It is a major moment in this most grievous Gaza war.

Most of all, it is a human moment. The first sparks tell this story: the dancing in the dark in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square, the eruption of joy in the dead of night in the ruined streets of Gaza.

In the coastal enclave where so much of life as they knew it has been smashed by war, Palestinians went through the streets, like medieval town criers, waking people up with shouts of "good news, the war has stopped, a ceasefire deal has been reached".

If all unfolds as it should on Thursday, the last of the Israeli hostages will be home within days and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will also return to their loved ones. The guns will fall silent in Gaza, more aid will flow into the ravaged enclave, and Palestinians won't live each day fearing it could be their last.

• LIVE REACTION: Trump announces Gaza agreement
• World reacts to first stage of Gaza peace deal
• 'Joy and pain': Palestinians celebrate ceasefire deal
• What we know about the 'first phase' of the Gaza peace deal

But even now some details, including the names of the Palestinian detainees to be freed, are being argued over. And there's strident opposition to this agreement inside Israel's cabinet.

Still, there is a collective sigh of relief across this region, and around a world pulled passionately into this conflagration more than any other conflict.

But this is just the beginning, it is not the end. It is a ceasefire, not a peace deal. The toughest of issues are still on the table.

Will Hamas agree to give up its guns? Will Israel eventually pull its troops out of Gaza? What about the vague "political horizon" mentioned in US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan, which much of the world translates as the establishment of a Palestinian state and which Israel's government still firmly rejects?

And, more immediately, will both sides implement their side of this agreement?

Those are issues for tomorrow.

President Trump likes to take credit and this time credit is due. It's already been announced that he will travel to Israel this weekend. Never has the first phase of what is certain to be a tortuous process of negotiations, of breakthroughs and breakdowns, been marked by such fanfare.

But never has a US president wielded such pressure on allies and enemies – and the list is long of leaders who tried to clinch a deal to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Former state department official Aaron David Miller, who worked on this file with both Republican and Democratic presidents, marvelled at this moment when he spoke to the BBC in the early hours of Thursday.

Only weeks ago, as President Trump backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on the need to intensify Israel's military operations, this Gaza war of unprecedented human cost was expected to drag on until the end of this year, even into the next one.

Only weeks ago, when I asked a senior Arab official "who has President Trump's ear?", the answer was "no one".

Then the emboldened Israeli leader took a step too far in early September when he authorised an attack on Hamas leaders living in the Gulf state of Qatar.

It infuriated Qatar, which has played a pivotal role in trying to mediate an end to this crisis. It infuriated President Trump who cherishes his strong, many-faceted relationship, including colossal investment deals and close personal friendships, with the leaders of Qatar, as well as many other Arab states.

His meeting in New York in mid-September with Arab and Islamic leaders accelerated this momentum as the US leader finally focused on ending this fight.

And, crucially, the families of Israeli hostages finally got his full attention too.

By early October, President Trump was posting photographs on social media of Tel Aviv's Hostages Square packed with people and impassioned pleas to him personally to bring every hostage home, alive or dead. "Now or never" was their rallying cry. And he heard it.

Much has been said too of his burning desire to be awarded the top prize for peacemakers, the Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't hide it and has even called Norwegian leaders, including the former Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, about it. Such is the shape of our world today.

Behind the scenes of ceasefire talks, others working in the shadows made a major difference too. Qatar, Egypt and Turkey exerted huge pressure on Hamas, persuading even the most hard-line commanders in its ranks that there was more to be gained now in freeing the hostages, than in holding on to them. Keeping them would only keep a war going which has significantly weakened them in every way even if it has not destroyed their movement.

This moment is also bittersweet.

There is grumbling that this first phase is roughly the same plan US President Joe Biden had put on the table last May. How many lives could have been saved, including the lives of Israeli hostages? How much suffering of the Palestinians could have been avoided had all sides come to the table last year instead of this year?

What matters now is the October 7th war, in the week of its terrible two-year mark, has reached a major turning point. It may still falter and even fail in the months to come. Palestinians will agonise, in the rubble of their homes, over how long it will take to build what is left of their lives.

Those living in the occupied West Bank fear for their future too. And Israeli politicians are already plotting over the next elections and arguing over the next stages of this deal to ensure there is never another October 7th.

But long-awaited serious negotiations over how to move forward, not further back, have started, and are succeeding.

This is a moment to celebrate.

When Mike Barley almost died in a motorbike crash on the way home from work, he did not think his biggest worry during recovery would be the council tax bill he had been sent that same day. But after he missed a payment reminder letter while in hospital, his debts rocketed out of control.

Mr Barley, 26, from Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, had a "well-paid" job as a software developer, and owned his own home, but the accident in March 2021 put him in hospital for a month with broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and severe injuries to his arms and legs.

The same day as the accident, Mr Barley was sent a council tax bill for an instalment of £101.71. He missed the payment and was still in hospital when a reminder letter was sent to his home, so he missed that, too.

Mr Barley said he was "stuck" on sick pay of £90 a week at the time and remembered thinking: "I've got no income any more - I can't work, I can't walk. Where is this money going to come from?"

He says after telling his local council he would not be able to pay, they sent another letter, in June 2021, setting out a payment plan. It included two months of reduced payments but then demanded Mr Barley pay the rest of the year's payments in advance – a total of about £1,000.

Mr Barley's council acted in line with the usual process for unpaid council tax in England.

If you do not pay your monthly bill after three weeks, or you have three late payments, councils can demand the remainder of the year's bill in full, and can send in bailiffs to collect the debt.

Charities have long claimed the method of council tax debt enforcement in England punishes people who are genuinely struggling to pay - while the government says it is taking action against "archaic and aggressive" practices.

After further reminder letters and warnings, Mr Barley's case was passed to bailiffs, who sent a "threatening letter" telling him they would be coming over to seize and sell his belongings to help pay off his debt.

"It was scary to be honest," he said.

Council tax funds public services such as care for the elderly, libraries and bin collections.

It must be paid by anyone who owns a home, or lives in rented accommodation, unless they are eligible for exemptions.

When councils bring in bailiffs to try to recover council tax debt, the person who owes money is charged an additional £75 for the initial bailiffs' letter, £235 plus costs if a bailiff comes to their home to remove or sell goods, a £110 sale fee if goods are taken for sale, and 7.5% of the debt value over £1,500.

Mr Barley said he tried to dispute the charges he faced because of the late bill, but received no support and bailiffs continued to deliver letters to his home.

"It just makes you trapped, depressed," he said.

Mr Barley said his relationship broke down under the strain of trying to cope with his escalating council tax debt, which he estimates reached a total of about £6,000.

He fell behind on his mortgage and other payments too. He managed to get a credit card cleared, but his home was eventually repossessed, and he said he had such little money to spend on food that his meals consisted of bread smeared with ketchup.

He said his council tax debt was "probably the worst" to deal with because of the speed with which the total amount increased.

Mr Barley still owes about £1,700 of the £6,000, including £700 of bailiffs' fees.

• Listen to Mike Barley's story on BBC Sounds

He wants councils to stop bringing in bailiffs when the person in debt cannot pay.

"It just adds charges," he said. "If [people] can't pay it in the first place, giving it to a bailiff is then going to make it harder."

Councils in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire referred about 38% more people to bailiffs in the most recent year of data than the previous 12 months, our research found.

North East Lincolnshire Council said it could not comment on individual cases but had set aside a £100,000 hardship fund to support some of those unable to pay off their council tax debt.

The council said on a case-by-case basis it sometimes gives people extra time to pay back their council tax, or helps them find ways to reduce their bill. Councils can decide to write off some debt too.

Matt Sheeran, of free-to-use debt advice service Money Wellness, said people should seek help straight away if they did have problems paying their council tax.

"It's just so fast and so aggressive, so a lot of people are taken aback," he said. "They just don't realise how quickly [it] can escalate."

Peter Tutton, policy director at the StepChange charity, which also offers free debt advice, added the pressure some councils put on people when they chased payments could make people's financial difficulties "worse".

"People respond to payment demands by missing other bills, turning their heating down, borrowing," Mr Tutton said.

Figures published in June showed local authorities in England are owed £6.6bn in council tax in total, up 50% from £4.4bn five years ago - despite councils writing off more council tax debt than they used to. In the most recent year of data, £250m such debt was written off, in comparison to £134m five years ago.

Further data obtained by the BBC through Freedom of Information requests revealed:

• Councils are increasingly referring people to bailiffs to help retrieve outstanding debt.
• Across the 253 councils that provided us with information, 1.4 million accounts were referred to bailiffs in the past year – 46% more than four years ago.
• But the average amount they have been able to retrieve per account has gone down slightly, suggesting bailiff action may not be as effective as it used to be.

In Bradford, West Yorkshire, the council referred 41% more people to bailiffs in the most recent year of data than the previous 12 months, our research found.

The council put up council tax rates by almost 10% this year, as it tries to deal with rising debts which will see it owe more than £1bn by 2030.

Those affected include Edmund Davies, who owes about £1,800 in council tax and is struggling to make ends meet with the £295 he receives in benefits each month.

He said the council tax increase has made things much more difficult for people in his position.

"I'd like to pay it - it's just trying to come to an actual affordable agreement with the council that's difficult," said Mr Davies, who also pays £20 a month towards council text debt he owed from his previous address.

"To pay any more… do I eat today, do I eat this week?" he said.

Mr Davies recently received groceries from the Bradford North Foodbank, where demand has risen by 30% over the past year.

Foodbank manager Franco Biancardo said some of this increase was down to council tax debt. He is calling for the council to collect the debt "in a softer way" instead of going through the courts process.

Bradford Council said it was committed to helping those struggling to pay council tax and has given an extra £1.2m in support this year.

A spokesperson added that the rise in enforcement visits in the past year was due to reasons including new charges for homes left empty over a year, and clearing a backlog of cases.

Central government is currently reviewing council tax debt-enforcement practices.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was "taking robust action to tackle the archaic and aggressive collection practices that have seen vulnerable people who miss payments subjected to unmanageable lump sum payments and liability orders".

A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said councils had "a duty to residents to collect taxes" and that bailiffs and other enforcement were "a last resort".

Palestinians in Gaza have celebrated the agreement of a ceasefire and hostage release deal - but many fear confronting the grief that has built up over two years of war.

"This morning, when we heard the news about the truce, it brought both joy and pain," 38-year-old Umm Hassan, who lost his 16-year-old son during the war, told the BBC.

"Out of joy, both the young and the old began shouting," he said. "And those who had lost loved ones started remembering them and wondering how we would return home without them."

Mr Hassan added: "Every person who lost someone feels that sorrow deeply and wonders how they'll return home."

• LIVE REACTION: Trump announces Gaza agreement
• Fireworks and a toast to life: Israelis' delight at deal to return hostages

The deal announced by US President Donald Trump - which still must be agreed by Israel's war cabinet - will see the release of 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 dead hostages in return for 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails and 1,700 detainees from Gaza.

It is the first phase of a 20-point peace plan that could lead to an end to the war - though the latter phases still need to be negotiated.

"We, the civilians, are the ones who've suffered - truly suffered," Daniel Abu Tabeekh, from the Jabalia refugee camp, told the BBC.

"The factions don't feel our pain. Those leaders sitting comfortably abroad have no sense of the suffering we're enduring here in Gaza."

"I have no home," he said. "I've been living on the streets for a year and a half."

Israel launched the war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, when around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, most of whom are civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies.

More than 90% of Gaza's housing has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

"God rewarded us for our patience," said Umm Nader Kloub from northern Gaza, who lost seven relatives during the war, including her sons.

"God willing, he will help [the negotiators] and allow us all to return to our homes, and for their hostages to return safely," she said. "We don't want war."

Mousa, a doctor in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Strip, said: "We have lost a lot during the two years of war. The Gaza Strip is destroyed. A difficult time still awaits us, but the important thing is we hope to be safe."

As news of a possible ceasefire deal broke over the weekend, Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, told the BBC: "The worst part in the last two years, is that while you are losing loved ones, your relatives, your friends, your neighbours, you are unable to allow yourself to grieve, or to feel the deep sadness and to process your human feelings.

"Because your main focus is to try and stop what's happening."

He added: "When our people and our families were being killed, the feeling was: how do you stop this? How do you bury your dead and how do you tend to your wounded?

"But after the event, which I hope to be very soon, the main feeling will be grief, mourning, and a deep, deep sense of loss. Because what we've lost is huge."

US President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza peace deal.

It comes two years and two days after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

At least 67,183 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 20,179 children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Here is what we know about the agreement, and what remains unclear:

What has been announced?

After intense negotiations in Egypt, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a first phase of a US peace plan, the US president said.

Announcing the deal on social media, Trump said: "This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line."

"All parties" would be treated fairly, said Trump, who called these the "first steps toward... everlasting peace".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "a great day for Israel" and said his government would meet on Thursday to approve the agreement and "bring all our dear hostages home".

In confirming the announcement, Hamas said it would "end the war in Gaza, ensure the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces, allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and implement a prisoner exchange".

Israel and Hamas do not speak directly to each other - the negotiations were brokered by Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

What happens next?

Israel's government is due to vote on the deal on Thursday.

If they formally approve it, Israel must withdraw its troops from Gaza to the agreed line, a senior White House official told BBC's US partner, CBS News. The withdrawal would likely happen within 24 hours, the official said.

After this happens, a 72-hour clock will begin where Hamas must release the living hostages.

The release of the hostages would likely begin on Monday, the senior White House official said.

What do we not know?

What's been announced so far is just the initial phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan, which Israel has accepted and Hamas has partly agreed to.

However the announcements did not cover some thorny issues both sides have not reached a resolution on.

Notably, no details surround the disarmament of Hamas - a key point in Trump's plan. Hamas has previously refused to lay down its weapons, saying it would only do so when a Palestinian state had been established.

The future governance of Gaza is also a sticking point. Trump's 20-point plan states Hamas will have no future role in the Strip and proposes it be temporarily governed by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee", before being handed over to the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu appeared to push back on the Palestinian Authority's involvement last week, even as he accepted Trump's plan.

Ultranationalist hardliners within Netanyahu's ruling coalition, many of whom want to reconstruct Jewish settlements in Gaza, are also likely to object to this point.

Hamas, in response, said it still expected to have some role in governing Gaza.

In addition, as of Wednesday night, Hamas had not yet received the final list of Palestinian prisoners that Israel plans to release in exchange for the hostages in Gaza, a Palestinian source told the BBC.

The 20-point plan states that 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after 7 October 2023 will be released.

What's been the reaction?

Relatives of Israeli hostages have welcomed the deal.

Eli Sharabi, whose wife and children were killed, and whose brother Yossi's body is being held by Hamas, posted: "Great joy, can't wait to see everyone home."

The mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen posted: "My child, you are coming home."

Meanwhile in Gaza, celebrations broke out after the announcement. "Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing," Abdul Majeed abd Rabbo, a man in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed."

World leaders have urged parties to abide by the deal.

"The suffering must end," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, adding that the UN would support the "full implementation" of the deal, as well as increase its delivery of aid and its reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the news, saying: "This is a moment of profound relief that will be felt all around the world, but particularly for the hostages, their families, and for the civilian population of Gaza, who have all endured unimaginable suffering over the last two years."

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the agreement a "much needed step towards peace" and urged parties to "respect the terms of the plan".

Lawmakers in the US have struck a cautiously optimistic tone.

"This is a first step, and all parties need to ensure this leads to an enduring end to this war," Democrat Senator Chris Coons said in an X post.

Republican James Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it a welcome deal and said he "looks forward to learning [its] details".

With reporting by Rushdi Abualouf and Lucy Manning

US President Donald Trump's announcement of an agreement which is expected to result in the release of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip for more than two years has caused delight and relief across Israel.

The Hostages Families Forum, an organisation that has advocated for the return of Israeli captives in Gaza, expressed "profound gratitude" to Trump for what it called an "historic breakthrough".

The deal - which still must be agreed upon by Israel's war cabinet - will see the release of 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 dead hostages in return for 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails and 1,700 detainees from Gaza.

So far, 148 hostages have been returned - most as part of previous ceasefire deals - 51 bodies have been recovered and eight hostages have been rescued.

Jubilant scenes have unfolded in Hostages' Square in Tel Aviv as hundreds of people gathered ahead of the deal being signed.

A crowd began clapping and dancing under US and Israeli flags - one woman holding up a sign saying: "We love Trump."

"It's a magical day," the woman said.

Another, 50-year-old Yael, cried as she watched the crowd dancing.

"I'm very excited - it's such a relief," she said. "We need to see them come back home to their families."

• LIVE REACTION: Trump announces Gaza deal
• Joy and pain: Palestinians celebrate deal
• ANALYSIS: Major breakthrough, but war not over yet

The mother and sister of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker lit fireworks in celebration of the news that he would be returned home.

"They're coming back!... Matan is coming home!" Einav Zangauker said as she held her daughter.

Viki Cohen, the mother of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, posted on social media: "My child, you are coming home."

Former British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari celebrated with another freed hostage Romi Gonen, reciting prayers of gratitude, then toasting "L'chaim", meaning "to life". She has been campaigning for the release of her friends, twins Gali and Ziv Berman.

Their brother Liran Berman posted: "My Gali and Ziv, I love you so much. You're coming home."

Gil Dickman's cousin Carmel Gat was taken hostage on 7 October 2023, and her body recovered from a tunnel in Gaza almost a year later. He has been joining other hostage families in pushing for a deal that brings the return of all those still being held in Gaza.

"I can't quite believe this is actually happening. We've been waiting for so long and here it is," he said.

He said he felt "broken" that Carmel will not be among those returning home but was "glowing with joy for the families of the hostages who are finally coming back".

Dalia Cusnir, whose brother-in-law Eitan Horn remains captive in Gaza, said she felt like she was living "in a dream".

"We're more than grateful to President Trump and everything he has done for us. We feel like it might be the beginning of the end of this nightmare, and hugging Eitan feels closer than ever," she said.

But she cautioned that it was still too soon to celebrate.

"Until the last hostage is here, we're not opening the champagne. We're going to keep fighting... until the end," she said.

"So many things can happen until the last moment so this is why we're being so, so careful. We just want to thank everyone who was involved in the efforts and make sure this agreement is done... We will celebrate only once we have the last hostage back home."

Eitan was taken from kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel along with his brother Iair, who was released from captivity in a ceasefire deal earlier this year.

Palestinians in Gaza have celebrated the agreement of a ceasefire and hostage release deal - but many fear confronting the grief that has built up over two years of war.

"This morning, when we heard the news about the truce, it brought both joy and pain," 38-year-old Umm Hassan, who lost his 16-year-old son during the war, told the BBC.

"Out of joy, both the young and the old began shouting," he said. "And those who had lost loved ones started remembering them and wondering how we would return home without them."

Mr Hassan added: "Every person who lost someone feels that sorrow deeply and wonders how they'll return home."

• LIVE REACTION: Trump announces Gaza agreement
• Fireworks and a toast to life: Israelis' delight at deal to return hostages

The deal announced by US President Donald Trump - which still must be agreed by Israel's war cabinet - will see the release of 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 dead hostages in return for 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails and 1,700 detainees from Gaza.

It is the first phase of a 20-point peace plan that could lead to an end to the war - though the latter phases still need to be negotiated.

"We, the civilians, are the ones who've suffered - truly suffered," Daniel Abu Tabeekh, from the Jabalia refugee camp, told the BBC.

"The factions don't feel our pain. Those leaders sitting comfortably abroad have no sense of the suffering we're enduring here in Gaza."

"I have no home," he said. "I've been living on the streets for a year and a half."

Israel launched the war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, when around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed and 251 others taken hostage.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, most of whom are civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies.

More than 90% of Gaza's housing has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

"God rewarded us for our patience," said Umm Nader Kloub from northern Gaza, who lost seven relatives during the war, including her sons.

"God willing, he will help [the negotiators] and allow us all to return to our homes, and for their hostages to return safely," she said. "We don't want war."

Mousa, a doctor in Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Strip, said: "We have lost a lot during the two years of war. The Gaza Strip is destroyed. A difficult time still awaits us, but the important thing is we hope to be safe."

As news of a possible ceasefire deal broke over the weekend, Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, told the BBC: "The worst part in the last two years, is that while you are losing loved ones, your relatives, your friends, your neighbours, you are unable to allow yourself to grieve, or to feel the deep sadness and to process your human feelings.

"Because your main focus is to try and stop what's happening."

He added: "When our people and our families were being killed, the feeling was: how do you stop this? How do you bury your dead and how do you tend to your wounded?

"But after the event, which I hope to be very soon, the main feeling will be grief, mourning, and a deep, deep sense of loss. Because what we've lost is huge."

The total number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales has risen for the first time in three years, including increases in race and religiously motivated offences, government figures suggest.

Religious hate crimes targeted at Muslims rose by 19%, with a spike following the Southport murders and riots that followed last summer, the Home Office said.

The number of hate crimes directed at Jewish people fell by 18% in the year to March, but these figures exclude those recorded by the Met Police.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said Jewish and Muslim communities "continue to experience unacceptable levels of often violent hate crime".

"Today's hate crime statistics show that too many people are living in fear because of who they are, what they believe, or where they come from," she said.

"I will not tolerate British people being targeted simply because of their religion, race, or identity."

Mahmood said the government had increased police patrols at synagogues and mosques following an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last week.

"We stand with every community facing these attacks and will ensure those who commit hate crimes face the full force of the law," she said.

The Met separately showed 40% of all religious hate crimes were targeted at Jewish people in the past year.

The total number of race hate crimes increased by 6% in the year to March.

In total, excluding the Met, there were 115,990 hate crime offences recorded by police in the year ending March 2025, up 2% from 113,166 for the previous 12 months.

A hate crime is an offence targeting someone's race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability.

The hate crimes figures, supplied by the 43 territorial police forces across England and Wales and British Transport Police, recorded falls in hate crime in three other groups including sexual orientation (down 2%), disability (down 8%) and transgender (down 11%.)

There were 137,550 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales including the Met, but the department said the change in recording meant the figures were not directly comparable year-on-year.

The latest figures do not yet include recent events such as unrest following protests outside of asylum hotels and reports of hate crimes at anti-immigration rallies.

Suresh Grover, founder of the anti-racist charity The Monitoring Group, said the figures do not give the full picture of hate crime experienced by some communities.

"Your colour has become your passport or your nationality".

He added that the victim's "first contact" with the police is absolutely critical and if they do not "respond in a speedy way, in a sensitive way and in a way that considers their safety as paramount, everything falls backwards and you lose those people in the statistical data that exists".

"Worse still, you lose people who continue to suffer in silence."

Imam Qari Asim, co-chairman of the British Muslim Network, said: "Whether it is Islamophobia, antisemitism or any form of bigotry, we must confront it together - with unity and courage, not silence."

Last week Kemi Badenoch announced that the Conservative Party would take the UK out of the European Convention of Human Rights if they won the next election.

"I have not come to this decision lightly," the Tory leader said. "But it is clear that it is necessary to protect our borders, our veterans, and our citizens."

Her words came on the eve of the party's annual conference, at a time when the Conservatives are under enormous pressure from Reform UK.

Nigel Farage's party also wants out of the ECHR, as well as other international treaties that he thinks stand in the way of curbing illegal immigration. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, has been just as strident the other way.

"Kemi Badenoch has chosen to back Nigel Farage and join Vladimir Putin," he declared - adding "this will do nothing to stop the boats or fix our broken immigration system".

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has weighed in, though he hovers somewhere in between. He told the BBC he does not want to "tear down" human rights laws, but backs changing how international law is interpreted to stop unsuccessful asylum seekers blocking their deportation.

But while strongly-worded opinions over whether or not to pull out of the treaty make for easy headlines, the consequences are deeply complicated. Even Badenoch acknowledged last year that leaving would not be a "silver bullet" for tackling immigration.

So how is it that such a nuanced issue has been reduced to a political hot potato?

Dodging political bullets

It was back in 2011 - not far into David Cameron's tenure as prime minister - that this issue came to the forefront of domestic politics.

It centred around the case of John Hirst, a man convicted of manslaughter, who argued the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting in any circumstances was a breach of human rights. In 2005 Strasbourg had ruled in his favour. It essentially said the UK's policy was too black and white.

Cameron's Labour predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown dodged the political bullet of being seen to give in to the court.

But when the relatively new Tory PM said he felt "physically ill" at the prospect of giving jailed criminals the vote, his soundbite propelled the ECHR to the heart of public consciousness.

The ECHR had been largely drafted by a British team and aimed to impose on post-fascist Europe a "never-again" package of legal rights.

Its content drew heavily on historic laws - for example the concept of Habeas Corpus (banning unlawful detention), can be seen in the ECHR's Article 5.

Officially, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg polices those rights. And when it rules that a country is in breach, the member states come together to find a way of fixing the problem in the Council of Europe (nothing to do with the EU).

But in the UK, there is also the Human Rights Act, which means ECHR cases can be dealt with by its own judges.

Disputes between UK courts and Strasbourg can be worked through too - what happened following the John Hirst case is testament to this.

In 2017, ministers allowed offenders who had been released on licence the right to vote - but made clear that Parliament would never allow votes for criminals still in prison cells. The Council of Europe closed the case. And just weeks ago the Strasbourg court threw out a fresh attempt by a prisoner to re-open the issue.

Yet it was the original clash, together with Cameron's comments in 2011, that stuck in many minds.

Adding fuel to the fire that same year, Theresa May - home secretary at the time - shared a story during party conference about a Bolivian man who avoided deportation because of his pet cat.

This illustrated the problem with human rights laws, she argued.

Only the story, as May told it, wasn't entirely correct, according to England's top judges.

The Home Office indeed wanted to send the man home as an illegal immigrant. And the cat - called Maya - had featured in the man's appeal. But that was only a tiny part of the detailed evidence he provided.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Office at the Royal Courts of Justice, which issues statements on behalf of senior judges, said at the time that the cat was "nothing to do with" the eventual judgement, which allowed the man to stay.

Yet the pet became a source of unintentional humour - and when a judge cracked a joke about the cat no longer needing to fear adapting to Bolivian mice, the case took on a life of its own.

By that autumn, a mood had begun to take hold about human rights that, 14 years later, has culminated in the Conservatives pledging to leave the ECHR.

'Open-ended and obscure obligations'

Richard Ekins KC, a professor at the University of Oxford, is a staunch critic of the ECHR on the basis that membership in his view compromises UK sovereignty.

"But there is a more fundamental problem," he argues. "And the fundamental problem can be observed by paying attention to what the court has been doing, which really is quite openly to expand the Convention's reach over time."

He references a case last year, where the court ruled that Switzerland had breached human rights by failing to tackle climate change.

The incredibly complex judgement was celebrated by campaigners as a game-changer - but a British judge, Tim Eicke KC, said the majority on the panel had "gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this court to do".

"The judgment… imposes very far reaching, but also open ended and obscure obligations on member states," argues Prof Ekins.

"Domestic courts are going to be invited to apply the European Court's new approach to discipline, supervise [and] control climate policy, which obviously is a highly complicated and tangled set of considerations that intersect with social policy, economic policy, foreign policy."

This is the heart of his argument: a court completely divorced from the political will of the British people is now making the UK do things that are far beyond its original remit.

"It's incompatible - its intention at least - with parliamentary democracy," he argues.

Hijacked by the immigration debate

Nowhere is the allegation of overreach stronger in British politics than in Reform's claim that the ECHR is to blame for problems with the UK's migration system.

Yet the evidence supporting this claim is often anecdotal and complex - as was the case with Maya the cat.

A study of media stories about the ECHR by the University of Oxford's Bonavero Institute for Human Rights found that fewer than 1% of all foreign criminals who have appealed against their deportation in the UK have won their case on human rights grounds.

When cases went as far as Strasbourg, the court tended to throw them out.

That's not to say there are no issues at all.

Lord Jonathan Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, believes that some decisions by immigration tribunal judges have become "extravagant" and far removed from the original boundaries of the right to family life.

"I have no problem about the text of the Convention," he says. "I do have a problem about the unlimited expansion which it's undergone at the hands of the Strasbourg Court.

"It's unfortunate that the whole issue has been hijacked by the question of immigration.

"I think that it will make some difference to the ability to keep people out or deport them if we are not members of the ECHR. But I think the extent that it will make a difference is not widely understood - and has been greatly exaggerated."

Would leaving the ECHR 'stop the boats'?

So, would leaving the ECHR really "stop the boats", to use Rishi Sunak's phrase?

"The number one problem about deporting illegal immigrants, first of all, is finding a place which will take them and which is not unsafe," argues Lord Sumption.

"And secondly, [there is] the Refugee Convention. It doesn't require us to take in asylum seekers. It does require us to adjudicate on their claims and give them certain rights once they've got here, even if they got here illegally.

"The ECHR is certainly an additional difficulty, but not as great a difficulty, as is suggested."

The UK government has already promised to devise clearer and stricter rules that will tell immigration officials and judges how to interpret the right to family life.

"I think it is a runner," argues Sir Jonathan Jones, who was the Treasury Solicitor until 2020. This, he believes, could be the best way forward - particularly around the definition of the ECHR's Article 8, which guarantees the right to, among other things, family life.

"It's legitimate for the government to say we will take a tighter view, as a proper, reasoned, good faith attempt to rein in what we think Article 8 covers and what it doesn't."

But Alex Chalk, the last Conservative Lord Chancellor before Labour won power, argues that the UK government needs to seek reform faster.

"The ECHR is not holy writ," he told the BBC during the Conservative party conference. "This government should be moving much more quickly to seek urgent reform. [It] should have been saying, look, we want to lead on this to do this in six weeks.

"The US Constitution was drafted in 15 weeks or so. This really can be done."

'Rights are going to suffer'

Human rights lawyer Harriet Wistrich is concerned about what could be lost if the UK does leave the ECHR. It has, she argues, been at the forefront of challenging the state's treatment of victims of awful abuses.

"We were able to hold Greater Manchester Police accountable on behalf of Rochdale grooming gang victims through civil [damages] proceedings.

"The Hillsborough inquests were possible by having Article 2 [the right to life] inquiries into deaths, where you want to examine what went wrong and what the state could have done differently.

"If we withdraw fully… it's those rights that are going to suffer," says Ms Wistrich, who is also the founder of the Centre for Women's Justice.

Beyond legal battles at home, there are big international questions too around leaving.

The 1998 Belfast Agreement, the cornerstone of peace in Northern Ireland, and the post-Brexit deal with the European Union placed respect for human rights law at their centre. Critics of withdrawing from the EHCR predict both could come crashing down.

But Professor Ekins believes that you can have human rights safeguards without a supranational court overseeing all nations.

He and colleagues wrote a detailed proposal on Northern Ireland that argue the historic arrangements don't require the UK to remain in the ECHR, providing it honours human rights and cross-community power-sharing arrangements by other means.

The issues in Northern Ireland and the Republic could, however, go deeper. Sir Jonathan Jones for one is sceptical about how leaving the ECHR would go down in both places - because the ECHR's role in the agreement was to demonstrate to a lot of people who do not trust the British state that there are laws in place to protect them.

"The thing about the Convention is that it constrains governments, and it constrains the way that governments can treat minorities and people it doesn't like," he says.

"If we were out of the ECHR, you wouldn't have that constraint."

Alex Chalk warns there could be an international price to leaving, too. There is value, he says, in sitting at the Council of Europe and raising issues with French and German counterparts at international conferences.

"You should try to reform before you yank your way out because inevitably there could be cost to doing so," he argues.

But ultimately, he adds, "this is a matter of politics more than it is of law".

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The case of a British teenager accused of drug smuggling in Georgia has been delayed to "finalise a plea bargain".

Appearing at Tbilisi City Court, Bella Culley, 19, from Billingham, Teesside, had previously been told she could face up to 15 years in jail or life imprisonment if convicted.

It is understood her family has raised enough money to significantly reduce any jail time imposed.

Malkhaz Salakaia, representing heavily pregnant Miss Culley, said he planned to appeal to the president of Georgia to pardon her after finalising the plea deal.

Judge Giorgi Gulashvili said prosecution and defence teams needed more time to finalise the sum needed for Miss Culley's release.

The hearing was attended by the teenager's mother and grandmother.

At a previous hearing in September, the family was told a "substantial" amount of money would lead to the teenager's release.

The case has been postponed until October 28.

Miss Culley initially went missing in Thailand before being arrested at Tbilisi International Airport on 10 May.

It is understood she arrived on a flight from Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates.

Georgian Police said officers seized narcotic drugs from a travel bag.

Miss Culley was detained for months while the prosecution investigated where 12kg (26lbs) of marijuana and 2kg (4.4lbs) of hashish came from, and whether she was planning to hand them over to someone else.

At a hearing in July she pleaded not guilty to charges of possession and trafficking illegal drugs and claimed she had been "forced to do this through torture".

"I just wanted to travel," she said. "I am a good person. I am a student at university. I am a clean person. I don't do drugs."

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"It's not about him, it's about me," declares Victoria Beckham ("him" being her husband Sir David Beckham).

And that's exactly what we get in a new three-part documentary, which drops on Netflix on Thursday.

The former Spice Girl and fashion entrepreneur, 51, is determined to tell her own story – two years after former England captain Sir David, 50, released his own, hugely successful TV series.

The episodes take us inside Victoria's pop career, family life, struggles to reinvent herself and preparation for a major show at Paris Fashion Week.

We also learn about the serious financial troubles her fashion business faced, and how she feared she might "lose everything".

There are contributions from famous friends including Eva Longoria, and fashion titans such as Dame Anna Wintour and Donatella Versace.

Here are our main takeaways from her documentary.

Before the Spice Girls, Victoria was 'not cool'

Lady Beckham achieved dizzying fame in the Spice Girls, so it's hard to believe that at school, she was "that uncool kid" who didn't fit in.

"I was definitely a loner at school", she says, explaining she was bullied.

The Spice Girls came together in 1994, after Mel B, Mel C, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria responded to an advert for candidates.

After the release of their chart-topping debut single Wannabe in 1996, "Spice mania" swept the planet, with their self-styled "Girl Power" mantra - a brand of female empowerment that made them a global pop culture phenomenon.

Lady Beckham credits her bandmates for making her "more lighthearted, more fun" and says it was the first time she felt popular.

She still had to face negative headlines about her weight, and discusses having an eating disorder. She says she never talked about it publicly, or even very much with her parents, but that it made her become “very good at lying".

But Lady Beckham says the other Spice Girls made her "feel good enough" about being herself. It's a message she continues to instil in her daughter Harper, 14.

"I tell Harper every day, be who you are," she says.

What was buried in Baden-Baden?

Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls in 1998 and the group split up in 2001.

Lady Beckham says she found the transition "really, really difficult".

She carried on making music, but the criticism she received "really hurt".

Then came the infamous WAG period. Pictures of Victoria and other wives-and-girlfriends supporting their footballer partners in the German town of Baden-Baden in 2006 were plastered all over the tabloids.

"It was fun," says Lady Beckham of that time in her life.

But she now concedes there was an "element of attention seeking" to it all. "I was trying to find myself, I felt incomplete, sad, frozen in time maybe," she says.

After the family moved to the US, Lady Beckham decided she wanted to work in fashion.

But to do that, she knew she had to shed her other personas – the Spice Girl, the WAG. "I buried those boobs in Baden-Baden," she says.

Victoria 'almost lost everything' in struggles with fashion business

Lady Beckham is strikingly honest about the struggles her fashion business faced.

She says people didn't see her as "cool at all", and that a lot of people refused to take her seriously.

And Vogue giant Dame Anna cements that view, when she says of Victoria's fashion aspirations: "I thought maybe this was a hobby. I didn't quite believe it."

We see the growth of Victoria Beckham Ltd but also the serious financial troubles it faced. Sir David says he didn't think her business would survive, while Lady Beckham agrees.

"I almost lost everything and that was a dark, dark time," she says. "I used to cry before I went to work every day because I felt like a firefighter."

She says her firm was "tens of millions in the red".

In a later scene, her voice breaks, and she wells up in tears, when she recalls how Sir David stepped in to help her business out.

But the series also shows her turn things around, and we see her pull out all the stops in the run-up to her triumphant Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week in September 2024.

Supermodel Gigi Hadid walked for her, wearing a striking emerald green gown. Dame Anna is shown in attendance, and, in an earlier clip, says Lady Beckham "totally proved us wrong".

Today, Victoria's business has offices in London and New York, with its flagship store in Mayfair, London. The brand's products are in 230 stores across 50 countries around the world, according to the company's website.

Family life carries on, amid reports of feud with Brooklyn

The couple's eldest son, 26-year-old Brooklyn, gets a few mentions in the show and appears briefly. Lady Beckham brings him up in conversation, when discussing the morning sickness she faced while pregnant with him and performing with the Spice Girls.

But for the past few months, much of the online interest around the Beckhams has focused on reports that Brooklyn and his wife Nicola have fallen out with the rest of the family.

The couple were absent from David Beckham's 50th birthday celebrations and did not post a birthday message online, fuelling the intrigue.

Nicola has in the past denied there was a feud in the family. Sir David and Lady Beckham have never acknowledged the rumoured rift, and declined to comment when asked by BBC News.

• Can the Beckham brand survive reports of family feud?

We did get a hint on the topic recently from Victoria, who told the Sunday Times how she felt Liam and Noel Gallagher's reconciliation must have made their mother "so happy".

"As a mum, that must be... she must feel so happy to see her boys getting on," she said.

Showbiz reporter Catrina Rose notes there was “no hint” of any alleged feud in the series.

"Victoria's setting a lot of records straight here, but she's not being drawn on this particular topic."

There's a good explanation for why she doesn't smile

Lady Beckham's pout became her defining look in the 1990s. But in the new series, she admits there's a deeper reason as to why she never smiles.

"The minute I see a camera, I change," she says.

"The barrier goes up, my armour goes on, and that's when, you know, the miserable cow that doesn't smile - that's when she comes out. And I'm so conscious of that."

She adds that she would "rather not be that person" and wishes she had the confidence to walk out in front of cameras and smile.

Elsewhere, she insists that she does actually smile.

"I've looked miserable for all these years because when we stand on the red carpet, this guy has always gone on the left," she says, gesturing at Sir David.

"When I smile, I smile from the left, because if I smile from the right, I look unwell. So consequently I'm smiling on the inside, but no one ever sees it, so that's why I look so moody."

That's one use of a noisy kitchen blender

The programme is filled with small details about the Beckhams' relationship – many of which we didn't know before.

For example, Sir David starts a blender when he doesn't want to listen to Victoria (so she says, anyway).

The pair have fond memories of their whirlwind romance in the 1990s, which led to them getting married and having a baby within two years.

Sir David reflects that his parents - and his manager - would have preferred him to marry a local girl who stayed in Manchester, where he was playing for Manchester United. "But I didn't want that," he says, opting instead for globe-trotting celebrity Victoria.

"I was so excited, I wanted everyone to know I was dating Posh Spice," the former England captain says.

Lady Beckham, for her part, says she was never a young girl dreaming of getting married or becoming a mum. "It wasn't until I met David that those things even occurred to me," she says.

There won't be another Beckham baby

In the final episode, which was filmed before Sir David's 50th birthday this year, the pair get reflective about everything they have achieved, and what lies ahead for them.

"Success, it feels good, I'm not going to lie," says Victoria. "I've still got a lot that I want to do."

Sir David, for his part, seems to have something else on his mind.

"Now we're both, well I'm almost 50, you're 51, what's next? Another baby?," David asks his wife.

Victoria laughs. "Another baby? My God. No."

Victoria Beckham, a three-part documentary series, is available now on Netflix.

World leaders have welcomed the news that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza peace plan.

The agreement paves the way for the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the entry of aid into Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the agreement "a great day for Israel" and said his government would convene on Thursday to approve it.

Hamas said the negotiations were "responsible and serious" and called on the US and other mediators to ensure that Israel implements the deal "without disavowal or delay".

UN Secretary General António Guterres described the deal as a "momentous opportunity", adding that the UN will support the "full implementation" of the deal, increase its delivery of humanitarian aid and advance its reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

Guterres urged all parties to obey the terms of the deal, including releasing Israeli hostages, abiding by a permanent ceasefire, and immediately allowing humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

"The suffering must end," Guterres said.

In a post on X, Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general of humanitarian affairs, said: "Great news. Let's get the hostages out and surge aid in - fast."

In a Truth Social post announcing the agreement, US President Donald Trump said it was a "GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America."

"We thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen," he wrote.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the deal was a moment of "profound relief that will be felt around the world."

He called on all sides "to meet the commitments they have made, to end the war, and to build the foundations for a just and lasting end to the conflict."

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, "After more than two years of conflict, hostages held and a devastating loss of civilian life, this is a much needed step towards peace," and "We urge all parties to respect the terms of the plan."

US House Leader Chuck Schumer said the agreement brings a "huge sigh of relief to the hostage families, to all of Israel, and to Palestinians who have suffered for so long in this horrific humanitarian catastrophe."

A statement from the Hostages Families Forum, an organisation that has advocated for the return of Israeli captives in Gaza, expressed "profound gratitude to President Trump" for what it called an "historic breakthrough."

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the release of the hostages was a "blessing", and thanked US and Israeli leaders.

"I warmly embrace the families of the hostages for the anticipated return of their loved ones, including IDF soldiers and fallen heroes, home soon."

Meanwhile in Gaza, residents of Khan Younis, in the territory's south, erupted in cheers following the announcement of a peace deal, the Reuters news agency reported.

"Thank God, today President Trump announced that the war stopped, we are very happy that the war stopped, this is something joyful for us and we thank our brothers and anyone who contributed even if verbally to stop the war and to stop the bloodshed," Wael Radwan told the news agency.

"Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing. I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed," said Abdul Majeed Rabbo.

In Tel Aviv, the mother and sister of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker lit fireworks at the city's Hostages Square in celebration of the news that he would be returned to Israel.

"They're coming back!... Matan is coming home!" Einav Zangauker said, as she held her daughter.

Viki Cohen, the mother of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen posted on social media: "My child, you are coming home."

Former British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari celebrated with former hostage Romi Gonen, reciting prayers of gratitude, then toasting "L'chaim", meaning "to life". She has been campaigning for the release of her friends, twins Gali and Ziv Berman.

Their brother Liran Berman posted: "My Gali and Ziv, I love you so much. You're coming home."

'We will rebuild Gaza'

Palestinians displaced by the war in told the Associated Press that they hope the peace deal will allow them to leave the shelters and come home.

"I will rebuild the house, we will rebuild Gaza," says Ayman Saber, who lives in Khan Younis.

Ahmed Sheheiber says he is waiting "impatiently" to return to his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

"It's a huge day, huge joy," he says.

Aid coordinator Eyad Amawi said he is worried Israel might put obstacles to the deal and that he feels a mix of happiness and sadness.

"We believe and don't believe. We have mixed feelings, between happiness and sadness, memories, everything is mixed," he says.

"We need to fix everything here, especially the psychological effects to (continue) with our lives," he added.

The ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, announced after intense negotiations in Egypt, is a long-awaited breakthrough that brings them closer to ending the two-year-old war in Gaza.

But, despite the momentum, there is no guarantee that this will happen.

The main difference in these efforts has been the personal involvement of President Donald Trump, who has put pressure not only on Hamas but also on Israel for an agreement. This is a major diplomatic victory for someone who wants to be seen as the man who ended the war – and, in the process, be rewarded for it.

Israel launched the war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed, mostly Israeli civilians, and 251 were taken hostage.

Israel's military offensive has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including more than 18,000 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Its figures are seen as reliable by the UN and other international bodies. It has destroyed most of the territory and led to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

What has been agreed is the first phase of a plan the president announced at the White House last week alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been accused of sabotaging efforts for a deal in the past.

This time, Trump, reportedly impatient and irritated with Netanyahu, appears to have used the power only the Americans have to influence Israel, leaving the prime minister with no option other than to engage with the process.

Threatened by Trump with "complete obliteration", Hamas was under intense pressure too. Arab and Muslim countries embraced the president's plan, and there was heavy involvement from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey in the negotiations.

Details of the deal have not yet been published but the outline is that the remaining hostages will be freed – the 20 believed to be alive at once, possibly as soon as Sunday, while the remains of up to 28 deceased captives will be returned in stages.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli jails, Israeli troops will withdraw from parts of Gaza, and there will be an increase in humanitarian aid entering the territory.

Trump has publicly expressed his desire to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced on Friday, a deadline that could have guided the negotiations. On social media, he employed his usual hyperbole, calling it a "historic and unprecedented event" and the "first steps toward a strong, durable and everlasting peace".

This is, without a doubt, a significant moment but it gives no certainty that a peace deal for Gaza will happen, as crucial details still need to be worked out. They include the key Israeli demand that Hamas must disarm, the extent of the Israeli withdrawal and a plan for who will govern Gaza.

In Gaza, Palestinians celebrated the announcement in the middle of the night, hoping that this will bring an end to their suffering. In Tel Aviv, people gathered in Hostages Square, which has become a symbol of the ordeal of the captives.

Hamas knows that, by releasing the hostages, it will lose the leverage it has in negotiations. It has demanded guarantees that Israel will not resume the fighting once they have been freed - but has reasons to be suspicious: in March, Israel broke down a ceasefire and returned to war with devastating air strikes.

In Israel, however, a country exhausted by the conflict, polls have consistently suggested that most people want the conflict to end.

But Netanyahu still faces political hurdles. He relies on the support of ultranationalist ministers who have threatened to quit the coalition in the case of a deal, which could lead to the government's collapse, a concern that many suspect has led him to prolong the war. He has promised to achieve "total victory" against Hamas, and any deal will have to allow him to say he has done that.

Netanyahu has called the announcement a "diplomatic and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel". Notably, unlike Hamas, his statement did not say it would end the war.

Millions of households in England will have to pay even higher water bills than had previously been announced, after five water companies appealed to the UK's competition regulator.

The companies - Anglian, Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East - had appeals to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accepted, giving them permission to raise bills still further.

They had argued that the price rises set by the sector's regulator Ofwat - which average 36% over the next five years – were not enough to deliver the needed investment in infrastructure.

The CMA said the five companies could raise bills by on average an additional 3% more than the original Ofwat decision.

The five water companies serve over 7 million household and business customers.

Troubled firm Thames Water also appealed, but has deferred its case until late October while it tries to fix a rescue bid.

Incidents of very young children taking knives into primary schools have been revealed by a BBC investigation.

Police in Kent recorded an assault involving a four-year-old pupil, while officers in the West Midlands reported that a six-year-old had taken a flick knife into class.

The mother of Harvey Willgoose, a teenager murdered by another pupil in Sheffield, says the data is shocking and is calling on the government to fund metal detectors, or "knife arches", for all UK schools and colleges.

One teenage boy from Sheffield, who says he has taken knives to school, told us: "I just felt like I need to protect myself."

There were 1,304 offences involving knives or sharp objects in 2024 at schools and sixth form colleges in England and Wales, a Freedom of Information request by the BBC has found.

At least 10% were committed by primary-school-aged children, police data suggests.

One educational trust in the West Midlands told us it was installing permanent metal-detecting "knife arches" in all four of its secondary schools because the rate of knife crime in its police force area was so high.

Nearly every force - 41 out of 43 across England and Wales - responded to our request for information about knife incidents in schools.

Two thirds of them also gave us data on the ages and genders of children involved - and those figures revealed that almost 80% of offences were carried out by boys, the vast majority teenagers.

We were also given details of incidents involving primary-age children, some of them very young:

• Kent Police responded to a four-year-old with a knife at a school. The offence was recorded was "assault with injury - malicious wounding". The child was under the age of criminal responsibility, so another body or agency intervened
• West Midlands Police reported that a six-year-old was in possession of a flick knife. The child told staff that "I have a plan... I am going to kill [name of pupil]". Staff seized the knife after the child initially denied having the blade on him
• West Midlands Police also logged that a five-year-old had taken a 10-inch kitchen knife into school to "show his friends" and a six-year-old had gone to school with a "meat cleaver"
• Cheshire Police reported that it had gone to a school in Chester where a five-year-old boy had taken in a kitchen knife

Reporting of such young offenders, however, is not always consistent across schools and police forces, as the age of criminal responsibility is 10.

In response to the BBC's findings, the government told us it has a "mission to halve knife crime" and "schools have the power to implement security measures, including knife arches, where necessary".

Mother Caroline Willgoose says "kids are going to school frightened" and the installation of knife arches could be a deterrent to crime.

Her son, Harvey, was murdered by a fellow pupil with a hunting knife in February at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield. The 15-year-old was stabbed twice in the chest.

Caroline says Harvey was afraid to go to school because he knew some children were carrying knives.

"I always thought knives was a gang-culture type of thing. Never in a million years would I have thought there were knives inside school," she says.

The 51-year-old says many of the pupils and teaching staff who saw what happened are still receiving trauma counselling.

"It's been horrific. I can't describe the pain... we need to get into schools and educate kids of the seriousness and the pure devastation that carrying knives can bring."

The police forces were all asked by the BBC about offences with bladed weapons they had recorded on school premises in the past few years.

The types of knives found included machetes, pen knives, flick knives, butterfly knives and swords.

Although the 2024 figure for the total number of knife incidents (1,304) is slightly down on the previous year, according to the data we received, the number of more serious offences recorded - for example violence rather than possession - has gone up.

Some schools have responded to rising knife crime by adding security measures to check for bladed weapons.

Beacon Hill Academy in Dudley has recently installed a new knife arch - the BBC was able to see it in use for the first time.

Evie, who's 16, says the arch is a stark reminder of possible dangers: "You think about what it's there for and what children do bring to school, and you never know."

Thirteen-year-old Archie agrees but says "you've got to keep in mind it was put in for a safety thing. So, it's kind of scary on the one hand, but at the same time reassuring".

Headteacher Sukhjot Dhami says the school needed to add extra security - "whatever it takes to keep young people safe".

The three other secondaries run by Dudley Academies Trust are introducing similar security measures - a response, says the trust, to the high knife-crime rate in the West Midlands Police area.

The boss of one the UK's largest providers of metal detectors says sales to schools of knife arches and handheld wands have risen.

Schools are our biggest customers, says Byron Logue, managing director of Interconnective Security Products.

The company sold 35 knife arches to schools between March 2024 and March 2025 - a threefold increase previous 12-month period before, he says. In the last 12 months they have also sold more than 100 knife wands to schools.

"I think we've reached a stage now where we can acknowledge that there is a problem nationally in the country with regards to knife crime, particularly amongst the youth," says the businessman.

In a Sheffield gym, we meet three teenagers who tell us they have taken knives into school.

One boy, 15, tells us he used to take a 12-inch knife into the classroom.

"The first time I took a knife in, was when a kid sent out a message saying, 'I'm going to kill you this time'. So I asked one of my friends to give me a knife and I paid about £30 for it."

The teachers didn't notice, he says. "I used to always walk in with a blade on my hip. I'd sit down normally so the knife wasn't moving around."

Another boy, 18, says he started carrying a knife into school after being attacked and slashed on the hand by another pupil.

"I just felt like I need to protect myself," he explains.

We challenge the teenagers about why they broke the law and took knives into school.

One of them replied: "You just got to take your precautions. Nowhere's safe really."

The three boys are in the gym as part of an effort - by owner Trevor Chrouch - to offer young people an alternative to crime. A former professional bodybuilder, these days Trevor offers mentoring and teaches young people self-defence. He lets secondary school pupils use the gym for free, he says.

"I think kids are bringing knives into school every day. Just like their mobile phone in their pocket, they've got their knife in the other pocket. It's because they're scared."

We asked the Home Office to read our research.

It said it was addressing the root causes of knife crime through its Young Futures programme and that schools had the power to implement their own security measures including knife arches.

It will also implement "stricter rules for online sellers of knives", it says, by backing "Ronan's Law" which came into effect in August.

The Association of Schools and College Leaders says while it is relatively rare for pupils to bring knives into schools, it would like to see greater efforts across society to tackle the issue.

"More than a decade of cuts to community policing and youth outreach programmes has meant school leaders, too often, find themselves with little or no support," says general secretary, Pepe Di'lasio.

Back in Sheffield, we asked the teenagers in the gym what would have stopped them from taking knives to school.

"Learning how to defend ourselves," the 19-year-old told us. "You don't get taught that in schools. They only teach you science, not how to live life and how to handle your emotions better."

The Princess of Wales has warned that an overload of smartphones and computer screens is creating an "epidemic of disconnection" that disrupts family life.

"While digital devices promise to keep us connected, they frequently do the opposite," writes Catherine, in an essay written in collaboration with Prof Robert Waldinger from Harvard Medical School.

Catherine says smartphones and gadgets have become a "constant distraction, fragmenting our focus" and undermining the time that families spend together.

"We're physically present but mentally absent, unable to fully engage with the people right in front of us," writes the princess, in an essay that's part of her early years education campaign.

The princess says that research evidence shows the importance of creating healthy and warm relationships within families and between people, with lifelong benefits for physical and mental health.

But she warns, in an essay The Power of Human Connection in a Distracted World, that social trends are going in the opposite direction and that there are more lonely, isolated people and that families are not giving each other adequate attention.

"When we check our phones during conversations, scroll through social media during family dinners, or respond to e-mails while playing with our children, we're not just being distracted, we are withdrawing the basic form of love that human connection requires," she writes.

This is a particularly acute challenge for today's children who are in a "world immersed in digital technology", says Catherine, ahead of a visit to an early years centre in Oxford later on Thursday.

Her husband Prince William, in a conversation on an Apple TV+ show, recently said that none of their three children were allowed to have smartphones.

In her essay published on the website of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, Catherine says that children need to be encouraged to develop social and emotional skills, which will help them throughout their lives.

But that can be impeded by a "world filled with technological distractions", she argues.

"We're raising a generation that may be more 'connected' than any in history while simultaneously being more isolated, more lonely, and less equipped to form the warm, meaningful relationships that research tells us are the foundation of a healthy life," she writes.

This echoes some of the messages that the princess has posted on social media, such as: "Our lives flourish when we cherish the bonds of love and friendship. It has never been more important to appreciate the value of one another."

The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood was launched in 2021, with the aim of raising awareness and gathering research evidence about the importance of children's first years.

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Pubs and bars in England and Wales could see extended opening hours as the government launches a fast-track a review on "outdated" licensing rules.

The plans could make it easier for venues to serve food outside and host more live music, in a bid to "remove unnecessary barriers".

Pub landlords and local communities will be able to have their say in a four-week call for evidence. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the review was about "cutting red tape" and "boosting footfall" to support the UK's economic growth.

But critics have warned relaxing rules around alcohol would lead to more antisocial behaviour.

Sir Keir said "pubs and bars are the beating heart of our communities", and added that the government was "backing them to thrive".

"When our locals do well, our economy does too," he said.

The call for evidence will focus on nine key recommendations from the Government's Licensing Taskforce, with particular emphasis on streamlining on-trade alcohol licensing for hospitality venues.

It said it plans to cut the cost of licensing, extend business rates relief and cut alcohol duty on draught pints.

Nick Mackenzie, co-chair of the Licensing Taskforce and chief executive at pub giant Greene King, said updating the licensing system was a "vital step" towards reducing the challenges of running a hospitality business.

"Pubs are faced with continued rising costs, placing them under enormous pressures which is why the Government must continue to back the sector, including critical reforms on business rates which would unlock opportunities for pubs to invest and help drive economic growth," he said.

Dr Richard Piper, the chief executive of the charity Alcohol Change UK told the Guardian the proposed reforms would be a "charter for chaos" without support from local authorities and health experts.

He said permitting vendors to sell alcohol later into the evening would "inevitably mean more victims of crime, including domestic violence, more antisocial behaviour and disturbance, more police time spent dealing with drink-fuelled incidents and both ambulance and A&E staff having to deal with even more people who have come to harm as a result of alcohol".

Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers, says official ID photos of around 70,000 users have potentially been leaked after a cyber-attack.

The platform, which has more than 200 million users worldwide, says hackers had targeted a firm that helped to verify the ages of its users but the Discord platform itself was not breached.

People can provide ID photos to verify their age on Discord - a networking hub for players to chat and share files with others in the gaming community.

The leaked data may involve personal information, partial credit card details and messages that were exchanged with Discord's customer service agents, the San-Francisco-based company says.

No full credit card details, passwords, or messages and activity beyond conversations with Discord's customer support agents were leaked, the firm said.

All impacted users have been contacted and Discord is working with law enforcement to investigate the matter, it added.

The platform said it has revoked the customer support provider's access to the system that was targeted in the breach. Discord did not name the third-party company involved.

A representative from Zendesk, a customer service software provider for Discord, told the BBC that its systems had not been compromised and that the breach did was not caused by a vulnerability within its platform.

Some online commentators have claimed that the data breach was bigger than Discord has revealed.

A spokesperson for Discord told the BBC that those claims are inaccurate and "part of an attempt to extort payment".

"We will not reward those responsible for their illegal actions," the spokesperson added.

Cybercriminals frequently target personal data, which can command a high price on the black market for use in scams.

Information like full names and official ID numbers is especially valuable because, unlike credit card details, it typically remains unchanged over time.

Discord has previously strengthened its age-verification measures in response to concerns that some servers on the platform were being used to distribute pornographic and extremist material.

US President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a Gaza peace deal.

It comes two years and two days after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

At least 67,183 have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza since then, including 20,179 children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

Here is what we know about the agreement, and what remains unclear:

What has been announced?

After intense negotiations in Egypt, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a first phase of a US peace plan, the US president said.

Announcing the deal on social media, Trump said: "This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line."

"All parties" would be treated fairly, said Trump, who called these the "first steps toward... everlasting peace".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it "a great day for Israel" and said his government would meet on Thursday to approve the agreement and "bring all our dear hostages home".

In confirming the announcement, Hamas said it would "end the war in Gaza, ensure the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces, allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and implement a prisoner exchange".

Israel and Hamas do not speak directly to each other - the negotiations were brokered by Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

What happens next?

Israel's government is due to vote on the deal on Thursday.

If they formally approve it, Israel must withdraw its troops from Gaza to the agreed line, a senior White House official told BBC's US partner, CBS News. The withdrawal would likely happen within 24 hours, the official said.

After this happens, a 72-hour clock will begin where Hamas must release the living hostages.

The release of the hostages would likely begin on Monday, the senior White House official said.

What do we not know?

What's been announced so far is just the initial phase of Trump's 20-point peace plan, which Israel has accepted and Hamas has partly agreed to.

However the announcements did not cover some thorny issues both sides have not reached a resolution on.

Notably, no details surround the disarmament of Hamas - a key point in Trump's plan. Hamas has previously refused to lay down its weapons, saying it would only do so when a Palestinian state had been established.

The future governance of Gaza is also a sticking point. Trump's 20-point plan states Hamas will have no future role in the Strip and proposes it be temporarily governed by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee", before being handed over to the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu appeared to push back on the Palestinian Authority's involvement last week, even as he accepted Trump's plan.

Ultranationalist hardliners within Netanyahu's ruling coalition, many of whom want to reconstruct Jewish settlements in Gaza, are also likely to object to this point.

Hamas, in response, said it still expected to have some role in governing Gaza.

In addition, as of Wednesday night, Hamas had not yet received the final list of Palestinian prisoners that Israel plans to release in exchange for the hostages in Gaza, a Palestinian source told the BBC.

The 20-point plan states that 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after 7 October 2023 will be released.

What's been the reaction?

Relatives of Israeli hostages have welcomed the deal.

Eli Sharabi, whose wife and children were killed, and whose brother Yossi's body is being held by Hamas, posted: "Great joy, can't wait to see everyone home."

The mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen posted: "My child, you are coming home."

Meanwhile in Gaza, celebrations broke out after the announcement. "Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing," Abdul Majeed abd Rabbo, a man in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed."

World leaders have urged parties to abide by the deal.

"The suffering must end," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, adding that the UN would support the "full implementation" of the deal, as well as increase its delivery of aid and its reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the news, saying: "This is a moment of profound relief that will be felt all around the world, but particularly for the hostages, their families, and for the civilian population of Gaza, who have all endured unimaginable suffering over the last two years."

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the agreement a "much needed step towards peace" and urged parties to "respect the terms of the plan".

Lawmakers in the US have struck a cautiously optimistic tone.

"This is a first step, and all parties need to ensure this leads to an enduring end to this war," Democrat Senator Chris Coons said in an X post.

Republican James Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called it a welcome deal and said he "looks forward to learning [its] details".

With reporting by Rushdi Abualouf and Lucy Manning

Incidents of very young children taking knives into primary schools have been revealed by a BBC investigation.

Police in Kent recorded an assault involving a four-year-old pupil, while officers in the West Midlands reported that a six-year-old had taken a flick knife into class.

The mother of Harvey Willgoose, a teenager murdered by another pupil in Sheffield, says the data is shocking and is calling on the government to fund metal detectors, or "knife arches", for all UK schools and colleges.

One teenage boy from Sheffield, who says he has taken knives to school, told us: "I just felt like I need to protect myself."

There were 1,304 offences involving knives or sharp objects in 2024 at schools and sixth form colleges in England and Wales, a Freedom of Information request by the BBC has found.

At least 10% were committed by primary-school-aged children, police data suggests.

One educational trust in the West Midlands told us it was installing permanent metal-detecting "knife arches" in all four of its secondary schools because the rate of knife crime in its police force area was so high.

Nearly every force - 41 out of 43 across England and Wales - responded to our request for information about knife incidents in schools.

Two thirds of them also gave us data on the ages and genders of children involved - and those figures revealed that almost 80% of offences were carried out by boys, the vast majority teenagers.

We were also given details of incidents involving primary-age children, some of them very young:

• Kent Police responded to a four-year-old with a knife at a school. The offence was recorded was "assault with injury - malicious wounding". The child was under the age of criminal responsibility, so another body or agency intervened
• West Midlands Police reported that a six-year-old was in possession of a flick knife. The child told staff that "I have a plan... I am going to kill [name of pupil]". Staff seized the knife after the child initially denied having the blade on him
• West Midlands Police also logged that a five-year-old had taken a 10-inch kitchen knife into school to "show his friends" and a six-year-old had gone to school with a "meat cleaver"
• Cheshire Police reported that it had gone to a school in Chester where a five-year-old boy had taken in a kitchen knife

Reporting of such young offenders, however, is not always consistent across schools and police forces, as the age of criminal responsibility is 10.

In response to the BBC's findings, the government told us it has a "mission to halve knife crime" and "schools have the power to implement security measures, including knife arches, where necessary".

Mother Caroline Willgoose says "kids are going to school frightened" and the installation of knife arches could be a deterrent to crime.

Her son, Harvey, was murdered by a fellow pupil with a hunting knife in February at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield. The 15-year-old was stabbed twice in the chest.

Caroline says Harvey was afraid to go to school because he knew some children were carrying knives.

"I always thought knives was a gang-culture type of thing. Never in a million years would I have thought there were knives inside school," she says.

The 51-year-old says many of the pupils and teaching staff who saw what happened are still receiving trauma counselling.

"It's been horrific. I can't describe the pain... we need to get into schools and educate kids of the seriousness and the pure devastation that carrying knives can bring."

The police forces were all asked by the BBC about offences with bladed weapons they had recorded on school premises in the past few years.

The types of knives found included machetes, pen knives, flick knives, butterfly knives and swords.

Although the 2024 figure for the total number of knife incidents (1,304) is slightly down on the previous year, according to the data we received, the number of more serious offences recorded - for example violence rather than possession - has gone up.

Some schools have responded to rising knife crime by adding security measures to check for bladed weapons.

Beacon Hill Academy in Dudley has recently installed a new knife arch - the BBC was able to see it in use for the first time.

Evie, who's 16, says the arch is a stark reminder of possible dangers: "You think about what it's there for and what children do bring to school, and you never know."

Thirteen-year-old Archie agrees but says "you've got to keep in mind it was put in for a safety thing. So, it's kind of scary on the one hand, but at the same time reassuring".

Headteacher Sukhjot Dhami says the school needed to add extra security - "whatever it takes to keep young people safe".

The three other secondaries run by Dudley Academies Trust are introducing similar security measures - a response, says the trust, to the high knife-crime rate in the West Midlands Police area.

The boss of one the UK's largest providers of metal detectors says sales to schools of knife arches and handheld wands have risen.

Schools are our biggest customers, says Byron Logue, managing director of Interconnective Security Products.

The company sold 35 knife arches to schools between March 2024 and March 2025 - a threefold increase previous 12-month period before, he says. In the last 12 months they have also sold more than 100 knife wands to schools.

"I think we've reached a stage now where we can acknowledge that there is a problem nationally in the country with regards to knife crime, particularly amongst the youth," says the businessman.

In a Sheffield gym, we meet three teenagers who tell us they have taken knives into school.

One boy, 15, tells us he used to take a 12-inch knife into the classroom.

"The first time I took a knife in, was when a kid sent out a message saying, 'I'm going to kill you this time'. So I asked one of my friends to give me a knife and I paid about £30 for it."

The teachers didn't notice, he says. "I used to always walk in with a blade on my hip. I'd sit down normally so the knife wasn't moving around."

Another boy, 18, says he started carrying a knife into school after being attacked and slashed on the hand by another pupil.

"I just felt like I need to protect myself," he explains.

We challenge the teenagers about why they broke the law and took knives into school.

One of them replied: "You just got to take your precautions. Nowhere's safe really."

The three boys are in the gym as part of an effort - by owner Trevor Chrouch - to offer young people an alternative to crime. A former professional bodybuilder, these days Trevor offers mentoring and teaches young people self-defence. He lets secondary school pupils use the gym for free, he says.

"I think kids are bringing knives into school every day. Just like their mobile phone in their pocket, they've got their knife in the other pocket. It's because they're scared."

We asked the Home Office to read our research.

It said it was addressing the root causes of knife crime through its Young Futures programme and that schools had the power to implement their own security measures including knife arches.

It will also implement "stricter rules for online sellers of knives", it says, by backing "Ronan's Law" which came into effect in August.

The Association of Schools and College Leaders says while it is relatively rare for pupils to bring knives into schools, it would like to see greater efforts across society to tackle the issue.

"More than a decade of cuts to community policing and youth outreach programmes has meant school leaders, too often, find themselves with little or no support," says general secretary, Pepe Di'lasio.

Back in Sheffield, we asked the teenagers in the gym what would have stopped them from taking knives to school.

"Learning how to defend ourselves," the 19-year-old told us. "You don't get taught that in schools. They only teach you science, not how to live life and how to handle your emotions better."

Every year since 1901 they have come together in secret, neither disclosing when they deliberate, nor allowing journalists to see their final meeting – until now.

The Norwegian Nobel committee members – the guardians of the world's most prestigious award – will announce on Friday who they will honour with the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the BBC, along with Norway's national broadcaster, gained exclusive access as they gathered to make their choice.

It is the first time in the award's 125-year history that the media have been allowed a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process.

The five members and the secretary meet in the Committee room of Oslo's Nobel institute, adorned with the same chandelier and oak furniture since the first prize.

Across the walls are framed pictures of every peace laureate, with a space at the end for a photograph of this year's winner.

Beneath a portrait of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and patron of the prizes, the committee convenes on Monday morning, four days before announcing the winner.

They share coffee and pleasantries and then open proceedings; the finale of a months-long selection process.

"We discuss, we argue, there is a high temperature," the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, tells me, "but also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year."

They read aloud the criteria for the prize enshrined in Nobel's will from 1895; that it be awarded to whoever has done the most for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, or for holding or promoting peace congresses.

Then we're out and the door is closed. It's decision time. And looming large over the whole affair is one figure: Donald Trump.

The world's most powerful man wants the world's most prestigious award. It seems as if he's become fixated on it.

In speeches and press conferences, he has repeatedly reeled off a list of the seven wars he says he has solved.

He's boasted that he deserves the award and that "everyone says I should get it", but told troops in Virginia last month: "They'll give it to some guy that didn't do a damn thing; they'll give it to the guy who wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump… it will be a big insult to our country."

World leaders appear to have realised Nobel flattery is a way to his heart.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu publicly whipped out a nomination letter at the White House; Azerbaijan's president told Trump in a news conference that he deserved the prize; Pakistan's government announced it had nominated him, winning plaudits from the president.

His own cabinet colleagues have followed suit. As the cameras rolled, Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy, gushed that his only wish was that the Nobel committee recognise that Trump was "the single finest candidate" in the award's history.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes seems unfazed by any sense of public pressure.

"Every year, we receive thousands of letters, emails, requests, people saying 'this is the one you should choose' – so to have that campaign, the pressure… isn't really something new," he tells me.

But he adds diplomatically, that the unprecedented glare of this year hasn't gone unnoticed.

"We feel that the world is listening, and the world is discussing, and discussing how we can achieve peace is a good thing. And we have to stay strong and principled in our choices... that's our job."

The Norwegian committee is appointed by the country's parliament, and although the members – usually retired MPs – fiercely guard their independence, many have strident views.

Mr Frydnes, who leads the Norwegian branch of an association promoting freedom of expression, has previously criticised clampdowns "even in democratic nations", calling out Trump.

Norwegian media reported that the US president phoned Jens Stoltenberg, the former head of Nato and now Norway's finance minister, to lobby for the prize.

And there is open discussion over whether Trump could lash out at the country if he doesn't win.

It has felt the heat before; when the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo got the award in 2010, Beijing froze diplomatic ties with Oslo and imposed economic sanctions in a row that lasted six years.

So is it actually conceivable that America's polarising president could win?

He certainly has his backers at home and abroad - but Nina Graeger, the director of PRIO, a peace thinktank, tells me the odds are long.

"The Trump administration has withdrawn from international institutions like the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords, and if you look at Trump's wish to take over Greenland from Denmark… this does not speak in favour of international cooperation."

Combined with clampdowns on protests, critical journalists and academics, she concludes: "I think these point in a non-peaceful direction."

An obstacle for Trump is that nominations for the prize – there were 338 this year – closed at the end of January, to give the committee time to assess them. The president only returned to office that month.

But if his peace plan for Gaza materialises - and holds - Ms Graeger believes he could be a contender next year. "I think it would be difficult not to look in his direction then," she says.

It all makes for rich debate at Oslo University's course on war, peace, and the Nobel Prize.

"There's an element of grace and humility associated with the winners," says Thanos Marizis, a Greek masters student, as he sits with friends in the university library.

"The prize is supposed to be a recognition of your pursuit of peace in the sense of benefiting humanity, not benefiting yourself."

Kathleen Wright, 21, goes further: "To see people who have risked their lives and been given this award in recognition – the teenager Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban – and then for you to go around on your ego trip and have your friends call up the committee I think is laughable, it's disrespectful."

She believes the point of the prize is to celebrate lesser-known people or organisations doing vital work. "When you're working towards peace, it doesn't just begin with the figureheads, it begins with smaller groups – and I think that's important to celebrate."

Many world leaders are, of course, among the laureates. On the walls of the Nobel Committee room are the four American presidents who have won, including Barack Obama, awarded just months into his first term.

That has riled his successor – "if I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in ten seconds," President Trump complained.

Those walls speak of the many issues that the laureates have fought against since 1901; wars, apartheid, nuclear weapons, climate change.

This year may be somewhat overshadowed by the campaign from the White House.

But if Donald Trump wants to find out what has happened behind that committee door, who nominated him and who he's been up against, he'll have a problem - the papers are kept secret for 50 years.

The number of Liberal Democrat party members has almost halved in the last five years, according to BBC analysis of available figures.

The figure has fallen from just under 118,000 in 2020, when Sir Ed Davey became leader, to 60,000.

That is despite the Lib Dems having their most successful general election ever last year in terms of seats won.

A party spokesperson said "in actual elections, more and more people are backing the Liberal Democrats".

It comes as the Green Party of England and Wales says it now has 90,000 members, a 91% increase on 2020 figures.

The Liberal Democrats saw a significant boost in membership in the run-up to Brexit in 2020, when the party was campaigning for a second referendum.

The drop in paid-up members since then has been masked by the inclusion of "registered supporters" in figures published in the party's annual accounts each year since 2017.

Registered supporters sign up for free to get access to briefings and events, but they cannot decide policy or vote in leadership elections.

The party clearly states the figure published in the annual accounts relates to both member and supporters. However, it does not provide a breakdown.

'Public profile'

Prof Tim Bale leads the Party Membership Project, a joint project between Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University.

He said the drop in membership was surprising given the Lib Dems' electoral success, which would suggest "a party on the up, in which case you might get more ambitious people wanting to join it".

But he added: "There's an extent to which surges into parties are prompted by public profile... and they don't seem to have much chance of getting into government at the moment."

In more positive news for the Lib Dems, he said research carried out by his project after the 2024 election showed that the Liberal Democrats were the most active of all the memberships of the political parties.

Figures collected showed that a greater proportion of Lib Dem members (19%) had canvassed voters face-to-face or over the phone than any other party.

Prof Bale said there was "all sorts of research over time that, certainly in very close races, contact with the voters, whether that be face to face or just leafletting does seem to make a difference".

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: "We have a record number of MPs, the most popular party leader in the country, and elected more councillors than Labour or the Conservatives for the first time ever in May's local elections.

"When it comes to actual elections, more and more people are backing the Liberal Democrats as the only party that can stop Reform turning Trump's America into Farage's Britain."

Other parties

Working out how many members a political party has can be tricky.

There is no legal obligation for political parties to publish their membership figures, so they tend to only be revealed in annual accounts or when a party holds a leadership election.

Labour, which is the largest political party in the UK on current publicly available figures, has seen a drop in membership of 37% since 2020.

Latest published figures put its membership at 333,235 at the end of last year, although reports have suggested it may have fallen further to 309,000.

An updated figure should be given by Labour later this month, when the winner of its deputy leadership contest is announced.

Reform UK did not give a figure for membership in its annual accounts last year, but a ticker on its website says it has just under 260,000 members.

The Green Party of England and Wales has seen a rapid surge in membership and now says its has 90,000 members, which is a 54% rise on last year's figure of 58,322 in December.

The Conservatives do not routinely publish their membership figures, but 131,680 people were eligible to vote in last year's Tory leadership election, which is 40,000 fewer than in the 2022 contest.

Party membership figures are not verified by outside bodies.

Where we got our figures

The figure that has been most recently used for the current size of the Lib Dems is 83,174, which was the figure for December 2024 that appears in the party's annual accounts, including both members and registered supporters.

As the freelance journalist Adam Ramsay has pointed out, the figure for paid-up members is given elsewhere, in a statement for the party treasurer in the accounts for the Liberal Democrats in England.

It says there was an "overall membership of 60K", with 55,000 - or 92% of them - in England, and supporter levels that "remain constant at over 20K".

To get the membership figure for 2020, we looked to the number of ballot papers issued in the leadership election, as only full members can vote.

At the time, the party said it had issued 117,924, papers, which was its highest ever number.

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The parents of Tom Phillips, who vanished with his three children into the New Zealand wilderness in 2021, have made a public apology - their first comments since Phillips was shot dead by police on 8 September.

"We would like to send our sincere apology... for all the trouble, inconvenience, loss of privacy and property caused by Tom," Neville and Julia Phillips wrote in a letter published in King Country News, a small community newspaper, on Thursday.

"We in no way supported him or agreed with any of his actions in the past four years. We are truly sorry for all that you had to endure."

Phillips evaded capture for nearly four years, despite a nationwide search and multiple sightings.

He was killed in a shoot-out in September, in which a police officer was seriously injured.

The officer has since been discharged from hospital, local media reported.

One of his children had been with him during the shoot-out, and provided information to help locate Phillips' two other children later that day.

Before Phillips disappeared with his children, they had been living in Marokopa, a small rural town in the region of Waikato surrounded by dense bush and forested terrain.

"The vast area in which Phillips kept the children is difficult, steep terrain almost completely obscured from all angles by dense bush," Detective Superintendent Ross McKay said weeks after the deadly shoot-out.

The main goal of the police during the operation had been "locating and returning the children safely" he said. He added that they "knew Phillips had firearms and was motivated to use them".

Police said they could not provide further details amid ongoing investigations.

Phillips' family had previously made public appeals to him to return.

In a message to Phillips during a television interview, his sister Rozzi said "we're ready to help you walk through what you need to walk through".

Phillips' mother Julia also wrote him a letter - provided to New Zealand outlet Stuff - saying that everyday she hoped "today will be the day that you all come home".

China has tightened its rules on the export of rare earths - the elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products.

New regulations announced by the country's Ministry of Commerce formalise existing rules on processing technology and unauthorised overseas cooperation.

China is also likely to block exports to foreign arms manufacturers and some semiconductor firms.

Rare earth exports are a key sticking point in the months-long negotiations between Beijing and Washington over trade and tariffs. The announcement comes as China's President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump are expected to meet later this month.

Technology used to mine and process rare earths, or to make magnets from rare earths, can only be exported with permission from the government, the Ministry of Commerce said.

Many of these technologies are already restricted. China had added several rare earths and related material to its export control list in April, which caused a major shortage back then.

But the new announcement makes clear that licenses are unlikely to be issued to arms manufacturers and certain companies in the chip industry.

Chinese firms are also banned from working with foreign companies on rare earths without government permission.

China has been accused by the US and other Western countries of aiding Russia's war on Ukraine by allowing dual technology exports - materials that can be used for either civilian or military purposes - to be sent to Moscow. Beijing has repeatedly denied this.

The latest announcement also clarifies the specific technologies and processes that are restricted.

These include mining, smelting and separation, magnetic material manufacturing, and recycling rare earths from other resources.

The assembly, debugging, maintenance, repair, and upgrading of production equipment are also prohibited from export without permission, the announcement added.

This could have an impact on the US, which has a significant rare earths mining industry but lacks processing facilities.

What are rare earths?

Rare earths are a group of 17 chemically similar elements that are crucial to the manufacture of many high-tech products.

Most are abundant in nature, but they are known as "rare" because it is very unusual to find them in a pure form, and they are very hazardous to extract.

Although you may not be familiar with the names of these rare earths - like neodymium, yttrium and europium - you will be very familiar with the products that they are used in.

For instance, neodymium is used to make the powerful magnets used in loudspeakers, computer hard drives, electric car motors and jet engines that enable them to be smaller and more efficient.

China has a near monopoly on extracting rare earths as well as on refining them - which is the process of separating them from other minerals.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China accounts for about 61% of rare earth production and 92% of their processing.

• The price of the rare earth metals the world buys from China

Additional reporting by Ian Tang of BBC Monitoring.

"It's not about him, it's about me," declares Victoria Beckham ("him" being her husband Sir David Beckham).

And that's exactly what we get in a new three-part documentary, which drops on Netflix on Thursday.

The former Spice Girl and fashion entrepreneur, 51, is determined to tell her own story – two years after former England captain Sir David, 50, released his own, hugely successful TV series.

The episodes take us inside Victoria's pop career, family life, struggles to reinvent herself and preparation for a major show at Paris Fashion Week.

We also learn about the serious financial troubles her fashion business faced, and how she feared she might "lose everything".

There are contributions from famous friends including Eva Longoria, and fashion titans such as Dame Anna Wintour and Donatella Versace.

Here are our main takeaways from her documentary.

Before the Spice Girls, Victoria was 'not cool'

Lady Beckham achieved dizzying fame in the Spice Girls, so it's hard to believe that at school, she was "that uncool kid" who didn't fit in.

"I was definitely a loner at school", she says, explaining she was bullied.

The Spice Girls came together in 1994, after Mel B, Mel C, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria responded to an advert for candidates.

After the release of their chart-topping debut single Wannabe in 1996, "Spice mania" swept the planet, with their self-styled "Girl Power" mantra - a brand of female empowerment that made them a global pop culture phenomenon.

Lady Beckham credits her bandmates for making her "more lighthearted, more fun" and says it was the first time she felt popular.

She still had to face negative headlines about her weight, and discusses having an eating disorder. She says she never talked about it publicly, or even very much with her parents, but that it made her become “very good at lying".

But Lady Beckham says the other Spice Girls made her "feel good enough" about being herself. It's a message she continues to instil in her daughter Harper, 14.

"I tell Harper every day, be who you are," she says.

What was buried in Baden-Baden?

Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls in 1998 and the group split up in 2001.

Lady Beckham says she found the transition "really, really difficult".

She carried on making music, but the criticism she received "really hurt".

Then came the infamous WAG period. Pictures of Victoria and other wives-and-girlfriends supporting their footballer partners in the German town of Baden-Baden in 2006 were plastered all over the tabloids.

"It was fun," says Lady Beckham of that time in her life.

But she now concedes there was an "element of attention seeking" to it all. "I was trying to find myself, I felt incomplete, sad, frozen in time maybe," she says.

After the family moved to the US, Lady Beckham decided she wanted to work in fashion.

But to do that, she knew she had to shed her other personas – the Spice Girl, the WAG. "I buried those boobs in Baden-Baden," she says.

Victoria 'almost lost everything' in struggles with fashion business

Lady Beckham is strikingly honest about the struggles her fashion business faced.

She says people didn't see her as "cool at all", and that a lot of people refused to take her seriously.

And Vogue giant Dame Anna cements that view, when she says of Victoria's fashion aspirations: "I thought maybe this was a hobby. I didn't quite believe it."

We see the growth of Victoria Beckham Ltd but also the serious financial troubles it faced. Sir David says he didn't think her business would survive, while Lady Beckham agrees.

"I almost lost everything and that was a dark, dark time," she says. "I used to cry before I went to work every day because I felt like a firefighter."

She says her firm was "tens of millions in the red".

In a later scene, her voice breaks, and she wells up in tears, when she recalls how Sir David stepped in to help her business out.

But the series also shows her turn things around, and we see her pull out all the stops in the run-up to her triumphant Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week in September 2024.

Supermodel Gigi Hadid walked for her, wearing a striking emerald green gown. Dame Anna is shown in attendance, and, in an earlier clip, says Lady Beckham "totally proved us wrong".

Today, Victoria's business has offices in London and New York, with its flagship store in Mayfair, London. The brand's products are in 230 stores across 50 countries around the world, according to the company's website.

Family life carries on, amid reports of feud with Brooklyn

The couple's eldest son, 26-year-old Brooklyn, gets a few mentions in the show and appears briefly. Lady Beckham brings him up in conversation, when discussing the morning sickness she faced while pregnant with him and performing with the Spice Girls.

But for the past few months, much of the online interest around the Beckhams has focused on reports that Brooklyn and his wife Nicola have fallen out with the rest of the family.

The couple were absent from David Beckham's 50th birthday celebrations and did not post a birthday message online, fuelling the intrigue.

Nicola has in the past denied there was a feud in the family. Sir David and Lady Beckham have never acknowledged the rumoured rift, and declined to comment when asked by BBC News.

• Can the Beckham brand survive reports of family feud?

We did get a hint on the topic recently from Victoria, who told the Sunday Times how she felt Liam and Noel Gallagher's reconciliation must have made their mother "so happy".

"As a mum, that must be... she must feel so happy to see her boys getting on," she said.

Showbiz reporter Catrina Rose notes there was “no hint” of any alleged feud in the series.

"Victoria's setting a lot of records straight here, but she's not being drawn on this particular topic."

There's a good explanation for why she doesn't smile

Lady Beckham's pout became her defining look in the 1990s. But in the new series, she admits there's a deeper reason as to why she never smiles.

"The minute I see a camera, I change," she says.

"The barrier goes up, my armour goes on, and that's when, you know, the miserable cow that doesn't smile - that's when she comes out. And I'm so conscious of that."

She adds that she would "rather not be that person" and wishes she had the confidence to walk out in front of cameras and smile.

Elsewhere, she insists that she does actually smile.

"I've looked miserable for all these years because when we stand on the red carpet, this guy has always gone on the left," she says, gesturing at Sir David.

"When I smile, I smile from the left, because if I smile from the right, I look unwell. So consequently I'm smiling on the inside, but no one ever sees it, so that's why I look so moody."

That's one use of a noisy kitchen blender

The programme is filled with small details about the Beckhams' relationship – many of which we didn't know before.

For example, Sir David starts a blender when he doesn't want to listen to Victoria (so she says, anyway).

The pair have fond memories of their whirlwind romance in the 1990s, which led to them getting married and having a baby within two years.

Sir David reflects that his parents - and his manager - would have preferred him to marry a local girl who stayed in Manchester, where he was playing for Manchester United. "But I didn't want that," he says, opting instead for globe-trotting celebrity Victoria.

"I was so excited, I wanted everyone to know I was dating Posh Spice," the former England captain says.

Lady Beckham, for her part, says she was never a young girl dreaming of getting married or becoming a mum. "It wasn't until I met David that those things even occurred to me," she says.

There won't be another Beckham baby

In the final episode, which was filmed before Sir David's 50th birthday this year, the pair get reflective about everything they have achieved, and what lies ahead for them.

"Success, it feels good, I'm not going to lie," says Victoria. "I've still got a lot that I want to do."

Sir David, for his part, seems to have something else on his mind.

"Now we're both, well I'm almost 50, you're 51, what's next? Another baby?," David asks his wife.

Victoria laughs. "Another baby? My God. No."

Victoria Beckham, a three-part documentary series, is available now on Netflix.

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Something has shifted in Scotland.

The saltire, which was long embraced by supporters of Scottish independence, has now been unfurled for a different cause.

Up and down the land, the blue and white of St Andrew is fluttering from lampposts and being waved alongside the union flag at anti-immigration protests.

Until recently those two standards were more often seen on different sides of the debate about Scotland's future.

Now the saltire's presence is generating controversy of its own at demonstrations from Perth to Aberdeen and from Glasgow to Falkirk, where the latest rally was held on Wednesday evening.

This battle for Scotland's flag is also a battle about what it means to be a patriot in modern Scotland - a battle of competing nationalisms.

Steven Rennie is one of the prominent figures in these recent protests.

He blends opposition to independence and immigration with sharp criticism of the Scottish National Party - which is in favour of both.

I stood within a few feet of Mr Rennie as he addressed hundreds of supporters in the centre of Glasgow in late September.

With his shoulders wrapped in the red, white and blue of the union flag, he spoke of the saltire.

"They claimed our national flag as their own and for 12 long years we've allowed them to wield it as a weapon of division and hate.

"But no more. We have reclaimed our flag, our identity, our pride and also our resolve," he said.

The crowd - separated from hundreds of counter-protesters by a line of police officers - cheered the denunciation of the SNP whose leaders, in a referendum 11 years ago, failed to persuade a majority of Scottish voters to opt to leave the UK.

"The SNP has wreaked havoc on our nation, dismantling our prosperity and our potential at every turn, replacing us with new Scots and putting our own people at the bottom of the pile," said Mr Rennie.

"New Scots" is a welcoming term used by Scottish government ministers who are keen to attract more foreign workers to help grow an economy which is challenged by a record low birth rate.

The SNP has run the devolved government in Edinburgh since 2007 but immigration remains the responsibility of the UK government in London - and it has rejected calls for a separate Scottish visa system.

Migration is a thorn in the side for Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and appears to be rising up the agenda ahead of the Scottish parliamentary elections next spring.

The small boats crisis and the accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels, which Sir Keir has promised to phase out, have fuelled demonstrations around the UK.

That includes protests in Falkirk, where a building which was once a three-star hotel is being used to house migrants.

One protester, who gave his name as Mark, held a union flag emblazoned with "Stop the Boats".

He said politicians should be fixing ailing public services, not spending taxpayers' money on medical and dental care for asylum seekers.

"We're sick of these people rolling up in boats, getting four-star hotels," he told me.

"They're getting their three meals a day while Britain's services suffer. We're just sick of it and Starmer is not doing enough to try and stop it."

Minutes earlier one of the speakers had shouted: "Keep Britain white. Keep Scotland white. Keep Scotland Scottish."

Mark insisted the man did not speak for him, and that the protest was "nothing to do with racism".

Outside the hotel a group of counter-protesters, including many trade unionists, had gathered.

They too were critical of the prime minister – but for different reasons. They accused him of pandering to the far right.

The two camps appear to share a sense of disgust about the UK's ailing economy and the poor state of public services - although they do not necessarily agree on the causes or the solutions.

"The real issue in our society is the people in government who aren't tackling these issues head on, not people fleeing persecution trying to find a better place to live," said a counter protester in Falkirk, who gave her name as Sage.

Referring to the anti-asylum seeker protest across the road, she said: "I don't blame these people for falling for these narratives, because everyone is suffering.

"It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum we're on, everyone is going through it."

The real problem, insisted Sage, was billionaires making record profits and not paying enough tax.

"We know who is underfunding our services. It's not migrants and refugees," she said.

One recurring complaint among protesters is about the number of migrants being housed at local authority expense.

The issue is most acute in Glasgow, which has the UK's highest number of refugees in council accommodation.

Asylum seekers are housed by the UK Home Office but, after they are granted leave to remain and become refugees, that support quickly expires.

At that point, many become homeless and, because Scottish councils have a statutory duty to house all homeless people, they must step in.

"Essentially, we have run out of temporary accommodation," said Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken.

"We don't have anywhere to put all of these people who are now declaring themselves homeless in the city, and we're having to put them up in hotels, and that's very, very expensive."

The SNP councillor for Langside wants the UK government to step in but is at pains to stress that refugees do not have priority over anyone else.

Aitken added: "Anyone who is telling you that asylum seekers and refugees are prioritised by the SNP, by the Scottish government, or by this council is lying to you. It is simply not true."

Still, some hostility to immigrants persists and migration has risen up the list of Scottish voters' concerns as flags have appeared on lampposts around the country.

Hundreds of saltires have gone up in working class communities such as those in north and east Glasgow; Sighthill in Edinburgh; and Falkirk's Westfield.

Shawn, a refugee who lives in north Glasgow, believes the saltire usually represents peace, harmony and inclusion - but says it is now being flown "for the far-right and racism".

The former police officer and his mother Mala successfully sought asylum in the UK after they fled their South East Asian homeland in circumstances they asked not to discuss in public for their own safety.

Shawn, who runs a community organisation called the Springburn Unity Network, said he had been subjected to racist insults in Glasgow and knew immigrants who were afraid to leave their homes because of the recent protests.

Debates about flags are not just raging in Scotland's big cities and working class towns.

In the prosperous Renfrewshire village of Bridge of Weir, the hoisting of saltires has led to a row on the local Facebook group.

In the middle of the village, Dougie Moore told me he approved of the flags because they sent a message to immigrants that "they should be coming to enjoy our country the way that we enjoy it rather than changing things".

Bunty Singh, who owns a local café and delicatessen, said he had no issue with anyone flying a national flag but also insisted there were no problems with immigration in Bridge of Weir.

"It's a peaceful, lovely village," insisted Mr Singh who was born in Glasgow to parents who were originally from India.

"We're happy to be here and we are welcomed here."

But at a local community hub Ian Gillies was concerned about the saltires, which he regarded as unwelcoming and divisive.

"I think it's in keeping with the spirit of the age," he said.

"'Every man for himself and we don't want anybody else coming our way.' I see the same trend in the States and elsewhere in the continent. It's sad to see it coming here."

Mr Gillies is not the only person to note an Americanisation of politics on this side of the Atlantic in the age of Donald Trump and social media.

At the protest in Glasgow where Steven Rennie spoke about the saltire, there were chants, calls and placards in support of right-wing American influencer Charlie Kirk, who had been shot dead days earlier.

Later the crowd chanted "Oh Tommy, Tommy", in tribute to the convicted criminal and far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the name Tommy Robinson and has been supported by Elon Musk.

Matthew Feldman, a visiting professor at Liverpool Hope University and leading expert on the radical right, said he was concerned that extremism was bleeding into mainstream political debate because overt racism and the glorification of terrorism were "being given a pass" on US-owned social media platforms.

At the anti-migrant protest in Falkirk, one banner referenced former SNP first minister Humza Yousaf's calls for greater ethnic diversity in Scottish public life in a speech which had been highlighted and criticised by Musk and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

The same banner went on to quote a white supremacist slogan known as the 14 Words: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

"The 14 Words actually comes from the eighth chapter of Mein Kampf," explained Prof Feldman.

He said the slogan was "a translation of Hitler's sense of Aryan supremacy" and was popularised in the US in the 1980s by the late white supremacist David Lane.

"It is inconceivable to me that somebody that is writing out that phrase doesn't associate it with white supremacism and, more importantly, with a sort of an anti or racist view towards ethnic and religious minorities," added Prof Feldman.

It was not the only extreme language on display in Falkirk.

Another sign read "Kill 'Em All. Let God Sort 'Em Out," a phrase originally associated with a 13th Century Catholic crusade.

While not defending the placards, many of the protesters we spoke to insisted they had genuine concerns about the safety of women and children.

They pointed to the conviction of an Afghan asylum seeker for raping a 15-year-girl in the town and the arrest of a resident of the asylum hotel on sexual indecency charges, which he denies.

Farage has also suggested sexual assault by asylum seekers is a particular problem, a claim described by Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken as one of history's oldest and nastiest racist slurs.

When I spoke to Farage on a visit to Aberdeen earlier this year he insisted that Reform UK was now a serious contender in Scottish politics.

"I've spent a year going around England campaigning ahead of the English local elections, and perceptions of me and the party have changed over that last year, and I intend to make that happen in Scotland over the next year," he told me.

That claim may be bolstered by Reform's strong third place in June's Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, which Labour won.

On Wednesday, Scotland's First Minister John Swinney said arguments about immigration were being "fanned by a wider debate" going on in the UK and around the globe.

The SNP leader told me he believed in a Scotland that was "tolerant, welcoming and inclusive" and urged people "to avoid us being swept down a route of a relentless rightward direction in the United Kingdom".

Swinney added: "I don't think that's where Scotland wants to be. I don't think that's how Scotland feels. And I want to make sure that people in Scotland realise that there is a danger that we will be carried down that route if we don't take a different course."

Polls ahead of May's Holyrood election suggest a big lead for the SNP, with Reform potentially overtaking the Conservatives to challenge Labour for second place, despite never before having won a seat at Holyrood.

Whatever flags are waved by whichever party in the campaign, immigration appears likely to take its place alongside the economy and public services as a big issue.

It's a very long way - in every possible sense - from Deir al-Balah in the centre of the Gaza Strip to Durham in north-eastern England.

"It's another planet, not just another world," says Sana el-Azab, who arrived in the cathedral city late last month after being evacuated to the UK with 33 other students.

"No-one can understand what I lived through in Gaza."

In June, the 29-year-old former teacher was awarded a scholarship at Durham University to study educational leadership and change.

Weeks of uncertainty followed, as British politicians and academics lobbied for her - and dozens of other Gazan students with fully-funded places - to be allowed to come to the UK.

But in the dead of night, on 17 September, "the big moment" that she'd been waiting for finally arrived and Sana left her home first for Jordan, for biometric tests, and then for Durham.

This is the first time that she, and other Gaza students who have been brought to the UK, have spoken publicly.

"There's no chance to continue your higher education in Gaza," she told me. "All the universities are destroyed. There's no education system at all anymore."

The main campus of Al-Azhar University – one of the biggest and oldest Palestinian academic institutions, where Sana did a BA in English literature - is now reported to have been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment and controlled demolitions.

For two years, all formal face-to-face education has been on hold, with the UN warning of a "lost generation" of children.

Schools were turned into shelters for displaced people.

And 97% of them have sustained some level of damage from the war, according to the Global Education Cluster, a partnership of UN agencies and NGOs.

Many were directly hit by air strikes which the Israeli military said targeted operatives of Hamas and other armed groups.

Almost 660,000 children remain out of school. About 87,000 university students have also been affected.

In June, a UN independent international commission of inquiry said Israel had "obliterated Gaza's education system".

"My six-year old niece asked me what it's like to be in school," Sana says. "She doesn't know. Imagine what they've all missed out on. This is now the third year."

In April last year, Sana set up her own makeshift school in a roof-less building at her home in Deir al-Balah. Twenty girls between the ages of seven and 12 usually attended class. At times, she had up to 50 students.

"I saw displaced children just spending their time in queues for food and water - not having a childhood, and I wanted to do something, for them," she says. "There were drones overhead 24 hours and bombing around us."

But the children were keen. "I wanted to give them a little normalcy."

She taught them English at first, adding a bit of maths, at the children's request.

There were weekly art classes to allow the girls to express their trauma. "No parent had time to talk to their children about their feelings," she says.

And there was a simple daily meal because: "It's not easy to teach hungry kids."

She says she also taught them "survival skills" – including how to filter water with charcoal to make it safer to use.

Leaving them and her extended family behind was a tough decision. For her, and all the students who have arrived in the UK, there's a mixture of pride and guilt.

"I left with just my mobile phone and the clothes I was wearing - that's all I was allowed to take," she says. "I'm so proud that I made it here. But it's very complicated. I can't process everything. It's overwhelming.

"I'm relieved and grateful and happy that I got out but I feel sorrow at leaving behind my precious siblings, and nieces and nephews, and elderly parents in that dire situation."

In all, 58 students from Gaza have now arrived to take up scholarships at more than 30 universities around the UK. After the first group of 34 arrived last month, another group of 24 came last week. Twenty more are waiting to come out of Gaza.

"It's been a relentless and very, very difficult process, when it should have been much easier," says Nora Parr, an academic and researcher at Birmingham University, who has co-ordinated the educational evacuations.

"These are the people who are going to rebuild Gaza," she says. "They want to do everyone proud and learn as much as they can. I wish they could have come a week or two before their courses started to help them settle in."

She adds: "But I hope this is an opportunity that can be built on because the needs are massive."

A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said the evacuation had been a "highly complex process" and that more students were expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

For Sana, leaving Gaza to study in Durham was an unmissable chance.

Education has always been a sanctuary for her and a bridge to the future. But she says she is struggling to concentrate.

"It's hard to go from survival mode to learning. Half of my mind is in class and the other half is still in Gaza.

"I'm still discovering Durham. It's a beautiful place that's safe and small and there are a lot of supportive people. It's like therapy for me just to walk around."

During her first trip to a supermarket, she was unable to tear herself away from the bread aisle - and the sights and smells of so much plenty. But she still can't eat or sleep properly.

She wants to gain all that she can from the experience in the UK.

"And then I want to go back to Gaza and bring the change," she says.

There is a higher risk of a serious fall in US stocks than is currently being reflected in the market, the head of JP Morgan has told the BBC.

Jamie Dimon, who leads America's largest bank, said he was "far more worried than others" about a serious market correction, which he said could come in the next six months to two years.

In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the bank boss also said that the US had become a "less reliable" partner on the world stage.

He cautioned he was still "a little worried" about inflation in the US, but insisted he thought the Federal Reserve would remain independent, despite repeated attacks by the Trump administration on its chair Jerome Powell.

Jamie Dimon was in Bournemouth, where he was announcing an investment of about £350m in JP Morgan's campus there, as well as a £3.5m philanthropic investment in local non-profits.

Commenting on the investment, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "As one of Dorset's biggest private sector employers, JP Morgan Chase expanding their Bournemouth campus is fantastic news for the local economy and people who live here."

Ahead of the interview, Dimon appeared before a town hall on the campus - cutting a figure more akin to an off-duty rock star than bank CEO - wearing an open-collar shirt and jeans, and high-fiving staff on his way to the stage.

Opening with his take on the UK's economy, Dimon said he felt Rachel Reeves was doing a "terrific job", and he felt optimistic about some of the government's attempts to boost innovation and cut regulation.

However, in the broader economic picture, he felt there were increased risks US stock markets were overheated.

"I am far more worried about that than others," he said.

There were a "lot of things out there" creating an atmosphere of uncertainty, he added, pointing to risk factors like the geopolitical environment, fiscal spending and the remilitarisation of the world.

"All these things cause a lot of issues that we don't know how to answer," he said.

"So I say the level of uncertainty should be higher in most people's minds than what I would call normal."

Much of the rapid growth in the stock market in recent years has been driven by investment in AI.

On Wednesday, the Bank of England drew a comparison with the dot com boom (and subsequent bust) of the late 1990s - and warned that the value of AI tech companies "appear stretched" with a rising risk of a "sharp correction".

"The way I look at it is AI is real, AI in total will pay off," he said.

"Just like cars in total paid off, and TVs in total paid off, but most people involved in them didn't do well."

He added some of the money being invested in AI would "probably be lost".

Bullets, guns and bombs

Global security has been a recent focus for the JP Morgan boss, with his letter to shareholders earlier this year warning the US would run out of missiles in seven days of a South China Sea war.

Reflecting on how the world could combat risk factors, he pointed to greater military investment.

"People talk about stockpiling things like crypto, I always say we should be stockpiling bullets, guns and bombs.

"The world's a much more dangerous place, and I'd rather have safety than not."

Another risk factor which many in the global economy believe the US could be facing is pressure placed on the independence of the Federal Reserve, America's central bank.

On this, he said he thought central bank independence was important - but was willing to take Trump "at his word" that he would not interfere in Fed independence, despite the president describing current Fed chair Jerome Powell as a "moron" and a "numbskull" for failing to lower interest rates more quickly.

Dimon acknowledged the US had become a "little less reliable" but said that some of the Trump administration's action had pushed Europe to act over underinvestment in Nato and its lack of economic competitiveness.

Dimon also shared insights into a potential breakthrough in trade negotiations between India and the US.

He said he wanted to "bring India closer" and he believed a deal was close to reduce additional tariffs on India, which were imposed as a penalty for its continued trade with Russia, particularly its oil purchases.

"In fact, I've spoken to several of the Trump officials who say they want to do that, and I've been told that they are going to do that."

Jamie Dimon's name has been frequently mentioned among the big financial players capable of making a transition into politics.

Ahead of Trump's re-election last year, influential investor Bill Ackman said he would be an "incredible choice" as treasury secretary, and he has also been the subject of speculation about a potential presidential run.

Asked about his political ambitions, Dimon said it "wasn't on the cards", and his focus was on keeping JP Morgan as a "healthy and vibrant company".

"If you gave me the presidency, I'd take it," he joked. "I think I'd do a good job."

Last week Kemi Badenoch announced that the Conservative Party would take the UK out of the European Convention of Human Rights if they won the next election.

"I have not come to this decision lightly," the Tory leader said. "But it is clear that it is necessary to protect our borders, our veterans, and our citizens."

Her words came on the eve of the party's annual conference, at a time when the Conservatives are under enormous pressure from Reform UK.

Nigel Farage's party also wants out of the ECHR, as well as other international treaties that he thinks stand in the way of curbing illegal immigration. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, meanwhile, has been just as strident the other way.

"Kemi Badenoch has chosen to back Nigel Farage and join Vladimir Putin," he declared - adding "this will do nothing to stop the boats or fix our broken immigration system".

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has weighed in, though he hovers somewhere in between. He told the BBC he does not want to "tear down" human rights laws, but backs changing how international law is interpreted to stop unsuccessful asylum seekers blocking their deportation.

But while strongly-worded opinions over whether or not to pull out of the treaty make for easy headlines, the consequences are deeply complicated. Even Badenoch acknowledged last year that leaving would not be a "silver bullet" for tackling immigration.

So how is it that such a nuanced issue has been reduced to a political hot potato?

Dodging political bullets

It was back in 2011 - not far into David Cameron's tenure as prime minister - that this issue came to the forefront of domestic politics.

It centred around the case of John Hirst, a man convicted of manslaughter, who argued the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting in any circumstances was a breach of human rights. In 2005 Strasbourg had ruled in his favour. It essentially said the UK's policy was too black and white.

Cameron's Labour predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown dodged the political bullet of being seen to give in to the court.

But when the relatively new Tory PM said he felt "physically ill" at the prospect of giving jailed criminals the vote, his soundbite propelled the ECHR to the heart of public consciousness.

The ECHR had been largely drafted by a British team and aimed to impose on post-fascist Europe a "never-again" package of legal rights.

Its content drew heavily on historic laws - for example the concept of Habeas Corpus (banning unlawful detention), can be seen in the ECHR's Article 5.

Officially, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg polices those rights. And when it rules that a country is in breach, the member states come together to find a way of fixing the problem in the Council of Europe (nothing to do with the EU).

But in the UK, there is also the Human Rights Act, which means ECHR cases can be dealt with by its own judges.

Disputes between UK courts and Strasbourg can be worked through too - what happened following the John Hirst case is testament to this.

In 2017, ministers allowed offenders who had been released on licence the right to vote - but made clear that Parliament would never allow votes for criminals still in prison cells. The Council of Europe closed the case. And just weeks ago the Strasbourg court threw out a fresh attempt by a prisoner to re-open the issue.

Yet it was the original clash, together with Cameron's comments in 2011, that stuck in many minds.

Adding fuel to the fire that same year, Theresa May - home secretary at the time - shared a story during party conference about a Bolivian man who avoided deportation because of his pet cat.

This illustrated the problem with human rights laws, she argued.

Only the story, as May told it, wasn't entirely correct, according to England's top judges.

The Home Office indeed wanted to send the man home as an illegal immigrant. And the cat - called Maya - had featured in the man's appeal. But that was only a tiny part of the detailed evidence he provided.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Office at the Royal Courts of Justice, which issues statements on behalf of senior judges, said at the time that the cat was "nothing to do with" the eventual judgement, which allowed the man to stay.

Yet the pet became a source of unintentional humour - and when a judge cracked a joke about the cat no longer needing to fear adapting to Bolivian mice, the case took on a life of its own.

By that autumn, a mood had begun to take hold about human rights that, 14 years later, has culminated in the Conservatives pledging to leave the ECHR.

'Open-ended and obscure obligations'

Richard Ekins KC, a professor at the University of Oxford, is a staunch critic of the ECHR on the basis that membership in his view compromises UK sovereignty.

"But there is a more fundamental problem," he argues. "And the fundamental problem can be observed by paying attention to what the court has been doing, which really is quite openly to expand the Convention's reach over time."

He references a case last year, where the court ruled that Switzerland had breached human rights by failing to tackle climate change.

The incredibly complex judgement was celebrated by campaigners as a game-changer - but a British judge, Tim Eicke KC, said the majority on the panel had "gone beyond what it is legitimate and permissible for this court to do".

"The judgment… imposes very far reaching, but also open ended and obscure obligations on member states," argues Prof Ekins.

"Domestic courts are going to be invited to apply the European Court's new approach to discipline, supervise [and] control climate policy, which obviously is a highly complicated and tangled set of considerations that intersect with social policy, economic policy, foreign policy."

This is the heart of his argument: a court completely divorced from the political will of the British people is now making the UK do things that are far beyond its original remit.

"It's incompatible - its intention at least - with parliamentary democracy," he argues.

Hijacked by the immigration debate

Nowhere is the allegation of overreach stronger in British politics than in Reform's claim that the ECHR is to blame for problems with the UK's migration system.

Yet the evidence supporting this claim is often anecdotal and complex - as was the case with Maya the cat.

A study of media stories about the ECHR by the University of Oxford's Bonavero Institute for Human Rights found that fewer than 1% of all foreign criminals who have appealed against their deportation in the UK have won their case on human rights grounds.

When cases went as far as Strasbourg, the court tended to throw them out.

That's not to say there are no issues at all.

Lord Jonathan Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, believes that some decisions by immigration tribunal judges have become "extravagant" and far removed from the original boundaries of the right to family life.

"I have no problem about the text of the Convention," he says. "I do have a problem about the unlimited expansion which it's undergone at the hands of the Strasbourg Court.

"It's unfortunate that the whole issue has been hijacked by the question of immigration.

"I think that it will make some difference to the ability to keep people out or deport them if we are not members of the ECHR. But I think the extent that it will make a difference is not widely understood - and has been greatly exaggerated."

Would leaving the ECHR 'stop the boats'?

So, would leaving the ECHR really "stop the boats", to use Rishi Sunak's phrase?

"The number one problem about deporting illegal immigrants, first of all, is finding a place which will take them and which is not unsafe," argues Lord Sumption.

"And secondly, [there is] the Refugee Convention. It doesn't require us to take in asylum seekers. It does require us to adjudicate on their claims and give them certain rights once they've got here, even if they got here illegally.

"The ECHR is certainly an additional difficulty, but not as great a difficulty, as is suggested."

The UK government has already promised to devise clearer and stricter rules that will tell immigration officials and judges how to interpret the right to family life.

"I think it is a runner," argues Sir Jonathan Jones, who was the Treasury Solicitor until 2020. This, he believes, could be the best way forward - particularly around the definition of the ECHR's Article 8, which guarantees the right to, among other things, family life.

"It's legitimate for the government to say we will take a tighter view, as a proper, reasoned, good faith attempt to rein in what we think Article 8 covers and what it doesn't."

But Alex Chalk, the last Conservative Lord Chancellor before Labour won power, argues that the UK government needs to seek reform faster.

"The ECHR is not holy writ," he told the BBC during the Conservative party conference. "This government should be moving much more quickly to seek urgent reform. [It] should have been saying, look, we want to lead on this to do this in six weeks.

"The US Constitution was drafted in 15 weeks or so. This really can be done."

'Rights are going to suffer'

Human rights lawyer Harriet Wistrich is concerned about what could be lost if the UK does leave the ECHR. It has, she argues, been at the forefront of challenging the state's treatment of victims of awful abuses.

"We were able to hold Greater Manchester Police accountable on behalf of Rochdale grooming gang victims through civil [damages] proceedings.

"The Hillsborough inquests were possible by having Article 2 [the right to life] inquiries into deaths, where you want to examine what went wrong and what the state could have done differently.

"If we withdraw fully… it's those rights that are going to suffer," says Ms Wistrich, who is also the founder of the Centre for Women's Justice.

Beyond legal battles at home, there are big international questions too around leaving.

The 1998 Belfast Agreement, the cornerstone of peace in Northern Ireland, and the post-Brexit deal with the European Union placed respect for human rights law at their centre. Critics of withdrawing from the EHCR predict both could come crashing down.

But Professor Ekins believes that you can have human rights safeguards without a supranational court overseeing all nations.

He and colleagues wrote a detailed proposal on Northern Ireland that argue the historic arrangements don't require the UK to remain in the ECHR, providing it honours human rights and cross-community power-sharing arrangements by other means.

The issues in Northern Ireland and the Republic could, however, go deeper. Sir Jonathan Jones for one is sceptical about how leaving the ECHR would go down in both places - because the ECHR's role in the agreement was to demonstrate to a lot of people who do not trust the British state that there are laws in place to protect them.

"The thing about the Convention is that it constrains governments, and it constrains the way that governments can treat minorities and people it doesn't like," he says.

"If we were out of the ECHR, you wouldn't have that constraint."

Alex Chalk warns there could be an international price to leaving, too. There is value, he says, in sitting at the Council of Europe and raising issues with French and German counterparts at international conferences.

"You should try to reform before you yank your way out because inevitably there could be cost to doing so," he argues.

But ultimately, he adds, "this is a matter of politics more than it is of law".

Top image: Getty Images

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