Author: Darren Smith

Britain has agreed to pay France up to £660 million in a new three-year deal aimed at stemming Channel crossings, taking the total amount handed to Paris by British taxpayers since the small boats crisis began to more than £1.3 billion. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will travel to Paris on Thursday to formally sign the agreement, which Labour has described as a landmark in the two countries’ joint efforts to tackle people smuggling. The package consists of a guaranteed £500 million core payment over three years, with a further £160 million available on top — though the additional £53 million…

Britain’s mobile phone networks have warned that signal access could be rationed and charges increased during periods of peak demand, as soaring energy costs push the telecoms sector toward contingency planning — despite being excluded from the Government’s latest business energy support scheme. The stark warning comes as electricity prices have risen by as much as a third since the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sending oil and gas markets into turmoil. Because electricity pricing is closely linked to gas, the impact has been felt acutely across energy-intensive industries — and mobile…

A British businessman who spent two years posing as a high-end wine investment broker — changing his surname to evoke the Duke of Wellington and socialising in elite circles across the world — has been sentenced to ten years in prison by a New York court after swindling more than 190 investors out of £71 million in a sophisticated Ponzi-style fraud. James Wellesley, 59, was sentenced on Monday for wire fraud conspiracy and ordered to pay £740,000 in forfeiture. He had been extradited from Tunbridge Wells last year, having originally been arrested by Scotland Yard five months earlier. Wellesley operated…

Britain faces a closing window to prepare its armed forces for a potential conflict with Russia and must begin mass mobilisation immediately, according to a new report from the Royal United Services Institute that delivers a stark warning to a government accused of chronic indecision on defence. The report, authored by RUSI Senior Associate Fellow Paul O’Neill, argues that the country’s land forces will need to double in size to meet the threat posed by Russia, and that the systems currently in place to recruit, train and absorb new personnel are wholly inadequate for what may lie ahead. O’Neill told…

David Scott, the Georgia Democrat who made history as the first Black chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has died at the age of 80, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has confirmed. Scott, who represented a district outside Atlanta, was first elected to Congress in 2002 and had been seeking a thirteenth term in the House at the time of his death. His passing removes one of the chamber’s longest-serving and most symbolically significant members from American political life. Jeffries paid tribute to the congressman in remarks to reporters. “David Scott was a trailblazer who served the district that he…

The mother of a Polish-born Instagram influencer who is fighting for her life in hospital following a car attack outside a London nightclub has made an emotional public appeal for prayers, saying her daughter remains “her angel, her world, her everything.” Klaudia Zakrzewska, known online as Klaudiaglam and followed by more than 250,000 people on Instagram, remains in a critical condition after being struck by a vehicle in the early hours of Sunday morning outside Inca nightclub on Argyll Street in Westminster. She had posted videos from inside the venue earlier that same night. Her mother shared a message on…

The question of what it would cost Chelsea to dispense with Liam Rosenior has moved from theoretical to urgent after Tuesday night’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton, a result that extended the club’s barren Premier League run to five matches without a goal — a sequence without precedent at Stamford Bridge since 1912. With Rosenior’s position now openly debated inside the club, the figure attached to any settlement has become one of the defining constraints on BlueCo’s next move. What a payoff to Rosenior would actually look like The widely quoted number is £24m. It derives from the length of the…

Chelsea have parted ways with head coach Liam Rosenior following a fifth consecutive Premier League defeat, confirming his dismissal after senior figures at the club held discussions about his future earlier on Wednesday. The decision came a day after a chastening 3-0 loss at Brighton, a result that further damaged the club’s already precarious hopes of qualifying for the Champions League. Rosenior himself had described the performance as “indefensible” and acknowledged that he needed to identify which players he could trust going forward. The sequence of five straight league defeats without scoring a single goal was the worst run the…

A 19-year-old professional thief who wrenched a £37,000 Patek Philippe watch from a Chinese academic’s wrist outside a Mayfair restaurant will be deported to Algeria upon his release from prison, a judge has ruled, describing him as a calculated and unremorseful offender who poses a high risk of reoffending. Mohamed Sellaoui was convicted by a jury at Southwark Crown Court following a three-day trial, during which chemistry professor Jiangfeng Ni described being cornered by two men outside Langan’s Brasserie on 26 February 2024. Speaking through a Chinese interpreter, the professor from Soochow University told the court that the pair had…

Russia is actively preparing for a potential conflict with NATO and could be in a position to launch an attack within a year of concluding its war in Ukraine, according to a stark warning from the Netherlands’ military intelligence agency, the MIVD. The agency’s annual report identifies Russia as the most direct and serious threat facing Europe, describing a Kremlin that is growing in confidence and ambition, bolstered by deepening military and technological ties with China. While the MIVD assesses it as highly unlikely that Russia would open a new front while still engaged in Ukraine, it warns that the…