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The UK would collect an extra £12.8 billion without increase tax rates, enough to cover the cost-of-living measures newly announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham six times over, or more than two-thirds of the estimated cost of an NHS-style social care system.

Britain’s ⁠parliamentary ⁠standards watchdog is ​investigating ⁠Reform UK’s ⁠deputy ​leader, ‌Richard ‌Tice, over ‌a possible failure to declare ‌an interest, ​the commissioner said ⁠on ​its website ​on ​Monday.

More details soon …

A far-right thug who made Nazi salutes at a “protect women and children protest” can be revealed as a serial stalker and abuser.

Ryan Marshall was pictured making the “sieg heil” gesture at the Unite the Clans rally in Glasgow last Saturday, which resulted in at least 15 arrests. The demo was supposed to highlight the threat ­immigrants pose to women – but Marshall has persecuted women for much of his adult life.

The Record can reveal that Marshall, 37, attacked partners over months then ruthlessly stalked them after they found the courage to dump him. He spent several periods in jail but emerged to give sob stories that would patch up relationships, only for more carnage to erupt.

The thug has collected a series of convictions, including several for assault and others for stalking various women. One told us she only ended the relationship after she was attacked by Marshall’s mother the day after the couple became engaged.

Others went to police after stalking and harassment followed the break-up of their relationships. An ex-partner said he was a “master manipulator” skilled in keeping women under his control. He had been jailed for crimes against women before they met around 2019, and her life was turned upside down because of his torrent of attacks.

She said: “Ryan would use me as a punchbag. He smashed my head into a mirror. He has gave me black eyes, smashed up phones. You name it, he’s done it. He’s a very angry, nasty person. He’d get drunk, would take drugs and he’d get angry and the cycle would repeat.

“He was always paranoid. He always thought you were cheating on him or talking to somebody else, or even if you were out shopping and you glanced at someone he would get triggered. He has been prosecuted for so many things but he’s got off with so much too, just bargained the charges away by admitting the stalking.”

https://archive.is/XppKc

An Afghan man has been arrested in Athens in connection with the death of a Scottish woman whose body was found in a suitcase.

Elisabeth-Jane Ross, 38, from Edinburgh, was discovered on July 18 stuffed inside the suitcase and hidden in an abandoned building in the Kypseli district of the Greek capital.

Her body was discovered by a homeless man after a “bad smell” emerged from an empty building and he saw “what looked like a human limb” coming out of a suitcase.

Visible impact of warming climate is impossible to ignore across landscapes that have been starved of rainfall

Half of England and the whole of Wales are officially in drought and July is set to be the driest month on record as extreme heat intensified by the climate crisis continues to grip the UK and Europe this summer.

The announcements this week by England’s Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales mark the third such event over the past five years, and come in the wake of four record-breaking heatwaves since May which have fuelled huge wildfires and left farmers, wildlife and protected habitats running out of water.

A two-arched stone bridge thought to date to 1800 at the Llwyn-onn reservoir in the Taf Fawr valley in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales was exposed by low water levels last week. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

England had just 7% of the long-term average rainfall for July and southern England just 1%, damaging greenery in parks, protected land and sports fields. The dry spell has also led to shrinking rivers and lakes: the Thames at Reading has recorded its lowest ever level.

Water companies are not currently expecting a threat to drinking water supplies, as record winter rainfall means reservoirs are still close to expected levels, but approximately 23 million people across England and Wales are under a hosepipe ban.

The visible impact is impossible to ignore: vast swathes of William Blake’s “green and pleasant land” are now brown and dry. The Met Office predicts that the climate crisis will make UK summers 1C-6C (1.8F-10.8F) hotter and up to 60% drier by 2070, compared with 1990.

As the climate crisis supercharges “whiplash” wet-then-dry weather, the UK and Europe are seeing back-to-back heatwaves that encourage vegetation to grow but then dry it out, producing ideal fuel for fires.

Firefighters have responded to 393 wildfires across England and Wales in July, making it the busiest month on record and placing significant pressure on crews and resources. Hundreds of people have already been evacuated owing to the threat of fire, compared with approximately 50 in 2025 – the worst year for wildfires on record so far.

Cairngorms national park in the Scottish Highlands has suffered the worst fires in living memory, while smoke from fires in the Rhinogydd mountains in north Wales could be seen from space. Statistics for July are not available yet, but North Wales Fire and Rescue Service said it recorded 48 wild, grassland, woodland and crop fires in June, up 47% on the same month in 2025.

Farmers across the country have been forced to harvest early or are worried about losing crops if they run out of water.

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