Daily Mail - 05.11.2026 — 2026-11-05

A Republican friend tells me: 'Trump's crazy, he's capable of anything now - even starting WWII'

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN PAGE 9

[MAGA TURNS ON TRUMP] JD Vance and even Don Jr blame President's Iran War debacle for poll wipeout that's left him a lame duck

THE daggers were out for Donald Trump last night following a crushing election defeat.

His deputy and his own son

From Tom Cotterill in London and Phillip Nieto in Washington DC

blamed the President's war in Iran for a Republican rout at the hands of voters.

In a series of seismic shocks, the rival Democrats yesterday seized control of the US Congress in the mid-term ballots.

Voters passed a damning verdict on Mr Trump, having become enraged by high inflation and rising fuel prices due to the conflict in the

Middle East that has caused global shocks. Vice-President JD Vance issued a brutal post mortem of Republican Party losses – as he eyes a presidential run in 2028.

Top Republicans and the Make

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UK TODAY: A chilly morning with mostly cloudy skies transitions to a cloudy afternoon. Winds remain easterly, becoming lighter in the evening. Temperatures gradually decrease into the night. Max 1lc.

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Russian ‘hacktivists’ say they were behind fridge cyber attacks

By Chris Pollard

TWO Russian ‘hacktivist’ groups last night claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on European fridges and freezers that cranked up temperatures and ruined food.

The collectives, known as Z-Pentest Alliance and NoName057(16), said they had taken over internet-enabled controllers for commercial refrigeration units.

Dozens of shops, including

Bin: A shop in Sweden

Carrefour, Intermarche and Ikea, were targeted in Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg, Finland and Estonia on Sunday night. French authorities also said medical fridges for storing blood donations were impacted.

A spokesman said there had been ‘no health impact [and] no loss of blood products’ as staff stepped in to keep supplies safe after monitoring and alarm systems activated.

Last night, analysts urged caution over the groups' admissions, pointing out they have taken credit for attacks that had nothing to do with them in the past.

The UK Government has previously identified links between Z-Pentest Alliance and Russian military intelligence, accusing them of ‘reckless cyber operations targeting critical national infrastructure’.

NoName057(16) has tar-

Clarifications & corrections

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geted Ukraine and countries that support its defence against the Russian invasion.

These recent hacks came three weeks after a similar one on French retailers.

Supermarkets had to bin huge amounts of food when their fridges suddenly overheated as a result of hackers seizing control of their management software.

Experts warned shop operators to take their fridges and freezers off the public internet, change default passwords and set up alerts for unexpected changes to their settings.

Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Nato military committee chairman, suggested future attacks could be enough to trigger the alliance's mutual defence agreement.

He said: 'If it is something that goes against a hospital, [it] could be. A supermarket – not yet, but we need to identify and assess what is the effect of the cyber attack.'

He added that Nato should have a more ‘proactive’ approach to Russian cyber warfare, as it could lead to jamming of aircraft GPS, which would be ‘an emergency’.

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Close shave: Santa James Norton shows off his new look

A bare-chested James Norton as an M&S Santa? Happy Christmas, ladies!

EXCLUSIVE

Festive star: Lucy Punch as Mrs Claus in the TV advert

By Claudia Connell

NEVER has the old idiom about saving the best for last been more apt than when it comes to this year's crop of Christmas ads.

Marks & Spencer is the final department store to release its ad and, unlike the offering from biggest rival John Lewis, this one is controversy-free and pitch perfect.

To be honest, the battle for the best festive commercial was probably won months ago when some bright spark on the M&S creative team mooted 'how about a bare-chested James Norton, playing Santa Claus?' during one of their brain-storming sessions. Yep, that'll do it.

The full three-minute advert, out tomorrow but shown exclusively to the Daily Mail, opens with actress Lucy Punch (best known as super snob Amanda Hughes in BBC sitcom Amandaland) as Mrs Claus.

More the merrier: A leather-wearing St Nick meets a fan

She's sitting up in bed wearing very fetching sateen, pink striped pyjamas – the same £35 pair every husband in Britain will be buying for his wife this Christmas.

It's the North Pole and her weather-beaten hubby Santa (James Norton) is grooming his trademark bushy beard.

‘I wonder, my love, have you ever thought about losing the beard? They say it takes years off?’ asks Mrs Claus.

'No! It's my thing!' he protests.

But, eager to please the missus, he does lose it, transforming into a James-Bond-style super hunk.

Posing in a skimpy bath towel, hairy chest and rippling torso on full display, he asks Mrs Claus what she thinks. 'Saint Nicholas!' she cries leaping out of bed with excitement.

Now unrecognisable, Santa seizes the chance to experience Christmas as ordinary people do and travels to London wearing his

'A feelgood masterpiece'

new leather jacket and red scarf. He drops in at a school concert where singer Katherine Jenkins, in a sparkly sequinned dress (a guaranteed £45 sellout), is performing a Christmassy cover version of 'Heaven is a Place on

Earth' – the soundtrack to the entire advert that's also being released as a single.

Santa gets to tuck into a buffet of M&S's party food, those delicious and irresistible 'picky bits' that will have bankrupted us all come the end of December. He is invited to a neighbourhood gathering and ends his trip by visiting an M&S store.

‘Wow, what is this place?’ he asks in wonderment before stocking up on goodies.

He returns to the North Pole to tell Mrs Claus of his amazing discovery only for her to confess: 'Oh darling, I've been going for years.' Still thrilled by her husband's hunk makeover, she tells him the beard is staying off for good and presents him with a £22.50 Autograph shaving kit that every dad will now be finding under the tree come the 25th.

In previous years M&S has run separate Christmas campaigns for its various departments. This time it's brought the whole lot together – food, fashion, beauty and homeware – with pretty much everything in the Clauses' cabin, from baubles to bath towels, available to buy. (I confess I was searching for those PJs online within minutes of viewing the ad.)

It's all done under the banner of the retailer establishing itself as ‘the home of Christmas’, tapping into the idea that Yuletide magic is about spending the season with people we love.

The ad is based on M&S's own customer research that found 81 per cent want a special time with the people they love – and I suspect 100 per cent of female shoppers want a shirtless James Norton on their TV screens.

No bratty kids trashing houses, no wet modern parents and no emotionally blackmailed grannies. Instead, it's a feelgood masterpiece that will leave viewers (with the exception of a few John Lewis execs, perhaps) with a smile on their face and a warm glow.

A bitter end: Some of the UK's crisps that could be banned as they do not contain real meat and are suitable for vegetarians

Crunch time as smoky bacon crisps face ban under EU reset

By Jason Groves

Political Editor

SMOKY bacon flavour crisps face being banned as part of Andy Burnham's Brexit reset.

The snack – which in most varieties on supermarket shelves does not contain real bacon – will be outlawed under a planned EU clampdown on the use of meaty descriptions for vegetarian products.

Other popular items that also face being banned unless manufacturers reformulate their recipes to contain actual meat include steak flavour crisps and chicken Pot Noodles.

The threat comes from Mr Burnham's decision to sign up the UK to EU laws on food and farming in return for Brussels scrapping post-Brexit red tape on British food exports to the continent. Under the terms of the deal, which was revealed on Tuesday and will be signed at a UK-EU summit in Brussels on November 20, the UK will accept ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU rules – meaning it will have to adopt future

'Flawed assumptions'

regulations over which it will have little, if any, say.

Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, said: 'Yet again we see the practical drawbacks of Labour's cosying up to the EU. When 17.4 million UK citizens voted to leave the EU, it wasn't so Brussels could subsequently tell us what to put in a Walkers crisp packet.'

The EU is poised to implement new consumer laws barring manufacturers from marketing vegetarian and vegan products using meat-based descriptions. The move follows lobbying from the livestock sector and is designed to ‘enhance transparency’ and end confusion for consumers.

Although firms will still be able to market vegetarian burgers and sausages, they will be barred from using 31 meat-related words to describe their products, including chicken, bacon, pork and steak.

Manufacturers will be given three years to clear existing stocks before the ban comes into force – and the rules will apply to firms regardless of whether or not they trade with the EU.

The Government hopes to agree a ‘fudge’ over the UK’s development of gene-edited crops – such as those designed to boost disease resistance and drought tolerance – which are currently banned in the EU. But some pesticides outlawed by Brussels are likely to face restrictions in the UK over time.

Short sighted: Burnham

Ministers are also ready to sign off annual payments running into millions of pounds to help fund infrastructure projects in poorer EU states such as Romania.

And Brussels is pushing for the UK to slash tuition fees for EU students who want to come to university here, potentially costing the taxpayer £450 million.

Mr Burnham said the potential economic benefits of the deal were too big to ignore. He told

PM can't say how he'll fund his ‘ten-year plan’

ANDY Burnham's ‘ten-year plan’ is set to be watered down or even delayed as ministers grapple with how to pay for it.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly promised his blueprint for Britain will set out a detailed plan to realise his ambition of reversing ‘40 years of neoliberalism’.

But Whitehall sources say the process of translating Mr Burnham's grand vision into a deliverable policy has proved difficult.

Instead, the ‘plan’ may now list a series of the PM’s priorities, such as state control of utilities, a new National Care Service and greater devolution, accompanied by the launch of consulta-

The Economist magazine that new Treasury analysis suggested that, 'at the high end', easing food and farming exports to the EU 'could add up to 0.4 per cent of GDP' – equal to £12 billion a year.

He added: 'Now, that is a number that you cannot ignore. If something can be done to add 0.4 per cent to British GDP, that should be pursued very vigorously, and that's what I'm doing.'

But the claim was questioned yesterday in a paper by researchers at the Growth Commission, which said the figures were based

By Political Editor

tions and government work on how they should be achieved.

Funding decisions could also be delayed until the comprehensive spending review, which is expected to be held next autumn. Conservative Party deputy leader Alex Burghart said last night: 'Andy Burnham only has a plan to get a plan.'

A government source yesterday insisted the PM was preparing to publish a ‘fully fledged plan’ in the coming weeks, but conceded that some major details, including funding decisions would come later.

on ‘flawed assumptions’. Commission chairman Shanker Singham, a former government trade adviser, said the calculation ‘fails to take account of a number of vital and costly factors’.

The new analysis warned that ‘in the long run’ aligning with EU regulations could cost the UK £73 billion because of ‘lost opportunities’ and damage to trade with non-EU countries. Mr Singham added: ‘This EU reset is being sold to the British people on the back of flawed assumptions and bogus calculations.’

Labour sets up a quango ... to axe a quango

By Sam Merriman

Political Correspondent

LABOUR'S plans to abolish NHS England descended into farce yesterday after Health Secretary Yvette Cooper said she was setting up a new quango to scrap the old one.

She said thousands of NHS England (NHSE) staff would be moved into the new Special Health Authority by April – the Government's deadline to abolish the agency.

In March 2025, former health secretary Wes Streeting said the Government would scrap the ‘world’s biggest quango’ and return its functions to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

But plans to turn NHSE staff into DHSC civil servants ran into problems because NHS bureaucrats can earn up to £45,000 more than their Whitehall counterparts.

Under strict Government finance rules, Ms Cooper would have needed permission from the Treasury for each staff member whose salary exceeded normal civil service pay levels.

But yesterday, she announced the creation of the Special Health Authority to get around the rules. Some 9,000 staff – half the NHSE headcount – were due

'What the NHS needs is focus'

to lose their jobs, but it is not clear whether such sweeping cuts will still go ahead or if staff will simply be moved.

Ms Cooper insisted the Special Health Authority would be a ‘temporary arrangement that will support the transition to a more devolved model’.

But Tory health spokesman Damian Hinds accused Labour of pushing ahead with the abolition of NHSE ‘without a thought-through plan’, meaning ‘deadlines have been missed and costs are up’.

He said: 'Now Labour are resorting to setting up a quango to close another quango. Do they really believe all this will be complete in five months?

‘What the NHS needs is focus on patients – to get the waiting lists down and A&E performance up. The disruption of a constantly shifting re-re-organisation inevitably takes attention away from this core need.’

Labour came to power in 2024 promising to slash red tape. But the Government established a new quango every week in its first six months in office.

Despite Labour promising that scrapping NHSE would cut bureaucracy and duplication, Ms Cooper said she would create a Patient Experience Director and a Clinical Council of senior clinicians to advise ministers.

She added: ‘These reforms must help us get back to what the NHS does best – caring for people when they need it most.’

Killer ‘kept chopped-up body of artist in freezer next to drowned remains of her five guinea pigs’

By James Tozer and Ian Leonard

A MAN bludgeoned an artist to death and hid her dismembered remains in a freezer next to the bodies of her guinea pigs for three years, a court heard.

George Gordon admitted killing his 'soulmate' Delia McInerney in April 2023 before she was due to move to Portugal, claiming it was self-defence.

However, a jury was yesterday told that he hatched a ‘premeditated’ plan to kill her – buying items including a sledgehammer, drugs and a surgical handbook in the weeks before her death.

Gordon, 65, is then said to have chopped up her body and placed the remains in a chest freezer he had recently purchased in his Merseyside flat.

He also allegedly drowned Ms McInerney's five guinea pigs, which were due to go to Portugal with her, and put their bodies in the freezer next to hers.

Gordon is then accused of sending messages and emails posing as Ms McInerney, 62, to cover up her murder.

He also withdrew thousands of pounds in cash from her bank accounts and fraudulently obtained credit cards and loans in

'Motivated by financial gain'

her name, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Martin Reid KČ, prosecuting, told the trial that Gordon, who also used the name Chris, had told ‘bare-faced lies’ in an attempt to hide her murder.

He said that the pair had been friends for many years, with a relative describing Ms McInerney as Gordon's ‘soulmate’.

Although she had her own homes in Liverpool and abroad, she spent much of her time living at Gordon's flat in St Helens.

The court heard that she had made plans to move to Portugal with her guinea pigs in April 2023, having raised concerns about 5G masts near her home in Anfield.

Victim: Delia McInerney was bludgeoned to death in 2023 Accused: George Gordon

Investigation: Police raid Gordon's home in St Helens, Merseyside, in January

Prosecutors claim that, after learning of Ms McInerney's plans to relocate, Gordon bought a number of items ‘consistent or similar to’ those used to kill and dismember her.

They included a pair of ‘heavy-duty’ scissors capable of cutting through bone, a copy of a book containing instructions on how to prepare a lethal cocktail of drugs and a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, a 19th-century medical textbook.

Further purchases included a handsaw, drugs to treat insomnia, a 4lb sledgehammer and a book called Wicked Women.

Gordon also carried out searches for ‘butcher’s tools’ along with a ‘meat saw, cleavers and choppers’ on Amazon and eBay.

On April 11, 2023 – two days before Ms McInerney was due to fly to Portugal – Gordon took a video of her with her guinea pigs. This was to be the last footage in which she was seen alive.

‘These, the Crown says, are the same five guinea pigs that Ms McInerney was planning to take to Portugal just two days later, and of which she was so fond,’ Mr Reid said. ‘They were... to meet the same fate as their owner Ms McInerney.’

Evidence suggests she was killed later that night or early the next day, prosecutors claimed.

Gordon initially told police he had come home to find her ‘writhing on the floor in pain’ after taking an overdose of pills. He claimed he had hit her on the head 'to end her suffering'.

However, the jury heard he now claims that she attacked him when he went to call an ambulance and he struck her with a hammer or mallet in self-defence.

However, Mr Reid claimed that Gordon murdered her, motivated by ‘financial gain’ and his fear she would leave the UK.

Gordon is then accused of drowning Ms McInerney's guinea pigs because she was ‘devoted’ to them and, if others saw she had left them behind, it would ‘raise their suspicions’. On April 12, more than £2,000 was sent from Ms McInerney’s bank accounts to Gordon, the jury was told.

The court heard he then went to the Sefton Pub for breakfast, where he also ordered a pint of Strongbow and a double whisky, before ordering a chest freezer from Amazon.

Mr Reid said that Gordon then 'lied' to friends about her whereabouts – telling some of them she had been to the King's Coronation and met Sir Stephen Fry – and sometimes pretended to be her in messages or emails.

‘Unbeknown to them, but known very well to the defendant, Delia McInerney had died in April 2023 at the defendant’s hands,’ Mr Reid added.

He described how police finally went to Gordon's flat in January this year after concerns were raised about the ‘whereabouts and wellbeing’ of Ms McInerney.

There, Gordon told officers: 'She's in the freezer.'

When the chest-freezer was searched on January 8, officers found ‘human legs and feet’ wrapped in black plastic bags, as well as the bodies of five guinea pigs, also in plastic bags.

Gordon, who did not appear in the dock, denies murder and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. The trial continues.

Computer says d'oh: Hours at work spent fixing A.I. mistakes

ARTIFICIAL intelligence is touted as the futuristic tool to help us work more efficiently, but many employees currently spend hours fixing the mistakes it makes.

Researchers found 46 per cent of those surveyed had re-done work they believed was produced by a colleague using AI, taking on average almost seven hours a week. Fixes included stripping out waffle and correcting inaccurate facts or figures,

Daily Mail Reporter

with the AI efforts condemned as landing like a ‘slop grenade’.

The survey of 2,009 adults, commissioned by Arden University, found Gen Z and Millennial employees are driving AI adoption, with about seven in ten using it in the past three months.

But among those affected by poor work from AI, half have used AI themselves to help fix it.

'Who needs gunpowder when this fellow can destroy anything!'

Shhh! Fear of being noisy puts families off libraries

By Alex Doyle

THE stereotype that silence is sacred in the library puts parents off taking their children.

A report into dwindling library attendance noted ‘expectations about how people should behave, particularly the longstanding idea that it must be a silent space’ have made them seem unwelcoming.

The survey, by the Children North East charity and Libraries Connected, added: 'When parents worry that their children might be too noisy, too active or “out of place”, they may avoid visiting altogether, missing out on free learning opportunities, warm spaces and community support.

Isobel Hunter, head of Libraries Connected, said: 'Libraries are among the most trusted and welcoming public services in the country. But there is always more we can do to make people feel welcome and included.'

I've FINALLY learned what to eat and drink to ease the worst menopause symptoms

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Starmer, Zelensky and EU leaders to meet Trump today – but will he listen to a single word they say?

SIR KEIR Starmer By Andy John

SIR KEIR Starmer will join EU and Nato leaders to bolster Volodymyr Zelensky in his crunch White House meeting with Donald Trump today. They will present a united front in the hope of moderating Mr Trump's treatment of the Ukrainian leader,

whom he humiliated at the Oval Office in February.

European ministers fear that Mr Zelensky is walking into a trap laid by Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader said last night that the 'coalition of the willing' - the UK and other nations that have pledged to support Kyiv - held a 'useful' two-hour video conference yesterday. He revealed that they had a 'common view on what a peace agreement should be' and insisted it did not include changing state borders by force.

In a sign of EU leaders' bullishness, French president Emmanuel Macron said afterwards: 'If we're not strong today, we'll pay dearly tomorrow.'

It came after Boris Johnson called on Sir Keir to lead global efforts to protect Ukraine from

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Dead at 87, 'the most beautiful man in the world'

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THE TWISTED TALE OF AMANDA KNOX

In 2007, British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found murdered in her apartment in Perugia, Italy. Her roommate, the American student Amanda Knox (Grace Van Patten), was convicted of her murder amid a storm of media coverage. This controversial eight-part drama centres on Knox's 16-year battle to prove her innocence in the face of a wave of public opinion that

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Page 6 MIDTERMS MELTDOWN ★★★ Crushed Trump went \*\*\* Daily Mail, Thursday, November 5, 2026

Jubilant: Democrats in Texas celebrate victory... while the White House had to remind voters, left, they haven't changed President yet

Continued from Page One

America Great Again (MAGA) faithful also rounded on the President, branding the wipeout a ‘disaster of the first magnitude’ as he faces seeing his agenda crippled in his final two years in office.

‘The reason we lost is the war,’ Mr Vance said in a lengthy post on social media, adding ‘many people who voted for’ Mr Trump in 2024 had turned their backs on him.

He also attacked supporters of the war, which has cost the US more than £35billion and shows no sign of resolution.

Rebuke: Trump and his deputy JD Vance

'If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so,' Mr Vance wrote. 'Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.

‘But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.’

The President's oldest child, Don Jr, joined in, siding with ‘every word’ of the VP’s criticism as he shared it online.

His father simply shrugged off the complaints during a rambling speech in front of the cameras, as he all but ignored his party's midterm battering.

Instead, he focused on his White House vanity project to build a \$400million (£300million) ballroom, leading to furious criticism in Washington that he was ‘tone deaf’ and ‘ignoring the American people’ struggling to pay their bills.

Amid mounting pressure, Mr Trump was forced to concede that Mr Vance's analysis had been 'largely true', adding: 'It drove the gasoline up a little bit – short term – and probably that's true.'

But he remained defiant about attacking Tehran, insisting it had been 'worth it'. He added: 'If I had to do it again, I'd have to do it again because long term, that's the only answer. You can't let Iran

have a nuclear weapon.' The Vice-President's intervention came as the Republicans continued to lick their wounds. The Grand Old Party was engulfed by a ‘blue tsunami’ as they lost both the Senate and the House of Representatives, with Democrat victories in states that even a year ago were thought unwinnable.

The political earthquake sent the Left into overdrive as they took deep-red heartlands such as Kansas, which elected a Democrat senator for the first time

'Corruption and incompetence'

since the Great Depression. They also clinched a stunning victory in Texas, securing their first senator there in almost 30 years after new Democrat darling James Talarico thumped the Trump-backed candidate. He is now being talked of as potential 2028 challenger for the White House.

There were further Democrat Senate victories in Iowa and Mr Vance's backyard of Ohio, states

Mr Trump won by more than 10 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.

As the President's political obituaries were being written, the White House sought to remind people who was in charge, posting a picture of a clenched-fisted Mr Trump in the Oval Office, with the caption: 'PSA [Public service announcement]: Trump is still your president.'

The wipeout means Washington DC will face two years of political deadlock, while the President battles against the Democrats to pass future legislation and push through policies.

'The American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the failed lame duck president, Donald J Trump,' said Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff as he celebrated his re-election in Georgia.

Although Mr Trump was not on the ballot – despite telling voters to act as if his name was on the paper - the mid-terms were effectively a nationwide referendum on the President.

'I wasn't on the ballot – if I was on the ballot, we'd have won easily,' he told Politico, blaming 'poor candidates'. He later congratulated his rivals on a 'good job' and said he would work with, rather than against, them.

In the UK, Prime Minister Andy Burnham appeared to twist the knife as he said that Americans had voted for action on the cost of living. 'The world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that's the cost of living,' Mr Burnham added.

'I can't get people's cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved, the conflict in Ukraine started by Russia. These are the things we have to focus on now, and I hope the world has a moment to do that.'

As the fallout continued yester-

back to his ballroom

Fixed grin: Trump signs a hard hat at the site of his new ballroom yesterday

day, a civil war within the Republican Party appeared to brew, as high-profile members turned on Mr Trump.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis described it as ‘close to an extinction-level event for Republicans’, taking aim at scandals such as the Epstein Files, which the President sought to bury.

‘It’s a total, complete rejection of President Trump. It’s on him,’ Bill Miller, a top Republican lobbyist in Texas, told the BBC. ‘This is a disaster of the first magnitude. Nobody saw it coming.’

‘It was just one mistake after another,’ said Gregg Peppin, a Republican strategist in Minnesota. ‘Clearly, in state after state, people did not like the

President's policies.' Rumours also circulated in Washington over who would ultimately be the fall guy for the catastrophic losses, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, potentially in the firing line.

Mr Trump dismissed claims he was thinking of sacking his defence chief, saying yesterday: 'I think he's doing a good job.'

Losing both chambers of Congress means Trump will enter a 'lame duck' period in his final two years in office, with Democrats able to stymie his policy agenda.

Instead of pushing laws through Congress, the President will now have to rely on executive orders in areas where he retains authority, such as tariffs, immigration, foreign policy and military action, and the use of his veto to stop Democrat policies becoming law.

He will also face Democrat-led corruption investigations into himself, his allies and family, and could even be impeached for a third time. Democratic congressman Robert Garcia, who will lead some of the probes as chairman of the House oversight committee, issued a blunt warning to Mr Trump and his allies: 'Lawyer up.'

Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries announced he will seek to be Speaker of the House when Congress votes in January. He called the mid-term results a ‘stunning rebuke of MAGA extremism’.

Comment - Page 18

allroom Iran vows to use 'new weapons' if US steps up bomb blitz

IRAN has threatened to use ‘new weapons’ against the US if Donald Trump decides to launch further strikes against it following his humiliating defeat at home.

Iranian parliament speaker, the influential Mohammad Ghalibaf declared: ‘Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.

'If the US [government] betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare.'

Meanwhile, the country's paramilitary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps called the US midterm results a 'disaster' for Mr Trump, claiming it was the result of 'America's heavy defeat in the war it started against Iran'.

A spokesman for the IRGC added that should the US or

'Locked and loaded'

Israel take any action, Iran would ‘respond to them differently than before, using a new doctrine and new conventional weapons technology’.

The threats came as the US President insisted he had no immediate plans to strike Iran but warned the US was ‘locked and loaded if we need to go’.

The President sought to down-play speculation he was planning to launch fresh action following the election results.

His intervention came after the US carried out ‘defensive’ strikes against Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

The island has been transformed into a military base by Iran, with the regime believed to be able to launch anti-ship missiles and drones from underground lairs. At the same time,

By Tom Cotterill

Deputy Defence Editor

the US has massed a huge naval armada of around 20 warships in the Arabian Sea including two carrier strikes groups and a third on the way, fuelling fears Washington was preparing a new bombing wave.

Mr Trump claimed he was content with the current state of the stand-off with Tehran, claiming ‘we seem to be getting everything we want’.

However, he added he was prepared to resume strikes, telling the Financial Times: 'I'm ready, we're ready. We're locked and loaded if we need to go, but there may be no reason for it.'

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had previously pushed for another wave of strikes on Iran after the US mid-term elections.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei yesterday claimed that, despite the mid-term massacre, the US could not be trusted not to resume attacks.

He said anyone who thought 'party or factional shifts', or 'making concessions to the US could persuade it to abandon its hostility towards the Iranian people, they are gravely mistaken'.

Mr Khamenei also accused Washington of seeking Iran's unconditional surrender, warning that concessions would only encourage further aggression.

‘Even the slightest inclination towards surrendering to the hegemonic enemy will squander the enormous gains achieved,’ the supreme leader added.

In Britain, Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for calm, claiming ‘the world has an opportunity now’ to focus on resolving the Iran war and easing the cost of living and ‘that’s what the voters, in my view, are saying in the United States’.

Paralysed by

fury, Donald

hid upstairs

in his room as

blue tsunami

swept the US

From Phillip Nieto in Washington DC

AS the appalling results for the Republicans rolled in at the White House, Donald Trump was notably absent.

Cabinet officials, political advisers and MAGA allies diligently filed into the East Room on Tuesday evening – where trays of finger food were laid out while TV screens flashed up incoming results from across the country – but the President remained upstairs in his private residence.

Ensconced with his redoubtable chief of staff Susie Wiles and Natalie Harp, the aide who has enjoyed unusually direct access to Mr Trump throughout this second term, the President watched as the blue tsunami swept in.

And as the magnitude of the night's drubbing started to come into focus, even his most loyal followers began to slip away from the scene of the crime.

First the senior staff, then some of the Cabinet. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was there early in the evening, but could not be found anywhere later on.

By the time the House of Representa-

Confidantes: Natalie Harp, left, and Susie Wiles

tives was called for the Democrats, at little before 10pm on the Eastern Seaboard (3am GMT), the room had largely emptied – and the staff weren't just leaving the party, they were leaving the building, heading out to drown their troubles at a nearby DC watering hole. The Cheesecake Factory food was left on the tables, uneaten.

Two floors above, the President was seething. 'It's very, very dark in the residence,' one senior official said of Mr Trump's mood. 'It's a dark scene.'

Another hour of terrible results rolling in saw him mute with fury.

‘He’s watching Fox News, barely uttering a word and paralysed into silence,’ a source close to the President told the Daily Mail.

Over on his social media platform, Truth Social, however, Mr Trump was making his anger known. 'Fox News bears responsibility for these losses,' he blasted in one of several out-of-character blasts against the conservative TV network during the evening.

'If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn't become a RINO [Republican in Name Only] in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn't have lost,' he wrote soon after the Grand Old Party lost the Senate as the clock ticked towards midnight.

Only hours earlier, Mr Trump had glowingly endorsed Mr Abbott as ‘strong’, ‘highly respected’ and ‘exceptional’.

‘I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!’ he also declared.

In the weeks before, he regularly told the MAGA faithful who turned up to rallies in dwindling numbers to pretend he was.

Back downstairs in the White

Sign: Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House

House, things weren't much better, as those who remained were also losing their composure.

One senior presidential official described Jason Miller, the longtime Trump communications strategist, as sweating and panicking as the humiliation kept rolling in on the ticker tape. Meanwhile,

'It's a very, very dark scene'

other senior White House officials were already naming the men they expect to pay for the crushing defeat: Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

'Tonight would have looked very different without the Iran war,' one official told the Daily Mail. 'I believe you'll ultimately see POTUS hold Hegseth accountable.'

A second top official laid it on Mr Rubio's state department. And a top Republican Party donor agreed: 'Rubio is over. Though that's maybe also true for all Republicans who touched Trump's foreign policy.'

The war in Iran has cost taxpayers at least \$47 billion (£35 billion). Petrol is \$4.15 (£3.10) per gallon – up 35.6 per cent since February. The vast majority of Americans consistently say the conflict has been a mistake.

Another well-placed White House source raised a grim spectre: 'If the boss is smart, he'll purge everyone tomorrow to save his legacy.'

But perhaps the most damaging account of the night came from a source who said that Trump's chief of staff had been promising a win right up to the end.

As recently as September, the source said, Ms Wiles, Trump's ice maiden, was telling people directly that Republicans were going to take the midterms. On

Tuesday morning, as the polls opened, staffers in the West Wing were still talking about picking up seats in both chambers. 'Delusional,' the source said. 'They were delusional right until the very end.'

Three streets away from the White House, as mid-level staffers were working through the whiskey, some floated the idea of calling in sick in the morning, trading rumours about who would and wouldn't survive the week.

But a lot now comes down to what, and who, Trump chooses to blame. If he concludes that his political operation failed him, the blame surely runs to Ms Wiles and stops there. If he concludes that the war did it, the blame has nowhere to go but his own desk.

Not everyone could accept defeat. The mood, according to the official White House line, was ‘somewhat defiant’.

But really, across DC, the panic seeped through all.

Additional reporting: ROSS IBBETSON and ELINA SHIRAZI

DONALD Trump told voters to pretend he was on the ticket, even though he wasn't. So they did.

A very shrewd Republican friend predicted this meltdown would happen. Now he tells me: 'Trump's crazy, he's capable of anything – even starting WWII' Littlejohn

The result of the midterm elections was a crushing defeat for his ruling Republican Party, and especially for Trump himself.

It was a repudiation of the past two years of the Trump presidency rather than a ringing endorsement of the Democrats.

A loveless landslide, if you like. Rather like Labour's victory at home two years ago. Just as British voters chose to punish the Tories, Americans have decided that Donald J. Trump has delighted them long enough.

Less a vote for Democrats, more a vote against an increasing deranged and delusional President. A man who promised to end ‘forever wars’ and slash the cost of living has done the opposite.

His war of choice on Iran has pushed the price of petrol, diesel and agricultural fertiliser through the roof. The knock-on effect has fuelled inflation, leading especially to sky-high food prices. Voters are hurting and exacted their revenge.

Trump's tariffs have jacked up the cost of imported goods, piling more pressure on household budgets. His insane vendetta against Canada, America's northern neighbour, has disrupted supply chains in the auto industry and almost certainly

'The consensus was that he had lost his marbles'

contributed to the Republicans losing the swing state of Michigan to a hardline Muslim called Abdul El-Sayed.

Yet according to Trump himself, none of this is his fault. As Fox News was preparing to call it a night, after declaring Democrat victories in both the House and the Senate, the phone rang in the studio.

The President was on the line. He went into full Norma Desmond mode. She was the ageing, washed-up Hollywood star in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard who protested: 'I am big, it's the pictures that got small.'

Trump insisted he was still big, it was the candidates who let him down. Had he actually been on the ticket, the Republicans would have swept the board. He even blamed Fox News coverage of the election, despite the fact that Rupert Murdoch's Right-wing TV network has been his staunchest broadcast supporter for the past 12 years.

On his own Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: 'I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!'

By all accounts, the President had spent the evening increasingly isolated in the White House, watching the bloodbath unfold, as his staff deserted him to drown their sorrows in nearby bars, leaving finger food from the Cheesecake Factory untouched.

'He's watching Fox News, barely uttering a word and paralysed into silence,' a source close to the President told the Daily Mail.

His rambling, 25-minute midnight call to the network ranged wildly from melancholy to defiant, one minute offering to work with the Democrats, the next vowing to veto any ‘insane’ bill they sent to him.

Some of us saw this meltdown coming. Two weeks ago in this column, I wrote that Trump was riding for a fall. That was based not on the opinion polls or the view from inside the Beltway (America's version of the Westminster Bubble) but on a straw poll among traditional Republican voters in a Cheers-style Florida bar. The consensus was that Trump had lost his marbles.

A shrewd friend of mine, who has run a serious US corporation and is a lifelong Georgia Bulldog Republican, predicted a bloodbath for the GOP (Grand Old Party) and laid the blame at Trump's door.

On Tuesday night, before the results had been declared, he rang me. 'It's worse than I thought. Every word you wrote was bang on the money.'

Trump comforted himself with the turnout of the faithful at his

MAGA rallies. But independents and more thoughtful Republicans have tired of his increasingly bizarre and unpredictable antics.

Picking unnecessary fights with allies, sucking up to that dead-eyed tyrant Putin, renaming Lake Ontario 'Lake America', planning to build an Arc de Triomphe-style 'Arc de Trump' in Washington, sticking his own name on Palm Beach airport and the Kennedy Center. If he had a horse, he'd make it a consul, like the Roman emperor Caligula.

Ultimately, though, it was the war and the cost of living that tipped the balance, outweighing Trump's solid achievements in sealing the southern border and growing the economy.

And even on the economic front, things are looking wobbly. Over the past three weeks, the AI bubble has been punctured, if not burst, wiping \$5trillion – yes trillion – off share prices. To put that in perspective, that's enough to wipe out Britain's national debt and leave plenty for a fish supper on the way home.

Midterm meltdowns are not unknown. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all suffered similar half-time defeats, yet bounced back to win a second presidential term two years later. Trump, though, can't stand again. He's got nothing to lose.

So what comes next? As they used to say on the animated TV show Stingray: Anything can happen in the next half-hour.

The fear now is that Trump will go into full Horse-Loose-In-A-Hospital mode, thrashing out randomly at real and imagined enemies – especially if the Democrats carry out their threat to impeach him and investigate his family. The Prez is already being advised to ‘lawyer up’.

We should always be wary of using the Hitler analogy, but my shrewd friend worries that the last two years of a cornered Trump could resemble the Fuhrer in the bunker from the movie Downfall.

‘He’s crazy, capable of anything, even starting World War III.’

There will be plenty of gloating at Trump's comeuppance on our side of the Pond. But we won't escape the fall-out.

The turbulence on the US stock exchange will be reflected here, with potentially dire consequences for investors and pension funds.

If the war on Iran and the logjam in the Strait of Hormuz drags on,

'Here, we don't even get to vote for our PM'

the cost of diesel – already hitting £2 a litre – will remain sky-high, crippling farmers and road hauliers and leading to even higher prices for just about everything.

There's another reason we have no cause to gloat. More than 100 million Americans turned out to vote this week.

Our own ‘midterm’ election was the Makerfield by-election, cynically engineered for the convenience of the Labour Party. It took just 25,000 votes to elect Councillor Burnham, who was then ushered in unopposed as Prime Minister without any reference to the wider electorate.

Unlike Trump, Burnham wasn't even on the ballot at the General Election two years ago.

Yet he has already charted a course for the next ten years, opening the door for slavery reparations, rolling out the red carpet for tens of thousands of foreign students, granting indefinite leave to remain to 1.4 million migrants, and reversing Brexit.

He is preparing to align us with EU diktats and return us to rule by foreign judges, without any mandate whatsoever – in defiance of his promise at the Makerfield by-election and the 17.4 million who voted Leave ten years ago. In the US they get to pass judgment on the President and his government every two years. Here, we don't even get to vote for our Prime Minister.

What we saw in the US this week was the democratically-expressed will of the people in action. The far-Left here may be celebrating Trump's discomfort but, compared to America, British 'democracy' is a sick joke.

'The President was on the line to Fox News. He went into full Norma Desmond mode'

Page 10 MIDTERMS MELTDOWN ★★★ 'Doke' Christian Daily Mail, Thursday, November 5, 2026

Fury of religious Right after state picks ex-teacher who believes in a ‘non-binary God’

From Nick Allen in Washington DC

HE WAS called a heretic, a demon in human form and even the Antichrist, but the name-calling didn't stop softly spoken James Talarico from romping home to a historic win in Texas.

The former school teacher crushed his Trump-endorsed Republican opponent Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat senator from the Lone Star State since 1988.

Double victory: Texas Senator James Talarico and Governor Gina Hinojosa toast each other in a fast food outlet

His high-profile victory against the odds has already sparked speculation he is a potential front-runner for the presidency in 2028, having previously garnered Obama-like devotion from some Democrats.

The position of state governor also went to a Democrat – for the first time in two generations. Gina Hinojosa is the first Latina to be elected governor of Texas.

However, Mr Talarico, 37, has alienated and infuriated many evangelical Christians.

To some of them, his campaign against the scandal-plagued Mr Paxton was not just about the fate of the US Senate, nor about influencing the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency.

It was about something bigger – something Biblical. A Presbyterian seminarian, Mr Talarico has espoused a progressive brand of Christianity that critics called 'woke' and quickly made him an enemy of America's religious Right. 'What he teaches is evil,' Dr Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of

'Love thy neighbour'

the First Baptist Church, a nationally known megachurch in Dallas, Texas, told the Daily Mail.

Mr Talarico's boldest proclamations include statements such as 'God is non-binary,' Jesus was a radical feminist,' and that there are 'six genders', a claim he has since walked back on. He has also suggested the Bible is silent on abortion, and that Jesus would have supported free universal healthcare.

On one Facebook group with more than 250,000 members, a discussion kicked off with: 'James Talarico has the Antichrist spirit living in him.'

A YouTube video with tens of thousands of views said he was ‘not the Antichrist but man is he getting close,’ going on to claim that the Senate candidate was a ‘heretic’.

Mr Talarico was born in Round Rock, a town just outside the city of Austin, Texas in 1989, the year after the Democrats last won a Senate seat in the state. After graduating from the University of Texas, Austin, and Harvard, he became a middle school teacher in Texas and was elected to the state's legislature in 2018.

He also became a seminarian, training to become a pastor in the Presbyterian Church and pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Austin Theological Seminary. The degree is now on hold.

Mr Talarico made faith central to his campaign, using the slogan 'Love Thy Neighbor,' and regularly quoting the Bible.

But during a legislative hearing in 2021, Mr Talarico said: 'Modern science recognises that there are many more than two biological sexes – in fact, there are six.'

He voted against a Republican bill banning transgender children playing on sports teams aligning with their gender identity and he suggested that parents who ‘deny their child’s gender identity’ are ‘abusive for sure’.

Another comment that landed badly with many Christians was that theirs has been the ‘most violent’ religion.

However, his victory has led some Democrats to believe they will finally end the Republican's unofficial status as the 'party of God' which they have held since the days of Ronald Reagan.

Night of history sees election firsts across creed, colour and sexuality

By Tom Cotterill

THE US has elected its first openly gay male and Muslim senators.

Chris Pappas and Dr Abdul El-Sayed made history by securing a seat in the Senate, while America's first black female governor was elected in Georgia.

Democrat Dr El-Sayed beat Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan despite an Islamophobic hate campaign that included claims he was linked to terrorists.

Vice President JD Vance had described him as ‘very, very evil’, while Donald Trump repeatedly referred to the Democrat as a ‘jihadist’.

Other Republicans also alleged he had ties to the controversial Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, which Dr El-Sayed, 42, has denied. Their attacks also focused on the fact that his mother was an Egyptian immigrant.

His parents split up when he was three and he was raised by his father and stepmother in Missouri, Florida and Michigan.

Victorious: Abdul El-Sayed with wife Sarah, and, far right, Keisha Lance Bottoms

After the separation, his mother lived in Egypt and later in Missouri, where she worked for a charity designated by the US as a supporter of terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. The charity, Islamic American Relief Agency, funded social services for children in Africa and Asia, according to records. It was shut down in 2004.

Dr El-Sayed's mother was a low-ranking

worker and never accused of any wrongdoing. The new senator taunted Mr Vance during his victory speech on Tuesday night, saying: 'JD, habibi [an affectionate Arabic term], there is this delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in January.' Meanwhile, Chris Pappas became the first openly gay man elected to the Senate after defeating Republican John Sununu in New Hampshire.

Mr Pappas, 46, is married to Vann Bentley, a lawyer and tech policy expert.

A descendant of Greek immigrants, Mr Pappas also made history in 2018 when he became New Hampshire's first openly gay member of Congress.

During his campaign he drew criticism within the Democratic Party for supporting a bill restricting healthcare for transgender children in 2020.

Elsewhere, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, became the first black female governor in the US after winning in Georgia.

Ms Bottoms, 56, is the daughter of R&B singer Major Lance. Before entering politics, she worked as a lawyer and served as a magistrate judge.

who took Texas

THE millions of Americans struggling to cope with the cost of living in recent months, watching as the price of everything from groceries and petrol to healthcare soars, have been painfully aware that not all their compatriots are suffering.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, the powerful investigative arm of the House of Representatives, have kept a running tracker notching up every cent of the billions of dollars with which they claim Donald Trump and his family have enriched themselves through ‘digital grift schemes … collecting profits through digital wallets and granting pardons to the highest bidders’.

As of yesterday, these alleged ill-gotten gains were calculated to stand at nearly \$4.5 billion (£3.3billion). And as the Democrats sensationally recaptured both the House and Senate, the committee's incoming chairman, Robert Garcia, had a blunt warning for the humiliated President.

'LAWYER UP,' he advised.

In the run-up to Tuesday's seismic mid-term elections, corruption came near the top of voters' concerns in several polls.

Trump's alleged self-enrichment – along with that of his family and his cronies – is something the Democrats have made clear they want to investigate forensically. Only last week, Garcia vowed: ‘On DAY ONE we are going to take on the most corrupt family ever to occupy the White House.’

Criminal charges are potentially on the table, with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House Speaker-elect, promising to ‘hold the crooks accountable’.

Those investigations may well lead to the impeachment (the process whereby public officials are removed from office for ‘high crimes and misdemeanours’) of Trump’s staffers and possibly the President himself.

'Hold the crooks accountable'

Now, however, the Democrats will run the show – and Trump himself reportedly predicted he’d be impeached in a pre-election meeting with House Republicans, although he says he would consider presumptive pardons for himself and aides.

So what exactly are the Democrats going to investigate? The Trump family's vast profits from the cryptocurrency industry; his administration's continued refusal to reveal everything the federal government has on the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein; its pardoning of wealthy criminals and Maga loyalists; alleged corrupt business dealings of Middle East envoys Jared Kushner (Trump's son-in-law)

From Tom Leonard IN NEW YORK

and Steve Witkoff; and even Trump's lavish Washington building projects – all these and more have been identified by Democrats as areas to pursue.

They also want to investigate myriad aspects of Trump's regime which they hate but which don't necessarily touch on corruption, including immigration enforcement, the conduct of the Iran war and trade tariffs.

Trump's opponents have been pressing for months for answers on these and other concerns – but, until now, the targets of their enquiries have ignored them as the Republicans controlled Congress. Now, however, the Democrats can not only draw on greater manpower to investigate alleged offences but they can subpoena documents and force people to testify.

New questions emerge by the day. The Trump family recently acknowledged, for instance, that a weekend ‘wedding party’ for the President’s son, Donald Jr, was partly funded by a Russian oligarch, reportedly with close ties to the Kremlin.

‘What’s shocking to me is not only that this administration, cabinet officials and even the President and his family have been corrupt and self-dealing, but they’ve been so brazen and open about it,’ Suhas Subramanyam, a member of the House Oversight Committee, said yesterday. Many clearly agree although the White House has repeatedly denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

During his first term, Trump was criticised when it emerged that foreign governments, US officials and others involved with his administration were spending millions of dollars, including American-taxpayer money, on meals and rooms in hotels owned by the Trump Organization.

Opponents now claim that was nothing compared with the profiteering that has gone on since his re-election in 2024.

Although the Trump Organization promised to pause foreign deals during his first term, this time round it lined up a string of multi-million-dollar projects across the world.

This mixing of public office with private benefits is meant to be curtailed by the US Constitution's ‘emoluments’ clause, which states that Congress must approve any gift from a ‘king, prince or foreign state’ to an elected US official, including the President.

Trump has been causing particular alarm over his encouragement of the cryptocurrency industry. Wealthy crypto investors poured money into his election campaign and a grateful Trump pledged to slash regulations and make the US the ‘crypto capital of the world’.

Within days of his inauguration, he controversially pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a jailed cyber-crime pioneer who set up a marketplace on the ‘dark web’ (inaccessible from typical browsers).

The President also launched his own cryptocurrency, the \$TRUMP ‘meme coin’, which earned him several billion dollars on paper. The coin has since collapsed in value, ruining several investors, as has the First Lady’s ‘\$MELANIA’ coin.

Trump and his sons – Donald Jr, Eric and Barron – were also heavily involved in a crypto business, World Liberty Financial, launched four months before he took office. The Democrats want to review a reported deal – allegedly agreed just four days before the inauguration – in which a member of the ruling royal family of Abu Dhabi in the UAE secretly bought a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial for around \$500 million – of which nearly half allegedly went to the families of Trump and Steve Witkoff.

Months later, the Trump administration approved \$1.4 billion (£1 billion) in arms sales and the sale of 35,000 advanced AI chips to the UAE, despite national security concerns, say Democrats.

The White House and World Liberty denied any link between the investment and the chip sale. Witkoff has denied any wrongdoing.

In June, Trump's official financial disclosures revealed he had more than \$2.2 billion (£1.6 billion) income last year, including \$1.4 billion from the crypto business. He insisted there was 'nothing illegal' about this income but Democrats wanted to investigate it

Trump's opponents further want to discuss the circumstances in which another wealthy Middle Eastern petrostate, Qatar, came to donate a \$400 million (£295 million) Boeing 747-8 to his administration to serve as Air Force One.

As for Jared Kushner, married to

'Repeatedly denied all wrongdoing'

Trump's daughter Ivanka, Democrats have been demanding since 2023 to know quite how he manages to avoid a conflict of interest between his dual roles as an informal foreign policy adviser to Trump and being the head of a private equity firm that conducts business with foreign governments. They are also keen to explore how and why Kushner's firm took \$2billion (£1.5billion) investment from Saudia Arabia's sovereign wealth fund soon after Trump left the White House in 2021.

Democrats are also demanding to know how a clutch of defence and tech firms backed by Donald Jr and Eric Trump have won billions of dollars in federal government deals.

Finally, before taking office, Trump had promised to release, uncensored, all the millions of government files that were connected to his longtime paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein. In the event, millions of pages and emails were withheld or heavily redacted. Both Republicans and Democrats have been trying to subpoena witnesses from the administration to explain why so much remains missing.

So many questions – and two more years as a lame-duck President to answer them. Trump may have to put off his cherished tarting-up of the White House – and get his lawyers on the phone.

WHAT a mouse. Louise Haigh was making her debut deputising for Andy Burnham at PMQs. She's that one with the criminal record.

She was sacked from the Starmer Cabinet two years ago and then plotted to insert Mr Burnham – a man of Christian forgiveness when it comes to fraud convictions – as Prime Minister. Would she crack her knuckles at the despatch box and show flashes of nonchalant menace? Would she be streetwise, deploying an artful dodger's repartee? Alas not.

First Secretary Haigh turned in a disappointingly tinny performance. She was so softly spoken that in the tumult of the chamber she was hard to hear. A credit to the probation services, you might suspect, but a letdown in terms of parliamentary theatre. She was not a patch on Angela Rayner. Former deputy PM Rayner sat on the front bench and stayed almost entirely immobile.

Miss Haigh arrived in the chamber accompanied by the Chancellor, John Healey, who hovered alongside in

the manner of a solicitor guarding his young client. Miss Haigh clutched her red ministerial file. Looked a bit Uncle Dick.

First question was a donkey-drop from Matthew Patrick (Lab, Wirral W). He asked about jobs for youngsters. There was a melancholy background to this, for the youthful Mr Patrick was recently sacked as a Northern Ireland minister. He had done nothing wrong. Just wasn't part of Andy's gang. As he spoke about it being 'the very mission of our party' to give young people opportunities, he did well not to break down in sobs.

Kemi Badenoch has given up letting her B-list colleagues take turns at PMQs. The task has been entrusted full-time to Alex Burghart and he was well at

The Deputy PM – the one with the fraud conviction – started jabbering ... maybe her Tory rival reminded her of a barrister

Tinny: Louise Haigh yesterday

home – more so than the quivering Miss Haigh. A short first jab: 'This year, how much will the Government spend on working-age welfare?' Brief questions are always deadly.

WESTMINSTER SKETCH

by QUENTIN LETTS

In any decent crime drama, hardened moll Louise would have knocked posh boy Burghart's lights out before rifling in his pockets and swaggering off to The Blind Beggar in Whitechapel with her ill-gotten gains. That is how we scriptwriters would have injected some drama, I tell ye. But it was not to be.

After essaying a joke about Mr Burghart's duties as Kemi's sidekick – it won sparse laughter from her own side – she whimpered something about how the Government was ‘committed to bringing the benefits bill down’. Labour MPs looked glum.

Mr Burghart pursued his questions with impressive calm. Miss

Haigh did not like it and started jabbering. Maybe he reminded her of a courtroom barrister.

Soon Burghart was poking fun at the Government's ten-year plan. Miss Haigh insisted they really would cut benefits, but ‘in a Labour way’. Great laughter at that.

T

HE Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, told off a backbench Tory for

heckling. 'I don't think it looks good trying to shout a woman down,' averred the Speaker. This was a novel ruling. Many female frontbenchers, including Mrs Badenoch, have been shouted at in the Commons. Had avuncular Sir Lindsay spotted that Miss Haigh was struggling?

A delegation from the Ivory Coast watched from upstairs. Sir Lindsay, not one of life's natural linguists, announced the presence of these VIPs and tried to say 'Cote d'Ivoire'. It popped out wrongly and sounded more like a bottle of plonk from the Co-op.

There is one splendid development to report. Earlier this week I noted the lumpy, male-style suit worn by Government Chief Whip Anneliese Midgley. I suggested she smarten up and start wearing a pinstripe. And she has! She looked tons better. All it now needs is for her to adopt a Tommy gun and a stogy and Labour MPs will do precisely what she orders.

Miss Haigh's ordeal continued. She showed little relish for the fray. At the end, Ms Rayner just shot her the shortest of nods. When Ange did PMQs there was always incident, laughter and a sense of impetus. Little of that was evident this time.

'Park over there outside Waitrose and I'll walk to Lidl from there'

It's Jenny from the Rocket as she brings back Fonda's Barbarella

JANE Fonda once starred alongside Jennifer Lopez as her formidable mother-in-law.

But J-Lo has clearly retained a soft spot for the veteran actress as she recreated her iconic Barbarella look.

The American singer, 57, dressed as Ms Fonda's scantily-clad space heroine, even recreating the 1968 science-fiction classic's raunchy opening sequence

By Olivia Kemp

Showbusiness Reporter

in which the actress undresses in zero gravity.

Wielding a futuristic firearm, the Jenny from the Block singer wore a revealing black mesh cat-suit, which featured a metallic bra and matching miniskirt. She completed the look with silver boots, chunky metallic bracelets and a big blonde hairstyle in keeping with the film's 1960s aesthetic. Sharing the snaps on social media, she wrote: 'Barbarella ... I dressed up as my Monster-in-Law for Halloween ... the original space angel. Love you @JaneFonda.'

Her tribute was a nod to the pair's 2005 romantic comedy Monster-in-Law, in which Ms Fonda, now 88, played the overbearing mother of Ms Lopez's fiance. The film marked Ms Fonda's return to acting after a 15-year absence.

Star quality: Jennifer Lopez with sci-fi original Jane Fonda

[Spy under the bonnet] Labour to use electric cars' satnav to record mileage and calculate road tax

By David Churchill

LABOUR wants to digitally track drivers' mileage as part of its new pay-per-mile road tax, sparking fresh privacy fears about the 'Big Brother' scheme.

Under plans buried in the small print of last week's Budget, ministers want to use ‘in-built connectivity’ systems in electric and hybrid cars.

This would let transport officials use vehicle data to calculate tax for motorists who either don't pay fuel duty on petrol or diesel, or, in the case of hybrid cars, are likely to pay far less.

Officials also hope it will help prevent mileage fraud and streamline payment of road tax.

Previously, ministers only said drivers would have to submit a mileage reading at the end of the year to calculate the tax bill.

But while Treasury officials insist motorists will have to opt in to the new scheme, critics fear it risks becoming a slippery slope towards all drivers being forced to have their mileage monitored.

Tory transport spokesman Richard Holden accused Labour of a U-turn after it previously ruled out tracking mileage due to privacy fears about drivers' locations and journeys being shared.

He said: 'They want your car gossiping to the taxman every mile you drive. Labour needs to rule out pay-per-mile pricing.'

Howard Cox, of FairFuelUK, said: 'This reeks of Big Brother Britain. Labour says it's voluntary, but for how long?

'Today they want your mileage. Tomorrow, what else will they want to know? Where you drive,

'This reeks of Big Brother Britain'

where you visit, what you do in your private life? Our cars, journeys and freedom to travel are ours, not Westminster's.

Josie Appleton, of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life, said: 'This is becoming an excuse to monitor and invade the liberties of e-vehicle drivers.'

Pay-per-mile – also known as eVED, or electric vehicle excise duty – will be enforced from April 2028. The levy, announced last year, will be charged at 1.5p a mile for hybrid cars and 3p for electric ones on top of standard road tax.

It will rise in line with inflation from 2029. So someone driving an electric car 10,000 miles a year faces an extra bill of around £300.

Last week's Budget pledged to create a ‘eVED Connect’ scheme and ‘an opt-in system to make use of vehicles' connectivity'. New electric or hybrid cars have internet and GPS that could interact with DVLA databases.

The Treasury said: ‘There will be no requirement to install trackers in cars, or report where and when miles are driven.’

Burnham and Miliband out of sync over apology for historical slavery

Offbeat: Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband playing drums yesterday while visiting the Hells Gate Orchestra Steel Pan Yard in Antigua

ANDY Burnham and Ed Miliband sowed confusion yesterday over taxpayers' costs for their planned slavery apology.

The Foreign Secretary pledged that Britons will not pay a ‘penny more’ despite the Government’s shift in approach.

But the comments, in an interview at the Commonwealth summit in Antigua, contrasted with the Prime Minister, who, also at the conference, repeatedly refused to give the same guarantee.

Mr Burnham's offer to say sorry as part of a ‘structured dialogue’ with other nations has caused a storm, with critics pointing out the UK led the way in smashing

By James Tapsfield

the global slave trade. The King pointedly avoided any suggestion of an apology in his keynote speech at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on Tuesday, insisting ‘we cannot change the past’.

Charles did however acknowledge the transatlantic slave trade ‘still casts a shadow’ and that ‘shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow’.

Asked by the BBC whether the formal apology could be ready by the time of the G20 Leaders' Summit in Manchester next November, Mr Miliband said: 'Broadly speaking, yes.' As for whether the approach could end up costing UK taxpayers a penny more, Mr Miliband said it wouldn't.

He added: 'That's never been what it's about. And that's why it's

Caught out: King in downpour Umbrella? I've got you all covered, jokes Charles

From Rebecca English

Royal Editor in Antigua

THE King made a joke at his own expense as he hosted Commonwealth leaders at the end of his Caribbean trip, saying he'd be their ‘umbrella’.

It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to a moment that went viral this week when he angrily gesticulated for a brolly after being caught in a downpour.

Speaking at a dinner at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua, he said the ‘family of nations’ united countries famous for snow, deserts and those ‘convinced they enjoy perfect weather all year round’, adding to laughs: ‘Although perhaps part of my role as head of the Commonwealth is to provide an umbrella for you all.’

The King said he and the Queen had been touched by the kindness shown them, adding: 'When it is all too tempting for nations to retreat behind ever higher walls, our Commonwealth offers another path. No treaty compels any of us to be here. We come because we choose to. I find that a source of enormous pride.'

Why oat and almond milks could be bad for your health

SWAPPING dairy for plant-based alternatives such as oat or almond milk could lead to serious nutrient deficiencies, a study claims.

Researchers found even cutting back, such as by switching cow's milk for oat milk in coffee, can lead to iodine deficiency – potentially causing weight gain, memory problems and chronic fatigue.

The research also found children, teenagers and women were worst affected by a swap to plant-based milks, yoghurt and cheese.

Experts from the University of Surrey and Queen's University Belfast studied the dietary intake of 3,500 people from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. They looked at the risks of dropping dairy in favour of plant-based

By Zoe Hardy

items, including 146 plant-based milks, 76 yoghurts and 67 cheese products. They

examined the effect on micronatirent intake for iodine, calcium and vitamins B2 and B12.

The researchers also found variations in the extent to which plant-based foods are fortified with added vitamins.

After analysing the nutritional content of the non-dairy milks, yoghurts and cheese alternatives, they found only just 12 per cent were fortified with iodine. While 61 per cent contained added calcium, just one in five were fortified with riboflavin and 46 per cent contained vitamin B12.

Even modest reductions in dairy consumption led to declines in all four micronutrients – with iodine seeing by far the steepest decline. Researchers found that replacing 20 to 35 per cent of dairy products with plant-based alternatives significantly increased the number of women and girls failing to get enough iodine.

Among teenage girls, the proportion with inadequate iodine intake rose from just over half to almost two-thirds following the switch. Among women of childbearing

Farage vows to pardon veterans taken to court

EXCLUSIVE

By Mark Nicol

Defence Editor

REFORM UK has pledged to end most prosecutions of British soldiers in a bid to clamp down on members of the Army being dragged to court ‘merely for doing their jobs’.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Reform's new Armed Forces spokesman, former RAF Wing Commander Angus MacIntyre, said soldiers would only face legal inquiries with the ‘explicit consent of the Defence Secretary’.

The pledge comes as Northern Ireland veterans face legal action relating to incidents that took place decades ago during the Troubles.

The persecution of former soldiers who faced down the IRA has been enabled by Labour's Troubles Bill, which recently passed its second reading in the House of Commons.

The Government's prospective legislation also paves the way for inquests relating to incidents where soldiers acted lawfully when they engaged terrorists.

Mr MacIntyre said Reform would ‘provide our veterans with the support they

Daily Mail CAMPAIGN DON'T LEAVE BRITAIN DEFENCELESS

require' and that 'within 100 days' of taking power, the party 'will pardon veterans convicted for simply carrying out orders, terminate ongoing prosecutions and bar further prosecutions of British soldiers – save for the explicit consent of the

Defence Secretary'. The Northern Ireland veteran, who also served in Afghanistan, added: 'We see the utterly disgraceful treatment of our veterans who have found themselves prosecuted merely for doing their jobs.'

But last night, Reform's promises on immunity were challenged by veterans.

Paul Young, a veteran of the Blues and Royals Household Cavalry Regiment and prominent campaigner, urged Mr MacIntyre and Reform leader Nigel Farage to rethink.

Mr Young said: 'We could not endorse those policies based on those wordings. The Defence Secretary is a politician rather than a legal person. We have advocated that a Supreme Court judge should decide whether cases proceed, based on the requirement for new, compelling and extraordinary evidence.

‘Also, we have never called for pardons, rather the prevention of repeated attempts to prosecute soldiers without legal justification. When someone has committed a crime they should be subjected to the appropriate processes.’

Former Army intelligence officer Philip Ingram agreed, and said: 'I don't believe there is a legal mechanism to achieve what they're promising.'

Reform is calling for cuts to the UK's £330 billion welfare budget to support increased defence spending.

The party says it will commit to spending 3 per cent of GDP by 2030, rising to 3.5 per cent by 2035 – matching pledges made by Labour and the Conservatives.

COMMENTARY By Angus MacIntyre

SERVING in the British Armed Forces has been the single greatest honour of my life. During my 40-year career, I have been posted all over the world, from Sierra Leone to Mogadishu, going from one extreme to the other – conducting Arctic warfare in -30C conditions one minute to undergoing months of gruelling desert training in sweltering 50C heat the next.

There have been hairy times, such as a six-month tour in the IRA stronghold of Crossmaglen, one the most dangerous postings for the British Army during the Troubles.

There have also been extremely tough times. In Afghanistan, I was among the body-recovery team for an RAF Nimrod that crashed near Kandahar following a catastrophic mid-flight fire, killing 14 service personnel. The devastation I saw will stay with me to my dying day.

But undoubtedly the most challenging aspect of military life has been enduring the way in which successive governments have treated our Armed Forces. To politicians, we are almost an afterthought, which is why they fail to provide the equipment, funding and resources our brave men and women need.

Backing troops and veterans: Wing Commander Angus MacIntyre

Meanwhile, we see the disgraceful treatment of our veterans, who face prosecution from activist lawyers and the political establishment merely for doing their jobs under extreme pressures.

W HICH is why I have chosen to leave the military and join Reform UK as its first spokesman for the Armed Forces.

I can no longer stand by and see service personnel being expected to operate in increasingly demanding and dangerous circumstances, often separated from their families for long periods and putting their lives on the line, while time and again beingleftfeelingundervalued, underresourced and forgotten.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, defence spending has dwindled to unworkable levels. When I signed up in 1986 aged 18, the Armed Forces had 330,000 service personnel. Today, the combined personnel of the Army,

Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force stands at 148,000 – barely enough to fill two Premier League football stadiums.

Watching the decline over the past five years from inside the Ministry of Defence has been particularly difficult.

Each year, budgets have shrunk and every time we have asked governments the same question: What do you want us to cut? What is it that you think we no longer require? The answer from Whitehall has always been the same: That's your call.

What made matters worse was when we looked around and saw where taxpayer money was going. Britain spends £330 billion on welfare compared with just £60 billion on defence. Andy Burnham insists national security cannot come at the expense of our social security – but how can you have one without the other?

As for procurement, it has become a byword for waste, delay and indecision. Troops are promised world-class equipment but years later, those same projects are often running late, are significantly over budget or have failed to deliver the capabilities originally pledged.

Equipment for Ukraine can be sourced, tested and delivered in less than eight weeks. The same process for British defence would take ten years, when the world has never been more dangerous in my lifetime.

This is because our system has to be totally risk-averse and decision making is managed through huge committees.

All this indecision has now come back to haunt us. While long-term defence modernisation remains essential, the immediate priority must be ensuring that the Armed Forces are equipped and resourced to respond effectively to a crisis at short notice.

This means urgently expanding our current supplies and producing more kit quickly. Make no mistake, Britain must prepare for the possibility of a major conflict. The threat from

Russia over the next five years remains very real.

I have zero belief that the old parties will fix this. Reform is the only organisation I trust to make the changes we desperately need.

THE party believes in bringing into politics people with high-level experience to run departments, rather than career politicians.

Away from the front line, I have worked with the United Nations and the Somali National Army, spent a year in the Pentagon and was assistant head of Taskforce Spirit, the MoD body that works to support the long-term capabilities of Ukraine's military.

On my watch, I will ensure our Armed Forces receive both the backing and the respect they deserve. We at Reform would rapidly boost defence spending, committing to spending 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 and then 3.5 per cent by 2035. And you can be certain, too, that we will look after our troops. Soldiers who risk life and limb for their country should not be paid less than workers in an Amazon warehouse.

We will provide our veterans with the support they require. Within 100 days we will pardon those convicted for simply carrying out orders, terminate ongoing prosecutions and bar further prosecutions of soldiers – save for the explicit consent of the Secretary of State for Defence. Ex-soldiers should not spend their retirement wondering whether the very country they swore to defend will stand by them. We will have their backs.

I am under no illusions about the difficulties we would face in making the changes required to get our troops shipshape and battle ready. But I have spent my career asking other people to step forward when it was hard. It would be a poor kind of officer who then declined to do the same, because our Armed Forces deserve better. Britain deserves better.

Gifts too

special

to miss.

Sainsbury's

Daily Mail, Thursday, November 5, 2026

My stalking hell, and why police are letting down women, by TV's Cathy Newman

EXCLUSIVE

By Claire Duffin

and Isaac Crowson

JOURNALIST Cathy Newman has revealed the 'toll' of her ordeal at the hands of a stalker who sent her lewd sexual letters and underwear.

She also criticised the police's handling of her case, saying it had given her a ‘new insight into the challenges women face in securing justice’.

The presenter, 52, only found out that her stalker Christopher McKeever had been in court after the Daily Mail contacted her.

McKeever, 76, had sent Ms Newman ‘unwanted letters’ which contained obscene language, as well as a ‘multi-pack of white briefs’ and flowers as ‘gifts’.

And the stalker, believed to be a retired GP, continued sending mail and gifts despite repeated warnings from Ms Newman's then-employer, ITN, which produces Channel 4 News. In one letter, he told her: 'I love the clothes you wear, you are a fashion icon.

'I love your gorgeous hair, it must be the most beautiful in the world...Your voice I could listen to all day. Lots love.' He signed it off ‘Dr Chris’. In another, he wrote that he hoped she was wearing ‘white cotton lingerie’ followed by sexual references too graphic to publish.

Ordeal: Sky News presenter Cathy Newman

Guilty plea: Christopher McKeever, 76

At Colchester Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, McKeever, who represented himself, admitted a single charge of stalking without causing fear, alarm or distress between July 3, 2024, and April 12, 2026.

After the case, Ms Newman – who now hosts a nightly politics show on Sky News and was not in court – said: 'Receiving graphic sexual messages and gifts over a period of years was incredibly upsetting and intrusive. I'm really glad that Christopher McKeever has been convicted, though the length of time it's taken and the way the case was handled by the police from start to finish has given me new insight into the challenges women face in securing justice, and the toll taken in the meantime.'

She added: ‘The fact that I heard from the media before police or prosecutors about McKeever’s guilty plea speaks volumes about how victims are treated by the system, and gives me new determination to speak for other women and girls facing similar obstacles to justice.’

The court heard that ITN's legal team sent a ‘cease-and-desist letter’ to him on April 8, 2025 and then another calling on him to stop on November 6. McKeever had ‘pursued a course of conduct’ amounting to stalking and had sent the gifts ‘which you knew or ought to have known amounted to the harassment of her’, according to prosecutor Natalie Rob-

'Incredibly upsetting'

erts. She told the court: 'Mr McKeever has two convictions for alike offence from January 2014 and January 2016.'

The case was adjourned to allow a pre-sentence report to be written and for Ms Newman to prepare a victim impact statement. McKeever, of Colchester, was told that he was banned from contacting Ms Newman ‘in any form’ under his bail conditions.

He will next appear on January 25, 2027, and declined to comment after the hearing.

In 2018, Ms Newman was bombarded with death threats and misogynistic abuse after an interview with psychologist Jordan Peterson on Channel 4 News.

A man was also ordered not to go within 50 metres of her and the ITN building in 2014, after allegedly sending her 100,000 tweets and trying to kiss her.

Essex Police has been contacted for comment.

Bob's knockin' on heaven's door as he meets fan Leo

THE times they are a-changing in the Vatican, as Bob Dylan met Pope Leo, a long-time fan, at the Apostolic Palace yesterday.

While the pontiff, 71, wore his customary white cassock, 85-year-old Dylan sported a black hooded sweatshirt and jacket.

Pope Leo, who is originally from Chicago, quoted the singer's unreleased 1963 anti-nuclear protest song Go Away You Bomb in the preface to a book released in July.

Black and white: Pope Leo greets Dylan yesterday

Agony of a torn muscle forces Jaime off Strictly

JAIME Winstone has been forced to miss this weekend's Strictly Come Dancing after suffering an injury during training.

The actress, who has survived three dance-offs, has been advised by doctors to rest due to a torn abdominal muscle.

Ms Winstone, 41, daughter of actor Ray, was ‘devastated’ not to dance in Saturday’s live show but was in ‘considerable pain’. She added on social media yesterday: ‘I love every moment of dancing

By Joanna Crawley

and performing with Carlos, and I am praying for a speedy recovery so that I can continue this magical journey.'

In line with the BBC show's rules, Ms Winstone and partner Carlos Gu will receive a pass through to next week when it is hoped they will perform again.

Last month, Delta Goodrem missed a show after a rib injury.

Daily Mail

COMMENT

Midterm misery is all Trump's fault

DONALD Trump was never destined to be everyone's cup of tea. But there was cause for cautious optimism when he staged a remarkable comeback to become the 47th President of the United States.

Despite the mercurial personality, crude tongue and CV tainted by criminal convictions, there were pluses. He had overseen impressive economic growth during his first presidential term and, following the torpor of the Biden years, offered the prospect of dynamic leadership and a resurgent America.

Yet Mr Trump's second spell in the White House has been an absolute disaster. Even his remaining admirers must now realise that launching war on Iran earlier this year was a calamitous misjudgment.

Not that it should require the benefit of hindsight. Regardless of growing tensions with Tehran, it defies logic that no one in the President's inner circle anticipated the almost inevitable consequences of unleashing full-scale hostilities.

The fall-out has been nothing less than seismic, not least in terms of Mr Trump's current electoral woes. Even to the most politically naïve, the link between Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the resulting global fuel crisis and the Republican Party's midterms meltdown could hardly be clearer.

Nor has Mr Trump covered himself in glory over Ukraine. While his position on the conflict has veered wildly since the beginning of last year, his treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky has ranged from merely discourteous to plain offensive.

Yet particularly galling to right-minded observers has been the spectacle of the supposed leader of the free world cosying up to Vladimir Putin. Whether Trump connived with Elon Musk to restrict Ukraine's access to military-grade satellite networks remains a moot point. But his cynical deal to import millions of tons of Putin's diesel – less than a month after signing measures into law aimed at strengthening sanctions on companies buying Russian oil and gas – won't be quickly forgotten.

Even Mr Trump – not generally known for self-examination or an introspective nature – must be aware that his social media habits are something of an international joke.

To many eyes, his frequently contradictory posts – often spelt out in block capitals for added emphasis – border on the deranged. Their content routinely includes claims and assertions known to be untrue.

Yet the coming months and years will see Mr Trump – who could ultimately face impeachment – under intense pressure for the truth about his political and personal manoeuvres. With the Democrats now taking control of both the House of Representatives and Senate, he is expected to face committee inquiries about lucrative government contracts linked to family members and allies.

His elder sons Donald Jr and Eric, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, are likely be investigated for corruption. Areas set to come under scrutiny are cryptocurrency dealings, funding of the White House ballroom and the President's acceptance of a Qatari jet to use as Air Force One.

The more immediate problems will come in the form of Mr Trump's power being severely curtailed by a Democrat-controlled legislature. For the remaining two years of his presidential term, he is poised for almost constant war with Congress.

It is, by any reckoning, a complete and utter mess. For Britons, the chaos might even fire up memories of the worst elements of the Tories' last days in power. And we all know what that ultimately led to...

IT'S hard to think of a more chilling piece of legislation than the draft Conversion Practices Bill, a new law designed to criminalise attempts to change a person's sexual orientation or transgender identity.

The idea might sound reasonable in theory.

After all, when most people hear the phrase ‘conversion therapy’, they think of horrific treatments such as the administering of electric shocks to gay men to ‘cure’ them, or the ‘corrective rape’ of lesbians.

But all such acts have long been illegal here in Britain. The sort of abuses the proposed new Bill purports to address are much more subtle and defined in such woolly language that there is a clear potential for the Act to be weaponised by activists.

They include ‘controlling or coercive words or behaviour’, ‘use of economic pressure’, ‘use of psychological or emotional pressure’ and, ominously, unspecified ‘other things’.

The trouble is that some of these examples are common features of ordinary parenting.

A mother or father who prevents a teenager from associating with certain peers, or confiscates their phone, is quite literally exercising ‘control and coercion’. If this is abuse, then virtually every responsible parent is guilty.

We should all be alarmed by the Labour Bill that will turn loving parents into criminals

by Andrew Doyle

either male or female. The parent may also refuse to use 'they' and 'them' pronouns. Such a disagreement might well cause genuine distress. The child could even go on to play truant or commit acts of self-harm, but that would not in itself mean that the parent had acted abusively.

If Labour's Bill is passed, however, ordinary family disputes of this kind could end up in court. This is why the draft law is so disturbing.

The Government says it is aimed at criminalising abusive practices. But, as Akua Reindorf KC and Baroness Falkner, a former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, observe in a new report, that could have far-reaching consequences.

They note the common tendency among trans activists to perceive ‘misgendering’ – using the pronouns that relate to someone’s innate sex rather than their more numinous ‘gender identity’ – to be a form of abuse.

Abuse

They also point to a 2026 report by a hardline LGBT charity, Galop, which was cited by the Government in its own ‘impact assessment’ and included the ‘intentional refusal to use a chosen name or pronouns’ among examples of ‘conversion practices’. The truth is that the draft Bill’s description of ‘transgender identity’ is so broad it could encompass hundreds of alternative gender labels – even, as the Mail reported this week – ‘catgender’.

That possibility is not quite as fantastical as it sounds. In June 2023, an audio recording from Rye College in East Sussex in which a teacher could be heard reprimanding two Year 8 girls for challenging the idea that another pupil could identify as a cat went viral.

Similar claims subsequently emerged from other schools. One pupil reportedly identified as a dinosaur, another as a horse, while a third wore a cape to lessons and insisted on being called a moon.

These examples may be outliers, but they illustrate just how contested the notion of ‘gender identity’ can be. Labour’s draft Conversion Practices Bill does nothing to resolve these ambiguities.

Worse still, it threatens to criminalise parents who refuse to ‘affirm’ whatever identities their children have adopted.

We are right to ask serious questions about this. Why is the Government so intent on dictating how parents should raise their children? What business is that of the state?

The authors of this draft Bill seem to have forgotten that there are numerous reasons why parents might challenge a child's sense of self.

Religious families may object to homosexuality or gender transition on grounds of faith. Others will be aware that gender nonconformity in youth is a reliable predictor of homosexuality in adult life. This means that many boys and girls who believe themselves to be transgender are at risk of being medicalised and often undergo irreversible treatment when they are simply gay.

Many parents of children identifying as transgender and agitating to be given puberty blockers will also have read studies raising concerns about the drugs' possible negative effects on bone development and fertility.

In other words, parents acting out of genuine concern for their children's welfare could find themselves accused of abuse and dragged through the courts under Labour's new law.

Dangerous

In truth, genuine examples of abusive conversion practices are vanishingly rare. The Government-backed Conversion Practices Helpline received just 29 reports about such practices over three years: fewer than ten a year. And many of these are likely to have already been criminalised under existing law.

Given the zeal with which Labour has pursued this Bill, it is curious to note that its draft version prohibits little that is not already illegal, while threatening to criminalise perfectly lawful behaviour.

It's a piece of legislation, which was framed by Labour's ex-Minister for Equalities, Olivia Bailey MP, and presented to Parliament in June, that amounts to the promotion of a highly contested ideology of gender at the expense of freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.

No wonder it has been opposed by a slew of high-profile figures, from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform founder Nigel Farage to the former Olympic swimmer Baroness Sharron Davies and Harry Potter creator JK Rowling.

A law that represents a dangerous intervention by the state into family life has no place on the statute book. So long as they are breaking no laws, parents should have the right to raise their children as they see fit. When the Government tries to step into our homes, it must be resisted.

by Peter Hitchens

THE power in my house died, with a faint groan, like the ghost of electricity trying to tell me something. Was it the boiler, the fridge, or the freezer that made that sad, alarming, desolate sound? Or was it the desktop computer, or the laptop? Or the kitchen fan?

It was early morning and just about light, so at least we were not groping for a torch. But almost everything I rely on to live as I do - especially, nowadays, computers - depends utterly on a reliable power supply. I thought the moment I had long feared had arrived.

Britain's power system trembles all the time on the edge of a disastrous blackout which could take days to repair and could send our economy stumbling over the precipice.

Anybody who pays attention knows this. But here I was, like any fool, unable to work, facing who knew how long without the spark of energy which makes our world keep rolling.

Soon, all the batteries would run down too. I cursed myself, as I often do, for ignoring my own fears for years.

In Baghdad and Mogadishu I had seen what happens to modern life when the power goes. I knew that the long-running Net Zero attack on what was once a solid and reliable National Grid had left us in danger of darkness and silence. But I still hadn't done anything about installing a back-up.

In Baghdad, war, neglect and looting had made the power hopelessly unreliable, but in my small hotel you

We tremble on the edge of a blackout

could count on the generator snarling into life within seconds of the main system failing. If you were working on a computer you just had to keep saving your stuff over and over again to avoid losing your work. In Mogadishu, those in the darkened, nightmare city who had their own power were aristocrats amid the powerless poor – powerless in both senses of the word.

So what was this? I live in a 1930s suburb of Oxford and I suspect the cabling and substations must be getting a little tired. Perhaps they were just conking out. it.

So I called my power suppliers, who are called something like Welsh and Eastern, though I am nowhere near Wales or the East, and cannot actually remember how I ended up buying my volts amps, watts and ohms from them. Aren't these privatised utilities supposed to be more helpful than the old state ones?

Miraculously, I got through. A voice demanded my postcode. I provided it. Then it demanded the first line of my address. I gave

Picture: (posed by model) ISTOCKPHOTO

The sinister ghostly groan as the power in my house died is a sound that will soon be familiar to us all – thanks to Net Zero

it. Then it wanted my name. Had they, I wondered, only cut off the power of people whose names began with 'H'? I said I couldn't see how that could help. I knew that if I asked the voice's name, he would decline to give it to me under data protection rules.

But after a short pause, he weakened on the name issue and informed me: 'You have a power cut.' Well, there, you see – privatisation has definitely made the utility companies more user-friendly. I still don't entirely know why the power failed. I pursued the matter later, and was told that somebody had cut into a mains cable. Was this just one of my neighbours, digging for potatoes, or perhaps for coal?

Or was it one of those broadband cable companies who excavate the streets and pavements almost every day, chewing up the roots of mature trees as they go, providing yet more ways of welcoming trashy streaming channels into my home? I do not know.

As it turned out the power came back on a few hours later. And the closedown was wholly local.

But at any time, the British grid is highly vulnerable, far more than it used to be.

On June 23, there was definitely a crisis in power transmission in this country. Experts argue about how bad it was, but it was undoubtedly a warning. When a power grid trips and collapses, the effects are huge; when it doesn't, nobody notices outside the control rooms. On that date a major nuclear station, Sizewell B, was offline. The amazing ‘electric mountain’ at Dinorwig in Snowdonia – which can produce high power at high speed by pouring millions of gallons of stored water into hydro-electric generators – was partly offline for maintenance. A large chunk of the usually reliable gas generation was struggling because of the same hot weather which was causing high power demand.

Some internal power lines were already too heavily loaded, so they could not be used to switch energy from Scotland to the south. Huge batteries, which astonishingly can now provide emergency electricity in large quantities, can supply it only for short periods.

It turned out to be easier, in the end, to avoid a meltdown by importing power under the Channel from France. Some of this was nuclear, thanks to that country's long-ago decision to build a huge network of nuclear stations, and some of it from French equivalents of Dinorwig's magic mountain.

It worked. But we went nearly all the way through the multiple safeguards and back-ups. What if one more thing had gone wrong, or France had not been able to help?

These conditions, or something like them, could happen again. It might not work out so well the next time.

My own view is that this risk is a direct result of dogma. Britain had – until recently – a reliable

An act of dogmatic self-harm

fleet of coal-fired power stations, much as China, India and America do now.

Like nuclear, gas and hydropower, coal-based generation provides what is called ‘inertia’, a steadiness in current which prevents the power system from tripping and failing when things go wrong. Wind and solar power do not provide this. On August 9, 2019, this problem almost certainly played a part in a serious blackout which cut off a million British customers and halted many trains.

But, driven by the anti-carbon dogma long ago adopted by this country, we have not just mothballed our coal-burning fleet in case we need them one day. We have totally closed and, in most cases, demolished 19 coal-fired power stations, capable of providing 40 per cent of the country's electricity needs. Several, including Didcot A, not far from where I live, have actually been blown up with high explosives.

I heard the Didcot blast from ten miles away and felt a chill of apprehension which has not left me since. I thought then and think now that this was an act of dogmatic self-harm, meaningless when set against the vast and continuing expansion of coal-burning in China.

I will never be surprised to hear that soft, sinister, ghostly groan as my electricity dies and I am shoved out of the modern world into a sort of apocalypse where everything we rely on has become a lifeless piece of plastic or metal.

I really must do something about getting that generator.

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Harry Potter store targeted over JK Rowling's views on women's rights

Demonstration: A trans activist shouts into a megaphone on Oxford Street

Star turn: Warwick Davis at the store

By Tom Lawrence

HARRY Potter fans have criticised pro-trans activists for an ‘intimidating’ demonstration held at the opening of a huge store devoted to the wizarding franchise in London’s West End.

Hundreds of ‘Potterheads’ lined Oxford Street for the opening of the UK’s largest themed superstore.

Stars including actor Warwick Davis attended the opening yesterday.

But demonstrators who oppose Harry Potter author JK Rowling over her gender-critical views also assembled, with placards and megaphones, chanting 'Trans rights are human rights' and 'When trans rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.'

This sparked anger among some Harry Potter fans present, including Lewis, 29, who said: 'It's ridiculous - why don't you do something meaningful? They go on about trans rights. It's just human rights.

So it's just redundant. What are they going on about?'

He described the demonstration as 'quite intimidating', adding: 'It is a children's store. There are families queuing up. You can't even hear the music inside - you can just hear them.'

Diehard Harry Potter fans wore costumes and began queueing on Tuesday night to be in with the chance of being among the first through the doors. The shop spans over 21,000 square feet across two floors and is inspired by Diagon Alley – the magical shopping street from the hit book series.

Trans activists previously launched a petition against Harry Potter-themed Christmas lights in London, claiming they would make members of the LGBTQ+ community feel unwelcome.

How Labour conversion therapy ban could land company bosses in court

BOSSES have been warned they face the threat of prosecution under Labour's ban on conversion therapy – alongside parents.

Amid a growing row over the controversial new law that could see parents jailed for trying to dissuade their children from identifying as the opposite sex, campaigners say company directors are at risk too.

In a little-noticed aspect of the legislation – currently at the draft stage – firms and other organisations can be prosecuted over abusive attempts to change someone's sexuality or gender identity.

If a corporate body is found

By Martin Beckford

Policy Editor

guilty, the Conversion Practices Bill states that company directors will be held personally liable too if they have failed to ‘take all reasonable steps to prevent the commission of the offence’. Critics of

'Personally liable'

the law fear this will mean police being asked to investigate workplaces where an employee who identifies as the opposite sex says a colleague repeatedly called them by their former name or deliberately refused to use their preferred pronouns.

Lawyer Dennis Kavanagh, a director of the Gay Men's Network, said: 'This has serious implications for businesses.

‘Â standard workplace dispute over pronouns now has the potential to become a prosecution of the company itself for any policies or practices and where a jury was sure the company was guilty, the directors could then also be convicted for permitting this or failing to take all reasonable steps to prevent it.’

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at women's rights charity Sex Matters, said: 'Every organisation in the country should be terrified of the Government's Draft Conversion Practices Bill.'

However the Government last night insisted misgendering would not constitute an abusive conversion practice.

A spokesman said: 'It's completely untrue that this Bill will burden businesses – unless your business is pushing abusive conversion practices, which we will outlaw.'

Equalities minister Bridget Phillipson also denied the law would criminalise parents if they tell their children they cannot change their sex.

Ms Phillipson told BBC 5Live: 'This is about forcing someone to change who they are and there is a very high legal threshold that's being set.

‘It’s about pressure to change, it is about it being abusive and it’s also about the harm it causes.’

Ephraim

Hardcastle

KING Charles and Prince William stand accused of creating ‘a vast carbon

footprint' by their use of jets and other transport in a Channel 5 documentary being screened on Saturday. In Charles And William: Saving The World, eco-broadcaster Lucy Siegle declares: 'When you fly a lot and factor in private jets and even trains you lay yourself open to a charge of eco-hypocrisy.' Estimating the royals' footprint at more than 500 times the norm, she adds: 'Despite the hard work they put in on the environmental front they continue to rack up thousands of polluting miles in the line of both travel and charitable duty.' Harry does not escape censure. Broadcaster Iain Dale states: 'Harry waxes lyrical about the importance of climate change, yet seems to delight in taking private jets all over the world, which some people might describe as a tad hypocritical!'

(○)

WITH the Government apparently set on introducing mandatory retirement for peers when they turn 80, what about King Charles? He attends the State Opening as a member by birthright. HM, 80, in 2028, may want reassurances that a retirement age won't be imposed on the throne – at least not during his reign. The royals are made of sterner stuff, though. The last working royal to retire was Prince Philip at 96.

(○)

INVITED for tea with the late Queen after her Oscar-winning portrayal of the monarch, Dame Helen Mirren became uncharacteristically tongue-tied. 'I like milk in my tea, but the milk was on the other side of Prince

Philip,' she recalls. 'I couldn't remember how to address him? Do I call him Sir? Your Majesty? Your Royal Highness?' Helen, pictured in the role, chuckles: 'I couldn't deal with the situation. In the end, I had it without milk!'

(○)

HAVING accurately predicted the Republicans' hammering in the US midterms, Donald Trump's old pal Piers Morgan now declares: 'Call me Nostradamus.' Morgan modestly adds: 'I think President Trump should stop listening to war-mongering imbeciles... and start listening to people like me.' Mystic Morgan at your service, sir!

【(○)】

SHIP-TO-SHORE distress call from Prue Leith about husband John Playfair's addiction to his mobile phone. 'His doomscrolling in the hired limo while we sail through foreign countryside neither of us has ever seen before does make me itch to push them both – beloved husband and detested phone – out of the window.'

【(○)】

GARY Kemp, preparing to play Ronnie Kray in the 1990 film The Krays, met the gangster in Broadmoor's cafeteria. 'He got up and went, and this intern in a white coat came up and gave me the bill,' Gary tells a podcast. 'It was £100, and I said, "We only had two non-alcoholic lagers". He said, "I hope you don't mind, Ronnie put a few fags on there".'

Email: john.mcentee@dailymail.co.uk

Page 22 The Daily Mail, Thursday, November 5, 2026 ultimate guide

FROM severe storms to cyberattacks and hostile state activity, the nation has been told to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Households have been advised to stock up on three days' worth of 'non-perishable food' – leading to a run on essentials at supermarkets up and down the country.

Last week, Ocado ran out of Heinz soup, while Iceland reported a 40 per cent spike in sales of tinned goods.

But aside from buying ‘food you’d usually eat’ and items ‘that don’t need refrigeration or cooking’, there’s very little information on the Government’s Be Ready website.

So short of filling your trolley with spam, spaghetti hoops and sachets of Angel Delight, what exactly should you be stocking up on in case of emergency? And is cooking and eating long-life food really as grim as it sounds?

As a food writer and cookbook author who's learned to love store cupboard ingredients, I can assure you it's not. There's nothing like a challenge – inventing recipes that use only tinned products – to force a cook to experiment, and all my foodie friends feel the same.

On the school run this week, it's been the hot topic of conversation – we've shared recipes using canned veg that our children will actually eat (my baked bean bolognese is a winner), while one mum pal has quizzed her grandmother on wartime tips for making food go further. (She swears by dried fruit for pepping up curries, porridge and stews.)

If I'm honest, I'm secretly enjoying prepping. My first cookbook, Three Ingredient Baking, was all about using what you have to make tasty, uncomplicated food, and I've been stocking up on essentials to get me through whatever apocalypse might be looming: mostly posh jarred beans, nutty cereal bars and a fair few bottles of Chicken wine.

HE good news is there are all sorts of delicious dishes you can conjure up without an oven (not an option in a power cut).

From curries and chillis made from jarred beans, to meat-free bolognese and pasta sauce with tinned fish, to tempting desserts containing instant custard and dried fruit, there's no limit to the family-friendly meals you can make from store cupboard ingredients alone.

And there's always the BBQ (or a camping stove) to boil, fry and even roast things on, if you don't fancy tucking in cold.

The first thing to consider when stockpiling food and drink is how good it is for you, advises

Exactly how many tins of beans and cans of tuna you need to survive for a week – and the surprise condiment you’ll never regret stockpiling. Top cookery writer and mother-of-three SARAH RAINEY can see you through Armageddon!

nutritionist Kim Pearson. 'Prioritise nutrient-dense foods that provide protein, fibre and healthy fats, as well as essential micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals,' she says. 'Include a combination of animal and plant sources of protein, plenty of vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds, alongside sources of healthy fats such as oily fish and extra-virgin olive oil.'

She recommends tinned tomatoes, a source of the antioxidant lycopene, which reduces inflammation and lowers the risk of heart disease; tinned pulses, which provide plant protein, fibre, iron and magnesium; and oily fish such as sardines, salmon and mackerel, which are full of brain-boosting omega-3 fatty acids.

It is, however, important to focus on things you and your family will actually eat – and aim for variety.

‘This gives you more flexibility when putting meals together and makes it less likely you’ll tire of what you have available,’ adds Kim.

Nutritionist Lily Soutter recommends choosing foods that are safe to eat immediately, such as pre-cooked rice, couscous and barley, as well as pouches of lentils and

by Sarah Rainey

chickpeas that are fine to eat cold. 'Check the labels on food packets for this, and make sure you have a can opener to hand,' she adds.

Don't be tempted to buy more than you're actually likely to need. 'If you have a small household, be mindful that some long-life foods have to be refrigerated after being opened; therefore, mini-sized options may be best.

sized options may be best to reduce waste,' Lily advises.

Focus on products that can be used in several different ways – oats, for example, can be cooked with water to make porridge, used to bulk out homemade bread or desserts, or mixed with long-life milk and set aside to make overnight oats. Choose ingredients that do the job of several: spice blends and mixed herbs are ideal; peanut butter will work in sweet and savoury dishes; and a classic such as Worcestershire sauce – a tiny amount will pack dishes full of flavour.

Where your budget allows, choose high-quality brands such as Mutti tomatoes, Mr Organic soups, Merchant Gourmet pouches for ready-to-eat lentils, chillis and tagines, and Bold Bean Co for beans and chickpeas.

Not only are these longer-lasting and more satisfying than the cheaper alternatives, but they contain better ingredients and fewer preservatives. When mixed with bland basics, such as tinned veg or plain rice, they'll taste more like the real deal than a store cupboard substitute. Make sure you check

Make sure you check the dates on the tins, jars and packets, however. Some foods don't last as long as you might think: nuts, due to their high fat content, have a shelf life of just a few months. The same applies to granola and trail mix.

Properly-stored (in sealed bags) white rice and flour will last for decades, whereas the whole-wheat versions expire after six to 12 months – due to an oily layer of fat that goes rancid over time. Dried meat, such as beef jerky, is another misleading ‘long-life’ food as it expires after a year.

So which foods should you stock up on – and which should you avoid? Here's my ultimate prepping checklist for a family of four.

GRAINS AND NUTS

THESE should be one of the anchors of your store cupboard; they're versatile, filling and keep well. 'They provide fibre and can be used in a number of ways,' adds Kim. As well as dried packets, buy some pre-cooked pouches of rice in case you can't access boiling water. For pasta, you'll need that camping stove.

● Basmati rice 500g - Cooked rice x 4 pouches

• Penne pasta 1kg

• Porridge oats 1kg

• Mixed nuts 300g

• Seeds, e.g. sunflower or chia 300g

BEANS AND PULSES

HIGH in protein, these have a long shelf life – in many cases, three to five years longer than the best-before date. They can be eaten cold, straight from the tin.

'Add them to tinned vegetables, mix them with tinned fish or enjoy them with other ingredients to make a more substantial meal,' says Kim.

Make cold beans more appetising by stirring in spices (garam masala, paprika and a pinch of cinnamon do the trick) or mashing them up and eating them in a wrap. Or buy brands that are already flavoured: tikka flavour or Mexican spice are my favourites.

\- Baked beans x 2 tins

• Chickpeas x 2 jars

• Lentils x 4 pouches

• Kidney beans x 2 tins

• Butter beans x 2 tins

MEAT AND FISH

TINNED fish, especially oily varieties, says Lily, is great for protein and healthy fats, making it a ‘convenient and affordable source of nutrition’. It’s familiar, too – many of us love a tuna sandwich – but tinned meat is a different prospect altogether.

The idea of eating cold spam – as our grandparents famously did in the Second World War – sets the stomach churning. Thankfully, there are better options today – as well as long tofu for veggies – which last up to three years unopened.

\- Tuna x 4 tins

• Mackerel x 2 tins

• Salmon x 2 tins

• Chicken casserole x 2 tins

• Tinned steak pieces x 2 tins

• Jarred tofu or tempeh x 1 tin

FRUIT AND VEG

THESE are essential for providing vitamins and minerals. Opt for products with added flavour, such as tomatoes in herby sauce, as well as jarred and dried fruits rich in vitamin C.

‘Try to choose those without added sugar or too much added salt,’ advises Lily.

Canned potatoes are a great pantry staple, and you could even make an emergency-friendly potato salad by stirring in jarred sandwich spread (lasts up to 18 months) or olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper.

\- Chopped tomatoes x 4 tins

• Sweetcorn x 2 tins

• Peas and carrots x 1 tin

• Roasted peppers x 1 jar

• Cooked potatoes x 2 tins

• Vegetable ratatouille x 2 tins

• Vegetable soup x 4 tins

• Fruit in syrup (pears, peaches or mandarin) x 2 tins

• Dried fruit (apricots, apple rings or mango) 500g

Be ready: The Mail's Sarah Rainey stocks up on tinned food

CONDIMENTS

CRUCIAL for enhancing the flavour of your meals, they'll last indefinitely if sealed (though spices will lose their potency over time). Salt is also a useful preserving agent. When it comes to olive oil, choose the bag-in-box variety rather than a bottle, as it lasts up to a year once opened (the bag prevents oxidation).

\- Sea salt 250g

• Black pepper 100g

• Stock cubes x 4

• White wine vinegar 500ml

• Worcestershire sauce 150ml

• Garlic powder 14g

• Garam masala 14g

• Smoky paprika 14g

• Ground cinnamon 14g

• Dried mixed herbs 14g

• Olive oil 500ml

• Pesto x 1 jar

• Pickles x 1 jar

• Coconut milk x 1 jar

BREAD AND BAKING

WITH fresh bread off the menu, think of carb-heavy substitutes to bulk out your meals. Baking may seem like a luxury in the midst of a crisis, but most of the ingredients are long-life (or easy to swap out) – and it's entirely possible to bake basics such as bread, biscuits and pancakes on your BBQ.

\- Oatcakes x 2 packets

• Rice cakes x 2 packets

• Crackers x 2 packets

• All-purpose flour 1kg

• Granulated sugar 500g

• Dried egg powder 100g

• Yeast x 6 sachets

• Cocoa powder 100g

SWEET TREATS

'EMERGENCY supplies don't have to be all about tins of beans and vegetables,' says Kim. 'I'd also include a few snacks and sweet treats that are enjoyable to eat and provide nutritional benefits.'

\- Honey 450g

• Dark chocolate 200g

• Peanut butter x 1 jar

• Jam x 1 jar

• Protein / nut bars x 2 packs

• Custard x 2 tins

• Fruit jelly cubes x 8

DRINKS

THE Government recommends storing three litres of drinking water per person per day, which totals 36 litres for a family of four over three days, not counting cooking, washing or cleaning. Pep it up with electrolyte tablets, which are full of multivitamins, and make coffee from bags – not instant – for a cafe-quality hot drink.

\- Bottled water x 36 litres

• Electrolyte tablets x 20

• Tea/coffee bags x 40

• Long-life milk x 6 litres

■ HOW to Cheat at Baking: 70 Quick & Easy Recipes for Busy Bakers, by Sarah Rainey (£18.99, Michael O'Mara), is out now.

7 things you MUST keep in the freezer

AS a nutritionist I'm a big fan of frozen food, so the latest wave of cyberattacks targeting supermarket refrigeration systems across Europe, is an alarming prospect.

While there's no reason to panic-buy just yet, the incidents are a reminder of how vulnerable our food supply chains can be, and why keeping a well-stocked freezer really makes sense.

There's a misconception that frozen produce is somehow inferior to fresh, but that's simply not true. In some cases, it can actually be more nutritious, particularly when certain vegetables are frozen after harvesting.

Freezing also dramatically extends shelf life, reduces food waste and can save money. It means you have nutritious ingredients available even when fresh produce is difficult to find.

If supermarket supplies are disrupted, these are the seven foods I'd recommend having in your freezer.

1. Fish and seafood

SALMON, cod and prawns are three excellent options, providing a range of nutrients and high-quality protein.

Salmon contains omega-3 fatty acids, which support heart health, while cod provides iodine, essential for thyroid function. Prawns are a good source of vitamin B12 and selenium.

Buy individually frozen fillets so you can take out exactly what you need.

2. Lean meat and poultry CHICKEN breasts and lean minced beef provide complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids needed for muscle maintenance and repair. They're also rich in nutrients including iron, zinc and B vitamins.

I'd favour leaner cuts because fat can oxidise during frozen storage, affecting flavour and quality.

Portion meat before freezing so you only defrost what you need.

1. Fish and seafood

SALMON, cod and prawns are three excellent options, providing a range of nutrients and high-quality protein.

Salmon contains omega-3 fatty acids, which support heart health, while cod provides iodine, essential for thyroid function. Prawns are a good source of vitamin B12 and selenium.

Buy individually frozen fillets so you can take out exactly what you need.

2. Lean meat and poultry CHICKEN breasts and lean minced beef provide complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids needed for muscle maintenance and repair. They're also rich in nutrients including iron, zinc and B vitamins.

I'd favour leaner cuts because fat can oxidise during frozen storage, affecting flavour and quality.

Portion meat before freezing so you only defrost what you need.

3. Dairy

MILK freezes surprisingly well. If the fat and water separate when it's thawed, a good shake should help restore its consistency.

Hard cheeses such as cheddar also freeze well, particularly when grated. Freezing can make cheese crumbly, so it's often better used in cooking rather than eaten on its own.

Pictures: LEZLI+ROSE; Grooming: OONAGH CONNOR; Styling: AMY KESTER; GETTY

by Rob Hobson

NUTRITIONIST