul, ­galvanising his ­support and fuelling his run for national politics.

“He entered jail as a mayor and exited as a national hero,” said Cagaptay.

“Erdoğan is betting this won’t happen [now] due to state capture, his control of institutions and the media, and he’s not worried about international criticism.”

Israel carried out a strike in Tyre, south Lebanon, on Saturday, killing one and wounding seven people and endangering the shaky truce that ended a year-long conflict against Hezbollah, as 40 survivors of Hamas captivity called on the Israeli government to halt the “endless war”.

The strike on a building came after Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes in Lebanon on Saturday, its most intense aerial assault on the country in four months. In total, six people were killed, including a child, and 28 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

In Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian media said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis killed Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas political leader. Pro-Hamas media said the airstrike killed Bardaweel, a member of its political office, and his wife. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

Israel’s Lebanon strikes were its deadliest there since the 27 November ceasefire which had put an end to 13 months of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. The strike on Tyre, in particular, one of the largest cities in south Lebanon and far from the Lebanese border, was a major escalation and threatened to upend the fragile ceasefire agreement.

An Israeli military spokesperson said it had targeted “attack command headquarters, terrorist operatives, missile launchers, and a weapons depot of the terrorist Hezbollah”.

The wave of Israeli airstrikes was triggered by the launching of three rockets from Lebanon by unknown groups, which were intercepted by the Israeli air force.

In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attacks and stressed its commitment to the ceasefire agreement. It added that Israeli claims that it was behind the strikes were “merely a pretext for continued attacks on Lebanon”.

A variety of Palestinian factions, as well as other armed groups, operate in southern Lebanon and not all are under Hezbollah’s command. Both the Israeli military and the Lebanese Ministry of Defence said it was investigating who could have fired the rockets.

The Lebanese army said it found and dismantled what it called three “primitive rocket launchers” in south Lebanon after the rocket fire towards Israel. Pictures released by the army showed fragments of bombs and three wooden posts dug into the earth, seemingly used in the launching of the rockets.

Lebanon’s minister of defence, Michel Menassa, said the country was “continuing its diplomatic, political and military efforts to ensure Lebanon’s sovereignty”.

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, warned of a severe response to the rocket fire, which was shot at the Israeli border village of Metula.

“Metula and Beirut will be treated the same. The Lebanese government is fully responsible for any fire originating from its territory,” Katz said.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has stopped full-scale military hostilities between the two warring parties, though Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Lebanon despite the truce. Israel has maintained that it reserves the right to unilaterally enforce any violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon and has continued to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets across the country.

Hezbollah launched rockets near an Israeli military post in the week after the establishment of the ceasefire, but otherwise has not attacked Israel since. The group has been severely weakened after its war with Israel, with most of its senior leadership dead, thousands of its fighters killed and its weapons stock depleted.

The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, warned on Saturday that renewed military operations in south Lebanon could risk dragging the country back into war and urged the ministry of defence to ensure that the Lebanese state, rather than Hezbollah, decides whether Lebanon goes to war.

Unifil, the UN peacekeeping force that monitors the Israel-Lebanon border, warned against further military escalation that could lead to the ceasefire being broken.

“The situation remains extremely fragile and we encourage both sides to uphold their commitments,” it said in a statement on Saturday.

In Israel, several thousand protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday, blocking key highways across the country in a demonstration against Netanyahu’s government.

The immediate trigger for the anger was the government’s attempt to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency, a move described as an attempt to undermine Israel’s democratic system, but the prime minister’s decision to shatter a two-month-old truce in Gaza with waves of lethal airstrikes has also fuelled the demonstrations.

Forty freed hostages of Hamas captivity and 250 family members of Israeli soldiers and civilians still held in Gaza signed a letter on Friday calling on Netanyahu to halt Israel’s renewed military activities and return to the negotiating table in order to secure the release of the remaining 59 hostages who are still in the territory. In a letter sent to the prime minister, they warned that failure to do so would condemn the living hostages to death.

“This letter was written in blood and tears,” the text reads. ‘‘It was drafted by our friends and families whose loved ones were killed and murdered in captivity and who are crying out: ‘Stop the fighting. Return to the negotiating table and fully complete an agreement that will return all of the hostages, even at the cost of ending the war’.”

The signatories attacked the government for “choosing an endless war over saving and returning the hostages, and by doing that, sacrificing them. This is a criminal policy – you do not have a mandate to sacrifice 59 people.’’

The letter comes as Israel’s defence minister on Friday said he had instructed the military to “seize more ground” in Gaza and threatened to annex part of the territory unless Hamas released Israeli hostages still held in the devastated territory.

Israeli officials have escalated their threats in recent days, calling on Palestinians in Gaza to overthrow Hamas or face the consequences.

“I ordered [the army] to seize more territory in Gaza,” Katz said in a statement. “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”

Gaza’s civil defence agency said more than 500 people had been killed since the bombardment resumed, one of the highest tolls since the war began more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.

A three-phase ceasefire was agreed in January but Israel refused to begin talks on the implementation of a second phase, which was supposed to lead to a return of all hostages, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent end to hostilities.

Instead, Israel proposed a new plan, reportedly put forward by the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, involving a 30- to 60-day truce and the release of all remaining hostages. Israel made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners – a key component of the first phase.

On Saturday, the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, called on Hamas to relinquish power in order to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” Fatah spokesperson Monther al-Hayek said in a message sent to AFP, urging the militant group to “step aside from governing and fully recognise that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians’ existence” if it remains in power in Gaza.

Hamas said on Friday it was still debating Witkoff’s proposal and other proposals made by intermediaries, including Egypt.

The intense fighting comes as Netanyahu is locked in a fierce battle with Israel’s judicial system after the supreme court blocked his attempt to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, who has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media, and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

Amid protests against ministers’ vote to sack Bar, the top court on Friday froze the decision, with the order remaining in place until the court can hear petitions filed by the opposition and an NGO against the dismissal.

Netanyahu said in a post on X that “the government of Israel will decide” who headed the domestic security agency, writing: “The State of Israel is a state of law, and according to the law, the government of Israel decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet.”

About 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, died in the surprise attack by Hamas in October 2023. The ensuing Israeli offensive into Gaza has killed more than 49,000 people, mostly civilians.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a Saturday speech that the decision to fire the country’s domestic security chief Ronen Bar was made before the announcement that Bar was investigating the prime ministry for alleged ties to the Qatari government.

Netanyahu said that he had decided to fire Bar, the director of Shin Bet, after the agency’s report on the 7 October 2023 attack, rather than after it opened its investigation.

“Ronen Bar will not remain head of the Shin Bet. There will not be a civil war, and Israel will remain a democratic state,” said Netanyahu.

Shin Bet has said that it began its investigation into connections between officials in the prime minister’s office and the Qatari government in early February, before the release of the 7 October report. The investigation is looking into allegations that some members of the prime minister’s office, as well as other government agencies, took money to promote the interests of Qatar.

The decision to fire Bar has brought tens of thousands of Israelis to the streets, protesting against what they have said is an attack on the country’s democracy. Demonstrations have also been egged on by the government’s resumptions of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip this week, killing more than 590 people, including 200 children, and upending a two-month truce.

Israel’s supreme court suspended Netanyahu’s decision to fire the domestic intelligence head, which will remain in place until a hearing is held, by 8 April at the latest. The country’s attorney general also said the prime minister cannot appoint a new Shin Bet director.

Netanyahu, in a post on X, said it was his right to fire and appoint agency heads.

“There will be no civil war! The state of Israel is a state of law, and according to the law, the government of Israel decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet,” Netanyahu said. He doubled down in his speech on Saturday, claiming that the government can dismiss the heads of security agencies.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called for a country-wide strike if Netanyahu does not abide by the high court’s decision, claiming doing so would cause the government to be “outside of the law”.

“If that happens, the entire country should stop,” Lapid said to thousands of protesters in Tel Aviv.

The opposition leader’s party condemned the sacking of the Shin Bet head, which it described as being motivated by a conflict of interest.

Netanyahu is on trial in three separate corruption cases, which include charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. Netanyahu was set to testify in his corruption trial on Tuesday, but the court cancelled the hearing after the Israeli military resumed its military operations in Gaza on the same day.

Netanyahu has also sought the dismissal of the country’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, a longtime critic of his. The government is set to meet to begin dismissal procedures against her on Sunday.

Demonstrators also protested against Israel’s renewed military operation in Gaza, demanding instead a deal to release the remaining hostages in Gaza. The ceasefire agreement had previously facilitated a hostage swap for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, as well as the entry of sorely needed aid into Gaza.

In Gaza this weekend, the mood is darker than it has been at perhaps any time in this long, appalling war. Last Tuesday Israeli warplanes, tanks, artillery, drones and ships launched a wave of strikes, shattering the increasingly fragile pause in hostilities that had brought respite to the devastated territory for nearly two months. The ceasefire had also brought hope which, Palestinians in Gaza said, made the return to violence that much more unbearable.

In a video statement last Wednesday, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, called on 2.3 million people in Gaza to “banish Hamas”, saying “the alternative is complete destruction and ruin”.

Two days later, as air strikes continued and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) seized a key strategic corridor that divides Gaza, Katz issued a new ultimatum, this time telling Hamas to give up the 59 hostages it is still holding or “lose more and more land that will be added to Israel”. He said that the IDF would use “all military and civilian pressure, including … implementing US President Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents”.

These last lines were important. A second phase of the ceasefire deal agreed in January was supposed to start three weeks ago and lead to an eventual definitive end to the war. A principal reason for Israel ditching this plan in favour of a 30- to 60-day truce with no such endpoint is that Israel’s most senior policymakers feel not just empowered but even inspired by the new incumbent of the Oval Office.

The Israeli government has adopted Trump’s lexicon of internal enemies. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, last week railed against the leftist deep state that supposedly opposes the will of the Israeli people.

Trump’s loud proposal to displace the entire population in Gaza so it can be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East” has made the previously unspoken desire of many increasingly influential actors in Israel into a project that can be publicly discussed – and even possibly realised in the relative short term.

Katz’s threats echo Trump’s almost word for word. “To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD,” the US president posted earlier this month.

Historians may well see the return of Trump to the White House as the inflection point in this current war.

Its first phase began with the horrors of the October 2023 surprise attack, when 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Hamas militants who attacked communities in southern Israel. Hundreds, young and old, were gunned down in their homes or at a music festival. More than 250 were dragged back into Gaza as hostages.This phase then continued through the first months of the hugely destructive and lethal Israeli reaction. A relentless military offensive killed some 29,000 people within four months. Families were wiped out by single strikes on homes. A tight blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel meant growing shortages of everything from cooking oil to anaesthetics. A single truce lasted 10 days.

A second phase of the war lasted almost a year, with periods of intense and deadly but often localised Israeli military operations. Gaza was plunged into an acute and protracted humanitarian crisis. There were marchers around the world but international outrage had only a marginal effect. Palestinians in the devastated territory survived as best they could, moving from ruined town to crowded tented camps and back to the rubble of their former homes in a desperate bid to avoid missiles, shells, shrapnel and starvation. There was no realistic plan for a “day after”, and few could envisage one.

The pause in hostilities in mid-January, which initially led to a degree of hope, may now be seen as the relative calm before a brutal new phase of the conflict. The threats of Katz, Trump and Netanyahu suggest what is coming next.

General Eyal Zamir, the new chief of staff of the IDF, has told Netanyahu that the only way to achieve Israel’s avowed war aims of destroying Hamas and returning the hostages in Gaza is through massive and completely unrestrained force involving large numbers of troops on the ground, say well-informed Israeli experts. This is what the prime minister and his cabinet, particularly those drawn from Israel’s surging far right, want to hear.

It is also what some Israeli strategic analysts and military experts have been arguing since the start of the war. A year ago, those saying that a military administration of Gaza – with the IDF controlling aid supplies and the population– was inevitable were ignored. But that is not the case now.

The plan to seize much of Gaza and “reorder its space in a more favourable way”, in the words of one Jerusalem-based expert who backs the military administration plan, also matches the thinking of the far right in Israel who see a chance now to at least partially empty Gaza of Palestinians. One way to do this is by making it unliveable and then finding some way to allow inhabitants to leave. There are military and political officials in Israel currently looking at ways of encouraging “legal immigration” – even if, given conditions in Gaza, any migration would almost certainly be illegal under international law.

The wave of air strikes last Tuesday came in a brief 10-minute period just after 2am, and appear to have primarily targeted middle-ranking and some senior Hamas political and military officials, of whom many were at home asleep with their often large families. This explains, to some extent, the apparently high proportion of women and children among the 400 casualties. Israeli officials have spoken of striking 80 “terrorist” targets.

Netanyahu described the wave of strikes as “just a beginning”. The Israeli prime minister has been guilty of speaking many untruths during this war. It is fair to assume this was not one of them.

Pope Francis, who is recovering from pneumonia in both lungs, will be ­discharged from Rome’s Gemelli ­hospital on Sunday, his doctors said.

The pontiff, 88, will return home to Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City on “protected discharge”, and he will need to convalesce for two months, Sergio Alfieri, a general surgeon at Gemelli hospital, told reporters.

The health of Francis, who was admitted to hospital on 14 February and diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and double pneumonia, has been steadily improving over the past two weeks, Alfieri said.

It is unclear at what time the ­pontiff will be discharged, but the Vatican said earlier he would come to the ­window of his hospital room after midday prayers on Sunday to give a ­greeting and blessing. Francis has been seen once since being admitted to hospital, in a photo shared by the Vatican last week in which he was praying in the ­hospital’s chapel.

He suffered several breathing ­crises before his doctors said he was no longer in imminent ­danger, on 10 March. The Vatican said yesterday that his overall health situation remained ­stable, with slight improvements as he continued respiratory and ­physical physiotherapy.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, said yesterday the pope is “doing very well” but the ­high-flow oxygen treatment “dries everything out” and that the pontiff “needs to relearn to speak”.

In early March, the Vatican released a brief audio of Francis thanking well-wishers, with his voice sounding breathless and difficult to understand.

“But his overall physical condition is as it was before,” Fernández said during the presentation of a new book by Francis on poetry.

Fernández added that “a new stage” was opening in the 12-year papacy of Francis and that he expected some ­surprises from the pontiff when he was discharged from hospital.

After his release, Francis would not immediately be able to meet groups of people, medics said. It remains unclear if an audience with King Charles and Queen Camilla, ­scheduled on 8 April, will take place.

Despite his health challenges, on some days Francis has continued to lead the Vatican from his hospital room, including approving individuals for sainthood. Last week, he wrote to the editor of the Corriere della Sera ­newspaper reiterating his appeal for peace and disarmament. “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth,” he wrote.

Francis is prone to lung ­infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed while training to be a priest in his native Argentina.

He has suffered ill health in recent years and has often alluded to resigning if bad health prevents him from doing his job.

Speculation over an ­imminent resignation was vehemently dismissed last week by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Pope Francis, who is recovering from pneumonia in both lungs, will be ­discharged from Rome’s Gemelli ­hospital on Sunday, his doctors said.

The pontiff, 88, will return home to Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City on “protected discharge”, and he will need to convalesce for two months, Sergio Alfieri, a general surgeon at Gemelli hospital, told reporters.

The health of Francis, who was admitted to hospital on 14 February and diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection and double pneumonia, has been steadily improving over the past two weeks, Alfieri said.

It is unclear at what time the ­pontiff will be discharged, but the Vatican said earlier he would come to the ­window of his hospital room after midday prayers on Sunday to give a ­greeting and blessing. Francis has been seen once since being admitted to hospital, in a photo shared by the Vatican last week in which he was praying in the ­hospital’s chapel.

He suffered several breathing ­crises before his doctors said he was no longer in imminent ­danger, on 10 March. The Vatican said yesterday that his overall health situation remained ­stable, with slight improvements as he continued respiratory and ­physical physiotherapy.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, said yesterday the pope is “doing very well” but the ­high-flow oxygen treatment “dries everything out” and that the pontiff “needs to relearn to speak”.

In early March, the Vatican released a brief audio of Francis thanking well-wishers, with his voice sounding breathless and difficult to understand.

“But his overall physical condition is as it was before,” Fernández said during the presentation of a new book by Francis on poetry.

Fernández added that “a new stage” was opening in the 12-year papacy of Francis and that he expected some ­surprises from the pontiff when he was discharged from hospital.

After his release, Francis would not immediately be able to meet groups of people, medics said. It remains unclear if an audience with King Charles and Queen Camilla, ­scheduled on 8 April, will take place.

Despite his health challenges, on some days Francis has continued to lead the Vatican from his hospital room, including approving individuals for sainthood. Last week, he wrote to the editor of the Corriere della Sera ­newspaper reiterating his appeal for peace and disarmament. “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth,” he wrote.

Francis is prone to lung ­infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed while training to be a priest in his native Argentina.

He has suffered ill health in recent years and has often alluded to resigning if bad health prevents him from doing his job.

Speculation over an ­imminent resignation was vehemently dismissed last week by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.

Donald Trump moved to revoke security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and a string of other top Democrats and political enemies in a presidential memo issued late on Friday.

The security-clearance revocations also cover the former secretary of state Antony Blinken, the former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, the former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as Biden’s entire family. They all will no longer have access to classified information – a courtesy typically offered to former presidents and some officials after they have left public service.

“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump wrote. He said he would also “direct all executive department and agency heads to revoke unescorted access to secure United States government facilities from these individuals”.

Earlier this month, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, announced that she had revoked the clearances and blocked several of the people named in Trump’s memo, along with “the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden disinformation letter” – referring to former intelligence agency officials who asserted that the notorious Hunter Biden laptop, which was discovered before the 2020 election, was likely a Russian disinformation campaign.

Trump’s decision to remove Biden from intelligence briefings is a counterstrike against his Democrat political opponent, who had banned Trump from accessing classified documents in 2021, saying the then ex-president could not be trusted because of his “erratic behavior”.

Earlier this week, Trump announced he was pulling Secret Service protections for Biden’s children, Hunter and Ashley, “effective immediately”, after it was claimed that 18 agents had been assigned to the former president’s son for a trip to South Africa and 13 to daughter Ashley.

More broadly, the security-clearance revocations issued on Friday appear to correlate with a cherrypicked list of the president’s political enemies, including the New York attorney general, Letitia James, and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, both of whom prosecuted Trump during the Biden era.

Others on the list include Fiona Hill, a foreign policy expert who testified against Trump during his first impeachment about her boss’s alleged scheme to withhold military aid to Ukraine as a way of pressuring its president to investigate the Bidens; Alexander Vindman, a lieutenant colonel who also testified at the hearings; and Norman Eisen, a lawyer who oversaw that impeachment.

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans who served on the committee investigating the January 6 US Capitol riots, were also added to the list. Trump said the information ban “includes, but is not limited to, receipt of classified briefings, such as the President’s daily brief, and access to classified information held by any member of the intelligence community”.

The move comes as NBC News reported that former president Biden and and his wife, Jill Biden, had volunteered to help fundraise for and help to rebuild the Democratic party after the stinging defeat of Biden’s nominated successor, Kamala Harris, in November.

According to the network, Biden made the proffer last month when he met the new Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, but the offer had not been embraced.

An NBC News poll published last weekend found the Democratic party’s popularity has dropped to a record low – only 27% of registered voters said they held positive views of the party. On Friday, Trump was asked about the prospect of Biden re-entering the political arena. “I hope so,” he responded.

Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to new data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off.

The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.

In December, the prime minister announced a series of new ­“milestones” that he said would be passed before the next general ­election, which is likely to be held in 2029. The first of these was “putting more money in the pockets of ­working people”.

But with many Labour MPs already deeply concerned over Reeves’s plan to raise about £5bn by cutting ­benefits, including for disabled ­people, evidence that living standards are on course to fall markedly under a Labour government – and to decline most for the least well off – will add to the mood of growing disquiet in party’s ranks.

The JRF analysis rests on a ­realistic assumption that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will adjust its forecasts in line with the Bank of England and other main forecasters when it makes them public on Wednesday. The OBR is expected to halve the expected growth rate for this year from 2% to about 1%.

In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

Comparing 2030 with 2025, it said the average mortgage holder is set to pay about £1,400 more in ­mortgage interest annually and the average renter about £300 more in rent a year, while average earnings are set to fall by £700 a year. The JRF said the poorest third are being disproportionately affected by rising housing costs, falling real earnings and frozen tax thresholds.

Alfie Stirling, director of insight and policy at JRF, said further cuts were not the way to reverse the trend of falling living standards. Instead, he argued, Reeves should consider raising tax for the wealthiest.

“There is no doubt the government is facing an unenviable list of economic pressures and uncertainties, ranging from the domestic to the international. But how you manage these risks is a matter of political choice..

“It is wrong, and ultimately counterproductive, to try and rebuild the public finances through cuts to disability benefits. Instead, government should be addressing hardship and raising living standards directly, as part of their strategy for growth.

“Fiscal pressures should be met through tax reform. There are a number of options to raise revenue from those with the broadest shoulders, while also supporting growth by removing perverse incentives in the tax system and staying within the government’s manifesto commitments.”

Earlier last week a group of leading economists wrote to the Financial Times warning that it would be a “profound mistake” for ministers to cut spending or investment, adding that “the UK cannot cut its way to growth”.

Several areas of unprotected government spending such as prisons, justice and local government – the last of which has already seen real terms cuts of over 45% since 2010 – are likely to be in line for further cuts on Wednesday, casting doubt on Starmer’s claim that is not returning the country to austerity.

In her budget last October, Reeves left herself with £9.9bn of “fiscal headroom” – in effect, spare money in reserve – to allow her to meet her fiscal rule that says day-to-day spending must be matched by revenue coming into the Treasury.

But higher-than-expected borrowing costs on global markets, leading to higher debt interest payments, and lower than expected growth have wiped away that leeway, leaving her needing to find ways to restore the finances through raising money or cutting expenditure or both.

Local government leaders are among those most anxiously awaiting Wednesday’s statement, which they fear could reduce what they receive and tip more councils into bankruptcy, leaving them all straining more to fund key services for the most vulnerable such as social care.

Councillor Louise Gittins, chair of the Local Government Association, said that “without adequate investment now, we risk not being able to deliver crucial services that so many depend upon and our desire to help government fulfil its ambitions for the future are severely hindered”.

With ministers struggling to manage the economy, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows the damage being done to Labour’s reputation from its economic stewardship after eight months in power.

No single party leader is now trusted on the economy, Opinium found. However, Starmer (-32%) and Reeves (-38%) are the most distrusted, with the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, all rated similarly on -22%, -23% and -24% respectively.

While most voters say they do not trust any party on economic issues, the Tories are now marginally more favoured than Labour to run the economy and “improve your financial situation”.

Ministers will announce plans on Sunday to spend £600m on 60,000 more construction workers to help build more homes and revive economic growth.

Reeves said: “We are determined to get Britain building again, that’s why we are taking on the blockers to build 1.5m new homes and rebuild our roads, rail and energy infrastructure.

“But none of this is possible without the engineers, brickies, sparkies, and chippies to actually get the work done, which we are facing a massive shortage of.”

“We’ve overhauled the planning system that is holding this country back, now we are gripping the lack of skilled construction workers, delivering on our plan for change to boost jobs and growth for working people.”

A Treasury spokesperson said: “Real wages are rising at the highest level in six months, but this government inherited the worst living standards growth since ONS [Office for National Statistics] records began.

“We are clear that getting more money in people’s pockets is the No 1 mission in our plan for change. Since the election, there have been three interest rate cuts, we have increased the national living wage by a record amount, the triple lock on pensions means that millions will see their state pension rise by up to £1,900 this parliament and working people’s payslips have been protected from high taxes.”

People who develop type 2 diabetes face an increased risk of some of the most lethal cancers, including liver and pancreatic tumours, with the greatest rises in women, research suggests.

The analysis of health records from 95,000 people found that the risk of pancreatic cancer was nearly twice as high, and the chance of developing liver cancer almost five times as high, in women recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The chances of developing the cancers rose in men too, with new-onset type 2 diabetes linked to a 74% increase in pancreatic cancer and a near quadrupling in the risk of liver cancer in the five years afterwards.

A smaller effect was seen for bowel cancer, with the risk of the disease 34% higher in women and 27% higher in men with new-onset type 2 diabetes compared with people without a recent diabetes diagnosis.

“Diabetes and obesity are associated with similar cancer types,” said Owen Tipping, a medical student who worked on the study with Andrew Renehan, professor of cancer studies and surgery at the University of Manchester. “Our research was detecting the effect of diabetes on cancer, after adjusting for obesity.”

Previous studies have linked obesity with 13 types of cancer, many of which are also more common in people with type 2 diabetes. But researchers have struggled to work out whether diabetes itself raises the risk of some or all of the cancers.

For the latest study, the Manchester group turned to the UK Biobank which holds medical and lifestyle data on half a million people. They examined the records of 23,750 people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes and compared them with more than 70,000 matched controls without diabetes.

There tends to be a surge in cancer diagnoses shortly after people are found to have diabetes, simply because patients have more medical tests. The researchers accounted for this spike in cancer due to better detection by ignoring cases reported within a year of a diabetes diagnosis.

According to the study, after five years the risk of any obesity-related cancer was 48% higher for men recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than for those without the condition. For women, the risk was 24% higher in those with a recent diabetes diagnosis.

Not all obesity-related cancers rose with diabetes, however. Women with diabetes were no more likely to develop endometrial cancer or post-menopausal breast cancer than those without, according to the study which will be presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Málaga, Spain, in May.

Across the population, the lifetime risks for liver and pancreatic cancer are higher for men than women. In the UK, one in 76 men and one in 130 women will develop liver cancer, while one in 55 men and one in 59 women will get pancreatic cancer.

Tipping said it was too early to know whether people with diabetes would benefit from cancer screening, but added: “We know with pancreatic cancer that it’s important to detect it early.”

It is unclear how diabetes might drive cancer, but scientists suspect high levels of insulin, high blood glucose and chronic inflammation. The sex differences may be driven by hormone levels, how sensitive the body is to the effects of insulin or variations in body fat.

Sophia Lowes at Cancer Research UK said: “This study helps increase our understanding of the link between diabetes and cancer. While many questions remain about how and why diabetes might cause cancer, research like this is vital in helping us better prevent, detect and diagnose the disease.

“Overweight and obesity cause at least 13 different types of cancer. The world around us doesn’t always make it easy, but keeping a healthy weight and eating a healthy, balanced diet is one way to reduce the risk of cancer. There are other steps people can take too, such as not smoking and cutting down on alcohol.”

People who develop type 2 diabetes face an increased risk of some of the most lethal cancers, including liver and pancreatic tumours, with the greatest rises in women, research suggests.

The analysis of health records from 95,000 people found that the risk of pancreatic cancer was nearly twice as high, and the chance of developing liver cancer almost five times as high, in women recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The chances of developing the cancers rose in men too, with new-onset type 2 diabetes linked to a 74% increase in pancreatic cancer and a near quadrupling in the risk of liver cancer in the five years afterwards.

A smaller effect was seen for bowel cancer, with the risk of the disease 34% higher in women and 27% higher in men with new-onset type 2 diabetes compared with people without a recent diabetes diagnosis.

“Diabetes and obesity are associated with similar cancer types,” said Owen Tipping, a medical student who worked on the study with Andrew Renehan, professor of cancer studies and surgery at the University of Manchester. “Our research was detecting the effect of diabetes on cancer, after adjusting for obesity.”

Previous studies have linked obesity with 13 types of cancer, many of which are also more common in people with type 2 diabetes. But researchers have struggled to work out whether diabetes itself raises the risk of some or all of the cancers.

For the latest study, the Manchester group turned to the UK Biobank which holds medical and lifestyle data on half a million people. They examined the records of 23,750 people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes and compared them with more than 70,000 matched controls without diabetes.

There tends to be a surge in cancer diagnoses shortly after people are found to have diabetes, simply because patients have more medical tests. The researchers accounted for this spike in cancer due to better detection by ignoring cases reported within a year of a diabetes diagnosis.

According to the study, after five years the risk of any obesity-related cancer was 48% higher for men recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than for those without the condition. For women, the risk was 24% higher in those with a recent diabetes diagnosis.

Not all obesity-related cancers rose with diabetes, however. Women with diabetes were no more likely to develop endometrial cancer or post-menopausal breast cancer than those without, according to the study which will be presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Málaga, Spain, in May.

Across the population, the lifetime risks for liver and pancreatic cancer are higher for men than women. In the UK, one in 76 men and one in 130 women will develop liver cancer, while one in 55 men and one in 59 women will get pancreatic cancer.

Tipping said it was too early to know whether people with diabetes would benefit from cancer screening, but added: “We know with pancreatic cancer that it’s important to detect it early.”

It is unclear how diabetes might drive cancer, but scientists suspect high levels of insulin, high blood glucose and chronic inflammation. The sex differences may be driven by hormone levels, how sensitive the body is to the effects of insulin or variations in body fat.

Sophia Lowes at Cancer Research UK said: “This study helps increase our understanding of the link between diabetes and cancer. While many questions remain about how and why diabetes might cause cancer, research like this is vital in helping us better prevent, detect and diagnose the disease.

“Overweight and obesity cause at least 13 different types of cancer. The world around us doesn’t always make it easy, but keeping a healthy weight and eating a healthy, balanced diet is one way to reduce the risk of cancer. There are other steps people can take too, such as not smoking and cutting down on alcohol.”

An Orthodox Jewish passenger says a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom while he was experiencing constipation, exposing his genitalia to other flyers during a flight from Tulum, Mexico, to Houston.

Yisroel Liebb, of New Jersey, described his trip through allegedly unfriendly skies in a federal lawsuit this week against the airline and the US Department of Homeland Security, whose officers he said boarded the plane upon landing and took him away in handcuffs.

Liebb and a fellow Orthodox Jewish traveler said they were forced to miss a connecting flight to New York City while US Customs and Border Protection officers paraded them through an airport terminal, placed them in holding cells and searched their luggage.

“CBP Officers responded to reports of a disturbance on a flight at the request of the airline,” said Hilton Beckham, the CBP assistant commissioner for public affairs. “Due to the ongoing litigation, we are unable to provide any further comment.”

United Airlines declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left for a lawyer representing Liebb and the other traveler, Jacob Sebbag.

In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, Liebb said he had been in the bathroom in the back of the plane for about 20 minutes on 28 January when a flight attendant woke Sebbag from a nap and asked Sebbag to check on him.

Liebb said he explained his gastrointestinal predicament and assured Sebbag that he would be out soon. Sebbag then relayed that to the flight attendant, the lawsuit says.

About 10 minutes later, with Liebb still indisposed, the pilot approached Sebbag and asked him to check on Liebb, the lawsuit says. The pilot then yelled at Liebb to leave the bathroom immediately, the lawsuit says.

Liebb said he told the pilot that he was finishing up and would be out momentarily.

The pilot responded by breaking the lock, forcing the bathroom door open and pulling Liebb out with his pants still around his ankles, exposing his genitalia to Sebbag, flight attendants and nearby passengers, according to the lawsuit.

“The pilot became visibly enraged, broke the lock on the door and forced the door to the bathroom open, pulling Liebb out of the bathroom with his pants still around his ankles, exposing his genitalia to Sebbag, several flight attendants, and the nearby passengers on the plane,” the lawsuit said.

It added that Lieb said he felt “sexually violated and embarrassed after having been publicly exposed in the nude”.

“With Sebbag leading Liebb, the pilot proceeded to repeatedly push the [two] back to their seats while making threats of getting [them] arrested and making scathing remarks about their Judaism, and how ‘Jews act’,” the lawsuit continued.

After the two-hour flight landed in Houston, the men said about a half-dozen Customs and Border Protection officers boarded and escorted them off the plane.

Liebb said when he asked why they were being detained, an officer tightened his handcuffs and responded: “This isn’t county or state. We are homeland. You have no rights here.”

The men said United booked them on a flight to New York City the next day for free, but any savings from the complementary tickets were lost because they had to pay for an overnight hotel stay and food during their delay.

The two men said that the handcuffs caused “severe wrist pain” that “persisted for days afterwards”.

Maya Yang contributed to this report.

Jim Ratcliffe, the co-owner of Manchester United, has been challenged over the proposed use of hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds to deliver his vision of building the “world’s greatest stadium”.

Ratcliffe, who has an estimated fortune of about £12bn, quit the UK for tax-free Monaco in 2020. He is now urging ministers to help support the club’s vision of the stadium with public funds to regenerate the surrounding area.

The club has claimed the project – eagerly backed by ministers as part of a growth agenda – could help deliver a £7.3bn annual boost to the UK economy by 2039. However, the stadium only provides a fraction of this sum, with a large tranche of public funds required to secure the venture.

Graham Stringer, a Labour MP and former leader of Manchester city council, hit out at the project last week, describing it on the website Confidentials Manchester as a “tax exile’s half-baked, misbegotten scheme”.

Speaking to the Observer, Stringer, a United season ticket holder, said: “The stadium doesn’t happen without public funds. Any representations to local or central government for public money to go into this scheme should be refused.”

He said the money could be used more effectively in other parts of Greater Manchester and it was “outrageous” that Ratcliffe was pushing the government for public funds to help increase the value of his business.

Ratcliffe, chair of the petrochemicals company Ineos, agreed a deal in December 2023 to buy a minority stake in United worth about £1.25bn. He extended his shareholdings last year, now owning almost 29% of the club.

The businessman, who was born seven miles up the A62 in Failsworth, Oldham, has used his fortune to back a string of sports teams, including the Ineos Britannia sailing team trying to win the America’s Cup and Ineos Grenadiers, one of the world’s most successful cycling teams.

It was reported in 2019 that less than a year after he was knighted for services to business and investment, Ratcliffe was planning to avoid up to £4bn in tax by switching his residence and fortune to Monaco. Ratcliffe has responded that he employs thousands of people in the UK and contributes hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy.

The Glazer family, who made their fortune from shopping centres in the US, still control the majority of voting rights at United. Ineos, meanwhile, is in charge of sporting operations at the club.

Since becoming co-owner, Ratcliffe has presided over approximately 450 job cuts at the club and other cost savings, including closing down the staff canteen at Old Trafford. He warned this month that United would have been “bust at Christmas” without these measures.

Despite the financial struggles and the team languishing in 13th place in the Premier League table, Ratcliffe revealed this month that the club was backing plans for the 100,000-capacity stadium close to the Old Trafford ground. He said that the proposed £2bn stadium – the centrepiece of a new regeneration project – would become a destination like the Eiffel Tower in Paris.The project envisages a vast canopy spanning the stadium and a public plaza twice the size of Trafalgar Square. The architect Foster + Partners, appointed by the club to develop the master plan for the scheme, said the stadium will overlook a “mixed-use miniature city of the future”.

A report commissioned by United claimed the project could deliver an additional £7.3bn to the UK’s economy each year. The stadium itself would, however, only contribute an extra £243m a year to the local economy by these calculations, compared with the current Old Trafford ground.

Tony Syme, head of finance and economics at Salford University, said: “The overwhelming majority of economic impact comes from the regeneration, not the stadium itself.” He added that the biggest investment was likely to be from public funds required to prepare the site, create public amenities and build the infrastructure.

The scheme has won the support of key backers, including Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, and Sebastian Coe, who chaired the Old Trafford regeneration taskforce, which investigated the options for the club’s home ground and infrastructure.

Burnham has insisted no public funds will be used for the construction of the stadium, but has been lobbying for government funding for the wider regeneration scheme and site preparation. The construction of a new stadium would require the relocation of an adjacent rail freight hub at a cost of between £200m and £300m.The area surrounding the stadium, which is part of a growth area in Manchester known as the Western Gateway, would also be eligible for public funding. It is intended the use of public funds would help “pump-prime” private sector investment.Waseem Hassan, a Labour party councillor for Old Trafford, said he fully supported the project, but residents also wanted the club to contribute to the community. He said: “It needs to happen because we need regeneration in the north. We are asking the club to contribute to schools, infrastructure and the environment. ”

A Greater Manchester Combined Authority spokesperson said: “The Old Trafford regeneration scheme represents the biggest sports-led regeneration scheme since the London 2012 Olympics. As was the case in London, public sector funding can help to unlock sites and deliver infrastructure, enabling massive private sector investment. Public money would not be used to build a new stadium.”

A spokesperson for Trafford council said: “This is a once-in-a-generation chance to totally transform Old Trafford and the surrounding area.

“It will breathe new life into the region with the creation of tens of thousands of new jobs and much- needed new homes being built.

“The next step will see us shortly appointing a team of consultants to devise a strategic master plan to map out how the regeneration project will look.”

United declined to comment.

There was anticipation on Oxford Street in London as the Sex Pistols rocked the 100 Club for the first time in more than half a century, playing classic tunes for a crowd of creaking punks.

In a hot and sweaty venue, which harkened back to the band’s glory days, they darted on stage like squaddies on a march, to roars from the audience. They were celebrated by stars and superfans such as Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and the Jam frontman, Paul Weller.

Band members in attendance included the guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock, minus John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, who unsuccessfully tried to block the band using songs in a Disney+ series about their story, called Pistol.

The former Gallows and Rattlesnakes lead singer Frank Carter filled in for Rotten as he has done since Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited in 2024 for a series of shows at Bush Hall.

The 100 Club is also the venue where the late bass player Sid Vicious was alleged to have whipped the NME journalist Nick Kent with a bicycle chain and where Vicious was arrested for leaving a girl blind in one eye after hurling a glass that shattered.

The quartet opened with Holidays In The Sun, which was met with clouds of beer mist unleashed from flying plastic cups as a sea of hands reached up towards the musicians. After the Pistols performed a version of New York, Carter asked the crowd: “How many of you lot were here the first time?” After a roar from the crowd, he shouted: “It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be here with these legends tonight.” He then joked: “Right, who wants to call it there?”

Jones then launched into the strings of Pretty Vacant. The crowd was reaching fever pitch. Then, Bodies sent them over the top, singing “I’m not an animal” from the chorus in unison. Matlock and Jones shared a microphone to belt out the lyrics while Carter scaled the top of the 100 Club.

God Save The Queen, a song which prompted major controversy on its release during Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee in 1977, transported the older audience members back to their younger days as they bopped like they were in their 20s again.

As they finished their main set, Carter told the crowd: “Five fucking decades later, and they’re back,” before teasing: “Five decades, and that’s all you’ve got?”

The Pistols closed with a rendition of EMI and Anarchy In The UK, prompting the crowd to surge to the front. Carter saw off a possible stage invasion by hurling himself from the stage into the crowd. Afterwards, he remarked: “Oh fuck, I forgot you’re all fucking 60.”

The group will perform on Monday for a gig at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.