Walking the streets of Newham, east London, it is not immediately apparent that it has the highest homelessness rate in the country.
But this is because most of the people without a home in Newham are not on the streets. They are stuck in limbo in hotels or bed and breakfasts, sometimes for years, while they await a permanent residence.
On Monday, Andy Burnham‘s Government pledged a further £432m to end rough sleeping, taking the total he has promised to spend to £874m. He also recommitted to offering every rough sleeper a route off the streets by Christmas.
The two reasons Man Utd have given Carrick shock second chance
Michael Carrick will remain in charge of Manchester United for their weekend trip to Chelsea, despite overseeing the club’s worst start to a top-flight season in 40 years.
Carrick is ‘preparing team to face Chelsea’
The i Paper has been told that despite several alternatives being explored, Carrick was at United’s Carrington base taking training on Tuesday and is “preparing the team to face Chelsea on Saturday”.
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A closer look at the detail
Club sources insisted that “Michael and the players will have the opportunity to turn the situation around”, with everyone focused on “showing our response on the pitch”.
Carrick was expected to be relieved of his duties on Monday, with Eddie Howe the frontrunner to take charge. However, after senior executives held a crisis meeting on Monday, Carrick will get a surprise reprieve.
What happened on Monday?
- With the squad on a day off, Carrick was not expected to be at Carrington, as senior figures were sharpening their axe. Instead, there was no white smoke from the boardroom.
- Rumours circled that United were waiting for the afternoon and the New York Stock Exchange to open before making an announcement, but club sources insisted no news would be coming out of the club.
Why has Carrick got another chance?
- Insiders told The i Paper that chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox could not make a call on sacking Carrick yet until they believe a suitable successor is lined up.
- Dismissing Carrick will cost the club a considerable amount, so they must be certain the next coach is fully interested.
- One source has claimed that there is a feeling the club needs to stop the cycle of sacking managers.
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Why Neil Young is suing Trump campaign for the second time
The Canadian-American singer has filed a $10m (£7.5m) lawsuit against a fundraising committee that supports Donald Trump, citing “unauthorised” use of his music.
What does Young claim?
Young, 80, alleges that the Trump 47 Committee infringed on his copyright when it used his hit song Rockin’ in the Free World before Trump took to the stage at a rally in Ohio on 12 October.
The lawsuit claims the use of the song amounts to an “unauthorised public performance”, and that Young “has not, and would not, grant the required licence”.
A closer look at the lawsuit
The lawsuit said Rockin’ the Free World is “a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten”.
- Young says that the song is “the opposite of everything that Donald J Trump stands for”.
“We have all been here before,” to quote by Young’s former supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
This is the second time Young has sued Trump over use of the song. The singer filed a lawsuit in 2020, which was later settled.
Young’s lawsuit says Trump’s use of the song again breaks the terms of the prior settlement. The new $10m lawsuit also asks for an injunction against further public performance for political purposes.
The Trump administration has not yet responded to the suit.
The Rolling Stones, REM, Rihanna, Adele, and the estate of Prince have all previously criticised the president for using their music at his campaign events.
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Why Bolsonaro has fled to the US after Brazilian election
Brazilian senator and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro has left the country for the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election.
The US State Department is expected to grant him and his family entry visas.
What you need to know
Bolsonaro is yet to concede to the current President and leftist candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The losing right-wing candidate left Brazil amid a probe into alleged money laundering, wrongdoing he has denied. He refused to comply with a supreme court order to surrender his passports.
Bolsonaro is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently under house arrest as part of his 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula.
US via Argentina and Ecuador
Argentina’s migration department said on Wednesday that Bolsonaro and his family had briefly entered the country’s Misiones province on Tuesday night through a road crossing, with valid travel documents
They then boarded a private plane bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador. The current location of Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters was not immediately clear.
Donald Trump and Argentina’s President Javier Milei have been vocal allies of the Bolsonaro family.
Tense relations
- Bolsonaro’s departure threatens to deepen a rift between Brazil and the US – the two most populous nations in the Americas.
- Lula has accused Washington of colluding with the Bolsonaros to put them back in power.
- Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the US.
- The US President on Monday said the Brazilian vote “looked like another rigged election”.
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Like father, like son?
Trump has previously alleged that Jair was a victim of judicial persecution in Brazil.
- The elder Bolsonaro also went to the US after refusing to concede to Lula in 2022, when then US president Joe Biden was in office.
- Lula, speaking in Brasilia, said he had just heard that Flavio had left the country, and called it shameful, saying he should have stayed in Brazil and proved his innocence.
- Bolsonaro had been favored to win Sunday’s presidential election but ended up losing in a shock result.
- Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flavio’s younger brother who lives in the US, said ahead of the vote that an election loss would require a move out of the country.
The election in pictures
Everything we know so far about fatal train crash in Spain
At least 39 people have been killed after two trains collided in Spain this morning, it has been reported.
The trains collided between the towns of Los Yebenes and Urda, in the Toledo province in central Spain. Rail operator, Adif, said the entire line from Madrid to the southern Andalusia region has now been suspended.
What do we know so far?
- The crash involved a high-speed AVE train that had left Madrid bound for Seville and an Iryo train travelling in the opposite direction.
- The crash comes nine months after Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade.
- In January, two high-speed trains collided near Adamuz in Córdoba, killing more than 40 people.
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[I am] shocked by the serious train accident in Toledo…I remain in constant contact with the Minister of Transport, and with the president of Castilla-La Mancha. My affection, solidarity, and support to all the victims and their families.
Pedro Sánchez
The story in pictures
When will the UK rejoin the Erasmus plus scheme?
The Government has confirmed the UK will rejoin the Erasmus plus student exchange scheme from the start of January.
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer said applications would open next month for young people who will be able to study, train or get work experience in the EU.
What you need to know
- Falconer emphasised to MPs that the opportunities would be open to “educational institutions of all kinds”.
- Work on the UK joining the Erasmus programme was announced as part of former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s post-Brexit reset deal with Brussels in 2025.
- The UK left the scheme under Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in 2020, with the then-prime minister arguing it did not offer value for money.
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What was it replaced by?
- It was replaced by the Turing Scheme, which was ended when the Government announced the new deal over Erasmus plus.
- The Government has previously said it expects more than 100,000 people to be able to benefit.
As well as university-based study exchanges, Erasmus plus allows further education students and apprentices to take up work placements in European firms.
Applications open this November. They are not simply for undergraduate university students. They are for educational institutions of all kinds.
Hamish Falconer
All cost of living help that could come in the Budget
From energy bills support to a minimum wage hike, here are all of the measures John Healey could announce in the Budget to offer Brits some relief.
Chancellor under pressure
The Chancellor will come under intense pressure to ease cost of living pressures on households up and down the UK in his maiden Budget on 28 October.
Labour has already unveiled a number of everyday fixes but households struggling will no doubt be looking for further support.
So, what help could be on the way and how much could it save you? Here, we look at the options.
What help might be coming?
- Energy bills help: A typical dual-fuel household would save £27 a year if gas standing charges were abolished and the costs were shifted into the gas unit price.
- Fuel duty tax hike delay: Delaying the hike could save around £2.75 compared with the full duty rate on a 55-litre tank.
- Minimum wage increase: The adult rate could rise by around 3.9 per cent to £13.20 from April 2027.
- Food tariffs: Recent cuts to these tariff cuts will save consumers up to £21 a year – around 40p a week.
- Carer’s allowance changes: The Government is changing the rules so unpaid carers no longer lose their allowance for earning over weekly limit.
- Paternity pay: The Government has said it will extend parental pay to over 150,000 additional parents per year.
Three-quarters of pilots have fallen asleep in the cockpit
Three in four European pilots have admitted to falling asleep in the cockpit.
A new study
Research commissioned by the European Cockpit Association, asked 7,200 captains and first officers about their tiredness levels while on shift.
A total of 77 per cent of respondents reported having at least one “microsleep” – a brief, unintentional sleep – while operating an aircraft in the four weeks prior to the survey.
The findings
- One in four pilots admitted to five or more microsleeps during the same four-week period, while 7 per cent admitted to having 10 or more.
- Of the pilots working for British airlines, 54 per cent said they had slept between one and four times.
- A further 13 per cent said they had fallen asleep more than five times and 6 per cent admitted to falling asleep more than 10 times.
If we are serious about managing the safety risks related to pilot fatigue, the numbers we see in this report – and the lack of any meaningful improvement over the past three years – are a clear wake-up call for airlines, authorities and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency that something must change in the way Europe deals with pilot fatigue
Captain Tanja Harter, president of the European Cockpit Association
But experts say Newham shows why the UK’s homelessness crisis goes far beyond the streets. And while new funding will help, it will take more than cash to solve the problem.
The Government’s real homeless crisis
An estimated 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England, latest official data shows – 27 per cent of those were in London.
Burnham said he wanted to give “every single person” sleeping on the streets an offer of help by the end of this year.
In Newham, the council and local charities regularly see about 30 people sleeping rough on any one night. There are about 60 rough sleepers known to the council in the area, but there are 8,250 people registered homeless.
Homelessness charity Shelter puts the figure even higher, at one in 18 people in the borough.
Most of these are people housed by the council in shared accommodation such as hostels or bed and breakfasts, while they wait for a flat or house to become available.
This was down to “rocketing rents and a dire lack of social rent homes” in London that have “left thousands of families stuck homeless in temporary accommodation or stranded for years on waiting lists”, said Mairi MacRae, acting chief executive of Shelter.
“It’s absolutely right that the Government has boosted funding to tackle rough sleeping and build more social homes. But if it is serious about ending homelessness in all its forms, it must go even further.”
According to data from homelessness charity Crisis, only 0.4 per cent of properties listed for private rent in Newham across the last year were affordable for someone who receives local housing allowance (LHA).
LHA in Newham is currently set at £561.33 for a single person, and up to a maximum of £1,950 for a four-bed property.
‘Not everyone can afford it’
Sandip Kumar, 39, works as a debt collector and rents privately in Newham. He thinks rent is affordable as long as you are earning, but is not surprised that homelessness is so high in the area.
“Not everyone can afford the rent,” he said. “There are a lot of people living here and who want to live here. I don’t think there are enough houses.”
John Gray, deputy mayor of Newham Council and cabinet member for housing, said the extra funding and “a bit of pressure and a target” will help tackle rough sleeping.
But he adds: “We have to be really honest… that we’re not going to be able to rehouse the greatest proportion of people in Newham or in London.”
Families are often offered housing outside of London in Essex, Kent and Cambridgeshire, but Gray says many people prefer to wait to be housed in Newham, meaning they can stay on waiting lists for years.
The families stuck in hostels
Kat Klimova, 35, lived with her family in a hostel in Ilford and then further away in Romford before becoming one of the lucky few to secure council housing in Newham.
“That was very hard,” she says of the hostel. “There were two rooms for all [four] of us. Our benefits [universal credit] just covered it.”
After her parents passed away, she now lives in a council flat with her sister on Milton Avenue, near East Ham station.
“We have the keys, it’s ours,” she said. “Someone from the council comes once a month to make sure it’s clean, everything is working. We pay the council around £1,000 a month for the two of us, bills included.”
She is pleased that the Government is pledging money to end rough sleeping, though she doesn’t see many people on the streets in the area.
“This is something that matters for people’s quality of life, it wouldn’t be responsible for the Government not to look after them,” she said.
‘A house is just the first step’
Christina George Isaac, CEO of Just Homes, a housing charity in Newham which houses more than 80 people who have no recourse to public funds, welcomed the funding to tackle rough sleeping.
But she said: “Giving someone a house is the first step, but this has to be coupled with skills of how to maintain it… If not you’re going to end up wasting money.”
Many of the rough sleepers the charity supports are migrants, often international students who couldn’t find work after their degrees.
“You have to have a strategy for getting someone into a job and out of the system,” she said. Isaac thinks working with local small businesses, giving them tax relief to hire homeless people, would make a big difference.
Gray also does not think the funding will be enough to get everyone off the streets in Newham.
Some rough sleepers he has encountered say they “prefer to be on the streets”, he said.
And although there are no details about how the funding will be allocated as yet, it is likely the council won’t be allowed to use it to house those who aren’t entitled to claim public funds, such as people with no settled migration status.
Mary Irabor, 80, who has lived in Newham for 50 years also said the Government must do more to help “families and people with children who can’t go out to work, and the elderly” afford housing.
“It’s very expensive to buy now,” she said. “Even to afford rent is very difficult, with council tax and bills on top of that. People who rent out are greedy. I think the rents should be lower to take into consideration the bills as well.”
Gray says Newham Council, along with many other local authorities, has asked ministers to raise LHA to help make private renting more affordable, meaning fewer will be waiting four council properties.
“[With LHA so far behind private rents] you’re setting people up to fail,” Gray said. “If the Government did raise [the] local housing allowance, to make up for the cuts or the freezes of the past, that would make our job a lot easier.”
Matt Downie, chief executive at Crisis, which is also calling for LHA to be increased, added: “Ending homelessness is not a pipe dream. Preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place, by uprating housing benefit to cover the cheapest third of rents, is key.”
The Prime Minister’s Office announced the extra £432m in funding in a press release on Monday, which they said was part of their aim “to stop accepting rough sleeping as a fact of life and unite the country behind a mission to end it”.