Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

For the second time this week, Reform UK have announced a former Conservative cabinet minister has joined them.

The other day they said that former Welsh Secretary David Jones had signed up, back in January.

Two other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross Thomson.

Now it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.

A man knighted by Boris Johnson.

A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.

A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government departments.

And yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."

Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high office.

Extraordinary.

And this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to come.

Tories are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MPs.

The MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support scheme.

McMurdock has said he was compliant with the rules.

But the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap.

Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it.

"For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they added.

They regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the Conservatives.

But perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to Reform.

At the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's party.

Again, extraordinary.

It tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of MPs.

Senior ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan insurgency.

After all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.

If Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided it.

In their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".

But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often proven.

Not for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

All-inclusive family package holidays from the UK have jumped in price for some of the most popular destinations, including Spain, Cyprus and Turkey.

The average price for a week in Cyprus in August has gone up by 23%, from £950 per person to £1,166, figures compiled for the BBC by TravelSupermarket show.

Of the top 10 most-searched countries, Italy and Tunisia are the only ones to see prices drop by 11% and 4% respectively compared with 2024.

Travel agents say holidaymakers are booking shorter stays or travelling mid-week to cut costs.

The top five destinations in order of most searched are: Spain, Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Portugal. They have all seen price rises.

Trips to the UAE have seen the biggest jump, up 26% from £1,210 in August 2024 to £1,525 this year.

Cyprus had the next biggest rise and came in at number nine in terms of search popularity.

The figures are based on online searches, made on TravelSupermarket from 18 April to 17 June, for all-inclusive, seven-night family holidays in August 2024 and 2025.

While this snapshot of data reveals a general trend, costs will vary depending on exactly where a family goes and when they book.

Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of travel agent industry group Advantage Travel Partnership, said the price rises were down to a number of factors.

"These increases simply keep pace with the broader cost of doing business and reflect the reality of higher operational costs, from increased energy bills affecting hotels, to elevated food costs impacting restaurants and rising wages across the hospitality sector," she said.

But she added the group had seen evidence that some holidaymakers still had money to spend.

Some customers were upgrading to more premium all-inclusive packages and booking more expensive cabin seats on long-haul flights to locations such as Dubai, she said.

Holiday destinations are a frequent topic of conversation at the hairdressers.

At Voodou in Liverpool, Ellie Mooney talked to us as she got a last-minute trim before jetting off to Turkey.

"We've been going for the past 20 years or so. We normally book a year ahead then save up in dribs and drabs," she said.

Hope Curran, 21, was getting her highlights done and she and her partner had just got back from holiday in Rhodes in Greece.

"We did an all-inclusive trip because it was a bit more manageable, but it's not cheap," she said.

End of life care nurse Francesca Ramsden, 35, from Rossendale, has made it her mission to cut the cost of holidays, saving where she can and hunting for a bargain at every turn.

"My husband is sick of me, he'll ask 'have you found anything yet' and I'll say no, rocking in the corner after looking for 10,000 hours.

"The longest I've booked a holiday in advance is two to three months and I find that the closer you get, the cheaper it is."

She said she spent hours trying to save as much as possible on a May half-term break to Fuerte Ventura for her family of four which came in at £1,600.

She now shares her budgeting tips on social media.

"I've mastered the art of packing a week's worth of clothes into a backpack. I always book the earliest or latest flight I can, and midweek when it's cheaper."

Luke Fitzpatrick, a travel consultant at Perfect Getaways in Liverpool, said people were cutting the length of their holidays to save money.

"Last year we did a lot for 10 nights and this year we've got a lot of people dropping to four or seven nights, just a short little weekend vacation, just getting away in the sun," he said.

He has also seen more people choosing to wait until the last minute to book a trip away.

"People are coming in with their suitcases asking if they can go away today or tomorrow," he added.

"Yesterday we had a couple come in with their passports and we got them on a flight last night from Liverpool to Turkey."

How to save money on your holiday

• Choose a cheaper location. A UK holiday eliminates travel and currency costs, but overseas destinations vary a lot too

• To decide whether all-inclusive will save you money, first look at local costs for eating out and don't forget about drinks and airport transfers

• Travel outside the school holidays if you can

• Booking early can help, especially if you have to travel at peak times

• Check whether you can get a cheaper flight by travelling mid-week

• Haggle. Call the travel agent to see if they can better the price you found online

• Choose destinations where the value of the pound is strong. This year that includes Turkey, Bulgaria and Portugal

Source: Which? and TravelSupermarket

How Wiegman dealt with scrutiny

'That's a proper English performance'

Has optimism been revived?

A piece of the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree which was illegally felled nearly two years ago is to go on permanent display.

The act sparked global condemnation and outrage in September 2023, with two men found guilty of chopping the tree down earlier this year.

Now, people will be able to see and touch part of its trunk at a Northumberland visitor centre near where the tree stood, as a permanent memorial to its mindless destruction is unveiled.

The BBC has been to see what the display looks like - and has had an insight into how it was created.

In a workshop in a tiny village in Cumbria, an idea has been taking shape.

The large shed up an ever-thinning track is where artist Charlie Whinney creates his abstract and beautiful sculptures.

They often feature steam-bent wood that makes my mind boggle when I visit, with its twists and turns.

His curved creations are everywhere I look, and his signature style will now surround the Sycamore Gap trunk.

The piece of tree, which is more than 6ft (2m) long, arrived at Charlie's workshop in mid-June, three weeks before its unveiling as part of a permanent exhibition at the Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.

He is preparing the trunk for the metal work that will keep it upright, with the carving and drilling into the base being the only modification he is making to the sycamore itself.

It is nerve-wracking work, he tells me, "because so many people care about it, you don't want to mess it up".

The wood cuts smoothly and is "really nice to work with", the artists says, as he attaches a three-pronged metal baseplate that will finally hold the trunk vertical once again.

He is not an emotional person but is "blown away by how huggable it is", he says, before inviting me to try and wrap my arms around the trunk - which, of course, I do.

This is what everyone who visits the installation will able to do too.

"The actual design came from what people said," Charlie says. "They wanted to be able to sit down, so we made some benches, and also pretty much 100% of the people we spoke to said they want to be able to access the tree and touch it."

A public consultation was held to work out what to do with the tree, which included workshops with children and any written contributions people wanted to make.

The much-loved tree had been a part of so many memorable moments for so many people, from marriage proposals to the scattering of ashes.

Three benches with canopies formed from curved wooden stems and leaves now surround the trunk, the seats inscribed with words taken from people's submissions.

The Northumberland National Park Authority (NNPA) received thousands of emails, letters and messages in visitor books from people talking about the tree, with every one read by staff members.

The authority commissioned Charlie and the Creative Communities art collective, a community interest company which creates sustainable art projects, to deliver an artistic response with the wood.

"It was very important at the beginning when we received the commission to kind of represent people that loved the tree, or knew the tree in life," says Nick Greenall, of the collective.

"It shows by its absence how much it meant to people."

Rosie Thomas, the park's business development director, helped pick out some of the messages that feature in the installation.

"The words that were chosen take you from sorrow, grief, the initial reaction, all the way through to feelings of hope and wishes for the future," she says.

"The really nice thing about the words is that everyone's experience of the tree was different and everybody's experience with this installation will be different too because the route that you take to read the words creates your own individual poem."

The trunk and benches were hidden behind curtains while they were being installed at The Sill, which is just two miles from where the tree had stood.

For Tony Gates, the chief executive of the NNPA, having the installation revealed to the public on Thursday morning will be a big moment.

The 18 months since the tree was felled have been difficult for everyone, he says.

"Back in September 2023, people felt they'd lost the tree forever and maybe in some ways felt they'd lost those memories of those life events," he says.

"To be sat here today to be part of that tree with this beautiful installation, it gives me a ray of hope for the future, this is a time to look forward and a time for us to repledge to do positive things for nature."

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, both from Cumbria, are due to be sentenced on 15 July after being found guilty of chopping down the tree.

Follow BBC North East on X and Facebook and BBC Cumbria on X and Facebook and both on Nextdoor and Instagram.

Royal Mail can deliver second-class letters on every other weekday and not on Saturdays to help cut costs, the industry regulator has said.

Ofcom said a reform to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) was needed as people are sending fewer letters each year, so stamp prices keep rising as the cost of delivering letters goes up.

The current one-price-goes-anywhere USO means Royal Mail has to deliver post six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, and parcels on five from Monday to Friday.

Ofcom said Royal Mail should continue to deliver first-class letters six days a week but second class will be limited to alternate weekdays.

"These changes are in the best interests of consumers and businesses, as urgent reform of the postal service is necessary to give it the best chance of survival," said Natalie Black, Ofcom's group director for networks and communications.

However, just changing Royal Mail's obligations will not improve the service, she said.

"The company now has to play its part and implement this effectively."

The regulator is also making changes to Royal Mail's delivery targets.

The company will have to deliver 90% of first-class mail next-day, down from the current target of 93%, while 95% of second-class mail must be delivered within three days, a cut from the current 98.5%.

However, there will be a new target of 99% of mail being delivered no more than two days late to incentivise Royal Mail to cut down on long delays.

The sun was rising over the village of Brantham in Suffolk when Anita Rose set off for an early morning dog walk. She was a mother of six, and a grandmother of 13. Within an hour, she had been assaulted so brutally that her injuries were akin to those of someone in a head-on car crash. She died four days later.

The man responsible, Roy Barclay, was on a list of Suffolk Police's most wanted criminals but he had managed to avoid being recalled to prison for the past two years by sleeping in makeshift camps.

But despite this, Barclay had left a sizeable digital footprint - using his bank card to order items online and leaving hundreds of reviews on Google Maps.

With all this online activity, how did he manage to evade police and remain free to murder Anita?

Anita was an "early bird", her partner Richard Jones said. She loved to walk her springer spaniel Bruce around Brantham, a village where she'd lived for six years and always said she felt safe. The 57-year-old loved watching the sun come up before other people were awake.

On the morning of 24 July last year, Mr Jones and Anita chatted on the phone while she walked. He worked as a lorry driver and would spend time away from home during the week, so the couple would catch up while Anita took Bruce on the first of his three daily walks.

The couple had known each other since they were teenagers and had started dating in 2011 after a chance meeting at a petrol station in Copdock where Anita worked.

The pair's final conversation ended with Anita telling the 59-year-old to "drive safe, I love you".

Within an hour of hanging up, she was found unconscious and severely injured on a track road near a railway line by a cyclist and dog walker.

During the trial, Ms Island told the court Anita had "laboured breathing" and patches of blood on her face, and was only wearing leggings and a black sports bra, despite leaving the house wearing her pink Regatta jacket.

Mr Tassel described how her dog Bruce was lying "patiently" next to her body with his lead wrapped twice around her leg - this turned out to be something Barclay had also done in 2015, when he attacked a man.

Neuropathologist Dr Kieran Allinson, who treated Anita at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, likened her injuries to those seen in high speed car crashes and said they were consistent with kicking, stamping and repeated impacts to the head.

In the weeks that followed, Barclay was described during his Ipswich Crown Court trial as having lived in carefully-hidden camps and shaving his head to change his appearance.

He had been wanted by police since 2022, when he breached the terms of his licence by making himself homeless.

Barclay had been jailed in 2015 for the violent, unprovoked assault on an elderly man in an Essex seaside town, and was released on parole in 2020.

After killing Anita, his internet search history showed he had looked up news articles about the attack. He also looked up Anita's partner on social media.

Barclay is also said to have kept some of her belongings - including a pink Regatta jacket - at his makeshift camps.

In the weeks after Anita's murder, Suffolk Police entered into one of its biggest-ever investigations to find the culprit.

A number of people were arrested and bailed.

Barclay, meanwhile, continued to be a prolific reviewer on Google Maps for hundreds of locations around Suffolk and Essex.

Between 2022 and October 2024, he posted thousands of photos of churches, Amazon lockers, libraries, beaches, council buildings, statues and more - earning himself a 'Level 8' contributor status (the highest being level 10).

One review was of Decoy Pond in Brantham, with photos posted between April and July - the month he murdered Anita a short distance away.

Three months after the murder, his final few Google reviews were about Flatford, a historic area on the Essex-Suffolk border famed for inspiring iconic paintings.

"It's a beautiful, unspoilt rural idyll that somehow exists in its own timelessness, as if awaiting the return of John Constable," wrote Barclay in a review posted in October 2024.

By then he was camping out a mile from where he'd killed Anita - but a chance meeting with a Suffolk Police officer near White Bridge, between Brantham and Manningtree, led to his arrest.

Barclay gave the officer, Det Con Simpson, a fake name, coming across as "quite nervous and quite anxious", the detective said.

Six days later on 21 October, at Ipswich County Library, Barclay was arrested and was subsequently charged with Anita's murder, which he denied.

After his conviction, the Crown Prosecution Service described Barclay as "an individual that… has a history for acting violently so we knew that this was somebody that could act unprovoked in a very violent manner".

The 2015 attack in Walton-on-the-Naze left the victim, 82-year-old Leslie Gunfield, with serious injuries to his head, neck, face and jaw.

Barclay was jailed for 10 years for the assault, but was released on licence after five.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), which is responsible for probation services, told the BBC that a recall notice for Barclay was issued quickly following the breach of his licence conditions.

In doing this, finding Barclay became the responsibility of Suffolk Police.

The force began looking for him in 2022 but did not issue a press release about his wanted status until January 2024. it asked for members of the public to get in touch if they saw him, saying he had "links across Suffolk and Essex".

Just over a month before he murdered Anita, on 10 June, Barclay had left a comment on an online article called 'Fixing Fixed Term Recalls'.

He accused the MoJ of "deliberately" setting up prison leavers "to fail" and "return like a boomerang".

"Is it really any surprise that so many of those on license are on recall within the first year of release?" he wrote. The MoJ has refuted these claims.

Hamish Brown, a former detective inspector who worked for the Specialist Crime Directorate at New Scotland Yard, said his own experience taught him that officers were often not given "huge amounts of time" to investigate wanted suspects.

But in this case, he said, the force would have serious questions to answer.

"Suffolk Police failed in tracking him down, despite him using his bank card and reviewing places on Google.

"I'm surprised Suffolk Police missed this and didn't find him, despite the trail he was leaving.

"The bottom line is it could have been prevented if the police had done their job and gone looking for the person.

"So the police will have to brace themselves and be answerable."

But Paul Bernal, professor of information technology law at the University of East Anglia, believes there would have been a limit to how useful the Google reviews could have been in tracking Barclay down.

"There is absolutely no way a social media or search provider would know that those things are in any way needed in a police investigation," he told the BBC.

Speaking after the jury found Barclay guilty, Anita's family stood on the court steps and spoke of the changes they said "need to be made within the probation service and justice system".

"We need make sure our communities are safe and criminals are taken back to prison when they break the terms of their probations," her eldest daughter Jess said.

"They cannot remain at large - there's too much at stake."

'Definitive answers'

Suffolk Police confirmed it would conduct a voluntary partnership review which would look at how the force and the probation service handled the search for Barclay.

"It will look closely at the information sharing processes and how the organisations collaborated," said assistant chief constable Alice Scott.

"This review will be a thorough assessment and scrutiny of the processes concerning Barclay.

"It will be expedited as soon as possible so we can provide clear and definitive answers for Anita's family."

Additional reporting by Jodie Halford and Laura Foster.

Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv is again under a massive overnight Russian drone attack, local officials say, with at least eight people reported injured and fires burning across the city.

Authorities in Kyiv say drone wreckage has hit the roof of a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Footage on social media, as yet unverified by the BBC, shows explosions in the night sky, as air defence units begin repelling the attack. Ukraine's military has also warned of a threat of a ballistic missile attack.

Last night, Ukraine reported the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

In the early hours of Thursday, morning Kyiv's military administration reported Russian drone strikes in six city districts.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

He urged city residents to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

In other developments:

• Ukraine's emergency service DSNS said late on Wednesday that three people had been killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka - close to the front line in eastern Ukraine
• The US resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

For the second time this week, Reform UK have announced a former Conservative cabinet minister has joined them.

The other day they said that former Welsh Secretary David Jones had signed up, back in January.

Two other former Tory MPs defected recently too – Anne Marie Morris and Ross Thomson.

Now it is Sir Jake Berry joining Nigel Farage's party.

A man knighted by Boris Johnson.

A man whose son counts Johnson as his godfather.

A man who used to be the chairman of the Conservative Party and who was a Tory minister in three different government departments.

And yet a man who now says this: "If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you'd be hard pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule."

Read that sentence again and consider it was written by someone who was not just a Tory MP for 14 years but a senior one, occupying high office.

Extraordinary.

And this is probably not the end of it – both Reform and Conservative folk I speak to hint they expect there to be more to come.

Tories are trying to put the best gloss on it they can, saying Reform might be attracting former MPs – Sir Jake lost his seat at the last election – but they are losing current MPs.

The MP James McMurdock suspended himself from Reform at the weekend after a story in the Sunday Times about loans he took out under a Covid support scheme.

McMurdock has said he was compliant with the rules.

But the trend is clear: Conservatives of varying seniority are being lured across by Nigel Farage and are proud to say so when they make the leap.

Reform are particularly delighted that Sir Jake has not just defected but done so by going "studs in" on his former party, as one source put it.

"For us this is really crucial. If you want to join us you need to be really going for the other side when you do. Drawing a proper line in the sand," they added.

They regard Sir Jake's closeness to Boris Johnson as "dagger-in-the-heart stuff" for the Conservatives.

But perhaps the more interesting and consequential pivot in strategy we are currently witnessing is Labour's approach to Reform.

At the very highest level in government they are reshaping their approach: turning their attention away from their principal opponent of the last century and more, the Conservatives, and tilting instead towards Nigel Farage's party.

Again, extraordinary.

It tells you a lot about our contemporary politics that a party with Labour's history, sitting on top of a colossal Commons majority, is now shifting its focus to a party with just a handful of MPs.

Senior ministers take the rise of Reform incredibly seriously and are not dismissing them as a flash in the pan insurgency.

After all, Reform's lead in many opinion polls has proven to be sustained in recent months and was then garnished with their impressive performance in the English local elections in May and their win, on the same day, in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.

If Labour folk then were still in need of the jolt of a wake-up call, that night provided it.

In their immediate response to Sir Jake's defection, Labour are pointing to Reform recruiting Liz Truss's party chairman and so are inheriting, they claim, her "reckless economics".

But they know the challenge of taking on and, they hope, defeating Reform, will be work of years of slog and will have to be grounded in proving they can deliver in government – not easy, as their first year in office has so often proven.

Not for the first time in recent months, Reform UK have momentum and are making the political weather.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.

Kemi Badenoch will call for foreign nationals to be barred from claiming disability and sickness benefits, as she sets out plans for tighter curbs on welfare.

In a speech on Thursday, the Tory leader will describe Britain's benefits bill as a "ticking time bomb" that could "collapse the economy".

It comes after the party outlined some of its own proposals to reduce spending, after Labour largely gutted its own plan for benefits cuts after a backbench revolt.

Legislation to bring in remaining government cuts to sickness benefits was approved by MPs on Wednesday evening.

But other proposals, including changes to the eligibility criteria for disability benefits, have effectively been put on hold.

The government announced plans to shrink welfare spending in March, warning the working-age welfare bill was set to rise by nearly £30bn by 2030 and reforms to the system were required to ensure it remained sustainable.

It wanted to make it harder to claim personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and make health-related top-ups for universal credit less generous.

But ministers significantly watered down the cuts earlier this month after a huge rebellion from Labour MPs, all but wiping out savings estimated to be worth £5bn a year by the end of the decade.

Plans to freeze the higher rate of universal credit for existing health-related claimants have been reversed, whilst all changes to the Pip system have been parked pending a government review into the assessment regime.

In her speech on Thursday, Badenoch will accuse Labour of being "beholden to left-wing MPs" and "turning a blind eye" to rising benefit costs.

She will also seek to create a dividing line with Reform UK over the two-child benefit cap, which Nigel Farage's party has pledged to scrap, branding him "Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette".

"On welfare he shows his true colours - promising unaffordable giveaways with no plan to fix the system," she is expected to add.

A Labour spokesperson said "The Conservatives had 14 years to reform welfare - instead, they left the country with a broken system that holds people back and fails to support the most vulnerable."

The party also warned that the Conservative proposal could see disabled British nationals living abroad being denied support if other countries decided to take a similar approach.

Tory welfare proposals

The Conservatives have not backed the government's legislation to deliver the changes, arguing its proposals do not go far enough.

They have set out some plans of their own to shrink welfare spending in the form of amendments to the government's plans, which were defeated on Wednesday.

These include limiting access to Pips and the health-related part of universal credit to those with "less severe" mental health conditions, and preventing claimants from receiving payments without a face-to-face assessment.

They also say both benefits should only be paid to British citizens, with exceptions for those covered by international agreements, such as citizens from EU countries who have acquired settled status in the UK.

At the moment, foreign nationals gain access to the welfare system when they are granted indefinite leave to remain or refugee status. Applicants for Pip generally need to have lived in Britain for at least two of the last three years.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to apply for benefits, although they have access to taxpayer-funded accommodation and separate financial support.

Conservative shadow minister Neil O'Brien has said he has obtained figures under freedom of information laws showing universal credit payments to households containing at least one foreign national stood at £941m a month as of March.

But working out the exact scale of payments to non-UK nationals specifically is complicated, because the Department for Work and Pensions does not provide a breakdown of claimants by immigration status and nationality.

However, the department is due to publish the first such breakdown next week, and has committed to updates every three months thereafter.

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Heartstopper star Joe Locke is to make his West End debut this autumn, in a play about two young men who bond while working night shifts at a warehouse in a rural US town.

Locke is currently filming the forthcoming Heartstopper movie after appearing in three series of the hit Netflix show about two classmates who fall in love, but will take on his new stage role later this year.

The 21-year-old will star in Clarkston, which follows two men in their twenties from opposite ends of the US who meet while working at Costco.

Locke told BBC News he was "so excited" for his West End debut, adding that his new role matched his desire to play "flawed characters... who have a bit of bite".

Clarkston is written by Samuel D Hunter, who is best known for his 2012 play The Whale, which later won Brendan Fraser an Oscar when made into a film.

Producers have not yet announced the venue or run dates for the British production, but told the BBC it would open in a West End theatre in the autumn.

Set in Clarkston, Washington, the play opens with a Costco employee named Chris working night shifts when he meets new hire Jake, a young gay man originally from Connecticut.

Jake has Huntington's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes involuntary movements. He ended up in Clarkston by accident after finding himself no longer able to drive during a road trip west.

"He's this city boy in a small place," explained Locke. "Jake has got so many layers to him that really unravel in the play. A lot of the themes are to do with class and the different experiences of the characters."

Chris, meanwhile, struggles with the strained relationship he has with his mother, who is a drug addict.

Locke, who is used to portraying young men grappling with their identity, explained: "I really enjoy characters that have something to them, a bit of bite, a bit of a grey area.

"Everyone is flawed in some ways. And I've been lucky enough in my career so far to play a few flawed characters, and Jake is no different to that. And that's the fun bit, the meaty bit, getting to know these characters - they're good and they're bad."

Hunter noted the play "is fundamentally about friendship and platonic male love, which is something that I feel like we don't see a lot of on stage and screen".

Locke agreed: "Yeah, one of my favourite things about this play is there's a scene where these characters almost build on their platonic relationship and get to a romantic level, and they realise that no, the platonic relationship is what's important, and I think that's really beautiful."

Clarkston, which has previously been performed alongside another of Hunter's plays, Lewiston, received positive reviews from critics when it was staged in the US.

"You feel like you're eavesdropping on intensely private moments of people you don't always like but come to deeply understand," said The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck of a 2018 production.

"Toward the end, there's an encounter between Chris and his mother that is as shattering and gut-wrenching a scene as you'll ever see on stage. But the play ends on a sweet, hopeful note that sends you out of the theatre smiling."

Writing about a different production in 2024, Charles McNulty of the LA Times said: "Clarkston hints that some of our most instructive relationships may be the most transitory. That's one of the beautiful discoveries in Hunter's small, absorbing and ultimately uplifting play."

Anybody who has worked night shifts may relate to the idea that the early hours are a time when people often open up to each other and have have their deepest conversations.

Hunter suggests such an atmosphere results in a "more delicate, more intimate" backdrop.

"I had an experience working in a Walmart when I was a teenager," he recalled, "and I found that places like the break room were so intimate and vulnerable, you're in this very sterilised space so I think the need for human connection is made all the greater."

Hunter had the idea of writing the play when visiting his home town of Moscow Idaho, about 30 miles from Clarkson, and became interested in "the idea that the American West is still kind of young", following the Louisiana Purchase in the early 19th Century.

"The markers of that history are still there," noted Hunter, "but they are right next to things like Costcos and gas stations and mini-malls.

"So it just got me interested in the experiment of the American West and the colonial past, and what that means in 2025."

The new production will be directed by Jack Serio, who has previously directed another of Hunter's plays, Grangeville, with Ruaridh Mollica and Sophie Melville cast in the other two lead roles as Chris and his mother.

Locke has previously appeared on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse, and in a Broadway production of Sweeney Todd.

The actor said being a theatre actor "was the thing I wanted more than anything" when growing up.

"I'm from the Isle of Man," he explained, "and my birthday present every year was a trip to London with my mum to watch a few shows, so it's very full circle to bring my mum to my press night to my West End debut, it's going to be very exciting."

Locke has starred in three seasons of Neflix's Heartstopper since its launch in 2022. The show followed two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who fall for each other at secondary school, and their circle of friends. Locke spoke to BBC News while on set, shooting the film adaptation.

"It's going great, we're almost two thirds of the way through shooting now, and everything, touch wood, is going well," he said.

"We're having a great time doing it, it's a really nice closing chapter of the story."

The Times leads on the possible new immigration deal between Britain and France ahead of today's summit in London. The paper says 50 migrants a week will be sent back to France from the end of August, as part of a pilot scheme - and, reportedly, the UK would accept the same number of asylum seekers in return, if they have family connections in Britain. The paper points out that if crossings continue at the same rate the number sent to France would equate to one in 17 of all small-boat migrants.

The Daily Telegraph says the government is hoping the number of returns will grow significantly, if the trial is successful.

The Guardian however says the deal "hangs in the balance" - with negotiators haggling over how much the UK should pay towards policing the crossings. Aides from both countries tell the paper that other significant hurdles include potential legal challenges in France, and opposition from other European countries. A Downing Street spokesperson is quoted saying the prime minister hopes to make "concrete progress" on a range of issues.

The I Paper says Labour will target the rich with its new tax plans, but won't publicly call it a "wealth tax". The paper quotes an unnamed minister saying "we'll end up doing a few things that target wealthier people".

The Daily Express leads on resident doctors announcing a five-day strike over pay - saying it puts around 200,000 hospital appointments at risk of being cancelled. The paper's leader column calls the prime minister weak and says it's only a matter of time before Downing Street "waves the white flag".

The Daily Mail is among a number of papers to highlight a report by the right-leaning think tank, the Centre for Social Justice - which forecasts that full sickness benefits will soon be worth £2,500 a year more than the minimum wage. "Proof Work Doesn't Pay Under Labour" is the Mail's headline.

A picture of the former Red Bull Racing Formula One boss, Christian Horner, with his head in his hands covers the front of The Daily Star. He was fired yesterday after 20 years in the role. Its headline reads "Red Bull gives you the boot".

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