Kamala Harris will win US election, Telegraph poll predicts

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T20:02:49+00:00

From The Telegraph:

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of snubbing the whistleblower responsible for exposing a major grooming gang in Rotherham.

The Prime Minister had been urged to lend his support to Jayne Senior, a youth services manager who was instrumental in publicising the plight of young white girls who were the victims of sexual grooming by men of mainly Pakistani heritage.

In 2020, when Sir Keir was leader of the opposition, he was asked to meet with Ms Senior, who was a Labour councillor at the time.

He was also urged to start an inquiry into Labour councillors accused of launching a “campaign to undermine her and damage her reputation in order to deflect from their failure to protect children”.

But his office declined both the meeting and to launch an inquiry. Ms Senior told The Telegraph that she found the response “shocking” and “dismissive”.

She said: “I really thought that because of what I had whistleblown on and my role in Rotherham, I thought he would have at least asked for more information, or agreed to meet me – but no.

“In opposition, Labour were up there shouting for women, for girls, for child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse – and then the minute that they become elected, where are they?”

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/04/starmer-accused-of-snubbing-second-grooming-whistleblower/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T19:36:56+00:00

From The Telegraph:

Scotland Yard has been accused of turning a blind eye to a High Court ruling that found Prince Harry’s phone had been hacked.

The Duke of Sussex called on the police to investigate Mirror Group Newspapers last December after a judge awarded him almost £150,000 in damages for unlawful information gathering.

In a statement issued at the time, the Metropolitan Police said it would “carefully consider” the judgment.

But, more than 12 months on, the police have still not responded, prompting a source from the claimant’s side to question how the force could “turn a blind eye to such a blatant corporate cover-up.”

The well-placed source told The Telegraph: “It beggars belief that despite the High Court’s damning findings of widespread and habitual phone-hacking at Mirror Group Newspapers, the Metropolitan Police have done nothing.

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2025/01/04/prince-harry-scotland-yard-met-police-cover-up-phone-hack/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T15:51:12+00:00

From The Telegraph:

Reform UK is just six points away from becoming the biggest party in parliament, an election predictor has found.

Nigel Farage’s insurgent party could leapfrog both the Conservatives and Labour by gaining a few more percentage points of support, according to the analysis by polling firm Electoral Calculus.

If the party reached 28 per cent of the popular vote at an election, it would likely become the largest force in the House of Commons, though short of an overall majority.

On current polling trends, Reform would reach this threshold within six months if it continues to pick up support at the current rate.

With 31 per cent of the vote, Reform would win a majority, making Mr Farage prime minister.

The prediction comes as support collapsed for the Labour Party and Sir Keir Starmer experienced a dramatic slump in his personal popularity.

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/reform-six-points-off-biggest-party-election-prediction/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T15:27:02+00:00

From The Telegraph:

Teenagers as young as 12 are being prescribed nicotine gum amid soaring numbers of children using e-cigarettes.

Doctors are issuing hundreds of prescriptions for nicotine patches and gum to addict teenagers, many of whom are still too young to legally smoke.

The disclosure comes at a time when the number of children smoking cigarettes has declined but the numbers using vapes, which can contain nicotine, has soared in recent years.

Last year, almost 1,300 prescriptions were issued to teenagers who had gone to their doctor for help to beat their nicotine cravings.

The statistics show that last year children as young as 12 were given help to wean them off.

Lee Fernandes, lead therapist at addiction specialist the UKAT Group, said: “Children as young as 12 being addicted to nicotine is of real concern as it can lead to developmental abnormalities, stunting their ability to learn and play.

“Early use of nicotine has also been linked to behavioural disorders and an increased chance of substance misuse in adulthood.

“Ultimately, what these figures tell us is that there is not enough education in schools about the dangers of smoking, and we’d urge the Government to do something about this.”

Read more here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/teenagers-prescribed-nicotine-gum-nhs-vaping-ecigarettes/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T14:35:20+00:00

From The Telegraph:

India has stepped up security on its border with Bangladesh after an official in the country’s new government threatened to annex part of the north-east.

Mahfuz Alam, a senior adviser to new interim leader Muhammad Yunus, accused the Indian government in a Facebook post on Dec 16 of “ghettoising”’ and “colonising” the population in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.

Bengali-speaking Muslims are the largest minority in all three states.

For Bangladesh to succeed as a country following the overthrow last year of pro-India prime minister Sheikh Hasina, it must grow geographically, Mr Alam wrote.

“A small, limited, landlocked” nation, he argued, would be doomed to fail, adding that the culture of north-east India has more in common with Muslim-dominated Dhaka than Hindu-majority Delhi.

“To ensure true freedom from India,” Mr Alam continued, the country needed another revolution, posting a picture of a map where Bangladesh’s borders extended across the three states.

The Facebook post was deleted within two hours but it has led to a deterioration of already-tense ties between the neighbouring nations.

India’s foreign ministry said it had taken up the comments with Dhaka and a spokesperson said the remarks “underline the need for responsibility in public articulation”.

On Friday, it emerged that India’s Borders Security Force (BSF) has built new floating border outposts on the rivers that cross India’s border with Bangladesh, including the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Sunderbans.

“Waters are always vulnerable,” a BSF source told the New18 website on Friday. “We are patrolling the areas 24/7. More floating outposts will definitely help us. They are the need of the hour.”

India fears that Bangladesh’s new government could facilitate the movement of terrorists into the north-east through the river routes, which were used by Pakistan to ferry fighters across the border before Bangladesh gained independence in 1970.

There are also concerns over potential funding and support of separatist movements.

Read more here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/04/bangladesh-india-annexation-threat-ghettoising-colonising/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T14:32:01+00:00

From The Telegraph:

Scientists behind the Oxford Covid jab are developing a bubonic plague vaccine amid fears a superbug strain of the Black Death could emerge.

There is no vaccine in the UK for the plague, which has killed around 200 million people worldwide throughout history.

But the team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus jab has now reported progress in its work on an inoculation.

Three of the world’s seven known pandemics have been caused by the plague, a bacterial infection triggered by the Yersinia pestis microbe. It can be treated with antibiotics but none of the several vaccines in development are approved for use.

Scientists have called for the UK to add a Black Death jab to its stockpile as the risk of a superbug strain rises.

And now the Oxford team says a trial of its vaccine on 40 healthy adults which started in 2021 has yielded results which show it is safe and able to produce an immune response in people.

The man behind the trial, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told The Telegraph that the results of the trial are to be submitted to a journal for peer review within weeks, with further clinical trials expected.

He said: “There are no licensed plague vaccines in the UK. Antibiotics are the only treatment. There are some licensed vaccines in Russia.

“The risk in the UK is currently very low. Previous historical pandemics that had high mortality were associated with initiation from fleas on rodents but were driven by person to person spread.”

Government military scientists recently called for a vaccine to be approved and manufactured in bulk quantities because plague still exists in pockets of the world and has “potential for pandemic spread”.

More here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/covid-jab-scientists-bubonic-plague-vaccine-pandemic-fears/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-04T08:10:33+00:00

From The Telegraph:

British troops should be deployed to Ukraine as part of any peace deal with Moscow, Jeremy Hunt has said.

The former foreign secretary said sending European troops to help police Ukraine’s border with Russia was the only way of achieving “sustainable peace” between the two countries.

He warned that Donald Trump would be unlikely to do the same with US troops given his continued reluctance to arm Ukraine.

Mr Hunt told LBC: “There is no way that Trump is going to send American troops to do that.

“I would suggest, in which case, the way to make that security guarantee for Ukraine credible will be for Britain, France, Germany and other European countries to send troops to secure that border.

“Is that something that we would be prepared to do? I think after a lot of thought, I would be prepared to do that.”

Mr Trump will be inaugurated as US president in two weeks and is expected to push for a deal to end the conflict.

Mr Hunt, who was foreign secretary under Theresa May, said: “Donald Trump has made it very clear that he is not prepared to continue indefinite support for Ukraine. He is going to ramrod a peace through in Ukraine.

“And the question is going to be whether that will be seen as a victory for Putin, what that will mean for Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.”

He said that Sir Keir Starmer is going to have to decide whether he will be willing to have UK troops on the ground in the face of a peace deal.

More here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/03/jeremy-hunt-send-uk-troops-to-ukraine-to-police-trump-deal/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-03T14:07:55+00:00

The Telegraph reports:

The billionaire co-owner of GB News has seen profits plunge at his eponymous £57bn money manager after a downturn in performance.

Sir Paul Marshall, who acquired The Spectator magazine last year, has suffered a setback after profits at his hedge fund Marshall Wace slumped 64pc for the year ending February 2024.

Newly filed accounts show profits divisible between Marshall Wace’s 26 members fell from £538m to £192m, driven by lower turnover of £769m versus £1.2bn a year earlier.

Marshall Wace makes money by charging pension funds, insurance and wealth fund clients performance fees for investing their funds. The company’s two main funds, Eureka and TOPS, undershot their benchmarks in the 2023 financial year.

For the period in question, Eureka rose just 4.6pc and TOPS increased by 7.7pc – significantly lower than the double-digit returns typically expected from hedge funds.

According to the accounts, this meant performance fees plunged by 75pc to £163m from nearly £600m the prior year.

Sir Paul is still heavily involved in the day-to-day running of Marshall Wace, overseeing the group as chief investment officer as well as running the Eureka fund.

Alongside his financial work, he has also branched out to develop a media empire, spending heavily to acquire brands.

The 65-year old was an early backer of GB News when it launched three years ago and he is still involved in the news channel, which surpassed Sky News in monthly ratings for the first time last year.

His other media interests include the UnHerd website and The Spectator, which he purchased earlier this year for £100m through his Old Queen Street Ventures vehicle from RedBird IMI.

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/03/gb-news-owner-sees-profits-plunge-at-hedge-fund/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-03T11:25:09+00:00

The Telegraph reports:

A red-hot piece of space debris that weighs half a tonne plummeted to Earth this week, landing in a remote Kenyan village.

The charred metal object was later identified to be the separation ring from a launch rocket that crash landed in Makueni county, south-east of Nairobi.

Experts have warned that incidents of space junk landing in populated areas without breaking up on re-entry are on the rise as the amount of debris in orbit surges.

Authorities were still investigating the extent of the damage to the village of Mukuku as well as the ring’s origin and ownership, said Major Aloyce Were of the Kenya Space Agency.

“Space is no longer as safe as we used to know it,” he told local television stations.

Major Were added that the piece of glowing space junk, which weighs as much as a grand piano, landed in bushland on Monday and there had been no reports of injuries.

“Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans,” the agency later said in a statement, calling it an “isolated case”.

A resident, who was not named, told the Kenyan Tuko news site: “‘I heard what I thought was an explosion when it landed here… I asked, ‘Is the world ending today?’”.

“I was shocked because it was so sunny with no hint of rain. I hope our leaders will tell us what this object was and why it fell here,” he added.

“We want the owner of this land to be compensated,” Paul Musili, another resident, told local news. “Since this object fell, we have not been sleeping. Everyone is wondering what is going on.”

The European Space Agency estimated last year that there were more than 14,000 tonnes of material in low Earth orbit.

Roughly a third of that is junk, according to Dr Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

“We’ve reached this point in our exploration and use of space where this isn’t just something that happens once in a blue moon, it is now almost every month or two,” she told The New York Times.

In 2023, the US Federal Communications Commission handed out its first ever fine over space debris, forcing television provider Dish Network to pay $150,000 (£121,000).

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/03/burning-space-junk-weighing-500kg-lands-kenyan-village/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-03T09:48:44+00:00

The Telegraph reports:

When Ruben Amorim was offered the Manchester United job he said he was told by the club it was “now or never”. There must have been times in the past two months when “never” has seemed a more attractive proposition.

Amorim’s instinct was to stay at Sporting Lisbon before embarking on an Old Trafford rebuild in the summer of 2025. His initial instincts were probably correct.

United might have found the right man for the job and hired him at the worst time.

The club’s hierarchy has a lot to answer for. Appointing the prime target as soon as possible is understandable. What is harder to explain is this: how could you have given a £200 million budget to a lame-duck coach who plays 4-2-3-1 four months before recruiting a manager who plays three central defenders and wing-backs?

The Manchester United executives in charge of football operations are the architects of this mess, not Amorim.

Technical director Jason Wilcox said when he took the job he wanted the same system replicated across every level of the club. How does that work when you are backing a manager with such a vastly different system to the one you have just sacked?

The United hierarchy knew the risks of asking Amorim to take over straight away because it is obvious the current squad are not set up to play his way. They have put faith in Amorim to make it work but his formation is so unsuited to the personnel that all the positive momentum that could have been created, had he taken over with a full pre-season and a chance to recruit players of the right profile, has been lost.

There are already calls for Amorim to change his formation, but he cannot be expected to shift his philosophy after 11 games.

Speaking to Gary Neville before the Newcastle United defeat on Monday, Amorim said it would be “the end for any coach” if they started changing their ideas because of results.

If Amorim switched to four at the back in response to United’s results it would undermine his reason for being there.

Some coaches, especially those near the bottom of the table whose remit is to survive, look at a squad and mould the team to suit those available. With Amorim it is the opposite. The players may change but the formation will not. I admire that and agree with it.

I know Tottenham Hotspur fans are reading that and shouting “hypocrite” after recent criticisms of Ange Postecoglou. Wrong. Postecoglou’s preferred playing style is not the issue. His in-game management is. My analysis of Spurs’ failings is based on the manager’s refusal to shift emphasis from attack to defence when the game situation, skill set and experience level of those on the field demand it.

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/01/03/ruben-amorim-could-end-up-like-graham-potter-at-chelsea/

TheTelegraph · 2025-01-03T08:20:14+00:00

The Telegraph reports:

Joe Biden reportedly discussed plans to strike Iran’s nuclear sites in the event Tehran moved closer to building a nuclear bomb before Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan 20.

The US president, who has just weeks left in office, was presented with a range of scenarios by Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, in secret talks which took place last month, US officials told Axios.

The purpose of the meeting was not for Mr Biden to reach a definitive decision but rather to engage in “prudent scenario planning,” one of the sources said.

It comes after Mr Sullivan said last month he had briefed Mr Trump on the “risk” of Tehran obtaining nuclear weapons.

Mr Biden is said to have engaged in discussions about how the US should respond if Iran took specific steps towards building a nuclear bomb before Jan 20, including by enriching uranium to 90 per cent purity.

The president reportedly asked whether Iran had taken any such steps that would justify an urgent military response just weeks before Mr Trump took office and which would risk handing over a fresh conflict for him to deal with.

Mr Biden did not reach a definitive conclusion and there are no active discussions inside the White House about taking military action against Iran, the US officials reportedly said.

Mr Sullivan warned in December last year that there was an increased risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Mr Sullivan said, adding that he had consulted with US ally Israel.

He said that given Iran’s “weakened state”, Mr Trump could also persuade Iran to commit to dismantling its nuclear capacity.

The president-elect is reportedly considering airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities when he returns to the White House later this month.

Mr Trump has told Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in recent calls that he is concerned about Iran achieving nuclear capability, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, Mr Trump’s nominees for secretary of state and national security adviser, have consistently taken hardline stances on Iran.

Mr Netanyahu has long called for Iran’s nuclear programme to be stopped in its tracks but has faced resistance from Israeli military officials and Washington.

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/02/biden-discussed-plan-strike-iran-nuclear-trump-inauguration/

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