“It wasn’t that long ago these lads would have walked into apprenticeships at British Steel or ICI,” says Middlesbrough’s Labour MP Andy McDonald, lamenting the loss of the heavy industries which once employed thousands of people on Teesside.
He is talking about the young men – aged between 17 and 23 – who were travelling in a stolen Volkswagen Passat with cloned licence plates that crashed head-on into a police car on the A66. All five of them, and two police officers, died at the scene.
He also means the young men who continue to be involved in tit-for-tat violence in the area, ramming cars into homes or being in possession of firearms. And those who have been turning up to vigils wearing balaclavas, smoking cannabis, driving quads and motorbikes aggressively, spraying graffiti and torching cars in fields.
Thieves steal 11 sheep from Jeremy Clarkson’s farm
Jeremy Clarkson has said that 11 sheep have been stolen from his Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire.
Clarkson appeals to thieves
Clarkson, 66, said the Easycare sheep were worth more than £2,000 at market, and has urged the thieves to “put them back”.
He told : “The police have been very good, actually… I said, ‘I know it’s going to sound like I’m from 1856, but I’ve had some sheep stolen’.”
- Clarkson claimed the theft had occurred at night – or during the day when the farm was not being filmed for its Prime Video TV show.
- He said of recording days that there is “a film crew here all the time” and ”a drone in the air”, which may have deterred or even caught the thieves.
- Asked whether he believed the show had made his farm a target, Clarkson said: “It’s more likely to make you a target than less, but I still don’t think they’ve been stolen because they’re on Diddly Squat.”
- He added: “This is 1,000 acres, it’s a big farm. Anyone could be anywhere and you wouldn’t know.”
No arrests made as livestock theft costs farms £4.5 million
The theft was reportedly raised with Thames Valley Police by Cooper and land manager Charlie Ireland. No arrests have been made and the force has appealed for anyone with information to contact them.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) reported in May that livestock theft had increased by nearly a third in 2025 – costing British farmers £4.5 million.
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Why yellow fever mosquitoes are now breeding in the UK
An invasive mosquito species known to spread yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses has been found breeding in some east London homes.
While it is the fourth time the Aedes aegypti insects have been detected in the UK – it is the first time they have been discovered reproducing.
Accidental hitchikers
These insects are usually found in countries with tropical and subtropical climates and are believed to have been transported into the country accidentally in baggage, on vehicles, or in nursery plants.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the risk to the public was low and there was no evidence of humans being infected.
Measures are now in place to destroy the larvae, and surveillance and trapping have been stepped up as part of the UKHSA’s Mosquito Watch scheme.
Too cold to survive in UK
Despite recent heatwaves, the overall UK climate is too cold for this species to survive long-term, the UKHSA said.
However, some expects warn that the UK would continue to see cases of invasive mosquitoes. As the climate warms, there may also be increased reports of them being able to survive.
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There is no evidence that these mosquitoes have caused human infections and importantly, to date, there is no evidence of the mosquitoes or larvae being detected in nearby public areas.
UKHSA’s head of medical entomology, Dr Jolyon Medlock
Hidden stowaways
Insects and other hidden stowaways such as lizards, geckos, and snakes can accidentally enter the UK inside shipments.
The massive volume of global plant trade means shipments move too fast for customers to catch every small creature or minuscule larvae.
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How AI is surging fraud cases to £10m a year
AI has enabled fraud losses to swell to nearly £10m this year, up from £1.2m the year before, the City of London Police Report Fraud study has found.
It comes amid a general increase in fraud, as the force reported that more than £3.2bn was lost to fraudsters in that period, up 26 per cent on the previous year.
How is AI making fraud worse?
AI is making common investment and romance scams much more sophisticated, meaning they appear more legitimate and real than they did in the past.
- Romance fraudsters can use AI to create fake but realistic dating and social media profiles, build relationships using real-time translation tools, and create fraud scripts for “automated relationship management”, the study said.
- Cases of “facetiming” make it “almost certain” that real-time AI generation is being used to dupe victims, it added.
- AI can also be used to create imitations of trusted public figures endorsing investment opportunities, while AI-cloned voices are being used to bypass banking security measures.
AI fraud on the rise
Breaking down the numbers
20%
The rise in investment fraud
The amount lost to romance fraud
Romance fraud rose by 15 per cent in the last year
Criminals are using -generated adverts, celebrity deep fakes, synthetic identities, voice technologies to make their approach to victims more and more compelling and believable on an ongoing basis, and I think is clearly a leader in that space.
City of London Police’s service delivery director Chris Bell
Watch more from The i Paper
Taking a trip abroad? Beware the EU change coming in next week
A journey into the European Union may soon take travellers significantly longer as the bloc prepares to reintroduce Entry/Exit System (EES) checks.
The fingerprint scans led to reports of six-hour-long airport queues earlier this year and threaten to disrupt journeys during the October half-term.
- The EU allowed member states to delay the full rollout over the summer in the event of sizeable disruption.
- However, this flexibility will be removed from Monday, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) trade group.
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Missed flights and connections
Delays caused by EES, which was launched in April, have resulted in people missing flights, being offloaded from aircraft and missing connections.
Border checks criticism
The new checks have received widespread criticism from travel industry figureheads.
Kenton Jarvis, the boss of easyJet, warned that the EU risked putting Britons off visiting altogether if they were forced to queue for hours or risk being stranded after missing their return flight.
Thomas Reynaert, head of external affairs at the IATA, said the scheme would only work once the technology is reliable and all installed booths are operational.
Even then, staff numbers must be sufficient to take over the manual processing of passengers should the system break down.
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EES gives Europe ‘bad rep’
These are real impacts being felt by passengers. That’s bad if you’re travelling alone and even worse if you’re travelling with family and small children. It gives Europe a bad reputation. When systems fail, passengers lose trust in the system and when people are late, airlines pay a high cost.
Thomas Reynaert, head of external affairs at the International Air Transport Association
Watch more from The i Paper
What to know as Argentina threatens Falkland Islands oil fields
Argentina’s President has said he will impose sanctions on oil drilling off the Falkland Islands amid heightened tensions between the UK and Argentina.
In a national address, Javier Milei said the “winds of change” favoured Argentina’s claim to control over the British territory, as the US reviews its position on the dispute.
Milei seeks oil firm sanctions
- The Argentine President said he would boost efforts to levy penalties against the companies, as well as their shareholders, directors and suppliers.
- Milei pledged to increase defence resources to build a naval base in the nearby Tierra del Fuego province.
- He has also promised to send Congress an urgent “national sovereignty defence” bill aimed at strengthening Argentina’s response to what he called unauthorised operations around the islands.
Urgent threat to Argentine interests
“If we do not act swiftly, in a few months they will have the material capacity to access the oil that lies underneath our sea – something that has never happened before.
Milei said Argentina had determined that the Sea Lion offshore project, operated by Navitas Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration, could begin oil development in the coming months.
Long-running soveriegnty dispute
The Falkland Islands have been a self-governing British Overseas Territory subject to a long-running sovereignty dispute with Argentina since the 19th century.
Argentina invaded the islands in 1982. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended in Argentine surrender after claiming the lives of 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders.
In a 2013 referendum, Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain a British overseas territory, with 99.8 per cent voting in favour – and just three votes against.
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‘Falkland Islanders choose to be British’
In a statement on X, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The Falklands are British because Falkland Islanders choose to be British.
“Our commitment to the Falklands is absolute and unshakeable.”
Trump suggests he would not help UK in Argentina invades Falklands
Milei’s comments follow a suggestion by Donald Trump that he would not back the UK if Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
Trump, who has strongly criticised the UK’s stance on the US-Israeli war on Iran, told GB News: “Your country was not there to help me.”
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Inside the BBC meltdown over licence fee’s future
Scrambling to find £500m
The BBC is scrambling to cut £500m from its budget after executives discovered a gap in finances which shocked even new director-general Matt Brittin.
It comes as the number of households paying the £180-a-year licence fee fell by half a million last year to 23 million, the latest BBC accounts show.
The previous year, accounts showed a 300,000 drop in licence fee payers.
The BBC’s chief financial officer, Bérangère Michel, said earlier this year that the drop in TV licences had “resulted in an unsustainable financial position”.
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More job cuts to come
The BBC must cut £500m from its budget by 2028 – with £160m to be delivered immediately. The corporation has already announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of the first stage in its savings plan.
Other cost-cutting options include cutting BBC Four arts and its archive channel and moving its content to BBC Two. The BBC Three youth channel could also be under threat.
‘Every part of BBC affected’
- More shows are set to be axed, following this week’s decision to scrap , insiders said.
- In a staff memo, seen by The i Paper, interim BBC head of news Jonathan Munro, said the 200 job closures announced in June would be followed by “further post closures (in news)” in the coming months.
- “Every part of BBC News will be affected, including senior leaders, and we’re reviewing some on-air roles,” said Munro.
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Familiar faces set to depart
There will be familiar faces leaving, presenters, on-screen correspondents. They will be looking for a small number of expensive on-air people who they might try to persuade to leave sooner than they expected. It’s all up in the air.
A leading news figure told the i paper
Apprentice jobs also hit
- Apprentices were also told they could no longer expect jobs, as a result of the cuts.
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Two rescued a week after Nepal floods
Two people have been rescued alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal, nine days after
a catastrophic flash flood killed more than 1,200 people.
Some 39 workers are still believed to be trapped inside the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project, according to Suresh Raut, a senior official of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).
Rescued workers named
Authorities have named Sanjaya Shah, a mechanical foreman with the NEA, as the first person to be rescued from tunnels.
The second person rescued is Kabir Maharjan, the BBC reported.
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Injuries to hands and feet
- Both workers have injuries on their hands and legs, thought to be from crawling through the tunnel.
- They are also suffering from lack of oxygen, authorities said.
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Huge rescue mission
Hundreds of the more than 5,000 still missing are labourers working in a vast network of tunnels at hydropower sites along the river.
Engineers have been pumping air into the hydropower tunnels as part of the huge rescue operation. Aside from the tunnel, it is estimated that over 5,000 people remain missing in Nepal and Tibet.
The rescues inject hope into an otherwise gruelling mission through thick mud.
A tunnelling expert told the news agency that teams had already dug through debris blocking the tunnel for 50-60 metres (164-196 feet) before finding survivors.
They were hoping for a breakthrough, said Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.
“After a week of 24/7 heartache, we might, just, be back in miracle country.”
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Watch more from The i Paper
Four things to know as Reform reported to the police over ‘funding breach’
Reform UK has been reported to the police over allegedly breaching political donation rules.
The allegations
In the Channel 4 report, Reform’s Dan Jukes, discusses with a donor ways to allegedly get around electoral rules by securing a £500,000 donation via a foreign source.
The report, carried out by Verbatim Investigations, appears to show head of policy James Orr, suggesting the donor’s father could pay for polling. The report claims Reform commissioned three polls £32,500 in total and that the public was not told who commissioned or funded them.
The law
Under UK law, foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for political parties, including payments for studies and research. Accepting donations from them could constitute a criminal offence.
Reform claimed it was the victim of a hoax and denied any wrongdoing.
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Reform’s response:
Reform UK has been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors. The party denies any wrongdoing.
A Reform Spokesperson
Reform UK has a robust vetting process for prospective donors approved by the Electoral Commission.
Who reported Reform?
- The Lib Dems have written to the Met Police and Electoral Commission saying that James Orr, a senior adviser to Farage, facilitating the donation from an impermissible donor would breach the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.
- Labour also intends to report the matter to the police, it is understood, while the Greens have called for an investigation.
- The Met said it is assessing the reports.
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‘No money reached Reform UK at all,’ says Orr
Orr, Reform’s policy head who is at the centre of the allegations, said that “no money reached Reform UK at all”.
“It was a public poll arranged by an independent person paying an independent pollster, and those polls were published immediately for the general public,” he said in a video posted to X.
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Aides step down
Both Orr and Jukes have stepped down from their roles. Farage said Reform UK has “broken no laws” and has not “taken any dodgy money” amid allegations the party breached political donation rules.
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“How on earth is it that, for young men at such a crucial stage in their development, the most attractive option is to engage in this type of criminality?” asked McDonald.
It is a question many in Middlesbrough are now searching to answer.
Is it deprivation? A failure of the justice system? An underfunded police force? A petty gangland culture turbocharged by the allure of social media?
Local residents, politicians and experts who spoke to The i Paper believe Middlesbrough’s problems are a mixture of all of the above.
And crucially, they believe these are factors not unique to the north east industrial town – but are prevalent across many parts of Britain.
Concern over ‘new gang cities’
Crime in England is generally on a downward trend, with murders at their lowest level since records began.
But criminologist and author Dr Simon Harding told The i Paper he believes there should be wider concern about what he calls new “gang cities”.
These are smaller urban areas – mostly outside cities – not traditionally known for gang crime problems, but now starting to experience them more regularly.
As well as Middlesbrough, Harding suggested places such as Barnsley, Rochdale, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool, Ipswich, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Bristol could be put in the same bracket.
Most have pockets of entrenched deprivation. Gangs see them as easier to exploit than larger cities too, where policing and other public services may be more vigilant and better funded.
“These places that might have had quite a mild, manageable level of traditional crime – robbery, car crime that kind of thing – that’s now changing,” Harding added.
“We are going to see more of these Middlesbrough effects taking hold over the next few years.”
‘These thugs have taken over’
Cleveland is the police force covering Middlesbrough and other places such as Redcar and Stockton. It has the highest crime rate by population of any force in England and Wales at 123 crimes per 1,000 residents.
Violence against the person, robbery and theft are all well above the national average.
On Friday, schools decided to close early ahead of the funeral of one of the boys killed in the A66 crash amid fears of repeat anti-social behaviour and criminality witnessed at recent vigils. Six hundred extra police have also been drafted in.
“Cleveland Police are going to need all the back-up they can get,” a local councillor, who asked not to be named, told The i Paper.
“They are going to need to close roads, they are going to have quad bikes driving through town. These thugs have taken over.”
Harding, who spent years working with young people involved in criminality in Middlesbrough, said the recent flare up of gang violence “has been coming”.
He said “long-established” crime families in the town are recruiting “a lot of young men or boys who are bored, kicking about on benefits, they ride around on mopeds and e-bikes usually doing the low-level drug dealing for these crime families”.
Nationwide, there are nearly 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEETs) – a situation described as an “urgent national crisis”.
Eight of the 10 English councils with the most NEETs are in the North of England and the Midlands.
Dying for TikTok ‘likes’
Dr Harding believes the tit-for-tat violence in Middlesbrough witnessed in recent weeks suggests there has been some sort of dispute or business deal gone wrong which has now resulted in “pitched rivalry” between gangs.
While such disputes are not new, the environment in which they are taking place has changed.
At least two of the boys killed in the A66 crash had been posting footage of police pursuits on their social media accounts before they died.
Police are becoming increasingly concerned by the extent to which the ability to film criminals and share it online via platforms such as Tik Tok or YouTube is fuelling dangerous behaviour.
Authorities in Ireland are currently investigating whether a group of young men who died in a wrong-way crash in County Kildare had been filming for a TikTok page.
“They’re trying to get ‘likes’, they are trying to get respect and they are trying to get status because if they get that it will make them a ‘player’ and less vulnerable,” Harding added. “They’re constantly trying to build their own personal biography and their gang biography.”
Downing Street has called “glorification” of dangerous driving footage “disgraceful” and ordered social media companies to remove such clips immediately.
TikTok claims it removes any content that glorifies violence, promotes crimes that could harm people or shows dangerous activities likely to be imitated, such as risky driving.
The social media giant added it is removing any rule-breaking content related to Middlesbrough.
Are other areas underfunded?
Cleveland Police has one of the smallest budgets in the country. Local leaders, including the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley Ben Houchen, believe it has struggled to keep pace with “big city” criminality on its patch.
But there are signs this is happening elsewhere.
In South Yorkshire, there were 102 crimes per 1,000 people last year.
The region’s biggest city Sheffield has been hit by some distressing cases in recent years, including several shooting incidents and the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose in his school.
In Barnsley, a gang of youths attacking security staff at the town’s bus station has recently sparked uproar among locals.
Footage shared online by a young girl who was filming the attack while laughing, shows teenage boys kicking and punching their victims in front of horrified travellers.
Yet South Yorkshire has only 3,021 police officers, less than half the number covering its neighbour in West Yorkshire – which has similar levels of crime per population.
This is because the government funds police forces based on their population – rather than more contextual factors such as deprivation levels.
Police funding formula ‘broken’
Despite having one of the smallest budgets in the country, Cleveland was among the hardest hit by Conservative-led austerity cuts – losing 13 per cent of its officers since 2010.
The Home Office has responded to recent events by giving Cleveland an extra £2m. However, most of this will foot a “mutual aid” bill for at least 600 officers drafted in to help from other forces.
Matt Storey, Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said the extra cash “won’t touch the sides” – adding the force needs £26m per year to cover funding cuts.
“Quite frankly it’s a bit insulting to just be bunged £2m in a performative way by the Home Office,” he said.
He said the current police funding formula is “broken”.
“They need to fund us based on poverty, deprivation and need. If they did that, everything would be significantly better.”
Labour is considering a major reform of the police service which will see Police and Crime Commissioners abolished and the number of forces reduced from 43 to potentially as low as 12.
This could mean Cleveland merges with neighbours Durham and Northumbria into a new “North East” police force – although the changes aren’t expected to be complete until 2034.
“What are we going to do in the meantime?” McDonald told The i Paper. “We need an honest conversation about levels of crime and the resources to address it.”
Storey, who is among those set to lose his job in the shake-up, is even more dismissive.
“The Home Secretary seems to think that if we merge police forces it will be fine because Cleveland can just ask Newcastle for more officers to help us out when we’ve got a problem,” he said.
“That’s not a sustainable way to operate. Plus, this won’t happen until 2034 under the reform agenda, which means we’ve got another eight years before we merge with another force.
“In that time, our funding will continue to be inadequate and we will continue to struggle to sustainably police Cleveland the way we would want to.”
For all the bleak headlines in recent weeks, Storey does not believe actions of a small minority of troublemakers should define Middlesbrough.
“This is a brilliant place to live, it’s my home and it means a lot to me,” he added. “It is not a crime-ridden place or a no-go area, it isn’t that at at all.”