As the Labour Party gathers in Liverpool this weekend to plot its electoral revival, an increasingly “brazen” Moscow is poised to eavesdrop and potentially disrupt the climax of Britain’s political conference season, intelligence experts have warned.
Some 20,000 people are expected to attend Labour’s four-day gathering at the £164m waterside LEX centre as Britain’s ruling party seeks to galvanise its members and capitalise on Andy Burnham’s early success in improving Labour’s standing in the polls.
Among them may be some unwanted guests.
How dogs decode what owners say like humans
Scientists have found that dog brains process speech in a similar way to human babies – poking holes in their excuses for ignoring their owners.
A new study, published in , found that the canine brain appears to process speech with a focus on consonants, which was once thought to be unique to humans.
Dogs take special note of consonant sounds
- Dogs were found to take special note of consonant sounds, which is similar to what babies do when they learn to decipher language, the researchers said.
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Inside the brains of 20 dogs
- The researchers recorded the brain activity of 20 pet dogs and 20 human adults as they listened to nonsensical words.
- Some of the recordings had repeating consonant patterns while others had vowel patterns.
- Using EEG, which measures electrical activity in the brain, researchers noted that for both humans and dogs, the brain response was far stronger when the repeating structure involved consonants.
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Surprising results
Dog brains segment speech into words in a way previously seen only in humans.
The researchers added that the results were surprising, as the acoustic prominance of vowels could have attracted the dogs more if they were simply latching on to the loudest or most obvious sounds.
Instead, their brains favoured the less acoustically noticeable consonant patterns, which provided more information about which words were being spoken.
Rare ‘gifted word learner’ dogs
The study also suggests that dogs can tell one human language from another. The researchers found several rare “gifted word learner” dogs, which can learn toy names after hearing them only four times.
Earlier this year, the same researchers discovered that some dogs can learn new object names just by overhearing their owner, an ability they said was comparable with word learning in 18-month-old children.
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What to know as Iran offers new ceasefire proposal
If certain conditions are met… the Strait will be open in seven days
Iran has tabled a new seven-day proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart peace talks with the US.
Here’s everything you need to know…
Iran submits peace plan to US
While visiting New York for the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said his country’s mediators had submitted a plan that could see the critical waterway open within a week.
“We have introduced a plan to the United States through the mediators that if certain conditions are met… the Strait will be open in seven days,” and Iran and the US would restart negotiations for a final deal, Araghchi told reporters.
The Iranians said their proposal is modelled on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) agreed between the US and Iran in June.
The agreement, however, collapsed after Iran began firing at ships it said were using an “unauthorised” route to transit the Strait.
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Inside collapsed agreement
60-day ceasfire
That agreement extended an April ceasefire for 60 days, during which Iran would allow uncharged passage via the Strait.
Oil exports
It would also see the US issue waivers for Iranian oil exports.
The US said it will not return to the MoU, and is instead pushing for a deal that covers Iran’s nuclear programme.
Trump accuses Iran of stalling for midterms
In his speech to the UN, Donald Trump accused Iran of stalling on a deal until after the midterms, in the hope that his Republican Party would lose power.
In response, Araghchi said it would be “much better” if both countries agreed to an MoU before the midterms, but that the US dictates the timeline.
Productive talks continue
- Araghchi added that the moment the US accepts its plan, a “timetable can start, and after seven days, the Strait will be open.”
- Recent talks held on the sidelines of the UN were reportedly productive for both sides.
- A White House official said the US and Iran “are having positive and constructive discussions through the mediators”.
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Noah Woods drowned after slipping through ‘gap in playground fence’
Noah Woods, the three-year-old boy who was the subject of a huge search in Suffolk, drowned after escaping “through a gap in the fence” at a playground, an inquest has heard.
Major search for toddler
The toddler, who had a speech delay and was partially deaf, became separated from a relative at a playground in Brantham village on 15 September.
A major search was carried out, with at least 1,300 people helping to try find him in the 24 hours after he went missing, along with helicopters, dog units and police divers.
Noah ran out of sight
Police told Suffolk Coroner’s Court that Noah had left the playground, walked into a memorial garden and left that through an open gate.
- He then ran down a path on a new housing estate towards the nearby Decoy Pond.
- Det Ch Insp Matt Connick from Suffolk Police told the court that CCTV showed Noah playing in the area with a relative close by.
- After he had left the play area, he was closely followed by the relative trying to catch up with him, he added.
- The inquest heard the relative had shouted out to Noah, but he went out of sight shortly afterwards.
Police divers recover boy’s body
Police divers from the Metropolitan Police searched Decoy Pond the next day. They found the boy’s body five metres from the edge of the pond within submerged tree roots at a depth of 1.8 metres.
Noah’s death was confirmed at 4.31pm by paramedics and his identity was formally confirmed by his mother, at Ipswich Hospital that evening, the inquest heard.
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- The inquest has been adjourned until a later date.
- In tribute shared by Suffolk Police, his family said that Noah was a “happy, cheeky, playful” boy who was being assessed for autism.
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‘The centre of our world’
He was part of a loving and caring family, living with his mummy, daddy and his little baby brother. He was at the centre of our world… Despite the challenges he faced, he was learning every day. He was saying new words all the time and had only just started finding and using his little voice.
dr pauline swift, the charity chair of blood pressure uk
Pope Leo arrives in France for first papal visit in 18 years
Pope Leo has arrived in France for a whirlwind four-day papal visit – the first in 18 years.
Leo, who became pope in May last year, said he wished to be a pilgrim of peace for a world at war, as he prepares to meet victims of the Catholic Church abuse scandal.
Pope meets with Macron
Earlier this year, the first US pope criticised leaders who spend billions on wars, just days after a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump over the Iran conflict.
Superstar fanfare
- Over a million people are expected to turn out to see him, with the highpoint being a Mass attended by half a million people in central Paris.
- Leo has built a strong following among Gen Z through addressing modern anxieties.
Visit hoped to repair Church image
Local Church leaders hope the trip will repair the Church’s standing after a 2021 report found that 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over the past 70 years.
French bishops have since introduced compensation and safeguarding measures.
The pope will meet seven French victims of abuse by Catholic clergy on Sunday in Lourdes.
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AI presents ‘new dangers to international peace’, says pope
Leo, who has made AI concerns a cornerstone of his papacy, is expected to address the issue at UNESCO.
In a speech at the Vatican on Thursday, the pope said AI could benefit humanity, but has introduced “new dangers to security and international peace” and urged global leaders to “govern wisely”.
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In pictures: Leo’s visit to Paris
British rapper Yung Filly to face rape retrial
British rapper Yung Filly will face a rape retrial in Australia next June after a jury failed to reach a verdict in an earlier trial.
Filly, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, was charged with the alleged rape and assault of a fan after performing at a nightclub in Perth in 2024.
No decision for rape charges
In July, a jury acquitted the 31-year-old of three counts of rape, one of assault and one of strangulation but found him guilty of two assault charges.
No decision was reached for three rape charges, which Barrientos has denied.
He is understood to have returned to the UK after the court granted him permission to leave Australia as part of his bail conditions.
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Sentencing to take place after retrial
Perth’s district court has set 15 June as the start date for the retrial, which is expected to last eight days.
Sentencing for the two assault charges that the jury found Barrientos guilty of will take place after the retrial.
Barrientos is known for his work with the YouTube collective Beta Squad and has previously appeared in the celebrity version of on Channel 4.
What the court heard in first trial
Barrientos had been on tour in Australia when he was accused of sexually assaulting the woman in his hotel room after he performed in Hillarys, a coastal suburb of Perth.
- The court heard that the social media star had consensual sex with the fan in his hotel room, before she alleged he turned violent and refused to stop.
- During the trial, Barrientos told the court that he had “fancied” the woman when they met at the concert venue.
- He had been in the VIP area while she leaned over the barrier from the general area.
- He said the “vibes were good” between him and the woman when they arrived at his hotel later.
Prosecution calls Filly ‘entitled’
During the first trial’s closing arguments, prosecutor Danielle Clarke said Barrientos was an “entitled” man with a “moderate degree of fame” who had violated the fan “in the most intrusive way possible”.
His defence lawyer argued that the accuser’s evidence was full of “inconsistencies, embellishments and outright lies”.
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The UK’s pharmacy blackspots
Nearly 300,000 people have seen their local pharmacy shut this year, with dozens closing in shortage areas leaving patients with 17-mile round trips to pick up vital medicines.
Two sites closed per week
Analysis of NHS figures by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) revealed that 51 high-street pharmacies in England shut between January and August this year – the equivalent of two a week.
Of the total, 31 received government funding under a scheme to maintain vital access to medicines for patients in “healthcare shortage” areas.
The South West of England has been hit hardest by closures.
- Nine pharmacies closed across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.
- Three pharmacies alone closed in the Somerset town of Taunton.
- Closures are forcing patients to travel significant distances to access emergency prescriptions as well as contraception and clinical advice, particularly on a weekend, patient groups and pharmacies have warned.
- The recent closure of a Lloyds Pharmacy in Long Rock, Penzance, left patients with an up to 1 hour and 20-minute journey by public transport to access their nearest pharmacy – a 17-mile round trip.
Why are pharmacies closing?
Pharmacies have seen real-terms cuts of 40 per cent to their funding since 2016. Since then, 1,500 pharmacies have closed – meaning 9.9 million patients in England have seen their local chemist close, analysis shows.
Despite a £340m Government boost to pharmacy funding in May, NHS analysis for the Community Pharmacy England (CPE) body shows community pharmacies still face a funding gap of more than £2bn.
Just one in seven pharmacies are profitable, a separate survey by CPE of more than 2,900 pharmacies in July revealed.
Patchy medicine access
When a pharmacy closes, it can create pockets where patients will find it harder to access medicines, collect prescriptions and get advice from their local pharmacy. Closures often happen in areas where healthcare support is needed most so it intensifies health inequalities.
Dr James Davies, director of research and insights at Community Pharmacy England
Pressure on other NHS services
NPA leaders urged the Government to reform NHS’s contract with pharmacies. Around 90 per cent of a pharmacy’s work is funded through the NHS, they added.
William Pett, of Healthwatch, said longer distances were “difficult for those with limited mobility or no access to transport” and that is “is no surprise that some people end up turning to other parts of the NHS when they cannot get the help they need in their community”.
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The groundbreaking new DNA brain tumour test
A groundbreaking new DNA test will be offered to patients with brain tumours as part of a new pilot study, which NHS officials say will reduce average diagnosis rates from weeks to days.
Experts say the rapid genomic test can confirm a diagnosis within two hours – meaning medics can know the precise type of tumour even during surgery.
Huge boost to personalised care
The NHS said the test will be piloted in specialist centres around England.
Personalised care
It could help patients get personalised care sooner and help enrol them on clinical trials which they may have missed out on.
Officials said brain tumours are “notoriously difficult” to diagnose.
How does it work?
The cutting-edge technology works by quickly analysing the DNA or genetic code of a small tumour sample taken during biopsy or surgery, helping doctors identify what type of brain tumour the patient has.
There are more than 100 different types of tumours, which range from slow-growing to aggressive cancers.
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This remarkable rapid test has the potential to completely transform how we diagnose .
Professor Frankie Swords, NHS England’s medical director, added that the test is a “huge leap forward” for patients.
This is a huge leap forward for patients – a faster diagnosis means they can start the right treatment or access clinical trials sooner, while for some patients it could mean surgeons can make potentially life-changing decisions about their surgery while on the operating table.
Professor Frankie Swords, NHS England medical director
Health Secretary hails ‘incredible breakthrough’
Health Secretary Yvette Cooper called the technology an “incredible breakthrough”.
Dr Simon Newman of The Brain Tumour Charity added that it will help patients avoid the “‘cruel, traumatic’” experience of waiting weeks to find out which type of brain tumour they have and their prognosis.
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Why experts fear loss of rare flower shows the UK’s climate future
A rare flower may have gone extinct in southern England due to extreme heat and drought, in what experts fear is a “canary in the mine” for how climate change is affecting biodiversity.
Field gentian all but wiped out
Until recently, the field gentian was abundant in the New Forest, Hampshire.
It was previously thought these populations could survive hot summers, due to their sheer size – often more than 5,000 plants at each site – and their ability for seeds to move with livestock into more sheltered areas.
But successive heatwaves and drought – in the third extreme summer in five years – may have led to their loss from southern England.
Rare flower missing for two years
The Species Recovery Trust has been unable to locate a single field gentian plant in the New Forest for the second year in a row.
Dominic Price, director of the charity, said the purple flower grew in dry or “skeletal” grasslands, which are on the “absolute front line” of climate change as they become parched and dead in hot, dry weather.
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This loss of what was such an abundant plant is deeply worrying, and in many ways, it feels like a canary in the mine for how climate change is likely to accelerate species loss.
Dominic Price, director of the Species Recovery Trust
Is it gone for ever?
- Price said “there’s potential for a miracle” with a wet summer next year helping the plant stage a comeback.
- In the summer of 2022, when UK temperatures soared to 40°C for the first time, field gentian populations crashed in the south of England, and went extinct in Devon.
- But populations recovered slightly the following year.
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After a week in which the Prime Minister put Russia’s multi-faceted “grey zone” campaign against the UK and its allies in the spotlight by announcing a new body to tackle Kremlin disinformation, it is likely that Moscow – and at the same time Beijing – will quite literally spy opportunity in both Labour’s Merseyside pow-wow and the Conservative Party’s annual gathering in Birmingham the week after.
Both main party conferences are taking place against a backdrop of a sharp uptick in Vladimir Putin’s so-called hybrid warfare tactics designed to drive a wedge between Ukraine and its European allies.
60 per cent increase in suspected Russian attacks on Europe
Figures provided to The i Paper by Dragonfly Intelligence, a London-based global security consultancy, show there has been a rise of more than 60 per cent in the number of suspected Russia grey zone warfare incidents in Europe so far this year, compared to the same period in 2025.
Incidents range from sabotage to interference and in the first eight months of 2026, the number recorded – some 194, including nine in the UK – already exceeds the total for 2024 (177) and is likely to beat the record of 331 set last year.
In this context, an event like a party conference where cabinet ministers mingle with attendees ranging from grassroots activists to grandees of the business world constitutes a juicy target for hostile or adversarial states like Russia and China.
Matthew Ince, associate director of geostrategic risk at Dragonfly, said: “The UK and its allies face a persistent, multi-layered foreign interference threat. Within that context, political parties, their members, the digital infrastructure of those parties and the personal devices of their members are on the front lines in terms of being potential targets for states like Russia and China.
“By virtue of convening a large number of parliamentarians and wider political figures within a concentrated area at a particular moment in time, party conferences create a significant intelligence espionage collection opportunity for those states.”
Intelligence sources and experts point out that since hundreds of Russian intelligence officials were expelled from Britain and other European capitals in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack in 2018, Moscow has become adept at recruiting proxy operatives among crime networks and diaspora communities to do its dirty work.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank warned last week that the Kremlin’s penchant for “disposable agents” paid with cryptocurrency was increasing the risk of “unintended escalation” with the West.
Kremlin’s ‘hack and leak’ playbook for party conferences
But such risks are unlikely to prevent Moscow from contemplating a range of activities in Liverpool and Birmingham to gather intelligence and conduct operations seeking to further a core Kremlin aim of discrediting mainstream political parties.
While ministers and senior MPs benefit from a higher level of protection, including encrypted phones, conference centres and their environs are routinely packed with lower-ranking advisers and political staff with low-security devices. A tendency for high-octane socialising can also increase the risk of drink-fuelled indiscretions being overheard or elicited.
Ince said that Russian operatives and their proxies in hacking groups could look to deploy tactics including phishing campaigns to harvest the credentials of individuals attending the conference.
He added: “Russia could be trying to get into the communication devices of people there to understand and pick up on some of the friction points and tensions within parties on particular policy issues. And then selectively leaking some of those into the public domain to try and expose those fractures and central disagreements to discredit leadership figures.”
Such tactics would not be new in British politics. Moscow has been accused of meddling in the 2019 general election by stealing and then leaking documents relating to discussions on a possible US-UK trade agreement amid concerns that the then Conservative government was considering offering access to the NHS as part of a deal.
The prime minister this week cited Russian activity in the 2019 election as one of the reasons for setting up a new government unit dedicated to exposing Moscow’s disinformation campaigns.
The Home Office this week emphasised that it was alive to the dangers posed by hostile actors to the UK. A spokesperson said: “We take the threat posed by foreign states incredibly seriously, and our first priority is protecting British interests.
“The police and security services work tirelessly to investigate and stop such threats. Any attempt by a foreign state to carry out such activities in the UK is unacceptable and will never be tolerated.”
Moscow’s arson campaign
While hostile activity around party conferences is most likely to be limited to the cyber domain, including the possibility of denial-of-service attacks to disable party websites or social media platforms, a more “kinetic” strategy from Moscow to symbolically disrupt important gatherings cannot also be ruled out.
Sources pointed to a rash of arson incidents across Europe in recent weeks and months, including a fire this week at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland, which a government minister described as a deliberate “act of sabotage” designed to disrupt the internet service relied upon by the Ukrainian military to conduct drone operations against Russia.
It is understood that direct responsibility for security at party conferences is shared between organisers and the local police force. In keeping with high-profile political gatherings, an extensive security operation will be in place around both Labour and Tory conferences.
Merseyside Police said this week it was putting in place a “robust” operation including the use of Project Servator, a tactic using unpredictable uniformed and covert patrols designed to spot hostile surveillance and “disrupt a range of criminal activity”.
Ince said Russia’s “much more brazen approach” of recent months could translate into actions designed to discredit or embarrass Britain’s party of power during its annual display of unity. He added: “An attack on conference venues would seem unlikely but a fire at a warehouse in a host city ultimately distracts attention away from the conferences and the key messages that politicians are trying to land.”
The use of arson by a Russia-linked group against UK political figures is already established. Earlier this year, two Ukrainian-born men acting on behalf of a Russian contact were jailed for arson attacks in 2025 on a car linked to then prime minister Keir Starmer and his former family home.
Meanwhile… in Beijing
While China’s aims and methods differ considerably from those of the Kremlin, Beijing nonetheless has an enduring interest in the British political system and, by implication, conference season.
Two men, including a former parliamentary researcher, were charged in 2024 with gathering political information and passing it to a Chinese state intelligence agent. Both men strenuously denied the charge against them and the case was dropped in controversial circumstances last year after prosecutors decided the evidence did not meet a requirement of showing China has been formally designated as a threat to national security.
Nonetheless, the intelligence services have repeatedly warned of Chinese pursuit of UK commercial secrets and a wider effort to deter criticism of the ruling Communist Party. The UK’s national security strategy, published last year, warned that “instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security have increased in recent years”.
But while behind the scenes Moscow may be increasingly at ease with being seen to be an active threat to the West, China will adopt a considerably less bellicose position. As Ince put it: “It would be a mistake to consider the conferences in isolation. For China, it’s more about trying to continue to develop relationships, cultivate individuals within positions of influence and ultimately trying to subtly steer and shape policy discussion so that it aligns more to its own interests.
“The focus of China is less on these sort of disruptive acts of physical sabotage and much more on trying to develop relationships with individuals or gaining access through cyber attacks to information it doesn’t have.”