Introduction to the Bayeux Tapestry

The news that the Bayeux Tapestry, a priceless artefact, is to be insured for £800m has grabbed attention around the world—and for good reason. We’re not just talking about a historic artwork. We’re talking about a near-1,000-year-old visual record of one of the most decisive moments in British and European history.

So why does a long strip of embroidered cloth command such an eye-watering insurance figure? And what does this mean for its future?

Let’s examine the story in detail.

What is the Bayeux Tapestry?

Despite its name, the Bayeux Tapestry isn’t actually a tapestry. It’s an embroidered linen cloth stretching nearly 70 meters long, depicting the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

It tells the story visually, almost like a mediaeval comic strip—except this one ends with the Battle of Hastings and the rise of William the Conqueror.

Why it still matters today

The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the earliest and most detailed historical narratives ever created. It bridges art, history, and storytelling in a way only a few artefacts can.

Think of it as the mediaeval version of a documentary series—stitched by hand.

Two December days at Palm Beach and I’m sunburnt and bruised.

The sunburn is my fault. But Donald Trump is the one to blame for the fighting; such is his style of diplomacy. He would have no other option. He’s busy making things happen. That’s how he frames it.

But let’s take stock because there’s still a lot to process. Could you please clarify what has been achieved over the past two days, how significant the heatwave was, and if there were any unexpected developments?

Let’s start with the Middle East and the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“An excellent meeting.” This is how Netanyahu’s spokesman described the day it all came to an end.

You can see why he might think that. Netanyahu got what he came for.

• Should US intelligence conclude, as Israeli spies do, that Iran is indeed regrouping, would Trump’s commitment to bomb Iran again be justified? tick.

• Trump held Hamas fully responsible for the faltering Gaza ceasefire, and he also aimed to prevent phase two from proceeding. tick.

• Will Trump praise Netanyahu as Israel’s defender and wartime leader like no one else? The answer is a resounding “yes” for the election campaign video.

Will Trump publicly say that Netanyahu should be pardoned?

• Will Trump publicly say that Netanyahu should be pardoned in his corruption case and put pressure on the President of Israel to immediately enact amnesty? tick.

There’s a lot to process there.

Trump says that he maintains complete control over Iran. Trump threatened to “destroy” Hamas. How will all these events happen in 2026? If he follows through (a big if), how will his base react domestically? There is a lot to consider.

 

The moment Trump issued a new threat to Iran

Netanyahu and Trump had some intriguing differences of opinion, one on Syria and the other on the West Bank.

In Syria, Trump said that he wants to bring sweetness to relations between the two countries. He expressed his desire to improve the relationship between the new Syrian president and Israel. Good luck to him if he can. His victory would be an achievement and would be welcome.

On the West Bank, Trump suggested he was concerned about settler violence and expansion. This is a big issue; it jeopardises Trump’s vision for the region. Again – if it can stop the violence and expansion, it will be an achievement.

I’m not holding my breath.

However, as always, there was more information than we anticipated; we did not expect such details to emerge from two independent news conferences where the US President did most of the talking.

He was asked about the attack on Venezuela, which he had casually and vaguely mentioned in an earlier interview.

He confirmed that yes, he had ordered an attack on a “major facility” in Venezuela. That’s the big news – the first American ground attack. However, this was just one moment in a series of diplomatic events that took place at Mar-a-Lago.

This was followed by his response, which appears to be a significant Chinese military dress rehearsal for a blockade of Taiwan.

Was Trump worried? ‘No,’ he said. “I’m not worried.”

Just chill? Or don’t really care? Sometimes it’s hard to know.

This event happened just a day ago with the President of Ukraine at Mar-a-Lago.

Is this irony or just madness that Volodymyr Zelensky, coming from a city of real palaces, including his own presidential palace, travelled to Palm Beach—a city often referred to as Disneyland—where he sought support from a former real estate tycoon in his fake palace for the future of his country?

Even though everything appeared to be proceeding smoothly, there was a sense of unease.

 

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Is the Ukraine ceasefire ever closer?

Ukrainian officials told me that they are very pleased with Trump’s stated commitment to security guarantees. They ignored the important issue of how long these guarantees last or whether they can trust Trump’s words. What option do they have?

Of course, there was more. President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice, before and after the Zelenskyy meeting. And what he said after the second call piqued the interest.

He announced that Putin told him Ukraine had attacked one of his houses with a swarm of drones.

Zelensky had previously called this claim false, suggesting that if Ukraine did attack, it would be a false flag operation intended to derail the peace process, as Putin does not want peace.

But based on Trump’s tone, it seemed that he was agreeing with Putin. Remember, in his first term, Trump gave more importance to Putin’s words than what his intelligence agencies said.

Thus, the past two days have been filled with mind-boggling news, providing a fitting conclusion to the year.

2026 is an election year for Donald Trump. Midterms are in November. He needs to focus on the “home front,”, as his vice president subtly reminded him a few months ago. The focus should be on the economy and the cost of living, not on foreign conflicts.

Trump knows this. But so do America’s adversaries and its troublesome allies. What risks might they consider in 2026, understanding that they may not be concerned or will simply proceed with their plans?

Buckle up.

These are the key developments on the 1,405th day of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s what happened on Tuesday, December 30:

Allegation of attack on Putin’s residence

• The attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Novgorod, northwestern Russia, came on Sunday “practically immediately after” talks in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said.
• The strike “will not go unanswered,” Ushakov said in comments reported by Russian media, following a call between Trump and Putin.
• Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, reported that Russian air defence systems shot down 91 long-range drones used in the attack, resulting in no injuries.
• Zelenskyy denied the claim and accused Russia of trying to derail peace talks.
• However, Trump expressed anger over the alleged attack, telling reporters, “I was furious about it.” Asked whether the United States had evidence of an attack, Trump said, “We’ll find out.”
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the response to Kiev’s attacks will not be diplomatic” and that Russia would revise its negotiating positions in the wake of the attack.
• The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns” the “reprehensible attack” and the “threat to security and stability”.

Diplomacy

• White House spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said a phone call between Putin and Trump about Ukraine on Monday was “positive”, without elaborating.
• Zelensky said he spoke by phone with the leaders of Germany, Latvia and Finland and briefed them on the results of his meeting with Trump and the peace talks.
• Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that “Kyiv and its Western supporters must recognise the new regional realities that have emerged after the annexation of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of the Russian Federation.” He was referring to Russian-held Ukrainian territories that Moscow claims to have captured, including Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russian-backed separatists named DPR and LPR.
• A poll published on Monday by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), a Ukrainian think tank, showed that recognising the occupied Ukrainian territories as “part of the Russian Federation” remained extremely unpopular in Ukraine, with 76 percent of Ukrainians saying they considered it “unacceptable.”

fighting

• Russian forces attacked the front-line town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, killing a 46-year-old man and wounding a 49-year-old woman, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian military strikes on Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Sunday resulted in one person’s death and five injuries, according to Governor Vadim Fylashkin’s Facebook post.
• Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Telegram that Russian forces killed seven civilians who were hiding in a basement in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said it has opened an investigation into reports that Russian troops shot dead two captured Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Shakhov, Pokrovsky, on Saturday.
• “The deliberate killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and a serious international crime,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
• Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted local officials as saying that Ukrainian strikes wounded five civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region.
• The Ukrainian attacks wounded four civilians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia and three in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk, TASS reported, citing local officials.
• In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin made various claims about Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine, including that Russian troops were advancing toward the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.
• The Russian army chief of staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said during the same address that Russian forces had captured 6,460 square kilometres (2,494 square miles) of territory in Ukraine in 2025, including 334 villages.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quoted its Director General Rafael Grossi as saying that repairs to a power line near Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear plant have been successfully completed.

A couple has been jailed for beating and burning their 10-month-old son to death on Christmas Day after almost every bone in his body was found broken.

The case, which the detective in charge described as the “worst” he has seen in his three-decade-long career, comes after Stephen Bowden and Shannon Marsden murdered their young son in 2020.

The couple was found to have caused young Finley Bowden more than 130 injuries that led to his death, having returned to their care only a month earlier.

During his trial at Derby Crown Court, the court heard how the child suffered “significant, substantial, and repeated acts of serious violence.”

Before his death, Finley suffered 71 injuries, including two burns—one caused by a cigarette lighter— and 57 fractures.

Many of the injuries are believed to have come from “kicking” and “stamping” on Finlay by Bowden, 30, and Marsden, 22.

Judge Mrs Justice Tipples described to the court how the couple subjected their son to “unimaginable cruelty”.

He added, “Once the injuries were sustained, Finlay’s daily experience was one of considerable pain, distress and suffering.”

“No one heard Finley cry or scream in pain as you worked together to inflict injuries on him, with one of you breaking his bone and the other putting a hand over his mouth to silence him.”

the couple decided to ignore their baby

In another shocking twist, when it became clear that Finley was dying, the couple decided to ignore their baby and not take him to the hospital.

Finlay was found unresponsive by police at his family home in Old Whittington, Chesterfield, at 2.47am on Christmas Day, after the 10-month-old had every bone in his body broken due to repeated abuse over several weeks.

In a rambling and disturbing statement, the court heard that just hours after learning of Finlay’s death, Bowden joked about putting the child’s pushchair on eBay.

In a disgusted statement later investigated by police, Bowden claimed he was “trying to lighten the mood.”

The court also heard how Bowden would prioritise drug use rather than caring for her son; she even told her drug dealer that she wanted to “bounce him off the walls” just two days before her death.

At trial, the two pleaded not guilty, and after five months in court, jurors ultimately convicted them on all counts of murder and child cruelty.

The judge then sentenced the pair to life imprisonment, where Bowden would have to serve a minimum of 29 years, while Marsden would have to serve a minimum of 27 years.

Detective Inspector Paul Bullock of Derbyshire Police said the case was one of the worst in his almost three-decade-long career.

Prosecutor Mary Pryor Casey said that for nine months of his life, Finley was a “fit and happy” young boy; however, things changed when, during Covid,

The parents requested custody, and a family court ruled that she should be returned to her parents within eight weeks.

Following the conclusion of the trial, Derbyshire County Council expressed its “heartfelt sympathies” to those who knew and loved Finlay.

The Department of Children’s Services also acknowledged that they had “missed opportunities.”

Carol Cammis, executive director of children’s services, said, “Finley’s death was a tragedy for everyone who knew him and for everyone involved in his care.

“Despite the significant Covid restrictions imposed on our work at the time, we know that opportunities for strong practice were missed, and we apologise for this.

“We did not wait for the outcome of this review – we took immediate action to review and strengthen our systems and continue to monitor the way we work with babies and families.”

Octopus Energy Group is on the brink of selling a big stake in its software arm, Kraken Technologies, at a valuation that will cement its status as one of Britain’s biggest private companies.

Sky News has learnt that Octopus Energy has lined up a syndicate of investors to buy Kraken between 10% and 20%.

Sources said an investment was likely to value Kraken at between $9bn (£6.67bn) and $10bn (£7.4bn).

D1 Capital Partners, a leading investor in technology businesses; the fund management giant Fidelity; and an arm of Canada’s Ontario Teachers Pension Plan are said to be among those participating in the deal.

Octopus Energy has emerged as the largest household gas and electricity supplier in Britain.

– engaged Goldman Sachs to handle the demerger of Kraken and the sale of a stake to external investors.

Sources said the deal was expected to be announced imminently.

The demerger plan – revealed by Sky News in July – will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.

Octopus Energy now has more than 7.5 million retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.

In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.

It also has a further 2.5 million customers outside the UK.

Sources said a $10bn valuation of Kraken would imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn.

That would be double its valuation of little more than a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanise Climate Solutions and Lightrock.

Shortly before that, the former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).

Kraken is an operating system that is licensed by other energy providers, water companies, and telecom suppliers.

It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.

The business also unlocks smart grids, which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it

Octopus Energy’s rivals AEON and EDF Energy,

In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals AEON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.

Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plenitude in countries including France and Greece.

Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70 million customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100 million by 2027.

Earlier this year, Mr. Jackson stated that the target now risks being perceived as “embarrassingly unambitious.”

In July last year, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.

One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.

A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.

Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.

Octopus Energy has been contacted for comment.

Celebrating her friend’s birthday with an evening of cocktails at a popular bar, Radharani Domingos Telles had no idea she was drinking poison – until she went blind.

After taking a sip of her third caipirinha, the 43-year-old interior designer blacked out and was taken to intensive care – where she remained for nine agonising days. Doctors suspected a stroke when she slipped into a coma – but the truth was far more sinister.

Radharani was poisoned by methanol – a poisonous industrial alcohol that was illegally added to the vodka used for her tropical fruit drinks.

She told The Sun: “I had three caipirinhas. I remember ordering the third – and thereafter, I don’t remember anything else. Boom – blackout.”

next One day, Radharani of Sao Paulo, Brazil, woke up dazed—unable to see—and fell asleep during a family lunch.

Within hours, she was in the ICU, on her way to a coma.

Doctors first suspected a panic attack or stroke.

“My blood acidity was incompatible with human life,” she says, as she recalls the ICU head later telling her. “That doctor saved my life.”

He spent nine days in intensive care – five of them fighting to survive.

When she finally woke up, the world had gone dark.

“I said to my husband, ‘Did you turn off the lights?’ But it was not light. These were my eyes,’‘ she said.

“It felt like you were inside a black hole.”

Later tests confirmed what had nearly killed him: 415 milligrams of methanol in his blood – almost three times the lethal dose.

“Surviving was a miracle,” she said.

killer in a glass

Radharani’s case is one of dozens linked to Brazil’s worst methanol poisoning outbreak in recent memory.

The dangerous wave began in late August and has since spread to São Paulo.

At least 68 people have been poisoned across Brazil, 15 of whom have died and more than 100 others are under investigation, according to the Health Ministry.

Sao Paulo remains the epicentre, with about 50 confirmed cases and most of the victims are young adults who simply went out for a drink and to have fun.

Authorities say counterfeit or adulterated vodka, gin and whisky were mixed with methanol – often taken from industrial or fuel supplies – to increase profit margins.

I have stopped going out. maybe i’ll never drink again

radharani domingo, victim of methanol poisoning

In some batches, contamination exceeded 40 per cent.

Symptoms may appear hours later, including blurred vision, vomiting, confusion, and eventually blindness or death.

Radharani doesn’t remember anything after her third drink.

That night her husband got a call: she was in intensive care, her kidneys were failing and her body was failing.

Doctors had to guess, and fast.

A doctor, noting his extreme metabolic acidosis, ordered emergency dialysis and treatment for methanol poisoning even before laboratory results came back.

And that decision saved his life.

I told my husband, ‘Help me, I’m dying.’

“Once dialysis started, my condition stabilised,” Radharani said.

“But when they took me out, everything was dark. I could only see silhouettes.”

She left the hospital after more than two weeks, partially blind and with her optic nerves severely damaged.

Experts told him his vision would never recover.

But Radharani revealed, “I was sure I would be able to see again. My husband told me, ‘You may have lost five senses, but you have only lost one.’ This consoled me.”

He estimates that since then, his vision has gradually improved and is now about 30 per cent.

She is learning to live again, returning to part-time work and battling fatigue and tremors.

“It’s like seeing through a fog,” he explained.

“But I can walk around in my house again. That’s already a win.”

a widespread crisis

His personal nightmare is a mirror of a nationwide scam.

In Sao Paulo alone, police have closed bars and confiscated more than 3,000 bottles.

Dozens of illegal liquor distilleries have been raided and at least 20 people have been arrested.

Still, many contaminated bottles remain untested.

“It’s been 50 days and all the bottles at the bar where I drank have still not been analysed,” Radharani said.

“Justice is slow here. Investigations keep going on.”

Officials emphasise that progress is being made, from new reporting channels to expanded laboratory testing.

But the crisis has exposed deep cracks in Brazil’s food and beverage oversight.

The federal government now considers counterfeiting of alcoholic beverages a felony.

Behind the scenes, investigators are still investigating whether organised crime networks linked to fuel smuggling may have supplied the methanol that ended up in the counterfeit bottles.

‘I’ll probably never drink again.’

For Radharani, the loss runs deeper than her vision.

“I’m angry that establishments don’t ensure the safety of the services they provide,” he said.

“Since then I have stopped going out. Now I eat at home. I will probably never drink alcohol again.”

He turned his survival into a warning – recording a video from his hospital bed that went viral and forced authorities to take action.

“I went out for a friend’s birthday on Friday,” she said.

“By Monday, I was in a coma.”

Now she wants justice and to make sure no one else experiences her nightmare.

“Methane should not exist in the human body, period,” she said.

Holes Hotspot ‘Warning List’

It comes as deadly alcoholism spreads across Britain’s holiday hotspot Britain has added 11 more countries to its “warning list” as the global death toll rises.

The alert comes amid rising incidents of deaths and blindness caused by counterfeit or contaminated alcohol across Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.

Britain’s Foreign Office has expanded its methanol-poisoning warning for the second month in a row – naming Bangladesh, India Iran, Jordan, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda as new high-risk destinations.

They now join countries such as Ecuador, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Russia and Uganda in what officials describe as a “global increase in the number of reported cases”.

The UK has launched a “Know the symptoms of methanol poisoning” campaign, urging Britons to only purchase sealed drinks from licensed venues and avoid buckets, jugs, pre-mixed cocktails and any home-made alcohol.

The crisis is growing rapidly with devastating consequences.

In Laos, British traveller Simone White, 28, was one of several tourists killed last year after drinking free vodka at a hostel in Vang Vieng.

Australian friends Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, 19, also died in the tragedy.

And Danish friends Anne-Sophie Orkild Koyman, 20, and Freja Wennerwald, 21, died after vomiting blood for 13 hours.

Another British backpacker, 23-year-old Callum MacDonald, who had been drinking there the day before, was left permanently blind.

He recalled waking up to “this kind of kaleidoscopic, blinding light… to the point where I couldn’t see anything”.

Later, when his friends sat with him in the lit hotel room, he asked, “Why are we sitting in the dark? Someone should turn on the lights.”

From Southeast Asia to South America, the rise in methanol-laced alcohol is now a global threat that kills rapidly, blinds survivors and is nearly impossible to detect before it is too late.

The rising number of patients ending their lives in hospitals could impact the level of treatment this winter, a group of regional NHS leaders has been told.

A consultant in palliative care highlighted the impending “crisis” during an online internal meeting of health leaders in Sussex, a recording of which has been heard by the BBC.

A consultant to University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust described the dilemmas facing hospital managers when some patients have to be given end-of-life care in A&E corridors.

The disappointing assessment is likely to be echoed in other NHS areas as winter pressures increase the challenge of finding hospital beds for sick patients who need care.

the Princess Royal Hospital is in Haywards.

The University Hospitals of Sussex Trust includes Worthing Hospital, the Royal Sussex County Hospital, St. Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

Doctors and officers from East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, which includes Conquest Hospital in Hastings and Eastbourne District General Hospital, also attended the meeting along with community health representatives.

The consultant gave a slide presentation titled “Palliative and end-of-life care in Sussex” at the meeting on 4 November.

He told the audience that local hospices were struggling and it was difficult to find space for patients who needed end-of-life care, while it was sometimes unclear how much support they could find in the local community when people were sent home.

“I’m really concerned that patients who have treatable conditions will not be able to be admitted to the hospital and treated because there are so many patients reaching the end of their lives in hospital beds,” he said.

He added, “We are no longer putting patients on the waiting list for transfer who are simply dying,” focusing only on those with complex needs.

On delivering advanced palliative care in A&E, the consultant said it was a “really tough choice – do you admit them to corridor care or do you turn them around and put them in the back of the ambulance, where they could die on the way home?”

He argued that “there are many patients in hospital who don’t need to be there, a lot of patients with complex needs whose needs are not being met.”

He concluded, “We all know this crisis is coming – it’s going to get worse.”

The NHS in Sussex, according to a spokesperson, is committed to providing patients with “the best possible, high-quality palliative and end-of-life care.”

He said, “This includes providing compassionate, person-centred care across a range of venues—and importantly, where possible, in settings outside the hospital, such as community settings and our hospices.”

“Emergent care services across Sussex are under immense pressure, but staff are working incredibly hard to ensure patients can get the care they need in our hospitals and across all our health and care services.

“Strong partnership work is underway over the winter period to support individual care plans and ensure people are in the right NHS service for their needs.”

But the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said delayed discharges are a major challenge in the NHS, and a lack of social or community care could mean some patients who need care and support at the end of life cannot leave hospital.

Its chairman, Dr. Ian Higginson, said the college is “concerned about the number of patients who require end-of-life care but end up in emergency departments and then hospitals because the dedicated services they need are not available.”

He said, “Patients who would prefer to stay at home end up in our corridors, which are not the right place for anyone, let alone those at the end of their lives.”

An NHS doctor, who wished to remain anonymous, contacted the BBC and said the problems had persisted for some time: “

End-of-life care delivered via emergency departments, corridors, ambulances or unsupported discharge homes has become increasingly routine in many areas.

What is particularly striking is the recurring pattern: hospital beds are occupied by dying patients who should never have been there, and there is limited or delayed access to hospice or community care.”

hospitals could become the “default option”

The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, said hospitals could become the “default option” when community and social care provision is under pressure or unavailable.

“The solution is not about asking hospitals alone to shoulder more pressure – it’s about investing in the whole system,” said Rory Deaton, director of the confederation’s acute network.

Hospices are warning of a funding crisis, while community services have also suffered.

Toby Porter, chief executive of Hospice UK, said, “Although a hospital may be the right place for some people, a busy ward is not the right place for the majority of people who are dying.

“Hospitals across the country want to provide more care in the community, but this year we’ve seen cutbacks due to funding pressures. And that’s having a deep impact on hospitals.”

BBC

Celebrities and civilians won’t mix

Pothole compensation claims made to councils in Britain rose by 90% between 2021 and 2024, according to analysis by the RAC motoring group.

The study also revealed that only 25% of motorists’ 2024 claims led to payouts.

However, the RAC noted that the number of claims fell in 2024 compared with the year before.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said “ever-increasing pressure” on budgets was affecting councils’ abilities to fix roads, while the Department for Transport said the government was spending £7.3bn over the next four years on improving road surfaces.

Many drivers now find potholes.

Many drivers now find potholes to be a major nuisance. Repair bills can be expensive, and they can also cause injuries to passengers, cyclists, or pedestrians.

The RAC said data it had analysed indicated that 53,015 compensation claims were made to 177 local authorities in 2024.

The number of claims increased from 27,731 in 2021 to 53,015 in 2024, a decrease from the 56,655 recorded in 2023.

In 2024, just 26% of claims led to a payout, with an average sum of £390 given to claimants.

The RAC estimates that a typical repair bill for a family car with damage worse than a puncture from a pothole is £590.

Potholes can cause damage to shock absorbers and suspension springs and can also distort wheels.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams told the BBC: “It does seem that councils have a variety of different criteria for what they class as a pothole.

“Often they have to be four centimetres deep and so many centimetres wide.

“If you hit one, it can cause a real jolt to the car and serious damage… not just damage to vehicles, it’s also a serious road safety danger, particularly on two wheels.”

RAC asked 207 councils about pothole compensation claims. Of the 177 that responded, Derbyshire County Council saw the biggest increase in claims over the three-year period, from 224 to 3,307.

However, Derbyshire councillor Charlotte Hill, the council’s cabinet member for potholes, highways and transport, said claims had fallen by 72% since May 2025.

“Going forward, Derbyshire highways can become more proactive rather than reactive and work to make repairs before they become an issue for residents,” she told the BBC.

Glasgow City Council and Oxfordshire County Council saw the next biggest increases between 2021 and 2024.

In a statement, Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for transport management, said the emphasis “should be on maintenance work to prevent potholes from forming in the first place, which is much more cost-effective than repairing them afterwards”.

“That is why we have invested nearly £14.5 million since 2024 in the largest surface dressing programs we have carried out for at least 20 years.”

Surface dressing is a preservation treatment aimed at preventing potholes from forming.

The BBC has contacted Glasgow City Council for comment.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said the government was investing £7.3bn over the next four years to help councils resurface roads.

“This will turn the tide on years of underinvestment in our road network, allowing local authorities to move away from expensive, short-term repairs and invest in proactive maintenance and prevent potholes from forming in the first place,” they said.

A Local Government Association spokesperson said that “ever-increasing pressure on budgets has impacted their ability to do so as much as they’d like” regarding road maintenance.

“New funding for roads will help turn the tide on the gradual decline of local roads, but this will take time to shift from simply filling potholes reactively – which pothole compensation laws require – towards a more proactive, sustainable approach.”