To the unsuspecting onlooker, it would appear that Sir Keir Starmer is running a rather slick operation. 

With his Cabinet appointed and his Downing Street team in place, a steady drumbeat of Government announcements has dominated the news agenda this week.

But just over a week into the new regime, tensions are bubbling under the surface. Allies of Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, fear she is being “frozen out” and believe she is already being unfairly stripped of responsibilities.

Ms Rayner, directly elected by Labour members as Deputy PM and therefore unsackable, has already been identified as the biggest potential threat to Sir Keir’s authority.

The darling of the Left, she has her own power base within the party and is particularly popular among those who, like her, have come up through the ranks from the trade union movement.

A Savanta poll earlier this month showed she was by far the most popular choice among Labour voters to succeed Sir Keir. She has a powerful mandate from the membership, having been elected deputy in 2020 with more than twice as many votes in the final round as Rosena Allin-Khan, her nearest rival.

However, friends of Ms Rayner are growing concerned that her authority is being gradually and subtly undermined.

While in opposition, she had been leading one of Labour’s flagship policies, the new deal for working people, which promises to boost wages and give workers more rights.

But it is now Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, whose department will take the lead. “This probably means that the new deal will get killed off as Jonny Reynolds will want to do what is best for business, not what is best for the unions – it will be a clash,” said one Labour source.

According to party insiders, there is now growing speculation that Ms Rayner is also set to have the planning brief taken away from her after Rachel Reeves made it the focus of her first major speech as Chancellor.

“Angela has been frozen out of everything. She was sitting in the front row of a speech about her own department,” said a source.

Others point to the fact that many of Ms Rayner’s shadow cabinet team were overlooked when it came to getting jobs in the Government. 

Mike Amesbury, Paula Barker and Flo Eshalomi, close allies and members of her shadow housing team, have been relegated to the backbenches. Matt Pennycook and Jim McMahon, also members of her shadow team, have been appointed as ministers in her department.

Friends of Ms Rayner are urging her to “get out there” more and take ownership of her brief. One said: “Everyone has been looking busy – Wes, Ed and Rachel have all been out there doing things. Within a few days, she is already being frozen out of stuff, having parts of her brief taken off her – it is not a great start.”

Wes Streeting used his first day as Health Secretary to declare that the NHS is “broken” and this would be his department’s official policy. He went on to hold a first round of talks with the British Medical Association, aimed at breaking the deadlock on junior doctor strikes.

Meanwhile, Ms Reeves chose the Churchill Room at the Treasury, where the creation of the NHS was announced, to deliver her maiden speech as Chancellor, and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has spent the past few days implementing a ban on North Sea oil and setting up a new net zero task force.

One issue said to be hampering Ms Rayner is that the office of the Deputy Prime Minister has not yet been defined. Nick Parrott, her chief of staff, was not able to get hold of Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s powerful chief of staff, to discuss it before election day.

But John McTernan, who was political secretary to Sir Tony Blair from 2005 to 2007, said that this should not pose a problem for her.

“Angela has got the position in the party with its own mandate and a position in the Cabinet of Deputy Prime Minister,” he said. “She has the relationships with the powerhouses at the centre of the operation – Keir, Rachel and Ed – and if you look at her department, she is at the heart of Labour’s growth agenda.”

The Telegraph understands Ms Rayner is happy with her team of ministers and will still remain closely involved with the  new deal.

Meanwhile, a restructure at Labour’s campaign headquarters, which was meant to take place last week, has been delayed because David Evans, the party’s general secretary, has been unable to get the green light from Ms Gray.

“David was meant to be overseeing this but can’t start it as he hasn’t had a steer from Sue Gray about what the structure of Downing Street will look like,” said a Labour source. “He is blowing up because Sue Gray isn’t answering the phone to him.”

While some staff have been offered plum jobs in either Downing Street or government departments, dozens of others are now left in limbo. Anyone hired on a general election contract is now officially working out their notice, which was triggered on polling day.

A Labour source said: “Following the election, many members of the team have moved into government roles, meaning changes to the HQ operation. This will allow the party to support the Government on delivering its mission of national renewal.

“The restructure of the Downing Street operation has moved at pace. It would not be correct to say that this has caused frustration for senior personnel in the party.”

Police investigating the deaths of two men whose remains were found in two suitcases on the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol have arrested a man.

The 34-year-old man was arrested in the Bristol area in the early hours of Saturday following a joint operation by the Metropolitan Police and Avon and Somerset Police.

Armed officers arrested him at the city’s Temple Meads railway station. He is due to be taken from Bristol to London, where he will be questioned by detectives later on Saturday.

The development comes hours after more human remains were found at a property in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. Detectives confirmed that they belonged to the same two men whose remains were found in Bristol.

The Shepherd’s Bush property was raided on Friday as officers smashed down the door and cordoned off the street while forensics officers conducted searches. A police helicopter circled overhead for much of the day.

On Saturday afternoon, investigators in blue forensic suits, wearing masks and gloves, could be seen working behind the cordon. One took photographs of the area, while other investigators worked near a set of bins outside an estate just off Scotts Road. Three police vehicles were used to block the view from beyond the cordon.

Dept Asst Commissioner Andy Valentine, of Scotland Yard, said: “This is a significant development in our investigation, and I would like to thank the public for their support.

“We understand the concerns of local communities in both Bristol and London, and officers will remain in the Clifton and Shepherd’s Bush areas over the coming days to reassure those affected by this tragic incident. Anyone with any concerns is encouraged to speak with them.”

Police said they were not looking for anyone else. Earlier, they had released a photograph and named a suspect they were seeking in connection with the grim discovery, which was made shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Yostin Andres Mosquera, a 34-year-old Colombian national, was being sought as police released images thought to be of him and taken close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

He was believed to have travelled to Bristol from London in a vehicle in which he was not the driver. He was picked up in a taxi outside a pub in Clifton, an affluent area in the west of the city.

It is thought he then made a short journey from outside the pub to the other side of the bridge, which connects Bristol with Leigh Woods in North Somerset.

The manhunt began at 11.57pm on Wednesday, when police received reports of a man seen “acting suspiciously” near the Bristol bridge. Officers arrived within 10 minutes but the man had left the scene, leaving a suitcase behind. A second suitcase was found nearby a short time later.

Both were found to contain human remains. One post-mortem examination has been carried out, which proved “inconclusive”, police said. A second remains ongoing. The victims have not yet been formally identified, but both are believed to be adult men, detectives have said.

A 36-year-old man arrested on Friday in Greenwich, south London, in connection with the investigation has since been released without charge.

Tourists in Crete were forced to wade into the sea and throw their backpacks on board a ferry after locals reportedly banned the use of a floating platform.

A line of tourists can be seen bobbing along with the help of a rope from the shore in Balos beach to the waiting ferry.

Many can be seen desperately trying to hold their belongings above water before having to throw it to others to catch onboard.

The ferry had stopped at the picturesque lagoon as part of a sightseeing trip and was due to go to the town of Kissamos when the tourists were ordered to disembark and reboard through the water. The reason behind the passengers having to disembark the ferry is unclear.

One American tourist told local news website zarpanaws it was an “unacceptable situation”.

“People have to walk through neck-deep water to reach the edge of the sea. Elderly people are unable to walk,” they said.

Giorgos Mylonakis, the mayor of Kissamos, said the platform had been removed by mistake but has since been repositioned and “the situation is better”.

“It’s not only a matter of safety, but also of the visitors’ general experience. Balos is one of the most beautiful places in Greece and we must ensure the best possible experience for everyone,” he told broadcaster ERT.

John Hunt, the BBC racing commentator, has said the trauma suffered by his family after the murders of his wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise “cannot be put into words”.

In a statement released on Saturday morning, Mr Hunt said he and Amy, his surviving daughter, were grateful for the support of their community, but that “the devastation that we are experiencing cannot be put into words”.

Just over four days after his 61-year-old wife and his daughters, 28 and 25, died after being attacked with a crossbow in their home in Bushey, Herts, Mr Hunt said he and Amy were going through “an extremely difficult time”. Carol, Hannah and Louise died on Tuesday evening.

The statement, released through Hertforshire Police, said: “We would like to thank people for their kind messages and for the support we have received in recent days. These have provided great comfort to us, for which we are very grateful.

“As you can imagine, this is an extremely difficult time for us and we need time and space to come to terms with what has happened and start the grieving process.”

Kyle Clifford, from Enfield, north London, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder after being found with a wound to his chest at a cemetery close to his home on Wednesday afternoon. Police said Clifford, a former soldier and security guard, remains in a serious condition in hospital.

On Friday evening, more than 200 mourners paid their respects to the victims at a church service.

The pews of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St John the Evangelist Church, in Bushey High Street, were full for the vigil for Mrs Hunt and her daughters. Alex Klein, Hannah’s partner, was seen being comforted by attendees.

Father Jim McNicholas thanked friends and relatives of the Hunt family for coming to the “wonderful expression of communal love and caring”.

He said: “It is a good example to remember that no matter how dark things are, no matter how evil or bad, the light of love always displaces that darkness.”

The parish priest said that people with “goodness” in their life were “hostage to those whose lives are not”, adding: “The Hunt family have had to pay the terrible price for someone whose life and choices were not.”

Mr Klein had earlier posted a picture of himself and Hannah on Instagram, with the message: “RIP the love of my life, I will never forget you, stolen from me too soon. The brightest light in my life. My brave queen for life. Until we meet again… I love you Hansy.”

Shabbat prayers were also said for the Hunt family at Bushey Synagogue. Elchonon Feldman, the senior rabbi, said the local Jewish community was “in a state of shock and mourning at the brutal attack and murder of three innocent Bushey residents”.

He added: “It will certainly take time to comprehend that such a tragedy took place in our midst, but in the first instance we stand together in sorrow and prayer with all family and friends who are grieving at this time of immense loss.”

Flowers continued to be left at the scene of the murders in Ashlyn Close, with notes bearing messages attached to some of the bouquets.

The Princess of Wales will attend the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon on Sunday, Kensington Palace has confirmed.

The Princess, 42, is patron of the All England Lawn and Tennis Club (AELTC) and will present the trophy tomorrow, as she has done since 2016.

Her attendance will come almost a month after she took part in Trooping the Colour in her first public appearance since she revealed she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

In a statement released on June 14, the Princess revealed that she hoped to “join a few public engagements over the summer” if she feels able, but that there were “good days and bad days” during her chemotherapy.

She also said ahead of the King’s official birthday parade that her treatment would continue for “a few more months” after she initially revealed her cancer diagnosis in March.

The news that she will attend the men’s final on Sunday will have been welcomed by the AELTC, of which she has been patron for the last eight years.

The All England Club has historically shared a strong relationship with the Royal family, with 10 royals having presented the trophies since Prince George (later King George V) became the club’s first president in 1907.

It is understood that during informal discussions the Duchess of Gloucester was a potential replacement if the Princess of Wales could not attend.

It comes as the Princess Royal returned to royal duties after head injuries caused by a horse nearly three weeks ago that resulted in a five-night stay in hospital.

The Prince and Princess of Wales took to their official social channels to congratulate her return.

Princess Anne, 73, revealed that she “can’t remember a single thing” about it.

It marked the first step in a “phased return” to public duty with a visit to one of her treasured charities, the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA), which was hosting its annual national championships.

Some bruising was visible on the Princess’s cheek as she arrived at the equine centre of Hartpury University in Gloucestershire and the long-planned engagement was condensed from two hours to one in light of her ongoing recovery.

Helena Vega Lozano, the chairman of RDA UK, said: “It’s a huge honour for the Princess to come to the RDA as her only event since the accident.

“As soon as she got out of the car she said: ‘I can’t remember a single thing about it’.”

The Princess was concussed after apparently being kicked in the head by a horse while walking on her Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire on June 23.

The exact circumstances of the incident remain unknown as Princess Anne was unable to recall what had happened and there were no witnesses.

Five-year-old Navy Joan Roberts grins as she charges out of her bedroom while proudly cradling a postcard of Joe Biden.

When she visited Washington DC last month, her mother told her she could choose anything she wanted from the White House gift shop.

But rather than picking out a board game, puzzle or soft toy of the president’s dog, Navy chose a headshot of the smiling US president to keep in a birdhouse in her bedroom.

It might seem an unusual choice, but Mr Biden, 81, is more to this little blue-eyed girl with soft blonde curls from rural Arkansas than just the head of state – he is her grandfather.

The president is a relative Navy “wholeheartedly yearns” to meet, according to her mother.

“She wants a connection with him so bad”, Lunden Roberts, 33, says from their home in Batesville, while Navy plays with her Barbies in her bedroom.

For years the Bidens refused to acknowledge Navy, who was conceived in the midst of her father Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine addiction.

It stings when Ms Roberts sees the other grandchildren gathered on Air Force One, or when they were embraced by Mr Biden during his inauguration.

“Those are things that children don’t get to do in their lifetime, and she’s of the bloodline and still doesn’t get that chance”, Ms Roberts says, looking down to fiddle with her rings.

“You’re a president that runs on a campaign that talks about embracing people for who they are… well this little girl is Biden blood and you’ve not embraced her, but you can embrace everybody else in the country, and that’s not fair.”

The daughter of Rob Roberts, a gun manufacturer who has gone hunting with Donald Trump Jr, Ms Roberts had an upbringing that could not be further from Hunter’s.

While he was the son of a then rising star of the Democrats in leafy Delaware, she grew up deep in the Republican Bible Belt shooting turkeys and alligators with a hot pink rifle.

After falling in love with the east coast on a school trip, Ms Roberts moved to Washington DC to study crime scene investigation after abandoning her basketball career.

She met Hunter in late 2016 when she and a friend were invited to an after party at his Rosemont Seneca office in the Swedish Embassy.

The former vice president’s son was smoking crack in a pair of boxers covered in parrots. The pair embarked on a yearlong entanglement during which Ms Roberts claims they both professed their love to one another, although she says now he may not have meant it.

In her memoir, Out of the Shadows, which will be released next month, Ms Roberts, 33, details everything from watching Hunter dance on a pole in the gentlemen’s club where she worked, to whisking her off to his father’s Virginia home with his sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden – and then there was the time he scarred her by dropping a crack pipe on her chest.

Ms Roberts, who says she has been described as the Meghan Markle of the Bidens, describes her time with the first son as an “adventure” peppered with “scary” moments such as when he nearly overdosed in her arms in a suite in the Rosewood Hotel.

“When you were with him you were proud”, she said. “He didn’t come across like one of the junkies on the street … he was brilliant.”

After meeting Hunter, Ms Roberts shed her ruby red GOP sympathies and became what she describes as a “mainstream Arkansas Democrat”.

The only time she saw Joe Biden in the flesh was through a window at Beau Biden’s former Delaware home during the time of her affair with Hunter.

Hunter had taken an intoxicated Ms Roberts, who had turned up at his home after a night out, to his late brother’s home on the eve of the anniversary of the car crash that killed his mother Neilia and sister Naomi. Hunter and Beau had also been in the car but survived with multiple broken bones.

At around 10am on the day of the memorial service, Ms Roberts heard someone knocking on the door. She watched through a window as Mr Biden, dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, looked crestfallen as he spoke to his drug-addicted son.

Recalling that moment, she tells The Telegraph: “I see the look on Joe’s face and this pain and this heartbreak, you know, because he sees his son suffering from addiction, and there’s nothing he can do.”

When Ms Roberts told Hunter she was pregnant, she claims he promised to support her, but he shortly stopped returning her phone calls and cut her out of his company’s insurance.

He fiercely denied he was Navy’s father until he was forced to take a 2019 paternity test. It showed he was an even closer DNA match to Navy than her mother.

In his memoir Beautiful Things he described Ms Roberts as “hardly the dating type” and claimed he had “no recollection” of their encounter.

For years the parents were lodged in a bitter legal battle over child support, which was set at $20,000-a-month in 2020.

They reached a settlement last year to reduce the fees to $5,000-a-month on the condition Hunter start building a relationship with his daughter.

Meanwhile, the US president continued to insist he only had six grandchildren and was vilified by even the Left-wing media for failing to embrace his granddaughter.

Last year he finally acknowledged his seventh grandchild, but he has stopped short of communicating with her.

Since September, Navy has frequently spoken to her father during Zoom calls in which she picks out which of his paintings she wants (also part of the settlement) and the pair do arts and crafts together.

“I love my daddy”, she says, beaming in her floral dress.

Asked what her grandfather does, Navy becomes shy.

“He’s the president but I don’t know what he does, he just sits in the White House”, she says while climbing on top of her mother.

While the Bidens frequently talk about the importance of family, Ms Roberts has been devastated by how they have excluded their own flesh and blood.

Moments that have stung included seeing Christmas stockings hung in the White House for each grandchild – and even the dog – but not Navy.

Another blow came when Jill Biden dedicated her children’s book Joey to all her grandchildren – naming each one apart from Navy.

“It’s classless, it’s just tasteless, distasteful. It’s hard to understand the reasoning behind that, because what is the excuse?”, Ms Roberts says.

“As the matriarch of the family, what’s so hard [in] including one child?”

Ms Roberts adds that there is a passage in a book by Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle where Mrs Biden asks everyone to get out of a photograph who isn’t “Biden blood”.

“If you’re so big on Biden blood, what’s wrong with this one?”, Ms Roberts says, shifting in her seat.

“She’s from the same lineage, and quite frankly, Jill isn’t Biden blood but she is.”

If Mr Biden is re-elected in November, Ms Roberts says she won’t push for her child to be involved in the inauguration, but added she also won’t watch it either because it would be too painful.

Security concerns

Another thing that concerns Ms Roberts about the way her daughter has been treated is her lack of security. She is the only first grandchild without secret service protection.

Ms Roberts’ new build home on a quiet cul-de-sac is decorated with cow hides, photographs of her with her daughter and canvases displaying uplifting quotes such as “find the joy in the journey”.

But among the Aztec-inspired décor, a serious arsenal has been hidden to ensure Ms Roberts is never far from a gun.

During the run up to last year’s election Ms Roberts said she had to call her father, “Rambo Pappy”, for help after she came home to find someone in her home on multiple occasions.

“I doubt every single mother is having to board their house up at night to barricade themselves in a room with 12 guns just to go to sleep”, she says.

“They don’t offer security, they don’t protect her in any way”, she says of the Bidens.

Even when we drive to a nearby pond for photographs, Ms Roberts shoves a handgun loosely in her waistband. She claims it is to shoot cottonmouth snakes in case they try to attack us.

Her armoury includes two shotguns behind the headboard, a rifle behind the door, a glock in each nightstand and a third under the mattress.

Ms Roberts says she is considering getting private security to protect her daughter, fearing she is an easy target if someone wanted to attack Mr Biden either ahead of the election or because of his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

When we get closer to the election they will likely relocate to a “secluded location” that is inaccessible by car.

Being a mother to a first grandchild has also caused a wedge in her romantic life. She has dated two men, one of whom she has a restraining order against while the other said Navy’s father was a “piece of s—”.

Ms Roberts says she is the “black sheep of the family” when it comes to politics. She voted for Mr Biden in the 2020 election, but she’s not sure what she will do this year.

“I’m not a Trump supporter but voting for Joe at this point is also like endorsing my child’s unacknowledgement”, she says.

The next time she will come face-to-face with Hunter will be during his California tax trial, for which she has been subpoenaed.

She’s “nervous”, she says, and thinks they will ask her about the tax returns he sent as part of the child support suit.

During their trip to Washington DC in June, Navy asked to go to the White House.

“She said ‘we need to stop by and see my grandpa, can we stop by and see my grandpa?’”, Ms Roberts says, laughing but also clearly saddened by the memory.

“I was like, ‘Oh, honey, he’s not here, he’s in Atlanta.’”

A disheartened Navy replied: “Maybe next time we come he’ll be in town.”

For the sake of the little girl who disappears to her room clutching a picture of her estranged grandfather, we can only hope at some point he invites her in.

Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden will be released on Aug 20.

Israel targeted the leader of the Hamas military in an air strike on Saturday, in what would be the most significant assassination of the war if he is confirmed to have been killed.

Mohammed Deif is considered one of the orchestrators of the Oct 7 massacre, and has been involved in the kidnapping and killing of Israeli citizens for decades.

Known as “The Guest” because of his reported habit of switching where he sleeps every night, Deif is also said to be the architect of the tunnel network stretching hundreds of kilometres underneath Gaza.

Saturday’s attack left more than 70 people dead and more than 100 injured, according to local media. Palestinian media said the strike hit a designated safe zone, known as known as al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis.

Israeli media cited military officials who said the strike targeted a building in the humanitarian zone between al-Mawasi and Khan Younis, but not in the tent camp, as Palestinian media reported. The Israeli army estimates that no hostages were in the area.

An Israeli official told The Telegraph: “Mohammed Deif was our target and so was the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, Rafa’a Salameh. We are waiting for final confirmation on the situation, but we are optimistic.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that it “isn’t absolutely certain” that Deif was killed in Khan Younis on Saturday, but promised that Israel will get to the entire leadership of Hamas.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, announced that he had held an operational situation assessment with the heads of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency “in light of developments in Gaza”.

Deif, born in Khan Younis in 1967, joined Hamas during the first Intifada. He became the leader of the terror group’s military in 2002 after Ahmed Jabari, his predecessor, was assassinated by Israel.

In the hours after the Oct 7 attack, Deif appeared in a recorded video message announcing the start of “Operation al-Aqsa Storm”. Urged Palestinians to take up arms, he said in the clip: “Enough is enough.”

Israel holds Deif responsible for the kidnappings and murders of two Israeli soldiers, Shahar Simani and Aryeh Frankenthal, in 1994.

Deif was also behind suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Askhelon in February 1996, in which more than 50 Israelis were killed. The attacks were seen as revenge for an Israeli assassination of Yahya Ayyash, a senior Hamas official known as “The Engineer” for his role in bombings.

He is seen as responsible for the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, as well as strengthening Hamas’ military ties with Iran in recent years.

Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was also targeted in the strike, according to Israeli media.