In his speech at the UN General Assembly, Andy Burnham said the UK was setting up a new centre to “stem the poisonous tide” of disinformation coming from hostile states.
Burnham said the UK and its allies had been subjected to an “industrial-scale assault” by hostile countries, including Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and warned that Russian agencies were using “every means at their disposal” to spread lies and disinformation.
It was the latest warning of the threat that Putin’s Russia poses to the West. But could Russia directly attack Britain? And if it did, would the UK be able to defend itself? That’s one of the questions being posed by a televised wargame being broadcast this week.
How the licence fee could be scrapped for a new monthly charge
The licence fee could be axed and replaced by an £11-a-month internet levy – and viewers invited to become “BBC members” – under new proposals.
The licence fee is becoming increasingly unsustainable, with 3.7 million households claiming to not need one, while half a million households stopped paying last year, forcing the BBC to find £500m in cuts.
‘Home internet levy’ fairest solution
A “home internet levy” method of funding is most likely to command public consent, the report, commissioned by campaign organisation 38 Degrees, found.
A BBC internet levy would cost £11 per month, an average increase of 35 per cent on the current cost of internet bills, but would be £4 a month cheaper than the current licence fee.
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The other proposals for the BBC
The report looked at other funding solutions such as keeping the licence fee, but adding a “news and culture levy” of £2.30 on to internet bills.
Also proposed was a £12 a month “household levy” or putting the cost of the licence fee on to streaming subscriptions.
Make BBC a ‘mutual’ society
- The report also proposed radical changes to make the BBC more accountable to the public by becoming a “mutual-style membership” organisation.
- Members would be chosen by lottery to take part in a member council, where they would serve terms of up to three years and be paid for their time.
- They would “hold the board of the BBC to account, ensuring that the organisation is meeting its duties to the public”.
- Under the proposals, the council would have no control over editorial decisions, hiring talent or decisions on programming.
The four key moments from Burnham’s meeting with Trump
There was no shortage of trip-wires that could have derailed Andy Burnham’s first meeting with Donald Trump, but in the end, it produced remarkably little friction.
Even without the charm offensive, Trump liked Burnham better than Starmer
In July, when Trump met Sir Keir Starmer at the Nato summit in Turkey after he had announced his resignation, the US President said he wanted to “bring him back” and “make him great again”.
Two months on, that affection has evaporated. Asked about a special relationship that has been up and down, Trump said things were “more up than they were under your last prime minister”.
No Trump attack on UK migration policy
Trump has previously said Britain is “on the edge of disaster” because of “insane” immigration policies, but in New York, he called it “a worldwide situation”.
For a Labour Prime Minister under pressure on small boats, being spared a public rebuke on his first outing is significant.
Trump thinks Britain has ‘tremendous potential’
Trump has previously called the UK “essentially bankrupt” for refusing to fully exploit North Sea oil and for relying on green energy. He has also claimed the country is “dying” under alleged mass migration.
This time he said Britain had “tremendous potential” and compared it favourably with other countries whose leaders he meets but in which he sees little promise.
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Burnham swerved a Trump rebuke over West Bank
- Many expected Washington to condemn Britain’s sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements.
- When asked directly, Trump did not engage. He said he did not know about the move and left the question for Burnham to answer.
- It was an odd moment, but a useful one for No 10. A US president who wanted to punish Britain had an open invitation to do so and passed it up.
Vapes and prescription medicine now used to spike victims
Drug-laced vapes, as well as prescription and over-the-counter medications, are increasingly being used to spike victims, police have said.
Various drugs used in vapes
Cases have emerged where officers have encountered vapes containing THC, the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, and the synthetic drug spice, alongside the use of high doses of common medications such as antihistamines and travel-sickness tablets.
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Victims targeted in private settings
We’re seeing offenders use a wider range of substances than ever before, including everyday medications and substances added to vapes, while increasingly targeting victims in private settings such as homes, parties and student accommodation
Metropolitan police spiking lead Detective Superintendent Dan Thompson
How widespread is the issue?
- Over the past year, more than 2,700 spiking-related offences were reported to the Met, but only 131 resulted in a charge, caution or summons.
- This marked a 20 per cent increase over the previous year.
- More than half the victims were aged 18 to 35.
- A YouGov poll from December 2022 found that 10 per cent of women and 5 per cent of men said they had had a drink spiked.
How one test could ‘transform’ womb cancer care
A simple test analysing cells in urine and vaginal fluid could help rule out womb cancer in women experiencing bleeding after menopause.
Women could avoid invasive tests
The new test has the potential to “transform care” researchers said, sparing patients from “invasive, uncomfortable” tests that are costly for the NHS.
Around 10,200 women are diagnosed with womb cancer in the UK each year. Bleeding after menopause is a common symptom and can trigger urgent cancer referral.
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A closer look at the study
- The research included 1,864 women attending hospital with postmenopausal bleeding.
- The test correctly identified 80 per cent of cancers.
- It had a negative predictive value of 98.8 per cent for womb cancer, meaning women with a negative result were very unlikely to have the disease.
- It also detected 95.8 per cent of high-grade tumours and 96.4 per cent of cancers that had spread beyond the uterus.
Children as young as 13 diagnosed with ‘ketamine bladder’
Children as young as 13 have been referred to a specialist clinic with ketamine-induced uropathy (KIU), according to new analysis.
What is ‘ketamine bladder’?
KIU – also known as ketamine bladder – is a painful and severe condition caused by the drug damaging the urinary tubes, kidneys and bladder.
- Frequent urination, blood in urine and a loss of bladder control are some of the symptoms.
- The UK’s first KIU clinic opened in May 2025 due to a rise in young people with the condition.
Which children are most affected?
- The average age of the first 60 patients was 14.
- Around 66 per cent of the patients were girls, with a similar proportion living in the most deprived areas.
- 72 per cent had experienced emotional trauma, with one in five having experienced the care system.
- 16 of the children had autism or ADHD, or both.
The underlying factors
We are trying to understand the wider picture. use does not happen in isolation, and our analysis is helping us explore the different factors that may be associated with young people developing serious health problems
Professor Rachel Isba, consultant in paediatric public health medicine at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
Royal claims you haven’t heard as Earl Spencer’s book published
With Earl Spencer’s controversial book Swan Song: Diana, My Sister now released, The i Paper has taken a closer look at some of the claims.
Here are five of the most eye-catching.
Charles acted like ‘child’
Then-prince Charles acted like a “petulant” child, according to Spencer. Charles is said to have told the author that he was “lucky” to be inheriting the Althorp Estate while still in his twenties.
- According to Spencer, Charles told him: “You’re just so lucky – you know, inheriting when you’re so young. I mean, I’m 43… and I employ 50 people … but my parents insist on treating me like – like a child!”
A closer look at the claims
Spencer claims, via a courtier, that the late Queen Elizabeth II said Charles was “resentful”. “He always resents things. He even resented it when I taught him the alphabet.”
He also wrote about Elizabeth’s apparent response to the news Diana was involved in an accident. “When the Queen had heard the first news of Diana’s being in a traffic accident, she had asked tetchily, ‘What is she up to now?’” he wrote. “This, before the seriousness of it all became clear.”
Diana suspected Charles had ‘tryst’ with Camilla on train
Diana suspected that Charles may have had a “tryst” with Camilla, according to the book. The suspicion followed a press report in 1980 which claimed Charles was seen with a blonde woman on the royal train.
However, Spencer wrote that this was not Diana and that she suspected that it was Camilla on the train.
Law firm offered to help him sue over Diana crash
Earl Spencer claims that a law firm offered to help him, William and Harry sue over the crash that killed Diana in France.
He said that he did not reply to the letter.
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Morgan threatens to sue
Piers Morgan has threatened to sue Earl Spencer after claiming that there are “fabricated inaccuracies” in the book.
- The Earl claimed that Morgan “snarled with annoyance” after he was uninvited from Diana’s funeral.
The reaction
- Earl Spencer, responding to the Palace’s pushback over Charles’s alleged words, told the BBC: “Those are exactly the words he said.”
- He has also denied being vengeful. “I don’t hold resentments,” he told .
- Buckingham Palace has declined to comment on the latest revelations and referred back to Wednesday’s initial statement.
- Earl Spencer was approached for further comment.
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Britain’s limited options when faced with a belligerent Russia came as a shock to the former cabinet ministers playing a fictional UK government in Sky’s . But they shouldn’t have done. The warnings over Britain’s hollowed-out Armed Forces, and its lack of civil defence at home, have been sounding loud and clear for years.
The four-part drama, whose first episode aired on Monday night, plays out what would happen if Russia saw Britain as soft and vulnerable enough that it could target it as Nato’s weakest point – and what British leaders and commanders would be able to do about it.
With two other long-term Russia specialists, I played the “Red Team” for the series, acting out possible Kremlin decisions and inflicting them on a startled “Blue Team”, a fictional British cabinet led by Michael Gove as prime minister and the formidable Penny Mordaunt as defence secretary.
We were presented with actions the production team needed Russia to take to move the plot towards Thursday’s dramatic series finale – and our job was to see if they could fit plausibly into Russia’s doctrine, capabilities, objectives and decision-making, and then launch them at the UK.
That’s a role I’ve played before in real life – helping organisations like Nato understand the Kremlin’s thinking and its options, in wargames played out behind closed doors instead of on Britain’s TV screens. It comes after decades of studying and explaining why and how Moscow does what it does.
In this wargame, we could also add our own ideas for how Putin might go about spoiling the British cabinet’s day. So we helped ourselves from the buffet of malevolence at the Kremlin’s disposal – and it swiftly became clear that not only was that far more than would fit into four hour-long TV shows, it was far more than the Blue Team could cope with.
Some of the things we threw at Britain made it through into the final cut. Others – like challenging British interests elsewhere in the world in order to distract the government or the Armed Forces at a critical moment – never even made it into Blue’s discussions. They were already overloaded with the dilemmas being presented to them by Moscow and being forced into progressively worse decisions to deal with them.
So you won’t see in how Britain could face a Russian political or military challenge to its overseas bases in Gibraltar or Cyprus, the targeting of British civilians and servicemen across Africa, or Moscow’s diplomatic manoeuvring with countries in Europe and beyond.
You also won’t see the launch of powerful long-range attack drones at data centres, airports and other key infrastructure from ships of Russia’s shadow fleet in the seas off Europe. The fictional cabinet already had enough difficulty realising, when they finally decided they needed to call the Americans for help, that, of course, the Kremlin team was going to have called them first.
Other gameplay didn’t make it into the final cut for dramatic reasons, or because it was just too intricate to fit into a TV show. The behind-the-scenes diplomatic work that would lead the United States to call for British restraint and de-escalation instead of accepting that the UK had a right to retaliate would make for a lot less exciting television than images of explosions and arguments between British politicians. But it’s all part of how Russia would seek to outmanoeuvre the UK – or any other country it decided to challenge in order to try to bring down Nato as a whole.
focuses on a military confrontation. In reality, Moscow’s strategy would be far broader, and an attack on all available political, diplomatic and information fronts.
The show paints a grim picture. It’s designed to ram home the consequences of three decades of thinning out British defence capability. When the chief of the defence staff, played by General Sir Richard Barrons, asks: “I need to know what the current state of our sea, land, air and missile defences are”. The reply is: “We’ve got bugger all.”
Barrons has been ringing the alarm bells over dangerous defence gaps for years. He was one of the key authors of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review that the Labour government commissioned, but then ignored. The series provides him with plenty of “I told you so” moments – with the hope they won’t be repeated in real life.
But also highlights the results of the UK’s almost complete absence of large-scale civil defence and crisis resilience systems and preparations, after they were demolished with astonishing speed at the end of the Cold War.
Those are systems that some other countries in Europe take for granted, and will rely on to keep society functioning and people alive if their country comes under attack or suffers some other kind of major disaster. They include organised shelter, evacuation routes and reliable information systems – all the things the British cabinet belatedly discovers are missing when needed.
The fact that the UK has nothing comparable means that when faced with a crisis, all the fictional government can do is tell people to stay home and point them to its “Prepare” website – when it’s already too late to prepare.
That’s not to say the storyline should be taken literally, especially the cliffhanger final episode this Thursday. The UK does have options, and it does have allies – with or without the current unpredictable alignment of the United States. And a real cabinet might not be as easy to bamboozle into taking the worst possible choice at any given moment as the Blue Team were.
But with warnings mounting of possible Russian escalation against Europe this winter, it’s never been more urgent to start taking the needs of national defence seriously.
Burnham’s determination to prioritise benefits and welfare spending at home over protecting the country against threats from abroad is a shocking dereliction of the first duty of any government. What team hopes is that the series will help persuade people that this needs to change now, before it’s too late.